They Wonder Why People Don't Make PC Games Any More

I don't know, I can hardly imagine more problems. I got the game for 15 € in a store and I'm still pissed about wasting the money.

I still think cost is the main reason why PC games don't sell. I buy my PC games from Gamestation (a UK games store that has a massive selection of both new and second hand games for many systems) simply due to the fact that I'm not gonna pay £30-£50 for a new game (hell, 360 games can get to £60 new). That is fucking ridiculous. Period.

Last few games I bought was a bundle of Silent Hunter III and Brothers In Arms: EiB for £9.99. Before that was BF1942,MoH:AA,C&C:Generals, Company of Heroes and Dawn of War for £9.99 for all of them... Sure they are not new and shiny but they are fun. Making a game like Crysis which has all bells and whistles but can only run on a small proportion of the market, then tagging it with a £40 price is a recipe for failure.

I'm pretty sure the profit margins would be low/non-existant if you made new games £10-20 but hell if you're getting 90% piracy rates its probably worth a shot anyway. There are people that will not even pay that for games but you'll never be able to get them to convert anyway.

The student market is huge and simply don't have the money to spend £40 on a game, for me thats pretty much a fortnights worth of food, maybe longer. Combined with the easy access to these things on torrents its pretty much a no-brainer. Make them cheaper, more will be bought.

I'm not sure if it's me lack of attention paying but around a year or 2 ago I was paying up to 34.99 for a game and now I'm paying around 23.99.

I'm still kicking it oldschool and basing my prices off instore stuff, yeah online is cheaper but still for those that dont have credit/debit cards and rely on parents buying it theres still that angle.

Quote from dissonance

...I thought Steam was the answer to piracy?

It is.

It protects the release up to day1. After that, you can't do anything.

Yup Episode 1 was was available for download within days.

PC games are dirt-cheap compared to Console games.

I recently stumbled across this article which pretty much sums up my argument for what developers need to do in order to rise above piracy:

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/ ... an_fre.php

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If reproductions of our best efforts are free, how can we keep going? To put it simply, how does one make money selling free copies?I have an answer. The simplest way I can put it is thus:

When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.

When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable.

it's basically about things that artists can provide that cannot be included in a torrent or burned to a dvd.

some great elements in the article, it's not too long and worth a read.

Quote from zaphod

I recently stumbled across this article which pretty much sums up my argument for what developers need to do in order to rise above piracy:http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/ ... an_fre.php

it's basically about things that artists can provide that cannot be included in a torrent or burned to a dvd.

some great elements in the article, it's not too long and worth a read.

Great article - again thanks for sharing. Reminds me of the gamasutra article about personalizing your product (ie "build a bear"). This is more detailed though.

I've got an example for "findability" (I might have mentioned it before, but since it fits in so well):

Pennywise releases their new album by the end of this month. These guys have been making music for 20 years and for this album they split from their longtime label Epitaph to release it on the interweb. For free. Radiohead did something similar - they made you pay an amount of money that "you felt was appropriate", but this album will be available to download, copy, burn for free, no strings attached. They found a sponsor ("Textango") who paid for the production of the album, in return, you need to add Textango on myspace and on March 25th they send you a message including the download link. The same day the music will be released on CD in stores via "myspace records".

So - why would they do that? For Textango it's a nice way to gain attention. I've never heard of the service before, apparently they sell indie music via cellphones to download on your pc ( ), but I added them as a friend to receive the download link, it's a snowball effect...plus the ads and media coverage, the mere fact that I'm writing about it is promotion, but also for Pennywise. This is their 9th album, they have never wanted to sign with a major label and probably never will (it's a punk-rock thing..). That means they don't see any of the marketing dollars big record companies spend on their artists, while their music is downloaded illegally on the web. For them it is the easiest way to spread their music and reach new audiences - it's as easy as absurd to make your songs downloadable for free, but more and more people will get to listen to your music, talk about it, go to your concerts or maybe even buy the album in a store or one of your previously released records!

I'm quite sure they will succeed, the record production is paid for, so they can only win. In their position I would have added some bonus tracks to the CD in the stores though, to create additional motivation to buy the album.

About "patronage":

We stay in the music industry - I went to an anti-flag concert last month (with hessi ). Fairly big venue, great show, I paid 17,60 €. Included in the ticket is a 2 € discount for buying their new record at amazon. For comparison a "Nelly Furtado" concert last year costed 55 €.

Now I'm fairly certain I could download the new album somewhere when it comes out in 2 weeks, but listening to 3 of their tracks from the album on their myspace, really digging them and considering these guys tour and work their assess off, making music I can relate with - I will order the record instead and pay for it. Because I want them to keep making music.

So, yea, just wanted to give these two examples from personal experience that these theories do exist in practice and that it might not hurt to peek into other types of media to see if there is something game developers could make use of to sell their products

The Arctic Monkeys did a similar thing, got known on the internet via myspace first with free stuff then released stuff for money.

There are multiple opinions, here's one from Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock. This guy seems to think the PC gaming industry is losing sales not due piracy exclusively, but its own wrong decisions. The hardware requirements is one of them, and I agree with him, this is not the death of PC gaming, but PC hardcore gamers.

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So why aren't these games (Galactic Civilizations II and Sins of a Solar Empire), which, combined, have sold half a million units on a small budget, getting more attention? Because they're not aimed at some nebulous idea of the "hardcore gamer." This is a market that may exist in the minds of people writing about games, and it may describe those who buy gaming magazines, but such gamers are certainly not a force at retail.

And something about copy protection:

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"The reason why we don't put copy protection on our games isn't because we're nice guys. We do it because the people who actually buy games don't like to mess with it. Our customers make the rules, not the pirates. Pirates don't count," Wardell argues. "When Sins popped up as the #1 best selling game at retail a couple weeks ago, a game that has no copy protect whatsoever, that should tell you that piracy is not the primary issue."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... rates.html

blog: http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/303 ... _PC_Gaming

Making it so you don't need a CD/DVD in the drive when playing games would probably be a huge relief to most people. I almost always go find a crack to get around those things as its a pain in the arse.

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":2l15ore1]Quoting a guy from Epic:"...the narrow range of folks who can afford to do high-end, Direct X 10 PC gaming are also the guys who really understand how BitTorrent works."

He's absolutely right in what he implies here.

http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/93 ... exclusives

Quote from WitchKing

He's absolutely right in what he implies here.

Agreed.

People pirate crysis like no other because nobody wants to buy a game they can't run well. Its reputation of high requirements has put the majority of people off, nobody likes spending £40 on a game to play on their one year old system and have to play it at 1024*768 and on lowest settings.

I have an uber rig and I bought Crysis

Chek dis:

http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/vi ... &forum=125

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allows gamers to authenticate their game on three different computers with the purchase of one disc

It seems to me that this protection is more likely to increase piracy than decrease it. So this is probably intended as an attack on the second-hand market for the game.

Now think about this: the games industry probably loses a lot more on second-hand games trading than on piracy. After all, we're talking about people who are actually willing and able to spend money on games, but who spend their money in places where not a single cent goes to the developers.

Second hand is killing our profits more than piracy. I bet EA, being smart, has figured that out a long time ago.

So... how about outlawing second-hand trading altogether?

You'd have a hell of a hard time getting it outlawed. Being able to trade what you own is a fundamental part of western economy and culture, and making it illegal would also have horrifying implications for the many collectors out there.

Additionally, people who no longer want something would have to destroy it in order to stay within the law, which would be quite sad if it were a limited edition classic that's almost impossible to find or something. While it would help in some ways, it'd screw things up in other ways.

The better way to fight it would be to provide more incentive to buy it during the launch week rather than waiting for a second-hand copy. Limited editions and whatnot are obviously a good start, but so are free gifts and other such goodies. Maybe even a discount.

Hehe, I was being totally ironic with the suggestion of outlawing second-hand trading

Imagine the effect on current trading in automobiles, comics, clothes, cutlery, furniture, boats, weapons, houses! Then imagine the garbage problems, then imagine the erosion of respect for the law as everyone just blatantly and openly ignores the ban because they see it as absurd...