(no subject)
Feb. 26th, 2010 04:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owsf2000Here's another article from Kotaku. "What your $60 really buys". in a convenient pie chart that, according to people in the comments that claim to be (or claim to have been, or worked at, etc) owners and managers of game stores, is vastly over-estimating the retailer slice of 25%. They say the retailer portion is closer to 5-10 dollars. In effect, they make almost no money on new games at all.
Which of course is why they sell used games: To stay in business.
If a game store has to pay about $45 dollars to get a copy of the game, they have to sell at least 75% of the stock they bought before they actually start to see any profit. Further keep in mind that this is BEFORE the game store has to shell out for employee wages (such as they are) bills for things like electricity/heat, rent if they don't own their own land, land taxes if they do, as well as having money available to handle Unforeseen Circumstances. Broken water valve, theft, vandalism, etc etc. The list can go on.
So as a result of this, I find it rather easy to predict the end of video game stores eventually if the console makers and publishers successfully manage to castrate the used game market. And then what? Well let's see. Not everyone buys their games online. This will not affect some major chains that have the economic might to force publishers to sell cheaper in bulk (Like Wal-mart) but then those types of chains only deal with the either dirt cheap games or the major sure-fire hits. You're just not going to get the same variety available at a dedicated game store.
Do you see where I'm going with this? Can you see which foot the gun is pointed at? If game stores go under because they can't turn a profit when the used market is completely stamped out, the only chains that will still be around to sell games will be the super huge ones such as Wal-mart, Amazon, etc. Companies large enough to effectively say "Yeah we'll buy half a million copies, if you'll sell them for X dollars, otherwise we'll take none at all." <-- this kind of tactic would be devastating on all but the most popular 3-5 games on the go at any given time.
To clarify myself however, I do NOT agree with this bullshit about used games being sold for a couple dollars cheaper than brand new games. I do support the used game market in principle however so long as the games are sold for used game prices. (Which MUST be at least 50% off retail imo.)
Also, I'm still trying to get around the idea that console games these days seem to need installation. I thought that was one of the things we wanted to get AWAY from by moving away from PC gaming.
*edit*
Oh and just to comment about one commenter's smart ass pie chart about used game profits, he got the chart wrong. It conveniently leaves out whatever slice of the sale that was paid to the original owner of the game that the game store had to pay for the game in the first place. (For example: that 2-4 dollars Game Stop paid to Joe Sixpack for his used copy of NFL 2010) So really, the pie should be pac-man you insensitive clod!!1!!1!
Which of course is why they sell used games: To stay in business.
If a game store has to pay about $45 dollars to get a copy of the game, they have to sell at least 75% of the stock they bought before they actually start to see any profit. Further keep in mind that this is BEFORE the game store has to shell out for employee wages (such as they are) bills for things like electricity/heat, rent if they don't own their own land, land taxes if they do, as well as having money available to handle Unforeseen Circumstances. Broken water valve, theft, vandalism, etc etc. The list can go on.
So as a result of this, I find it rather easy to predict the end of video game stores eventually if the console makers and publishers successfully manage to castrate the used game market. And then what? Well let's see. Not everyone buys their games online. This will not affect some major chains that have the economic might to force publishers to sell cheaper in bulk (Like Wal-mart) but then those types of chains only deal with the either dirt cheap games or the major sure-fire hits. You're just not going to get the same variety available at a dedicated game store.
Do you see where I'm going with this? Can you see which foot the gun is pointed at? If game stores go under because they can't turn a profit when the used market is completely stamped out, the only chains that will still be around to sell games will be the super huge ones such as Wal-mart, Amazon, etc. Companies large enough to effectively say "Yeah we'll buy half a million copies, if you'll sell them for X dollars, otherwise we'll take none at all." <-- this kind of tactic would be devastating on all but the most popular 3-5 games on the go at any given time.
To clarify myself however, I do NOT agree with this bullshit about used games being sold for a couple dollars cheaper than brand new games. I do support the used game market in principle however so long as the games are sold for used game prices. (Which MUST be at least 50% off retail imo.)
Also, I'm still trying to get around the idea that console games these days seem to need installation. I thought that was one of the things we wanted to get AWAY from by moving away from PC gaming.
*edit*
Oh and just to comment about one commenter's smart ass pie chart about used game profits, he got the chart wrong. It conveniently leaves out whatever slice of the sale that was paid to the original owner of the game that the game store had to pay for the game in the first place. (For example: that 2-4 dollars Game Stop paid to Joe Sixpack for his used copy of NFL 2010) So really, the pie should be pac-man you insensitive clod!!1!!1!
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-26 03:59 pm (UTC)Also, everyone who asks to see where the "developer money" goes are being asses as well. Who cares? Much like the movie business: developers get a set amount in the contract, the publisher then tries to recoup the sum of those costs across all their published games - because many games probably don't end up turning much profit, if this chart is reasonable. Sure, mega-hits make tons of cash, but a lot of that goes to pay for the development expenses of Sports Franchise Rehash 2010 or whatever. Nobody's sitting on sacks of gold here. Get off your high horses, people.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-26 05:40 pm (UTC)As for consoles requiring installation, I actually just ran into that for the first time last night on my new PS3. On the 360, this isn't an issue, at least that I've encountered (although optional installation is available, for what that's worth). On the PS3, however, when I started up Heavy Rain last night, it first needed to download 220-something MB of patch, which took about 15 minutes, then needed to install that, which took another 10 or so, then on top of that needed to install the game to the console for whatever reason, which I think took another 10 or so. Their solution to this? They included a small piece of paper with the game and displayed instructions during the installation process (but not the patch download/installation process, since that was a PS3 thing and not game specific) on how to fold it into the origami thing that is on the box cover. (For what it's worth, the installation was finished before I had completed the origami... >_>)
As for the comments being shitty... well, to be blunt, it's an article that is about video games which is on a website that caters to video game fans. That the vast majority of the comments on such a website are shitty in nature is the norm, regardless of whatever the content of the article may be.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-26 05:49 pm (UTC)"The way it usually works, the Developer got a certain amount of money up front to make the game.
This money pays the bills and salaries while the game is under development.
Once the game has gone to release ... it depends on the contract between the developer and publisher ...
Usually, there is a set cut of returns designated for the developer.
-HOWEVER-
The publisher keeps the developer's cut until it has earned back what the publisher fronted originally.
So, the developer won't see any further profits until their ... say 1 or 2% cut has surpassed what it originally cost the publisher to make the game.
And yes, this seems like a pretty raw deal for the developers.
But ...
There are two sides to this coin.
The publisher is in a very risk based business.
Most games don't make back more than they cost to produce.
Most of the publisher's bottom line comes from a handful of hit games that pay for the rest."
This is why EA keeps churning out cookie cutter games like Madden or whatever, and is why I personally don't dislike Madden games as much as many others seem to: they're pretty much sure-fire hits, regardless of what one may think of their quality (or lack thereof), and they tend to fund the development of other games that I would rather play instead of Madden.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-26 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-26 07:33 pm (UTC)For me, I'm just going to skip the game unless a Greatest Hit version comes out that's pre-patched. The thing about me is that I'm the kind of guy that'll go back to a game even years later for one more play through. Heck, I just went through River City Ransom. So getting buggy games are undesirable even if they get patched. It's likely I'll go back to the game long after Sony/Microsoft/etc stopped providing the patches and find I no longer have it pre-patched (Especially with these insane installation requirements - FFXIII on the PS3 is going to need like 38gigs or something?) which means I have a bug ridden game to play at best.
Now, that's how I currently feel about it, and it's likely how I'll remain feeling about it. But impulse buys are impulse buys, so if I see Wal-mart a few years from now with Heavy Rain in the discount bin for 10 bucks, I'll likely pick it up anyway so long as the patch is currently available at the time.
Apparently the installation trend is because the glorious blu-ray drive which has a fast data transfer rate, has a slow seek time to find the data to begin with. Slow enough to make loading finding/reading it from the harddrive preferable.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-27 01:41 am (UTC)I just learned that you have install demos that you download on the PS3 as well, which is even more ridiculous. You don't have to do that on the 360 or Wii (for Wiiware stuff), you just download and play.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-27 01:48 am (UTC)test test
no subject
Date: 2010-02-27 01:52 am (UTC)Are you seeing spaces between those italicized and non-italicized words on your end? They should be there, but are not showing for me. o_O
no subject
Date: 2010-02-27 06:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-27 09:44 am (UTC)Italics for the win!
no subject
Date: 2010-02-27 05:22 pm (UTC)test test
Yeah. No matter how many spaces I put between the two words, they get stripped out on the PS3 browser. However, putting in an explicit "ampersand nbsp semi-colon" (with the symbol words replaced with their actual symbols obviously), does show the space between them properly. Oh well, just something I'll have to get used to if I keep using this over the Wii browser.
multiple word test no-italics test more italicized words
Multiple words in italics show up fine, normally. It's just when there is an italicized word with a non-italicized word after it that the spaces are stripped out, for whatever reason.
* - One advantage of the PS3 browser over the Wii one: the ability to copy/paste.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-01 10:52 pm (UTC)