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Infernoplex: Top quality argument.
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spinefarm: My point was that they work like Steam ;)
You know what is most rage inducing about you? It's not the fact that all your arguments are ad hominem or straight out retarded it is the fact that you add emoticons to all your posts. Feels like arguing with a 13 year old girl or an angsty teenager.
Gabe Newell on game pricing: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/10/24/less-is-more-gabe-newell-on-game-pricing/
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spinefarm: My point was that they work like Steam ;)
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Infernoplex: You know what is most rage inducing about you? It's not the fact that all your arguments are ad hominem or straight out retarded it is the fact that you add emoticons to all your posts. Feels like arguing with a 13 year old girl or an angsty teenager.
And you say that cause you are sitting infront of your computer raging about some posts on a forum ... Yey.

“The sale is a highly promoted event that has ancillary media like comic books and movies associated with it. We do a 75 percent price reduction, our Counter-Strike experience tells us that our gross revenue would remain constant. Instead what we saw was our gross revenue increased by a factor of 40. Not 40 percent, but a factor of 40. Which is completely not predicted by our previous experience with silent price variation.”
/thread

The people are happy. The Developers/Rightholders are happy. Just gog is crying about lost emotional values and "magic" and trys to guilt trick people into paying more.
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Infernoplex: You know what is most rage inducing about you? It's not the fact that all your arguments are ad hominem or straight out retarded it is the fact that you add emoticons to all your posts. Feels like arguing with a 13 year old girl or an angsty teenager.
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spinefarm: And you say that cause you are sitting infront of your computer raging about some posts on a forum ... Yey.
And you make the physical effort to anwser me which consumes even more energy than the psychological reaction your post can cause ;)))))
Post edited April 07, 2012 by Infernoplex
Um... if I don't want a game, I don't buy it, regardless of price. That does not make sense. That's like saying "I don't like liver, but damn it's such a good deal at the store right now I better stock up anyway."

Now, if it's something I've been on the fence about and it goes on sale, then perhaps I would consider it.

But still, one bad thing about digital downloads is, if you buy a game and end up not liking it, what can you do with it? Nothing. To me, that idea right there is what devalues a game and possibly turns it into a "throwaway". At least with a physical copy you could sell it, even for just a few bucks. But with digital, what can you do with a game you've already registered and played? If you don't like it, it ceases to have any value.
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DieRuhe: Um... if I don't want a game, I don't buy it, regardless of price. That does not make sense. That's like saying "I don't like liver, but damn it's such a good deal at the store right now I better stock up anyway."
Then you're not like the regular person. Most people tend to agree to buy something when they think that it's a life time oppurtunity, even if they won't ever buy it under regular circumstances. It's a fact that's been known long before the promos in the video game business started. Our neighbour once even bought a second car that was still expensive and he actually would've never even considered buying - simply because its price was heavily reduced.
Post edited April 07, 2012 by F4LL0UT
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Aver: I wanted to post "What the hell he is talking about?!", but then I read interview and I must kinda agree with some points. I personally bought a few games that I didn't want just because they were on sale and later I was like "why the hell did I buy this?". ;)

But overall I like sales, but Steam and other digital distributors probably like them even more because of reasons pointed out by Guillame.
It's interesting the statistics Steam has used in the past--which I believe--that talk about things like selling as much as 7500% (75x) the volume when certain pieces of software have gone on sale--like in a 50% or 75%-off sale.

Doing a little basic math it's easy to see why Steam might do this...use $10 as the price of a game, let's say. Let's also say that the game sells 10 copies @ $10, but when it goes on sale for $2.50 (75% off) it sells 750 copies (75x). OK, 750x$2.50=$1875 in revenue versus 10x$10=$100 in revenues when selling the game at its normal msrp over the same period of time.

Which set of numbers do you think is preferred by Steam, the publisher, the developer, and the gaming customer? The *sale* is clearly a win for everyone involved. Not having the sale, in cases like this, is clearly what would be termed a disaster for everyone.

You cannot pick game MSRP's out of thin air as if there is some kind of unwritten law that dictates what every game should cost regardless of whether it's any good. That's ridiculous, but that's something all too many developers and publishers fall into, and it is an exceedingly bad habit. The fact is that a given game is worth what the market will bear, and no more. If few people think a game is worth $10 then few people will buy it, and unfortunately many people may pirate that game. But if reducing the price by 75% suddenly makes the game irresistible in the marketplace then many people will buy it and few people will pirate it--which makes for the best all-around results possible, and everyone is happy.

Besides, talking about "buying a bad game because it goes on sale for $4.99" is simply looking at the issue backwards. You'd be hurt a lot more, and your pain would be much greater, if you paid $49.95 for that rotten game, right? Whether it costs $4.99 or $49.99, there are no refunds available after you have tried the product. But the fact is that every game made has a price equilibrium that it will hit. Some games hit it on release day--like Skyrim @$60, or Starcraft II @&60--but other games get a bad rap, deservedly or not, and don't start selling until the price is driven lower. This is just basic economics.

To give you a personal example, as I said, Skyrim was a megahit right out of the gate @$60--but I refused to buy it at that price because, well, I don't think any PC game these days should cost that much, but that's just me...;) During Christmas, Steam ran a sale selling Skyrim for $40.14, and I bought it. For me, that was the price equilibrium for Skyrim that turned me into a paying customer as opposed to a non-customer. And was Skyrim a bad game that I regretted buying because it was on sale? Hell, no! It's worth every penny--and I've had people tell me they were happy to have paid $60 for the game--and I have to say that in this case I agree with them.

Honestly--I think anyone who laments PC game sales on the incredibly flimsy grounds that low costs might entice him to buy a bad game--is nutsola!...;) Bonkers...;) Etc. Those people remind me of folks who swear up & down that they want to pay more taxes just so Congress can raise the debt ceiling again next year, and then raise taxes again...:D
Post edited April 07, 2012 by waltc
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DieRuhe: Um... if I don't want a game, I don't buy it, regardless of price. That does not make sense. That's like saying "I don't like liver, but damn it's such a good deal at the store right now I better stock up anyway."
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F4LL0UT: Then you're not like the regular person. Most people tend to agree to buy something when they think that it's a life time oppurtunity, even if they won't ever buy it under regular circumstances. It's a fact that's been known long before the promos in the video game business started. Our neighbour once even bought a second car that was still expensive and he actually would've never even considered buying - simply because its price was heavily reduced.
I'd like to agree with your post but there is a diffrence between not liking a game and not buying it for a certain price. I don't believe that there are many people out there buying games they really don't like just because it's on sale.
I did not like Orcs must die for the full price back then but gladly bought it when it went on sale and was only 5€. Me and a few friends enjoyed it throughly and there wouldn't have been any of our purchases without the sale. I would even go as far as saying that I would've enjoyed it less if I had payed more and that making a bargain deal was part of the excitement.
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DieRuhe: Um... if I don't want a game, I don't buy it, regardless of price. That does not make sense. That's like saying "I don't like liver, but damn it's such a good deal at the store right now I better stock up anyway."
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F4LL0UT: Then you're not like the regular person. Most people tend to agree to buy something when they think that it's a life time oppurtunity, even if they won't ever buy it under regular circumstances. It's a fact that's been known long before the promos in the video game business started. Our neighbour once even bought a second car that was still expensive and he actually would've never even considered buying - simply because its price was heavily reduced.
But you have to admit he does have a point. I'm sure there are a lot of games out there that you'd avoid like the plague even if Steam sold them for next to nothing in a promo sale.
This is just another sign that our quaint little old game site is getting too big for its britches.

I can't imagine buying anything from GOG going forward adter the travesty that was the Spring comference. The South Park Wallmart episode comes to mind...
Good God. CD Projekt is a farce. Always adopting this 'edgy' tone. The anti DRM schtick... it's all a marketing scheme. You made a solid ARPG series that's heavy on the A and fairly light on the RPG (by anyone's account who actually knows what a cRPG is) and then cashed in on selling Dos Boxed warez. Hilarious to see this 'rebel' propaganda.
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F4LL0UT: Then you're not like the regular person. Most people tend to agree to buy something when they think that it's a life time oppurtunity, even if they won't ever buy it under regular circumstances. It's a fact that's been known long before the promos in the video game business started. Our neighbour once even bought a second car that was still expensive and he actually would've never even considered buying - simply because its price was heavily reduced.
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rampancy: But you have to admit he does have a point. I'm sure there are a lot of games out there that you'd avoid like the plague even if Steam sold them for next to nothing in a promo sale.
Thank you. That was exactly my point. If I'm not interested in a game I'm not going to buy it, regardless of price. If that makes me "irregular" that's pretty scary, lol.
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F4LL0UT: Then you're not like the regular person. Most people tend to agree to buy something when they think that it's a life time oppurtunity, even if they won't ever buy it under regular circumstances. It's a fact that's been known long before the promos in the video game business started. Our neighbour once even bought a second car that was still expensive and he actually would've never even considered buying - simply because its price was heavily reduced.
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Infernoplex: I'd like to agree with your post but there is a diffrence between not liking a game and not buying it for a certain price. I don't believe that there are many people out there buying games they really don't like just because it's on sale.
I did not like Orcs must die for the full price back then but gladly bought it when it went on sale and was only 5€. Me and a few friends enjoyed it throughly and there wouldn't have been any of our purchases without the sale. I would even go as far as saying that I would've enjoyed it less if I had payed more and that making a bargain deal was part of the excitement.
And all of this mean that game don't worth a shit in your eyes if it's not sold for 75% off on Steam... And that is why Valve(Steam) can do what they want with prices :)
I actually agree with TheEnigmaticT. Entering "backlog" in the forum search is all it takes to prove his point.
Losing a feature signifying production quality and a mass of untouched games preventing new purchases also seem like plausible implications from the industry's perspective.

On the other hand, the only (small) backlog I have is on GOG.com, might not be the norm but still an ironic context.
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forbidden5: I actually agree with TheEnigmaticT. Entering "backlog" in the forum search is all it takes to prove his point.
Losing a feature signifying production quality and a mass of untouched games preventing new purchases also seem like plausible implications from the industry's perspective.

On the other hand, the only (small) backlog I have is on GOG.com, might not be the norm but still an ironic context.
You contradict yourself. You say that people buy massive amounts of games even though they haven't played many of them and then state that they don't buy games because their library is too full. And even if it were true it is just how capitalism works. If there are to many video games the demand is simply going to decrease. The problem with videogames is just that they don't go bad as conventional products would and that the availability is unlimited. There are no secret video game mines that will be empty at some point and

Gog would also be a prime example for this. Why bother with new games when there is an entire library of goog old games for just 5.99 on our beloved gog.com? But you still play newer games don't you? I bet there are also loads of films good old or not so old films you could rent for cheap at your local video store but you still go to the cinema and you still watch newer films that aren't as cheap because you want to watch them sooner rather than later.