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Video Game Industry Thread: Master Chief -- script delivery boy

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Posts

  • The_ScarabThe_Scarab Registered User regular
    GnomeTank wrote: »
    Depends on the game. Games like Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Fallout, et al still have tails.

    Counterpoint: Why buy good old games when you can just as easily pirate them? Seriously, why do you think Good Old Games Dot Fucking Com recently completely rebranded themselves? Because good old games don't fucking sell.

    Everytime someone mentions Deus Ex, someone somewhere will reinstall it. But they don't buy it. They download it for free.

  • AllforceAllforce Registered User regular
    one of the things i often wish is that i get given 5 billion dollars to spend as i choose, so i can just give a great studio 300 million dollars and just be like "go hogwild, i dont give a fuck - no limits, make something awesome, no interference etcetc"

    and no perma-crunch time :/

    Lol with that kind of money you'd be better off just developing an entirely new platform for gaming. What games out there comes even remotely close to say, 30 million dollars to develop (NOT advertise)? It's not Hollywood.

  • GnomeTankGnomeTank What the what? Portland, OregonRegistered User regular
    ...actually I bought my copies for DX, Baldur's Gate and PS:T from GoG...so, yeah, I guess somewhere, some of us still have the ethical backbone to buy the things we use.

    Sagroth wrote: »
    Oh c'mon FyreWulff, no one's gonna pay to visit Uranus.
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  • The_ScarabThe_Scarab Registered User regular
    GnomeTank wrote: »
    ...actually I bought my copies for DX, Baldur's Gate and PS:T from GoG...so, yeah, I guess somewhere, some of us still have the ethical backbone to buy the things we use.

    The Golden Rule of the Penny-Arcade forums. We are the exception that proves the rule.

  • cloudeaglecloudeagle Registered User regular
    The_Scarab wrote: »
    GnomeTank wrote: »
    Depends on the game. Games like Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Fallout, et al still have tails.

    Counterpoint: Why buy good old games when you can just as easily pirate them? Seriously, why do you think Good Old Games Dot Fucking Com recently completely rebranded themselves? Because good old games don't fucking sell.

    Everytime someone mentions Deus Ex, someone somewhere will reinstall it. But they don't buy it. They download it for free.

    ...I will agree that GOG probably changed its name/focus because old games don't sell all that well, but I think it's less a matter of piracy and more a matter of (drumroll) most people not being us, and not bothering with playing old games at all.

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  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    edited March 2012
    wut

    i buy things off gog all the time, especially things that are an arse to make work on newer OSes

    they get a tail from old games just fine...

    they didnt rebrand because people always pirated, they rebranded because of competition with heavy discounts from steam

    surrealitycheck on
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  • GnomeTankGnomeTank What the what? Portland, OregonRegistered User regular
    The_Scarab wrote: »
    GnomeTank wrote: »
    ...actually I bought my copies for DX, Baldur's Gate and PS:T from GoG...so, yeah, I guess somewhere, some of us still have the ethical backbone to buy the things we use.

    The Golden Rule of the Penny-Arcade forums. We are the exception that proves the rule.

    Yeah, sometimes I get the echo chamber effect here and I forgot that the rest of humanity, as a general rule, are all shitcocks.

    Sagroth wrote: »
    Oh c'mon FyreWulff, no one's gonna pay to visit Uranus.
    Steam: Brainling, XBL / PSN: GnomeTank, NintendoID: Brainling, FF14: Zillius Rosh SFV: Brainling
  • jothkijothki Registered User regular
    I guess we should also skip the part about bloated game budgets as everybody tries to make AAA high-budget titles.

    You mean where they try to make games that will be release-day purchases for large numbers of people, rather than more niche titles that will rely heavily on a tail to make profit?

  • ZxerolZxerol for the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't do so i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered User regular
    People buy shit off GoG all the time because it's convenient. You don't have to find some abandonware site or torrent to download the game, manage a Dosbox install, and suss the game working as old games tend to want you to do. You buy and download it, install, and done. And you get bonus shit on top of your purchase (manuals, soundtracks, what-have-you).

    DD is nothing without convenience and value-added content.

  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    edited March 2012
    allforce thats why im going so crazy high - thats like 3x gta4 budget, to guarantee that money isnt an issue and that they can do all the mocap/actor hiring they want

    my imaginary games company are SO HAPPY

    also id pay a shitload more

    surrealitycheck on
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  • TurkeyTurkey So, Usoop. TampaRegistered User regular
    GoG probably makes enough to be stable on old games, but some expansion is always good.

    Personally, I would love it if they somehow facilitated mobile/console ports of the old games they provide.

  • AllforceAllforce Registered User regular
    allforce thats why im going so crazy high - thats like 3x gta4 budget, to guarantee that money isnt an issue and that they can do all the mocap/actor hiring they want

    my imaginary games company are SO HAPPY

    also id pay a shitload more

    Game devs are already overpayed.

  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    edited March 2012
    thats just playa hatin bro

    fwiw i think anybody earning under 80k a year is underpaid

    surrealitycheck on
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  • jothkijothki Registered User regular
    one of the things i often wish is that i get given 5 billion dollars to spend as i choose, so i can just give a great studio 300 million dollars and just be like "go hogwild, i dont give a fuck - no limits, make something awesome, no interference etcetc"

    and no perma-crunch time :/

    And then after a decade, you can give another studio 50 million dollars to actually finish the game.

  • vsovevsove ....also yes. Registered User regular
    Allforce wrote: »
    allforce thats why im going so crazy high - thats like 3x gta4 budget, to guarantee that money isnt an issue and that they can do all the mocap/actor hiring they want

    my imaginary games company are SO HAPPY

    also id pay a shitload more

    Game devs are already overpayed.

    Yeah, we're just rolling in the dough over here.

    You might want to do some research on the actual salaries of the games industry - I'm not saying that I'm living in poverty, but with the experience/education/skills I have and the hours I work, I could make significantly more money elsewhere. I guarantee you that it's true more often than not.

    WATCH THIS SPACE.
  • TurkeyTurkey So, Usoop. TampaRegistered User regular
    edited March 2012
    ....overpaid?

    Turkey on
  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    i mean game development isnt like real work, you only need like $18k a year because you have so much fun at work right vsove

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  • GnomeTankGnomeTank What the what? Portland, OregonRegistered User regular
    Game devs are overpayed, haha...that's some funny shit.

    As someone who writes software for a living, I can tell you I make 30-40% more than your average physics/graphics programmer at most game studios, and I write software that's infinitely easier to write and debug.

    Sagroth wrote: »
    Oh c'mon FyreWulff, no one's gonna pay to visit Uranus.
    Steam: Brainling, XBL / PSN: GnomeTank, NintendoID: Brainling, FF14: Zillius Rosh SFV: Brainling
  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    Allforce wrote: »
    allforce thats why im going so crazy high - thats like 3x gta4 budget, to guarantee that money isnt an issue and that they can do all the mocap/actor hiring they want

    my imaginary games company are SO HAPPY

    also id pay a shitload more

    Game devs are already overpayed.

    Allforce for Goose of the Year 2012.

    Because it's hard work to be this goosey.

  • vsovevsove ....also yes. Registered User regular
    i mean game development isnt like real work, you only need like $18k a year because you have so much fun at work right vsove

    To be fair - by and large, I enjoy my job a lot more than I would elsewhere. The only industries where I think I'd feel the same amount of passion and job satisfaction would be television or film. And yeah, there's something to be said for actually enjoying getting up and going to work - but I'm certainly not going to suggest that we're not, as a rule, paid less than we're probably worth. It's not any one company, though, it's industry wide.

    WATCH THIS SPACE.
  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    People tend to forget that GoG didn't always exist and there was once a period of time where a retail copy of Planescape in box was going for around 70 bucks.

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  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    She just likes fish & chips with a pint or six.

    Also; next-gen is already here.
    It's called iPad 3.

    No it's not.
    It's called the New iPad, :P

    Certainly costs as much.

    Synthesis on
  • ZxerolZxerol for the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't do so i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered User regular
    Maybe he's conflating your entry-level codemonkey with Bobby Kotick or something.

    Because I don't know how you can look at something like a videogame programmer (who specializes in probably one of the toughest forms of the discipline), consider the pay and job security, and think they're overpaid.

  • GnomeTankGnomeTank What the what? Portland, OregonRegistered User regular
    There is a reason, despite having the math, physics and C++ background to do be in game development, that I am in line-of-business software. The money is too hard to walk away from when I have a family.

    Sagroth wrote: »
    Oh c'mon FyreWulff, no one's gonna pay to visit Uranus.
    Steam: Brainling, XBL / PSN: GnomeTank, NintendoID: Brainling, FF14: Zillius Rosh SFV: Brainling
  • The_ScarabThe_Scarab Registered User regular
    Zxerol wrote: »
    People buy shit off GoG all the time

    except they don't. It was not financially successful in its old incarnation. It struggled continuously. Their most successful product was Beyond Good and Evil, a game less than eight years old.

    A huge effort to secure the rights of old games, spend time and money bringing them up to spec to run on current systems, package in all those extra goodies you talked about, and then sell them for rock bottom prices because while they are good games, they're also old games.

    Not to mention, as time goes on, the list of 'old games' adds to its pantheon currently new games. The problems with DOSboxing things and all that jazz evaporate the more up to date you get. Good Old Games is one day, in twenty years, going to be a list of games that includes Crysis. It is not just a niche market (essentially a repository for people late to the party) but it is becoming ever more redundant with the onset of digital distribution outlets.

    In ten years, I won't need a GOG.com to buy Half Life 2. It will be on my Steam account forever. Ready to download at a moment's notice.

    Good Old Games was misrepresenting itself. It wasn't old games. It was 'these very specific games from 1982-2003'. It wasn't a genre unto itself. It was a mixtape for an era.

  • maximumzeromaximumzero I...wait, what? New Orleans, LARegistered User regular
    The_Scarab wrote: »
    Zxerol wrote: »
    People buy shit off GoG all the time
    In ten years, I won't need a GOG.com to buy Half Life 2. It will be on my Steam account forever. Ready to download at a moment's notice.

    Well, you hope so anyway.

    Nothing is guaranteed in the world of Digital Distribution.

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  • AllforceAllforce Registered User regular
    vsove wrote: »
    Allforce wrote: »
    allforce thats why im going so crazy high - thats like 3x gta4 budget, to guarantee that money isnt an issue and that they can do all the mocap/actor hiring they want

    my imaginary games company are SO HAPPY

    also id pay a shitload more

    Game devs are already overpayed.

    Yeah, we're just rolling in the dough over here.

    You might want to do some research on the actual salaries of the games industry - I'm not saying that I'm living in poverty, but with the experience/education/skills I have and the hours I work, I could make significantly more money elsewhere. I guarantee you that it's true more often than not.

    Relax, it was a gag.

  • vsovevsove ....also yes. Registered User regular
    GnomeTank wrote: »
    There is a reason, despite having the math, physics and C++ background to do be in game development, that I am in line-of-business software. The money is too hard to walk away from when I have a family.

    It's a little easier to justify when your background's in humanities, but even then - I've had opportunities come up where I'd be making a good 35-45% more than I'm making now to do significantly less work. If I were older, or if I had kids, that would've been very difficult to turn down, even if I know I wouldn't get half as much job satisfaction.

    WATCH THIS SPACE.
  • Brainiac 8Brainiac 8 Don't call me Shirley... Registered User regular
    thats just playa hatin bro

    fwiw i think anybody earning under 80k a year is underpaid

    Then I am extremely underpaid. :rotate:

    Then again, being a financial consultant in this economy is a terrible career path. D:

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  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    oh i mean more in the cosmic sense of "in a just world nobody would be paid less than..." because in america 80k is just approaching safety and comfort and knowing that you can survive most shocks and send your kids to decent schools etc... sort of

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  • Brainiac 8Brainiac 8 Don't call me Shirley... Registered User regular
    The_Scarab wrote: »
    In ten years, I won't need a GOG.com to buy Half Life 2. It will be on my Steam account forever. Ready to download at a moment's notice.

    You'll have it forever...or whenever they decide that your rental period is up, whichever comes first.

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  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    The real reason you should feel bad about GoG is that they put in a ton of effort to package these games as ready to go on modern operating systems DRM free and then some asshole buys that version and puts it up on all the pirate sites.

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  • RenzoRenzo Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Does anyone have any sources about how GoG.com was/is doing financially? Or are we just making up shit, vgchartz-style?

    Renzo on
  • The_ScarabThe_Scarab Registered User regular
    Brainiac 8 wrote: »
    The_Scarab wrote: »
    In ten years, I won't need a GOG.com to buy Half Life 2. It will be on my Steam account forever. Ready to download at a moment's notice.

    You'll have it forever...or whenever they decide that your rental period is up, whichever comes first.

    In the Steam terms and conditions there is a consumer clause that means we're guaranteed permanent, DRM free copies of all of our games if Steam, as a service, ever ceases to exist. This is legally binding, if you still don't trust Valve, of all people.

  • L Ron HowardL Ron Howard The duck MinnesotaRegistered User regular
    uhh how is the video game industry hurting

    its growing incredibly quickly

    more and more money is spent on it every year

    ?

    Copyright math.

  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    The_Scarab wrote: »
    Brainiac 8 wrote: »
    The_Scarab wrote: »
    In ten years, I won't need a GOG.com to buy Half Life 2. It will be on my Steam account forever. Ready to download at a moment's notice.

    You'll have it forever...or whenever they decide that your rental period is up, whichever comes first.

    In the Steam terms and conditions there is a consumer clause that means we're guaranteed permanent, DRM free copies of all of our games if Steam, as a service, ever ceases to exist. This is legally binding, if you still don't trust Valve, of all people.

    Well hell, that's easy..."Steam as a service continues to exist, but it now costs $200 a month to maintain your subscription. You can't pay that? What a shame."

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  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    The_Scarab wrote: »
    Brainiac 8 wrote: »
    The_Scarab wrote: »
    In ten years, I won't need a GOG.com to buy Half Life 2. It will be on my Steam account forever. Ready to download at a moment's notice.

    You'll have it forever...or whenever they decide that your rental period is up, whichever comes first.

    In the Steam terms and conditions there is a consumer clause that means we're guaranteed permanent, DRM free copies of all of our games if Steam, as a service, ever ceases to exist. This is legally binding, if you still don't trust Valve, of all people.

    Well hell, that's easy..."Steam as a service continues to exist, but it now costs $200 a month to maintain your subscription. You can't pay that? What a shame."

    I've had more gripes about Valve than most folks and while I would never rule out something like that as distant eventuality, Valve has also never made a move that even slightly suggests to me they would pull a move like that.

    And even if they did do something like that 10 years from now, that would be around ten years longer than I manage to keep track of physical copies of games I buy so I'd still come out way, way ahead.

    Valve genuinely works hard to earn trust and does a good job of it; being cautious of what Valve might do 10 years down the road is just far more cynicism than is reasonable.

    Ninja Snarl P on
  • The_ScarabThe_Scarab Registered User regular
    The_Scarab wrote: »
    Brainiac 8 wrote: »
    The_Scarab wrote: »
    In ten years, I won't need a GOG.com to buy Half Life 2. It will be on my Steam account forever. Ready to download at a moment's notice.

    You'll have it forever...or whenever they decide that your rental period is up, whichever comes first.

    In the Steam terms and conditions there is a consumer clause that means we're guaranteed permanent, DRM free copies of all of our games if Steam, as a service, ever ceases to exist. This is legally binding, if you still don't trust Valve, of all people.

    Well hell, that's easy..."Steam as a service continues to exist, but it now costs $200 a month to maintain your subscription. You can't pay that? What a shame."

    Changing the terms of service would require a new terms and conditions agreement. Each time this agreement is updated, you are - as a consumer - allowed to void the new agreement and 'cash in' the old one. This happened with some LOTRO subscribers who had the lifetime subscription that paid for the service forever. When it became F2P they got some cash money because their deal no longer had any value.

  • The_ScarabThe_Scarab Registered User regular
    Also, you're better than needing to resort to an argument of absurdity, UncleSporky.

  • SheepSheep Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2012
    uhh how is the video game industry hurting

    its growing incredibly quickly

    more and more money is spent on it every year

    ?

    It's a market geared towards children and teenagers with a price point that is already fairly high for luxury purposes for it's market but needs to be increased to remain viable.

    That or profits need to be readjusted and salaries need to be drastically cut. Especially at the top of the board.

    Sheep on
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