The Manifesto on the Evils of GameTap 79
Gamasutra sits down with Manifesto Games co-founder Greg Costikyan to discuss how the revolution is coming along. They explore the group's business model, the retail market, and the dangers of GameTap. From the article: "They don't worry me, particularly; I'm skeptical that their business model is sustainable. But basically, my argument is that they can afford to offer so large a number of titles for a $10/month fee largely because the major publishers view older games as worthless, since they cannot be sold through conventional retail any longer, so they're willing to accept a small share of rental revenue. But I also believe that PC games, in particular, are going to move online in a big way over the next few years and will eventually disappear from game stores — PC games are responsible for just 6% of their revenues, and take up a lot more shelf space than that justifies." Mr. Costikyan further explores this last concept in a post on his site called, simply, Why GameTap is Evil.
Gametap. (Score:2)
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GameTap and AOL are both owned by Time-Warner. Odds are the support rep. was trained at AOL.
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Well, you use Gametap quite a bit. Actually I'm showing a lot of usage on this account. Is there a problem with the software itself? Turning off your account would be the worse... Alright, some day when you calmed down you're gonna realize that all I was trying to do was help you... and it was actually in your best interest to listen to me.
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End of stores. (Score:2)
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My parents own a computer and I've told them about how there's free stuff online, but they still went to Best Buy and bought an antivirus program and a spyware program. Do I think online-only distribution can work? Absolutely. But there n
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If the company folds, I can still install it...I may not be able to get updates, but I can still install it. If I buy it online and my hard drive crashes, I can't download it...I'm out of my investment.
Re:End of stores. (Score:4, Insightful)
So, like I said, it is the same problem with boxware, but I would be out less money usually.
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However, many of these games rely on an online server for registraton.
No server, no registration, no can play anymore.
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If tomorrow Blizzard decided to discontinue World of Warcraft, that would be it. To the best of my knowledge, the game would never work again. Not even a single-player version where you r
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However, if WoW were to close up shop tomorrow, I do not think it would be long till the
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Yep, there's already a standalone server hack for WOW
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-Rick
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With things like Visa Bucks (a prepaid card which can be used like a regular Visa card), it's a lot easier for kids to buy things online than it used to be.
Less ESRB, more TIGRS (Score:2)
I predict less ESRB and more TIGRS [tigrs.org].
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also there are a lot pepole who can only get dial up internet and they are not likey to buy and download software for the internet.
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If it's because broadband isn't available, that will change too broadband becomes more ubiquitous and less expensive. You don't need more than 5 Mb/s to download something in less time than it takes to get in the car, drive to the store, find the sof
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Best I can get is 3 Mb DSL. A mile away from me (and for another 15-20 miles beyond that) there is no broadband at all, and no plans by any company to install it.
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Bad Business Model? (Score:2)
Let's say that is does. Is this a bad thing? I feel that buying a game directly from the game company, say through Steam or one of those download services, is GREAT. The company that makes the game gets more money for what they worked
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To be fair to him, he clarifies that it's not necessarily a bad business model, that is, it may well be good for GameTap. He just thinks it's bad for everyone else. His reasoning involves repeating some sort of bizarre metaphor about making gravy from spoiled fruit. Is that, like, vegan gravy or something? It doesn't sound very appetizing, anyway.
As far as I can tell,
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If it's the GameTap model, then developers aren't going to have a viable market for older games because users are going to be used to the gametap pricing model (Expensive to start with, then basically free). That model isn't goin
Re:Bad Business Model? (Score:5, Insightful)
The part I think he misses with his fruity analogies, is that room may exist in the market for BOTH models to coexist peacefully. The subtle flaw in his logic is where he manages to simultaneously argue that old games still have value, yet DOS games aren't as valuable because they're difficult to run. Both statements are true, but they create a huge divide between the 'old' and the 'new'.
No studio in their right mind is going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to update a DOS game for a re-release. The most they're going to do is a straight-up port that they can cram in a shovelware collection. If they can shortcut this cost with an emulator, all the better. The down side to this method is that the product doesn't hold the same market value it once did. For example, Doom II can't directly compete for the same dollar that Doom III competes for.
This means that it's actually in a publisher's interest to promote these games as "classic". This removes them from direct competition with the new titles, and allows the studio to make more money rather than siphoning sales from their new product lines. So when push comes to shove, I don't think the online retailers will have anything to worry about from Gametap. The only way that Gametap could pose any sort of threat is if the Indies put out games in the vein of those from 10 or 20 years ago, rather than producing games that compete in the current market.
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I need to point out here that I still dislike steam.
1) I want a physical copy of the game I have bought. Likewise with music. Data goes *poof* too easily. Make a backup? Yes, it's called the install CD.
2) I do not want to have to interact across the intarweb in order to run the software that I have already purchased. I tried to play Halflife2 again a while back, after a long time aw
Competition from Virtual Console(?) and Arcade (Score:1)
I think he's wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
A game written for DOS should not still sell for the same price it did when it first came out. A game that only plays on a console that hasn't been sold in years should not be the original price. If one extrapolates Mr. Costikyan's comments to other industries, such as automobiles, it's akin to saying that an 82 Pontiac should be the same price now as it was then. That, despite the engine, braking system, interior pieces, safety systems, etc., all being subpar by today's standards. If you apply it to the electronics industry, it's like saying an 8086 should still cost $2000.
That's nonsense. If a game doesn't work under XP/Vista/OS X/whatever OS you run, doesn't work with your fancy new gaming controller, doesn't play on the current consoles, then why should it's value not be reduced? Sure, the gameplay itself hasn't changed, but if you can't run it, then it's intrinsic value depreciates. Whether or not that's fair to developers is another issue, but everything gets outdated. I wouldn't spend as much for a copy of Windows 3.1 as I would for a copy of XP, and it's the same thing with games.
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On a completely unrelated note, anyone want to buy a 97 Ford Contour?!
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Your 97 ford and 82 pontiac still uses the same gas, still can drive the same speeds.
But let's say tommorow all highways are now Magnetically aligned and the only way you can get on the highway is having a car with a fully magnetic system on the underbelly, something you can't add to a car that's made before 2000(go with me here).
Now you're 82 pontiac can no longer drive on roads and will drop in value (unless it's a collector's item, something exceedingly r
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The gas is constantly combusting because there's a small current running through it as you pour it in your car (Hey it's more believable than the car that ran on urine)
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I'm not sure about that. I know *I* move fastest when I'm full of urine.
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Except with games, it's not due only to the time since release, but also due to used game sales. After a few months on the market, stores which carry used games will start to have copies at ten, maybe fifteen dollars less than new retail. The more popular the title, the smaller the discount. But the used discount is enough to start pulling sales away from the manufaturer. The per-unit incremen
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Not true in the USA for PC games as they are not sold used by major retailers.
Also I've noticed that the price of an older game depends on how much people are still willing to pay for it. Classics like Diablo 2 and Age of Empires 2 have never hit the bargain bin $5 price. Typically they are sold in packages with their expansions for $15-$30.
Some old games retain their value in the market much longer than others
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Interesting. I see PC games dropping in price like flies while console games often remain at 60€ until the retailer is tired of wasting shelf space on them.
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cars wear out, games don't. People invent new graphics and physics techs, but not all games are graphically based anyway.
take a game like 'lux' (a risk-style strategy game). Lux is as good now (and as popular now) as it was
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I know he's wrong. (Score:1)
An old video game doesn't spoil like a piece of fruit but it becomes obsolete by better and better games. The entire article is based on a meaningless analogy. Just because a video game doesn't go rotten like fruit doesn't mean that therefore the price should always stay the same.
Video game prices, like all prices, depen
Similar to "Piracy hurts us" (Score:2)
So, Mr. Costikyan's assertion that Gametap hurts developers is assuming that you could actually sell the original Doom and Tomb Raider for $20.
Sorry, but for my $20, I'd much rather have a more recent game, like, say, Final Fantasy X. Or maybe an indie game -- Lugaru sells for $20. Or an episode of a state-of-the-art episodic game. What's more
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How much? (Score:2)
I guess if you count all game systems for all time, even before PC's really had commercial games... That might be true.
But there are some companies that ONLY make PC games. Some of the largest PC games don't have a console version. (WoW and other MMOs, for the biggest example. Quite a few RPGs.)
But then, we all know that 95% of statistics are made up on the spot.
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That said, PC also doesn't have all those crap games that line the shelves of EB & GameStop--all those ones for 8 year olds and weak movie spin offs. Which is to say, I think PC gamers are a bit more selective in their B
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That must be a local phenomenon. I see shelves upon shelves filled with bottom-of-the-barrel PC games that start at a 10€ price and are mostly bad clones of ancient arcade games like PacMan.
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$3.014 billion
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?st ory=10798 [gamasutra.com]
2005 NPD PC game software sales:
$953 million
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?st ory=7832 [gamasutra.com]
Now the hard part:
$3,014,000,000.00 + $953,000,000.00 = $3,967,000,000 (total video game sales for 2005)
which makes PC game sales just over 24% of 2005's Video game software sales.
For the 6% of total sales figure to be correct, console game sales would have to be increased to $
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It's actually more like 89%.
You sound like one of the 76% that don't check their made up facts before posting. Sigh.
Hmmm Basic Economic Forces (Score:4, Insightful)
"My belief is that's as it should be. The value of a game has--well, not nothing to to with its age, because, say, there's not a lot of point in buying a game that only runs under DOS today. And I'm not at all sure I'd want to buy the original Civ, at this point, either (though a great game it was); I'd want the most recent version. But in general, a game is a game, and it surely doesn't lose 80% of its value in the course of a year."
But surely It does loes 80% of it's value. It's called supply and demand. Ok so supply of a game over the course of it's first couple years of release is relatively constant. Now since demand for a game is greater in the beggining a publisher can charge a premium price. Over time demand wanes but the supply is the same so the price must drop so people will buy it. It's a pretty simple concept. He also goes on to rant that somehow gametap is a bad model because it deprives game publishers of their due. It's providing easy access to games that are no longer is to obtain. So if a publisher gets only a small portion of the game, they aren't being shorted out of the full MRSP. Nobody is going to pay that, they are getting a small portion of money that they would never have seen. So in essence publishers are benefiting from Gametap. Of course I'm using economic princples and logic which don't make for assnine and "entertaining" blog posts.
Supply? (Score:2)
This being the case, applying the classical economic theories of scarcity to the games themselves seems wrong.
I have some time I want to spend being entertained and I will choose a game from the many on offer based on some combination of how entertaining it looks and how much it costs. I don't have time to play every game or money to buy every game. Depending on my choices either my time or my budget may be the limit
Too lazy to read? Let me sum it up for you. (Score:4, Interesting)
The whinefest "Games are Not Fruit" is a total joke.
And then a few paragraphs later...
Oh right. Unless, like you pointed out, they're on an older OS or a sequel comes out. Dumbass.
The market is changing. Adapt or die, Costikyan, and take your ugly-ass website with you.
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That's right!
games == teh potatoe : Internet == information super-tubes
Totally disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
Costikyan has a lot of great ideas and he means well but he is also very very pessimistic about the games industry. There isn't much that he is optimistic about, so it isn't surprising that he would see Gametap as negative.
I subscribed to Gametap for a while, and the bast majority of the games they have are arcade and consol games that are gathering dust on a shelf. Sure there are a handful of more modern PC games, such as Prince of Persia Sands of Time, but that is about it. While Gametap is making some moves to distribute games like the Ages of Myst and Sam and Max, I just don't think it is very likely that gametap is going to make a dent in the games industry. Right now, they are basically going after games that no one would buy otherwise or games that would have a much more difficult time getting made in the first place.
The real problem with Gametap is their selection. Playing consol games on a pc is only of limited entertainment value. As long as they refuse to carry "M" rated games, their selection of games is going to lack some of the games that have historically been popular.
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Excuse me, but HUH? I don't remember all that many classic PC, NES, SNES, Atari, Genesis, or arcade games that would require the 'M' rating. Of those that would be rated 'M' today, I can't think of any that were actually fun. Even the games with th
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I'm not saying that not having M rated games is the only downside. As I said, playing a consol game in a PC isn't ideal. There were simply a lot of games on there I found boring or diffic
Sure, if GameTap takes over, it's bad... (Score:4, Interesting)
But really, isn't that rather like saying "If this 'dollar store' idea takes off, they'll put every retail store out of business!!"?
I'm not convinced that gametap and the indie game markets are mutually exclusive. No one's going to release new games straight to gametap when they can sell them in stores and online for far more, just like no one releases new, quality products straight to the dollar store.
Relax. Keep making new, interesting games, and we'll keep buying them. The vast majority of gamers want the latest and greatest anyway. Most of those of us who play older games do so for nostalgia, because we played those games as children. All the kids turning 13 this year, and getting their first console are still going to want 2k7, and the latest FPS.
GameTap just lets us older gamers play our favorite NES titles without blowing the dust out of the cartridge and resetting the system a few dozen times. By the way -- you wouldn't be making any money off us doing that, either -- we either already own them, or bought them on the used market. At least you get a few cents when we play the same games on GameTap.
Counter Examples (Score:1)
You know, that is so true when you ignore TellTale Games [telltalegames.com] and Cyan Worlds [cyanworlds.com]. After all, they are making the Sam and Max episodic games and Uru Live respectively, both of which will be available through GameTap instead of brick-and-mortar stores. Yes, TellTale plans to eventually sell the games through its Web site and
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It seems there are only two ways releasing on gametap could be a good business decision:
1) You invest very little in the game, so that cents per user is actually a good deal
2) You get a better deal than say, Sonic the Hedgehog is getting, and ac
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There is no "couple cents per user" deal. This isn't iTunes, where each songs nets x cents per download. GameTap and an other company (we'll just use SEGA) negotiate a fee for a portion of that other company's game library. So SEGA in this case gets a five to six digit payout for a portion of its game library and in turn GameTap allows an unlimited number of subscribers access to those games for the negotiated time period.
In the "original content provider" co
Greg's Disconnect (Score:2)
This is the Problem (Score:2)
Nope, I'd far rather play a great game with decent graphics rather than some "game designer"'s wannabe movie. And I can't imagine
Lowering prices over time as price discrimination (Score:2)
What? Games aren't Fruit?!? (Score:1)
Suspicious numbers (Score:3, Insightful)
A buck a sale for the download sounds suspicious. Lets take a closer look.
First, I assume they're hosted in a data center some where and have purchased the cheapest commercial bandwidth available (Cogent: $10/mbps). They could be hosted with MCI ($350/mbps) but I doubt it.
Now, that $10/mbps is based on the "95th percentile measurement." That works just like taking a median except you take it at 95% instead of 50%. We can't assume that their cost would be the cost of transmitting files at a fixed rate continuously 24 hours a day but we can get a rough estimate by assuming they transmit at a flat rate 12 hours a day. That'll be accurate plus or minus 50% and in a few moments you'll see why plus or minus 50% is damn near nothing.
So, they have to send 5 gigabytes to make a sale. That's suspicious too but I'll come back to that. 5 gigabytes = 40 gigabits plus about 10% overhead is 44 gbits. Divide by 30 days in a month, 12 hours a day, 60 minutes an hour, 60 seconds per minute. 0.033 mbps. Times $10 per mbps is 33 cents. Add 50% for our error estimate and you're talking half a buck.
5 gigabytes is suspicious too. With this supposed 50 mb installer, you're saying they have to let 100 folks download the game to make 1 sale.
First, why would download the installer to someone who hadn't paid you? Okay, maybe you want to give them some demo levels to get them hooked. Fair enough.
Second, do you seriously think that 99 people are going to wait through a 50 meg download for an obsolete game and then walk away for every 1 person that actually buys it? Bull! The folks who don't intend to buy it will get the cracked version off bittorrent. The conversion rate on the web site will be 10% or better and the price of bandwidth keeps dropping. Now you're talking around 5 cents per sale and falling.
"Inherent value" theory? (Score:2)
If you can't put a five-year-old game on the shelf and sell copies of it for $50, then, proof by concrete demonstration, the game isn't worth $50. If retailers can only move older games with deep discounts, then, proof by conc
Smarter than you think (Score:2)
So for the most part, Gametap doesn't have much to offer me, and it would ordinarily slip under my radar.
Except that I'm big on Myst, and thus super-excited about Myst Online: Uru Live [urulive.com], which Gametap is resurrecting and m