The podcast is back, with a healthier Jonah joining Jordan. No Dan or Paul however.
The news:
Question of the Week: “What are you most looking forward to in 2014?”
Over the last year we’ve seen developers scrambling to find “value add” features to new game purchases. Their goal is to convince the customer to buy new instead of used because developers don’t see a penny from a used game sale. While GameStop sees 48% profit margins from the used game market developers struggle to stay floating in the industry.
This is not the fault of GameStop and their 48% profit margins because they’re only getting 7% to 20% profit margins (say analysts) on new game sales. As someone that’s run a game store online, if you’re getting 15%+ on a new game you’ve got some great hookups in the distribution channel or are buying in huge quantities.
Buying games in huge quantities to build profit margins can be a huge mistake in this industry. Gamers are fickle little creatures and they’re going to buy their top tier games for a few weeks and then sales will drop significantly. No retail chain wants to purchase a thousand copies of GTA IV (only as an example) and sell seven hundred over the first few week to be stuck holding onto a few hundred copies when the dust settles. Now you’ll have to put them on sale to get them out of the store because the hardcore gamer have already done their shopping and you’re not going to get any price protection if you’re not a major player in the industry.
Why take 7% profit margins when you can get 48% on a used game? The gamers don’t seem to mind because they’ll trade in a used copy of a sports title like Madden to save $5.00 on the latest franchise release. Gamers will buy Fable 2, beat it in a week and rush to the store to get the “most for their dollar” before the game gets stale and buy-back prices drop like a stone. Why not rent Fable 2 and save yourself $50.00? Of course, renting pisses off developers as well because they see no additional revenue.
While the economy struggles and consumers fight for their jobs, the entertainment side of life continues to grow. People would rather “cocoon” in their homes playing video games and watching movies on their brand new HD television because it takes them away from the low points of the economy if only for a few hours. History has shown us trends in entertainment during the down points of economies, it’s natural to want to get away for a bit.
But, consumers want to play these games on the cheap because their job may not be there tomorrow. Saving $5.00 knowing the store just took the title in for half the price doesn’t bother you; $5.00 in your pocket is better than in their pocket right? The fact that they just pocketed upward of 40% on the game doesn’t matter to you — it’s all about your bottom line!
While we’re bargain hunting during the recession developers are going to try and up sell you to a new copy of the game. If that means giving you special game items and features with a “one time code” upon purchase, it will be up to you to decide if it’s valuable. All the while GameStop will lock out the game industry from selling used games because 42% of their overall gross profit is from used game sales.
You, the consumer, benefits from a slightly cheaper game, bargain bin fire sales and additional game features if you do choose to buy new. The economic down turn is a great time to be a gamer, as long as you remain employed.
Myst was published by Brøderbund Software, developed by Cyan Worlds and created by two brothers that did the design and directed the game (it was, much like a movie).
The original game was released on the Macintosh (in 1993) and then later ported to Microsoft Windows and Sega Saturn, PlayStation, Jaguar CD, AmigaOS, CD-i, 3DO, PlayStation Portable, and Nintendo DS.
“Myst puts the player in the role of the Stranger, who uses an enchanted book to travel to the island of Myst. There, the player uses other special books written by an artisan and explorer named Atrus to travel to several worlds known as “Ages”. Clues found in each of these Ages help reveal the back-story of the game’s characters. The game has several endings, depending on the course of action the player takes.” (wikipedia)
The game was a success, no doubt, and was considered the best selling PC game of all time until TheSims dethroned it. Besides mind blowing graphics, at the time, Myst helped move the game and PC industry along by selling CDROM’s. The game required a CDROM, which was rare at the time, and I recall them bundling Myst with some CDROMS or hyping it as “you need a CDROM so you can play Myst.” On more than one occasion when a person game to me asking what they should get to show off their new (costly) CDROM I would say “you need to try Myst.”
The gameplay of Myst consists of a first-person journey through an interactive world. The player moves the character by clicking on locations shown in the main display; the scene then crossfades into another frame, and the player can continue to explore. Players can interact with specific objects on some screens by clicking or dragging them(wikipedia)
Franchise sales: 12-million copies (first Myst game alone in the franchise, 6-million), pretty impressive eh?
You don’t have to be a huge Myst fan to know how it changed the industry, grew the medium of CD-based games and entertained millions. A real gamers thinking game!
To hear our full impression of Myst, checkout the TD Gaming Podcast Episode 77.
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Hi guys, great show again. 🙂
I like the idea of turning in a CD or just even having the old DRM code to get a digital version of the game. This is what Blizzard does with their library. I was able to get digital versions of Warcraft III and StarCraft because of my old DRM codes I had been holding on to. I think more companies should do that since we did buy the game, why should we have to pay again for a digital version?
@Steambox: I thought there was only going to be one but apparently there are going to be 13 of them priced from cheap to VERY expensive. This may be a good and easy way for people to find the steambox that will be suited to their needs.
@Sony streaming old games: I agree that I want this and that they should make their entire library available. The fact that Jordan still has a functioning backwards compatible Ps3 didn’t go unnoticed. I’d love to get one myself but the issue is they stop making these consoles so it isn’t easy to get an old console to play an old game. Much easier to just get an emulator (at least for PS1 and PS2).
@QOTW: I am most looking forward to Pillars of Eternity, it promises to be a great RPG game. Among other Kickstarter games like Wasteland 2 and Shadowgate.