Slashdot Mirror
Should Good Indie Games Be More Expensive?
spidweb writes "Indie gaming blog The Bottom Feeder has an article on why independent games should be more expensive. The enforced low prices on XBox Live, Amazon, and iTunes might feel good now, but they'll kill off the variety and depth gamers are hoping indie developers can provide. From the article: 'Every year, life is getting more and more expensive. Insurance. Rent. Food. And, at the same time, games are getting cheaper and cheaper, sometimes as cheap as a dollar, as we engage in a full speed race to the bottom. This is not going to help developers stay in business. This is not how a healthy industry is maintained.'"
If your game is really good, then won't it sell more copies, making you more money?
Is there some hidden cost in producing more copies of a binary file?
May the Maths Be with you!
Theres lots of indie games released all the time. What makes you think your game is worth $40 more than everyone elses? If your game isn't selling at $5 then it's probably genuinely just not fun.
Sig is for Signature, so you don't have to manually sign every post.
Aren't there a bunch of Indie companies like 2DBoy and Introversion doing quite well for themselves on a $20 price point? Granted i'm sure there are companies that form, make 1 game (or worse, never get to releasing a game) before disappearing but we do have some very healthy sprouting developers.
Wolfire often point out that they're funding development of Overgrowth (which is shaping up to be a very good game at this rate) purely on preorders of said game.
I can't help but think that this race to the cheapest games is affecting only the iPhone/Android/etc games that are built in a weekend, good quality games don't feel this pinch, I recall the Rolando creaters stating that too many people on the iTunes store inflate their prices too much.
'Every year, life is getting more and more expensive. Insurance. Rent. Food. And, at the same time, software is getting cheaper and cheaper, sometimes as cheap as a dollar, as we engage in a full speed race to the bottom. This is not going to help developers stay in business. This is not how a healthy industry is maintained.'"
I agree. The race to the bottom for software is not how a healthy industry is maintained. What will we do if software reaches a price point of zero?
There are no clear examples out there of how free software or applications can stay in business.
*rolls eyes*
iTunes doesn't set a maximum price for games, neither does Xbox Live, apparently except for those created with the XNA tools. So, the only one enforcing low prices is Amazon. Thus, calling the credibility of the summary into question, and the article for tenuous exaggeration.
... and then they built the supercollider.
It should be "Should expensive games be better".
FYI: Indie =/= Good
This is also an example of a "indie game".
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Then launch with a 10% off sale. The perception of savings and a limited time offer will bring buyers out in droves.
How Much Do I Need To Earn To Live? - Suppose your game takes a year to write and thus, counting salaries, needs to earn about $100K to break even.
If that's the case, you really need to find another job. Salaries - plural, plus other expenses for a year (employer's contribution to payroll taxes, health, etc), of $100k a year? I hope, for their sake, it's not more than 2 people ...
Oh, And a Quick Note For Those Who Disagree With Me ...
If you don't care about the people who work so hard to entertain you being able to charge a price that enables them to survive, I have no interest in what you have to say.
That's okay ... what you have to say is pretty much bullshit whining anyway.
Have they completely missed Valve's Steam pricing report on what happens when you sell good games for cheap?
At twenty to twentyfive bucks, an indy game that isn't going to have the exposure a triple A game has is going to alienate shoppers that would have otherwise bought it just for the hell of it. It's going to have to be pretty damn good and get a lot of word of mouth exposure in order to be able to reign back in lost potential customers.
Look... I'm sorry but 15 years ago games were $10-$15.
No, they were not. $50 was the standard price for new console games since at least the mid-1980s, and still is on the Wii.
Most developers use other engines to produce their games so don't give me the BS about how much a game costs to make.
You'd be surprised at just how little difference this makes. It has been a very long time since the majority of a game's development budget went into its code.
in fact ALL games should cost a LOT less.
The last few games I've bought were all PC games off of steam because they were reasonably priced. If it's more than $30... you're over charging. Period. You can try to argue this with me... but everything past that mark is greed pure and simple.
In other words, you're just being cheap. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, as long as you're not using that as an argument to steal games, which I suspect you probably are.
If you absolutely must pay less, buy used. This will not kill you, make you any less of a gamer, or shrink your genitals.
It's like that semester of Macroeconomics 101 has been pulled out of my brain and replaced with crazy.
If it's more than $30... you're over charging. Period. You can try to argue this with me... but everything past that mark is greed pure and simple.
So, $30 is a fixed maximum price point regardless of the costs of producing the game? In the case of a game like, say, Resident Evil 5, I doubt that the game would even break even if it launched at $30. If I'm right, that's hardly "greed".
You kidding? If a game on the scale of Resident Evil 5 was released as a budget title, people would lap that shit up like anti-freeze at a petting zoo, and it's not like it costs any more to manufacture a copy of RE5 than it does to manufacture a copy of, for instance, Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition.
Life is tough for a lot of people, in good times or bad. I really don't have solutions to the problems on the developer side. But I do know you really need to have a strong brand and a strong game to charge a premium. I don't know if you can sell a lot of a more expensive product on a sob story. A poster mentioned successes over Steam where half the price sometimes sells 10x the copies. Make a solid game, find legitimate viral ways to promote the product, price it fairly for the market and I think you'll find success more often than otherwise possible.
Indie games are already a difficult sell due to limitations in production and advertising budgets increasing prices will do nothing but throw them further into obscurity. Take the authors own company as an example, I concider myself a fairly knowledgeable gamer but I have never even heard of anything they have done.
The author seems a bit confused about XNA as well, the entire purpose of the XNA Creators Club is to give hobbyists and amateur game devs a chance at exposure. Incidently neither of his examples Braid nor World of Goo were created with XNA.
Perhaps I am alone in this but I will pay far more for imaginative and fresh titles regardless of publisher, both Braid and World of Goo fit that yet the author says they are both shallow and not worth more than the asking price. Meanwhile, at least on the suface the author appears to have recreated Ultima VII 12 times so far yet wonders why he cant sell more?
Does this slashdot even warrant a reply? Apparently, it does, since it was brought up and a few people even seem to agree with it. Let's just hit a couple big points.
Search for 'indie game' on Google. 19 million hits. Now search for free game. 96 million hits. How much spare time do you have to play these games? Hello Mr Supply and Demand.
I don't have a clever search term for this one, but I can count on two hands every game in the last 10 years that has held my attention for more than 30 minutes. I'm including big studios here. If you'd like to earn money, earn it. If not, here's a styrofoam cup. There's the street corner.
Now, let's compare one entertainment medium to another. You can read short stories for free online or you can pay for print magazines or anthologies of known good authors. You can read comics online for free or you can pay for prints or anthologies of known good authors. You can view photos online for free or you can pay for collections from known good photographers. Sense a theme? Indie developers are, by their nature, relatively unknown. If they can peddle their wares for any amount I'd call that a winning situation.
However, the blogger is right. This is no way to maintain a healthy industry. What we don't need right now is more of these healthy industries. Not every single source of income needs to be neatly packaged and protected as an industry from now until the end of time. It's bad enough we've got ISP monopolies gouging customers, investment companies begging for CEO bonuses, an auto manufacturing industry threatening to blow itself up if it doesn't get bailed out for its screw-ups (so it can screw up some more!), and an airline industry that's beyond reproach. The industrial revolution is over. Let's come up with something better.
mmmm...forbidden donut
The author mentions XNA games and a $10 price limit. You know, I've played some of these XNA games, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say I wouldn't play a lot of them for free. That's not an insult against the XNA game developers. I wish I had the skills to create an XNA game. The games just don't compare to what a high-budget team at Electronic Arts or Capcom can do.
At gamestats.com, the "top sales" chart suggests that there is a big market for high-budget games at full price. Street Fighter 4 is around $70 Canadian, and it's apparently selling very well at a similar price in the US. One of the replies to the blog post says "Create the quality. People will seek it...Things that simply occupy our time and do not enlighten us will fall into obscurity". Exactly. But do you have the money to do it? Do you have the skills to create something special?
The problem I see with indie games is, with the exception of something very special like Braid, they just cannot compete at any price with the latest high-budget games or yesterday's high-budget games (at a "Greatest Hits" price, including the crazy deals on Steam that have already been mentioned here).
The market isn't conspiring against anybody to charge the wrong price. I suspect that the indie games that sell well are priced at market value.
Flamebait? This almost makes me wish I wasn't an AC so I could mod parent up.
Game prices haven't risen siginificantly since the days of the Super Nintendo, at least here in Europe.
Supply and demand is an economic law. Arguing that prices should be higher than the market will bear, in an attempt to re-write that law, is foolish.
I recall a little "indie" game company that released, with little advertising, a mindless shoot-em-up by giving away much of the game and selling the full package cheaply. They made a good game, didn't charge much, and did well by it. 17 years later you can _still_ buy Wolfenstein 3D.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Look... I'm sorry but 15 years ago games were $10-$15.
Where was that imaginary land?
$50 was the standard with carts creeping up to $60-$70 in the N64 era. The PSX did bring prices down around $40 in a lot of instances and yes MS and Sony have forced prices back up to $60 in this generation.
So yes game prices have gone up in this generation for 2 of the 3 main consoles but prices were never $10-$15 15 years ago unless it was bargin bin rubbish no one wanted.
You kidding? If a game on the scale of Resident Evil 5 was released as a budget title, people would lap that shit up like anti-freeze at a petting zoo, and it's not like it costs any more to manufacture a copy of RE5 than it does to manufacture a copy of, for instance, Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition.
Capcom invested millions of dollars in making Resident Evil 5, I'd wager even more than they did in making Resident Evil 4 due to the HD graphics. The cost of churning the game out at the factory is not the true cost of the game. Before a single copy is even produced, millions of dollars are on the line.
If Capcom could make more money selling the game at a higher volume with a lower price, they would. They aren't going to invest big bucks in a game unless people are willing to pay big bucks for it at the store. I'd be surprised if Capcom didn't lose money releasing the game for $30.
... is to make all the money themselves, with none left for anyone else.
Personally, I think all the monthly fees are too high. XBL should be no more than $1 a month, and MMOs should be somewhere between $3 and $5 a month. But the trend seems to be the other way.
As someone who just purchased (and finished) Braid this weekend, I feel that game was worth FAR more than $15. I agree though that the price point for a lot of "indie" games are about right. I don't think I'd have payed more for Audiosurf, or Peggle, or the Penny-Arcade games.
You act like the cost to develop is nothing. Sure the manufactuering cost will be virtually the same but RE4: Wii edition is a remake of a PS2/GC game which was a million seller. All they needed to do really was modify the GC version to use the Wii which would have been a minimal cost.
New models, programming, voice acting, script writing, level creatation, etc went into RE5 and that stuff doesn't come for free.
A lower price might have some benefit but it won't turn Re5 into the next Nintendodogs or Brain Training game.
Used is much worse for the developer than tail pricing. The developer will not benefit from a second-hand sale.
A small amount, or even just a better reputation for sales with their publisher, is probably better than the zero that a second-hand sale represents.
To everyone that keeps wanting to raise prices to fair levels, please consider the R word, yon know, Recession. We are in one, well most of the western world is in one. Most people's disposable income has got rather less, not more and games are not a necessity of life.
Sure someone may invent some really super game with lots of online content (to reduce piracy) that may end up costing lots more and if people like it, they may buy it. OTOH, they may not.
See my journal, I write things there
yet Intel is earning more money now than it did 15 years ago and it's expenses are also a lot higher.
every big publisher today was an indie developer/publisher 20-30 years ago and grew their business through higher sales.
these days indie publishers have distribution channels that EA and Activision didn't dream of 30 years ago. they built their business the hard way
I was going to take issue with the original author on a couple of points here, but let's start with this:
"When I first founded Spiderweb Software, in 1994. . ."
Aaaaand I'm going to stop you right there. By 1994 the games industry had been around for well over a decade.
Going back a little further than 1994 (to 1984 in fact) the majority of the software available for home computers was sold either in specialist computer stores or via mail order.
A lot of this was created by "bedroom coders" (Indy publishers in other words). People were charging a couple of pounds at most for their titles and advertising them through the small-ads in computer magazines and newspapers.
They were usually able to earn enough money this way to make it worth while (in some cases enough to make a living at it).
As time went on a lot of these home-grown programmers were taken on by the large companies. Some indies (like Llamasoft) remained independent, others vanished into the corporate machine never to be seen again.
Shareware came on the scene much later on.
. . . .
Another bone of contention is setting an artificially high price for software. XBLA is especially guilty of this. Take a look through the Community Games catalogue.
Scary isn't it?
If this stuff was being given away for free you could imagine downloading it, but being charged money for a program that activates the force feedback on your joypad (for example). . .
This sort of thing devalues all the other software on there. After checking half a dozen demos (and finding out that they are essentially badly executed experiments that should NEVER have been released to the public) most people give up. This is a shame as it means that the good stuff that really deserves your custom vanishes under a sea of crap.
Does this mean that all software should be given away for free? Of course not. But let's face it: some of the shit out there you COULDN'T give away anyway!
Part of the justification of a game's cost both in real and notional terms is the amount of work that went in to it. One of the reasons that big name titles cost a lot is that it takes a lot of people to develop them. It is quite an expensive production, on par with making a movie. Look at the credits for a game like Mass Effect some time to see how many people worked on it (remembering also the people who wrote Unreal Engine 3 on which it's based). Then play it and you can see all the work that went in to various parts of the game, the writing, the voice acting, the art, the programming, etc.
Now, compare that to a game like World of Goo that two guys knocked out in their free time.
I chose both of these titles because I feel they are both excellent at what they are supposed to be. However they show the real difference in terms of scale of effort. I'm not saying World of Goo took no effort, it certianly involved no small amount of creativity and skill, but it didn't take the massive team, and thus incur the massive cost, that Mass Effect did.
As such, it makes some sense that World of Good was like $20 at launch whereas Mass Effect was $50.
Then there's the fact that I don't think anyone is really forcing low prices on indy games. I'm not saying there aren't specific examples, however overall you are free to sell your game online for whatever price you see fit. However, if you want to charge $50-60 same as the big name games do, well then don't be surprised if people demand the same level of assets.
Again back to my World of Goo vs Mass Effect thing I own World of Goo and it was worth the $20 I spent on it. I wouldn't have gotten it for $50 though. It's a neat puzzle game, but not worth that much.
What most of the commenters seem to be ignoring is the evidence that the author is doing perfectly well selling his game for $28.
Having played (and paid for) one of them, given it took me dozens of (entertaining) hours to complete, I don't have much of a problem with that price.
I think what the post really boiled down to was:
Expect high ($30 - $60) prices for big commercial titles because they cost millions. Huge development costs divided by lots of customers result in high prices.
Expect low prices ($1 - $10) for indie games in popular genres (puzzle, etc) because there is lots of competition. Low development costs divided by lots of customers result in low prices.
But expect highish ($10 - $30) prices for indie games in niche genres, because there are simply fewer potential customers. Low(ish) development costs divided by few customers must result in highish prices, or you lose money.
Yes, there are free flash games, but point me at a free flash game in the same genre and of the depth of the author's games?
wow, ok Indie Developers make cheap games with low prices that appeal to a wide group of people usually to build a clientele. Such is not the case anymore. I'm sorry the free market was opened so much what with the XBOX and iPhone heating up. So the supply of Indie games is flooded right now. Quite crying over it, raising the price would be like shooting yourself in the foot. From his blog, "And a Quick Note For Those Who Disagree With Me ..." You mean the entire free market?? Yeah alienate them good job, I'll make sure to never buy anything you make. You're only in it for yourself.
What is meant by "enforced low prices?" If it is "Microsoft requires you to charge a certain price point for XBox Live games," then, guess what, your game isn't truly indie.
That shouldn't surprise anyone, since consoles are extremely locked down and loaded with DRM. If you take the King's Penny, you play by his rules or dance a yard arm jig! Yaar!
Now, if you are trying to get on Steam or Amazon download and play, or something and they are requiring you to charge a certain price point, you have to weight whether that is worth it or not. If it isn't, it might be best to forgo those venues.
Now, if it is what I think, and that is that the guy in the article thinks indie game makers should form an indie "cartel" and agree to keep prices high.... well, I don't know if there is a good reason for me, as a customer, to agree to that. There may be one, the way price fixing on airlines in the old days meant really attractive stewardesses, but I can't think of one now.
Anyway, if you are actually an indie studio, you should set whatever price you feel like, create whatever kind of game you feel like, and find a way to sell it where you aren't beholden to the big industry players (who are not your friends). Oh, and pray to Cthulhu, Hastur and Yog-Sothoth that PC gaming continues to be an open platform.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
A lower price might have some benefit but it won't turn Re5 into the next Nintendodogs
Is anyone else suddenly wishing they could groom, train, and feed zombies and walk them around town?
When I see "used" games for sale for $54, is it time to ask if they're charging too much for new games? Hell, yes. I don't pick them up until they're $20 or less.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
One of the things the writer overlooks is the ability to release content in episodes. Instead of charging $30 for one game, a single adventure can be broken up and released in episodes or chapters for $10 each.
Penny Arcade and Strongbad have both successfully used this model and it also gives customers an opportunity to try a game without committing to an entire series.
This may even be good for independent developers because they would get feedback and money before completing development on the entire series.
I'm a Tasty-vore. If it's Tasty, I'll eat it.
Were you born 15 years ago?
I'll go even further than 15 years ago... 27 years ago, Carnival for Colecovision was $30, Lady Bug was $35 and Zaxxon was $40. Because 27 years ago our salaries were much lower (less than half what they are now), it means games were the equivalent of being between 60 to 80 of today's dollars.
So now, go download a Colecovision emulator, download some ROM, and tell me for which of those game you'd pay $60.
The truth is games' prices have never been so low.
... and wrote a new constitution for themselves, the 'gamers, coders, hackers and slackers Bill of Rights'. --Article 1 -- Basic right to slack. All are free to code, game, crack, download, hack, and do any and all activities that are represented in encoded, digitized form, and transmitted from any computer or digital device to another. No government, legal entity, living entity, or virtual entity shall infringe on the right of any other to digitally slack for as much time and as long as they darn please. --Article 2 -- Economic right to slack. No infringement upon and abuse of slacking community infrastructure. No real-life activity infringing, limiting or otherwise lessening or weakening infrastructure required for slacking is to be allowed. (electronic DOSing is OK). No speculation with food (especially coffee, hops, and yeast), rent, farming, real estate, power and telecommunications. Real estate property rights are limited to the land occupied by your real-life body, your computers and digital gear, heretofore known as your home/office. The right of all citizens to lay cable and setup Central Offices, Power Distribution, digital, power, electronic, telecommunications infrastructure, schools and research centers on all public real estate is not to be infringed upon. No touching cables or equipment that aren't your own, under penalty of fixing and maintaining it for the rest of your life. --Article-3-- Education. Education on all technologies, languages, electronics, robotics, biology, physics, mechanics, power-generation and distribution technologies, digital modeling, art and sound production shall be free and compulsory. All other subjects are optional but strongly encouraged. The numbering system shall be changed to hexadecimal. --Article-4-- The internal combustion engine, printed paper, analog signals, patents and copyrights, state secrets, trade secrets, locked doors, closed meetings, are abolished. Deal with it, and figure out an alternative. Meeting for coffee and/or beer is allowed, but only with open invitation. --Article-5-- Weapons and military. A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. Therefore all virtual and real weapons are permitted to all citizens, including chemical, nuclear and biological. Shooting all virtual weapons is permitted and encouraged, and virtual weapon training is required by all citizens, especially the BFG-9000. Real weapons may be freely kept securely stored and to decorate any and all walls, and hand-born for shooting, cleaning, practicing, and touching freely in any place wherever there are no living entities of any kind, other than the owners/operators, within five times the primary or secondary damage range. If any real-weapon owner/operator shall shoot themselves in the foot, no citizen is permitted to offer or request assistance of any kind. You can join any militia, team, army, band, gang, guerrilla or terrorist group and go to any boot camp you want, real or virtual, especially for coffee or beer.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
What do you need to fund a game? Food stamps and enough scratch to pay the electricity bill.
Programming a game can be a labor of love. It can be an artistic expression that doesn't require millions of dollars, prima dona rockstar programmers, glossy ads in gaming magazines (if you can find one these days), and gouging your customers.
We've lost this ethic in computer games. The indies are doing great work, but complaining that you can't charge $60 for their game is lunacy. The primary justification that large game companies and publishers use for charging that much is that they have a large number of people working on their game, they have the cost of packaging and physical media, and they have the overhead of the retail shelf.
Costs which online-distributed indie games do not have. People see this and refuse to pay (what they perceive as) an inflated price. However, if we value the games by the innovation, fun, and experience they provide instead of their actual real cost, I'm sure indie games would come out on top.
The low price of indie games has caused the developers to focus more on creating unique experiences rather than trying to push the graphics/technology envelope. It's better this way.
Furthermore, these downloadable console games are basically only available for rent, since there is no way to sell them when you are done. The prices need to be cheap since buyers don't have all the rights of someone who buys a game on disc.
A new studio game might cost $60 these days. However, not everyone buys new and keeps the game forever. I'm more likely to buy used, play for a few months, and then resell. The whole transaction costs me about the same as the full price of these "cheap" indie games.
Then maybe game companies should get in to the used game market. Offer to buy back their games and sell them used from an online site.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Nobody ever misses a game that was never created, but people won't buy your game (that you already spent hard earned money on) if you price it higher than what they think is appropriate.
I wouldn't lap that shit up, as I have never played and probably never will play Resident Evil. Their potential customer base isn't infinite; I'm sure they've done a lot more research on their profit maximizing price than you have.
But RaigetheFury may have a point as games priced at $50-60 prices itself out of the impulse buyers, who might make a purchace if prices were lower. I have no idea if this would be enough to make up for the loss of profits per purchase, though.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
It is not at all that simple.
My best selling game is this one:
http://www.positech.co.uk/democracy2
It's a very complex and in-depth political simulation game based around the idea of the interconnectedness of all aspects of government policy, and modelled using a custom-written neural network. It assumes a decent understanding of modern political issues and a willingness to not be put off by what appears (at first glance ) to be a VERY complex interface (it's actually not that complex).
In short, the game appeals to politics junkies, political science students, and people who enjoy chaos theory and complexity.
It doesn't matter HOW good it is, how polished it is, or how well I market it...if your idea of games is Halo, you will NOT enjoy it, and NOT buy it.
Many games exist in a very small, specific niche, a niche where the developer can make a living selling $22.95 games like that one. A lot of those niches are already on the borderline (mine is). Unless I can actually generate a worldwide greater interest in playing political strategy games, I can't expand my sales. So a drop in prices just means less overall revenue, and thus makes it less viable to make games like that.
If all you want is 'mainstream' games that appeal to everyone, why bother with indie games anyway? we make games for specific groups of players, not the whole market.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
One person's good can be another persons crap. I'm with DazednConfused on this, it's supply & demand. If the demand of the game meets the expectations of the product sure they can charge a little more for the game.
Personnaly I think $15 is max for any downloaded game. There's no resale, DRM restrictions on all of the consoles furthur reduce their values. Stupid point systems like MS points furthur reduce the value of a game, as I can't just pay $15 for the game I have to buy $20 or more in MS points.
While some of these games are great, they're competing with AAA games that likely hit the bargain bin for $30 in 6 months. AAA games like Burnout paradise are availalbe for download at what 20 or 30 bucks?
Penny arcade is a prime example, while the game (from the demo) seems great I refuse to pay $60 for a downloaded game ($20 * 3 epispodes) If each episode was $10 I'd have bought them and I'm sure I'm not alone.
More people are gamers now than ever, cheaper prices, sure, but more people are buying games. I think the developers stand top make more by selling the games cheaper and getting more sold.
If the devs have a marketing budget, they should get off the closed platforms and start marketing
In most homes, the only monitor big enough for several people to fit around is still the CRT SDTV in the living room. Typical PC monitors are too small, and there aren't yet enough HDTVs in homes. But most store-bought PCs lack built-in S-Video and therefore can't output a SDTV signal without a $50 VGA-to-S-Video converter. Major video game consoles have SDTV out, but apart from the fragile "homebrew" jailbreaks used by noncommercial developers, they're closed platforms. So if my company is developing a game designed to be played by up to four people sharing one large monitor (something like Smash Bros.), what non-closed platform should we choose? Or should we market only to households that already own four PCs?
Gold selling is a joke in WAR. Mythic has basically solved the problem by making BOE epics below rank 40 only about 4-5 ranks better than their blue or green counterparts. Not only that, but many of them are terribly itemized. Like it's epic, but has the same strength and weapon skill as the blue and just tacks on 20 Willpower so you get some .5% extra spell disrupt chance. There's nothing to buy in the game save a 15g mount. You'll have 20g at rank twenty, even if you buy every green rvr vendor item for which you qualify and dye most of it; just turn in your do Scenario X and Kill 20 players quests which are in every Warcamp (where everyone hangs out anyway at low ranks, they are by the RVR lakes and have the flight masters in them).
At rank 40 what can you buy with tons of gold that others can't? Super rare dyes that many people don't even like (like Uglu Grey and Skull White; people do like Chaos Black but it's dropped in price somewhat since 1.2).
You can afford more epic talismans than most people. People normally have 5 tali slots (you can have 7 in most cases, 8 in an extremely rare case). The only talis worth anything anymore are wounds and strength due to changes to scavenging (other epics hover in value between 20-50g, +18 and +19s anyway). Toughness also arguably has value, but I rarely see any made or sold. Suppose you can afford whatever you want, vs. people buying the +16 5 day talis and a few epics, on average you'd have 9-12 more of your primary stat than another player. That's 9-12 out of 700-1100. Most profession buffs range around +100 to a stat, so we're talking about a pretty small number here. +16, 5 day talismans go for 10-40g depending on the stat and last for 5x24 hours of actual play time (they don't tick down while you're offline). They'll last even hardcore players nearly 2 weeks and a month or two for a really casual player.
Potions are dirt cheap, I'm still using the ones I dropped 40g on a month ago. 20x1 hour long liniments are maybe 10g (these would be the WOW equivalent of flasks). The only expensive ones are the ressurection potions (15-20g per), and high rank guilds can use their guild standard to res. All healing professions have a decent res now since WPs (and presumably DoKs) got theirs shortened.
BOE set pieces do sometimes go for a lot on the AH, but if you don't already have the other pieces to go with it you are sometimes better off with a blue or a different, theorectically lower, set piece in its place. Plus more of them drop than are actually needed so you can pretty much sell or trade the one not for your class that you lucked out and got for the one you need. Many guilds also just stack these in the guild bank and hand them out as people reach the appropriate rank and gear level to use them. I've not paid for a single one, though I will probably pony up for Conq belt the next time I see one available. Otherwise I have every single one for my main through Dark Promise (the current top end, well, I don't have Warlord or Invader boots, don't think I've ever even seen Ironbreaker ones and couldn't equip the former regardless - I suppose most of my legitimate stash of cash would go towards buying a pair if they ever popped up, but I'd not be much poorer in my game enjoyment if I never got the chance).
To sum up, gold is currently being spammed hard by spammers in WAR and the price seems to be around 7-9 bucks per 1000 gold (that is more gold than most people will spend in 6 months), down from 15 bucks a month ago. At rank 30 and above killing 25 players is worth 1.75g for a quest turn in, basically you get these quest turn ins not by farming, but by doing the RVR that is the point of the game anyway; i.e. what you're already doing! Gold just isn't a problem in WAR unless you want to buy really expensive dyes, there's just nothing else to spend it on.
Indie developers nowadays have more platforms than ever they can target, a good game done on many platforms can sell 5-6 times the numbers they used to sell...
Logic... the games are too cheap developers should raise their prices...
I dont get it fully
Yes, they should be more.
I am a long-time fan of Jeff Minter. The other year, he released "Space Giraffe" for the XBox360. As a downloadable game for $5.
He did not, I believe, make back his development costs.
(Admittedly, it was a hard game to get into; I'm hoping he learnt from the reactions people who are not wired the same way he and I are, and that his next game will be more approachable.)
Me, I loved it. And when he ported it to the PC, I leapt at the chance to buy it again. Not because I wanted the extra levels he added, not because I wanted to play it on a PC - but because I wanted to finish paying Jeff for the fun I had. I literally felt guilty because $5 felt like I was ripping him off for the amount of fun his game gave me.
The race to the bottom, with the $1 games on iPhones, is one that nobody wins - developers abandon their indy dreams and get a job as a minor cog working on "Derivative Safe Game IV", users don't get more cool games. All we get are throwaway pieces of crap that extend brands, and first efforts by newbies living in their parents' basements.
egypt urnash minimal art.
For one, you've chosen games where ads specifically work in terms of realism. Ok so yes, they work then. However there are plenty of games where they don't. Try that sort of thing in, say, The Last Remnant see how well it works. Also you've picked a very specific set of games: sports games made by Electronic Arts. This is not at all representative of gaming overall. EA is known for doing some stupid shit, and sports games are a small subset of the whole gaming market.
I don't see where you're getting this "monopoly" reasoning from. It's not like there's a DeBeers of computer games, and EA doesn't have a monopoly on games just because nobody else can make/sell EA games.
Infinite supply does not translate to infinite demand.
Infinite supply does not mean $0 price.
Supply happens, even if infinite, only because someone expects to create it.
Yes, it IS development time that is sold. For most products, development time is merely a tiny fraction of the final price. Only difference with digitally-distributed indy games is that development time becomes a majority of the price; it's still part of the cost of making supply happen at all.
Supply and demand work together to set the price. As another noted, there is more to the "supply" of video game than making innumerable copies at vanishingly small cost, there is the development effort. By claiming "infinite supply" you forget there would be zero supply if the price is $0/copy, because at "free" there is no incentive to create the game in the first place. There is NOT an infinite supply of programmers willing to go without food/housing/etc. just to create a game. The supply won't appear at all if there isn't sufficient expected demand willing to pay $X/copy for the supply.
Any economic theory that concludes "supply and demand doesn't apply" doesn't understand the situation sufficiently. Go look up "capital investment".
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
In other words, you're just being cheap. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, as long as you're not using that as an argument to steal games, which I suspect you probably are.
If you absolutely must pay less, buy used. This will not kill you, make you any less of a gamer, or shrink your genitals.
Naaa you know what, its not being cheap to complain about over priced products. Just because your used to getting gouged doesn't mean its ok.
We always hear about market forces, and the bullshit about what the market will bear, but its always in relation to companies squeezing more and more money out of us for fatter profits.
Isn't it about time we applied that in the other directions? What about the customers who want to pay as little as possible for a given product?
Just because you had an idea doesn't entitle you to millions. Hate to burst the bubble but most of us work our asses off day in and day out to get just enough to survive, so you make a game, well guess what it might only profit you a few grand, not a few million.
Used is much worse for the developer than tail pricing. The developer will not benefit from a second-hand sale.
A small amount, or even just a better reputation for sales with their publisher, is probably better than the zero that a second-hand sale represents.
And this is relevant... why? The developer already got all the money they're entitled to from that copy. This is what's known as the first-sale doctrine, and among other things it's what makes libraries legal.
Naaa you know what, its not being cheap to complain about over priced products. Just because your used to getting gouged doesn't mean its ok.
The market's success with a luxury item at the current price point is convincing evidence that people are not, in fact, getting gouged. This is what the market will bear with no pressure to buy, and thus, what it is worth.
1) DVD's/Digital vs Cartridges $8 Savings
2) Digital DIrect Distribution $15 Savings (approx retailer margin in the 80s.. it's lower now though)
3) Gaming Market estimated 100M user install base by end-of-cycle for 360/PS3 vs 50M for NES life-time. (doing a little math..) (50-8-15-5licensing/2=11) $11 Savings
excluded Wii because development for it is very different than 360/ps3.
So, games should be $34 cheaper than 1980, pre-inflation. Is the additional $34-$44 marketing/development/profit that go into big blockbuster games ($50-$60) worth it vs the NES?
Interestingly, my napkin-math for what games should be priced equals roughly what the top-end games on Live Arcade cost and Valve's quick-experiments with game price "sweet spot".
Why do tickets for some sports teams sell on the open market for many times their face value? Because some people believe it's worth an insane amount of money to get them. Good games will command good prices. If a developer makes a truly good game, he can charge a fair price for it and receive it (I usually don't pay $50 for a game, but if it has an amazing demo and good reviews I'll go for it once in a while).
If you absolutely must pay less, buy used. This will not kill you, make you any less of a gamer, or shrink your genitals.
neither will stealing the game, as both stealing and buying used net the exact same amount for the developer, $0
Personally, I make the decision to buy new/used/download/rent based on my desire to support the developer and encourage more games of similar style and substance to be created.