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Lovin
Denmark812 Posts
On topic: I do think you strike some fine points, but I lost belief in humanity a few years back when people started realising the climate was changing because of them.. And did nothing. This is somewhat like that, I'd say. Most people are just not suited for thinking and acting beyond their own world, just look at communism. | ||
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Sinensis
United States2513 Posts
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Rucky
United States717 Posts
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L
Canada4732 Posts
In fact, the problem with the industry is that they generally refuse to find alternative revenue streams without withholding content. | ||
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onmach
United States1241 Posts
PC game sales accounted for $701 million of that If there are 10 million wow subscribers at maybe 100 per year minimum, that's 1.2 billion per year for just one game in 2008. As you said this only counts in store retail sales, which have fallen to almost nothing due to online sales. The gamestop downstairs doesn't even sell PC games so it should be a surprised that I have bought over a dozen games via steam/gog/impulse over the last year and a half and I'm not alone. I won't be buying SC2 in stores either, I'll be using blizzard's direct download service. Furthermore, you are comparing one platform PC to a combined half a dozen other largely incompatible platforms (ps3, xbox360, wii, handhelds). That's not fair. If you compared PC to just xbox 360, xbox might be in the lead, but I don't think it would be by very much. The other consoles would probably be behind, more than likely. Your research blows so get off your high horse. The only problem with PC right now is it has no founding body. There is no Microsoft promoting it as a platform drawing up amazing PC gaming logos and paying for full page magazine ads about how great PC gaming is. There is no one to defend it when competing interests take pot shots at it in the press. In other words it is an image problem and nothing more. It has and will continue to foster a thriving indie gaming culture, connectivity, and modding communities. If what you want is an endless stream of over priced fighting, sports, and FPS games, by all means go with a console. The PC is working just fine for me. | ||
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Ganfei
Taiwan1439 Posts
onmach said it before me also your analogy about pepsi crystal and the expression through where people spend their money is flawed because pepsi crystal was discontinued; the people who wanted it to still be around were not in some way expressing their desire through their financial spending, they had no choice whatsoever. | ||
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Matoo-
Canada1397 Posts
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Flaccid
8927 Posts
I'm gonna pull out of my pocket one vote. (takes out a dollar). 'He's gotta dollar bill out of his pocket!' What I like to say to anyone who could care to listen to me is that this is our only vote. I'm saying that because we got democrat votes and we voted in this guy two years ago (Tony Blair) and he's become... what he was not supposed to be. We can't get rid of him. Maybe we got a fifteen year run with this guy. What can we do? Fold our tents on the field. We'll lose the battle but not the war. So it occured to me that since my real vote is useless, null and void, therefore we ain't gonna start runnin' down the street burnin' and a-lootin' either 'cause our ass is gonna get canned. So that leaves the only vote anybody's got, this dollar bill. All I'm trying to say is, when I wanna buy a record, I'm gonna take my dollar bill and go to some corner guy with his weird, kooky little shop. I'm not giving this to Virgin Megastore. The same when I'm going to buy some clothes- I ain't gonna go to Gap no more. I wanna go to Ditsy Louie's Junk Clothing Box. I'm using my vote here, this dollar bill is my vote. I'm not gonna go to a fast food joint. I'm going to go to a place where people own it, where the owner is standing behind the bar, picking his teeth. This is my new philosophy. Use your vote, your dollar bill is your vote. It's time we stopped giving it in the bucket-loads to these giants corporations. They're not to be trusted with that amount of money. They're only gonna bland us out, robot us out. They're gonna crush us and pulverize us. All they want is our money. They'd rather that we just sat on the pavement, saying nothing and giving them dollar bills. That's what they want to world to be while they have their cocaine and champagne. The dollar bill is your only vote. That's my new vibe. | ||
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Southlight
United States11768 Posts
On November 06 2009 04:36 onmach wrote: Agreed. IMO you're (DJ) mixing the piracy population into the sales population and comparing the number of sales to the total number of sales + pirates, and finding out that *gasp* the sheer number of pirates makes that total number pathetic in comparison to the "potential" (ie. total sales + downloads). Gamasutra had an interview a while ago with a "minor" program developer (some sort of desktop application I believe) that was still raking in easily over a million customers, which was for them quite a nice profit. And that guy talked about how the mistake for most game companies is that they try to satisfy the pirate base, as opposed to their actual customer base - you just can't count much of the pirate base as "potential customers" because they'll pirate it even if you create something to their liking. And by catering to the pirates, you often risk alienating your paying customers, which results in, amazingly, crappy games that just have flashy graphics that no one will pay for. Pirates do not equal potential customer, after all. What I mean is that most actual "customers" are doing the very thing you bring up, putting their money elsewhere. Many of my friends who used to play Starcraft Warcraft Diablo etc. have moved on to Consoles for this very reason, as they prefer the online play of the PS3/Xbox or the fighting games on it. Most people that will pay for games do ample research prior to buying a game, just like the example you brought up with Modern Warfare 2, and if a game isn't to their liking, they, gasp, won't buy it. Their money will go elsewhere, "like a normal human being. The ones doing most of the complaining are the pirates, whom don't have leverage except to cry on public online forums making empty threats about not buying a game. It's just a shame many companies bend over backwards for them. | ||
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sixghost
United States2096 Posts
On November 06 2009 03:38 Alizee- wrote: Entitlement comes from the fact that the PC gamers built up the companies, are the reason several things were put into games, and then in turn get backstabbed. Blizzard, for example, is nothing more than a game innovating company, they rarely if ever come out with something new, its just things other people already came up with. This can be found on individual levels such as a skill or ability or products as a whole such as the online system of starcraft 2 that is proposed. Gamers didn't build up Blizzard and IW, you just bought their games. No one was doing those companies a favor by buying their games, you bought them because their games were great. If you want game companies to owe you something, go buy their stock, not their games. Your other point isn't even related to this discussion. | ||
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][-][eretic
Canada395 Posts
So yeah, I don't run out and write angry letters or anything, and most people don't as far as I know, but forums are a place where communities gather to discuss things like this and word of mouth can be quite a powerful thing, especially with the internet so easily accessible to millions of people. So if I hear a movie sucks, and I tend to agree with said reasons, I probably won't watch it. Everyone has their own preferences, but if the plot in "Righteous Kill" is said to be so horrible that even Di Nero and Pacino couldn't make it work, and I hear it all over the place. Its probably true. With that said, I made the mistake of thinking two of the best actors of our time couldn't possibly agree to make a shit movie together. I was wrong and wasted my money. It's hard to trust anything these days, but certain actors have done more than their share of amazing movies and I will continue to support them knowing that they consistently produce good results. The same way I will continue to support Blizzard, knowing that titles like Diablo, Starcraft, and Warcraft are staples in their franchise that they simply cannot afford to fuck up. | ||
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-orb-
United States5770 Posts
However, your pepsi analogy is very different and does not correlate. You don't spend multiple hours a day drinking a pepsi, and there are plenty of good beverages to go around. In the PC Gaming world nowadays there really aren't that many good games. Publishers like EA are shitting out awful games regularly. When you spend 5+ hours a day playing video games it becomes increasingly important that the video games are enjoyable. Sure, you could be "realistic" and just play the new shitty games and not complain, but on the other hand if you complain to the developers, at least you have a chance at changing what they do. If enough people complain, usually a company will change something. There's no reason to just give up and deal with terrible aspects of games. | ||
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][-][eretic
Canada395 Posts
On November 06 2009 05:01 sixghost wrote: Gamers didn't build up Blizzard and IW, you just bought their games. No one was doing those companies a favor by buying their games, you bought them because their games were great. If you want game companies to owe you something, go buy their stock, not their games. Your other point isn't even related to this discussion. Probably the stupidest thing I've read in a while. Consumers aren't doing companies favors by purchasing their products? Take your discussions elsewhere please. A lot of these games undergo beta testing so that the consumers can communicate with the distributors where they can improve the games so that they become great instead of just average or good. | ||
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LaLuSh
Sweden2358 Posts
We may be the minority, but yet we are the true apprisers of quality in games. We know to recognise art in a game better than any other type of gamer. Trash movies will always be made. Dumb ass blockbuster movies will prolly always dominate the box offices. DAN BROWN will with quite some certainty top any quality author in sales. It's no surprise games seem set to follow in the steps of these predecessors. I think it's inevitable. The entertainment industry will always cater to the masses, but that don't mean quality movies don't get made anyway, that doesn't mean quality books aren't ever written, and it sure as hell doesn't mean GOOD GAMES won't or can't be made in the future. And I think we PC-gamers, in general, have earned the right to critique games the way we do. Us being the minority is probably somewhat linked to your thesis of pc-gamers being picky and not being willing to buy just any trash. | ||
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sixghost
United States2096 Posts
On November 06 2009 05:12 ][-][eretic wrote: Probably the stupidest thing I've read in a while. Consumers aren't doing companies favors by purchasing their products? Take your discussions elsewhere please. A lot of these games undergo beta testing so that the consumers can communicate with the distributors where they can improve the games so that they become great instead of just average or good. You pay them, you get the game. End of transaction. No one is owed anything after the deal is done. You aren't buying the game + a say in how the next game should be, or the game + some guarentee that the next game will have no DRM and dedicated servers. What does beta testing have to do with any of this? I'm not saying companies don't give a shit what their potential customers have to say, I'm saying that people aren't owed anything for buying someones game. If custom maps and dedicated servers are really that big a deal to gamers, MW2 sales will tank, and they will be in the 3rd game. Thanks for calling my point stupid then making no attempt to refute it. | ||
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LarJarsE
United States1378 Posts
Just play a game. If you don't like it, find something else better to do. We play Starcraft and the games we love because we chose to and we have no regrets, nor do we consider it doing bad for our selves. (or why would we buy games in the first place?) As for you saying "if you want PC to stay as a hardcore platform..." what are hardcore platforms? platforms which there are games that people love and get very good at, which can be any platform. Some dork can sit in his room and make a great game without any company behind him, release it, and it could explode into a core gaming phenomenom. It's not the platform that makes core gamers, its the game. | ||
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Zyrre
Sweden291 Posts
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Amber[LighT]
United States5078 Posts
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][-][eretic
Canada395 Posts
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sumi
United States25 Posts
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