It's an edited aside, grow up.
Benifets to be a pirate gamer :(
- Thread starter ColdAsIce
- Start date
Soldato
i buy every album and game i like. none of my current consoles are modified infact. however, i know that there arent many people people who would do that. whether its a financial reason or because "free > paying for it" is down to the individual, usually a combination of both, i dont know. but one thing i do know is that we are in a minority and most downloaders just dont bother buying it.
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Soldato
Any links, or is this info considered dodgy?
Auction sites. Make sure its a UK code if you want to renew your current one though.
Interesting discussion, in some ways more related to business models than anything technically related.
Here are some random thoughts of mine :
1) If you are crap at games, you will pay 100% of the price without seeing 100% of the content. You will maybe see 10% of the content. How do you feel about that?
2) If the game is genuinely dull/uninspired/not your tastes, you will buy it, and get bored of it. Where is your 100% satisfaction when you have had 100% cost?
3) New games are often direct developments from old games, heavily influenced, or most of the organisational/development structures are all extensions rather than new additions. StreetFighter2 > SF2:HF > Super SF2 > Super SF2 Turbo etc. Now, you bought the original streetfighter 2, but now you want the new one, why do you have to pay full price for the new game, which is only 10% better than the old?
On the other side of the coin :
1) You create a game and toolset for players, they buy it once (such as NWN) you spend a great deal of time making the tools worthwhile, now the players make scenarios for themselves and you aren't needed. Where is the incentive to keep developing further tools?
2) You make a subscription based service (such as WoW) but make it so that the software is free to download. However, they mod it and run a private server, thus cutting your service out of the loop entirely. Where is the money in that?
3) You make characters/plotlines and they are ripped off in fanfiction / false stories. Where is your control/business model?
I think what companies should be doing is focussing on the added benefits that they can create, rather than focussing on the technology. Assuming that all gaming was open source and free, they should focus on the types of service that people *cannot* fake :
1) Well formed, canon storylines. Fan fiction is ok, but if the author meant Dumbledore to be gay, the 20 stories of him seducing Hermione aren't going to cut it.
2) Authenticity - whilst you can run custom servers for custom scenarios, an "independantly run, third party (neutral)" setup always allows to be independant from any cheating/breaking of the rules and guaranteeing the authenticity of the experience. So no soloing Onyxia with a melee mage wielding a candle.
3) Development - companies keep their development very much under their hats, but the software is merely a *tool* through which the rules of the game is adhered. Control of those rules is something to be cherished, but held responsibly. I've never seen something like WoW before where the community can "cry out" in disgust at some "feature" given to a player class, where the developers then "nerf" the feature beyond recognition (cry I'm a druid). Either way, these rules are to be constantly redefined, as opposed to simply being set in stone and cast away with the next game.
Here are some random thoughts of mine :
1) If you are crap at games, you will pay 100% of the price without seeing 100% of the content. You will maybe see 10% of the content. How do you feel about that?
2) If the game is genuinely dull/uninspired/not your tastes, you will buy it, and get bored of it. Where is your 100% satisfaction when you have had 100% cost?
3) New games are often direct developments from old games, heavily influenced, or most of the organisational/development structures are all extensions rather than new additions. StreetFighter2 > SF2:HF > Super SF2 > Super SF2 Turbo etc. Now, you bought the original streetfighter 2, but now you want the new one, why do you have to pay full price for the new game, which is only 10% better than the old?
On the other side of the coin :
1) You create a game and toolset for players, they buy it once (such as NWN) you spend a great deal of time making the tools worthwhile, now the players make scenarios for themselves and you aren't needed. Where is the incentive to keep developing further tools?
2) You make a subscription based service (such as WoW) but make it so that the software is free to download. However, they mod it and run a private server, thus cutting your service out of the loop entirely. Where is the money in that?
3) You make characters/plotlines and they are ripped off in fanfiction / false stories. Where is your control/business model?
I think what companies should be doing is focussing on the added benefits that they can create, rather than focussing on the technology. Assuming that all gaming was open source and free, they should focus on the types of service that people *cannot* fake :
1) Well formed, canon storylines. Fan fiction is ok, but if the author meant Dumbledore to be gay, the 20 stories of him seducing Hermione aren't going to cut it.
2) Authenticity - whilst you can run custom servers for custom scenarios, an "independantly run, third party (neutral)" setup always allows to be independant from any cheating/breaking of the rules and guaranteeing the authenticity of the experience. So no soloing Onyxia with a melee mage wielding a candle.
3) Development - companies keep their development very much under their hats, but the software is merely a *tool* through which the rules of the game is adhered. Control of those rules is something to be cherished, but held responsibly. I've never seen something like WoW before where the community can "cry out" in disgust at some "feature" given to a player class, where the developers then "nerf" the feature beyond recognition (cry I'm a druid). Either way, these rules are to be constantly redefined, as opposed to simply being set in stone and cast away with the next game.
Well inline with the online requirement to maintain licence revenues..
Source: inq
I guarantee that personal data will be needed to tie your key with it..
Annoying - I was looking forward to Spore... but reading the Bioware thread it's not as bad as it sounds. Only the illegal key generator that then starts getting legit players being banned is a high risk as it becomes a denial of service attack.
Source: inq
I guarantee that personal data will be needed to tie your key with it..
Annoying - I was looking forward to Spore... but reading the Bioware thread it's not as bad as it sounds. Only the illegal key generator that then starts getting legit players being banned is a high risk as it becomes a denial of service attack.
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Soldato
- Joined
- 12 Jan 2006
- Posts
- 2,547
Off topic:
I have been searching for ages to add descent songs to guitar hero, could someone please explain how this is done/point me to a site where it shows how to download/do it assuming it is allowed on this forum
I really rather avoid having to go to the extent of getting my console chipped or whatever for the sake of a few songs O_o
The marketplace has bugger all when it comes to downloadble content for GH3
I have been searching for ages to add descent songs to guitar hero, could someone please explain how this is done/point me to a site where it shows how to download/do it assuming it is allowed on this forum
I really rather avoid having to go to the extent of getting my console chipped or whatever for the sake of a few songs O_o
The marketplace has bugger all when it comes to downloadble content for GH3
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Caporegime
That's the nature of video games. If you suck at reading, you might give up on a book part way through, or might not understand it. Should you pay less for that too?
If you suck at games, you should practise or buy easier ones or pick a hobby you're better at.
Shoeski said:
Same goes for anything. Quality should be factored into price. It's your fault if you can't read reviews. Again, do you pay less because you think a book is crap?
Shoeski said:
You don't have to. You make a choice on whether to buy the game or not. If you want SF2 Turbo you buy it. If you don't think it's worth it, you keep playing the original SF.
Honestly, I'm failing to see how the decision that something isn't worth the price offered makes it OK to rip it off. If you don't think it's worth paying for, you don't buy it.
Shoeski said:
It's your fault if your business model works a bit too well and cuts you out of the picture. Lego are facing similar problems - their bricks are too good and last too long, so it's hard to get people to buy new sets when everyone has their grandparents Lego to play with. That's not an excuse for planned obsolescence though.
Shoeski said:
That's probably covered by any contracts that users agree to when downloading and subscribing. So you clobber them for breach of contract.
Shoeski said:
That depends on whether people profit from it or not. If someone else profits from your ideas then you may be able to get them under IP laws. If they aren't profiting then for one thing there's probably no loss, and for another there's probably nothing you can do about it.
Not entirely worthwhile reading reviews though is it. The vast majority of reviews are publisher led or biased, or just plain awful to read and don't actually discuss the quality of the content.
Caporegime
Fair enough. In that case, read independent reviews, blogs, watch video reviews on Youtube.
Either way, the point was that you don't get to pay less just because something is rubbish.
Von, I think your arguments are very old fashioned, and very black and white. Nowadays business models do not work on this "tough luck, should have done your research" approach. By bitesizing everything, producers can get feedback from consumers to better tailor their products for the future - making a bomb of a game for £100 that everyone buys and then finds is too hard to get past lvl 1 is not going to cut it.
The same goes for most of your other replies. Whilst the quality of any particular "instance" might be poor, the point is that your business model should be based on low cost of entry and high renewability. Unfortunately you have to make sure that you can deliver - which is why the whole half life 2 episodes is such a disaster... they just take too long to produce.
Take a leaf out of the sitcom/soaps book - reasonably high quality, reasonably high entertainment, low cost, high renewability. Those models have already been proven succesful.
EDIT : And for certain things, scalability is certainly an issue. Difficulty in games could be from an overall perspective, but "AI" can be scaled to be more/less difficult, gameplay doesn't need to be excessively difficult, it should be tailorable to the prospective customer.
Thats why nowadays most games have probably at least the first 3rd of the game, just dedicated to teaching the player how to play. Once the player knows how to play, the difficult can be adjusted to keep it competitive, to keep challenging the player.
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Except that it hasn't been a disaster at all has it? Given their sales.
Soldato
If you're crap at driving, does that mean the retailer should sell you a M3 Beamer for 10% of the price? If you're crap at poker, should poker web-sites charge you less for losing?
If you play the demo and find it dull and boring, then why would you buy the game in the first place?
Soldato
it doesnt? does that mean we can have cut price hardware and clothing because 'its not as good as i thought' or 'it doesnt fit quite right but i still like it'?
Their sales are entirely scalable. If they had been able to produce 2-3 times the number of episodes in the time it has taken them to produce the current number, their sales would have been increased (not necessarily fully scalable but certainly with an element of propertionality).
Sales alone is not an indication, scalability is, as Google have proved, in fact the entire industrial revolution proved, and most industries have proved since. It is the pipelines and toolsets that support the business models that we use. At the moment, when developer A/producer B moves from company A to company B, there is a bit of media attention and then it dies down. Only when the next game comes out do we really feel it. However, that can be years down the line, and the influence can be very small.
The video games industry is still, in my opinion, very very young. A couple of weekends ago, I spent the weekend playing games at a mates house on the consoles (as opposed to PC games which I usually play) and I have to say, apart from the Wii, which was good fun (Mario Kart/wii play/wii sports) the XBox was pretty dull... 3-4 FPS which don't translate well to the console imho and a couple of other titles... felt like I was back in 2000. Things have moved on a great deal since then, and not all of the changes are obvious...
Caporegime
Uh... In that situation the devs should have done their research. Besides, how many games are there that fall into this "OH NOES TOO HARD" bracket that you're whining about? Ninja Gaiden is about the hardest game I've heard of and that's very well loved.
Shoseki said:
Right... so episodic content is the way forward, but in practise it doesn't work. Brilliant. You might want to look at Sin Episodes - same thing happened there too. Besides, low cost of entry and high renewability isn't how it works. Video games move very fast, and the need for new and updated technology is massive. As such, creating a game engine is a very intensive task with high initial cost. After that, you've got to start over unless you think you can sell a few expansions, which is typically hard work - low renewability. I'm not sure how you propose to turn this on it's head without having everyone churn out simple games with little to no technology behind them. Well, unless you're releasing the Sims, that is.
Shoseki said:
Sitcoms and soaps are very different to games. Sets don't need updating for HDR lighting. You don't need to work on an actor's AI.
Shoseki said:
For one thing, AI is infamously hard work. For another, some games already do tailor themselves to a gamer's abilitiy, or at the very least they offer difficulty levels.
Shoseki said:
On a tangential note, shoudl a third of a game be taken up just in teaching a gamer how to play? Surely you're doing something wrong if it's that hard to pick up.
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Soldato
Same goes for all things bought and sold on ebay, 2nd hand cars etc. I don't see any moral or legal issue with that. In fact the devs and publishers don't even count these numbers where as they do count the sales lost to piracy.
When buying a piece of software you don't own the software but the right to use the software. This if you sell the right to use the software (ie the disk) that is your perogative. I think in the future wes shall see all games being digital download with no possibility to resell the game afterwards. (à la steam).
However, you have several players against this method including SONY themselves who sell millions of Blu Ray and DVDs every month.
Then you have drive makers who also wouldn't like to see that piece of hardware dry up.
What's to stop console makers selling a machine with good encryption and 2*750 gig HDs and having only downloadable content?
These points are unbelievably poor to be honest. When you go to the cinema and don't like a film should you get your money back? If you give up a book half way do you take it back to the shop and complain? No, it is the nature of these mediums that some people like them and others don't and you take that risk when you invest in them. If you are really bad at games you might play 90% and miss 10% not the other way round. You say why do you have to pay full price for a game which is only 10% better than the old? No one forces anyone to buy games. People can read reviews and previews and decide whether something looks like value for money. If they aren't happy paying same price for only a 10% improvement then they should just keep the old game and not buy the new one.
Ah, but there is a difference. Even if you are crap at driving/playing poker, you still get to experience the entirety of poker, even whilst being crap - you just might not win ^^. And anyone can buy a cheap pack of cards to play with a friend, it doesn't have to be for money (although as an ex-gambling addict, I'd say without the winning/losing, it definately loses it's adrenaline rush).
Ah, so we *do* have some mechanisms, however, the majority of games do not have demos, and demos tend to be for PC games and not consoles (though some do exist of course).
The concept of "try before you buy" fits those themes. You get to try the clothing on before you buy it, and in some shops you get to try video games before you buy them. Not always of course... either way they aren't black and white.
Anyway, I was focusing more on the content than the infrastructure. As it is, the model doesn't work - if Sony made a new console, people would wait until it had decent games before investing a huge amount in the console itself - and if only 3 games were ever made, no-one would invest. However, if the console were free but the games were extortionate, it would be guaranteed that the console would be obtained (even though free consoles don't exists, companies *do* take a hit on the consoles to get people to buy the games).