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chickenhawk

chickenhawk

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With the new systems being shown it seem that there is renewed talk of the downfall of the industry. It has always been a hot topic here, but this thought popped in my head. I am sure this has been discussed before in some form or another, but anyway......

I am quite sure I'll get flamed for even suggesting this, but whatever.

Anyway, do you guys think that we (as in cheapass gamers) have something to do with the calvalcade of crap that is released nowadays? What I mean is that many of us will never buy a game at or even near full price. We wait for reductions to at least $20 (often much less) even for good games because we know they will fall eventually. Many of us will not even reward a publisher for putting out a good game because we wait for price drops. Thus the game is tagged a commercial failure and no sequels follow (Beyond Good & Evil anyone?). So if gaming companies are not rewarded for putting out AAA titles, why should they?

I am not sure if cheapasses like us even represent a large enough sample to matter all that much, but I was just curious what you guys thought. I'm off to bed. Hopefully I'll have some reading material when I get up. :D
 
Even if we did cause the downfall of the industry (which I don't believe we are), it will only mean that the next rising will be less filled with the shit we see today. Just like when Nintendo vitalized the industry after cheapasses of the 1980's decided to stop paying for shitty Atari games.
 
Perhaps I'm also not a true cheapassgamer, but there are games that I will pay full price for when they come out. Sure, I love the next awesome deal as much as the next guy/girl, but if there's something I really want, I might as well pick it up when it comes out.

Shadow of the Colossus? Got my $50 saved up for it already.

And for the most part, I feel like the people who wait for those AAA blockbusters to go down in price don't necessarily outweigh the number of people who bought them at full price anyway. I mean the Halo 2 launch was crazy with all the people buying that... and then there are the few who waited until recently, almost a year later, to pick it up.

Whatevers, I think we'll be fine.

As for the industry in a whole, however, I have a feeling it will go the way of the arcade and that, my friends, makes me sad.
 
I highly doubt that this site has had any to little effect on any type of "industry downfall". Even if every single member of this site (over 20k users) decided to boycott a certain system (or game), that is still an extremely small amount of overall purchasers in most cases. I mean seriously....would it matter if 20,000 people didn't buy Halo 2, considering that several MILLION did? The same can be said of any console or game.

Even out of the entire userbase that exists here, there are still relatively few people that actively participate in the forums on a given day. Without looking up the stats (help anyone?) I am guessing that many of the registered users don't even have a single post.

Perhaps if our numbers were stronger, say 200k or so, then we might have a basis for this argument. It's just hard to believe that a still (relatively) small site like this one can have any effect on a particular game company overall. Out of everyone in the US that plays games..how many do you think regularly come to this site to find the best deals? not many. There are still plenty of people that have no problem paying retail prices for games and whatnot. CAG is a great site, but in all honesty, we "cheap ass gamers" still represent a minority of the general marketplace.
 
I agree with you to an extent, but I think that we (CAG's and others like us) represent a fairly small minority of consumers for companies. These companies really will not lose a lot from our waiting for games to reach lower prices, if anything the stores that sell the games are the ones who would be affected most and I doubt we even really have that much of an effect on them. This is evidenced by some stores such as EB catering to the cheap gamers with special coupons or cash back on some sites such as fatwallet, etc.

I actually believe the opposite is true, that crappy games are produced because there are still enough people willing to pay full price for them. If game companies lose money, its their own damn fault for spending too much to produce a game and/or not marketing it correctly. Not all games need tons of Hollywood-esque CG movies and top notch voice acting, running production costs into the millions. Don't get me wrong, these things are nice and really contribute to some great games like the MGS series, which is a great seller and I'm sure makes Konami a ton of money even with the cost to produce it. Some game developers may get overly ambitious though, and although they spend years developing a game it can ultimately be rushed out just to recoup some of the millions that have already been put into it, and I'm sure we all can name some games like this.

Some games are perhaps not marketed correctly. Beyond Good and Evil is an example of this. Not once did I ever see a commercial for it, and if I didn't read reviews I never would have known about it/knew it was a good game. It has the look of a crappy generic game to the average consumer who might just go by name/boxart/ and pictures on the case. This was probably a commercial failure not because people waited to buy it cheap, but because people just didn't know what it was and were unwilling to risk $40 on it.

We are not in the wrong in any way here and not hurting the industry. We are making a sacrifice ourselves by waiting months-years for a game we want to play just to save $20-30. There is nothing wrong with this. Sorry for not writing really complete thoughts and this turned more into a random mess but I'll try to clear it up later, good topic for discussion though.
 
I've thought about this before, and it seems to me that people like us are responsible for great games like "Beyond Good & Evil" being destined to be cult classics, destined to sit in the bargain bin, overlooked by the vast majority of people. The industry will continue to make good games regardless of how we shop, but it also will respond to how we shop by creating sequels to games that sell many new units. If you really like a game, support the developers and go and buy it. Beyond Good & Evil didn't appeal to the mainstream, and I'm willing to bet that most people who bought it didn't pay $50 for it. I paid $15 or $20, and by the time a game drops to that price (without being a Greatest Hits, etc), the stores won't be purchasing any more from the developers, so the developers don't get any money off of it. I wish there could be a sequel to BG&E, but because it didn't get the support it needed from the true gamers out there, I doubt that we'll ever see one.
 
I think the number of people who refuse to buy any games at full price, even at this site are small. I will buy a game that I really want at $50 without much thought. I recently purchased BGaE, Meat Arms, Price of Persia and Max Payne 2 all for $5 at Best Buy. I would never have bought these games anyways because they arent the typical games I would normally play. I bought them thinking that if I did and enjoyed them I owuld be more likely to purchase other games like them, and I like to try new stuff every once and a while.

If the industry was collapsing then the console makers would not be puting so much effort and money into their consoles. Look at MS. They haven't made a single penny of profit of the actual XBOX console, but they make enough money of the games to justify the loss. Look at the PS3, who's graphics processor would essentially cost over $1000 dollars to purchase today, and we know that the console won't be selling for $1K. This pretty much proves that we arent hurtung the industry by being selective with our games and the prices we pay for them. Although I must say that the people who refuse to pay $50 even for a game that is clearly worth that much money, as far as production value, gameplay, and length, seem a little strange to me but some people just can't afford to drop $50 on a single game. Does this mean they shouldn't be able to play video games?

If anything this eliminates badly produced titles (except for the idiots who buy games like The Matrix, there by rewarding the companies for churning out stemaing piles of feces).
 
Its not our fault at all. IMO casual gamers are the problem. They will buy any old piece of shit with enough hype for $50; Brute Force, The Getaway, Killzone, etc. If shitty games that dont cost much to make sell well then companies will continue puting out the same game. Theres nothing we can do except wiat for EA to buy all the small companies that are doing poorly then EA will be the only publisher puting out shit games and we will all be happy.

If only there was a world where Nintendo, Rckstar (only GTA and Max Payne though), Ubisoft, Capcom, and Konami made all video games...
 
[quote name='Zero3'] I mean the Halo 2 launch was crazy with all the people buying that... and then there are the few who waited until recently, almost a year later, to pick it up.[/QUOTE]


It came out in November, just over 6 months ago, not nearly a year, not even close, time flies fast with you people sheesh...
-Goatman
 
There are tons of cheap people on here but like it's been said, we are just a pin prick(if that) to the gaming industry revenue. People will always buy games at full price, and If a game is actually worth paying $50 (which is rare) I'll pay full price, other wise why should I waste 50$ on a game I know isn't worth it. I actually think selling games at cheaper rates would help the industry, not everyone has 50$ on release day to pick up a game, if games were $35 or less they would sell more copies on release month and make more money in the long run (If the game is good that is). I've also seen games that get no major publicity (beyond good and evil comes to mind) sell at 50$ move hardly any copies due to the fact no one knows what the hell the game is about and the hefty 50$ gamble on buying a dud sure as hell isn't going to make that gamer/casual gamer buy it. But there's a double edge sword with my concept, usually when games aren't sold at 50$ it's automatically assumed the game sucks or isn't going to be that great (Which has been proven wrong this generation) and that deters gamers. The Ultimate fix for this would be if developers would stop making half assed games (and publishers stop publishing crap), then it would be ok to to drop down 50$ on a game and since that's never going to happen, it's up to us cheap asses to systematically choose what games are worth paying an arm and a leg for, and what games that aren't and I'm glad we have options to help us do that (such as this site/community).

I'm not toally intune on how selling of games and profits go, but I think retail sites/stores have a MSRP list and is sold the games/products on that MSRP price, if the store doesn't sell it at the MSRP then that's there problem, the developers/pubilsher gets there cut regardless (I could be totally wrong, so correct me if I am). So if that's so, the industry isn't losing anything, the retailers are. Also what about places like EBgames/GameStop, used games are bought once then traded in, then sold again as used from EB/GS, does the developer/publisher get a cut of that? if not, I think that would hurt the industry a hell of a lot more than us (could be wrong though)

(I'm tired, not even going to bother spell checking so deal with it)
 
First of all, cheapassgamers are no longer a minority: we are at a point where I constantly find people searching the bargain bins for deals. When the first $10 games were released for PS1 around the end of its life span (year 4 out of 5 I think), crappy games that would be recieving 1's in EGM would be at the top of the sales charts. Although things have died down a bit, the ESPN sports games and Katamari Damacy have shown that budgets still work.

Second, I am incredibly worried about rising game prices. Companies are going to have to devise new money saving ideas, or else smaller companies will continue to be eaten up, and we won't have nearly as diverse of a selection in a few years

I really hope that there is a bit more flexibility in next generation's hardware: not every game has to be a graphical masterpiece. It would be awesome if each month there would just be a few games which look just a tiny bit better than high quality PS2, use a tiny bit more space, and could sell for $20-$30. Perhaps even take original PS2 games and simply upgrade them for some more content (Cleaner, slightly larger GTA:SA would be an example)
 
It's the casual gamers who routinely pay $50 for shitty/overhyped games that are responsible for the majority of new releases being worthless. They are the ones who influence what most companies will continue to produce. True cheapasses don't amount for a large enough portion of game buyers to make a big difference. Those of us who refuse to pay full price should not feel responsible for the failure of games such as Beyond G&E.
 
Wait, where is this thread fortelling the doom and gloom of the industry?

I don't know about its doom...

But I definately think EA will buy everyone and as a result, be the only ones making games.

(That is when I stop gaming. I'm a nippon ichi fanboy.)
 
We definitly aren't helping the industry, but I really doubt we are causing any serious problems. But we are a growing group and we are not the only site that focuses on cheap deals.

As for me, most of my games I bought for less than $20. I would've gladly paid more than that for some after actually having played them. After playing through ICO (which I bought for $7) I gladly put down $50 for pre-order of Shadow of the Colussus. Same with Metal Gear Solid. I bought the original when it was GH, but bought MGS2, MGS2: Substance, MGS3 all on release and will be doing the same for MGS3: Substinence and MGS4.

Very few games are worth $50 but if they are, I will gladly pay full price for them.
 
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