Slashdot Mirror
The Manifesto on the Evils of GameTap
Gamasutra sits down with Manifesto Games co-founder Greg Costikyan to discuss how the revolution is coming along. They explore the group's business model, the retail market, and the dangers of GameTap. From the article: "They don't worry me, particularly; I'm skeptical that their business model is sustainable. But basically, my argument is that they can afford to offer so large a number of titles for a $10/month fee largely because the major publishers view older games as worthless, since they cannot be sold through conventional retail any longer, so they're willing to accept a small share of rental revenue. But I also believe that PC games, in particular, are going to move online in a big way over the next few years and will eventually disappear from game stores — PC games are responsible for just 6% of their revenues, and take up a lot more shelf space than that justifies." Mr. Costikyan further explores this last concept in a post on his site called, simply, Why GameTap is Evil.
Interesting unintended consequences could occur. What happens if Wal-mart, Bestbut, and CompUSA all drop PC videogames due to online digital sales? Specificly, to the ESRB, and the ratings of those games. Right now, you need an ESRB rating to get into Wal-mart, but you don't for digital sales. Any online retailer with decent traffic can make the sale. The question is, will online retailer put the same pressure on producers for ESRB ratings as companies like Wal-mart and Bestbuy?
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
The whinefest "Games are Not Fruit" is a total joke.
And then a few paragraphs later...
Oh right. Unless, like you pointed out, they're on an older OS or a sequel comes out. Dumbass.
The market is changing. Adapt or die, Costikyan, and take your ugly-ass website with you.
It seems that Costikyan is of the same mind as the music industry that thinks we should still pay full brice for a Beatles album which is nothing but pure profit for the music company. Call me crazy, but that is just plain greedy. Of course they and the videogame industry can charge whatever they want but I'm not going to pay it. I haven't paid full price for a game or a cd for years.
Costikyan has a lot of great ideas and he means well but he is also very very pessimistic about the games industry. There isn't much that he is optimistic about, so it isn't surprising that he would see Gametap as negative.
I subscribed to Gametap for a while, and the bast majority of the games they have are arcade and consol games that are gathering dust on a shelf. Sure there are a handful of more modern PC games, such as Prince of Persia Sands of Time, but that is about it. While Gametap is making some moves to distribute games like the Ages of Myst and Sam and Max, I just don't think it is very likely that gametap is going to make a dent in the games industry. Right now, they are basically going after games that no one would buy otherwise or games that would have a much more difficult time getting made in the first place.
The real problem with Gametap is their selection. Playing consol games on a pc is only of limited entertainment value. As long as they refuse to carry "M" rated games, their selection of games is going to lack some of the games that have historically been popular.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
...for indie developers.
But really, isn't that rather like saying "If this 'dollar store' idea takes off, they'll put every retail store out of business!!"?
I'm not convinced that gametap and the indie game markets are mutually exclusive. No one's going to release new games straight to gametap when they can sell them in stores and online for far more, just like no one releases new, quality products straight to the dollar store.
Relax. Keep making new, interesting games, and we'll keep buying them. The vast majority of gamers want the latest and greatest anyway. Most of those of us who play older games do so for nostalgia, because we played those games as children. All the kids turning 13 this year, and getting their first console are still going to want 2k7, and the latest FPS.
GameTap just lets us older gamers play our favorite NES titles without blowing the dust out of the cartridge and resetting the system a few dozen times. By the way -- you wouldn't be making any money off us doing that, either -- we either already own them, or bought them on the used market. At least you get a few cents when we play the same games on GameTap.
This guys took a page from AOL and offered me a free month to stay i said ok and then next month i called again, and agiain anouter free months (did this for 6 months)
GameTap and AOL are both owned by Time-Warner. Odds are the support rep. was trained at AOL.
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.