Massive Quality Disparity Between Games Of The Same Price: An Industry Based On Uninformed Consumers

[random_bars]

Um, you have heard of multiplayer, right?

Yes and I played multiplayer in those titles. The Meta was shit because of all the xbox live tards. I no longer have a Gold Subscription because of how annoying playing online on consoles is for an adult.

I can see your point about Halo, but in Brutal Legend you can't even hear the person you're against unless you specifically go into a party chat with them... And even in the case of Halo, you do know you can just mute the chat entirely, right? I don't particularly like talking to people on there either, but it's not like you're forced to.

But my point still stands - you can't really complain about a game lacking gameplay hours when you're intentionally not playing the part of the game that provides those hours.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Piracy:

1. practice of a pirate; robbery....
2. the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book, recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc.

Theft pure and simple.

Sorry to burst your bubble but unauthorized reproduction does not equal theft.

So what does crazy quasi new-age thinking say it is then?

So, if a person decides they want to play a game for free and they download it from some torrent site, got a crack to play it, and then played the game, that is not stealing?

Wrong, it is stealing, they took a product. Because there is an infinite supply and it isn't physical doesn't matter, they got a product without paying what the company or retail stores are charging for it.

That is theft.

You obviously didn't read the definition that you quoted in my post. The definition of piracy is theft/robbery. It even has the unauthorized reproduction after robbery.

I didn't make it up.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/piracy

I seriously believe that the "it is not theft" defense is the battle cry of people that in some way pirate something, or have done it in the past and are feeling guilty and what to make themselves feel better.

Downloading something for free, that people worked hard on and should get paid for, is stealing. To say otherwise, if not doing it to protect oneself, is going against common sense. Again, product got downloaded for free, the creators didn't get paid, that is stealing.

 

[boag]

So, if a person decides they want to play a game for free and they download it from some torrent site, got a crack to play it, and then played the game, that is not stealing?

Nope,its called Piracy.

Theft would imply that the original product was taken and is no longer there.

Theft also equates to a lost sale, because the product you wanted to sale is no longer available.


Piracy is illegal reproduction and sharing of a product, and cannot be linked to a lost sale, no matter how much the RIAA and MPAA keep bribing the goverment to say it does.

 

[MammothBlade]

"B) Piracy while illegal allows people the option of paying $0 for a game thusmaking its value $0, "

And thus in a sense, all intellectual property is valued at $0.

That is what pissed me off about my brother a couple years back. I was talking to him about an awesome book I had just bought, and then he mentioned that I shouldn't have wasted my money because he could have helped me get it free in e-book form.

Of course I think that is stupid, but it hits me more because I am a writer that hopes one day to get a book or two published, and get paid for it as well.

When I mentioned to my brother that, "the money I use to buy an author's book help that author, not just by earning money, but also sales records can help move an author forward to get more book deals," he just shrugged it off like there was no problem with downloading a e-book for free.

That's of course how I feel about the games industry. I can't stand it when I hear people rage about pricing, and then turn around and illegally download a game. I don't see how they don't realize that what they are doing is part of the problem.

Got to agree with this. If it's available new, buy it, rather than pirate it. It hurts small studios and fledgling creators more than it does fat cats.

The only reason I pirate or emulate something is because it's gone out of production or isn't licensed for the UK...

 

[Sight Unseen]

A good example in my mind of what the OP is talking about is Alan Wake. That game retailed at full price, and only contained a single player story that was at most 15 hours long, I think maybe even shorter.

Alan Wake was still a great game for what it was, but it certainly was NOT worth a $60 price tag, and I'm glad that I only rented it, otherwise I would have been very upset at myself for buying it.

 

[ResonanceGames]

A) In a Free Market the market decides the value of something not its creator,

The first big problem with your point is here. Goods aren't just priced according to demand, otherwise your second incorrect point -- that piracy causes games to be valued at zero -- would be correct. Games are priced on a demand curve which looks at price vs quantity demanded. Publishers have found that dropping the price in half sells about twice as many units, increasing revenue by zero. If they were just priced due to unbridled demand they would be much cheaper and sell more copies (but make less or the same amount of money). Steam has challenged the way that this demand curve works, but only with digital games that are advertised a certain way. In retail this still holds true.

C) The Disparity in quality between similarly priced games results in the consumer deciding that if Game X the better game is worth $70 then Game Y, the perceived lower quality game is defiantly not worth as much.

You've made a big mistake here by trying to project your standards of value onto the entire market, while also stating something incredibly obvious. The point you've actually just made is that not all gamers are willing to pay the same price for all games. That's just differing taste, unless the game in question is actually broken or defective in some way. Nothing new there.

D) Not being presented with the option of paying less for it because of people with low standards propping up its perceived value because they are derp enough to buy the same game every year with minor tweaks instead of demanding one game that has its rosters updated (looking at you every sports licence ever)

This is just arrogance. People don't buy sequels because they're stupid and don't know any better, they buy them because they enjoy them. All you've really said here is that you don't think annual sports games are worth 60 bucks. I agree, but clearly they are worth that much to a lot of people, because that's the price they fall into on the demand curve. As that curve changes, and I think it will as the market moves toward digital distro, prices will adjust accordingly.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Smarter consumers is my answer to all of it, if you monkeys stop dropping money on every piece of reheated shit then they will stop selling it, and not a moment sooner.

Ah ... didn't notice we already stumbled down the piracy trolling hole, never mind then.

 

[badgersprite]

Piracy:

1. practice of a pirate; robbery....
2. the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book, recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc.

Theft pure and simple.

Sorry to burst your bubble but unauthorized reproduction does not equal theft.

So what does crazy quasi new-age thinking say it is then?

So, if a person decides they want to play a game for free and they download it from some torrent site, got a crack to play it, and then played the game, that is not stealing?

Wrong, it is stealing, they took a product. Because there is an infinite supply and it isn't physical doesn't matter, they got a product without paying what the company or retail stores are charging for it.

That is theft.

You obviously didn't read the definition that you quoted in my post. The definition of piracy is theft/robbery. It even has the unauthorized reproduction after robbery.

I didn't make it up.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/piracy

I seriously believe that the "it is not theft" defense is the battle cry of people that in some way pirate something, or have done it in the past and are feeling guilty and what to make themselves feel better.

Downloading something for free, that people worked hard on and should get paid for, is stealing. To say otherwise, if not doing it to protect oneself, is going against common sense. Again, product got downloaded for free, the creators didn't get paid, that is stealing.

Actually, legally speaking, it isn't theft or larceny, at least not in my country. I agree with you that the distinction is meaningless, but, unfortunately, the traditional definition of theft involves picking up something and taking it away with an intention to permanently deprive the owner of said property. Legally speaking, that definition does not apply to piracy.

Just because it isn't theft doesn't mean it isn't a crime, though. There are more crimes than theft and murder. It just falls under a different category of crime.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Um, you have heard of multiplayer, right?

Yes and I played multiplayer in those titles. The Meta was shit because of all the xbox live tards. I no longer have a Gold Subscription because of how annoying playing online on consoles is for an adult.

You do know there is a MUTE button? Seriously, saying people are ill informed and then saying you raged off xbox live because you didn't know there was a mute and report button, makes your multiplayer point invalid.

OT: IMO a game that is only 10 hours long is worth 40 pounds. I always compare the time to money ratio of games to films. A new film here costs 10-15 pounds, and it gives you about 2 and a half hours of entertainment. So for 4 times that price, with 4 times the amount of entertainment means that a game is worth it. Also, im fine with games like CoD and Halo's single players being short because they have a really, really good multiplayer.

 

[zama174]

Snip

Uhh.. No? While yes many of our great giants of today are sequels, at one point they where all gambles. Assassins Creed was a big gamble for Ubisoft, but from it has spawned one of the most iconic series of this console generation. Halo was a risk, Gears of war was a risk, Fallout 3, Morrowind, the list goes on and on. Every time a new IP is born it is a risk, but one the triple A industry is still taking. Yes there is a huge flood of sequels, but I think we and the industry are richer for these masterpieces that would only have been created after multiple iterations.

 

[Netrigan]

How much time you spend with a game has little to do with how long it is. Back when I got a NES, I played Super Mario Brothers 3 from start to finish (no warp whistles) several times.

It wasn't because it was hard... hell, it was piss-easy when compared to the first one and I don't think I ever ran out of lives playing it. No, it was just good fun and I enjoyed playing it over and over again, despite the single player campaign lasting no longer than most AAA games these days.

The same happened a few years later when I discovered Doom. I enjoyed re-playing the episodes because it was tons of fun. Same thing happened with Blood, Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, and a few other games. I racked up dozens of hours on quite a few games with relatively short campaigns.

Today, I find myself blowing through games pretty quickly. Did I spend more time playing Fallout 3 than Portal 2? Yup, but while I enjoyed Fallout 3, I know I will never, ever play it again... while Portal 2 gets pulled down from time to time like a favorite book... although I rarely find the time to revisit old friends, especially when there's so many games in my collection still waiting to be played.

And it's hard to figure out what makes a person want to replay a game. I enjoyed the last two Uncharted games a lot, happily buying the new one at full price... but as enjoyable as the experience, I doubt I'll ever sit down and play it again, as the game mechanics just aren't good enough to warrant re-visiting it. Lots of games have collectibles, but outside of sandbox games, I can't think of a single time collecting dog-tags or treasures enticed me to replay a game. But the fun game mechanics of Doom and Blood had me searching their worlds for every last secret.

But a lot of replay value simply comes from not having a lot of entertainment choices. The fewer games you buy, the more likely you'll suck every last bit of enjoyment out of it. Most of us have gone through periods of poverty where we had to ration our gaming and we often sat down to old, familiar friends.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Uhh.. No? While yes many of our great giants of today are sequels, at one point they where all gambles. Assassins Creed was a big gamble for Ubisoft, but from it has spawned one of the most iconic series of this console generation. Halo was a risk, Gears of war was a risk, Fallout 3, Morrowind, the list goes on and on. Every time a new IP is born it is a risk, but one the triple A industry is still taking. Yes there is a huge flood of sequels, but I think we and the industry are richer for these masterpieces that would only have been created after multiple iterations.

Short Version: Yes, at one point they DID take risks...but now they don't.
And I don't want to play the same fucking game year after year; but that's all I'm being offered now with these sequels.

Spoiler: Long Version

We see so few companies even trying to expand design space, or even try other things because their investors have them completely by the balls; they know their place and will gladly do anything to keep their (increasingly expendable) jobs.

You can claim that these "masterpieces" are the result of reiteration and refinement, and I'll just point out how increasingly derivative they have become. There are actually games out there where I literally cannot tell one game apart from the other if you put two screen shots next to each other.

So yes, we can have the latest iteration of Call of Duty 4.x and watch it set records each year, but due to the nature of business, this means that fewer and fewer alternative games will even get funding.
LET ME PUT THIS IN PERSPECTIVE: Call of Duty 4 is so fucking formulaic that even the original developers getting sacked in the midst of production didn't prevent the third and fourth installment from setting sales records.

And if a game's success is THAT CERTAIN, you can guess what the rest of the industry is going to do: Clone it. Clone it rapaciously. They will gut, cancel and and derail anything else to get on that bandwagon. And so they have. (Ghost Recon, Sniper, Battlefield...the list goes on)

I hate saying this because I sound like a fucking hippie, but popularity has completely replaced innovation and marketing data has replaced creativity. And the numbers back my argument up, if MW3 and Skyrim's sales figures are to be believed. (I have no reason to suspect they aren't; businesses love to brag out loud when they succeed wildly because it attracts other investors)

So I'll concede that the "industry" is getting richer because of it. But us? I won't presume to speak for everyone, but it's not enriching my experience one bit.
I'm tired of watching factory-model shooters roll off the digital assembly lines while nearly every other genre I know and loved sinks further and further into the realms of niche' appeal until it simply disappears.

You'd think that as big as gaming has become there would be a wider variety of demands within the market. Yet, reality argues to the contrary.

I'd love to see the year-end sales totals just to see how the revenue distribution looks (how much % of the industry's total revenue each game makes up on its own). I'd bet anything that less than 10 games would account for the bulk of that revenue at this point.

Unfortunately, we will never get to see that distribution; you only get sales figures when someone is reporting a smashing success, and most games by FAR are not that. Nobody reports failures or other sales figures for competitive reasons. In a business this cutthroat, you cannot afford to even suggest weakness.

 

[ResonanceGames]

Short Version: Yes, at one point they DID take risks...but now they don't.
And I don't want to play the same fucking game year after year; but that's all I'm being offered now with these sequels.

You're willfully ignoring the tons of new IPs that come out all the time. Why?

Mirror's Edge, Bioshock, Dishonored, Rage, Metro 2033, Singularity, Bastion, Shadows of the Damned, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. And that's just the last 4 years.

Lots of sequels =/= no new IPs.

Point out a time when sequels weren't constantly being made. There were 11 Ultima titles made in 10 years (some of them spinoffs.) Multiple Marios. Dark Forces had 4 sequels in 9 years. I could go on.

The industry has always been this way.

 

[CrystalShadow]

A) In a Free Market the market decides the value of something not its creator,

The first big problem with your point is here. Goods aren't just priced according to demand, otherwise your second incorrect point -- that piracy causes games to be valued at zero -- would be correct. Games are priced on a demand curve which looks at price vs quantity demanded. Publishers have found that dropping the price in half sells about twice as many units, increasing revenue by zero. If they were just priced due to unbridled demand they would be much cheaper and sell more copies (but make less or the same amount of money). Steam has challenged the way that this demand curve works, but only with digital games that are advertised a certain way. In retail this still holds true.

What you're saying here misses a rather crucial point. Games (along with other things covered by copyright in general) tend to equate to a legally enforced monopoly.

The pricing reflects this, because to a large extent it is detached from both supply and demand. (Supply is essentially infinite by nature, but artificially limited to induce a value greater than $0 for the copyright holder.)

Demand isn't infinite, but it is closely related to price. However, since there is no meaningful competition at the supply side, while there IS competition on the demand side, the price is almost anything the seller wants it to be.
(Possibly mitigated by there being other games in existence. But only partially.)

Piracy:

1. practice of a pirate; robbery....
2. the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book, recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc.

Theft pure and simple.

Sorry to burst your bubble but unauthorized reproduction does not equal theft.

So what does crazy quasi new-age thinking say it is then?

So, if a person decides they want to play a game for free and they download it from some torrent site, got a crack to play it, and then played the game, that is not stealing?

Wrong, it is stealing, they took a product. Because there is an infinite supply and it isn't physical doesn't matter, they got a product without paying what the company or retail stores are charging for it.

That is theft.

You obviously didn't read the definition that you quoted in my post. The definition of piracy is theft/robbery. It even has the unauthorized reproduction after robbery.

I didn't make it up.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/piracy

I seriously believe that the "it is not theft" defense is the battle cry of people that in some way pirate something, or have done it in the past and are feeling guilty and what to make themselves feel better.

Downloading something for free, that people worked hard on and should get paid for, is stealing. To say otherwise, if not doing it to protect oneself, is going against common sense. Again, product got downloaded for free, the creators didn't get paid, that is stealing.

Firstly, the dictionary contains two seperate definitions of piracy.
One definition has no bearing on the other. They show definitions that each have meaning in a different context. But that doesn't mean the explanation for one definition holds any weight for the other.

Theft is theft. Copyright infringement is copyright infringement. Both are crimes. But saying one equals the other is stupid, and misleading.

For that matter, calling it "Intellectual Property" is one of the most misleading ideas ever.

It reinforces the rather dubious notion that you can own ideas.
Which is not only NOT the reason copyright laws exist, but also ultimately a dangerous and unworkable idea that, if left unchecked would eventually cripple all creativity and innovation.

The point of copyright is an agreement meant to encourage people to create works and release them to the public domain. The copyright itself is a temporary measure meant to provide some kind of financial incentive for basically giving your work to the public.

That this involves a short-term ability to control who gets to make copies or derivations of your work is a means to an end, NOT a goal in it's own right.

In this regard, the constant extension of copyright terms to make them ever longer in duration is slowly distorting the intent of these laws, and creating a situation that could be regarded as the opposite of what was intended.

But... Of course, the people benefiting from the way these laws work are doing their utmost to convince people that the current situation is the only correct and just way this should work.
All the while trying to hide what the obligation to society that you take on when you are granted copyright on something...

And yes, having an infinite supply of something DOES make a difference. Economics and ownership are highly dependent on the notion of limited resources. If you remove that as a factor, trying to artificially limit distribution of something is disingenuous.
That's not to say it's OK to copy such things without permission. But the reason for this isn't some inherent right to control 'your' creation, but the reality that while some things have an unlimited supply, others do not. And that leads to a choice about either making the products with effectively infinite supply value-less, or artificially inflating their value to make it possible to trade them against something which has value due to it's inherently limited supply.
And since people need several of these limited resources just to stay alive... It's a tradeoff to help people survive and let them devote their time to creating new ideas, stories, and so on.
In other words, it's a deal made between individuals and society as a whole whose primary goal is to enrich our collective culture by making it possible for individuals to devote themselves to this goal rather than having to do something else just to survive.

 

[Something Amyss]

What I get from this is "How DARE people have values that differ from mine? Stupid people...Ruining the industry with their own tastes!"

Also, that the only defining standard of value is length.

And that the topic creator doesn't understand the free market.

Of course I think that is stupid, but it hits me more because I am a writer that hopes one day to get a book or two published, and get paid for it as well.

As someone who is attempting to get published, I wouldn't worry too much about getting paid. The largest targets of piracy are also the biggest sellers and still make money, the less popular titles tend not to see a lot of piracy.

That's not to say piracy is right, because it's not. I dislike the fact that people feel entitled to enjoy others' work for free. Worrying about piracy, however, is basically a waste of time. People are going to do it the second you're published. There's not much anyone can do about it. Lawsuits don't work. DRM doesn't work. Threats and pleas don't work.

It shouldn't really hit you worse because "it could happen to me."

Piracy:

1. practice of a pirate; robbery....

The problem here is one is only supposed to use "[....]" to indicate removal of unimportant parts. You left out an important part: "At sea."

This was likely intentional and wholly dishonest. Not only that, but definition 1 is not what we're talking about. I think you knew that as well.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

if a game is short it should have replay value atleast.
if the game lies mostly in the online rather the single player, i think that should be stated somewhere on the box as none fans of online may feel ripped off by a 6 - 8 hour solo campagne.

 

[ResonanceGames]

What you're saying here misses a rather crucial point. Games (along with other things covered by copyright in general) tend to equate to a legally enforced monopoly.

The pricing reflects this, because to a large extent it is detached from both supply and demand. (Supply is essentially infinite by nature, but artificially limited to induce a value greater than $0 for the copyright holder.)

Demand isn't infinite, but it is closely related to price.
(Possibly mitigated by there being other games in existence. But only partially.)

What the heck are you on about? You literally have not responded to a single point I made, you're just tossing around a bunch of tangentially related theory.

However, since there is no meaningful competition at the supply side, while there IS competition on the demand side, the price is almost anything the seller wants it to be.

Yeah. Because that's how a demand curve WORKS in this situation. Demand is potentially greater than supply only because the higher price point brings in the most revenue. It has nothing to do with the publisher's ability to create more copies of games, and no one said it did.

 

[CrystalShadow]

What you're saying here misses a rather crucial point. Games (along with other things covered by copyright in general) tend to equate to a legally enforced monopoly.

The pricing reflects this, because to a large extent it is detached from both supply and demand. (Supply is essentially infinite by nature, but artificially limited to induce a value greater than $0 for the copyright holder.)

Demand isn't infinite, but it is closely related to price.
(Possibly mitigated by there being other games in existence. But only partially.)

What the heck are you on about? You literally have not responded to a single point I made, you're just tossing around a bunch of tangentially related theory.

You're trying to refute the OP without regard to what the OP was even saying.
Thus, I essentially filled in the missing information.

However, since there is no meaningful competition at the supply side, while there IS competition on the demand side, the price is almost anything the seller wants it to be.

Yeah. Because that's how a demand curve WORKS in this situation. Demand is potentially greater than supply only because the higher price point brings in the most revenue. It has nothing to do with the publisher's ability to create more copies of games, and no one said it did.

Do you really not see what you did?

I was going to make some lengthy response to this, but then I realised there's no reason to.

And it's entirely down to your 'refutation' of the OP being so inadequate that I felt I had to fill in the gaps. Hence why my opening statement is 'What you're saying here misses a rather crucial point.'

(By the way, the main thing wrong with the OP's statement is 'In a free market', which anything which involves copyright is not, by definition. Your argument doesn't cover that at all, but you spend your time explaining something which is only true as a direct consequence of this fact.)