Wolfire Games Forums

http://kotaku.com/5542204/the-week-in-r ... 0-solution

Well, they've done it again. Ubisoft and EA have given yet another reason not to buy from them.

After Spore's horrendous DRM with EA, and Assassin's Creed 2/Splinter Cell Conviction's horrible DRM, you'd think they'd get it, but no! They don't only want to screw PC gamers, they're now going to screw console gamers too!

Here's a little background on my opinion:

I buy used titles because they're cheap. They're cheap, and the ones I buy are usually out of print. I buy them because maybe three or four years ago, I missed out on a sleeper hit, or maybe I just need some cheap weekend entertainment.

When I buy used games, more specifically used PS2 games and the likes, I buy them at closer to $5-10, as opposed to $20-30. This means I can buy several of them at a low cost.

This completely screws me out of that. They're essentially asking me to pay double, or perhaps even triple, what I would have paid for the game, just because I didn't buy new! What happens when value deteriorates and, more specifically the sports games, it reaches the point where it's only worth a dollar or two. You're paying up to 10x the price you would have paid!

With this, I can already see that it's going to be a war between publishers and GameStop. GameStop essentially thrives off of used game sales. The publishers, on the other hand, are trying to push new game sales. Now, I understand that GameStop employees also are gaged on how many pre-orders they take, but can you see where this is going to be a problem?

I think this is absolutely ridiculous. Why would I ever want to pay anything close to 2x the initial price of a used game, let alone the possibility of reaching 10x?

Ubisoft, you used to be great, back in the days when Myst was a leader and an innovator in the adventure game market. Now, you've absolutely lost every ounce of respect I had for you. EA, the same goes for you.

-Matt

I'm so posting this in my blog, too.

Blorx wrote:Well, they've done it again. Ubisoft and EA have given yet another reason not to buy from them.

I buy used titles because they're cheap. They're cheap, and the ones I buy are usually out of print. I buy them because maybe three or four years ago, I missed out on a sleeper hit, or maybe I just need some cheap weekend entertainment.

When I buy used games, more specifically used PS2 games and the likes, I buy them at closer to $5-10, as opposed to $20-30. This means I can buy several of them at a low cost.

I think this is absolutely ridiculous. Why would I ever want to pay anything close to 2x the initial price of a used game, let alone the possibility of reaching 10x?

They're doing it right in this case, IMO. The DRM I could live without, but the ten dollar initiative sounds good.

"Games development is an extremely expensive, highly risky, lengthy and complex process. Major games now cost tens of millions of dollars and thousands of man hours to develop".
This is from http://www.tweakguides.com/AC2_1.html , seems to be anti-piracy article. I'm not interested in that, I'm only interested in the price tag UBISOFT has to pay. It doesn't magically go down to peanuts once a game is published.

Here's some reading for you from 2005. Basically, only about 6% of computer games make profit. The other 94%? That's a net loss. How do Ubisoft and other big publishers survive with that? When they get a hit, that one hit helps a lot. How do small publishers survive with that? It's difficult.

It has changed since 2005. You can still get the game for 5$-10$ in retail, and might get extra content by giving the PUBLISHER 10$ more. However, now there is an alternative! All-digital distribution: giving the distributor+ publisher 35$.

Steam and other online platforms let you sell games and KEEP the price up, since there's no physical storage. GTA IV, Dawn of War II are 29,99$. Dragon Age: Origins is 37,48$ and the Digital Deluxe is 54,99$. Much, much more expensive than in retail. Steam and other online distributors do give out promotional deals every now and then, special offers, but they are special, so people talk about them to others, and generate more sales, and you can time them before other releases to generate more buzz. Buy Civilization IV for cheap - BTW, there's a Civ5 too, you might want to check that out too.


Anyway, numbers and words from a game publishing company that specializes in avoiding retail, keeping the prices up, and knowing that what they offer is still worth the original price years after the games were first published.


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/blog.php?b=14

The Big Picture – 2004

Okay now for all those numbers… Last year, sales of Computer Games (and I am not including Video Games – the Console Game Market) was down $100 million dollars from the $1.2 billion mark in 2003. There were two, count ‘em, two games that had sales of 500,000 units and 18 games that had sales of 250,000 units or more. It is projected that less than 6% of all Computer Games made a profit. Based on the varying definitions of what is a new release, it is hard to know for sure how many products were released in 2004, but a number that I can live with is 1100 titles (in 1999 that figure was over 2200 titles). The average budget for development of a computer game is now over $2 million per title. And the average breakeven point in unit sales is around 110,000 units. The average retail price point is $24.45. And the average game at retail sales under 5,000 units!

And I got it all into one paragraph!

Now what do those figures really mean to the developer? It means that if you want to go into traditional retail with your new shiny niche market computer game because you will get rich, well, it just isn’t going to happen. The mainstream titles have a hard time turning a profit for the publisher and that means a hard time turning a profit for the developer. And these are products with development budgets in the millions, marketing budgets in the $1 million range and depth of distribution only attainable from the likes of EA, Ubisoft, and their peers. These corporate giants aren’t going to be interested in your game, and the smaller traditional publishers will have a hard time getting you market penetration, both from a marketing budget standpoint as well as from a distribution standpoint.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/blog.php?b=17

Q. Where did you get your figures?
A. This question was also asked and answered in the comments section of the original blog, but based on the number of e-mails a lot of folks don’t read the comments. So here is my answer: Check out the Entertainment Software Association, the NPD group, and Gamasutra. Some of these numbers require the purchase of reports, others are readily available, most through the above sites. Some info came from sources at the major publishers I mentioned in the article and I promised anonymity. You should be able to find most of the info though.

Q. Only 6% of PC games make money? Then how do the publishers stay in business?
A. The large publishers have no problems. You have to remember that one top seller cures a lot of ills from the other titles. And all the top publishers have franchise titles. These almost always make the top 20 list for the year in which they are released. Also, not only do you have the PC version, you have the consoles as well. Rarely does a PC only title get released by major publishers anymore. In fact, on internal development projects, almost all games are first developed for a console and then ported to the PC.

Now, the smaller publisher does have trouble staying in business

I wouldn't worry about this too much. Firstly, it seems that they only intend for this to happen on PC/Mac games, and I barely play commercial games (especially not new ones) on my computer. Secondly, there will always be an alternative to the BS created by lovely hackers and code-breakers; PC companies will simply never be able to win the battle against game pirates.

tldr play console games until you can skip the BS for computer games.

Never really understood exactly what a DRM is or what it does, just knows it's pretty prickish to make them, oh and I can never be bothered to read exactly what a DRM is, anybody care to enlighten me, no offence, but please keep it short, because I'm feeling quite lazy at he moment.

zoidberg rules wrote:Never really understood exactly what a DRM is or what it does, just knows it's pretty prickish to make them, oh and I can never be bothered to read exactly what a DRM is, anybody care to enlighten me, no offence, but please keep it short, because I'm feeling quite lazy at he moment.

Short for Digital Rights Managament, but usually used for any and all methods that game companies will prevent or limit copying or execution of games or other programs.

Code wheel that you have to roll just right to get a number to type into the box on the screen? A manual with weird runes on pages 5, 7, 8, 14, 25 and 30 that you have to look up when the game starts? Old methods of DRM.
Having to have a CD or DVD on the drive to start playing? A code you get with the game that you have to enter during installation? CDs or DVDs that prevent some programs from copying them? Newer methods of DRM.
Games requiring the user to be online, either every now and then (like Steam) or always when playing? A newish development for non-server-based games, and what was referred to in the first post.

Endoperez, not to rain on your parade and all, but PC games don't sell used, afaik. If they're aiming for "Project Ten Dollar", they're aiming for console players. A lot of console players are already getting screwed by MS with having to pay $8/month for Live service, whereas Sony and Nintendo give free online play. We don't want to have to pay $10 extra just because we didn't buy a game new. It's not fair to us, and, as I said, it could increase costs of used gaming (reasonable assumptions here, not just off chances) up to 3x what they were.

Blorx wrote:Endoperez, not to rain on your parade and all, but PC games don't sell used, afaik. If they're aiming for "Project Ten Dollar", they're aiming for console players. A lot of console players are already getting screwed by MS with having to pay $8/month for Live service, whereas Sony and Nintendo give free online play. We don't want to have to pay $10 extra just because we didn't buy a game new. It's not fair to us, and, as I said, it could increase costs of used gaming (reasonable assumptions here, not just off chances) up to 3x what they were.

...

There are two things in this post I don't understand.

Why are you complaining of a 10$ up-front and not the 8$ monthly?


Also, what's that about PC games not being sold used? A quick Google search seems to support that, but I don't really understand why. Are registration codes really that common these days? Of the ridiculously cheap games I've bought, only a few (Alpha Centauri, Temple of Elemental Evil and Dungeon Keeper are the only ones I'm sure about) were used, but as long as you can check the CDs for scratches before you buy and there's no limit to the number of times the game can be installed, there shouldn't really be a problem...
And if it's illegal, as some sources claim, and if it's illegal because the license only the original buyer has the right to install the game, selling those console games that copy parts of themselves to the console (even SAVES might qualify) would also be illegal unless the license specifically allows that...

Wow, weird.

I'm not complaining about a $10 up front fee. I'm complaining about the fact that the used games that I previously could have bought for $10 will now cost me $20 if I want all the content for the game that I payed the store price for, whereas if you buy new, you don't have to pay this $10 fee. What if I genuinely believe that game is only worth $10? They're losing another sale. Multiply that by the thousands that probably think the same as I do and you're cutting a bigger loss than if you had just never instated such a thing.

Also, I'm not complaining about the $8 fee because it'd be beating a dead horse that's been beaten enough times over the past 5 years.

And I have no idea why PC games aren't sold used, I just know that they aren't.

That's assuming if you buy it retail, though. I'm sure that you can still buy used games from say, Amazon or eBay, without the BS $10 charge.

Ragdollmaster wrote:That's assuming if you buy it retail, though. I'm sure that you can still buy used games from say, Amazon or eBay, without the BS $10 charge.

Wrong. It'll be required. The only difference is that, bought new, it'll come with a code packaged in on a card. If bought used, that code will have been already used and you'll be subject to the $10 fee.

Well, as long as this doesn't increase the initial retail price ($60 is already a bit much, $70 would be pushing it) I don't really care. I don't even buy used games for my PS3, just older games whose prices have dropped (or in the case of looking for 5th/6th generation games, I may buy a used game) Besides, if you wait long enough, retail prices foe new copies always drop to 1/2 or 1/3 of the original price anyways.

ALSO: This is a bit shitty because it means you can't take games over to other peoples' houses any more, and borrowing games is also out of the question.

"HEY BRAH LEMME GET MODERN WARFARE THREE FROM YAH, JUST LIKE A WEEK?"
"K BUT YOU NEED TO PAY $10 TO GET YOUR OWN CODE"
"OH WHAT THE FUCK"

Well, I'm just complaining that it'll add $10 to the price of my used games. At the very least, that's 150% of what I would have paid, because if I don't think a game is worth it new, I'll wait til it's $20 or less to buy.

And yeah, not being able to share games sucks.

While you're here complaining about it, someone else is at GameStop, buying a used game, getting online, and happily paying $10 for the content. I'll admit the idea of "VIP codes" was a bit off-putting at first. Take Battlefield: Bad Company 2, if you buy the game new, you get a VIP code that gives you access to "free" maps and content that's already on the disk. I bought the game new. Why? I saw no point in buying the game used, since GameStop was selling the game used for about $5 less than the game new (I wanted the extra content, and paying extra trying to save money off a used game is silly). They're basically making buying a recently released game used less appealing.
Personally, I can see where people are coming from, "I bought the game used for a reason (they're less expensive)." And I can see how a company might screw itself into a corner if they go overboard with the whole "limited content" idea.
...
I think the only reason I started this post was to write, "Quit your bitching and suck it up" and then I was trying to validate my post about how business is business and so on and so forth. Eh, whatever.

Quit your bitching and suck it up.

Endoperez wrote:Code wheel that you have to roll just right to get a number to type into the box on the screen?

When I was younger that was the case with Zool for the Amiga. I hated it. I never understood how to do it. I had to ask my brother or sister to do it for me every time I wanted to play it. =[ Stupid draconian DRM.

Grayswandir wrote:While you're here complaining about it, someone else is at GameStop, buying a used game, getting online, and happily paying $10 for the content. I'll admit the idea of "VIP codes" was a bit off-putting at first. Take Battlefield: Bad Company 2, if you buy the game new, you get a VIP code that gives you access to "free" maps and content that's already on the disk. I bought the game new. Why? I saw no point in buying the game used, since GameStop was selling the game used for about $5 less than the game new (I wanted the extra content, and paying extra trying to save money off a used game is silly). They're basically making buying a recently released game used less appealing.
Personally, I can see where people are coming from, "I bought the game used for a reason (they're less expensive)." And I can see how a company might screw itself into a corner if they go overboard with the whole "limited content" idea.
...
I think the only reason I started this post was to write, "Quit your bitching and suck it up" and then I was trying to validate my post about how business is business and so on and so forth. Eh, whatever.

Quit your bitching and suck it up.

Ben's right. Buying BC2 new allows you access to "VIP" content, which is essentially regular enough intervals of new content for free if you had a one-off VIP code which comes with buying a game new. I was quite pleased with this process. It would be a bit annoying if they implemented something that stopped you playing used games though. That would be the point where I start smashing things and viciously pirating shit.