The economics of game publishing

[Nightjed]

aaaand dont forget about the anoying "updating" window that last 30 minutes every damn time you want to run your game just because they want to update the damn client

edit: and one more thing, you know all that "lets play those old games i bought 10 years ago because today games are expensive/crappy" idea, well forget about it because either because ye-old-steam will not work in that time's tech and making emulators for that kind of thing is much much harder (and probably ilegal) and thats it if they actually let you backup the damn thing, as offline cracks/patches get released theyll resort to keeping vital game code online requiring to download it on each play to enforce DRM

 

[Gwendo]

So why choose Steam? I have chosen Steam because if you buy Valves engine to make your game with, you get to keep 100% of what you sell on Steam. That's right 100%.

Wait, I don't understand: you don't have to pay for the STEAM service? For bandwidth costs? Just pay for the engine and STEAM is included for free?

 

[obediah]

So why choose Steam? I have chosen Steam because if you buy Valves engine to make your game with, you get to keep 100% of what you sell on Steam. That's right 100%.

Wait, I don't understand: you don't have to pay for the STEAM service? For bandwidth costs? Just pay for the engine and STEAM is included for free?

You have to buy Valves engine. I heard (perhaps I'm speading unsubstantiated rumors) that the steam client is a bittorent like thing, so valve's bandwidth costs are shared by their customers (nice! ). Maybe advertising or something covers the rest of their costs? Maybe someone that actually has a clue will respond?

 

[Nightjed]

they take our bandwith for free too ?! omg ...

 

[DarkUnderlord]

No. Otherwise, I would have made something like Avencast:

http://www.avencast.com/index.php?id=32

Hey, that one has nice graphics. You should totally use their engine. I might actually want to buy your game then.

You are paying for steam with more than money, you pay with your freedom, you are not really "buying" the game, you are licensing it.

I hate to tell you this but every game you've ever "bought" has actually been licensed. It's why they call that thing you mindlessly agree to an "End User License Agreement".

 

[Vault Dweller]

No. Otherwise, I would have made something like Avencast:

http://www.avencast.com/index.php?id=32

Hey, that one has nice graphics.

That it does.

 

[obediah]

You are paying for steam with more than money, you pay with your freedom, you are not really "buying" the game, you are licensing it.

I hate to tell you this but every game you've ever "bought" has actually been licensed. It's why they call that thing you mindlessly agree to an "End User License Agreement".

1. Not every game sold has had an EULA clicker.

2. To take away your game because you violated an EULA, the company will have to take you to court, win, and have the police come take your CD and hard drives. No business has done this yet.

To take a away your Steam game, Valve has to flick a flag on a web form, flip a database bit with a bug, or go out of business. Businesses do all three of these things every day.

 

[Jim Kata]

they take our bandwith for free too ?! omg ...

No shit. As if this didn't sound like the worst thing imaginable already. I mean come on, how much help is having it on steam so the dumbfucks who are valve fanboys maybe might see it?

Anyone who is going to possibly buy this game would already be active on various forums.

I have my own ideas for digital delivery I will eventually implement that will show steam up as the joke it is.

 

[HardCode]

... but retail won't go away altogether for the foreseeable future. Retail puts a signficant and quantifiable market in front of the product...

Have you been to an EBGames lately? About 50 single-instance games (as in, one copy on the shelf) that sucked before they were old.

 

[Human Shield]

1- You have to be online to play even single player games, if steam goes down by any reason (server downtime, connection probs, or a very likely valve goes bankrupt/gets bought/changes CEO and decides to stop steam support)

This isn't true, Steam has an offline mode. I can disconnect my modem completely and play Half-Life 2. You can also backup the games on CD or DVD.

2- You wont even get the whole game, releasing in chapters is faster, cheaper and gets money flowing in less time, that might sound good but more often than not game stories will never end either because they are making too much money or too little

This is up to the developers and a quality game in episodes would be fine.

3- And eventually you wont even get the game, youll have to "pay-for-play" just like mmorpgs

That is a baseless speculation, if a developer/publisher releases a game like that (D&D online) the retail version of the game would do the same anyways.

 

[Dhruin]

... but retail won't go away altogether for the foreseeable future. Retail puts a signficant and quantifiable market in front of the product...

Have you been to an EBGames lately? About 50 single-instance games (as in, one copy on the shelf) that sucked before they were old.

No, I haven't really bought anything from a bricks & mortar store for a couple of years that I can recall. I didn't really understand your point, sorry.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I'm pretty sure it was that retail stores suck and we can do without them. My local's pretty good though.

 

[Gorath]

EB bought the game for 40 dollars and sells it for 50. Now the publisher takes away their expenses of producing the full color manual and the pretty box and such which we'll say is 10 bucks (usually more like 7 - Gorath, this line is for you - but let's keep the math easy).

I don´t see a contadiction here. You are talking about a nice box with a full color manual. I´m talking about a DVD-5 in an amaray case with a small inlet. Prices start at $1.48 for a 5000 unit run. That´s just the first bookmark I found, I don´t even say this is cheap.

 

[Nightjed]

I hate to tell you this but every game you've ever "bought" has actually been licensed. It's why they call that thing you mindlessly agree to an "End User License Agreement".

Its true, but those games at least have "physical embodiment", and today, 10/8/5 years later i can still play them with dosbox or an specific emulator

go up

Well i might be a bit too pessimistic but in my experience things, specially things linked to the commercial market tend to go the worst way possible.

You are really not asked to log into steam every now and then when you run the game ?
i dont have any steam games so dunno, but anyway considering the way things are going youll have to at least connect every week soon enough

If steam like distribution methods get enough momentum (and its gaining it lately considering quite a few games were announced to be launched like this) the retail market will probably die or at least will get greatly reduced (most likely the "retail" version will only get released much later than the online version and only if the online version has gone beyond breaking even)

Like i said before, episodes might sound nice (and might be nice if they dont abuse)
but i know my Star Wars enough to know where this will go, just imagine that they never killed Vader or Obi Wan just to keep making more and more and more and more repetitive sequels waaaaay after you gave up the story, would star wars had been what it is today ? i doubt it

And as for the pay-for-play, is it really baseless ?
do you not see Microsoft & co literally drooling over micropayments for addons and items on xbox games ?
how long do you think it will take until they offer a monthly charge for updates?
how long do you think it will take until they start stripping games naked so that they could sell everything else separatelly ?
and steam like systems only make this a lot easier...
but then again i could just be a hopeless pessimist ...

 

[DarkUnderlord]

1. Not every game sold has had an EULA clicker.

2. To take away your game because you violated an EULA, the company will have to take you to court, win, and have the police come take your CD and hard drives. No business has done this yet.

To take a away your Steam game, Valve has to flick a flag on a web form, flip a database bit with a bug, or go out of business. Businesses do all three of these things every day.

1. Steam has a backup utility (which as of the latest update, apparently works now) that creates an executable backup file which can be burnt to a CD / DVD.
   
2. My understanding is you don't need Steam active to run most (if not all) games, only to verify it first. Once registered, you need never see steam again (as in the case of Half-Life 2).
   
3. My listing skills are far superior to yours. Tremble before me and fear my mad abilities.

The only specific problem left is if you've uninstalled the game, Valve go out of business, steam is taken offline and then you try and re-register. Will it happen? Sure, businesses go out of business every day. But Governments all over the world also get overthrown in violent revolutions every day. That doesn't mean it's going to happen to the United States. Likewise, it's unlikely to happen to Valve. When or if it does, you'll rely on the hackers, just like you rely on the hackers for your DosBOX utility.

 

[Nightjed]

but dosbox is not illegal because they didnt think about that back then but i doubt the new, everlasting eulas allow for steam emulation

edit: yeah you might say that "hackers do not always do legal things" but youll have to agree that it will be much harder to find someone to make the emulator if its illegal

 

[FrancoTAU]

I'm a little ignorant about Steam/Valve....
If I were to buy a retail copy of Half Life 2, do i have to jump through all these hoops?

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

I'm a little ignorant about Steam/Valve....
If I were to buy a retail copy of Half Life 2, do i have to jump through all these hoops?

I believe you still have to go online at least once to register your copy. You do not have to be constantly or regularly online after that (except for Multiplayer, obviously).

Steam may have disadvantages, but I still agree with the quote VD posted - by taking the huge publishers out of the picture, steam and other online distributors do the gaming industry a service, and create a much imporved situation for small and independent publishers. I'm not says steam specifically is the best solution, I prefer a classic download/password shareware scheme (which I believe is what VD has planned for AoD anyway), but on the other hand I believe that larger online distribution systems like Steam, D2D, total gaming, etc. have the advantage of bundling consumer interest, making it easier for budget games to get noticed, and thus, bought - without a huge advertising budget.

 

[Vault Dweller]

EB bought the game for 40 dollars and sells it for 50. Now the publisher takes away their expenses of producing the full color manual and the pretty box and such which we'll say is 10 bucks (usually more like 7 - Gorath, this line is for you - but let's keep the math easy).

I don´t see a contadiction here. You are talking about a nice box with a full color manual. I´m talking about a DVD-5 in an amaray case with a small inlet. Prices start at $1.48 for a 5000 unit run. That´s just the first bookmark I found, I don´t even say this is cheap.

Here are the original posts:

BTW, does anyone know how much does it cost to produce box, manual, CDs, etc?

I've been quoted 5-15 bucks per unit.

This can only mean one of three things:
1) they don´t take you seriously.
2) your chosen box, manual and CD case deviates so much from standard material that it drives up the costs.

As you can see the original question to which I replied mentioned box/manual/cd. Your subsequent post also mentioned box/manual/cd. If you said something like "hey, why pay 5-15 bucks for the box and the manual, if you get a nice DVD-5 case for only a buck and a half?" instead of that "they didn't take you seriously" line, that would have been a different story.

 

[hiciacit]

I have my own ideas for digital delivery I will eventually implement that will show steam up as the joke it is.

Eventually, I'm gonna be an astronaut.


On topic: Going for an online distribution is great (all the more power to you!), but please not STEAM...I'd probably reconsider buying if AoD were only to be available trough STEAM.

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

I predict that Valve will go under before the U.S government.

 

[obediah]

As you can see the original question to which I replied mentioned box/manual/cd. Your subsequent post also mentioned box/manual/cd. If you said something like "hey, why pay 5-15 bucks for the box and the manual, if you get a nice DVD-5 case for only a buck and a half?" instead of that "they didn't take you seriously" line, that would have been a different story.

I dig manuals, but if it any game was $13.50 cheaper without it, I'd choose that option anytime. I really don't care if it's printed in the blood of infants, bound in snakeskin and the spiral is ivory.

At the $3.50 end, it's not as clear cut. Probably only if the in-game help was well implemented. The nostalgic in me cries because of it, but well done in-game help beats a manual every time. It is harder to read on the pooper. But the big magic of manuals was always having something to read on the way home with the game, and these days the games just show up in my mailbox or incoming files directory.

 

[sheek]

I disagree. I find I'm spending way too much time reading stuff on the internet nowadays. Most of the time you don't have any choice but when there is I always prefer to read on paper. Of course a good game manual should be printable... Unfortunately not all of them are.

If you are worried about costs don't buy so many games. Most are not worth shit. Then save your money and pay for all the extras of the games that deserve them.

 

[Jasede]

I agree with what sheek said. My eyes burn from staring at the light bulb known as monitor. Reading a real manual that I can touch, read in the bathtub, and in which I can leave notes is much different from reading a .pdf. Or a stack of printouts, for that matter.

Edit: I ended a sentence in a preposition. Corrected this.

 

[obediah]

I disagree.

Of course you do, it's the codex.

Actually, I agree with you on the benefits of paper manuals. I'm not a big fan of on-the-disc pdfs, because they make the game hard to play. That's where in-game help can really kick ass. Not just test windows on hover or crap like that, but real information. Unfortunately, this is as rare as a good manual.

If you are worried about costs don't buy so many games. Most are not worth shit. Then save your money and pay for all the extras of the games that deserve them.

Heh. True, but there is no direct causation between a game being good and having a nice paper manual. Maybe a decent correlation, but I don't think manual quality is specific enough to be used to screen games.

There is the nasty consideration that as manuals become less and less common, they probably become more expensive to print. Feedback loops are a bitch.