Gah...that's what I'm trying to say to you. If they didn't have to compete with game resellers like Gamestop, who makes far more profit off of used games sales than new ones, publishers themselves could drop their titles to $10 to stimulate sales. Even if they drop it to a $.99 Gamestop can STILL undercut them, just because they'll buy it used for $.10 and sell it back for $.50. Steam has these sort of super-low discount price events all the time because publishers don't have to worry about resale losses.
I don't know why you think I"m an executive or a publisher PR man. I just recognize the difficulties game companies face, especially smaller, independent ones who've been forced into places like XBox Arcade Live because they have no hope of surviving at retail.
According to Business Weekly: "The secondhand market now accounts for about a third of all games sold in the U.S., or $2 billion annually." (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_08/b4167064465834.htm). It's not the greatest link, but I'm a bit tired and it's the first one I found.
The only time you ever see huge discounts on products are when they're several years old and residing in the bargain bin because the retailer has given up on making a profit on it. However with non-resellable services like Steam you see those discounts much earlier in the game's lifecycle as publishers try to stimulate sales once the primary wave ends. There's no reason you wouldn't see this happening with OnLive.
You can get your techs very early relative to the time period if you play the marathon or epic versions. I've always been more disappointed in the lack of future techs. I know a few mods tried to address that, but they simply weren't as well thought out or professional as Firaxis's work. I want techs extending into the science fiction future. That would just be so cool. It feels kind of silly that the greatest weapon on earth is... a 40 hit point armored tank.
I'm excited about the removal of "stacks of doom" for the increase in strategy with battles, but I'm rather disappointed in their PC move of removing religion. Religion has been a huge driving force, if not the greatest motivator, of the last several thousands of years. To remove it and just leave "culture" is a rather silly cop-out to the overly sensitive fools out there.
Maybe that's why they're not testing it in the UK for a reason? What proof do you have that it won't work (for people other than you)? Even after going through beta they're still preparing for launch. They haven't had an IPO so this isn't about stealing people's money. What makes you think this is so impossible?
You really, really like to watch Fox News don't you? I hear them use that term all the time, and it's just ridiculous how right-wingers parrot their talking points in unison.
The reality of the situation is that although the majority of people reject "Obama's Plan", once you explain to them what's actually in the bill the majority flip-flops into supporting it. That simply speaks to how good of a PR job Republicans have done.
Obama isn't "forcing" a bill onto anyone. The Democrats were elected to a majority. It's their turn to enact legislation that satisfies their voter base's ideals. It's that simple.
This is a great site with a demo of input latency to determine how you might feel about a possible service like OnLive:
http://galbraiths.org/feedback.html
Yeah... I feel like a religious wing-nut preaching the benefits of the OnLive deity here, but I'm just reacting to the insanely negative attitudes on this forum. It's amazing how conservative Slashdotters are. They're just afraid of change and it colors all their thoughts and arguments. Oh well.
Actually I remember a video in which Perlman himself has said the lack of piracy is a questionable benefit because you don't really know if the pirates would have bought the game in the first place. The guy's not an idiotic game company CEO. His pitch to the publishers has mainly been about how they don't have to pay royalties to retailers and they won't lose money to game resell channels.
From wiki: WebTV (eventually renamed MSN TV) was profitable in its 18th month of operation, and continued to operate profitably each month thereafter. In 2005 it grossed US$150M annually with 65% gross margins, and had grossed over US$1.3 billion in revenue.[6] Microsoft’s acquisition of WebTV also brought with it the teams that created Microsoft’s TV platforms,[2] including the hardware for Microsoft's Xbox 360.[7] WebTV products have been sold worldwide, deployed to both DirecTV and Dish Network satellite customers, and retailed under license by many major electronics companies and media conglomerates, including Sony, Sega, Philips, RCA, and Panasonic.
Wouldn't the lack of an IPO indicate larger chance of success? Normally you would want people to invest in your company and pay you lots of money before you crashed and burned if you really thought you would fail.
Why not? With Steam you have game companies constantly engaging in huge sale events where they slash game prices to $20, $10, or even $5. Once you band-aid the loss of sales to the used game retail channel you can price it super-low without risk of being undercut.
You're only uploading your controller inputs. How much upload bandwidth does that require? Don't you think they've thought of this? This is the same guy who developed Quicktime, the Xband modems used in Sega Genesis and the SNES, and webTV. The guy knows how to deal with bandwidth constraints and video compression.
They know exactly how fast they have to send data back. They've been developing this service for years, doing various tests to determine people's reactions to various levels of input and video lag.
I'm certainly no expert, but they wouldn't have received so much funding from so many major players if they hadn't demonstrated anything. I recommend you watch this video to hear him answer point by point the technical arguments made against the service:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qv4-GEK9Yo&feature=related
Game publishers would gladly lower their prices to attract more sales, but they can't because they are always undercut by used game stores. Price at $20 and Gamestop sells for $10. Price at $10 and Gamestop sells at $5. Essentially after the first few weeks of a game's release when everyone buys new copies, a publisher often receives very, very little because people are buying used.
It seems irrational, but people's budgets for buying new games are not positively affected by selling old ones. For most people that kind of super-rational, research oriented purchasing decision is merely a dream.
None of that income goes to the primary market. People do not buy more "new" games because they've sold more used games. The budget rationale of human beings is not so rational. In addition the ones who buy used games are looking for good deals and cheaper-than-retail prices. Since Gamestop can *always* undercut retail no matter what retail is priced at, game publishers lose a huge chunk of profit to Gamestop. Again, this is why publishers are willing to price extremely popular games like Bioshock at $5 on Steam, but not at retail.
Game publishers have agonized over their sales data and research for a very long time. It's a phenomenon that has been pushing more and more of them into participating into a service like Steam, despite it being run, controlled, and ultimately monetized by a competitor.
Your comparison is hardly legit. Unless you created a massive, nationwide chain-store buying and selling the most popular used electronic appliances, you could not compare the two. The closest thing to this situation would be eBay. However, an even bigger difference is that the value of all electronic products are significantly reduced by the ongoing improvements in technology, which obsolete everything overtime and make used electronic stores simply a novelty.
Games of course do not become "obsolete" until the console generation has moved on, and even then still retain some value. Certainly I would be more than happy to buy a great PS2 game like FF10 for $5.
I like how you reference a link, get modded up for it, but don't even bother to read the article yourself:
We heard from many beta testers after our story went live, but few were willing to speak on the record... for the obvious reasons. One user did agree to give us his take on the service, provided we keep his anonymity.
Good job buddy. Keep up the excellent sleuth work.
I meant to mod you insightful but I posted before modding. So anyways I'll just write it out: everything you said is perfectly spot on. I myself am a highly visual learner and it drives me nuts when professors lecture on some new or complicated topic and expect you to take notes at the same time. It's just not possible. It takes all my concentration to understand what they're saying, and taking good notes is just not going to happen.
Part of the reason I end up writing a practical transcript when I type "notes" is because that way I don't have to think about what I'm writing, and can focus a little more on understanding what is being said.
Slashdot Mirror
Gah...that's what I'm trying to say to you. If they didn't have to compete with game resellers like Gamestop, who makes far more profit off of used games sales than new ones, publishers themselves could drop their titles to $10 to stimulate sales. Even if they drop it to a $.99 Gamestop can STILL undercut them, just because they'll buy it used for $.10 and sell it back for $.50. Steam has these sort of super-low discount price events all the time because publishers don't have to worry about resale losses.
I don't know why you think I"m an executive or a publisher PR man. I just recognize the difficulties game companies face, especially smaller, independent ones who've been forced into places like XBox Arcade Live because they have no hope of surviving at retail.
According to Business Weekly: "The secondhand market now accounts for about a third of all games sold in the U.S., or $2 billion annually." (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_08/b4167064465834.htm). It's not the greatest link, but I'm a bit tired and it's the first one I found.
The only time you ever see huge discounts on products are when they're several years old and residing in the bargain bin because the retailer has given up on making a profit on it. However with non-resellable services like Steam you see those discounts much earlier in the game's lifecycle as publishers try to stimulate sales once the primary wave ends. There's no reason you wouldn't see this happening with OnLive.
You can get your techs very early relative to the time period if you play the marathon or epic versions. I've always been more disappointed in the lack of future techs. I know a few mods tried to address that, but they simply weren't as well thought out or professional as Firaxis's work. I want techs extending into the science fiction future. That would just be so cool. It feels kind of silly that the greatest weapon on earth is... a 40 hit point armored tank.
I'm excited about the removal of "stacks of doom" for the increase in strategy with battles, but I'm rather disappointed in their PC move of removing religion. Religion has been a huge driving force, if not the greatest motivator, of the last several thousands of years. To remove it and just leave "culture" is a rather silly cop-out to the overly sensitive fools out there.
Maybe that's why they're not testing it in the UK for a reason? What proof do you have that it won't work (for people other than you)? Even after going through beta they're still preparing for launch. They haven't had an IPO so this isn't about stealing people's money. What makes you think this is so impossible?
That's not true, especially since the Treaty of Lisbon that went into effect December 1, 2009.
You really, really like to watch Fox News don't you? I hear them use that term all the time, and it's just ridiculous how right-wingers parrot their talking points in unison.
The reality of the situation is that although the majority of people reject "Obama's Plan", once you explain to them what's actually in the bill the majority flip-flops into supporting it. That simply speaks to how good of a PR job Republicans have done.
Obama isn't "forcing" a bill onto anyone. The Democrats were elected to a majority. It's their turn to enact legislation that satisfies their voter base's ideals. It's that simple.
This is a great site with a demo of input latency to determine how you might feel about a possible service like OnLive: http://galbraiths.org/feedback.html
Yeah... I feel like a religious wing-nut preaching the benefits of the OnLive deity here, but I'm just reacting to the insanely negative attitudes on this forum. It's amazing how conservative Slashdotters are. They're just afraid of change and it colors all their thoughts and arguments. Oh well.
Actually I remember a video in which Perlman himself has said the lack of piracy is a questionable benefit because you don't really know if the pirates would have bought the game in the first place. The guy's not an idiotic game company CEO. His pitch to the publishers has mainly been about how they don't have to pay royalties to retailers and they won't lose money to game resell channels.
From wiki: WebTV (eventually renamed MSN TV) was profitable in its 18th month of operation, and continued to operate profitably each month thereafter. In 2005 it grossed US$150M annually with 65% gross margins, and had grossed over US$1.3 billion in revenue.[6] Microsoft’s acquisition of WebTV also brought with it the teams that created Microsoft’s TV platforms,[2] including the hardware for Microsoft's Xbox 360.[7] WebTV products have been sold worldwide, deployed to both DirecTV and Dish Network satellite customers, and retailed under license by many major electronics companies and media conglomerates, including Sony, Sega, Philips, RCA, and Panasonic.
Sounds like a success to me.
Wouldn't the lack of an IPO indicate larger chance of success? Normally you would want people to invest in your company and pay you lots of money before you crashed and burned if you really thought you would fail.
Why not? With Steam you have game companies constantly engaging in huge sale events where they slash game prices to $20, $10, or even $5. Once you band-aid the loss of sales to the used game retail channel you can price it super-low without risk of being undercut.
Have you even bothered researching the solutions they've implemented to overcome issues of input lag?
You're only uploading your controller inputs. How much upload bandwidth does that require? Don't you think they've thought of this? This is the same guy who developed Quicktime, the Xband modems used in Sega Genesis and the SNES, and webTV. The guy knows how to deal with bandwidth constraints and video compression.
They know exactly how fast they have to send data back. They've been developing this service for years, doing various tests to determine people's reactions to various levels of input and video lag.
I'm certainly no expert, but they wouldn't have received so much funding from so many major players if they hadn't demonstrated anything. I recommend you watch this video to hear him answer point by point the technical arguments made against the service: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qv4-GEK9Yo&feature=related
Rather than try to explain it myself, I highly recommend you watch this video demonstration done at Colombia University: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qv4-GEK9Yo&feature=related
Game publishers would gladly lower their prices to attract more sales, but they can't because they are always undercut by used game stores. Price at $20 and Gamestop sells for $10. Price at $10 and Gamestop sells at $5. Essentially after the first few weeks of a game's release when everyone buys new copies, a publisher often receives very, very little because people are buying used.
It seems irrational, but people's budgets for buying new games are not positively affected by selling old ones. For most people that kind of super-rational, research oriented purchasing decision is merely a dream.
None of that income goes to the primary market. People do not buy more "new" games because they've sold more used games. The budget rationale of human beings is not so rational. In addition the ones who buy used games are looking for good deals and cheaper-than-retail prices. Since Gamestop can *always* undercut retail no matter what retail is priced at, game publishers lose a huge chunk of profit to Gamestop. Again, this is why publishers are willing to price extremely popular games like Bioshock at $5 on Steam, but not at retail.
Game publishers have agonized over their sales data and research for a very long time. It's a phenomenon that has been pushing more and more of them into participating into a service like Steam, despite it being run, controlled, and ultimately monetized by a competitor.
Your comparison is hardly legit. Unless you created a massive, nationwide chain-store buying and selling the most popular used electronic appliances, you could not compare the two. The closest thing to this situation would be eBay. However, an even bigger difference is that the value of all electronic products are significantly reduced by the ongoing improvements in technology, which obsolete everything overtime and make used electronic stores simply a novelty.
Games of course do not become "obsolete" until the console generation has moved on, and even then still retain some value. Certainly I would be more than happy to buy a great PS2 game like FF10 for $5.
We heard from many beta testers after our story went live, but few were willing to speak on the record... for the obvious reasons. One user did agree to give us his take on the service, provided we keep his anonymity.
Good job buddy. Keep up the excellent sleuth work.
That wasn't me. I haven't used it myself. I'm not even in America right now. I'm in Japan, so obviously I wouldn't be talking about it.
Do you spend your entire life afraid you'll be attacked by a "hostile power"?
I don't think I could marry a women who already had kids.
I meant to mod you insightful but I posted before modding. So anyways I'll just write it out: everything you said is perfectly spot on. I myself am a highly visual learner and it drives me nuts when professors lecture on some new or complicated topic and expect you to take notes at the same time. It's just not possible. It takes all my concentration to understand what they're saying, and taking good notes is just not going to happen.
Part of the reason I end up writing a practical transcript when I type "notes" is because that way I don't have to think about what I'm writing, and can focus a little more on understanding what is being said.
If processors were serious about making the learning environment better
Say what now?