Xbox Reveal

[Firewind]

Re: Xbox Reveal

Let me stand on a soap box. Oh wait a pedestal! Hmm well a pulpit sounds nice too...Anyway...

The problem is is that with Game Rentals and lending games to friends being killed off by DRM, Online Passes, On-Disc DLC etc etc, and playable Game Demos (as opposed to game trailers) being ludicrously expensive to put out for what they are, piracy seems to be the only option to find out if a game is even worth buying or now right now.

The average price of a new console game in the UK is $70-76. The average price of a new PC or handheld game in the UK is $53. That is a lot of money to pay just to see if a game is any good or not. Trashing the resale value of a second hand game makes me LESS likely to want to actually pay for it in the first place (nevermind pay full price) if have no way of legally trying it out before I buy it. Especially if the pirates are today, still offering a better service than the Developers, Publishers, Distributors and Retailers combined. Everything else that you can buy can be tried out in some way. Car Dealerships will let you test drive a car you plan to buy, you are always allowed to check out a house you want to buy or rent, you can try out clothes before you buy them, just about every electronics store will have a demonstration device, record stores will let you scan the barcode of albums to listen to a demo, supermarkets will offer free samples of things. Hell, the Animé Industry actively encourages the distribution of "Fansubs" of unlicensed Animé because it is free advertising to people that plan to buy the DVDs when the Animé comes out where they live The Games Industry is frankly backwards in that regard and is actively trying to make things even worse.

One thing that Valve does well with, and Sony were actually right to copy, are the Steam Sales. There's a lot of games out there that I have played that turned out to be average to pretty awful that I wouldn't have played because someone in the Developer-Publisher-Distributor-Retailer chain thought that charging nearly $80 for a brand new game that only lasts about 6 hours is a good idea. The thing is, the low price of the Steam Sale is actually a very good incentive to get the game just to see if you like it. Even if you can't get your money back, well, at least you didn't have to fork out nearly $80 just to find out that you hate the game and/or find out that it was frankly bad. Plus it also gives the people who wanted to wait for a price drop a greater incentive to pick up the bloody game.

It's a simple case of "Give me a reason to buy your shit and- Oh look! Guess what? I just bought your shit!". As it turns out, people are willing to *GASP* pay for a product as long as they aren't A) treated like a criminal for legally owning a copy of the game, B) the asking price is reasonably close to the intrinsic value and quality of the finished fucking product.

The problem with the XBox One right now is well...They could offer games for free on it and I still would not want to buy the XBox One because it is the epitome of all that is wrong with the games industry right now... Like I said before, I love Forza and would love to be able to play Forza 5 but actually getting an XBox one would simply make me a bad person which is something I cannot bring myself to do. As I said before, Goddammit Microsoft.

[Malacite]

Re: Xbox Reveal

Gran Turismo?

[Firewind]

Re: Xbox Reveal

I played GT5 but it was terrible. Bad AI, tiny car and track selection, buggy as hell netcode, the computer punishing you for being rammed by AI drivers that don't even acknowledge that human players are on the track (which leads to disqualifications from some races/events), horrible collision detection in the first place.

Oh well I can still play Forza 3/4.

[Armando]

Re: Xbox Reveal

@Firewind: Not letting you try out the game is exactly what publishers want. They want to create a hype machine with teasers and trailers and get you to pre-order their shit before the game hits and anyone has a chance to dissuade you from the purchase. They want you to buy blind. A demo could only dissuade you from buying the game; anyone playing the demo was likely interested in the game already. Of course the logical next step for them is to prevent the hold-outs from buying the game second-hand.

And they'd be right...except it only applies to AAA titles. Those are the only ones with enough pull to get hundreds of thousands of blind sales on brand recognition and trailers alone. Everyone else needs to convince the player about the merits of their game instead of just seducing them with hype and promises.

I fully expect the big publishers to continue to try to get you to pay for something you can't possibly try out first until they get burned by a boycott.

[Firewind]

Re: Xbox Reveal

The above is why I really liked the "Trial Game" thing that XBox Live Arcade games used to do. If I liked the game I would get gouged on MS Points and buy the full unlock. If I didn't like it then I would just delete it from my HD and get on with my life.

Sadly the backlash against "Freemium" killed off that practise even if it was justified.

[Malacite]

Re: Xbox Reveal

^ isn't Sony doing something similar with PS4? I'm pretty sure they said you'll be able to download just a small portion of the game, play it, and if you like it you can then buy it and keep playing it while it continues to download and install simultaneously. That's pretty sweet IMO.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Xbox Reveal

@Firewind: Not letting you try out the game is exactly what publishers want. They want to create a hype machine with teasers and trailers and get you to pre-order their shit before the game hits and anyone has a chance to dissuade you from the purchase. They want you to buy blind. A demo could only dissuade you from buying the game; anyone playing the demo was likely interested in the game already. Of course the logical next step for them is to prevent the hold-outs from buying the game second-hand.

While its true, and actually backed up by data and even a DICE keynote, that demos can hurt sales I think part of the problem with demos is them giving you a taste of the game and then completely cutting you off from wanting to continue onward with the game. The total loss of progress has this way of killing the mood.

There are a handful of demos out there that let you pick up where you left off with the demo. Off the top of my head, however, the most recent and best examples of it come from 3DS and Vita demos. Etrian Odyssey IV and Soul Sacrifice in particular give you a nice taste of the game, but since these are demos for RPGs/Action RPGs they do the smart thing of giving you at least some agency over your experience before it ends.

That and they let you keep a save file to transfer into the main game so you can pick up precisely where you left off.

That all the time you invested in the demo didn't go to waste is very encouraging and helps aid the purchase.

[Armando]

Re: Xbox Reveal

While its true, and actually backed up by data and even a DICE keynote, that demos can hurt sales I think part of the problem with demos is them giving you a taste of the game and then completely cutting you off from wanting to continue onward with the game. The total loss of progress has this way of killing the mood.

I know that it's been shown that demos show a loss of sales. What I'm not yet convinced of is that this applies across the board to all kinds of games. What I was trying to say is that demos don't necessarily hurt less-known titles like they would a AAA title. AAA titles are already well-known and a demo might dissuade the buyer. Other titles are seen as riskier purchases and need to prove their worth; a demo could entice the buyer into paying for it. Unless the data proves me wrong here? I don't have it on hand, it's just something I had stumbled upon last year.

[Firewind]

Re: Xbox Reveal

There's also the fear that a bad game will be revealed by a Demo. So the only way we will know if a game is bad or not is if A) We buy it, B) A reviewer actually tells the trust about the game.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Xbox Reveal

There's also the fear that a bad game will be revealed by a Demo. So the only way we will know if a game is bad or not is if A) We buy it, B) A reviewer actually tells the trust about the game.

If the game is bad then it shouldn't be making money anyway. If a game feels it needs to hide its gameplay then it has entered the race with both its kneecaps already broken and needs to sit down and have a long hard think about what it has done wrong.

[Firewind]

Re: Xbox Reveal

You mean like FFXIV 1.0?

[cidbahamut]

Re: Xbox Reveal

Yes, although ideally they'd actually learn something from the ordeal.

[Malacite]

Re: Xbox Reveal

^ you mean like how SE promptly took Tanaka & Komoto to task, and eventually Wada as well?


Praise to Yoshida san.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Xbox Reveal

Sacking individuals isn't a solution, it's scapegoating. The fact that they're still trying to release the damn thing says it all.

[Taskmage]

Re: Xbox Reveal

Again, little insight to provide to this exchange myself, so I'll just post somebody else's.