Economics of Game Prices

[Doulifée]

"Hello i'm JackKiaser! Basically..run"

[davidoff]

"Hello i'm JackKiaser! Basically..run"

That was such a great scene.

[big giant circles]

I feel like this thread has taken a turn for the better.

[The Derrit]

you know a thread is over when mods and judges are posting gifs

and when i say over i mean getting much better please keep doing it

[The Damned]

"Hello i'm JackKiaser! Basically..run"

Boooo, you just ruined Doctor Who for me by making that association. It will take many viewings of the last four seasons to to fix it.

[davidoff]

Boooo, you just ruined Doctor Who for me by making that association. It will take many viewings of the last four seasons to to fix it.

Or five minutes of staring at Karen Gillan's legs.

[JackKieser]

I'm just going to wait for zircon to post, since I'm in class and none of you are capable of evaluating hypotheticals. By making an argument variable based, you are presenting a logical argument without personal bias; for instance, using a specific idea or group of ideas (Mario games, for instance) introduced bias, because you may feel like it's wrong to use miyamoto's work. Making all possible derivatives "x" and assuming that x has a finite value allows you to display the same logical data In a non-biased way.

All I set out to prove is that copyright necessarily restricts ideas from beig created, which you all admitted was true ("well, I can't make a new Mario game, but I can use another character" means there are ideas that you aren't allowed to make). It doesn't matter if some people will just copy, because that's not the concern of the system. It's accepted that copying happens.

Posting from an iPod, so sorry for spelling / formatting issues.

[The Damned]

Did you know she was one of the temple girls in the episode "The Fires of Pompeii"?

She had a hood and make-up on, and wasn't there or that much of it, but she's not actually new to the series.

How interesting.

[davidoff]

I remember reading that, actually! And Freema Agyeman, the woman who played Martha Jones, appeared in an earlier episode ("Army of Ghosts" in the second season) as Martha Jones' cousin, a Torchwood scientist.

[Charlie's Angel]

I'm just going to wait for zircon to post, since I'm in class and none of you are capable of evaluating hypotheticals. [...] All I set out to prove is that copyright necessarily restricts ideas from beig created, which you all admitted was true ("well, I can't make a new Mario game, but I can use another character" means there are ideas that you aren't allowed to make).

And you're willing to go on about it day after day, 300 posts in when thats "all you set out to prove"? I can't get past that this is not about that at all since the universal response to any point you make is wildly negative where we have people with actual game/business experience here who refute your points and you just continue on knowing you aren't proving anything to anyone. What are you really trying to do here?

[The Author]

But it is you who is unable to formulate some kind of actual argument. You cannot reduce everything to mathematical variables and assume that it is conceptually sound.

Wanna work on a good hypothetical:L

Remove all copyright laws. Nothing ever again is copyrighted. Intellectual property ceases to exist.

Are we going to see an improvement in creativity through the dissolution of intellectual property? If so, please theorize how it would go.

Because the way I see it, everything would go the Chinese way:

Executive A: What was popular in the last few months?

Executive B: Well, Vampires, and that Harry Potter thing.

Executive A: Well, then get some chump to write The Young Wizard and the Vampire Plague. And don't forget to license for videogames... My niece loves Nintendogs, so why not make a game where the Wizard raises his familiar, just copy the code from Nintendogs and replace the model with something more magical?

Underling A: Like a cerberus or a sphynx?

Executive B: Nah, we'll just put sparkles around a purple chihuahua.

Without intellectual property, we would be stuck in a flood of imitations of what was successful. If you didn't like Avatar, you,d still have to deal with 200 copies of it done hastily to cash in on the wave.

Hell, back before intellectual property, this sort of thing happened a lot. The only reason you have heard of Shakespeare is not because he was a great playwright (he was, but still), it's because his company managed to produce plays that were not entirely his in just a more visible fashion. But don't think for an instant that he wrote all of the plays attributed to him now, he just tweaked them and put his name, and his company's name, on it which gave his version of the plays great visibility.

[Gollgagh]

Of course it does. A simple math proof for you:

The number of unique ideas that a person can come up with on his own is X (we know it's infinite, but assume it's not because a person's lifetime is finite)

The number of ideas that two people can come up with is 2X

The number of ideas that one person can come up with as derivatives of another person's ideas, therefore, would be an exponential function of X (because for each unique idea that one person comes up with, another person could come up with X number of derivative ideas)

Okay see the problem with this is that it's a mathematically logical leap to assume that in the time that a person is allowed to create X unique ideas for himself, he can also make X^X ideas derived from one other person's X ideas, or the same amount of ideas as he could make in his lifetime per idea of this other person.

To show you how ridiculous this number is, let's say that people can achieve 100 unique ideas in their lifetime. By your proof, that same person should therefore be able to create 100^100 derivative ideas. That's 1x10^200 or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ideas from that one person.

That is an utterly incomprehensible number.

[JackKieser]

Author, that is so backwards. I don't have to prove that anything would be worse with copyright, you have to prove that things would be BETTER with it. Also, the original market crash had to do with oversaturation, not copyright. If everyone is allowed to copy, and no one wants to buy copies, the copies won't sell. The market will naturally deal with people who make shitty copies because no one will buy them.

Unless you don't think the free market works. Sorry for the oversimplified response. Stupid iPod keyboard. Typing on this thing is so cumbersome.

Edit at g: of course it's a large number. What you plug in for x is irrelevant, because we're assuming x is finite for the sale of argument, which we know is false. You just can't subtract, multiply, or add infinity with any real meaning.

[thephoenix]

Hell, back before intellectual property, this sort of thing happened a lot. The only reason you have heard of Shakespeare is not because he was a great playwright (he was, but still), it's because his company managed to produce plays that were not entirely his in just a more visible fashion. But don't think for an instant that he wrote all of the plays attributed to him now, he just tweaked them and put his name, and his company's name, on it which gave his version of the plays great visibility.

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.

[thephoenix]

That's 1x10^200 or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ideas from that one person.

That is an utterly incomprehensible number.

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.

[The Author]

Actually, the status quo is this: we have copyright, and intellectual property.

You are the one arguing for a change of the status quo.

Right now the system works for the most part. Intellectual properties are respected, there are derivative works, but nothing too blatant, just conceptual derivatives. (e.g. Zombie horror is popular? lets make a zombie horror game but with another approach so that we don't get sued.)

So, tell us, please enlighten us: why do you want to change the status quo?

Also, the crash was caused by an immense amount of games people didn't want to buy. Which, all things considered, when in a year you would have 1200 clones of the few successful original games of the year, would be what would be happening if we moved away from the status quo.

But maybe I should go back to the concept of the market making things right.

If you believe in the power of the invisible hand of the market, then you have no reason to complain about the current pricing of games, as it is what the market dictates. Plus, other than buying consoles, gaming is fucking cheap nowadays regardless.

Or maybe I'm missing the point of your babbling. But that would assume you have a point, and right now other than serving as a debating punching bag, I have to admit you lack a sense of direction.

But then again, philosophy majors are not really fun to debate with, now on the other hand Masters and Doctoral students of philosophy are fun to debate with, even if you do feel sad that they will end up not doing much with their degrees.

[The Damned]

That's 1x10^200 or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ideas from that one person.

That is an utterly incomprehensible number.

Gollgag, that is a terrible argument.

I can see it on my screen. If seeing = truth, and truth = real, then that number = both TRUE^REAL squared. It's really big, with lots of zeros in it. By stating it's factualness , I can understand it. Therefore, I can comprehend it. You are wrong. Your entire argument is based upon false assumptions of my understanding. My arguments are sound and valid, because I have spent years practicing this exact sort of thing on video game forums! Ergo sum cum laude, and other latin phrases I picked up on wikipedia in my spare time from other video game sites. I'm not going to respond to Charlie's post because that's IRRELEVENT to the topic, and not worth my time, but I will still keep going on about this because I don't have to work right now.

Sorry for the double post, I'm on an iPad.

[JackKieser]

Oh how I want to debate this rigt now... Suffice it to say, my assertion is the the status quo was created through invalid logic, so I still don't have to prove it shouldn't exist; you still have the burden of proof because you hold the affirmative argument. Also, you can't assume that copyright is logical, but I can assume no copyright is logical because no copyright is the null argument.

I'd elaborate, but i'll just ask you to look it up on wikipedia.

[thephoenix]

Oh how I want to debate this rigt now... Suffice it to say, my assertion is the the status quo was created through invalid logic, so I still don't have to prove it shouldn't exist; you still have the burden of proof because you hold the affirmative argument. Also, you can't assume that copyright is logical, but I can assume no copyright is logical because no copyright is the null argument.

I'd elaborate, but i'll just ask you to look it up on wikipedia.

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

[The Damned]

The subject is so deep and complex, only lots of extra sidelines and tangents can explain everything. Sure, a simple, direct reason is possible, but how else can he have an out when someone asks something he isn't prepared to respond to?

I mean, come on, he's only one man! Ease up on him.

[The Author]

Oh how I want to debate this rigt now... Suffice it to say, my assertion is the the status quo was created through invalid logic, so I still don't have to prove it shouldn't exist; you still have the burden of proof because you hold the affirmative argument. Also, you can't assume that copyright is logical, but I can assume no copyright is logical because no copyright is the null argument.

I'd elaborate, but i'll just ask you to look it up on wikipedia.

Ok, lets get meta on your ass.

Emotions are illogical right?

Since you are the product of an illogical construct (love between your parents) then I can safely use your brand of logic to assert that you should not exist.

I don't have to prove myself, because, I used meta-logic to undo your existence. Please direct yourself to the nearest cliff.

Copyright, when looking at the intent and the cause for its creation, makes perfect sense.

I write a story people like. I publish it, the books are sold, my labor nets me money.Not unlike a cook who makes a pretty damned good steak is gonna earn income for his work. However, intellectual and creative work exist in a state that is quite different from goods and even services: they can be reproduced almost effortlessly and their reproduction can be directly linked to loss of income by the creator.

If we go back to the steak example, another restaurant could open in town and imitate the recipe the best they can to sell steaks, but it would never be the original thing done by the original chef. It will be obvious because the steaks will not be sold in the restaurant where the original chef is working.

However, in a book store, if you were to see in fiction 2 books, side by side, where one is the copy my publisher ships being sold for 15$ and another, a copy made by hack publisher that copies books, being sold for 10$ (because they don't have to pay me or my agent), tell me, which copy will be purchased more often?

The easy argument is: my publisher just has to chop down the price, maybe instead sell it for 10$ and cheap out on the book tour. But then the other company could still sell it lower, they don't have to pay for the promotion, all they have to do is sell what I have worked on, not give me a penny for it, and make money off of my back.

With intellectual property and copyright, then when I write a story it is mine, assuming I created the blasted thing. I sell it to a publisher, and he prints books, and there's only one copy of the book on the shelves, the one from my publisher, being sold at a reasonable price.

If I create something, then only the people involved with the publication process should benefit from my work, right?

Hell, the TLDR version: If I create something, it is MY creation.

There, this is why copyright exists.

Now the details do get messy, but truth be told, even if Disney has bastardized some aspects of copyright, doesn't it make sense that Mickey Mouse remains their intellectual property?

[Gollgagh]

Edit at g: of course it's a large number. What you plug in for x is irrelevant, because we're assuming x is finite for the sale of argument, which we know is false. You just can't subtract, multiply, or add infinity with any real meaning.

You cannot claim that series of statements as a mathematical proof and say it is meaningless in the same breath; either the proof is mathematically sound or it is not. If you claim that manipulating various infinities is meaningless then your proof is likewise meaningless by your own logic.

Also you are combining two different numbers in your definition of X and those are:

1) The number of possible ideas and

2) The number of ideas that a person can have in a lifetime.

Yes, we can assume that the total number of possible ideas is infinite; however we cannot assume that a person will have infinite ideas in his lifetime because his lifetime is limited.

[JackKieser]

You're using exist wrong. It's my fault for choosing the wrong word. By saying it's illogical and thus shouldn't exist, I MEAN it's illogical and thus shouldn't have been created, as a construct. Illogical constructs could exist, but shouldnt in laws because laws are supposed to be loical constructs.

Oh, and if we assume that only logical OBJECTS can exist, not constructs, then I could very well NOT exist. There's no proof that I exist ad it is, because I could be a computer construct in a simulation, and thus "existence" depends on the definition of existence; if existence means "physical existence", I wouldn't.

Edit at g: I said that people have finite lives in my proof. Also, I said the value for x is irrelevant, not the proof as a whole.

[The Damned]

I MDMA

This may explain a few things.

[Gollgagh]

I am saying that if you claim that X is an infinite number and also claim that manipulating infinities is meaningless, then you cannot claim that a series of statements that manipulates that infinite number X as a mathematical proof, and if you do then the proof is, by your own definition, meaningless.

(Ignoring the fact that you didn't actually manipulate the X at all like any actual mathematical proof would do)