We all already knew this. It turns out that the cost of games is TOO DAYUM HIGH! At least developers and publishers are finally realizing this.
The industrial revolution made products incredibly cheap compared to what they were before. The solution was to produce more product, not to start charging more. Today we can produce nearly unlimited copies of a digital product, and margins are dropping, the solution is to increase volume not margins. China and India are realizing gains in the middle class due to industrialization now. That's a middle class of around 450-600 million people forming who will be in the market for CHEAP easily distributed & localized games.
Nope, EA realised its IP was severely cheapened and increased the prices of their games to $60 in India while other publishers are still pricing preferentially good luck to them to move copies! Lol!
+1000 I really can't believe that developers don't realize that reducing the cost of their games by a decent amount reduces piracy significantly. I for one won't buy a $90 game unless its a huge release that I've been waiting for. But for those games I also want but are maybe not so hyped, ill sit on the fence if they are priced high... probably not buy at all, or wait for a GOOD sale.
This just in: people discover basic economic theory, that has been taught for over 200 years, really is true. The problem is that many developers, natch, publishers are stuck in the ideology that involves physical product and not intangible digital products. Suddenly they can ship an essentially infinite supply yet keep pricing it as if the supply to demand ratio is dramatically important. Some companies have "got" that, mostly indie developers that realize that they sell far more product at a lower price point. So, yeah, economics still works and people are still shocked at that "revelation" regardless of how we've seen it for centuries now.
I bought games I wouldn't buy at all - Shogun 2 and hard reset for example. Heck I'm interested in Torchlight too! Missed the sale though
Great discussion on the topic here (at 19:20): http://epicbattleaxe.com/the-axe-factor-080-like-shouty-outside-voices/ Brent Adams explains my point-of-view to a tee.
Discounts are great, no matter where, this is just another Steam hate/jealousness bull****. Steam is by FAR the best thing that happend to PC gaming in years, I even will go that far and say that Steam is the major reason why PC gaming has had a come-back and is on the rise still! And this is coming from a former Steam "hater" (not particulary Steam, just digital buying in general, and was a nostalgiic of retail physical copies... still am but only when it comes to collector's editions :nerd.
You can't expect old games to sell at £30 or £40 so discounts are a great way to encourage people to buy titles that are no longer "flavour of the month". I bought a lot of games from this year's Steam Sale, titles I wouldn't normally buy at full price, and my way of thinking is that even if I don't like them then they didn't cost much anyway. A case in point is that I bought Train Simulator 3 for a couple of quid but didn't actually enjoy it. Still, I got to try a genre I wasn't sure I'd like or not. PC games are discounted much quicker at retail though. For example, I bought Total War: Shogun 2, Settlers 7 and King Arthur II, which I missed in the sales, all for less than £10 each from Amazon. Online retailers are still the cheapest way to buy games IMO all year round which is why I don't buy stuff from Steam except in their sales. Settlers 7 Gold Edition is £25 on Steam yet my copy cost me £5 from Amazon.
....Did you even read the article? it states the opposite of what EA believes, it's not a steam hate article...
I have bought games I would have never bought at full price, I don't see how that's bad for the developers.
No, because the title pointed that way and I presumed it's about how the discounts negatively affect game developing, as was the case other times. My mistake, sorry about that, but what I wrote still stands, even if it's OT.
There are so few games I'd even consider paying full price for, and even then it would have to be something I've really wanted for ages. If it wasn't for steam / Greenmangaming sales I'd never have played some of the games I've enjoyed the most.