Why Consoles Rule the Earth (v. long)

[ZellSF]

Piracy does NOT hurt sales. Why? Because if they pirated it, they either lack the money to buy it at the moment and will do it later. They are getting like me, where they like to test a game before they buy it, due to the massive shitstorm of released games. Another reason is that if it wasn't free, they wouldn't have downloaded it. Finally, they may just be an asshole who doesn't plan to buy it.

Um WTF? Take Rattle here, he downloads every game instead of buying them. Bet you if he didn't have the option to download them he'd buy at least some of them.

If you get any number of pirated games from everywhere, you will have to guess how many would've bought the game if they couldn't have pirated it, and then you would have to guess if that amount really makes a major problem.

A bit too much guessing too decide that piracy hurts gaming any more than any other negative factor, imo.

Things like online multiplayer fee on xbox when PC multiplayers have always remained free.

Don't you have to pay your ISP if you want internet on PC?

Yes, but you have to do that on consoles too, and you have to pay for xbox live. A service which value is constantly debated.

In a way, the Wii is the best thing that could happen for game developers. It's "ancient" technology, it's got a huge install base, and it's easy to program for. Absolutely everyone wins, even the consumer. Games aren't as pretty, but who the hell cares in the face of the alternative?

Exactly why I bought one. Only disappointment is that we're not seeing the kind of fun budget-titles in the Wiiware that we're seeing on Live Arcade.

I would stay far away from the live arcade until Microsoft fixes up some problems. High console failure rate + long fights to get stuff you actually paid from back from Microsoft = fail.

[rattle]

Bet you if he didn't have the option to download them he'd buy at least some of them.

I bought a lot of games when I had the money for it, and when I knew what I was going to buy was actually worth it. A game which slightly entertains me for a week isn't.


What's hurting the industry isn't private piracy alone, it's those who professionally reproduce cover, disk and packing and resell it as original.

Also, I think piracy is included in the market price.

[BlueTemplar]

Yes, but you have to do that on consoles too, and you have to pay for xbox live. A service which value is constantly debated.

Oh. And how much does it cost? I suppose it's not as bad as mobile phone companies tariffs though...

About piracy: I wonder if I would have worked half of the time I used for playing games the last years, how many games I could have bought... To continue pirating as much as I do becomes a position that I find morally harder and harder to keep.

Also, I think piracy is included in the market price.

There's a problem with that: More Piracy => Games more expensive => More piracy => Games More expensive => ...

[rattle]

More? I think it is at a constant rate with slight fluctuations. It's not like piracy is anything new, it's been there ever since the 80s.

[Caydr]

Heh... more importantly, who gives a damn about piracy when the people who actually do the work often only bet ~5% of the total *profit* (not sales, but PROFIT). I'll show you real thieves, it's the publishers. Ever wonder why all the publishers are buying each other? There was too much competition and they had to step down to buying just 3 golf courses a year per employee.

[SwiftSpear]

Heh... more importantly, who gives a damn about piracy when the people who actually do the work often only bet ~5% of the total *profit* (not sales, but PROFIT). I'll show you real thieves, it's the publishers. Ever wonder why all the publishers are buying each other? There was too much competition and they had to step down to buying just 3 golf courses a year per employee.

Not every publisher is blizzard.

[Caydr]

Er...

Blizzard's a publisher now? I thought they made games... Starcraft and such....

[KDR_11k]

If you get any number of pirated games from everywhere, you will have to guess how many would've bought the game if they couldn't have pirated it, and then you would have to guess if that amount really makes a major problem.

A bit too much guessing too decide that piracy hurts gaming any more than any other negative factor, imo.

Answered the wrong claim. I said piracy hurts sales because Snipa claimed it doesn't. I made no statement about the amount of hurt it does, just that there is hurt.

Also, I think piracy is included in the market price.

There's a problem with that: More Piracy => Games more expensive => More piracy => Games More expensive => ...

The market price is decided by looking at the projected sales at each price and taking the price that will bring the most profit, altering the price decreases the profit. I'd say piracy increases with the price so it reduces the number of people willing to pay higher prices, making a price increase LESS profitable. What's questionable is if it makes lower prices more profitable.

Heh... more importantly, who gives a damn about piracy when the people who actually do the work often only bet ~5% of the total *profit* (not sales, but PROFIT). I'll show you real thieves, it's the publishers. Ever wonder why all the publishers are buying each other? There was too much competition and they had to step down to buying just 3 golf courses a year per employee.

The people who do the work are salaried employees or contractors, it's uncommon in other industries for those to get a cut at all. The people who get the cars and golf courses are the upper managers. It's the same for every industry.

[SwiftSpear]

Er...

Blizzard's a publisher now? I thought they made games... Starcraft and such....

No, blizzard is the best example of a company in the industry who goes swimming in gold plated pools of money.

[Peet]

Heh... more importantly, who gives a damn about piracy when the people who actually do the work often only bet ~5% of the total *profit* (not sales, but PROFIT). I'll show you real thieves, it's the publishers. Ever wonder why all the publishers are buying each other? There was too much competition and they had to step down to buying just 3 golf courses a year per employee.

Not every publisher is blizzard.

in before EA

[BlueTemplar]

And Blizzard earned it.

[Zpock]

Blizzard on starcraft2, "It's done when it's done." Their games are the epitome of polish... with good interesting and well oiled gameplay, graphics, optimized for low system requirements... everything. If only more followed their way of making games...

Quality > quantity.

Even for making money it seems, judging by them "swimming in money".

[Gota]

Its so funny how Blizzard keep making games with avarage GFX and sell them well while other companies see that and keep spending so much money on making games with crazy GFX.

[Zpock]

Well they use simple graphics but polished as hell to make up for it.

[Gota]

True.Warcraft 3 unit textures were done very well so that even the Warcraft 3 low poly unit models looked good.

[BlueTemplar]

IMHO, they were still hard to distinguish from each other in heated battles... but it was probably because of all the spells!

[Zpock]

Blizzard themselves even admitted that in some presentation:

[SwiftSpear]

I just like this statisic. Wow has 10 million subscribers, each of which pays 20 dollars a month to play the game (approximately)... Therefore, without selling a single game in 1 month, blizzard makes a gross profit of 200 million dollars. Even if we take half of that away for, lets say server costs and advertizing (which is an OBSCENE estimate, servers very nearly can't possibly cost more than a couple million a month), Blizzard has only 2,700 listed employees, so divided equally every employee of blizzard could make 37037 (about 450,000 a year) a month, working out to 160 dollars an hour assuming 40 hour weeks, and the company would still break even, WITHOUT SELLING A SINGLE GAME THAT MONTH.

Thus the mystery of why blizzard doesn't give a damn about pushing a product out the door until it's GOOD and ready is solved. They could not sell a product for the next 10 years and every employee they have would still be multimillionaires.

[Sleksa]

Thus the mystery of why blizzard doesn't give a damn about pushing a product out the door until it's GOOD and ready is solved. They could not sell a product for the next 10 years and every employee they have would still be multimillionaires.

They also have very high standards which they need to break everytime they release a game. starcraft, warcraft and diablo have all been "blockbusters" , And they're expected to continously get better and better with each game made. Just imagine what would've happened if wc3 would've been a badly reviewed and sold game, would there be world of warcraft or starcraft 2 now? ~~

[Zpock]

WoW didn't exist at the time of making any of their other games...

And they could also have used that money to go EA and buy up 100 struggling little companies and force them to sprout crap.