GOG Boss: "Heavy Discounts Are Bad for Gamers"

[juyunseen]

I bought Half Life 1 for 3.50 during the holiday sale last year. Does this make me a bad person? Spending tree fiddy on a masterpiece?

 

[getoffmycloud]

Congratulations mr. Rambourgh, you are a retard.

If 100 people would buy the game at full price, but 1,000 people would buy it with a 80% discount. That's extra money that you would normally not have, that is extra money right there. Money that you wouldn't normally get!

And the sales don't last very long, usually only a couple of days, it's no different than Wal-Mart which has gigantic sales from time to time. It generates publicity and attracts TONS of extra customers.

That TV I bought for 50% off, because it was last year's model, is not undervalued by me, simply because I know what it was worth and how much the initial price was. I have bought plenty of games on sale, (no matter if it was Steam or some other source) that I wouldn't have bought for the full price, because I didn't think that the game was worth it.

So instead of NOT having me as a customer, they have me as a customer. Which is always extra money in the bag.

But if you have a lower initial price the used game price won't be that much lower so people will be more likely to buy stuff new for full price that way

I think what he is trying to get at is that if games were priced lets say $10 less for a new AAA release the developer would make more money than it being priced higher and then having some crazy 80% sale a couple of months later cause I am sure we have all seen it somewhere someone saying I will just wait until its on sale.

It is very similar to the opinion that if prices were lower at launch less people would buy used and the developer would get more money.

the lower price thing only fails in physical copies, because used copies wil always cost less in proportion many times. HOWEVER, in DD, you can price a game at 30 bucks and have zero risk of getting backlash from used copies.

 

[Xenowolf]

Yeah, that's kind of rich coming from a site that offers old games for $6, one that always send me e-mails about random sales and made 2 games (Fallout and Empire Earth) temporarily for 48 hours.

 

[Sgt Pepper]

Really disagree.

Last year I bought Arkham Asylum for £4 off Steam because, at that price, if it turned out to have 2 hours of gameplay or totally suck I could write off £4 in a way I couldn't do it was at £20+.

As a result I did buy Arkham City at full price when it came out. I will probably do the same with Bioshock Infinite and Borderlands 2 when they come out, again having bought their prequels cheap during Steam sales.

Does Steam sale pricing encourage me to buy games I wouldn't have otherwise? Undoubtedly. That's the beauty of it, you can be on the fence about a game and hesitant to take the risk of paying a higher price.

Do I regret it? No. I've played some fantastic games that I simply wouldn't have bought full price and gone on to purchase sequels at full price that I wouldn't have if not for picking up earlier titles at bargain prices.

 

[grigjd3]

I think people are reading too much into this. A lot of Gog's attitudes are right on target: don't punish your customers, provide more value for their money, be ready to support your work, etc. I think this concept of the perception of value is not well thought out. The monetary value I assign to something happens before I see the price. The price effectively determines whether I would be willing to buy the game, on the condition that I have the money to spend at the moment. I think this is true of most gamers. Thus, by having a sale, it allows me to consider my finances differently. Anyhow, despite the rhetoric, gog has half off sales all the time. What they need to realize is there is no way I am paying a full ten dollars for The 7th Guest. If they were to put that game on sale, I would buy it in an instant.

 

[spartandude]

Didn't steam release some numbers saying profits increased often to 1200% when a game went on sale? How are sales hurting anyone? I do agree however that game companies need to stop pounding out games for 60+ dollars when they last no more than 4-6 hours and have no replayability.

They also need to stop releasing the digital copies for the full $60 price tag you'd see at the store. Frankly if I'm buying a game digitally I expect it to be somewhere in the $30-$40 price range for high profile titles (seriously, I am not paying $60 for a digital copy of Kingdoms of Amalur unless it comes with all the DLC) with it decreasing from there for niche genres and indie games.

i completely agree
when im downloading games why do i need to pay the same amount?
the amount i buy in a store is to cover the amount the store paid (including the game and then the materials for the disk/ case and instruction manual) plus the amount the store charge to pay their employees (in that store and the entire company) and to maintain the store

so when downloading, why am i paying the same price?
im not paying for a disk/case/manual, so that should be that taken off the price (not much but a little)
as there are no physical copies i shouldnt be covering as much in the way of delivery from developers to the distribution service, and online stores need less upkeep and staff than an entire brick and mortor store chain so that should be reduced a fair bit

so... yh why should downloaders pay the same amount?

 

[spartandude]

Rambourg argues that instead of using ludicrous discounts to shift games regardless of quality, retailers should instead focus on providing fair initial prices.

I can agree here.

I'm not sure about the whole "encouraging bad purchases" thing, though. That concern seems a bit disingenuous.

i agree with you here, personally ive had enough of his disingenuous assertions! *punch*

 

[TsunamiWombat]

THHPPTTHHAHAAHAHAH man WHAT?

Lower your goddamn prices then! Also, GOG has sales all the time!

 

[lacktheknack]

Alternatively, gamers could stand to learn some self-control...

 

[KeyMaster45]

They also need to stop releasing the digital copies for the full $60 price tag you'd see at the store. Frankly if I'm buying a game digitally I expect it to be somewhere in the $30-$40 price range for high profile titles (seriously, I am not paying $60 for a digital copy of Kingdoms of Amalur unless it comes with all the DLC) with it decreasing from there for niche genres and indie games.

*shoves you at the direction of brick&mortar stores*

And now you can say "Thank you for keeping the DD prices so high". Yes, stores like GAME are at fault here, not Steam and not even "just" the publisher. Those stores refuse to carry titles that you can get equal or cheaper in DD so publisher keep on insisting on such high prices when releasing a game on both distribution ways. Also, those stores are responsible that people in certain regions can't get some games on Steam.

Oh I'm well aware that Steam isn't setting the prices for games. (unless it's a Valve release) Yes it's rather annoying that publishers feel chained to the brick and mortar system due to fears of being black listed. At some point or another I'd hope the big names in the industry just give brick and mortar chains the finger and release a digital copy of their game with a cheaper price tag, basically show them their petty black list is a joke.

You must be using the aussie online store.

Actually I live in the states, but the price in USD is still proportionally just as sickeningly expensive as it is in AUD. Though that's what blow out Steam sales are for, a little patience and I can pick up all the big titles I want to play at dirt cheap prices.

 

[bchampnd]

Didn't steam release some numbers saying profits increased often to 1200% when a game went on sale? How are sales hurting anyone? I do agree however that game companies need to stop pounding out games for 60+ dollars when they last no more than 4-6 hours and have no replayability.

They also need to stop releasing the digital copies for the full $60 price tag you'd see at the store. Frankly if I'm buying a game digitally I expect it to be somewhere in the $30-$40 price range for high profile titles (seriously, I am not paying $60 for a digital copy of Kingdoms of Amalur unless it comes with all the DLC) with it decreasing from there for niche genres and indie games.

i completely agree
when im downloading games why do i need to pay the same amount?
the amount i buy in a store is to cover the amount the store paid (including the game and then the materials for the disk/ case and instruction manual) plus the amount the store charge to pay their employees (in that store and the entire company) and to maintain the store

so when downloading, why am i paying the same price?
im not paying for a disk/case/manual, so that should be that taken off the price (not much but a little)
as there are no physical copies i shouldnt be covering as much in the way of delivery from developers to the distribution service, and online stores need less upkeep and staff than an entire brick and mortor store chain so that should be reduced a fair bit

so... yh why should downloaders pay the same amount?

I completely agree that the price for a download should be lower than the price for a physical copy but I don't really see it happening.

Take a look at the e-book industry since it is almost the exact same concept. When Amazon started off and was selling best sellers for $9.99, everybody was pretty happy about it since they were getting a discount off the $15 or $20 that most hard covers cost. However, in the past year or so, many publishers have really cracked back on this and fought Amazon to set the price for the Kindle versions. Now, the Kindle version is actually more expensive than the hardcover when it releases in many cases (or perhaps a dollar or two less) and is almost always more expensive than the mass market paperback (the greatest / platinum hits versions to bring it back to video games). I'm fully aware that with books and games you are paying to experience the author/developer's work which is more about the IP than the physical (or digital) form but it's absurd for a downloadble title to cost the same or more than a NEW physical copy. (Used copies are a different ballgame altogether.)

 

[Fiad]

Or gamers can just get better self control and not buy something just because it is on discount. I mean ya, I have bought a few games I normally wouldn't have because they were on sale. But that does not mean I didn't look into the game first. I don't buy every steam daily deal. Maybe every couple of weeks I will because a game looks interesting. Or it was a classic that I had wanted to play, but never really cared enough to pay full price. Or a classic that I had played before but no longer own, didn't want to repay full price. This happened with Psychonauts a few weeks back. But never will I look solely at the price tag and shout "One dollar?! That is amazing! Buy Now!" Then look at it and find I bought Barbie Dress Up or Hitler Youth Sim 2007.

 

[Monshroud]

I disagree with the GOG guy. I think those steep discounts entice people to try types of games or games from certain developers that they wouldn't have tried before, or at the worst case would have previously pirated.

I mean if you can get a gamer to at least pay $4.99 for the game you were selling for $19.99 and they like it. There may be a good chance that person pays full price or a higher price on the next release. If they don't like it, at least they are only out $5.00 and don't feel ripped off, because they got it at such a high discount.

It's a better solution than people pirating games just to "try them out." I can count on one hand the number of people I personally know who have pirated a game and then actually paid for it after.

 

[Snotnarok]

Didn't steam release some numbers saying profits increased often to 1200% when a game went on sale? How are sales hurting anyone? I do agree however that game companies need to stop pounding out games for 60+ dollars when they last no more than 4-6 hours and have no replayability.

Because people refuse to buy the game unless it is on sale for 75% off. This means full priced sales are crap and although they get more when its on sale its still a pittance.

That should be a hint that every game made shouldn't cost 60+ bucks. They need to learn to value games.

 

[Kahunaburger]

That should be a hint that every game made shouldn't cost 60+ bucks. They need to learn to value games.

But the thing is that games costing $60 is not the issue. Games are cheaper to buy now then they ever have been in the past and yet the price to make them has only gone up over the years. The issue at hand is that when one company gives such large discounts it hurts the sales of all games. When you combine this with the issue that game companies cant lower prices unless they want to go out of business it creates a very serious issue.

They can also lower production costs. Notch seems to do fine.

 

[Kahunaburger]

They can also lower production costs. Notch seems to do fine.

Minecraft did fine because of the type of game it was. Half the bloody game was made by the fans and he started charging for it when it wasnt even done. The fact that minecraft was a success is actually a testament to the stupidity of gamers. People are willing to accept well below average quality and treatment because the developer calls himself indy.

That level of well anything would not ever work in mainstream or AAA gaming. Those types of games have a place and its onn the iphone, psn store, xbla, and random backwater pc sites. That however is not the type of gaming we are talking about. You might as well just say all games should cost $1 since you know angry birds does and it was a success. Plus the business model of making pocket change off games does not work on a large scale.

Actually, I think it would be more accurate to say that Minecraft is a testament to gamers being willing to shell out $10-$15 to explore a procedurally generated world and build stuff in it, sometimes with their friends. In other words, it was fun.

See also: World of Goo, Bastion, Dredmor, etc. Games don't need huge budgets to be fun.

 

[wurrble182]

some of the best purchases ive ever made have been on steam for under £5 so yeah... %^&k that guy