Popular Video Game Series Tries Pay What You Want

from the experiment-away dept

If you follow the market for management "sim" sports games -- which are more about managing a sports team than about the action of playing -- Championship Manager is a name you'll likely recognize. It's a well-known football (soccer) sim, that is currently owned by Eidos (it's moved around a bit). So it's a bit surprising (but fascinating) to learn (via reader mikez) that the folks behind it are running a "pay what you want" experiment with the game. You can't get it totally for free. There's a £2.50 transaction fee, no matter what price, but from there you can pay anything from £0.01 and up. They're only running it for a limited time (until September 10th -- the day before the game is actually released). While I'm not always a huge fan of the "name your own price" deals, it's still fascinating to see a big video game company try it out.

Filed Under: business models, championship manager, pay what you want, video games

EA Giving Out Reasons To Buy: Tries Deluxe Box Set Versions Of Games

from the neat dept

Someone submitted the following anonymously, suggesting that it was a bad idea, but it seems like a worthwhile experiment to me. EA announced a pre-order offering for a special "Collector's Edition" version of its game Dragon Age, which includes a fancy steel case, a cloth map of the world, a "making-of" documentary, a soundtrack of the game and a bunch of other extras. It basically sounds just like what many musicians are now doing by offering special deluxe packages for serious fans. It's a way to segment customers, so some can buy the cheaper regular version, and others, who really, really like the game, can go all out and get the deluxe set -- including all sorts of scarce goods that can't be "pirated."

Filed Under: collector's edition, deluxe box set, dragon age, video games
Companies: ea

No Freedom To Tinker: Arrested For Modding Legally Purchased Game Consoles

from the no-innovation-allowed dept

This is hardly a new issue, but it's still troubling every time we hear a story like this. For years, there's been a fight over whether or not it should be legal to modify a legally purchased game console. Those in favor of the right point out that if you've legally bought something, you should always be free to tinker with it. That's just common sense. Those against it say that modifying a gaming console is done mainly to play pirated games or to cheat, which can cause problems for legit players. I find the latter responses unpersuasive, as those are technological or business model issues that can be solved in other ways, rather than a legal issue. But, thanks to that good old DMCA, that's now how the law works.

Instead, we get stories about students getting arrested for "jailbreaking" a video game console. It's interesting to see the use of the word "jailbreaking" here, as that's more commonly been applied to iPhones -- where it's common. Usually, this action has been referred to as "modding" or "modchipping" when it came to consoles. But the basic fact is that the actions are effectively the same -- and both should be perfectly legal. Modifying legally purchased hardware should never be against the law. It's possible that you could then use that modified hardware to break the law -- and no one's saying that's okay. But the act itself of modifying the devices should never be against the law -- especially where it could lead to a ten-year prison sentence, as in this case.

This particular case involves a student who would modify game consoles to let people make use of backup copies of their own games on the consoles. Making a backup copy, by itself, has been well established as being perfectly legal. The problem here (once again) is the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause, which makes it illegal to circumvent any kind of DRM, even if it's for a totally legal purpose. It's difficult to see how that's constitutional. Making it illegal to do something that's perfectly legal, just because someone puts any kind of DRM in the middle doesn't make any sense at all. It's a ridiculous scenario that this kid is now facing 10 years in jail for making video game consoles more useful, allowing people to use perfectly legal backup copies of their games. But, such is the state of the DMCA and copyright laws these days.

Filed Under: arrest, copyright, dmca, game consoles, modding, video games

Video Game Downloads Harming The Used Video Game Market?

from the well,-that's-a-flip dept

We've had a bunch of articles in the last couple years about video game execs complaining about the used video game market, saying that they deserve a cut of any such sale -- or that the used market should be banned altogether. This, of course, is short-sighted, as studies have shown that a healthy secondary market improves the primary market by adding value to the product (i.e., people may be more willing to buy the new product, knowing they'll be able to resell it later). And, of course, the market has a way of dealing with these things.

So, it's a bit amusing to now see sort of the flip side to that story (sent in by the amusingly named "Just Another Moron in a Hurry") -- with some warning that the rise in direct downloads of video games is threatening the used video game market, and that may be bad for consumers as well. Obviously, those games can't be resold (at least not easily), and thus there isn't a cheap price entry point for consumers, as there is with used packages games. Again, even though this is complaining from the other side, I'm not sure it's really that big of a deal either, as the market again should start to deal with this situation. Being able to offer games direct to consumers should lower video game production costs (no more packaging/shipping/logistics/hard goods/etc.) and, even they don't initially, eventually the prices should reflect that, as well.

Filed Under: downloads, used video games, video games

If You're Addicted To World Of Warcraft, Why Not Get Therapy For It In The Game?

from the I-can-think-of-a-few-reasons-why-that's-a-bad-idea... dept

While we tend to have trouble with the idea that there's a real "addiction" issue with video gaming, there certainly are some people who have trouble leaving the game. And, there have been plenty of therapists/psychologists/psychiatrists popping up with offerings to help "video game addicts." But how does one stand out in the space? How about by treating the patients directly in the game itself? Apparently, that's the plan of one psychiatrists, who wants to start getting other therapists to join the game and treat patients within it. Wonder if they'll try to convince the offshore "gold farmers" that they need help...

Filed Under: addiction, therapy, video games, world of warcraft

How 'Free' Economics Are Going To Impact The Video Game Market

from the it's-coming... dept

Reader Ben points us to a well done article over at GameIndustry.biz warning the industry to start understanding how "free" plays a role in digital economics. It does a great job summarizing the key points associated with "free" infinite goods, such as the fact that it really has little to do with "piracy," though the "piracy" may be an early indicator of where the market is heading:

The notion of Free isn't new in economics, of course. It's well understood that as a commodity becomes less rare, its value tends towards zero. When something becomes sufficiently commonplace, you can no longer charge a notable price for it - unless you artificially create a market based around image and prestige (bottled water) or find a way to add value (pure oxygen canisters, flavoured water).

You can also create artificial scarcity to keep prices high, although there are obvious moral problems with doing that with anything other than luxury items - and markets, like networks, interpret this kind of interference as damage, and usually find a route around it.

The whole thing is worth reading, and does a good job laying out the issues. It doesn't, however, suggest much of a solution -- though, there are plenty of potential solutions for the video gaming industry, focusing on finding scarcities to provide that can't be had for free. So, for example, giving away the core game for free, but charging to play multiplayer versions on an authorized server. As many are finding, that can be quite a nice business. Unfortunately, it does seem like some think the answer is to sell virtual goods within a game, but that has the potential to face the same eventual issue (the goods are really infinite, and will face the same deflationary economic pressure). But the fact is there are always additional scarcities created, which will present opportunities.

Figuring out just how to break out those scarcities from the infinite goods was the point of that economic series I wrote up a few years ago, which we're now offering nicely packaged as the Approaching Infinity book (as a part of our CwF+RtB experiment) -- which actually helps demonstrate the point. You can read most of the basic content for free online in the series, or you can buy the physical (scarce) book in a nice readable package which has been updated and expanded with more material and edited to better flow as a book (and you get a t-shirt as well). You can always take infinite goods and find a scarcity... whether it's with blog posts or with video games. So, yes, free is important to understand, but equally as important is understanding how to use it to your advantage, rather than just worrying about how it may hurt your old business model.

Filed Under: business models, economics, free, infinite goods, scarcities, video games

What Good Does It Do Anyone To Patent Video Game Features?

from the what-a-waste dept

A bunch of folks keep submitting various versions of this story about how Microsoft has apparently received a patent on join-leave in split-screen multiplayer games. We see so many of these sorts of stories these days, it's getting a bit tiresome to talk about them, but no less disappointing. As Matt Peckham says in the article linked here:

In any case, the idea that methodologies like these get tied up in patent law is unsettling. Games, like books, television shows, movies, works of visual art, etc. thrive off of (and to a considerable extent, are inexorably bound up in) a certain amount of healthy imitation. Dynamic split-screen "multi-play" in video games is a process independent of a patentable mechanism like the Wii-remote. Clapping a patent on it isn't so radically far off from claiming

typing

like

THIS

or

sOmEtHiNg

...is a "process" or "procedure" or "methodology" someone ought to have "sole right to make, use, or sell."

Patent law is depressing. It's a somewhat perverse way to stockpile vaguely defined, often semantically specious technological speculation and, whatever its claims about competitively encouraging creativity, often has the contrary effect of throttling it.

If so many people in and around the industry realize how silly and stifling these sorts of patents are, why do they still exist? Why do millions get wasted every year stockpiling more of these patents? Why do we, as a society, allow it?

Filed Under: co-op, join-leave, patents, video games
Companies: microsoft

EA To Require Internet Connection For Command & Conquer

from the but-why? dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in this story that EA has said that, while it won't have DRM, on Command and Conquer 4, it will require an internet connection to play, and this already has people up in arms. The company is quick to say that this is so it can include certain useful features, but it still is upsetting people. It's hard to believe that EA wouldn't realize this would be an issue. Why not offer an "offline" version with limited features then? While, yes, we have reached an online world where most people are online most of the time, not everyone is online all of the time, and some of that offline time is time when people might like playing a video game...

Filed Under: command and conquer, drm, internet connection, video games
Companies: ea

Can Someone Explain How Video Games Are Worse For Kids Than Plain TV?

from the demonizing-video-games dept

For years, video games have been a convenient bogeyman/scapegoat for politicians to use in complaining about the sort of thing "kids these days" do on a daily basis. In the past, it's been other things -- from TV to music to comic books. But, these days, video games pop up an awful lot. So I guess it should come as no surprise at all that a recent study in Canada found that parents put much greater limits on how much time kids can spend playing video games than they do on TV or movies. Of course, this seems entirely backwards. Not that parents should let young kids just randomly play any video game, but if they're playing age-appropriate video games, you would think that would be a lot better than just sitting there watching TV with no interactivity whatsoever. Plenty of studies have shown that the interactivity of video games helps kids have better hand-eye coordination and (in some studies) problem solving skills. So why not encourage that? It's not examined in the study, but I'd guess that the constant complaining about these "awful video games" has an impact on a busy parent.

Filed Under: canada, movies, parents, tv, video games

Forget Video Games, Why Aren't Politicians Complaining About Chess?

from the sedentary-occupations! dept

President Obama is the latest in a rather long line of politicians to start calling out video games as being something that is bad for kids and should be taken away from them, as encouragement to go outside and play:

The second step that we can all agree on is to invest more in preventive care so that we can avoid illness and disease in the first place. That starts with each of us taking more responsibility for our health and the health of our children. It means quitting smoking, going in for that mammogram or colon cancer screening. It means going for a run or hitting the gym, and raising our children to step away from the video games and spend more time playing outside.

Of course, there's been very little evidence that playing video games alone somehow leads kids to be less active or to play less outside, but it may also be worth putting this into a historical context. Tom sends in a look back at some old quotes from Scientific American, where the last one on the page, written in July of 1859 -- yes 150 years ago -- sounds quite similar to Obama's comments on video games, but is in reference to that pernicious child-obesity-causing monstrosity we call "chess":

"A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages. Why should we regret this? It may be asked. We answer, chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body. Chess has acquired a high reputation as being a means to discipline the mind, but persons engaged in sedentary occupations should never practice this cheerless game; they require out-door exercises--not this sort of mental gladiatorship."

You heard them! No more chess playing, you kids!

Filed Under: chess, kids, moral panic, video games