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Mr Hyena wrote:f that was correct, MMOs would be the only way to sell a game.

No, because not every customer wants an MMO, and not every customer wants only MMOs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mr Hyena wrote:Except the Steam sales werent much better.

The Steam sales did quite well for an indy game.


Also:

The companies who are pushing for SOPA want to reduce their profits by removing blogs that talk about their products. Because those companies have terribad business models. This also includes, for example, wanting to use SOPA to block magazines like Complex.

Answer = make subscription games and keep the content coming.

WOW makes an absolute fortune on a DAILY basis by embracing what the internet can bring to a game.

Imagine the same game even if it is single player where outside events and the environment change over time (differently every time you play) and effect the game as you play because the game is always changing. You can then give the software away for free with a year's subscription.

If you make films that people want to see in a cinema and make cinemas that people want to go into you will make money from films even if you let them have a crappy mono low res copy for free on thier PC. If you sell digital copies for nominal sums (all you are selling is patterns of electrons no actual materials) most people will choose to pay the nominal fee for a guaranteed quality copy that is definitely virus free.

If you just use recorded music as an advertisement for the artist (like you do when it gets played on the radio) then a talented and popular artist can make a fortune from concerts or subscription live stream events not to mention merchandise.

If you put a little tought into your design/business model you can make something that people will pay for repeatedly not just once.

All this fuss is because the guys that sell the physical media don't like it and there aren't any imaginitive people at the top of the record industry. They don't want control of the market to fall into the hands of the artist/designer.

Furthermore, SOPA applies punishments to companies as secondary liability without actually punishing the crimes themselves. It's like punishing AT&T because someone used a telephone to commit a crime. This is a legal nightmare for tech and internet companies and does nothing but harm business.

http://www.booz.com/global/home/press/article/49953717

A large majority of the angel investors and venture capitalists who took part in a Booz & Company study say they will not put their money in digital content intermediaries (DCIs) if governments pass tough new rules allowing websites to be sued or fined for pirated digital content posted by users.

That's right, the company that produced Machinarium or companies like them could very well have been denied capital because of SOPA increasing the risk in the eyes of investors.

Mr Hyena wrote:Well, then we need to abandon SOPA and sit down and have a serious talk about how to combat piracy. All I'm seeing is game studio after game studio shut down cause their games are being stolen.

In the first week of release, Bethesda stated the total sales through the following Wednesday at an estimated US$450 million, with 7 million copies of the game shipped.[61][62] By December 16, 2011, this had risen to 10 million copies shipped to retail and around US$620 million

Games companies are making plenty of money.

Joey wrote:

Mr Hyena wrote:Well, then we need to abandon SOPA and sit down and have a serious talk about how to combat piracy. All I'm seeing is game studio after game studio shut down cause their games are being stolen.

In the first week of release, Bethesda stated the total sales through the following Wednesday at an estimated US$450 million, with 7 million copies of the game shipped.[61][62] By December 16, 2011, this had risen to 10 million copies shipped to retail and around US$620 million

Games companies are making plenty of money.

If your Valve, EA, Blizzard, Bethesda or Ubisoft yeah. The average game studio is certainly feeling the pinch however unless they have a major publisher backing them.

Answer = make subscription games and keep the content coming.

This is bad. Theres a massive amount of people who do not want to pay subscriptions for each of their games.

Hell, even lawyers and law professors have publicly denounced SOPA in droves.

In sum, SOPA is a dangerous bill. It threatens the most vibrant sector of our economy -- internet commerce. It is directly at at odds with the United States' foreign policy of internet openness, a fact that repressive regimes will seize upon to justify their censorship of the Internet. And it violates the First Amendment.

Let's face it. Copying the methods of China (this functions the same way the "Great Firewall of China" works) would just give oppressive regimes yet another cover for cracking down on political opponents.

Yay the system works!

Mr Hyena wrote:

Joey wrote:

Mr Hyena wrote:Well, then we need to abandon SOPA and sit down and have a serious talk about how to combat piracy. All I'm seeing is game studio after game studio shut down cause their games are being stolen.

In the first week of release, Bethesda stated the total sales through the following Wednesday at an estimated US$450 million, with 7 million copies of the game shipped.[61][62] By December 16, 2011, this had risen to 10 million copies shipped to retail and around US$620 million

Games companies are making plenty of money.

If your Valve, EA, Blizzard, Bethesda or Ubisoft yeah. The average game studio is certainly feeling the pinch however unless they have a major publisher backing them.

There are lots of small firms who're doing pretty well for themselves too. Paradox Interactive, for one.
Paying £50 for a game is just stupid anyway. Software is far too expensive and piracy is a symptom of that.

Theres still no excuse for pirating a $10-15 game though.

£50 is dumb as hell though.

I typically pirate any game over the price of $20 in order to make sure it's worth playing. If I'm impressed within an hour or two of the pirated copy, and the DRM isn't damaging to my computer, I'll buy a copy, otherwise, I delete it. I'd have been pissed if I spent money on the buggy POS that was Prototype, for example.

Bring back demos/shareware, and you'll make not a pirate of me. Oh, and lose the DRM. If I have to download a crack to defeat your DRM because I'm playing on a version of Windows incompatible with your DRM (the Witcher), then I won't be a happy camper.

Melissia wrote:Hell, even lawyers and law professors have publicly denounced SOPA in droves.

Law professors are not necessarily lawyers.

I'm sure lawyers who deal in the IP/E-commerce industry would probabaly be split on SOPA.

An item is only worth what someone will pay for it.

Neat.

Mr Hyena wrote:

Joey wrote:Games companies are making plenty of money.

If your Valve, EA, Blizzard, Bethesda or Ubisoft yeah. The average game studio is certainly feeling the pinch however unless they have a major publisher backing them.

Does not having your game released by a major publisher decrease piracy on your product? If so how?

Sonophos wrote:An item is only worth what someone will pay for it.

Mostly true. It's a cost-benefit balance that individuals make.

If an item is available for free ($0) and there is little or no cost to obtaining it for free most people will opt for that version. This is why Napster and it's progeny did so well, they made music widely available at low cost (sometimes you got bad recordings, sometimes you got a virus, some people got sued).

Apple capitalized on this market by making music widely available for a reasonable price relative to cost. Many people were willing to pay $1-2 for a song that was stored in a common library, was virus free, was professionally recorded, and had (near-) zero risk of copyright infringement.

The movie industry was similar except the size of movies was a significant cost. Netflix made movies widely available with only a short delay and professional quality, significant advantages over trying to download a movie. Plus they had a great selection. When broadband allowing streaming video became available, Netflix jumped on it.

A similar trend is happening in video games. With large download speeds available the 'cost' to obtaining a video game illicitly is becoming less. At the same time DRM is actually increasing the 'cost' of legitimate copies. The only games which seem to be doing well in this environment are those with an online component (essentially a backdoor DRM that people enjoy) and console games that have a built-in DRM (only compatable with a certain system). Steam is doing relatively well at combating video game piracy by making games widely avalable and having a non-intrusive DRM. But in my experience the trend seems to be away from PC games and towards console games.

Then again, the entire trend in digital devices seems to be away from the powerful do-everything desktop towards more specialized devices (iPad, laptop, console, MP3 player, smart phone...).

.......and this is why I vote libertarian, too many republican rhinos, and too many Democratic Clowns.....

The bill has been delayed indefinitely according to some people now, not killed, just waiting like herpes.

It was also a Republican who called the whole thing off.

halonachos wrote:The bill has been delayed indefinitely according to some people now, not killed, just waiting like herpes.

It was also a Republican who called the whole thing off.

Unfortunately iirc it was a republican who started the whole debacle

Wardragoon wrote:

halonachos wrote:The bill has been delayed indefinitely according to some people now, not killed, just waiting like herpes.

It was also a Republican who called the whole thing off.

Unfortunately iirc it was a republican who started the whole debacle

Just goes to show you that Republicans finish what they start.

Wardragoon wrote:

halonachos wrote:The bill has been delayed indefinitely according to some people now, not killed, just waiting like herpes.

It was also a Republican who called the whole thing off.

Unfortunately iirc it was a republican who started the whole debacle

It was introduced in the Senate by a Democrat.

I stand corrected

Democrats also enjoy making things like the ESRB and stuff like that.

halonachos wrote:Democrats also enjoy making things like the ESRB and stuff like that.

TBH both like having more govt. control......unfortunately I don't like that, now I will admit there are more big govt. clowns on the Democratic side, but both sides of the spectrum are guilty of making things bigger

Didn't know extenze was part of government.

Mr Hyena wrote:The Netflix model can't be applied effectively to videogames.

OnLive

LordofHats wrote:

Mr Hyena wrote:The Netflix model can't be applied effectively to videogames.

OnLive

Also, Gamefly.

Gamefly does the cloud thing too? I wonder how much business they get in that. I've honestly never looked even though the idea is very intriguing.

LordofHats wrote:Gamefly does the cloud thing too? I wonder how much business they get in that. I've honestly never looked even though the idea is very intriguing.

No, but it's comparable due to the physical side of Netflix.

Not everyone wants everything streaming(hence the uproar that was Netflix splitting the 2 service versions).

Hell even Steam is almost there in doing that, though perhaps Steam should be called the apple store of the gaming industry.

Also, as an aside, here's the music industry's reactions to every single technological advance in the music industry:

On the "Player Piano" autopiano:

I foresee a marked deterioration in American Music…and a host of other injuries to music in its artistic manifestations by virtue – or rather by vice – of the multiplication of the various music reproducing machines
--John Philips Sousa, 1906

On the video casette recorder:

But now we are faced with a new and troubling assault on our fiscal security, on our very economic life, and we are facing it from a thing called the Video Cassette Recorder
-- MPAA President Jack Valenti in 1982

On cassette tapes:

When the manufacturers hand the public a license to record at home...not only will the songwriter tie a noose around his neck, not only will there be no more records to tape, but the innocent public will be made accessory to the destruction of four industries
-- ASCAP, 1982

On the MP3 Player

Diamond's product Rio was destined to undermine the creation of a legitimate digital distribution marketplace..."
-- RIAA President Hillary Rosen in 1998

Let's face it. The music industry just wants to resist any form of progress. Probably the most conservative and backwards industry in the nation.

The Music industries problem is that they're operating on a early 20th century business model where musicians became filthy stink'n rich in practically no time at.

Its a business model that no longer works. Up into the 1970's music underwent a revolution where musicians became more accessible and more profitable, but that time has passed. The music industry just doesn't want to give up being richer than god.