Arrr

I think game development is a good business even with the actual level of piracy.

So far there are educated people with money to expend, there will still be a (I repeat) very good market.

People likes to go to the Shopping-center, look arround between the game boxes, buy the product,and feel expectation in their cars while they drive back home.

quote: Original post by owl
I think game development is a good business even with the actual level of piracy.

So far there are educated people with money to expend, there will still be a (I repeat) very good market.

People likes to go to the Shopping-center, look arround between the game boxes, buy the product,and feel expectation in their cars while they drive back home.

Even though the market may still be good, it is by no means as good as it could have been. If one person buy the game then many persons copy the game to other friends. There may be several reasons for this, the most common *probably* is because they pool money to buy one together. While that notion is understandable it is also damaging. Since the gamecompany lost several potential customers right there. I understand that most games out there are utter crap, and have no gameplay whatsoever. So some might think that -I am so happy I didn''t spend a dime on that piece of #¤%%. etc... But since it was not purchased the companies have less resources to hire better people for their next game. I think you get the picture by now. People really need to start buying the software because the recent deaths and takeovers of many companies are no accidents.

quote: Original post by Obscure
Many titles that sold less would have made as much profit if their development was done carefully.

Agreed.

quote: Video game sales last year amounted to $16 billion sales world-wide. Giving them away would wipe that off the world economy and bankrupt all the video game shops and distributors.

Yes, I forgot about the retailers, didn''t I? Hummm. A possible solution to that would be to consider retail a cost of production, and pay retailers/distributors a fixed fee per sale rather than a percentage. But if you''re giving it away for free anyway, there''s little point in using retail at all - just make it downloadable. So yeah, what I''ve talked about isn''t good for retailers or distributors, who''d be cut out of the loop.

quote:

quote:

quote: Original post by Obscure Tech licensing, likewise, requires that the tech is proven over several projects before you can charge anything more than a token fee. Worse still you need to sell ten licenses to make a decent amount of cash which means that for every game benefiting from licensing their tech there are ten whose production costs actually increase.

See my earlier example. Though with your second point, you''re forgetting the whole point of using middleware at all - the money saved (mainly in labour costs) by not spending the time developing your own engine. If you could take Crytek''s engine for $50,000 (plus, say, $20,000 in time spent learning it), or spend $80,000 in staff costs while they develop something equivalent, the choice is pretty obvious.

Sorry but in this case your facts are wrong. I am currently negotiating two Renderware licenses for clients and saving money isn''t a factor. Middleware is used because it is proven tech that reduces risk and helps get a product to market faster. The costs savings your quoting are wrong because your costs are too low. The id web site lists the Q3Arena license at $250,000. Other top class engines are around the same price.

Heh. As you probably know, it''s difficult to get figures for the majority of engines unless you actually have that kind of money... the Auran Jet engine claims a commercial license of $30,000 USD. I guess it might not be ''top class'' (and from using it, I can tell you that I don''t want to use it again ), but that''s still quite a bit of a price jump from $30,000 (for an engine which has been used in 4 commercial titles, judging by their site) to $250,000 for Q3A, isn''t it?

Also, consider why it''s important that you get to market faster. Yes, to beat the competition, but also because total labour costs are lower.

Plus, "reducing risk" is reducing non-pecuniary costs of production...

quote: Conclusion
I would stick with the technical suggestions and avoid the financial ones because giving away software worth $16 billion in order to prevent the loss of $1 billion to software piracy doesn''t really work

This is officially an economics essay, so I can''t drop the financial suggestions I agree that it''s probably not worth it though. As I said at the beginning of the paper, my aim was purely to investigate possible ways of fighting piracy, without examining whether it''d actually be worth it.

quote: Original post by superpig
This is officially an economics essay, so I can't drop the financial suggestions

Yes you can and should. An economics essay doesn't have to include financial suggestions. It just needs suggestions that have an economic impact. Your technical suggestions have a positive economic impact and as such are valid subject matter.

Your essay can either propose viable suggestions or it can discuss possible suggestions regardless of their economic impact. If your essay fits the first of these descriptions then your financial suggestions have no place because they are not even close to being viable. If the subject is "any possible method of combating piracy regardless of the economic impact" then you must at least point out that the proposed financial suggestions would actually result in the destruction of a $16 billion a year industry.

quote: As I said at the beginning of the paper, my aim was purely to investigate possible ways of fighting piracy, without examining whether it'd actually be worth it.

The revenue streams you're proposing won't even generate a quarter of the income. That means you are proposing to save the $1 billion lost to piracy by losing in excess of $12 billion. If you are planning to include such a proposal you must at least include a conclusion which makes that economic cost clear in the essay.

I really think you should talk to your tutor about this concept. Submiting an essay with this sort of flawed concept will likely get a bad mark (unless you include a strong conclusion). Going to your tutor and saying "I have a concept for my essay but I think there may be problems. Can we discuss it before I submit it" will more likely earn you some kudos.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions (www.obscure.co.uk)
Game Development & Design consultant

[edited by - obscure on April 9, 2004 11:48:29 AM]

When I was at uni, my lecturers would have kicked my ass for not backing up my statements with references!

Many a fun (?) hour was spent hunting for credible references to back up a assumption I''d based my entire essay on. Those were the days, ahhh.

Updated with a new intro+conclusion.

Please bear in mind that I said "reduce the R&D burden" before "remove it entirely."

(Also, please don''t worry about the mark I get for this. I have my A2 exams coming up, and this is revision - it was in no way an assignment, or piece of coursework. I''m going to give it to the teacher so that he can examine my use of economic concepts in it, like elasticity, theory of the firm, and so on.)

MichaelT wrote:
There may be several reasons for this, the most common *probably* is because they pool money to buy one together. While that notion is understandable it is also damaging. Since the gamecompany lost several potential customers right there.

You can''t say that. They never had those customers. Instead they gained at least one customer because they pooled their money. I just did this same thing with a game the other day. It was not worth it for either me or my friend to buy this particular game, but after splitting the cost it was worth it. He had the game first, beat it and will never play it again. I''ll start playing the game soon. When I am done with it, we''ll sell it. That means at least 3 people, probably more will end up playing this game and the developer will only see the money for one.

What if a father buys a game for his 3 kids. Those 3 kids will play the game. Should the father have to pay 3 times as much? This also is a form of pooling.

It is just going to be a fact of life for developers of intangible goods. People are going to use your products without paying you. Tough.

I heard of a game company using computers against themselves. They make entries on the disk itself that fool the CD-ROM into thinking that the byte/bit are errors in the CD. The game monitors the hardware itself looking for corrections to the data-stream. If it does not find it, the game slowly degrades its useablity.

--
What are you nutz?

I have nothing to say to your unevolved little brain. The more I say gives you more weapons to ask stupid questions.

quote: Original post by superpig

quote: Advertisers wouldn''t pay any significant sums unless the title/franchise was established and that usually takes several iterations.

At the moment, I agree. However, if advertising in games becomes more prominent - through the established franchises such as Unreal Tournament - and the effects of advertising in games can be seen to be significant, then advertisers will be more willing to ''take a chance'' with less established games.

I just wanted to point out that Nielsen will start tracking advertisements in video games.

http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsID=245994
http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsID=245826
http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com/Stories/0,1413,87~11271~2073188,00.html