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Why is Die Hard $8 on Blu Ray but $15 on AppleTV? [Unfair Media Pricing]
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I would never have bought a next gen console if it didn't have a disc drive. I have no preference as far as games go when it comes to digital or physical, however that's not all I use my console for, and I pretty much exclusively buy physical media when it comes to movies I want to own and not just stream off of Netflix/Hulu/etc. I usually buy the version that includes a digital version, for when I'm traveling, but for when I'm home I know I'm going to get a lot better quality from a disc than a stream.
One factor to keep in mind is that many brink and mortar retailers specializing in a market have a significant influence over publication practices. They have agreements in place with the publishers that require the electronic-only version of a product to be higher cost than the physical copy, so as to protect their market share.
The example that members of this forum are most familiar with is how Gamestop has repeatedly and successfully interfered with digital-only releases for console games. Similar actions happen with other media such as books and video.
Additionally, many times the price of a digital copy of a media is dictated by the publisher to the distributor in a way that cannot be dictated to a physical goods retailer. This is a large part of why you'll see games going for $60 on the Xbox or PSN long after the physical copy's price has dropped to $30 or less. Because the publisher has not updated their pricing. There's really no impetus for them to do so, because lower pricing on the digital copy will make it more attractive compared to the physical copy, which they don't want sitting in a warehouse.
The problem with e-books is that I can't loan my kids a book - I have to loan them ALL my books, at once, or else I have to give them access to my Amazon / Google / Apple account itself, under my login.
The inability to lend or resell e-books is a glaring, awful issue.
You still seem to be missing the point. They both cost what they do for the same reason. There is no difference. The price of the physical book is set by the exact same conditions. The only reason a paperback costs what it does is because the publishers want that much money. Cause the actual cost of producing the physical book is nowhere near that. There's simply too little relation between the price and the cost for it to matter for the most part.
You keep acting like one price is fairly fixed and the other is just whatever the publishers feel like in relation to the first. But both are simply whatever the publisher feels like.
That's the limitations of the medium. Digital goods at this point basically all exist under some sort of licensing-type scheme.
I personally never lend or borrow books but I can see how that would be an issue if you wanted to. I think Amazon has a pretty robust lending system for kindle. I'm in the nook infrastructure which is more limited.
Ebooks are priced higher because the publishers think the market will bear it.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Yes, Apple tried to create an illegal price fixing cartel to raise prices and got caught. This is not the same as creating a "competative digitalbook service to drive prices down".
If Apple had managed to succesfully run it's illegal price fixing cartel ebook prices would have gone up not down.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
The issue with creating a Competitive Digital Books service is 90% of the time the price is set by the Publishers, not the Vendor.
You seem to be missing the reason for which this thread was created. The OP asked why one was more expensive than the other despite one being demonstrably more expensive to create. And the reason is because publishers can.
And, if you go back and read my first post, I literally say this is fair.
They can only be consumed serially, they have a long consumption period compared to both video and music and consumers will hold onto one for extended periods of time and just let them sit idle, next to no bandwidth requirements. If you could get two books at a time for some nominal fee per month I imagine it would see some uptake.
Of course publishing it pretty lucrative as is so there is little incentive to move to such a model.
But on the other hand we're more or less at the point that we could hold and entire library too fast for a single person to read on an SD card so something should give in that regard eventually.
Amazon already offers that as part of prime. My wife has a kindle and has read some free books with it. It's a great value add, but the library seems limited.
Right, but there is no real reason it should be limited. Other than the businesses aren't being pushed that way, yet
In large part it is Sonys fault that we do not have a much better digital marketplace this go around.
If everyone had bit the sour apple and we did the digital-first, license-driven model on consoles that Microsoft proposed (like steam, but with some added neatness) and Sony didn't use it as a zinger at e3 to get an early and commanding lead in the console war this generation at the expense of advancing the format... we would have seen some neat shit out of both camps this time.
Instead, here we are with the PS4 which is basically the Xbox 360 v2, and the Xbox one which is having a harder time defining itself because the market was dumb at the moment and didn't realize they actually wanted what Microsoft was selling, just not in 2013.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
What's funny about this is that the big publishers still hide behind that mentality of large warehouses full of book orders where thousands upon thousands of books end up in cold storage waiting to hit the 99 cent bin and it hasn't been that way in YEARS.
I live in TN, USA and we've got a company here called Ingram. For those that don't know, a subsidiary of Ingram, Lightning Source, prints about 99% of all books you buy on Amazon. They do it print on demand, because years ago they figured out a way to get the cost down to the point where it was about as cheap as doing large scale runs. They still do larger runs of 1-3 thousand for brick and mortar retailers, but the vast majority go to Amazon and are individually printed in small batches.
I think the only reason that e-books and e-anything for that matter is so expensive is because the cost of making the physical counterpart, which was once the ONLY option and therefore the cost of production could be greatly exaggerated to drive up prices, is now completely transparent and the cheapest it's ever been, to the point that the digital version, which is considered a "convenience" to the buyer, is given the higher price.
It costs more for digital because it's easier to manage and it's the only way that the companies can still make a profit, in their eyes. Plus they can always use the "we have to charge more to offset piracy" argument.
The market in general just wasn't ready for all-digital. This is still true today, even. While digital downloads have recently surpassed physical sales (2014), this isn't because of a decrease of physical sales... it's from an increase in consumption of ALL forms of video game sales, spurred in part by the release of the most recent console gen. In other words, they are selling more discs than ever, and digital downloads have exploded in popularity AS WELL, surpassing physical sales. So while there are a lot of people going digital, there's still a huge market in physical discs. Blame the consumer, I guess. *shrugs*
There's a recent trend of putting digital download codes for a game in a physical box at a retail store. I'm not sure if these are getting counted as physical retail sales or as downloadables or both.
Their response of "no next-gen for you" to questions of broadband access was one way they really shot themselves in the foot there.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Many publishers on Amazon also have their own website where they'll sell you a DRM-free version of their ebook, which lets you lend the ebook freely to anyone you know. They get away with it by assuming their audience is honest.
Baen Books is probably the premier example of a well known publisher who'll sell you a DRM-free ebook, but there are quite a few of these publishers around, if you look for them. Basically, if you want the book, track down the publisher first, to see if they'll sell it to you directly, before breaking down to buy it off Amazon.
I agree that MS was offering something that was potentially compelling, but at the same time I don't own any downloaded games for my ps4 other than free games from ps+ because the physical copies have always been 1/3 to 1/2 off the digital prices. Even when games go on sale digitally, they tend to be cheaper in stores during the same period. I'm not confident that a move to full digital would have benefited gamers at this point in time.
Nah. It was a poison apple. Not supporting offline functionality isn't okay, nor is the absurdly high prices that digital encourages. Outside of Steam sales, digital is an excuse for monopolists to take customers for everything they can get. Hence this thread.
Digital should be cheaper than physical products by a huge margin, and it's not, because sellers know they have the upper hand, and this state of affairs is not easy to fix without policy changes.
Why would digital be significantly cheaper?
This is one of those things that always gets repeated as a matter of fact, but it doesn't really withstand scrutiny. If you look at the chart, the actual physical cost of the game is only $4. And going digital only reduces that portion, not eliminating it altogether - there are still costs for digital media in the physical world.
* In other words, often that retailer margin doesn't go away for consoles. And it is actually MORE desirable for Microsoft/Sony to sell through their digital download stores, since overall, their cut is higher.
Except that:
*You don't get to completely erase the $4 of physical plant costs. Digital distribution isn't free, and there are physical plant costs involved there as well.
*Retailers aren't going away either. While you may not, in the specific sense, need a retailer, getting onto Steam/GOG/Humble/etc. is still necessary from the "need to get my product in front of eyeballs to sell it" sense. And those retailers want their cut as well (and also have physical plant costs as well.)
*The return section is for stock return to the manufacturer, which is the one section you would see disappear mostly. I do say "mostly", because with marketed titles given billing, there could be contractual deals requiring clawbacks if sales don't meet agreed upon levels.
Basically, a lot of the "digital is much cheaper" arguments tend to be based on "well, a bunch of these costs just don't exist anymore", which really isn't the case.
It's the anatomy of a $40 game on disc vs the anatomy of a $60 digital game.
Except that:
*Barring any special arrangements, physical plant costs are handled by the distributor, not the studio. Subscription services are handled separately (typically), but we aren't talking about those.
*Retailers (online stores) typically take a % cut of the final price (the agency model). No other costs involved. If a movie costs $10.00, and the retailer and the studio agreed to a cut of 30% for the retailer, then the studio gets $7.00 and the retailer gets $3.00. All distribution costs come out of the retailer's cut barring any special arrangements. This works well for the studios, because they get a check for minimal effort and they can also completely separate themselves from handling customers sensitive data, something they aren't set up to do.
*It's possible, but I would imagine any special deals are rare in this day and age. The only one I can think of recently was the HBO Now/Apple exclusivity deal.
Would it make you happy if someone said "digital is much cheaper because many of the costs are greatly reduced"?
Yes, actually.
This might be a reflection of my local market, but I never see that. I see games going for $60 on store shelves and $30 online. I see games get discounts online on a regular basis and I never see the in store prices waver. I see games drop in price online, and then drop in price much, much later in store.
Best Buy and target often discount games and they are national chains.
PC games have great digital discounts compared to retail. Console games tend to have poor discounts in general, but you can get them used (which is still often more expensive than digital but whatevs).
Books have to deal with Amazon and deals with various eReaders, and generally the only "sale" on a book is the generic Amazon discount. But there's a good used market for certain kinds of books, and libraries exist.
In general, I think going purely digital will end up raising prices for consumers unless some sort of regulations are put together to allow for users to transfer licenses they have paid for.
I don't ever really see Best Buy offer discounts on anything other than systems (dropping them down to $399.99 periodically) and Target has fled the country. GameStop doesn't ever seem to offer real discounts, and the only time Ife bought a used game from them I discovered that it was $5 cheaper to buy the digital copy online.
Canada, eh.