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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Would Cheaper Video Games Sell More ?

kitler53 on 19 February 2014
Barozi said:
kitler53 said:
Barozi said:
kitler53 said:

i think sony/ms should do what they can to make digital distribution advantageous for consumers.   a lot of money would be going back into developers if you cut out the retailer, distribution, and returns.  some of that can go to pulishers and some can go to justifying an price drop to $40.  that should spur increased unit sales which would be good for developers.

furthermore, with the services like xbl and ps+ i think msony should lower their platform royalty.    the more games they can get on their device the more compelling the device becomes.   shifting their business plan to profit on hardware and services moreso than game unit sales should shift to balance of power from mobile back to console for developers looking to profit off of their unit sales.

Good for most consumers, but certainly bad for a lot of people who are working for GameStop etc.
Not sure if that's the ideal that anyone (not talking about profit oriented companies) should pursue.


meh.

my wife's great grandpa was a really rich guy owning a massive business servicing horse and carriages.   lost it all when he refused to believe automobiles would ever be successful.  i could cry about all the jobs lost in the horse and carriage business but it's hard to knowing how many jobs were created in the manufacuture and maintance of cars.

i've got nothing against gamestop but brick and mortar is doing poorly in all segments (not just video games).   if digital distribution doesn't kill gamestop then amazon.com will.    ..but amazon employes over 110,000 people and MSony employes a lot to.   as long as money is being spent it's going somewhere.  the jobs/work doesn't just go away,..  it moves to a different task.

But in this case there weren't really any jobs lost. Just transferred. Obviously not everyone of these people became a mechanic, but others without a job found a new one in that growing business.
Amazon is a similar case. It's killing retail stores and their employees, but at the same time Amazon needs more drivers to get the cargo from the harbors to the local warehouses, then many people for filling and emptying these warehouses and additional Fed Ex (or whatever) drivers who deliver the packages.


Here as you said before, the aim is to cut out the retailer (and distributor). How many jobs would be created by distributing everything digital in return?
Maybe one additional IT guy per publisher who is looking after a few new servers.

The same could happen to book stores, although that's not gonna happen in the next few months or possibly even years.

 


For the second part I've bolded:

none of these retail clerks get a lot of money. For 3 retail clerks you could employ 1 network administrator.*
That's a 66% job loss right there.

 

*numbers taken from salary.com

i think it takes far more than 1 IT guy per publisher...

...i mean, how many people work to keep apple's itune digital storefront up?   apple directly employees over 50,000 people.  how about all the jobs as game developers?  we just so irrational bascially shutdown because the current economy isn't working.   what happens to those gamestop employees when consoles entirely collapse because no one is profitable?



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BMaker11 on 19 February 2014

Duke Nukem Forever is like $10 and there's still a stockpile of it and every Disc Replay I've been to.

Just sayin



Zkuq on 19 February 2014

One word: Steam.

Of course there's only so much people can play even if they're allowed to choose freely (disregarding the money they have to spend on games) so the gains wouldn't be unlimited. I'm sure there would be some gains though.



rutea7 on 19 February 2014

I'd definitly buy more. Thats why when there's sales on games people tend to make some impulse purchases. more games for less money, who could resist.



Barozi on 19 February 2014
kitler53 said:
Barozi said:

But in this case there weren't really any jobs lost. Just transferred. Obviously not everyone of these people became a mechanic, but others without a job found a new one in that growing business.
Amazon is a similar case. It's killing retail stores and their employees, but at the same time Amazon needs more drivers to get the cargo from the harbors to the local warehouses, then many people for filling and emptying these warehouses and additional Fed Ex (or whatever) drivers who deliver the packages.


Here as you said before, the aim is to cut out the retailer (and distributor). How many jobs would be created by distributing everything digital in return?
Maybe one additional IT guy per publisher who is looking after a few new servers.

The same could happen to book stores, although that's not gonna happen in the next few months or possibly even years.

 


For the second part I've bolded:

none of these retail clerks get a lot of money. For 3 retail clerks you could employ 1 network administrator.*
That's a 66% job loss right there.

 

*numbers taken from salary.com

i think it takes far more than 1 IT guy per publisher...

...i mean, how many people work to keep apple's itune digital storefront up?   apple directly employees over 50,000 people.  how about all the jobs as game developers?  we just so irrational bascially shutdown because the current economy isn't working.   what happens to those gamestop employees when consoles entirely collapse because no one is profitable?

@bolded
I don't know. Is there a number ? Certainly not 50.000
Steam seems to be a better example and Valve has about 350 employees and they do Steam machine and supposedly but unconfirmed still games.

Not sure what game developers have to do with it honestly.
Also I probably need to correct myself. I don't think the publishers need any IT guys at all since all (the majority) of the available games are already on the servers of XBL/PSN/eShop and not on their own. So if anything Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo would need those guys but they already have them.

As for the last question I don't really know how to answer it, since it's kinda absurd to even ask. Obviously they would likely lose their job as well, but it would be sad nonetheless. Assuming that could happen there's still no reason (for any non profit-oriented company) to artificially accelerate the job loss.
At the same time you could ask what happens if someone creates a man like robot that works just as much and as good as a human but costs much less over time or what you would play if gaming ceases to exist tomorrow... highly, highly hypothetical.



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kitler53 on 19 February 2014
Barozi said:
kitler53 said:
...

i think it takes far more than 1 IT guy per publisher...

...i mean, how many people work to keep apple's itune digital storefront up?   apple directly employees over 50,000 people.  how about all the jobs as game developers?  we just so irrational bascially shutdown because the current economy isn't working.   what happens to those gamestop employees when consoles entirely collapse because no one is profitable?

@bolded
I don't know. Is there a number ? Certainly not 50.000
Steam seems to be a better example and Valve has about 350 employees and they do Steam machine and supposedly but unconfirmed still games.

Not sure what game developers have to do with it honestly.
Also I probably need to correct myself. I don't think the publishers need any IT guys at all since all (the majority) of the available games are already on the servers of XBL/PSN/eShop and not on their own. So if anything Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo would need those guys but they already have them.

As for the last question I don't really know how to answer it, since it's kinda absurd to even ask. Obviously they would likely lose their job as well, but it would be sad nonetheless. Assuming that could happen there's still no reason (for any non profit-oriented company) to artificially accelerate the job loss.
At the same time you could ask what happens if someone creates a man like robot that works just as much and as good as a human but costs much less over time or what you would play if gaming ceases to exist tomorrow... highly, highly hypothetical.

valve probably is the better example.

developers do fit into this because it's an overall economy.  king (the guys behind candy crush) employe 400 people.  400 people that wouldn't have jobs without the low cost of entry business model that a digtially distributed ad based revenue model supports.   and that's just king,.. think about how many more developers there are on mobile/pc than on consoles simply because small and medium sized business can't afford to do business through retail.  so going back to my example about the horse and carriage,.. it's not really job loss but job transfer.

 

and lastly, no company gives a fuck about job loss at someone elses business due to their actions.  every company is in it for themselves.



sabastian on 20 February 2014

I think the industry needs to take chances on creating cheaper games but still try to make them seem big budget AAA. titles.
Sounds crazy but not all games need to be big budget AAA titles, I have fun with many $60 titles that I thought should have been sold at a cheaper price point. Sonic Generations, Prince Of Persia Reboot and the last SSX comes to mind.

I sometimes wonder how much profit do these publishers REALLY MAKE ??!!



superchunk on 20 February 2014

lower prices always sell more... but that is not the most important thing. You want to maximize total profit. Need to collect revenue and profit margins from each potential level of buyer.

or make better games that give everyone reason to spend the original asking price. (my preference)