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[PA Comic] Wednesday, May 9, 2012 - Condensation
Posts
Origin ID: jazzmess
Amazon Wishlist
Don't blame me, blame Paul Rudd.
To the consumer, digital distribution, as of now, seemingly only has one benefit, ease of access. It is easier to download something from an online store than to go to a physical location to purchase the product, or wait for the product to be shipped from a physical location.
Aside from that, the benefits go entirely to the seller of the digital product.
On the other hand, having a physical product places certain constraints on a seller. Intrinsically, physical products take up space, meaning that maintaining inventories involves increased overhead and holding costs. In addition, the sale of physical products, as a business, has fewer barriers to entry than the digital distribution equivalent. Combine the large number of physical distributors, as well as the cost of maintaining stock, and you get a willingness to quickly cut the cost of the product due to both competition and overhead. This does not exist with digital products.
The practical application of this is that on Steam, which is probably the most user friendly (for-pay/legal) digital distributor currently on the market, a copy of Modern Warfare 3 for the PC is 60 dollars, on Amazon it is 34 dollars shipping included from an independent seller, or 40 dollars from Amazon itself. The same applies to digital Playstation 3 and PSP games and their physical equivalents.
The same can also be said of DLC. Modern Warfare 2 map packs are still 15 dollars each 2 years after launch, and it is easy to find 4 year old DLC that has not seen a price change since release.
I am happy that Steam has its sales, and that it, along with GoG, provide easy access to older games. But those sales are more often a part of Steam's marketing strategy than a reaction to market forces.
Digital distribution makes it easier for the consumer to get the product, but it also cuts costs for the distributor/content owner, while giving that owner even more control over pricing.
Not to mention customer confusion. Imagine someone reading on a game website that D3 is "out" today, only to go to a store and not being able to find a copy. Nevermind that the article specified it's only out for download; there are people that go to blockbuster looking for theatrical new releases, so there will be people who won't get the distinction between download and physical release. Those without the ability to download may also feel marginalized by being "forced to wait".
This isn't unique for game downloads either. New music shows up on iTunes the same day it's released in stores, and the same with movies. The difference with video games is that some publishers and/or online distribution platforms allow pre-downloading the content. That's what's novel about games, and it already is an advantage to people who download (who can play at exactly midnight on day of release) but it leads to this expectation among players that since they have the content downloaded, that means that they should be able to play it right away.
This is exactly how it's working now. Gabe has the game already installed and will be able to play his copy of D3 exactly at midnight on the day of release.
Well, kind of. He has the installer on his machine, but it won't let him install until the 14th. And then the game itself will unlock on 12am on the 15th.
I think being unable to even install the game until the 14th is what makes this seem so restrictive.
This is exactly why they didnt have a real timer for the portal 2 release, retailers/publishers would of flipped their shit (see vivendi comic) that they didnt get excusive rights to distribute, or a fair playing ground.
If your argument is that things are more expensive via DD, and you're using Steam as an example, I'd like to direct your attention to the G&T Steam thread where deals are their lifeblood. And classy gifts.
Certain games rarely do sales, because their publishers somehow don't believe the oceans of data that Valve has collected regarding how much a game's revenue will jump up if it's given a significant discount. I think this is more of a "publishers are bad at change" thing than a "digital distribution slows or eliminates discounting" thing. DLC pricing not changing is also probably a symptom of this.
I would argue that significantly lower overhead allows DD to do sales more frequently, and offer deeper discounts. A B&M store like the one where I work needs to pay for the physical product from the publisher, pay to ship it to the store, pay some jerk to stock it, and then another jerk to sell it. I'm fairly certain DD channels simply have a percentage of the purchase price that goes to them, and then bandwidth costs (which, while not super high, are still a thing, especially for 10-40 GB games). The potential minimum profitable price per unit is much, much lower, and Valve has a lot of data showing that when you discount a game to 25-75% off, you will generally see your total revenue (not units sold) increase by a few times.
Bioware gave those that preordered SWTOR early access to the game - the earlier you had ordered your preorder, the more days of early access you got. Somehow or other, their entire marketing strategy didn't fall apart, and consumers and reviewers didn't fall into dystopian chaos.
Except that Tycho's complaint on the front page is that they can't even install the game until the 14th. They can only download it.
Origin ID: jazzmess
Amazon Wishlist
This is sort of missing the forest for the trees. Steam has great deals; it is the way that Valve markets its product and attracts new users. On average though, if you compare non-deal digital product price to physical product price, I am willing to bet that the physical product is usually cheaper. As you point out, because B&Ms face the costs you highlighted there is a greater incentive to get that product out the door.
You make a good point about certain publishers being generally intractable on this issue, but Digital Distribution only acts to give them more control over the situation. With a physical product, once that product is distributed to stores, the producer has less control on price, even more so if that product has been on store shelves for a while.
There a number of reasons you would be waiting till the exact same time, even without a physical copy.
1. Blizzard announced the time/date ahead of time. Anyone who made plans for the release might get upset if that changed, even if it was sooner. This doesn't have to mean, "getting time off work and staying up till 5am." This can just mean, "doing homework earlier," or, "asking the wife to watch the kids for a night or two." That all gets screwed up if it changes.
2. To tie in with #1, marketing would be completely screwed as well. With any game release, part of a successful launch is building hype. Changing everything suddenly would seriously mess with all their plans.
3. More importantly, the game actually isn't finished yet. They are going to have a day 0 patch, and they'll be working on that almost right up till launch.
4. Getting the servers ready - Diablo 3 is always online, and they're still working on their servers. Less than three weeks ago, they had their open beta event. In interviews since then, Blizzard employees have said that they've learned 12+ things that will help them with the release. They'll still be getting everything ready for the servers up until launch as well.
5. Keeping the same launch time for everyone - this is more a time zone thing, but Blizzard wants everyone in a region to start at the same time. This makes it a bit fairer for the players, and would be this way even without physical copies.
For all those reasons, even without making any physical copies, you would still be waiting the exact same amount of time. Blizzard has done this a few times before - once they knew that it would be two or three months till release, they would've had everything set into motion for the physical copies, so that the physical copies would be ready before the game and servers were ready. The physical copies did not effect the launch in any way, shape, or form. A release is a release, and you're waiting for Diablo III to be ready, not for the physical copies.
it's from the one where they're talking about Syfy's name change, specifically Tycho referencing the marketing-speak press release
I demand my prize
ok comic today.
http://www.swtor.com/info/news/news-article/20110721
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/11/04/the-old-republic-pre-order-head-start-up-to-five-days/
There's also the fact that the early access bonus was available to those who ordered physical copies from retailers, with Bioware giving early access players a 2 day grace period after launch to enter their product keys:
http://www.vg247.com/2011/12/16/star-wars-the-old-republic-pre-orders-get-two-day-grace-period/
Finally, SWTOR is a MMO, which mean it somewhat uniquely benefits from having a staggered influx of new players for the first few days, helping avoiding the bottlenecks of a huge inrush of players (especially of the most eager ones who played as soon as they could), as well as allowing a gradual ramping up of the servers and testing the load. Not ever game is an MMO though, so not every game would benefit from offering such early access.
I'm afraid Jormungandr beat you to this point: Thanks for the info, I didn't know the installation was . Not being able to install until the 14th is an interesting wrinkle, but I don't think it has a huge effect. Tycho may mention "installing" the game, I think he's referring to installing and playing the game. I doubt many are concerned that they can't install the game 2 days before they're allowed to play it, instead of just 1 day before. Anyway, my point still stands that they'll be able to play the game exactly at 12:01 PDT on the 15th.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/5338015/Launch_Day_Preparation_Guide-5_7_2012
Regarding the installer limit specifically, I think it's more a case of Blizzard not having a mandatory game client, like Steam. Looking back at the pre-loading of Half Life 2, the game assets were downloaded in advanced, but hidden behind encrypted files until launch day. Steam was able to handle the decryption and installation seamlessly behind the scenes, while Blizzard, lacking a pre-installed client, has to rely on the installer being able to protect the installation files until just before launch, and also thus has to be manually run.
So, what's to stop other companies from planning in advance to give early access to people who buy digital copies? Also, I don't really know much about the game, but I thought D3 was an MMO?
Maybe you should just go ahead and read Tycho's rant instead of guessing what it says? It's not even very long. But here's the relevant part:
Origin ID: jazzmess
Amazon Wishlist
"If anybody could break this thing, it would be Blizzard, right? "
Why would you expect that? Blizzard has nothing to do with innovation. They punched innovation in the face, slapped innovation's wife Creativity on the ass, and then went to go have a gangbang its best friends and business partners Monotony and Stagnation. And then they killed Innovation's dog on the way back home and took a dump on his couch the next day.
You're an optimistic lass you know that?
I mean that's the only reason I ever bothered to pick up the Dead Space series.
Amen brother... I'll see you on the horse tracks.
Personal Quote: "I stare into the void as her molted carapace unfurls, her soaking thorax begging for my gentle touch... and she whispers: "krev unda xcryu!!!". Her slender neck riddled with eggsacks and vestigial maws beckons for my tender head, but what is that I see? Tis a hedgehog, nested upon one of her seven shoulder, her quills beckon for me as well. I now surrender myself as I am filled with countless fertilized eggs and my hands grace the spiky sensuous quills... Yes, yes - a thousand times yes..."
Personal Quote: "I stare into the void as her molted carapace unfurls, her soaking thorax begging for my gentle touch... and she whispers: "krev unda xcryu!!!". Her slender neck riddled with eggsacks and vestigial maws beckons for my tender head, but what is that I see? Tis a hedgehog, nested upon one of her seven shoulder, her quills beckon for me as well. I now surrender myself as I am filled with countless fertilized eggs and my hands grace the spiky sensuous quills... Yes, yes - a thousand times yes..."
Diablo 3 is not an MMO in the general sense. It is an action dungeon crawler that is limited in how many people you can play with at a time. It's very linear in storytelling and has barely any open world adventuring going on. Unlike MMOs which are very open world, do what you want when you want, and play simultaneously with millions of people side by side.
KoopahTroopah on Twitch.tv! - Youtube! - Steam - HoN - Battle.net
In many ways, there are two types of game companies - idea companies, and polish companies. Idea companies are usually pretty innovative, but often ship buggy messes that are fantastic if you can get past the bugs. Polish companies take forever to release relatively safe games whose poop comes out with a high gloss shine from the polishing they have done even to their very butthole.
Gearbox is an idea company. Grasshopper Studios is an idea company.
Blizzard is a polish company.
However, saying that they aren't innovative in their business methods when they're 5 days away from launching a game where they are going to be profiting from sales of player-generated digital goods, and allowing players to also make real money off of them is a little... odd.
http://www.inquisitr.com/226671/tera-begins-early-access-general-release-tuesday-may-1-2012/
However, those are MMOs. For other titles, early access doesn't make as much sense as keeping everything tied to one release date. And no, D3 isn't an MMO. It offers multiplayer as an option, but also has a single player mode. KoopahTroopah detailed further distinctions above.
I did, and I still very much doubt that not being able to install the game more than day early isn't the true point of contention. It may be considered by him to be an additional absurdity on top of the crux of the issue, which is the inability to play the game before a specific date and time, which coincides with the physical release of the game. I highly doubt that if the installer was able run a week or more in advance, Tycho would've thought, "well, I can't play the game that I downloaded and installed yet, but since it's at least installed, it's all good." For the sake of what he wrote in the post, I don't think he was making a distinction between being able to install and being able to play the game.
Going back to the sandwich metaphor of the 2004 comic, imagine there's a fridge that delivers one type of sandwich directly to your crisper, but you can't eat it until the sandwich also reaches the grocery store. For another sandwich, it's delivered as separate cold cuts, condiments, and bread to your fridge, but doesn't assemble into a sandwich until 1 day before you can eat it. Now, is the real issue here that the 2nd sandwich isn't delivered ready-to-eat, or the fact that you can't eat either sandwich until an arbitrary date?
Note that Tycho didn't say that Blizzard "would" (i.e. have the desire to do so).
Also, Tycho is assuming that the desires of the retailers of the physical product are the hold-up, instead of Blizzard deciding on a fix launched time for D3 mainly for other reasons.
The way I read the newspost is that he was specifically zeroing in on the absurdity of having an installer that can't install. And that absurdity is likely the impetus for the comic as well. He specifically mentions "Hey, it’s 2012 alright, and nobody can play our game offline anyway because we won’t let them, and boxes are made of cardboard and are not in any way magical, so go ahead and install your game" as what he'd like to see Blizzard say, which specifically shows that he knows that installing won't let him play the game on its own without the associated servers.
My take on it is that he and Mike noticed the absurdity of having an installer downloaded that doesn't install and that's what the comic was based on. And the newspost just went into a bit more detail on that. I admit that I may not have read enough into it, though.
I do think the date-locked installer was probably the impetus for the comic, but the comic doesn't mention installing at all, just playing the game. The comic itself could apply to any number of pre-downloaded games, such as Half-Life 2, without any edits besides the game name.
As for why Blizzard locked the installer, I think it goes back to the lack of an offline mode. Everyone knows that as soon as the game is released, people will attempt to hack it with the intention of being able to play it offline. If Blizzard allowed the game to be installed days to weeks before it was playable, hackers would have the time to hack it well in advance of release. What's more, these hacked versions would be of interest to many legitimate owners of the game, since they could play the game they own days to weeks ahead of the release date. These legitimate owners would subsequently run into online multiplayer issues with Battle.net once the game is released. And this isn't counting piracy. By restricting the installation to the day before release, it gives hackers only a limited amount of time to hack the game, by which point the vast majority of legitimate owners will be fine with leaving the game unhacked and playing in online mode (some legitmate owners will still hack it to play offline after release, but they will likely be a minority).
Not sure how Activision handles it, but this is not exactly true with some publishers like EA.
They have a tendency to unlock games significantly after midnight (often after 2 AM) Pacific Time. It's not a huge deal but, assuming your schedule allows for it and you really enjoy the ritual of playing immediately after midnight launch, you're still out of luck. If you live anywhere but the West coast, you may as well go to bed. Since all installs are affected, buying a physical disc doesn't help you. In that respect, consoles are at advantage: you can play as long as you have the disc.
For those of us that have to get up early for work, this is moot. It's still somewhat annoying when you do have the time to play at midnight but can't. Dunno why EA does it that way.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/5203659/Diablo_III_Midnight_Launch_Events-4_25_2012#blog
Interestingly, from that blog post: "As a reminder to our Latin American players, the digital version of Diablo III will go live on May 15, and the retail version will launch on June 7."
So, at least in Latin America, they are letting people play the digital version before the physical version is available in stores.
Which EA titles launched at 2 AM Pacific? Battlefield 3 launched at 12:01 AM PDT:
http://www.enterbf3.com/topic/5043-battlefield-3-launch-times/
http://penny-arcade.com/2012/05/14
Apparently Tycho wasn't aware that the D3 installer would let you install it approximately a day in advance.