More common sense in gaming economics?
 

Linkage


Ya know... There was a time where actual games didn't bankrupt you. A console wasn't $200 (or it would rapidly decrease in price) and the games were quite cheap. With all this said, after seeing all of the ways that game companies can choose to make money, I doubt highly they have to worry about piracy. As I say more and more, piracy is just a way of saying "you're doing it wrong" to the industry as a whole. I don't hear about Steam complaining about lost sales, preferring to focus on their customers and making a great experience on Steam. Gog.com has NO DRM for old games. Perhaps a lowering of prices on consoles and more options for purchasing will get more people to play and enjoy games.

Just to point this out, but consoles are sold at or below cost. Having to pay $200 for a console means they're giving it to you for much less than they paid to build it, like, say $300. Like how every launch PS3 was sold at a ~$300 loss to Sony.

Games, yeah, games have high prices, especially because of basic competition at work. Everyone sticks to a uniform price point whether it earns them a lot or just a little because if they charge more, they won't sell them and make their production costs back, and if they charge less, they're not suckering people out of extra money.

A friend of mine pointed out that game prices haven't changed all that much, though. I can't verify this, but I guess that accounting for inflation or something that games are just as expensive as they were 20 years ago. I dunno, it's late and I don't feel like trying to dig up prices and do math.


Edit: Apparently, inflation isn't even a factor. Google says game prices have just sat at roughly the $50 mark since the NES. That, of course, owes a lot to cartridges being expensive, where CD technology is a lot cheaper.

If Factory A sells Sony a PS3 for 600 dollars and they in turn sell it for 300, why doesn't Factory A buy it to sell it to Sony again?

But anyway I've long thought it would be economically sensible for big name producers to scale down their productions. Instead of high-risk investments that need to appeal to the lowest possible denominator so everyone in the world buys it or companies will be bankrupt and lives destroyed, there could be artistically relevant games that speak only to a few and try to avoid the most cutting-edge technological fetishism that takes the most money to develop. Of course it could be hard to convince investors to put in half a million dollars for a return of 550 000 when they could give 100 million to get 110 million back.

Well, leave it to the indie developers I guess.

Well, I'd assume they're Sony's factories, for one. For two, Sony's paying the production costs and then taking the sales of the units. If the factory tried to buy units off the market and sell them back to Sony, it would create an inventory discrepancy, which would be caught quite quickly.

Sorry. We're doing this stuff in my accounting class. ^_^;

Your accounting class is pretty substandard if they are not teaching you how to hide inventory discrepancies and mysterious market place expenses. Cause that is like the point of your accountant, all the regular shit can be done by a computer but you need a human for deviousness.

It's only introductory. You don't get into dishonesty until the advanced courses.

I don't remember games being that much cheaper now vs. my childhood. Super Naughty Limited Edition Special With RV Helicopter and Fries not withstanding.

Edit: Suppose some console games get pretty overpriced here. A lot of them end up at $69.99 which is just loony. Then again, hell, my Half-Life 2 for PC was $69.99. Unless we go waaaay back, I guess SNES games were $30-50? So are most PC games now.

Just coming in to post this

I'll comment more later after working on school.

I'd rather just have a complete game than have to buy all the dlc just to get the complete game.

DLC is dumb. It's one of those things I never quite got. Some guys and gals who have the dollar sign shaved into their pubes thought they could make some extra money by making about half the game or, heck even a full game. And then add small pooplets for one buck each. And idiots buy it.

Gotta say, though, it depends on the kind of "DLC" if it's an expansion pack (a pretty word for a mod you pay for) adding a good chunk of gameplay it's justified. Songs in Rock Band? Well, I never used that service, but it's okay I guess.

What annoys me are small pooplets, as I said. You may define the word pooplet as whatever you like. Just make sure it makes sense in context.