Total Biscuit vs the Jimquisition

[Sherokain]

A thought that occurred to me about his argument around 12 minutes regarding paying of server costs, it doesn't hold water about games without multi-player or that shouldn't have had multi-player in the first place. CoD sells millions of units as well as DLC and the like, right? So they shouldn't really have to worry about server costs. Conversely if a game has a tacked, mundane or just poor multi-player mode then that was their decision to add it and the server costs is their burden to bear. This is just coming from someone who;s really not a fan of the multi-player experience mind you but if its well implemented ill give it a go.

 

[Vigormortis]

WhoTF is Total Biscuit? And why is the name being used in the same sentence as Jim's?

Because, like Jim, TB's a cocky, arrogant, smug s.o.b. with a British accent.

Difference being, it's not an act with TB.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

To everyone who says "Used games take away from a developer" let me say this. Unless they are contracted for royalties or published the game themselves they do not (and should not) get ANY money from game sales. The reason is they are already paid to make the game, they don't get paid after (again unless it's in the contract and that is a stupid deal to make). If you bought a game used that EA published (Mass Effect 3) then EA didn't get the money for that game, programmer Joe won't lose that money. Second issue I have with this, why should a publisher be able to double dip once a sale is made. By the way people act we shouldn't be able to share anything without paying the maker of the product per person we share it to.

Lets make it fair, if we want to watch a movie we bought (not rented, bought) and wanted to have a movie night then you should have to pay the movie studio/publisher a fee per person. And if you wanna say that is too far it really isn't, because you bought the movie for your personal entertainment, not a license to share with others. If you have a family and you want to buy a movie the whole family can enjoy, then you need to buy each member a copy. Can't share accounts either, if you bought a app with one account and you want your who ever to play with it, you should buy that person a copy of the app on his account (or tell him to buy it himself).

Also games have costed 50-80 dollars in the bloody 90's and I don't wanna hear crap about pricing. If publishers want to charge more nothing will stop them, most did it because a game had "24 megs of memory". We have games that can go up in the millions, yet is at a stable 60 bucks.

That's the developers owned by publishers. Not independent studios. Not everyone is owned by EA or Activision. deals based on sales are made, because "paying a dev for a game" only applies if the publisher's offer of "make this for this platform" offer is taken or publishers take an interest in the game early in development.

Past that, its sales. Publishers take a huge amounts of profits though, with rumors going as high as 30-50%. Developers DO NOT get paid enough from publishers, and neither from console manufacturers for exclusives.

Developers should get royalties because they are the ones on the line here, they have the bulk of the risk because how cut throat publishers are.

...for the first part let me said this, yeah I know I even said

Unless they are contracted for royalties or published the game themselves they do not (and should not) get ANY money from game sales.

pretty much saying they have to publish the game on their own.

And do you know why a publisher takes in a huge amount of money? Because they are the ones investing on the project. They in a nut shell are contracting people to make a project for them, and most of the time that contract doesn't include royalties. And I don't think developers should get royalties, because the only risk they have is getting let go by the publisher if the game does poorly. And if the game does well the publisher keeps them to make more games, so the only risk is if they do a piss poor job and not being a asset to the publisher to keep. The most risk a developer has is IF the game did poorly (which honestly can be seen as you did a bad job) he is let go, or his studio gets let go. While that is bad, a publisher is still out of a lot of money in trying to sell the game.

In the end they both want to make as much money as possible, that's what a company does.

Not always. When a finished game is brought to them, they have to make the CDs and market it. Funding a project means the developer is owned by the publisher.

However, finished games looking for a publishers are still common, and the notion that publishers have the huge risk when the manufacturing of the games costs only a couple cents and yet they get the majority of the profits is unethical. Its only a risk if they fund an "out there" game, but publishers don't always do that and they are fearful to do that.

The "they are there to make money" is no defense when publishers and retailers are driving the industry into the ground and the only ones who don't benefit are developers and consumers.

No where in the phrase "make money" does it mean "crash the industry and fuck everyone else over and in turn, yourself." Steam proved that along time ago.

....So your telling me there are studios that make a game with no outside funding of a publisher, and then take it to a publisher and says "Here take our game and print it for your benefit"? If there is someone who works hard on a project like that and it wasn't opened source and just gave it away they are stupid. I highly doubt a studio would be stupid enough to give a game to a publisher without drawing up a contract about how much they would get for it up front (at the least). Also you seem to think that all a publisher does it just prints a game, I guess all the money dumped into marketing events doesn't count huh.

And not gonna lie I think Nintendo proved it more so with their very very strict rules on who could publisher for their system. Also the video game industry isn't going to "crash" just because a few company are pulling dick moves.

1)There were to many game systems that did the same thing, you could go to a store and see that copy of frogger work for like 50 different systems. And if you dropped money on that system you better hope it's supported for two years at least, so far we have a 7 year generation still going on.

2)Gaming making was very hard to get into back then and not as cheap. Most (if not all) consoles back then used assembly code to make games. And you couldn't just recycle code for a new game, back then you had to rebuild everything for each game. Now we have ungodly amount of game engines and frameworks that anyone can make a game with more ease. Now a days (hell in the 90's even) we use programming languages like C/C++/Java/C#/Javascript/Python to make computer games. Consoles not so much cause if that company goes so does their devkits to make the game for their system. In short only consoles would be hurt from any crash.

3)To go with point two, it's so easy (now a days) to get into game making for PC's if you have time and willing to learn you can make a game. I get a email about the guy who started in Napoleon Dynamite is making a RPG and is getting money on kick starter to help fund it.

4)It's easy to deliver games to the people now, we don't have to have a console maker or publisher or store to publish a game. I can fart out a RPG and host it on dropbox or my own server for people to download.

5)Gaming back then wasn't also main/pop culture at all, it was in the shadows at best. Back then it was seen as a kids toy (Hell Nintendo had to advertise the NES in the US as a computer at first), but now it's everywhere in the public eye. It's not some fad that will die off as easy.

So yeah I'm so sick of people saying "The market will crash cause of company X", for consoles yeah but at this point it won't kill gaming completely.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

To everyone who says "Used games take away from a developer" let me say this. Unless they are contracted for royalties or published the game themselves they do not (and should not) get ANY money from game sales. The reason is they are already paid to make the game, they don't get paid after (again unless it's in the contract and that is a stupid deal to make). If you bought a game used that EA published (Mass Effect 3) then EA didn't get the money for that game, programmer Joe won't lose that money. Second issue I have with this, why should a publisher be able to double dip once a sale is made. By the way people act we shouldn't be able to share anything without paying the maker of the product per person we share it to.

Lets make it fair, if we want to watch a movie we bought (not rented, bought) and wanted to have a movie night then you should have to pay the movie studio/publisher a fee per person. And if you wanna say that is too far it really isn't, because you bought the movie for your personal entertainment, not a license to share with others. If you have a family and you want to buy a movie the whole family can enjoy, then you need to buy each member a copy. Can't share accounts either, if you bought a app with one account and you want your who ever to play with it, you should buy that person a copy of the app on his account (or tell him to buy it himself).

Also games have costed 50-80 dollars in the bloody 90's and I don't wanna hear crap about pricing. If publishers want to charge more nothing will stop them, most did it because a game had "24 megs of memory". We have games that can go up in the millions, yet is at a stable 60 bucks.

That's the developers owned by publishers. Not independent studios. Not everyone is owned by EA or Activision. deals based on sales are made, because "paying a dev for a game" only applies if the publisher's offer of "make this for this platform" offer is taken or publishers take an interest in the game early in development.

Past that, its sales. Publishers take a huge amounts of profits though, with rumors going as high as 30-50%. Developers DO NOT get paid enough from publishers, and neither from console manufacturers for exclusives.

Developers should get royalties because they are the ones on the line here, they have the bulk of the risk because how cut throat publishers are.

...for the first part let me said this, yeah I know I even said

Unless they are contracted for royalties or published the game themselves they do not (and should not) get ANY money from game sales.

pretty much saying they have to publish the game on their own.

And do you know why a publisher takes in a huge amount of money? Because they are the ones investing on the project. They in a nut shell are contracting people to make a project for them, and most of the time that contract doesn't include royalties. And I don't think developers should get royalties, because the only risk they have is getting let go by the publisher if the game does poorly. And if the game does well the publisher keeps them to make more games, so the only risk is if they do a piss poor job and not being a asset to the publisher to keep. The most risk a developer has is IF the game did poorly (which honestly can be seen as you did a bad job) he is let go, or his studio gets let go. While that is bad, a publisher is still out of a lot of money in trying to sell the game.

In the end they both want to make as much money as possible, that's what a company does.

Not always. When a finished game is brought to them, they have to make the CDs and market it. Funding a project means the developer is owned by the publisher.

However, finished games looking for a publishers are still common, and the notion that publishers have the huge risk when the manufacturing of the games costs only a couple cents and yet they get the majority of the profits is unethical. Its only a risk if they fund an "out there" game, but publishers don't always do that and they are fearful to do that.

The "they are there to make money" is no defense when publishers and retailers are driving the industry into the ground and the only ones who don't benefit are developers and consumers.

No where in the phrase "make money" does it mean "crash the industry and fuck everyone else over and in turn, yourself." Steam proved that along time ago.

....So your telling me there are studios that make a game with no outside funding of a publisher, and then take it to a publisher and says "Here take our game and print it for your benefit"? If there is someone who works hard on a project like that and it wasn't opened source and just gave it away they are stupid. I highly doubt a studio would be stupid enough to give a game to a publisher without drawing up a contract about how much they would get for it up front (at the least). Also you seem to think that all a publisher does it just prints a game, I guess all the money dumped into marketing events doesn't count huh.

And not gonna lie I think Nintendo proved it more so with their very very strict rules on who could publisher for their system. Also the video game industry isn't going to "crash" just because a few company are pulling dick moves.

1)There were to many game systems that did the same thing, you could go to a store and see that copy of frogger work for like 50 different systems. And if you dropped money on that system you better hope it's supported for two years at least, so far we have a 7 year generation still going on.

2)Gaming making was very hard to get into back then and not as cheap. Most (if not all) consoles back then used assembly code to make games. And you couldn't just recycle code for a new game, back then you had to rebuild everything for each game. Now we have ungodly amount of game engines and frameworks that anyone can make a game with more ease. Now a days (hell in the 90's even) we use programming languages like C/C++/Java/C#/Javascript/Python to make computer games. Consoles not so much cause if that company goes so does their devkits to make the game for their system. In short only consoles would be hurt from any crash.

3)To go with point two, it's so easy (now a days) to get into game making for PC's if you have time and willing to learn you can make a game. I get a email about the guy who started in Napoleon Dynamite is making a RPG and is getting money on kick starter to help fund it.

4)It's easy to deliver games to the people now, we don't have to have a console maker or publisher or store to publish a game. I can fart out a RPG and host it on dropbox or my own server for people to download.

5)Gaming back then wasn't also main/pop culture at all, it was in the shadows at best. Back then it was seen as a kids toy (Hell Nintendo had to advertise the NES in the US as a computer at first), but now it's everywhere in the public eye. It's not some fad that will die off as easy.

So yeah I'm so sick of people saying "The market will crash cause of company X", for consoles yeah but at this point it won't kill gaming completely.

Developers make the game, its the PUBLISHER'S JOB to JUST publish and market.

Publishers do the marketing, they do the manufacturing. That's IT for the deal when the finished game is presented to them. In return for the game copies and the marketing, they get a portion of the sales.

HOWEVER, they take the majority portion because they get greedy. Enough to turn any game into a flop when it isn't call of duty.

You cannot self publish outside the digital world of PC's steam. Outside PC gaming and its ties to the internet, You NEED a publisher.

Do I really have to explain the inner workings of what a publisher does to you? There ARE contracts, but publishers don't work in a developer's favor. Publishers allow you to get marketing and manufacturing down so you DON'T have to spend a portion of your funding to marketing until after the game is done.

And secondly, yes it has happened before. Console gaming has crashed for unrealistic expectations. Since publishers hold a monopoly, all it takes is a few publishers to make a dick move.

PC gaming is irrelevant to the publishing world. PC gaming has largely down away with non-steam publishers.

Even then, to say publishers have huge risk is stretching it, because all they do is make the copies and market it while making money off the sales.

I would hope you wouldn't have to explain publishing to me seeing how I am a contracted developer, hell I even had a talk with a higher up about the project I'm working on. And if the project were to go south guess who eats crap, not me it would be the person paying for the finished product (Not the company I work for but my contractor) or the product I'm support to work on for them. I am getting paid for my services by the publisher/customer (it's the same person in my case) for my software work, and the exceptional work I've done with it and the good reception from the customer help give me a pay raise for my yearly review. Kinda like a game developer gets paid for his work and if it's in his contract and does a good job gets a pay raise. The worse that will happen is we can't renew the contract when it expires. A lot of devs with publishers have to give a budget to the people paying them to explain why they need the money, it's more then "printing and marketing". Because a good chunk of the time a publisher would have to the right to print the game, that would be how a dev would get paid for the finished product.

Also I explained why console gaming crashed in my last post

1)There were to many game systems that did the same thing, you could go to a store and see that copy of frogger work for like 50 different systems. And if you dropped money on that system you better hope it's supported for two years at least, so far we have a 7 year generation still going on.

That was a huge reason why it crashed (not counting ports that really really bombed like Pacman and ET), people were confused and burned out on this RCXQ Pong game that does the same thing as the YOPI Pong game. After that crash you don't see 50 consoles doing the same thing with the same games with slightly different graphics. Also joe blow couldn't just say I wanna make a game do go at it back then that easily. Now a days I can write a game on my DSi if I was so inclined to.

I'm done talking about this with you, we are not going to agree on this argument. And

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

If videogames weren't $120 at launch I might have some sympathy for publishers, who as far as I know get most of that money. Retailers make about $10 per new game sale over here in Australia. It's a case of "if you buy used, you aren't supporting devs, but the only way to support devs is to get ripped off by the publishers." Another thing is, as Jim has said, publishers aren't going to reduce game prices just because they've eliminated used games. They'll find another reason for them to remain as high as they are now. Case in point, Australia, where the high prices used to come from difficulty of transportation of goods, an obstacle which has long since evaporated. While I don't necessarily agree from experience that retailers aggressively hawk used games (often when I've seen them they are on the bottom shelf stacked with spines outwards so you can see what the game is), they do offer bonuses for trade-ins and do provide good prices for used games, but I see this as a reaction to the pitiful profit margins on new games and publishers' constant efforts to devalue used games. Lastly, before I ramble too much, used games fund new games, and retailers often encourage this behaviour with trade-in deals.

 

[BabySinclair]

What we're really looking at, and what TB and Jim are approaching from different angles, is that on consoles, there is a two-middleman system in place. The Developers rely on publishers for money, PR, etc; who then sells the game to retailers, who then sell it to consumers. This is where it all breaks down. Developers want to make games (and some profit), Publishers want to make a profit, Retailers want to make a profit, and consumers want to play games. Both Publishers and Retailers want to maximize profit and since consumers have a finite amount of money to spend, by increasing their own profit decreases the profits of the other. Publishers use the money they make to invest in new games and pay stupid salaries to top employees, retail companies want to stay open and pay stupid salaries to the company heads (owning and actual franchise store or stand-alone store is usually not very lucrative.) Yay economic politics.

 

[jnixon]

i don't remember ever going to a counter at a shop and them trying to sell a used game to me over the one i have in my hand

 

[Rariow]

Both sides of the argument have a number of really good points, but I'll have to come down on Jim's side. This is just the newest scapegoat for the industry to excuse having completely ridiculous expectations (First it was renting games, then piracy, now this). That, and I've had to buy used for most of my life, and only recently have I been able to afford new games. Without used games, there'd be one less loyal customer for new games, as I would've lost interest in gaming long ago if not for used games, and I'm sure I'm not the only one here who's gone through those stages.

Don't get me wrong, TB makes a lot of good points, but I simply think that this is the developers being unreasonable, not the retailers being moneygrubbing. Proof: uPlay and Origin both sell games at full price when there's no reason to: they don't have to answer to the retailers, they don't have to print the box and CD (which, believe it or not, do add a fair chunk to the price). The way to solve this problem is to move to digital, and encourage consumers to buy 1st hand, not to screw the segment of the population that can't buy first hand.

 

[jnixon]

Always on jims side, how could anyone side with companies that give the "evil" stores little to no profit and constantly pull shit like on disk dlc, DRM. If the publishers are hurt by used games, good. our wallets are hurt by their shitty practices so i'm not too quick to sympathise

 

[jnixon]

i don't remember ever going to a counter at a shop and them trying to sell a used game to me over the one i have in my hand

It happens. Gamestop (US, Canada) and GAME drill this into your head like crazy. A close friend will testify that Gamestop does it, and I've seen them doing it during training with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears, and in appropriate context. I went to go try to buy Dark Souls new a month ago, and the guy offered me a used copy eleven times in less than two minutes. I just gave up at that point, which I regret, because it becomes a bigger hassle than its worth dealing with it. I buy most of my games online because its like that almost every single time I go to buy a game that I didn't already have pre-ordered.

Oh fair enough i guess, to be fair to them when they earn worthwhile profit on used opposed to new it does make sense and i think rightly so, they should

 

[Aeonknight]

i don't remember ever going to a counter at a shop and them trying to sell a used game to me over the one i have in my hand

I do. Has happened a few times actually.

 

[Jynthor]

i don't remember ever going to a counter at a shop and them trying to sell a used game to me over the one i have in my hand

Same, maybe it just differs per country but over here, you just walk up to the counter with the game, you pay, and that's it. People never try to sell you extra stuff or mention they have used copies.

 

[Werewolfkid]

To summarise;

Sterling: Stop blaming retail stores, it's all because of the publishers! Microsoft is ruining the video games industry!

Bain: Stop blaming the developers and the publishers, it's all because of the retail stores! Blame Gamestop! Used games are ruining the video games industry!


I'm grossly oversimplifying, but I feel like they've both got tunnel vision. No one is innocent here. The stores and the publishers are all sharks trying to take chunks out of each other - and us.

Publishers demand a large share of new game sales, so retail stores turn to used games.

Used games and piracy start to pose a vague, murky threat to publisher profits, so they start introducing DRM and online passes.

DRM and online passes cut into the used games markets, so retail stores start pressuring developers into preorder bonuses, under threat of boycotting their products.

There isn't a 'good guy' here, except - maybe - the developers, the ickle dolphins in a pool of big angry sharks with big angry hardons for profit.

This is the best summery of how all these anti-consumer business practices came to be. The big question now is how do we fix it. There are no easy answers, but I think it is our duty as gamers and as consumers to try and figure out a way to try and make things better. I don't even know where to begin.