I mean, if you look at the games industry in the UK in the late 80s, early 90s you have a situation where you have machines like the Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga and so on, where games ranged in price from £1 to £10-£15, and game compilations containing ten full games would often go for £20, were ousted by machines like the Megadrive, SNES and later Playstation etc, where games cost £40 each.
There was a situation where cheap games were prevalent, but these other machines provided a different level - a different quality of experience, and at that point people decided it was worth paying for that extra quality. And then we had a fifteen-year stretch where new games cost £30+, regardless.
But then you had a period of, I dunno, about eight years when the home computers and the NES/Megadrive/SNES were both successful markets, concurrently. When you had games being sold at £2, and games being sold at £40, and both models worked. Just because prices are dropping on iOS devices and Steam doesn't necessarily mean the market won't support higher priced games, nor does it mean that the cheaper pricepoints will eventually win out due to erosion of customer expectation.
I'm reading along. Sporky is asking you to clarify your statement.
You argue that lower price = increased profit. This is not axiomatic and in certain situations is counterintuitive, since economically speaking, that only holds true if you are priced at a point in the demand curve above the so-called "ideal" price. Reducing the price below a certain point will always lead to reduced revenue. This is true for any product.
What I gather you are essentially arguing is that demand for games is highly price elastic. That is an argument, and I would nominally accept it, but it is not a given and nobody is required to. Furthermore, it still ignores that, as others have pointed out, the video game market is segmented into at least two parts: retail and digital distribution, and each exhibits its own qualities that, as some have stated, could have serious implications for the idea that lower prices always equal higher revenues.
And even then, we had the publisher/localization for Recettear drop the price of their game from $20 to something far less (we can't really say for sure because it was included in a bundle priced below that). They made more money, but they also were fairly convinced they could have made much more if they were able to sell it for something in between:
The larger problem comes from the fact that a large portion of units were made at a steep sale price; we pushed a heck of a lot of units via the Indie Story Pack on Steam. The problem is, we made very little money per-unit on that sale, since the pack was sold at less than Recettear’s sale price to begin with, and then, being a pack, we naturally only saw a portion of the price. We still made more money than we did during October, it’s worth pointing that out… but we didn’t make the money we could have, and as the head business dude around here, that nags at me. Especially since we have a lot of data – and I do mean a lot of data – suggesting that people were buying the pack pretty much solely for the promise of “Recettear for $5″. Had we sold the game for $5 first and then bundled it into a pack, we’d have earned quite a bit more than we did. So lesson learned on that front.
So, even in the digital space, where your argument seems to hold more water, it doesn't seem to always be true.
Why not? Hey, guys, here's this legendary Pokemon that you can only get if you pay us $25! Worked for WoW. Enhanced Pokeballs and TMs for various prices. Plus your standard non-gameplay related aesthetic items.
Why not? Hey, guys, here's this legendary Pokemon that you can only get if you pay us $25! Worked for WoW. Enhanced Pokeballs and TMs for various prices. Plus your standard non-gameplay related aesthetic items.
Why not? Hey, guys, here's this legendary Pokemon that you can only get if you pay us $25! Worked for WoW. Enhanced Pokeballs and TMs for various prices. Plus your standard non-gameplay related aesthetic items.
WoW is not free to play
Yes and your point? WoW can successfully sell extra items at high prices despite being a subscription-based game. It's even easier to sell extra items when the base game is free-to-play.
Anyway my point is that there are new monetization methods that Nintendo could uses if they wanted to and chances are they could be very successful with them. They don't have to stick with their traditional "here's a new game for $40-$50" strategy. Sure their existing strategy works now, but will it work in 10 years?
Pokémon is still primarily a kids game and it is hard as hell to monetize those. Some PC portal sites have done ok business doing just that but it is difficult to say the least.
Animal Crossing on the other hand would be fairly easy to do that too.
F2P works best right now for Facebook games and MMOs. It's hard to do it to other genres and I don't believe it is a model for every type of game. Some games need different budgets and payment methods. One and done pricing works well for a lot of games, and even one and mostly done modern dlc arrangements have worked out fairly well.
On a side note, I find it amusing that the Nintendo series with probably the deepest and most complex gameplay is also aimed at probably their youngest demographic.
There's no denying that Nintendo is very conservative with their monetization strategies. Sometimes I think the people at Nintendo view the Internet and related trends as just a fad that's going to blow over if they just stay the course.
Cutting prices almost always delivers more revenue (not just more sales)
Oh man. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, I thought you were trying to say that you didn't mean that cutting the price always gives more revenue. But you're still pursuing that line of thought. Geez.
I mean, I know I'm not the greatest in debates or anything, but I think this is one situation where the statement in question has some blatant and glaring flaws.
The topic gets right back to it all: Nintendo games don't drop in price because they continue to make solid money at that price. Price drops do not guarantee revenue. Dropping the price of a game like Mario Kart DS to $5 out of the blue wouldn't do them any favors.
Indeed. It's a bit of a dick move, but hey... they're a business.
Granted, one could argue that Nintendo possibly could wring a few more bucks out of older games by dropping their prices after sales slow enough to take the game below, say, the top 100 sellers or so. But for whatever reason, they haven't this gen. (Probably because they figure the additional money would be so small to not be worth the effort.)
But of course their decision to not do that has suddenly caused Nintendo to have an unprofitable quarter for some reason, which of course can only lead to one thing.
Indeed. It's a bit of a dick move, but hey... they're a business.
A dick move? Interesting.
For consumers? Yes. Mario Kart could be $20 now. It's not. Things like Greatest Hits, Platinum, and the old Player's Choice lines provide benefit to consumers.
I don't necessarily fault Nintendo for not lowering prices, because hey, it's a business. They can obviously continue to sell the games at their original price. It's about making money. More power to them.
Eh. You could also say that by providing more money to Nintendo, they're encouraged to produce more/better games and consoles, thereby making it the opposite of a dick move. It enables them to entertain us better!
If you want to say that money goes away into their coffers never to be seen again, well, in the year 2146 when the monolithic Microsony has been wiping the floor with them for several years, that Mario Kart DS money might be what keeps them afloat and keeps price competition alive.
Eh. You could also say that by providing more money to Nintendo, they're encouraged to produce more/better games and consoles, thereby making it the opposite of a dick move. It enables them to entertain us better!
If you want to say that money goes away into their coffers never to be seen again, well, in the year 2146 when the monolithic Microsony has been wiping the floor with them for several years, that Mario Kart DS money might be what keeps them afloat and keeps price competition alive.
Eh. You could also say that by providing more money to Nintendo, they're encouraged to produce more/better games and consoles, thereby making it the opposite of a dick move. It enables them to entertain us better!
If you want to say that money goes away into their coffers never to be seen again, well, in the year 2146 when the monolithic Microsony has been wiping the floor with them for several years, that Mario Kart DS money might be what keeps them afloat and keeps price competition alive.
Mario Kart DS saves the world!
I'm not seeing Nintendo drop prices until they leave the platform behind. They've got themselves in a unique position, and if I was them, I'd milk it for all it's worth. Evergreen content at a single price point.
Cutting prices almost always delivers more revenue (not just more sales)
If you can't express yourself clearly then of course there're going to be misunderstandings.
Except that clearly I can, as indicated above, and you're too lazy to read it. I'm not wasting any more of my time with your petty, absurd hairsplitting. You know perfectly well what I mean, and the fact that you choose to pretend that you don't, and make self-evidently idiotic extrapolations, proves fairly comprehensively that you're trying to score juvenile points rather than debate the issue. I wash my hands of you. Anyone with any interest in discussing the issue like a grown-up is still welcome.
Congratulations, you can make statements with no sources to back them up. If you can't learn to converse with people in an adult manner you can wash your hands of more than UncleSporky.
I note that all my posts have suddenly started being pre-moderated (EDIT: and that the last two have been blocked), even though I've said absolutely nothing abusive or insulting. Looks like someone's got themselves a chum on the moderating team, eh?
I know maybe 1/100 of my gaming dollars go to Nintendo, and that's being very generous. Rarely do they have a title I feel like paying full price for. I know I'm not alone in that regard. Nintendo knows they can make more money catering to the general stupidity at full price than to gamers, and it's why they have continued this policy of theirs.
I'm more than happy to give the other companies my money. I've probably played more emulated Nintendo games than anything else since the days of the 64. If I don't like your games enough to pay retail, and they're the same price as the games I bought new & first a year or two later... congrats I don't need to even pay at that point.
Nintendo doesn't care about me, so why should I care about them? I can count the games I never finished on one hand, and they're all on a Nintendo.
I'd so buy Mario Kart DS or Wii or GBC or N64 or SNES at full price again if I didn't already own them.
While I might like Nintendo games to drop in price over time, they're typically so well made that I easily get full price value from them even years later. I also only have to buy one version per platform, although I'd most likely buy a sequel, which is a very nice plus and doesn't make me feel like I need to wait for the 'Super' or whatever edition that I know will eventually come out from a dev/publisher.
While I definitely research my game purchases a bit more now than I did when I was younger as I have bills and other things to consider, excluding ridiculous Steam sales, I can't say that I've ever been let down by a Nintendo game that I've purchased at full retail or for less.
In conclusion, they don't drop in price because they don't have to. They are still worth their asking price.
I know maybe 1/100 of my gaming dollars go to Nintendo, and that's being very generous. Rarely do they have a title I feel like paying full price for. I know I'm not alone in that regard. Nintendo knows they can make more money catering to the general stupidity at full price than to gamers, and it's why they have continued this policy of theirs.
I'm more than happy to give the other companies my money. I've probably played more emulated Nintendo games than anything else since the days of the 64. If I don't like your games enough to pay retail, and they're the same price as the games I bought new & first a year or two later... congrats I don't need to even pay at that point.
Nintendo doesn't care about me, so why should I care about them? I can count the games I never finished on one hand, and they're all on a Nintendo.
Individual tastes and perceptions of value are what will drive people to purchase or not a specific title/platform. But to advocate that if a price is too hight so hey pirate it is jumping the shark a bit. If people don't want to play what ever doesn't strike their fancy on the iStore ect. they generally don't download it and play it to "stick it to the man". They pass it over without another thought and continue on with their lives much like they do with any other purchase that doesn't fit their taste/price criteria.
Now, if I've completely miss-understood you and you're saying that you haven't played any new Nintendo titles sense the 64 due to price, I'd want to ask what changed? The price to make their games hasn't changed. The amount charged is technically less (CDs cost less then cartridges, inflation ect.).
You seem to also think that people paying full price are "stupid" some how. Why would someone thinking that a product is worth a different amount then what you are willing to pay would make the other person's decision or person them selves "stupid"?
>_< gah bad top of the page... um... so..
Witch brings us to what Iwata said during his address. The glut of cheep bad games "could" have a negative effect on both markets. I know I have very little interest in most iStore and such games. They don't fit my tastes at all. A mass amount of others feel the same why. To put it in gamers terms Why would anyone who bought and enjoyed the latest Call of Duty (6 million+ gamers) suddenly stop purchasing the game and switch to Angry Birds? There are multiple markets at work here. Success of/in one does not mean the failure of/in another.
Posts
There was a situation where cheap games were prevalent, but these other machines provided a different level - a different quality of experience, and at that point people decided it was worth paying for that extra quality. And then we had a fifteen-year stretch where new games cost £30+, regardless.
But then you had a period of, I dunno, about eight years when the home computers and the NES/Megadrive/SNES were both successful markets, concurrently. When you had games being sold at £2, and games being sold at £40, and both models worked. Just because prices are dropping on iOS devices and Steam doesn't necessarily mean the market won't support higher priced games, nor does it mean that the cheaper pricepoints will eventually win out due to erosion of customer expectation.
Alright, seriously. What the hell?
I'm reading along. Sporky is asking you to clarify your statement.
You argue that lower price = increased profit. This is not axiomatic and in certain situations is counterintuitive, since economically speaking, that only holds true if you are priced at a point in the demand curve above the so-called "ideal" price. Reducing the price below a certain point will always lead to reduced revenue. This is true for any product.
What I gather you are essentially arguing is that demand for games is highly price elastic. That is an argument, and I would nominally accept it, but it is not a given and nobody is required to. Furthermore, it still ignores that, as others have pointed out, the video game market is segmented into at least two parts: retail and digital distribution, and each exhibits its own qualities that, as some have stated, could have serious implications for the idea that lower prices always equal higher revenues.
And even then, we had the publisher/localization for Recettear drop the price of their game from $20 to something far less (we can't really say for sure because it was included in a bundle priced below that). They made more money, but they also were fairly convinced they could have made much more if they were able to sell it for something in between:
So, even in the digital space, where your argument seems to hold more water, it doesn't seem to always be true.
Why not? Hey, guys, here's this legendary Pokemon that you can only get if you pay us $25! Worked for WoW. Enhanced Pokeballs and TMs for various prices. Plus your standard non-gameplay related aesthetic items.
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
WoW is not free to play
Yes and your point? WoW can successfully sell extra items at high prices despite being a subscription-based game. It's even easier to sell extra items when the base game is free-to-play.
Anyway my point is that there are new monetization methods that Nintendo could uses if they wanted to and chances are they could be very successful with them. They don't have to stick with their traditional "here's a new game for $40-$50" strategy. Sure their existing strategy works now, but will it work in 10 years?
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
Animal Crossing on the other hand would be fairly easy to do that too.
F2P works best right now for Facebook games and MMOs. It's hard to do it to other genres and I don't believe it is a model for every type of game. Some games need different budgets and payment methods. One and done pricing works well for a lot of games, and even one and mostly done modern dlc arrangements have worked out fairly well.
There's no denying that Nintendo is very conservative with their monetization strategies. Sometimes I think the people at Nintendo view the Internet and related trends as just a fad that's going to blow over if they just stay the course.
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
Oh man. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, I thought you were trying to say that you didn't mean that cutting the price always gives more revenue. But you're still pursuing that line of thought. Geez.
I mean, I know I'm not the greatest in debates or anything, but I think this is one situation where the statement in question has some blatant and glaring flaws.
The topic gets right back to it all: Nintendo games don't drop in price because they continue to make solid money at that price. Price drops do not guarantee revenue. Dropping the price of a game like Mario Kart DS to $5 out of the blue wouldn't do them any favors.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
Granted, one could argue that Nintendo possibly could wring a few more bucks out of older games by dropping their prices after sales slow enough to take the game below, say, the top 100 sellers or so. But for whatever reason, they haven't this gen. (Probably because they figure the additional money would be so small to not be worth the effort.)
But of course their decision to not do that has suddenly caused Nintendo to have an unprofitable quarter for some reason, which of course can only lead to one thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMSHvgaUWc8
For consumers? Yes. Mario Kart could be $20 now. It's not. Things like Greatest Hits, Platinum, and the old Player's Choice lines provide benefit to consumers.
I don't necessarily fault Nintendo for not lowering prices, because hey, it's a business. They can obviously continue to sell the games at their original price. It's about making money. More power to them.
But yes, I'd call it a dick move.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
Eh. You could also say that by providing more money to Nintendo, they're encouraged to produce more/better games and consoles, thereby making it the opposite of a dick move. It enables them to entertain us better!
If you want to say that money goes away into their coffers never to be seen again, well, in the year 2146 when the monolithic Microsony has been wiping the floor with them for several years, that Mario Kart DS money might be what keeps them afloat and keeps price competition alive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ92Y2Hsc2w&playnext=1&list=PL4841411C3CFF4371
Mario Kart DS saves the world!
I'm not seeing Nintendo drop prices until they leave the platform behind. They've got themselves in a unique position, and if I was them, I'd milk it for all it's worth. Evergreen content at a single price point.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
Congratulations, you can make statements with no sources to back them up. If you can't learn to converse with people in an adult manner you can wash your hands of more than UncleSporky.
It's an automated system. Don't flatter yourself.
I'm more than happy to give the other companies my money. I've probably played more emulated Nintendo games than anything else since the days of the 64. If I don't like your games enough to pay retail, and they're the same price as the games I bought new & first a year or two later... congrats I don't need to even pay at that point.
Nintendo doesn't care about me, so why should I care about them? I can count the games I never finished on one hand, and they're all on a Nintendo.
While I might like Nintendo games to drop in price over time, they're typically so well made that I easily get full price value from them even years later. I also only have to buy one version per platform, although I'd most likely buy a sequel, which is a very nice plus and doesn't make me feel like I need to wait for the 'Super' or whatever edition that I know will eventually come out from a dev/publisher.
While I definitely research my game purchases a bit more now than I did when I was younger as I have bills and other things to consider, excluding ridiculous Steam sales, I can't say that I've ever been let down by a Nintendo game that I've purchased at full retail or for less.
In conclusion, they don't drop in price because they don't have to. They are still worth their asking price.
Individual tastes and perceptions of value are what will drive people to purchase or not a specific title/platform. But to advocate that if a price is too hight so hey pirate it is jumping the shark a bit. If people don't want to play what ever doesn't strike their fancy on the iStore ect. they generally don't download it and play it to "stick it to the man". They pass it over without another thought and continue on with their lives much like they do with any other purchase that doesn't fit their taste/price criteria.
Now, if I've completely miss-understood you and you're saying that you haven't played any new Nintendo titles sense the 64 due to price, I'd want to ask what changed? The price to make their games hasn't changed. The amount charged is technically less (CDs cost less then cartridges, inflation ect.).
You seem to also think that people paying full price are "stupid" some how. Why would someone thinking that a product is worth a different amount then what you are willing to pay would make the other person's decision or person them selves "stupid"?
>_< gah bad top of the page... um... so..
Witch brings us to what Iwata said during his address. The glut of cheep bad games "could" have a negative effect on both markets. I know I have very little interest in most iStore and such games. They don't fit my tastes at all. A mass amount of others feel the same why. To put it in gamers terms Why would anyone who bought and enjoyed the latest Call of Duty (6 million+ gamers) suddenly stop purchasing the game and switch to Angry Birds? There are multiple markets at work here. Success of/in one does not mean the failure of/in another.