The existence of for-pay stuff doesn't hurt you
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 by Draginol | Discussion: Personal Computing
I read a news announcement about a new freeware program that does some cool stuff. I check it out and it is vastly superior to an existing freeware program. Yet when I read the comments, the new, superior freeware program is being flamed. Why? Because the guy making it also offers a for-pay version that has more features.
I check out the forums of a game I enjoy playing. Normally people are singing the praises of this game. Now, the forum is full of flaming and angst. Why? Because the developer started offering optional premium content for players if they want.
Let me tell those complainers a truth about life: Money is exchanged for goods and services.
Before the current generation of l33t-speaking complainers became the norm on the net, we had a concept called shareware. Someone would make something cool and offer a version of it to try. This version might time out or it might have fewer features or it might just work on the honor system. If users liked it, they bought it. End of story.
Nowadays, we have it better. People make free stuff and release it. No nags. No missing features when compared to other "free" competitors. No time outs. But the developers will also release an even better version. And the complainers get vocal.
What annoys me is that the whiners are attempting to bully people from making stuff that many people like me want. I don't live with my mom in her basement. I don't begrudge paying a few dollars to someone who made something I want. I recognize that I already pay $80 a month for my cell phone and $60 a month for cable so bitching about paying $9 to $20 for something I want is pretty ridiculous.
And I certainly recognize that the mere existence of premium stuff doesn't hurt me. If I want it, I'll pay for it. If I don't, I won't.
Let me give you two examples:
The program ObjectDock is the best dock out there. We make it so I'm biased but it has far more features than any dock out there. It's also free. You want a cool dock on Windows, this is what you get. But there is also ObjectDock Plus. It's $20 but adds a ton of features like tabbed docks. And so what do people say? They'll say that ObjectDock is "payware" or "crippleware". Why? Because a non-free improved version exists.
Similarly, I love Team Fortress 2. It is a great game. And you know what? If Valve created a new character I could play as for say $10 I'd buy it in an instant. I want more characters in TF2 to play as. But you know the reaction they'd get. They'd probably get flamed because the parasite-class would argue that they should get that for free because buying something once to them means that the developers are perpetual slaves to them after.
I understand that we all want to keep from getting nickled and dimed but one assumes that we can make our own judgments as to whether something is worth it or not and allow others to make the same judgment.
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Reply #182 Tuesday, May 6, 2008 8:57 PM
A clarification of what I wrote above (as I can't edit): This is assuming that both products are a "complete" experience, basically that both the 10 hour and 100 hour game feel complete and whole at what they tried to achieve, and that their are equally fun per hour while they last.
Reply #184 Wednesday, May 7, 2008 1:35 AM
There's more to it than that.
First, units of content are not "hours". I've spent far more time with GC2 than with, say, Super Mario Galaxy, but Galaxy is the superior game. A 4 hour movie is not better than a 2 hour movie because it's 2 hours longer.
Second, no matter what the game is, some people will not like it. Would you be willing to pay $150 for a game you might not enjoy?
Third, even if you enjoy the game, you may not enjoy it all the time. A game of GC2 is far more interesting to me in the beginning than the end.
Just because you have one explanation for a behavior doesn't mean that it's the only valid one.
Reply #185 Wednesday, May 7, 2008 7:52 PM
First, units of content are not "hours". I've spent far more time with GC2 than with, say, Super Mario Galaxy, but Galaxy is the superior game. A 4 hour movie is not better than a 2 hour movie because it's 2 hours longer.
Maybe not, but if you've spent far more hours with GC2 than with Galaxy, it undoubtedly has more hours of enjoyable content than Galaxy per dollar you paid, unless you for some odd reason play GC2 despite not really liking it most of the time. Replay value actually has a significant bearing on what most people consider a good game and good value for their money. Let's say you have 2 games. Both last 10 hours each, cost the same, are equally fun on the first playthrough but one is also fun to replay a second time while the other is not. Does not the game that is fun to replay offer twice the value of the one that is not?
Why exactly is Galaxy superior to GC2 if you play it less? What makes a game superior? The graphics? Admittedly though, it's a hazy comparison to begin with due to the genre difference and wildly different systems they are released on, as well as the situations you are likely to play them in.
If a game costs 3 times as much as other games, I'd go to great lengths to find out why exactly it did, and see what other players and review sites felt about it. If the consensus was "this game has almost limitless fun and replayability", then heck yes, I'd take my chances.
I did say in a post just below the first one that my example assumed that each hour of content was equally fun in both games. Also, I never said my example was the only valid one.
I've browsed enough internet forums in my years online to see how people react to various things in the world, and the "this game costs more than other games of its kind, so I will not pay for it" is a frighteningly common opinion. It is strange that people can be extremely price/value conscious when they buy some things, but not offer digital entertainment the same consideration. For the majority (well, the VOCAL majority), a game is a game and the production cost and hours of enjoyable content is more or less irrelevant when it comes to its retail cost.
The bottom line is that this behavior easily carries over to small addon packs, or "micro-transactions".
I'm not this is the only reason people have objections towards small addon packs and micro-transactions, but it is possibly the most common one.
Reply #186 Wednesday, May 7, 2008 8:23 PM
You say that the increased cost is worthwhile for equally increased quality, and I agree. You say that this theory applies to modular content pricing, which offers similarly higher costs and similarly higher quality. I disagree because, while modular content may lead to increased or more deceptive costs (something that your example almost exactly opposing), I do not see how it would lead to higher quality of content. Instead, the focus on shipping out new code as quickly as possible and avoiding the more extensive testing applied to an expansion or any other finished product would seem to be counter-productive to greater quality.
Reply #187 Thursday, May 8, 2008 3:46 AM
I would say that the assumption offered by the question is ultimately specious. I don't know how you can have a game that has 0 replay value yet is equally fun as one playthrough of another.
1: Personal preference. I like TBS's (and RTSs), but in my heart, I'm always an action gamer. I ultimately prefer a game that is about intimately controlling a thing.
2: Impeccable polish. GC2 is a pretty well put together game, but there's no contest in terms of the sheer magnitude of the polish on SMG compared to GC2. GC2's imperfect and bug-laden UI alone is enough to torpedo it in polish for SMG.
3: Unimpeachable design. GC2 had a lot of thought put into it. SMG clearly had more. It just doesn't compare. Brad Wardell is good, but Shigeru Miyamoto is a master of game design. And it shows.
Now, these are two very different kind of games, so I judge them on different criteria. GC2 is a rules-heavy game, while SMG is a content-heavy game. As a rules-heavy game, it's design is based on gamist principles. How well does the game promote playing it. And so forth. GC2 likes to hide important information about what the effects of a choice will be (among other things), so it is weaker on that.
As a content-heavy game, SMG is more about intimacy of interface, character, world, etc. But gameplay is still important, yet in a different way. It's about how you learn skills, when you learn them, how the game tests them and builds on them. And so forth. And SMG is about as perfect in its pacing as it gets, providing the player with new situations and circumstances that test skills and such.
GC2 is a nice game to play; it alleviates boredom and the AI provides some interesting threats (until the end-game shows up). But the rules itself are simply worn out by this point. They aren't as robust over time as Chess, Go, or StarCraft. And when it comes down to it, all GC2 has are its rules.
Yes, but what's wrong with it? Movies on DVD generally cost no more than $25. Having an upper limit on the price of any form of content is reasonable. Certainly, you should at least look at something more expensive to see if it is worthwhile. But selling a product at 200% more than the average is pretty strong sticker-shock.
BTW, while people may say they won't spend $150 on a game, I didn't see Rock Band hurt too much by that. People are a lot more willing to do things when actually presented with the option than they say. Much like all those for-pay programs on-line. They wouldn't be there if they weren't making some money, despite the monkey's throwing feces.
By my estimation, GalCiv 2 is not worth $150, no matter how "infinitely replayable" it may be. Granted, once the bugs get worked out of TA, I'll probably plunk down $30 for it, bringing my total expenditure up to $100. So the totality of the game as it stands I would say is worth $100, but not the initial release.
Reply #188 Saturday, July 5, 2008 3:22 PM
I wonder what, "jerkocracy" means... anyways, not to start a big debat but doesn't wanting things for free harken back to the old days of communism? And on the subject of free things, anyone remember the old "Bonzi Buddy" program and a few other programs like it? I remember shareware programs though. Loved some of the shareware games. Think I got a few shareware disks somewhere. But they probably don't work anymore.
Reply #189 Saturday, July 5, 2008 6:49 PM
They grow up on free music. Why not everything free?
Congrats hippie gen. You taught your kids to be assholes.
Reply #190 Saturday, July 5, 2008 7:31 PM
Reply #191 Saturday, July 5, 2008 7:38 PM
And let your kids do what they want and they'll be assholes. I see kids openly telling their parents to fuck off now.
Reply #192 Saturday, July 5, 2008 7:39 PM
Reply #193 Saturday, July 5, 2008 7:41 PM
Oh right, kids can do that now, and stupid parents give them what they want.
When you teach kids that they can do what they want, why are you surprised when they become murderers, rapists, theives, etc?
Reply #195 Saturday, October 11, 2008 10:57 AM
How the hell did you get to slamming kids? I was a member of the Kiwanian's, we donated scholarships to students who excelled in academic and civic endeavors. It was my extreme pleasure to meet these kids; our future leaders. I can tell you our future is in good hands! One bad apple don't spoil the bunch; moron!
Reply #196 Saturday, October 11, 2008 4:48 PM
Oh right, kids can do that now, and stupid parents give them what they want.
When you teach kids that they can do what they want, why are you surprised when they become murderers, rapists, theives, etc?
Do you have a kid?
My son is not anything you have mentioned here, just like the 60's people were not ALL hippies, or drug adicts, and not ALL 80s kids were into greed, etc. Generalizations NEVER work, NEVER. SOME people in every age group fit into every category you described. Some of the worst murders in history have been dead for decades now (Hitler anyone?), how about just understanding that every child comes into this world with the potential to be anything, and some have great parents, some have crap ones, and some make it great no matter what parents they have, and some screw up royaly no matter what parents they have.
We all make choices in life that effect our lives and where we go with them, im sure every person here can point to multiple people that had great parents but turned out bad, and others that had crap parents (or NONE) and turned out awesome. So again i say, generizations NEVER work.
The kids of today WILL be the leaders of tomorrow one day, and they will all have to deal with all the crap the previous generation screwed up, and left them. Its how the world works. And i am 100% positive they will STEP UP to the challange.
Reply #197 Saturday, October 11, 2008 8:05 PM
Lol. Honestly...let the man rest in peace. This bloke gets invoked more than jesus, he was just a douche politician...you make it sound like he was darth vader or something. What happened to all those CHOICES when it comes to pre WW2 era Germans? Jedi mind trick or something?
That's a bit general isn't it?
Reply #198 Saturday, October 11, 2008 8:39 PM
(Hitler anyone?)
Lol. Honestly...let the man rest in peace. This bloke gets invoked more than jesus, he was just a douche politician...you make it sound like he was darth vader or something. What happened to all those CHOICES when it comes to pre WW2 era Germans? Jedi mind trick or something?
Well, I think most people's problem with hitler was that he didn't lose sleep over the genocide of 6 million jews, blacks, gays, gypsies and disabled. Heck, he probably slept more soundly because of it...so yes, he was Darth Vader. Worse, even.
And, what the hell is this about kids doing what they want? This will somehow make ALL of them rapists? Maybe this is the reason that rape is AGAINST THE LAW and doing this will SEND YOU TO JAIL. Thus, they can do what they want, but unless they're raised to be total morons (read: they are american/british), they're not going to do those things anyways. I'm 18, I openly tell my parents to fuck off sometimes, and you know what? They say that to me too. They're not unreasonable. They worry like a good parent does, they even try to help me when I have problems. They are the best parents in the world, and they give me alot of room to do whatever I want. Am I a rapist? A murderer? Not at all. I believe that it is this parenting style that is raising a generation of people who can see the unadultered truth; they are not forced to see everything through the lense of their parents, or the government, or their religion, etc. They are not corrupted by people who want them to only see what they want to see. Who cares if a little bluntness or harshness comes with that? It doesn't impact anything. If Jesus suddenly popped out of thin air, let out a string of swear words, and vanished, would that somehow invalidate everything he has done? Would gandhi be less important if he swore, or told someone to fuck off? No. Be reasonable. Indeed, fuck off.
And yes, I just ragged on the british and americans. I have never met anyone more clueless then british or american youth, I'm sorry. Obviously there are exceptions, and I know many such exceptions, but overall 90% of the american and british youth I meet is painfully and disgustingly clueless about everything.
Reply #199 Saturday, October 11, 2008 8:44 PM
Thats just...I...hahahahaha I've never seen such a ridiculous statement in my life. Super Mario Galaxy isn't even anywhere near the best Super Mario out there. Are you insane, dude!? I mean...thats hilarious...
Reply #200 Sunday, October 12, 2008 2:38 AM
I thought this thread was going to be about DLC...
As for the original topic, that's stupid. That's like bitching that a GAME DEMO is free, but is 'crippled' because it's not the full game.
HOWEVER, Brad, there's one thing you need to consider, that some freeware IS 'crippleware'. I've seen 'freeware' versions that were missing major, critical features, like the ability to SAVE THE FILE. What the hell is up with that? That's just malicious. Why even offer it?
ObjectDock has a free version, but if the free version didn't allow you to use more than two buttons, or forced the icons to be 500x500 in size MINIMUM, would you think the complaining is legit? What if it contained a major trojan instead? At what part on this slippery slope do you determine that you crossed a line, that saying 'If you don't like it, buy it' doesn't cut it any more?
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Reply #181 Tuesday, May 6, 2008 8:53 PM
I think part of the outcry against addon packs costing a set amount of money stems from people having an opinion of how much a product should cost, regardless of the amount of enjoyment the product contains for the customer in question or how much it actually costed the producer to develop. This is especially prevalent in the entertainment business, where people judge the validity of a game, movie or music CD retail price based on what the majority of these products sell for. For games, it seems people generally feel that no game should cost more $50-$60. Whether the game contains 10 hours or 100 hours of playtime is of little consequence, nor does it matter whether it cost $5.000 or $5.000.000 to develop. People WILL react to a game that costs more than its peers, regardless of the number of hours of content it provides. Heck, just look at the people who are principally against MMOs purely based on the notion that "I don't want to pay to play a game I've bought", all other aspects of MMOs aside.
Addon packs are like that. People (most often "whiners") will pay no heed to the amount of man hours that goes into an addon pack with planning, programming, testing and other work required before it is ready to be released, as well as the obvious need for any company to actually, you know, earn money so that the people working there can eat and live in something slightly more comfortable and rain proof than a cardboard box. Nor will they pay any heed to the fact that this addon has a development cost that is separate from the original game development, and thus isn't covered by the original purchase (provided, like I said earlier, that it's done the "right" way). It goes against their "a game shouldn't cost more than $xx and anything done to the game after retail should be free".
Anyway, this is just becoming a personal rant of mine
Personally, I've always thought it odd that next to no one would buy a game for $150 up front that had been proven to contain 1000 hours of pure fun, but happily shell out $50 for a game with 10 hours of fun, even though the latter has a "hours of fun per dollar" ratio that is abysmal compared to the more expensive game. Just because "a game shouldn't cost more than $50".
People need to learn to gauge what they get for their money. Besides, unless you're stupid about it, a company can't trick you more than once.