[Economics of Game Prices]

Anyway, so economics of game prices is the topic, huh? Ok. You want to reduce game prices?

All digital distribution. Cut out Gamestop, cut out the publishers like EA. Take the iTunes approach to game distribution; iTunes reduced the price of music by over 50% (average CDs used to be ~20$ for 10-12 songs; now, you can get a full album for ~9.99$, with .99$ songs). Cut out the bullshit middleman, and the price of games PLUMMET. You can have publishers for brick-and-mortar stores, but those stores will be used solely by people who don't have internet connections that can handle the DL speeds.

For the rest of us who ARE net connected, we get any game we want, without worrying about stores being closed, direct to our consoles / drives, at DRASTICALLY lowered prices. Win.

[Economics of Game Prices]

To the extent of my knowledge, you have to know first-year concepts to GET to the point that lets you make games, don't you?

I'm fairly confident that I could, with basic C++ or Java, program a Pokemon clone that was text based and had DLC. It's like a year one programming assignment. I made a game that did exactly that in my first year at DigiPen. We didn't know how many maps we'd have, we didn't know how many moves our protagonist or enemies would have for combat, we didn't know how many interactive items would be in the game... but we made the whole game engine modular so we could make an infinite number, and the game could handle it. I have the files on my hard drive, if you want them.

Seriously, it's not that hard.

[The Extra Credits thread!! EC is amazing!]

Yeah... sorry I let the Damned get me on a tangent like that; really wasn't related to Piracy. It was just... so wrong, I had to correct it. Sorry, guys. Back on topic.

[Economics of Game Prices]

OK, no. Shut up. I would not back you up on this. You don't get how the game mechanics work. It's a complex system, you don't just add shit to it and expect it to work.

No, I will NOT shut up just because YOU don't know how object-oriented programming works. "It's a complex system, you don't just add shit to it"? What the fuck are you TALKING about? Dude, the fact the EV/IV formulas are like a mile long does NOT give Nintendo an excuse for not making a Pokemon game with DLC.

The games uses a lot of memory. A LOT. Try saving on your DS games. Even with newer ones with faster saving still take a long time to so it. And that's not counting the overworld map and all the other stuff like audio and sprites.

Who give a shit? The DSi has an SD CARD SLOT, dude. The 3DS has ONBOARD MEMORY. Oh my GOD, Mass Effect 2 is on a damn DVD that CAN NEVER HAVE DATA ADDED TO IT, and it has DLC. Just because your game cart is full, that DOESN'T mean you can't have DLC.

The biggest problem with just adding pokemon, is that the game itself is designed to only work with the set number of pokemon up to that point.

So, Nintendo should design the next Pokemon game to be more modular! Your argument is literally, "the old games weren't designed to have DLC, so the Pokemon games can NEVER have DLC". You're. Retarded.

I'm NOT at ALL saying that the old games have DLC systems... I'm saying that, had the games been designed with more modularity, the changes implemented between, for instance, RS and E could have been DLC. IF THE TECH HAD BEEN THERE. If Nintendo was smart, they would have put a DLC engine INTO DIAMOND AND PEARL and offered Platinum as DLC.

If they were smart, they would have designed Black and White to have DLC systems in place to accept more Pokemon, moves, and hold items in a year. Tell me how it's possible for Bioware to do that, but oh no, Nintendo can't.

The GBA games were made to take pokemon 001 to pokemon 386. They can't just throw another bunch on there. The game was only designed to support that many. The same goes for the DS games. DPPt and HGSS were only designed to support the pokemon that existed up to that point. Same with gen 5: only up to that point.

So CHANGE YOUR GAME DESIGN. The GBA games get a pass because DLC didn't exist back then, and there was no tech in place for it on the GBA. The tech is there on the DSi and 3DS, so Black/White and any more games they make DON'T GET A PASS.

This is because, despite what some kid will tell you on GameFAQs, they don't have a thousand pokemon already designed and ready to go. They don't. This is not true, and I wish people would stop saying this. It's supposed to have been from an interview with some of the Game Freak staff, but no one has ever been able to produce said interview. They create the new pokemon when they start work on the new games. Sometimes, they have ones that get cut from one generation and used in the next (namely, Shellos. It had data for it in RSE, but was not implemented for some reason. The data can be accessed, but it doesn't really do much).

This is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT. Who cares when the Pokemon are made? If their game engine is designed well, they could make the Pokemon 1 day or 100 days after release, and still can add them in as DLC. This just means that Pokemon games have badly designed engines that purposefully CAN'T accept DLC, which is something Nintendo could fix if they wanted to.

Any way, because they don't know what kind of pokemon they will make in the future, they can't prepare the game to accept it later as some sort of download. Even the event-based, super-rare legendaries, like Mew and Shaymin, are still coded into the game. They just don't appear unless something triggers it.

Why not? Each Pokemon has the same data: ID, Name, Sprite / Move animations, base stats, variables for IV values (including EVs, natures, personality types, best stats, etc.), move lists, evolution tree... A Pokemon class object, in programming terms, is just a node in a linked list with a set number of variable fields that could contain other lists or classes.

Dude, I learned this in C++ 101.

[Economics of Game Prices]

Yeah, it's REALLY not that simple. Major gameplay changes can't be easily removed / added without risking pretty serious bugs / code conflicts. When your gameplay changes so much that your 1st and 2nd games COULD be from different series... you should probably just rewrite your game. There's a difference between changing how ONE class plays and changing how ALL COMBAT FUNCTIONS.

Not really comparable.

Anyway, let's get back on topic, since we've strayed pretty far. Piracy. Bad... but nowhere near as bad as the industry makes it out to be. One game pirated =/= one sale lost. Not even close.

[Economics of Game Prices]

Do you know how games are coded? There are engines you have to make for everything: graphics, physics, gameplay (in this case, the way the game handles leveling, stat allocation, weapons, and tech/biotics). The "engine" in ME1 for handling stat allocation, for instance, allowed the player to have 60 levels and had all these weapon based stats (accuracy, overheat, firing speed, etc). Notice how ME2 doesn't have 200,000 different skills? Notice how weapons don't have individual overheat values? Notice how drastically different throw and pull work? That all has to do with how their main engine (the UE3 engine) runs the gameplay, what is, essentially a "gameplay engine". These facets of the game are so deep in the coding structure that to change them REQUIRES a reworking of the game's code. It's like trying to take a building and add a floor between floor 11 and floor 12... You can't do it. You have no choice but to build a new building.

EDIT: After specifically reading up on what you're buying when you get an UE3 license, it's obvious that what you're getting is a pre-built graphics/physics engine that comes with a specialized gameplay scripting language (based on Java)... but no gameplay framework to work with, which makes sense. Essentially, your "gameplay engine" is what you build in UE3 using their Java-based scripting language which will eventually control all of your gameplay events. Adding / subtracting from this section of code is... bitchy, to say the least.

EDIT2: "IRREGARDLESS" IS NOT A WORD, DAMMIT PEOPLE STOP USING IT. >_<

[Economics of Game Prices]

I'll respond to Imagist, since I'm pretty sure he was talking to me. Anyway...

I know plenty about Pokèmon, I assure you. I've played the series non-stop, never missing a game from the original all the way until Platinum (that's when I stopped buying them, though I got HGSS as a gift). I've played casually, as a breeder, collector (I was about 25 away from finishing the FRLG dex until DP screwed it up), and competitive battler. I love Pokèmon, as a series and a concept... So feel confident when I say that I know FOR A FACT that Pokèmon could be done as DLC. It can, and I'm sure the Damned can back me up on that. Aside from a graphics overhaul (which, I mean, it's a Pokèmon game; it's not like they're pretty to begin with), there is nothing that was done between RSE and HGSS that couldn't be done with minor engine tweaks and overwriting a few move tables. Seriously, making Hyper Beam a special attack did not take a new cart. If I can teach my GF to make linked lists in Java, I'm pretty sure Nintendo can learn how to add some new Pokèmon using DLC. The ONLY excuse Nintendo might have for Pkmn is that cart space is limited. But, even THAT is a flimsy defense these days.

As for Madden, for all the new "features", each gen really does boil down to basically a glorified re-cast of the teams and players. I'm not saying that EA stops making new versions with Madden 2011 and just NEVER MAKE ANOTHER MADDEN AGAIN, simply that you don't need a new one each year. You really don't even need a new one every 2 years. Just wait 2.5-3 years for a major game overhaul, maybe with a GREATLY enhanced graphics engine and a NUMBER of new gameplay additions that really revolutionize the game, and have one big update DLC each year for 10$. That's all sports games in general need. That's not a generalization... that's even admitted in their marketing (the blurb for M2011 states, and I quote:

"...the all-new GameFlow system puts you in the helmet of an NFL quarterback to execute an authentic, situational game plan, one play at a time. ... Madden NFL 11 is feature-rich including all-new 3-on-3 Online Team Play, improved animations, more intuitive controls, and Madden NFL Ultimate Team..."

That's 4 new features, and 2 of them are nothing more than lists of data points (team rosters and animation files). Seriously, that's not impressive.

Oh, and to respond to Pyrion, the graphics engines were the same. The gameplay engines were not. ME1 and ME2 play nothing alike... Just ask Adepts.

[Economics of Game Prices]

Wait, who are you aiming that criticism at?

[Economics of Game Prices]

Jack... everything you just said about supporting EA by playing and buying Madden can be said about any other major series.

Ahem.

Pokemon games are the same every time. They could easily add new pokemon with DLC. You're stupid for supporting Nintendo and giving them $40 for the same content everytime. Lazy programming.

Actually, yeah. That's why I don't buy them anymore.

Mass Effect 2 was just Mass Effect 1 with more characters. It could have been done with DLC, Why are you stupid people supporting Bioware's sloppy effort?

Actually, NO. Because Mass Effect 2, mechanically, had an entirely different engine. A mechanical overhaul like that would REQUIRE a new game

be made.

Mario is the same platformer with slightly better graphics. All these new games could be DLC. Stop supporting Nintendo and their lazy production.

Probably. Mario hasn't really had that many mechanical changes, either, not counting NSMBW. Sunshine, had it been on current gen systems, would have had to be an on-disc game. Which means Galaxy would have to be, as well, though it might have been an update of 64. Galaxy 2 DEFINITELY could have, as the enterprising work of the Galaxy 2+ hackers is showing.

Uncharted is just the same game with new places to go to... etc, etc.

Never played, so I can't comment.

Halo is just more shooting, and it could all have been done with DLC, etc, etc...

After playing 3 and ODST, yeah, it could have been DLC. ODST could have been one big digital expansion pack, because its not like they overhauled the graphics engine or added a ton of new mechanical features. Reach... well, it COULD POSSIBLY have been DLC, but I don't know how they would have implemented some of the gameplay changes without overhauling the engine. I think it could have been done, but I can't say for sure.

Just because you don't like Madden or EA, doesn't mean that other people don't.

I'm not saying you shouldn't LIKE it. By all means, LOVE the gameplay. I'm just saying that, in its current form, you shouldn't BUY it. You should force EA to treat you better, just like Pokemon fans should. Ironically, you're, apparently, both. So, you're doubly screwed.

At least they're playing something they like, even if it's isn't your cup of tea. Ridiculing them(and openly here, of all places) for doing so makes you a far bigger ass then they could ever be.

Again, like what you want. Just don't reward devs / publishers for sloppy or impractical work. Force publishers, if they want to exist at ALL (because they AREN'T necessary anymore), to keep up with the times.

EDIT@Sephfire: Like I said, I'm not one to espouse religion. I just think it's telling when a group that defends child molesting members thinks that even CAPITALISM is evil. I mean, you have to be REALLY BAD to piss off the guys that think raping kids is OK.

[Economics of Game Prices]

You do realize that in this magical land called the internet that you champion so much, you can get a CD made with your own music, sell it to people, make money, and not involve the RIAA in any way, right?

You did realize this before posting on a forum with several turned-pro musicians, right?

Of course I do, but how much easier, simpler, faster, and more profitable is it to just put your song up on iTunes and be done with it? It's just SMARTER in this day and age to sell digitally. I buy Bad Dudes albums because I like the Bad Dudes and want them to keep making music... but more so that I can have kitschy nerd cred vs. my other nerdy friends when I have physical copies of nerdy music.

If I didn't care about the IRL nerd cred, I'd just buy digital, because it's one less disc I have to hassle with and I get it instantly. On a related note, when I bought OneUps Vol. 2 and Chronotorious (sp?), I torrented both albums while waiting for my physical disc. I bought it already... waiting for the disc was just waiting for a mantelpiece. So, yeah. I pirated OneUps / Bad Dudes music get at me. ^_-

[Economics of Game Prices]

I'm assuming this is going to double-post so... oh well. Sorry guys.

Let's just focus on one thing here, since it's a pretty fundamental disagreement.

Ok, I'm game for that. Even though I'm replying to you here, please explicitly say at the top of your next post which topic you'd like to talk about now; no sarcasm or talking down or anything. I'd just like it to be clear so I can prepare some data and counter-arguments for you properly.

It's not extortion. It's the basic underpinning of any market-based system, also known as "profit". Unless you're absolutely, completely opposed to all market-based economies and literally only support communism, you have to accept that "profit" is a fundamental part of economics.

Honestly, yeah. I have something you want, you have something I want. We trade for them. Unless I think I can strong-arm you into giving me MORE than you want to for my thing. That's, in a nutshell, what profit is: knowing that something you have is worth X amount, and tricking people into paying X+Y amount instead. I honestly think that if we, in elementary in middle school, gave students a fair shot to have an HONEST discussion about the flaws and merits of profit-based economies, they'd come to the logical conclusion that profit systems == bad. Quick example: Catholic officials have gone on the record saying that capitalism is not only bad, but it's evil and a sin. Now, I'm not one to espouse religion or anything, but those are the guys who claim to be the moral authority.

...that says something.

Why bother to sell something if all you're going to do is recoup your costs? In other words, if you have $1 million to make a game, but you can only make $1 million back... why make the game to begin with? What's the point?

Because you don't make more money by selling at a profit, you make more money by producing more. People think that you HAVE to make money through strict profit, but that's not true at all. We can discuss this in another topic, if you'd like, because it's tangential to this thread.

Now believe me, if you want to talk about things like health care, I'm 110% AGAINST the concept of insurance companies making anything more than a tiny profit, because it's a basic necessity of life. If someone pays $1 for health care, 99 cents of that dollar should pay for health care, not a CEO's vacation. But when we're talking about PURE LUXURIES, like cars and video games, businesses need incentives to get together the budget to produce products or services. If all they can do is recoup what they spent, then all they're doing is wasting a year (or however long it takes to make the product) since they're just getting however much money they spent back.

Before you bring up indie games/artists/music/open source (etc) yes, I know that some people do things for free or spend their own money to release a game/product and expect nothing back. That's fine. If you've noticed, I've released dozens of free remixes and songs myself. But it's entirely unrealistic to expect every video game developer to stop caring about earning any money and just being content to essentially volunteer their time and resources at cost.

Tell that to the guys who put out the Humble Indie Bundle. The HIB#2 brought in a combined total of over $1,825,290. And that was by selling a FREE PRODUCT. And the product was a bunch of poorly-advertised indy games! Yes, you can make money giving something away.

If nothing else, earning only what you put in prevents you from ever expanding in scope or size - remember that not all profit simply goes into the pockets of CEOs, but is often reinvested back into new employees, new equipment, new technology, and so on.

I'd LOVE to get a full breakdown here, because I'm pretty sure that CEO paychecks don't get re-invested anywhere but into the private interests of the CEO. Yes, investors re-invest (it's kind of their thing), but they ARE out to make a lot of money, money that they plan on keeping.

The problem with the current model of game development investment is that the cash flow is totally wrong. Here's an example.

I want to make lemonade to sell, but I need capital to buy the lemons. Let's assume that profit is ok, so you agree to give me 100$ to buy lemons and want me to give you your investment + 5% back. So, I take your money, buy lemons, and make lemonade. I sell it, meaning I give it to a customer, and he gives me money in return. (I know, it's obvious, but stay with me here; I'm being this explicit for a reason). Now, I have your investment + 5%. I have it because the customer gave ME the money. So now I give you your money back.

In this example, the cash flow works kind of like a game of Magic: last-on, first-off. The cash flows from you to me, from me to the customer (in the form of product), then from the customer back to ME (in the form of cash), and finally from me back to you. You get your cut last, but that makes sense, because you're the investor... YOU'RE at the biggest risk here.

Now, contrast that with how GAMES are sold. Investor to Publisher, Publisher to Developer, Developer to Consumer... then from Consumer to Publisher, bypassing the Developer entirely. The most important link in the chain, the people without whom the game couldn't ever exist, get paid last. In this model, profit doesn't help the Dev team expand in scope. In this model, the Dev team has a cyclical dependency on the Publisher for capital, which is never broken. Unless the Dev team is paid more, which happens at the whim of the Publisher only, they can NEVER expand in scope because they have no control over their own profit stream.

Now, how does THAT make sense?

EDIT@Gollgagh: Hey, man. You're the one who's providing the RIAA with so much money. You're the one helping to enable draconian copyright laws that serve to do nothing but punish the consumer. I have no personal beef with you (I've never even met you), but your money is the reason my music and games have DRM, including the stuff I purchase legally.

[Economics of Game Prices]

So... I'm a stupid frat boy?

I'm assuming that means you buy Madden games, possibly every year? If so, that doesn't mean you're a frat boy... but it does mean you're stupid. Why would you reward EA for that? For doing almost NO work and getting a full 60$ in return? Especially if you get the new iterations, you should want vehemently for EA to switch Madden to a DLC-only system; it's in your best interests for them to do so. If you're using your capitalist vote (read: dollar) to reward EA for doing something that is obviously illogical and extortionist, then you ARE to blame, and it's people like YOU that cause Madden to keep going, despite it's horrible premise.

And a few people I know, who hold very non-frat boy jobs like telecommunications, website design, newspaper layout, and my own line of work, non-destructive testing (based upon engineering standards and requiring both math and physics skills), are also stupid frat boys?

Again, they may not be frat boys, but they sure as hell are stupid, if they keep buying Madden games. Seriously, stop buying them. Force EA to move on to a better, more 21st century system of Madden development.

I'm not a continuous player of the series by any definition, but I have played it before. Others, including members here, I would like to point out, are players of those games, and I think they would be insulted by that comment.

Good. They should be. You are enablers, enabling EA to continue an outdated and fundamentally flawed (from a consumer standpoint) business model. You know who you're like? People who still buy CDs of music. Seriously, move on to the 21st century, and force the record publishers out of business already by buying digital music. We don't need them. Technology has replaced them and made them obsolete. Just let the industry fade into irrelevance. Same. Basic. Concept.

You know, Zircon said something about you seeming to have issues with the companies, rather than with the games pricing. I can see that quite plainly now. You're not mad about pricing; you're mad about the companies. Did you get turned down by all the big studios or something? Did they personally anger you or do something that affected you in some way other than prices?

No. I've never produced or designed a game (to be sold), and I've never pitched to a game publisher or company. I've never even been in contact with anyone from a publisher or developer.

That being said, if I have issue with the pricing, and the companies determine the game's pricing, I suppose that transitively means I have a problem with the companies... which I don't think I've ever said I didn't? OBVIOUSLY I have a problem with them, because their business practices are fundamentally flawed.

Also, the things you said about economists comes off as almost hateful as well. Are you just venting because of bad experiences with one or more? Seriously, it's coming off like that.

Well, I certainly don't want to somehow make people think that I think negatively about economists. That might somehow make me a socialist or something, and we can't have pinkos in America, now can we?

Simply (and without the sarcasm), I am a pragmatist, a logician, and a philosopher by trade; I have problems with ANYONE who acts in an illogical manner, and economists depend on illogical stuff in order to thrive in this world. Again, who do you think made money during the market crash in 2008? Hint: it was the economists who did stupid stuff to kill the economy for short term profits. It's not that hard.

I'd also like to point out that most of the time, when people buy a game, they do so in an actual brick-and-mortar store. A store that isn't owned by the developers or publishers of said games. Did any of you take into consideration of the amount the store charges for the games? I beat some of that money isn't the publisher, but the store trying to make money as well.

The standard video game markup that Gamestop adds to any given console game is anywhere between 10-15$. Again, I've studied this. Look up Professor Christopher Erhardt and Claude Comair; I learned this stuff in their classes. I know what I'm talking about.

Why aren't you arguing that the stores should lower prices as well, because they're part of the problem.

They should. But, Gamestop has worse problems than video game markup. This isn't a discussion about used game sales, however; this is a discussion about piracy, and Gamestop's markup, while substantial and relevant, isn't as important as the base MSRP that the publisher's dictate.

One topic at a time.

You started this by using very basic economic theory to support your argument, and now you're using "video game rulesets", which are make up for a system that was itself made, entirely in the imaginations of those making them, to be made into a virtual world that doesn't exist in our actual, physical world, to back your argument up.

I am? No, I'm not. That was banter, not a premise in an overarching argument. Seriously, take a college level logic course; learn how to identify arguments and their component premises and conclusion.

Are you sure this is the path of logic you wish to follow? I'm asking because this may very well open yourself up to all kinds of counterpoints, as well as outright heckling from the masses. You're making poor arguments and offering poor defenses for them.

Poor arguments? My argument, the real overarching one, has been, simply, "Publishers and producers have a flawed concept of how 21st century market principles work in relation to digital media, and thus should restructure their business practices to compensate for the increasingly powerful advantage piracy does, and will continue to, have over legitimate sales". Then, I went on to explain how pre-digital age economic values fail miserably when put in the context of the digital revolution and digital content distribution.

All Zircon has been able to say in defense is "economists are right because the formulas they created say they should be right". Who has the poorer argument?

As for "the evidence wins" thing, I like to point out the theory of the flat Earth. All the evidence in the world at various points in history proved it was so.

No, it actually didn't. The evidence was misinterpreted. Properly interpreted and studied, real-world evidence wins every time. Also, you're talking about a time period when saying the Earth is round got you burnt at the stake for heresy, so I think you're argument has a hole or two.

So... how did that turn out? No to mention string theory, as well as quantum theory. All the empirical evidence says it can't work, and shouldn't work in any way. But here we have physical experiments that indicate they do exist and do work they way we think they do.

Which means that we have empirical evidence that says it DOES work. Which means, something is being mishandled or misinterpreted, somewhere along the line. But, we don't throw out the old or new evidence entirely just so we can say we have a working theory. We accept that we don't understand everything, make the theories where we KNOW they can work, and we move on. Current economics would rather throw out the very real evidence that digital media breaks supply / demand models, as well as the common-sense logic that says digital data has, by definition, an infinite supply, in order to keep acting like they have for the past 100 years.

So... what about that?

...that. The above.

I'll get to Zircon's post in a bit. Also, I have off of work until next Wednesday... So, plenty of time to lurk and discuss. ^_-

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Unfortunately, I have to go to work now, but I'd love to continue this conversation when I get home. Should be around 8PM EST. Hope that's cool with you guys. Be back in a few hours.

[Economics of Game Prices]

None of this makes any sense. Raising the price of the game beyond the equilibrium price doesn't somehow equate to more profit or revenue, nor does it equate to more profit or revenue faster. You'll have to explain how that works, because it isn't supported by any logic or economic principles that I know of.

It equates to more short term profit, sure. The hardcore, the ones that will buy your game at any price. How many times do we hear this in a game market analysis? Your sales are made in the first week. Why is this true? The hardcore, the early adopters, the ones who do your word of mouth advertising that (hopefully) will get you longer term sales, will pay almost ANY price. You forget, this is a new age, a digital age, and when you can make a profit selling marked-up PS3s on launch day for 200-300$ of launch price, it becomes obvious that a portion of the consumer base blatantly disregards the economic principles of "equilibrium price" that you're espousing so much.

So, in the short term, you spike the prices of something, expecting that you'll make enough launch week sales off of the hardcore to "pay" for your "project"... only, to an investor, "pay" only means "GET PAID". Remember, the investors get first dibs on profits, so if an investor expects to make investment+5%, then he WILL get that I+5% before the dev studio gets ANY money. Why do you think publishers are posting record profits, but DEVELOPMENT STUDIOS are shutting down left and right? Because the dev studios rely on long term sales, but the publishers and producers only need short term sales to make THEIR investment back. So what if a dev studio fails? This is the 21st century: programmers and graphic artists are a dime a dozen. One fails, and EA just acquires a new one to take its place.

TL;DR: Publishers and producers only care about short term sales, so they sacrifice long term sales by ignoring the equilibrium price. It is the same basic concept that brought down the American financial system: sacrifice long term stability for short term gains.

Additionally, "rising cost of games"? How old are you?

Old enough to remember my dad shelling out A LOT of money to buy me my Genesis. 23, exactly.

I remember going to Funcoland when I was 9 and seeing SNES games *routinely* selling for $80-90 or more. Games on average are cheaper than ever when you factor in iPhone, XBIG, XBLA etc., but even looking at premium console games, they were definitely more expensive in the days of the SNES.

Sure, but GCN games routinely went for 40$, and PS1/2 and Xbox games NEVER sold for 60$; when the current gen systems came out and the prior E3 let us know that game costs were going up, we all shit bricks. I'm sure you remember. I'm not comparing game costs relative to costs 15-20 years ago... I'm talking about how games jumped up in price over 10-15$ in a single generation.

I don't even know where to begin. First of all, the "worth" of any good or service varies from person to person. Note that I'm not talking about the COST of something (eg. the literal value of the materials used to make it), I'm talking about "worth" in the sense you're using it.

I'll take the blame for that. I'm definitely not using the established economic definitions when I say that "cost" == "worth". It's my opinion that, logically, anything that makes "cost" =/= "worth" is bullshit economics. "Cost" should ALWAYS == "worth", or else you are extorting money. And, yes, that means that I think it is logical to imply that "profits" == "extortion".

Look at luxury cars. I would never pay $50,000 for a car. A luxury can "on sale" for $50,000 would be "overpriced" to me by about $40,000. Meanwhile, to someone who loves driving luxury cars, $50,000 might be an amazing deal - they might be willing to pay up to $100,000 for the same car.

But, if the car only costs 15K$ to produce total, I challenge you to find a single average person (re: NOT a car salesman, manufacturer, or aficionado) who WOULDN'T think that selling a car that cost 15K to produce for 50K$ isn't extortion.

This is true for ANY good or ANY service. When you aggregate the subjective value that all consumers place on a given good or service, you get a "demand curve". This isn't some magic, abstract law, you've experienced it yourself countless times - any time you look at a product or service and say "that's a deal" or "that's too expensive", and someone else says the opposite. It's because we all value things differently.

If a company tries to charge "too much" for a product, what that means is that they are overestimating the equilibrium price. But guess what? If they do that, fewer people will buy it, and the company will make less money. This will always happen 100% of the time.

What you're not getting is that digital goods break that rule wide open because there is no such thing as supply / demand for digital goods because digital goods have infinite supply. Selling music, movies, games... aside from physical copies, digital media makes no sense to sell because you can produce infinite supply at no additional cost.

So, producing a game, song, or movie has a cost, a cost that I do think should be compensated for (note: this is only my opinion; I don't think it is logically sound to argue that it should be REQUIRED). But, past that initial cost, any extra sales are extortion, because there is no cost to copy digital data infinitely. So, you had better give the consumer pretty damn good reasons not to pirate, because the data is there.

The point is that this is the 21st century, the age of digital media. The rules about buying and selling are changing.

Not only is that inaccurate, but it's also not relevant to the discussion. Suffice it to say that my entire career revolves around running businesses based on intellectual property successfully, and I'm doing just fine. Move on.

Not trying to say you're totally unknowledgeable. I'm just saying that you have a conflict of interest here, so we should take what you say with a grain of salt.

Edit: The ridiculous thing about this discussion is that you're talking to someone who is probably more liberal than 90% of the people on these forums. I support extensive government regulation and I've posted hundreds of times about how opposed I am to the libertarian philosophy of unfettered capitalism. However, there's a difference between not supporting unfettered capitalism and lacking a basic understanding of economics and logic.

I have a perfectly good understanding of economics... it's economists that doesn't have a good understanding of economics, because they are applying pre-digital age economic structures to post-digital age economies. You can't do that. Economics needs to evolve into the 21st century, or risk exactly what Extra Credits is implicitly saying when talking about the PS3 Linux users: don't fuck with hackers, because you will lose, and all of your stuff will be pirated. Grow up, evolve, or lose.

EDIT@ The Damned: I respond by saying that Madden shouldn't be sold anymore. Seriously, we have DLC now; just update the roster and stats every year, save yourself the money of dev costs, and sell the game update as required DLC for online play. Screw the hard copies... or rather, sell them at drastically reduced prices each year, so that people without the game can get it, so that they CAN get the DLC updates. Really, the only reason Madden still sells is because stupid frat boys aren't intelligent enough to know they're getting screwed.

Also, Zircon is arguing theory. I'm arguing reality. Reality > theory every time, my man. I learned that making competitive video game rulesets; I didn't even needformal science training to know that. Try telling a physicist that his theory is better than the observable evidence that he's getting in his lab; if the evidence contradicts the theory, the evidence wins.

[Economics of Game Prices]

Most of your post seems to be railing against how companies decide to spend their money and pay their workers. That's fine. I agree with you on basically all of it.

However, what does this have to do with product pricing? There are no exceptions to the rule of equilibrium price. There is always a single price point that will result in the most revenue. This has nothing to do with wanting more profit in the short-term than the long-term - profit isn't even what we're talking about here. This is strictly a matter of what price will yield the highest revenue (calculated by total sales * per-unit price.)

You're correct that, according to economic formulas (which are oddly self-proving, by the way... it's odd the way that economics these days basically treats itself as a religion: "our formulas are correct because when you plug in numbers, you get the expected outcome"), there is a "price" that will yield the higest revenue... But what happens when that revenue isn't high ENOUGH?

For instance, I am EA. I'm making a game. The game has a budget of 10 million. I want to get paid 100K for this game, and I know that each investor will also want that much, AND the producer will want at least that much. So, aside from the ACTUAL price tag of only what the designers, artists, and writers who ACTUALLY make the game are being paid, I now have this overhead cost of what we WANT to be paid. And, because we are EA, the investors, and the producer, we are guaranteed our money first. We get paid first. So, I plug in our expected sales for this game into our little equation, put in a price tag of 50$... but, uh oh. The game won't make that much at 50$. But... 50$ is the equilibrium price... Crap. Oh well, looks like we have to raise the price of the game... because the same economic principles that give us the equilibrium price and the formulas that dictate how to get that price tell us that we shouldn't reduce OUR pay... So the price of the game gets raised.

This is all because the industry has this bizarre sense of entitlement in which publishers and producers HAVE to make their money back first, before the people who actually MAKE the product. I understand that this is a hypothetical, but it's not that far out there, and it's the simplest explanation for the rising cost of games, because the average pay of game employees, just like every other American worker, hasn't risen much in the last decade (if anything, its fallen) and the average team size has only gotten larger for the biggest titles: the Mass Effects, the GTAs, the Red Deads. Meanwhile, EVERY GAME for 360 / PS3, shovelware or not, starts at a 60$ price tag. There's a disconnect there.

Now, if you want to get into more complex aspects of pricing, such as sales and consumer perception of value, we can. But "overpricing" is a term that makes no sense. If you are charging more than the equilibrium price you are ensuring that you're going to get less total revenue, because fewer people are going to buy at that higher price point.

Technically, capitalism makes no sense at ALL. Something is worth a set amount... so you're going to pay me MORE than that? Because you say so? Logically, it's unsound. Logically, we had a name for capitalism before "capitalism" was born by the Calvinists... and it was called extortion. But that's another debate for another time. The main point is, capitalism and American economics is self-proving and self-referencing. "There is no such thing as overpricing because we SAY there is no such thing" is not good logic. Something is worth X and we are being charged X+10... that's overpricing. It's really simple, and it's done every day.

What are you talking about?

Dude, look at your signature. When you first started promoting ZirconTrax on the boards, I checked it out, and for one song to be used in a student project for non-profit purposes, your auto-quote calculator gave me a 120+$ price tag. For one MP3. That wasn't even going to be sold. All I'm trying to say is, that shows a pretty loose hold on the reality of digital distribution / media / supply & demand models, so you're obviously not the best guy to turn to about how the game industry has its economics all messed up.

[Economics of Game Prices]

Wow, guys, way to misunderstand my arguments. Ok, let me break this down for you.

First of all, I never said that a AAA title was ONLY the titles with the best production value. A AAA title is the title with the highest QUALITY. Total quality. Pretty games with shit gameplay are NOT AAA titles; if ME2 was buggier than the first and had terrible gunplay, it wouldn't be AAA, even though it had amazing graphics and a great marketing campaign. The AAA distinction comes AFTER a game is released, not BEFORE.

So, when I say make less shovelware and more AAA games, I mean take the time and money that you're spending making bad games just to sell to stupid people for a quick buck, invest that money on increasing the dev time of your other games by 6 months to a year, and DESIGN THE GAME WELL. Make sure the game is GOOD before you blow money on an art budget. Listen to me when I say this: as someone who has studied AT NINTENDO, I can tell you from experience that games are made and broken on the Game Design Document. That's before even a prototype is made. If your concept is bad, if your story is bad, if your gameplay is shallow and poorly designed, you can't fix that later in the design process. Make less games less often, but ensure that what you DO make is so good, that your consumers literally cannot live without playing it. Not only will you (ultimately) save money (because shovelware is no guarantee by any means), but you'll sell more product because it will be a quality product that people will WANT and NEED to buy.

Secondly, according to current statistics, the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay in the USA (this includes ALL American companies, including companies like Epic, for instance) is 263-1. That means that for every dollar we expect a game coder or graphic artist at EA to make, his CEO is making 262 more dollars. That's. Ridiculous.

Zircon, you say that there's no such thing as "overpricing"? Yeah, that's because economists look at everything in the short term these days. The long term is irrelevant. Make your money now, get your fat bonus, fuck the customer as hard as you can get away with, and if it bankrupts your company, at least YOU got paid. That is the state of American economics, and all it takes is a cursory glance at the state of affairs in America to figure THAT out.

Restructure your business and you will make more money. My family (well, my dad) immigrated to the US with no knowledge of English and about 2$ US. Now, my family is worth multiple MILLIONS of dollars. We did it by building businesses that don't fuck the consumer, and by making our money more slowly, but more surely. It's safer, more effective, and you won't kill your company or burn out your consumer base by doing so. We are living proof that economists are retarded, because by their "laws" we should have run out of money years ago, and yet the BANKS are the ones failing.

If the CEO of EA took a pay cut, it'd lower the cost of the games. If the producers and publishers and stockholders took a pay cut, it lower the cost of their games. Again, after studying at Nintendo, I know how much a AAA title costs to make, and I know that the biggest burden of recouping costs ISN'T paying your designers and artists... it's paying your stockholders, producers, publishers, and CEOs. And, they ALWAYS get payed first.

But... if they took a pay cut, paid the artists and designers better, and cut the cost of the games, not only would they produce more quality work (because the people MAKING the games are working better), but you'll sell more copies that the equations SAY you should sell because people will be more capable, and thus more willing, to buy them. And, you'll sell more copies because pirates who only do it because they think they HAVE to (re: the majority of American college student pirates) will also start buying more legit copies. You'll make less per sale, but your game's shelf life will increase, and you'll sell more copies in the long term.

Part of why it's so hard to recoup game investments is because companies jack up the prices expecting all sales to happen in the first week. No shit, because you're flooding the market and making sustained sales impractical with high prices. The industry is literally manufacturing its own problem... because that problem may be bad for developers and designers, but it's actually GOOD for publishers and investors.

I'm sorry, Zircon, but I'm only going to take what you say about economics with a grain of salt; you're the guy selling mp3 files to college students for hundreds of dollars. That shows a degree of bias and disillusionment.

[Economics of Game Prices]

DS EDIT: This is split from the Extra Credits thread.

I'm actually kind of sad they didn't give the two arguments against piracy that I feel are the most pressing:

1 ) Developers need to make more compelling software... and no, just because 2010 had ME2, a CoD, a Halo, and RDR, that does NOT mean that we're putting out quality titles. The ENTIRE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY, across all consoles + PCs (without iDevices) released 1224 games in 2010. Note: that includes multi-console releases (ME2 coming out on 360 and PC counts as 2 releases)... but even taking that into consideration, over 1200 games were released in 2010, and how many of them mattered? How many of them sold? How many of them were even GOOD?

Hint: If you didn't know that many games were even released, then the answer is "very few".

Instead of studios sinking money into all of this shovelware (I cringe to think about how many of those games were Wii trash titles), how about NOT MAKING ALL OF THAT CRAP. Make less games, and make them ALL BETTER. How about only releasing 500, or 300 games total between all consoles, and using all that saved money to make those 300-500 games all AAA titles? If all of those games were must-have games, you'd be selling more. Which brings me to...

2 ) Make the games cheaper. No economist ever teaches this, but lower prices == more sales. If you raise prices, your profit per unit goes up, sure, but you sell less of them, so it doesn't matter anyway. That's how you cause inflation and kill economies. Lower prices means more people CAN buy your product, meaning you'll sell more and offset that lower cost. High costs will never break their ceiling of potential buyers, but low cost items can (and usually do) oversell estimations. You know, part of why I impulse buy gum and not video games is because an impulsive purchase of gum only sets me back 50 cents... and impulse buy of a video game sets me back 50$. I only impulse buy games 10$ or less, if even that. So, lower the cost of your games, and get more people to buy them.

Honestly, most people wouldn't pirate games if they didn't feel persecuted in the first place. No one WANTS to steal. People steal because they feel like they're getting a raw deal and want to stick it to the man. Don't fuck over your customers, and you won't have rampant piracy.

[SW:TOR trooper revealed!]

I'm just pumped to hear they got FemShep in my Old Republics. Hearing that smug female voice pump up a squad of troopers got me pumped, too.

Here's hoping for Jedi vs. Reaper action.

[NES Concert Band Medley]

This should definintely be re-recorded in a non-concert setting, maybe with a little more practice; the arrangement is obviously well done (as would be expected), and doesn't need any real work, but the quality of the playing was not up to the level of the arrangement.

If the execution was able to match the arrangement, this would be incredible.

[Metroid: Other M]

Why are you ignoring context? Remember: the Bottle Ship was a FEDERATION MISSION, not one of Samus' missions. She just happened along it. As such, if shit goes down, guess who's liable? The Federation. It's not like Samus has a particularly good track record with how her missions end, collateral-damage-wise. Up until that point, every time she sneezes, she sets off a self-destruct, which the Fed military wouldn't have wanted. Adam was in an interesting position, as her former CO.

Contrary to what you want to believe, the military forms tight bonds; you DO NOT question your CO, under any circumstances. Samus would have lived that way for years, being trained to listen specifically to Adam. They already had background and rapport. On top of that, she would have KNOWN that she wasn't supposed to be there. So, when Adam informs her that the mission is a Federation one, she understands that it's because, at that point, she's a liability. She's a walking demo team. Thus, Adam, in order to reduce the liability the Fed would have to deal with should something goes wrong, informs her that either she leaves, or she does EXACTLY what she's told...

...and as her former CO, she listens to him implicitly, just like she was trained to do. In fact, the only patently obvious breach of sanity was indeed the Varia suit incident... but Samus, again, was only supposed to go where told to go; as far as she knew, she wasn't SUPPOSED to be in a dangerous heat environment, and activating her Varia suit without authorization would:

A ) give her free reign to go places she might not have authorization to go

B ) show that she wasn't acutally under Adam's jurisdiction, which in her eyes (as a former Fed military member) would have been going against all of her training, as well as plenty of reason to get her kicked off the ship indefinitely (which wasn't what she wanted). And, as soon as Adam realizes that she's taking damage (something he might NOT have known if he was watching the other team members at the time), he corrects the problem and gives her authorization.

Seriously, if you say these things out of context, of COURSE they sound retarded. Context helps, people.

[Metroid: Other M]

Did you even WATCH the scene in question?? That's not what happened at ALL. Again, the only reason Adam shot Samus in teh first place was because she was about to run into a Metroid den with unbeatable Metroids. As soon as she walked in there, she was, essentially, a goner. Let's put this in real world terms. If you were in Texas and were on a walk, happening upon a bridge with a person ABOUT TO COMMIT SUICIDE BY JUMPING, would you allow it, or pull out your gun (because you're in Texas; everyone there is armed) and shoot the guy in the leg to stop him. Assume that you're outside of tackling range.

The answer will explain why you are either for or against Adam.

[Metroid: Other M]

Adam just shooting Samus in the back (and not even apologizing) is a pretty "this is fucking terrible" moment for a lot of people.

Even if you can write most of the game off as NOT being sexist or misogynist (and I do), that scene in particular is hard to justify in ANY context (Samus tries to be independent and willful- Adam shoots her and immobilizes her- Adam does all the work himself- Samus is grateful that Adam has done this- big emotional music plays).

Whatever Sakamoto was trying to get across there was utterly lost on me, and probably a lot of people who sat down thinking "Wait, what?"

I thought it was pretty obvious. It was a rebuke of all of the "Samus should be a badass ALL THE TIME" theories that people had MISTAKENLY applied to the character in the first place. Remember, Samus was just going to charge into the Metroid den cannon first like she always does...

Except those Metroids had no weaknesses. Adam says it himself. They were, stupidly, bread to be the anti-Samus. Anything she would have done would have been futile at best and suicidal at worst. So, Adam does the only thing he CAN do at the time: immobilize the headstrong dumbass Samus had become in her pseudo-testosterone fueled blood-rage, explain that her until-then awesome skills were now useless, and realize that, ultimately, Samus was more of an asset to the galaxy than he was.

After all, who would we RATHER see pull the self-destruct switch: Adam, the ultimately useless army dude, or Samus, who could at least go on and do OTHER SHIT after the Bottle Ship was dealt with?

Not to mention, people really need to stop ragging on Samus' emotional baggage. What, women CAN'T have emotions anymore? If a woman has emotions these days, she's a bad example for all womanhood. It's fucking stupid. Women don't need to grow a penis to be badasses, you know. They can still feel things every now and again. It's not that big of a deal. Fuck, it's like bitching if Marcus Fenix has any semblance of emotion in Gears 3 because if Marcus feels, he must be a faggot. That'd be STUPID. Just as stupid as the argument against Samus' emotions.

[Red Alert 2 - Hell March (Film)]

PR, I usually really look forward to every song you post, and after seeing that you were doing a take on RA2 (one of my FAVORITY GAMES / OSTs OF ALL TIME), I was stoked...

...but I feel a little let down. I'll give you one thing, it was uber epic, but it felt... almost too epic? Like it was a 4 minute long climax. If there is anything that categorizes orchestral music, it's that it is very fluid, very moving, but this song started with high energy and kept it all the way through.

Honestly, it felt like it was an orchestral song with the spirit of one of your techno songs.

It was a little off-putting for an orchestral song. The arrangement is good, or at least on the right track, but those dynamics and pacing problems really detract from the song as a whole, in my opinion.

[VGM Rap (or vulgar rap-hate) thread (split from MM4 'Get a Weapon Weapon' reviews)]

Eh, I found this post to be the best summary of rap, which actually changed my whole perspective on the matter.

And that post is actually very accurate... it's just not what we're talking about. I've already said pages ago that dance music and rap are not always the same. Remember: maybe the 1 or 2 best or most catchy songs from an artist or album make it to the club, while the rest stay on the CD (or, preferably, digital download). Just because the songs in the club don't talk about how shooting people who aren't in your gang is just a fun time for all, that doesn't mean that the other 9-14 songs per album don't... and this whole discussion is about how violence and drugs have pervaded the majority of rap, culturally speaking.

I do agree with what you've quoted, but I don't think what you quoted is actually relevant to the discussion.

Why are we arguing anyways, can't we all just get along pls. Music is 'sposed to be fun first and foremost.

Sure, but music, like all other forms of media, needs to realize the profound cultural influence it has. Just because you CAN do something does not mean you should, and most forms of media still need to learn this lesson.

The news needs to learn it by not operating on a fear-based economy; you can report the news in an opinionated way, you are free to, but that doesn't mean it will have a positive effect on the news sphere or on the public. Movies can put out nothing but ultra-violent summer blockbusters, but that doesn't mean they should, because the realm of movies influences popular culture more than almost any other passive media. Video games can put out same-y, me-too sequels and clones, but that doesn't mean they should, because they are a burgeoning art from and still need to prove themselves in the court of public opinion (and to the Supreme Court, apparently).

Rap has to learn that they can support a culture based on monetary gain, violence, and drug use, but that doesn't mean they should, because its going to have a deeply negative effect on the people that rap is supposed to care about the most: its primary listeners and creators.

I realized a long ass time ago that arguing about this type of shit is never gonna solve anything and half of the time people sound like idiots doing it I'm not gonna mention names but one of them is still participating in the argument xD.

Ok, first of all, haha. Second, arguing about things is one of the only ways people are subjected to opinions that differ from their own, which is always a good thing. Believe it or not, I have experienced quite a bit from this thread, things I will, in fact, take away with me when the debate is long finished. But, just because most people here disagree with me doesn't mean I don't deeply appreciate the disagreement or the discourse. I need that discourse to experience viewpoints that are not my own and grow as an intellectual.

Sometimes, people forget that it's ok to disagree. Strange how that works on a discussion forum.

[VGM Rap (or vulgar rap-hate) thread (split from MM4 'Get a Weapon Weapon' reviews)]

I don't know how else to explain that your posts come off as racist to me if you are going to hand-wave away the arguments I linked explaining precisely why a rigid definition of "racism" can't be applied to explain racism in a meaningful way.

You know why I do that? Because it's that same flimsy logic that lets people get away with calling people fascists, or terrorists, or communists (as if it was a bad thing) without anything other than saying "because you're not a patriot". What you're accusing me of is a serious offense, even on the internet. And if you can't accuse me of it without saying "well, I mean, it's not something I can point to", then you have no business accusing me of it at all. Seriously, your argument sounds like the same half-assed intellectualism I hear on Fox News/MSNBC all the time. News flash: name calling, especially a name as bad as "racist", does not win you arguments.

You want to operate on a system of modal logic, but the concept is largely based on specific personal experiences that do allow us to generally understand the idea after experiencing it enough, but don't really allow for a way to extrapolate abstract propostions to soundly apply your logic.

Bullshit. I can extrapolate an easy way to tell if someone is being racist or not. You are saying racist things if they:

A ) focus on the color of skin.

B ) exclude all other variables except a racial genetic background (especially pertaining to skin color).

C ) ignore complexities of argument in favor of simplistic arguments based on skin color.

Sure, I'm the one making those guidelines, so I could be biased. But to the extent of my knowledge, you can only be racist towards blacks, Mexicans, Asians, Indians, or generally people who are not white (based off of your own two links), which indicates that racism is at least peripherally linked to skin color (but more importantly, racial background). If you want to add to the list or make modifications, feel free, although I doubt this is the thread to do it in.

Again, did I ever say that rap's problems were systemic to black people, mexican people, or any one race in particular? NO. I even took special care to use the term "inner city", because most of the problems are systemic social problems that originated from social class, not race! You can be an inner city person regardless of race.

Whether you can accept my opinion of your posts or not, they still reek of racism to me. It'd be nice if you could at least acknowledge that you've been close-minded as I pointed out in my first post, but I doubt that'll happen.

Well, if I was being close-minded, I would. Unfortunately for the both of us, I was commenting on a very specific problem that, again, I saw as indicative of a culture as a whole. If my rejection of a simplistic "fuck it, that's how things are" attitude makes me close-minded, so be it. I'm sorry for asking a community of people to better themselves?

It'd be nice if the people flaming me could at least acknowledge that they've been acting especially hateful as I pointed out a few posts ago, but I doubt that'll happen. ^_-

That's the last I'd say on it so as not to derail your poor thread any further.

TL;DR: I think what I think. Deal with it.

Not once have I ever said, in this thread or any other, that one isn't entitled to his opinion. If I rememeber correctly... *looks at rest of thread* ...yeah, I haven't been the one calling names and telling people to fuck off. Interesting how that works.