Crimson Sound wrote...
Fast Jimmy wrote...
I agree that you get more hours of content in the games so should pay more, but to say that the games should now be worth $20-$30 more because the cost has suddenly increased is absurd.
The Movie industry is constantly growing and the size of productions and after work of movies is increasing yet the movie industry knows that we wont go to the movies if they said they would cost $20 more to see.
And movie tickets now cost almost double what they did fifteen years ago. You could see a movie on opening day for $5 back in the late 90's. That price has now gone up to $10 in virtually every area. Yet video game prices have remained the exact same.
If movie prices went up from $5 to $10 all at once, people would freak out. Since they, instead, steadily increased prices over the years (heck, a movie used to cost a NICKEL), they are able to keep up with both increased costs AND inflation. Video games have had the same price (in some instances, even CHEAPER) than they were in years past. That's why paid DLC and microtransactions exist.
I'm just going to step in for a moment. I'm a Multimedia Major in college, which basically means I study all forms of media from film to video games. I would just like to point out that reason movie tickets continue to go up and video game prices remain the same price are one in the same. In short, pirating.
Movie tickets have gone up in price because the number of people who illegally download and watch movies continue to go up, and the number of people who actually go see the movie in theaters is going down. This is similar to the problem in the gaming industry regarding used games. In both situations, people are able to enjoy the product without a single cent going back to the people who made it in the first place. To compensate, each product needs to be sold at a higher price in order to cover the costs of productions. But you're probably thinking, "Then why have video games roughly stayed the same price?" Believe it or not, games could actually be sold at 1/2 or 2/3 of their current price, but they are sold at $60 so they don't have to sell as many copies in order to break even. Microtransactions and DLC, are just another way to help a game break even and profit. Those same profits are then used as capital for sequels or entirely new games as a whole. However, DLC being sold is mostly to cover the costs of producing it in the first place.
Horsesh
it. You may be a Multimedia major, but I'm a Law and Economic History Major. I take it they don't teach Copyright legislation, accountancy, finance, economics and Company Law in Multimedia classes?
Used games; why should the Publishers be treated differently from any other industry which deals with a secondary market of it's products? If it can't survive without curtailing Copyright legislation because of the Exhaustion of Rights concept, then the industry deserves to die. Their own feckless inability to control balooning production costs is their own problem, especially when the likes of EA have digital systems such as Origin which removes all costs of the supply chain... and yet they still sell the product for £40 and cry poverty.
Please explain to me how a Publisher like EA has a Marketing budget of 100's of millions per fiscal year? Yet Piracy and used games are the greatest evils of out time. It's like renting in the 1990's. Renting was the greatest threat to music and games, until it was piracy, then it was used games. How about it being their own fault for vast over expenditure requiring further gearing on company balance sheets and the necessity to churn out constant revenue to cover the debt hence the year on year releases.
And static prices or lower price curves are largely due to the concept of market thresholds in this case. There is a limit to what people will pay for a product regardless of inflation, simply as it's seen as lower relevance in Maslow's hierarchy. Why pay £40 for a game when I can pick it up 1 month later for £20, and why would I pay £60 when I know the price will rapidly decline after 2/3 weeks.
The film industry has yet to realise it's own sliding irrelevancy, much like cable providers, watching things live doesn't cut it anymore; when I can see what I want, when I want, how I want, at any point by using a multitude of net services or internet TV connected services like Sky, Netflix, Film 4 etc. Conveniece is a premium, and people are willing to pay for it. So unless like IMAX, the theater provides something I can get elsewhere, you'll see declining revenue. Until publishers realise applying the mentality from 20 years ago to now, by trying to corner the market rather than improve the service, does not work, people will continue to take things.
Modifié par billy the squid, 17 décembre 2013 - 03:22 .
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