thephoenix

I got it! Lets take the songs from their games...and make them turn into weresongs! YEAH! We can add in an annoying, whiny, unnecessary character to talk through most of the songs about how he got himself in trouble and now the song is the only one that can save him! Half the song will be really fast and intense like others are used to, but then we'll make the other half really clunky, slow, and boring! I begin work tonight!

I should have separated those two statements a bit more. Characters like Storm, Cable, Cyclops, and numerous others were very commonly played characters. Son Son was more a staple for me in MvC2. It seems numerous big-name characters are gone and replaced with lesser-known ones. I can forgive Son Son, but if you look, numerous characters are missing...with 15-20 new characters in, and only about 38 on the roster, that means 40 characters were removed.

Marvel vs Capcom 2 had 58 characters. This game seems to only have 38. Plus, they took out far too many staple characters (WHERE THE FUCK IS CABLE?! SON SON!? Son of a bitch...) to put in new guys, when most of them aren't exactly amazing adds. Plus, I really don't like the new look of the game. I'd have been psyched if they kept the old school fighting game feel and doubled the roster...instead, we're stuck with this. I swear to god if I find out they held back characters just to sell them as DLC, this game is moving from my "buy" list to my "pirate" list so I can take that money and pay for the "rest of the game".

Oh yeah, THAT shit pisses me off. If I see DLC thats only 128kb, that means whatever I'm paying for is already on the disk and this is just an unlock. To hell with that...and they wonder why people have started turning to piracy more and more. Hell, another thing with DLC just came to mind. XBox states that, with their achievements in a game, all of them must be accessable without purchasing further content (besides online multiplayer awards, where you're paying for that). Fable made it where you had to buy a specific item, I believe the table top game pack, to get a specific item to unlock an achievement. It was the only way to get the item, and specifically required purchased content. XBox let them get away with it. I'm not just talking the extra points that you get with most DLC, I'm talking the original 1000pt setup could not be completed if hadn't purchased other content. Essentially, for point chasers, they forced another $10 out of you for a single achievement. Sadly, I can't bring myself to say I want to see DLC gone completely. I do like the possibilities it brings to the table. I just wish most game companies wouldn't sit and abuse the hell out of it.

DLC, while great in theory, was horribly executed. Still, most gamers will drop money on it, which will make it appear to be a successful business tactic, and it just continues to get worse. The idea of DLC was like getting expansion packs for PC games (as some have already mentioned). For the longest time, it was impossible for games to get additional content that PC gamers would be able to get. DLC was meant as a step to correct that, and in theory, was a great idea. Then game companies realized something...they could sell half a game, then put up the rest as DLC, extending the deadline for the games creative base and effectively charging you upwards of 2x the amount you'd normally pay for a single game. Fable 2 is one of the biggest propagators of this, by releasing that was far too short for a game of it's calibur, instead relying on what was originally going to be 6 episodic DLCs. Other games release small add-on packs at insane prices, but again, gamers want everything they can get. Sadly, this has driven the gaming devs to continue this practice, and as a few have said, it's only going to get worse. More and more, DLC becomes more expensive while offering less gameplay. Fallout 3 especially had this issue. $10 for DLC able to be beaten completely in 3 hours is not worth the price you pay, but most wont know that until AFTER they have bought the content. However, there are some companies that go well out of their way to do DLC right. Gearbox is one I will forever praise for this. Their Borderlands DLC (with the exception of Mad Moxxi's Underdome, which they openly admit was a good idea gone bad) added 15-20+ hours of gameplay, if not more, for each pack. General Knoxx's Secret Armory could technically be it's own game with the amount of things that become available. If you own all 3 "playable" DLC (as Moxxi's was more of an arena, less of a story driven DLC), you could easily rack up 50-60 more hours of gameplay for a single playthrough. Go through both playthroughs and you're looking at 100+ hours. Their DLCs also go for the same price as the "map packs" released by most FPS game devs. I wanted DLC to work. It was a great idea that, sadly, companies like Activision and EA found out could be used as way to squeeze money out of every player of the game...and when the big dogs do it, it's hard for the smaller companies to not be forced to go the same route.

I'm still trying to figure out what copyright has to do with the economics of game prices...

Whatchutalkinbout? I come up with that many ideas in a day! That's weak sauce, try 1x10^2000 and we're talking about a challenge.

This right here. So many people don't understand how damaging artistic theft was, and how rampant it was, before copyright laws. You think it's businesses trying to lock things down? Again, your ideas of business practices would make any company you run crumble before it got off the ground. Protecting your creations that you invest your time, money, and effort into is necessary, and more than just for profit's sake. Intellectual property laws exist to protect from content theft much like this. As well, going off your earlier statements about how a company should look to charge less to save the consumers pennies on the dollar rather than make a decent profit to continue business growth...just, take that to a major corporation. Take that to a million major corporations. If you can get even one to accept that business model, I will give you my grand piano. $20k piano. It's yours. I'll even move it to you. Just to save you the time, it will never work. Businesses need profit to survive. They need to protect their creations to survive. This world is filled with countless copies, bootlegs, rip-offs, and so many other things that could damage those companies and their property if they didn't have the protection provided by the law.

...do what now? First off, it is interpretation. However, it's interpretation in usage for where it stands today. Times change, and the laws change with it. So yes, "original intent" does translate over. Yeah, it's not your fault the Supreme Court has the ability to make rulings over things...you know, that's kind of their job and all. Either way, I'd love to see where you think that constitutional rights, like the copyright clause, can't be re-interpreted and presented through court rulings nowadays. I want to know where you studied law, or economics, or politics, or US History, because so far, you've been wrong on all four.

You may want to take the time and read through the widespread number of cases that went to the supreme court over the definition of this passage. While the original may be "outdated", the courts have ruled on updated meanings to it. So yes, "artisan skills" does, in fact, refer to anything created artistically, be it writings, movies, books, and in this case, games. I'm just waiting for you to change subjects again once everyone else in this entire thread tells you how wrong you are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause I think you need to actually read what that entire clause states. I don't think it means what you think it means. The law was never written for works to not be protected, this was created to protect those works through legality. Butchered for private interest? It was created so that people who craft something "artistically" can retain ownership of that creation. By the way, that "limited time" thing can be renewed. Again, just read. Educate yourself instead of acting like you know what you're talking about, maybe you won't be mocked as much. It's a long shot, but who knows?

This is all I needed to see. You have no idea how copyright law works, are so far away from economics it's almost insulting, and that right there? That's enough for me to either say that you're a troll, or you just can't see how things really are with your head that far up your ass. Content creators don't have the right to sell exclusively what THEY create? You have the right to reproduce someone else's work as you see fit? Tell you what, show me where this exists. Show me any proof where this is true. If not, I'd call for a mod to lock this just because that right there screams trolling.

It seems like we agree on all other points, so I'll just comment on this...yes, more players may be a good thing in the number of those paying, but it may not be enough to make up for the lost profit. That's something that people don't seem to get...more people at less cost may sound good, but it will take millions of new players to make up for lost profit, and I highly doubt a $5 decrease will bring the increase to that level, especially considering the things you mentioned that would be caused by a large increase of the MMO's population.

Hah, that's right, companies should only shoot to break even, and any company looking to make profit is greedy and is boning their consumers, and the consumers should be mad about this!

While it may not sound much on the small side, keep in mind that a $5 decrease in subscriptions is equal to 1/3rd of the income being lost. It may not be much to the consumer, but that means billions lost for the company.

Wee, this is going to be fun! Just get to the "I know you are but what am I?" portion of this argument and get it overwith. Holy shit, you made leaps that Evel Knievel would look at and go "oh fuck no". How do you go from being a thrifty shopper, to the price that immigrant workers get paid for a single portion of the necessary procedure to get it from potato to potato chip, bagged, shipped, in stores, ready to consume, to illegal business practices? Just...wow. No, I'm not even going to waste the time explaining how wrong this is. You should know better. Plus, again, way to look at a single point of production and compare it to total income. Keep it up, you're doing great! WoW was able to take from EverQuest, and other games have taken from WoW. WoW is just easily accessable. Who cares if it's got an installed player base? Hell, I know a lot of people that enjoy Coke products, that doesn't mean new soda manufacturers need to copy Coca-Cola's production line to get business. Well, you'd first off be running the risk of copyright infringement, but no, there's nothing saying you couldn't, nor that you wouldn't outsell them. However, it's about the bottom line. Sure, sell 1.5 million copies of a game at $50 and you end up with 75 million. However, sell 1.3 million at $60 and you end up with 78 million. It's the reason why the Wii sells more than most other consoles but PS3 and XBox 360 can still bring in more income. Have you seen the MMO market recently? With FFXIV, DC Universe, APB, League of Legends, MapleStory, and millions of free to play MMOs, there are tons of competitors, and many are holding their own. So, in the end, you're just bitching because you don't want to pay more when they make more money for making a better product. WoW may have a huge player base now but it wasn't something they instantly gained. It built up, and did so because they found a working formula. They still price it the same as any other MMO, and again, sometimes cheaper. If it was $200 a month I'd be right along side you. But $15 is change. I have $15 probably in my car right now. You can blame it on the price, I blame it on insane popularity and the mass player base. They're a business, and businesses need money to grow. That's ok though, you can stick with your "immigrant worker" analogy all you want and ignore the entire rest of the game development side of things. Maybe if they hired immigrant workers at Blizzard they could bring their costs down even more and go swimming in vaults filled with gold...

Ignoring it? We're just presenting the cold, hard facts. I love getting to use phrases people use against them. Either way, look at the obvious things that just outright scream how wrong you are. Most MMOs do a base of $15 a month. Hell, many go BEYOND that. FFXI charged people an extra $3 for each character they had. $15 a month is extremely reasonable, considering what you get out of it. Lets say you play 40 hours in a month, which is small compared to most playtimes. That means that every hour you play, it costs you 37 cents. A 2 hour movie costs almost 25x as playing most MMOs. Oh, and the note of movies, really good ones tend to rake in millions, if not billions, over cost. I guess we should bitch that bigger, better movies that make more profit should lower their ticket prices because we're getting "boned". As well, again, companies have a bottom line of profit they have to reach. If Blizzard has something they supply for a very paltry amount, and still can make massive bank on it, good for them. I make $15 in less than an hours worth of work. Even on minimum wage, you're covered for an ENTIRE MONTH with 3 hours of work. You're right, they should lower it to $10, lose out on numerous profits, stint growth, and so on, just to save everyone an extra $5 a month. Great business plan. You should consider opening a game company, you'd do amazing with your "lets just break even" strategy!

I'm sure all businesses around the world don't actually look to make a profit, they're just looking to break even. Bravo. Let me know when you pass 8th grade economics. I figure it'll be a few years.

Your lack of understanding of the business economics of a game company are showing. While game upkeep, which includes staffing to keep the game running, server costs, and so on, may only have been $200m, nowhere in the entire article does it talk about development costs, which I guarantee are MUCH higher than that. Not only that, consider things like marketing, promotion, payroll (there are more people than just those keeping servers up and running), and so many other things that do cost a damn decent amount of money. It even says in your posted article the following: "Sure there's plenty of other revenues - and expenses - that factor into the equation..." This is merely for upkeep. You may want to read through the entire article next time. Either way, Blizzard came across an endless gold mine and charged the base price that almost every Pay-to-Play MMO has charged since before it even existed. That profit they make is what allows them to expand, to have more freedom in the business, to bring us previously canceled titles like Diablo 3 and StarCraft 2. By the way, your cold, hard numbers are appearing a bit soft. Do your research a bit better next time.

I'm not saying I'm a fan of WoW, far from it, it's more the relative idea of it...if someone can have a months worth of what they consider to be fun for $15, who can blame them? Pardon me while I get my DC Universe on.

This does bring up an interesting point with the MMO market. $15 a month for progressive, never-ending gaming. For 1/4th of a single, new game, you get unlimited playtime in most MMOs. I'd willingly spend that much for something I'd continually have fun with. Even with micro-transactions becoming more and more prominent in the MMO market, many are even offered as free to play. While the games may not be as top tier as many AAA dev games, they do provide a hell of a good time regardless without the issue of "replay factor".

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but part of the increase in game prices up from $49.99 to $59.99 and sometimes higher is because of the increasing difficulty that some systems implement to actually create a game. XBox360 is about right at the baseline for devs where it's not too difficult to produce a game of extreme magnitude, whereas PS3 has such advanced technology that it almost is too powerful, and the Wii is just far too gimmicky and annoying to program for that most games that used to be ports to all three major systems (at the time, Gamecube, PS2, and XBox) now only hit Sony and Microsoft's shores. Also, keep this in mind with Gamestop. Yes, publishers are pissy that they don't get money off used game sales, but lets face the honest truth here: the bottom line for games comes from new sales, not used. Used game stores have existed for as long as I can remember, working their way into second hand stores and old music stores. Gamestop is essentially a reseller. I can drive 5 miles from my house and hit a Movie Trading Company, 2 Gamestops, a CGX (game exchange), Entertainmart (game exchange), and about 3 mom and pop stores that deal in game exchanging in one way or another. The reason they're pointing a finger at Gamestop is because it's the biggest target, and they want to see if they can pull more money out of their games. It's bully tactics. Simply put, once a person purchases a game, and the company that produced and developed it get their cut, that's it. The company got their share. If the person that owns the game decides to trade it in or sell it because the game is able to be beat in hours, and has no replay value (see: 75% of games today), that is their choice. The game companies should have no right or say in that. Gamestop gives gamers the ability to trade in their games, albeit for insultingly low deals most times, to get new games. The games that go out from people trading in come out of their pocket. Those games that get traded in may never even sell. It's a risk, but that's what second hand stores do. Even still, the game company received their payment at the initial purchase. They still make tons of money off of new game sales. Sure, some people only like to buy used but in this economy, most of us (myself included) can't afford to drop $500+ every month on buying numerous games in the first place. If it wasn't for Gamestop, I guarantee I'd find them elsewhere like eBay, Craigslist, MTC, and wherever else I can. Sadly, the cost of gaming is out of control. I used to pay $10k a year on gaming alone. Since then I've modded almost every system I have, I pay for the games that I really want (especially if they're made by indy or smaller devs), and all I continue to see is the same formula...cost goes up, replay and gameplay value goes down. What happened to the days where you could buy a game and it'd take you 40-60 hours to beat, and that's if you didn't do anything but follow the storyline completely? Better yet, why is it that DLC, something originally meant as a way to build upon a completed game, is now a way for devs and publishers to push out a half-completed game, then charge MORE for the rest of the game later on? I'm looking at you, Fable 2. If you want to look at some interesting things with the gaming economy, look up how Activision almost pulled out all support from Sony and the PS3, or how many game devs have either considered, or went through with, canceling exclusivity to PS3 or Nintendo due to how costly it is to produce games on either system.

Do you by chance have any more tracks you need done? I've got some extra time anyway and I tend to be able to kick out a song pretty quickly depending on what style it's done.

Actually, intent has a lot to do with it, especially with you bringing up fair use. Hell, if you wanted to, you could easily put this game under fair use in numerous ways. In fact, I have a pretty good feeling if they were taken to court, it'd be ruled in favor of the fan game creators. Big amount of the "infringement" cases is about intent, so you can't just rule it out. The courts tend to look at things like plagiarism, intent to profit, defamation, and numerous other things, none of which this game fall under. Read up a little more on Fair Use...both the infringement laws and Fair Use are very open-worded so it's all about how you go about it. My brother got hit with a C&D by Nexon after his MapleStory site was posting a database with the entire games information on just about everything. He had a lawyer who contacted them back and argued Fair Use, especially citing intention. So it still deserves to be noted as it's what has been the central focus of numerous cases.