Heya,
Quite honestly, I don't care what happens to the industry. They're games. Yea, it's someone's job. Yea, it's someone's livelyhood. But it's a
game. When it comes down to what's important, a game is not. And while that may sound like a wash, that's how
most people think and why they don't give a rats butt if they're `stealing' a game off the internet and hurting a `market.'
I love playing games. I love great deals too though. The Orange box for example was monumental and had me shelling out my hard earned $$ for that great release. If the industry looked at that and said, "Wow, we could make a killing. When it's a great deal and a great series, people will actually buy it." Sure, folk still pirate that thing. But for $40, you get it all, and even steadfast pirates can't argue with such a good deal in games. I'm over joyed that I waited a long time to buy into HL2 because instead of spending the money each time something came out for it, I got the whole bundle for cheaper. Just like now, I can go grab battle chests for blizzard games and get all the titles for like $50. I don't need the brand new released game
right now. I'll get to it eventually. I just like knowing it's there. I like to see if it's worth actually buying before shelling out. I don't want to fuel an industry of "let's see how pretty we can make it, even though it's the 1,000th version of the same game."
I think game producers should ditch publishing. They spend so much in publishing that they could put that into a nother method of distribution. People are torrenting. So why not use that. Sell your game online for a much smaller price, since they can do that and still bank profit since they knock a large price off distribution and packaging. And they can even bank on bandwidth as gamers torrent the thing themselves.
Consider this. Most stores out there are getting
at least 50% profit from each sale, otherwise, they would not put that thing on the shelf as it would not be worth their time to buy and distribute the merchandise, regardless of what it is. So if that new game was $50 on the shelf, that store probably only paid like $20~25 for it initially. Of that, how much of it actually is costed by the publisher? Another fair chunk. In the end, how much does the publisher pay for the actual content to publish? Very little. If the desingers just published on the net and distrubted via the net, using bit torrent, they could sell it for the same, if not more, and not have the hassle.
Sure, people could still pirate. But the thing is, a lot of folk would be far more likely to actually whip out their credit card and pay $10 for an online game, full access to it, and be able to download it without even leaving their house.
They could just buy into a membership. Pay $X and you get download access to various content. A lot like how Steam works. But on a larger scale and using the users' bandwidth as an option (torrenting).
Finally, I'm not keen on them going purely into consoles and leaving the PC platform for the biggest selling companies who can remain affloat even with mass piracy due to their games just being so damn good and them being so damn popular. Only those trying to break into the market will go to the PC release after a long while and might strike it big or lose out horribly to the big wigs and piracy. Me? I'm not interested in buying a stupid console. I like to do all kinds of things with my PC. Gaming is one of them, but not the only thing. Sure, you can do several things with consoles
now, but that still doesn't have me wanting to spend $200~400 on a console. Hell, my computer costed like $500 and it plays all the games out there just fine. Why would I want to buy a console, controllers, and other crap that is just one more damn thing in my house taking up space, when I could have it all on ONE machine, the PC? I'm just not into consoles. I likely never will be until I have no option.
Sad too, I wanted to really play Force unleashed, but frankly, if the game is just a bore and nothing innovative beyond the cool factor of force pushing storm troopers through walls, I'll probably not be too sad.
Very best,