For all the would be software pirates.

[Silverfox]

$59 lost if they would have bought it in the first place.

 

Key point, this. You can't measure what isn't there. It's only money lost, where someone was intending to buy and pirates instead.

 

I absolutely believe that most pirates are opportunists and would otherwise not be interested in buying, if it wasn't available for "free".

[Black64]

True.

 

[CowKing]

There is flaw in the test driving a car analogy. because there are some people who would play the entire game not just "test". so that would be the equivalent of "test driving" the car until you clocked up 100,000+ miles on it or till the engine gives out.

That's not what I said. Who would pirate a game, but still play it to completion even though they don't like the game?

 

Nice Straw Man. Did you make it yourself?

[d6bmg]

Nice work devs!!

[sack_patrol]

I absolutely believe that most pirates are opportunists and would otherwise not be interested in buying, if it wasn't available for "free".

What he said.

 

At worst, pirating a game could lead to the person buying the game if he really likes it. Or another example would be that since pirated games can't be played in multiplayer, if the guy liked the single player and how the game feels he could -based on that- decide to buy the game in order to play online.

 

If he didn't play or didn't like the game to begin with, then NOT pirating it will definitely not change his mind where as if he had it, there's always a chance that it could draw him in or whatever...

 

This however goes back to the fact that nobody ever releases any demos for anything. That could probably cut down on pirating a little bit, but to think that there's a way to make it go away for good is wishful thinking. Not to mention that even demos aren't a sure way to know if you will like the game or not because the devs could have just released the best part of the game and the rest would be rubbish.

Edited December 16, 2011 by sack_patrol

[Locutus]

It has weird controls but 5 minutes of The WItcher and you'd know that.

 

And don't go saying that The WItcher doesn't have a demo or isn't easily accessible, because it is available on OnLive and has a 30 minute demo - which is the full version of the game with a time limit. And if you aren't sure after that you can buy the playpack which has a ton of games for 10 bucks a month. (and The Witcher is included.)

 

And this is way more appealing than pirating, because it's going to be ready to play as fast as you can load it, and if you can't play onlive I'm sure it takes you 3 days to download games.

Edited December 17, 2011 by Locutus

[Crazy_Nate]

I empathize with losing a disk or getting around stupid or troublesome DRM, but the fact of the matter is... what'd you expect?

[bilcliff]

Also, it is not proper to say that advertising doesn't count in the cost of the game because it is part of post-development, just like stamping a disc, and has a direct impact on the number being sold. People are saying we you need demos to know if you want to buy a game, well try deciding to buy a game when you haven't seen a trailer, TV spot, screenshot, or even a professional review. There would be some content made by people who did purchase the game, but not as much as any of us are used to, and there definitely would not be a professional review because why would anyone spend the time reviewing a title no one has heard about. All of this directly influences the sales and I'm sure the marketing teams at publishers know how much advertising sells how many games.

ok first of all you're twisting my words and inferring all kinds of things. I never said say advertising doesn't count. but the thing about advertising is its not a simple formula that $x advertising = $y sales. you could spend $100m on advertising or $1m on advertising and theres no guarantee that the $100m advertising sells 100x more games. I guarantee you that if COD cut their advertising budget in half they wouldnt lose 50% of their sales. Also on the subject the most effective forms of advertising for companies are usually free. 1) word of mouth. 2) uploading a gameplay video / trailer to a game news site wouldn't cost them much if at all.

 

To dismiss the costs of production because it's all from a master copy is also a poor decision because to produce so many copies of one title means you are producing fewer of another, unless additional production lines are purchased and installed, which can obviously be quite expensive. For digital distribution this is less of an issue, but there is still the cost of maintaining servers and stable Internet connection.

Everytime a publisher releases a new game they dont have to buy more production lines / printing presses / servers etc. Those assets already exist. Games dont sell at the same rate over their life. Everyone knows that as games get older they sell less copies, therefore requiring less production resources which can be reallocated to the production of new games.

 

You want to be careful trying to defend your position by saying the marginal cost is low, because that also means the marginal profit is quite high. So getting a single copy illegally (and I mean for full use, not just a test) actually takes more away from the publisher. It costs $1 (for example) for the production and shipping to a store, and sells for $60, so that's $59 the company loses because of a single pirate. Really to illegally download a game steals more from the company than stealing the hamburger mentioned earlier.

...

Finally, why is total cost not what we're looking at? Is the development cost really unimportant? Not to the people who spent years working on it. Not to the companies that need the sales to justify maintenance of the older title (patches, so yes development costs do continue after release) and the development of future titles.

Again you twist my words and infer all kinds of things that i never said. Where did i say development cost is unimportant? The problem with using Total costs is that that includes a fixed component. in this case the money spent on development is fixed. Say a company spends $100m total on development. if that game sells 2m copies. thats an average cost of $50 per unit. If that game sells 5million copies thats an average cost of $20 per unit. Can you see the problem with using fixed costs now? That is why i was talking in terms of marginal cost in my previous posts.

 

Having touched on that i feel the need to talk about pricing. I apologise to all. I didn't make my last two posts with the intention of turning this into a debate on pricing. But it needs to be said. if more games came out at a lower price point i.e. $50 or even $40 or $30 for brand new titles, more people could afford to buy it new rather than used or pirate it.

 

Here's an real world example for you, over here day 1 launch titles are anywhere between $80 (PC) and $110(Consoles). So i've started importing games from the uk because i can get them for $40-$50. just in the last month i imported Assassins Creed Rev, Arkham city, LA Noire PC, Saints Row Third. If i were to buy them locally i would have been up for anywhere between $320-$440. There's no way i could have bought all of them for those prices. I paid closer to $180 in total.

 

My point is and im getting to it. Most of us have limited amounts they can spend on luxuries such as games. If they set the price lower there would be a greater total number of units sold. at an average of $45 a game i could afford to buy 4 games compared with the 2 games i could afford by buying locally. That results in a greater number of units that they can spread the development costs over.

 

As for patches see my point about reallocation of resources. I remember waiting for the BC2 patches and remember reading posts that they were taking so long because the DICE team were working on the BC2 vietnam expansion and there was only a very small number still working on the BC2 Quality Assurance etc. So ok yes, to some extent they do exist once the game has been completed but to a significantly lower extent. also how many games continue to get patches more than 1yr after release? And before anyone mentions TF2 which is entirely different given it has its own market place allowing for additional revenue after the initial sale. Same thing with MMOs, you continue to receive new content for additional monthly fee. Same thing with DLC.

 

I'm apologise to all for taking this topic well off track but at the end of the day, price and cost aren't simple things that can be brought up in a simple one sentence argument. there are many factors that affect both.

 

That's not what I said. Who would pirate a game, but still play it to completion even though they don't like the game?

 

Nice Straw Man. Did you make it yourself?

Thats not what i said. I never mentioned anything about them not liking the game. I agree who would play to completion if they didn't like it? But that wasnt my point. I may test drive a ferrari, i may enjoy the hell out of testing it. doesn't mean ill buy it. But me enjoying the ferrari ends when the dealer says "ok take us back to the dealership". When people pirate to test there is no one to say "ok you've had your fun stop playing or pay up".

 

Again apologies to all for the long winded post.

[Guest_Jim_*]

ok first of all you're twisting my words and inferring all kinds of things.

I guess you missed my point of that post which was summed up right at the end:

 

"Lies, damn lies, and statistics," is a saying for a reason. Be careful what you say is unimportant because for every reason you say it is, someone else can give a reason for why it is important. All you can do is hope that other person doesn't bother.

You were referring to the marginal cost and not the total cost and I was attempting to point out this is a poor representation of the situation, and then gave reasons. Perhaps I did infer that you were deeming total cost as unimportant, but it's not like I didn't have reason to:

 

I'm with Waco. The difference between games and other physical property is cost. Once the game is finished, the marginal cost (for non-economists that the cost to produce 1 more copy) is almost $0. Think about it. A case, dvd, manual etc would cost a couple of dollars at most especially with the bulk-buy discounts publishers would get on them. Also as things move towards digital distribution, the cost to sell one copy or 1million copies is virtually identical. all they are doing just copying a masterfile. you compare that to a burger at mcdonalds and they still have to pay for the beef, the bread, the cheese, the cooks wages, etc.

 

and

 

Re-read what i wrote. I'm not talking about the TOTAL cost, I wrote about the MARGINAL cost. Development costs are part of the total cost but not part of the marginal costs. once the game is finished you dont have to pay any more development costs. the only costs they incur once the game is fully finished is the cost to duplicate the case, the disc, the manual, shipping. and yes potentially advertising but how much advertising do you see for a game over a month after release? none unless its called "call of Duty"

 

Development costs will continue after release as patches are created, and the money will lead to DLC and sequels, which is further development. Your argument about the average cost of a single copy of a game based on the total costs is poor because a company cannot know for sure how many copies will sell, and the company has the right to make as much money as people are willing to give them. They cannot decide, "Oh, we'll sell at least 5 million, so we can drop the price since we'll make what we need back," because they cannot be sure a game will do well. They can expect to sell so many, but they cannot be sure; some AAA games fail and while indie games end up with millions of sales. So no, I don't see any problem with considering fixed costs; the costs may be fixed, but the number of games sold is variable and not predictable with certainty.

 

Yes you cannot guarantee a $100 million advertising campaign will do better than a $1 million dollar, but you can expect it to do better. You should be able to expect it to do much better too, otherwise no one would spend that much money because it would be a waste. Also, your counter argument of the best advertisements being free is, I'll say it, foolish, because the two you mention, word of mouth and youtube videos (effective just word of mouth, but whatever) are not independent of paid advertisements. (You even mention uploading a game trailer being uploaded, while a game trailer is a product of advertising which was paid for.) Before any word of mouth can be spread, the game has to be released, and before that happens the advertising campaign starts. I'm not saying word of mouth does not greatly aid game sales, I'm just saying this advertising is still dependent on the paid-for advertising.

 

Of course the production of games will ramp down over time, but this does not help when there are multiple titles being released at roughly the same time. Also, even though the production of older games ramps down, the production is still ongoing, so they still impact a new title's ability to be produced. As there are more old games than new, it adds up. I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason we see so many release day patches is because the physical media started production early, before the fixes were put in, to offset the costs of a larger production nearer to release date. It will be cheaper to produce 100,000 copies, and ship them to retailers, starting a month before release than just two weeks before.

 

 

Let me try summing up my point, again: it is not possible to have a comprehensive solution or debate about a topic when anyone involved does not consider the entire situation. It is also impossible to know with certainty how a game will do, so it is inappropriate to argue a game should be cheaper because it will sell more (especially as it will normally drop in price in the course of months, so the initial price is not representative of the lifetime price).

[sYstEmATiC]

I'm not sure that is a good thing to say here or anywhere. It is also a poor attitude to have. Can I steal your computer or TV? Let me know.

I kind of agree with coors. Its a "sad but true" situation. Am I going to pirate the game out of spite? No, but I agree with his logic.

 

As for the thievery. Thats the difference between big corporations and homeowners. Homeowners, especially in OH, have the Stand you ground law. We can shoot you when you steal our stuff. lol

 

Edit*** Whoops, I didn't realize there were multiple pages.

[Andrewr05]

I kind of agree with coors. Its a "sad but true" situation. Am I going to pirate the game out of spite? No, but I agree with his logic.

 

As for the thievery. Thats the difference between big corporations and homeowners. Homeowners, especially in OH, have the Stand you ground law. We can shoot you when you steal our stuff. lol

Castle Doctrine FTW.

 

[_TheAlexO]

Bottom line; The Witcher 2 is an incredible game that deserves every sale it might of possibly lost due to pirates.