I hope you realize that this move by Activision will likely INCREASE piracy right? That 10 buck increase (20 dollars for Canucks if you count the increase in price from mw1 to mw2) is just pure greed. The reason why console games cost 10 dollars more than their pc counterparts is due to the fact that the 10 dollar separation is used to pay for licensing fees for the console makers. Essentially its a tax for using their platform to sell their game. A 10 dollar US hike and the insane price of that our fellow brits are paying can be considered unacceptable. Firstly, you do not raise prices to pay for piracy. That only creates more of a reason for pirates to do it. The higher the price, the higher the loss one can expect. Consumers should be outraged at the fact that this is pure greed on the part of Activision, more so the Brits, Europeans, and Aussies. They are paying out the ass and this price hike will set a dangerous precedent for other companies like EA and Ubisoft to do the same and get away with it.specialistx2324 wrote:
PC games raised to $60 for a game. thats nothing new courtesy of Pirated software. franky i rather see PC games go up by $20.00 and console games go down by $20.00 makes more legit sense. makes no sense for me paying $60 ish dollars for an Xbox 360 game with the exception of limited and prestige editions of any game release. Activision or any gaming company raising the price of their games due to pirated software, i mean there just covering their ass. no one in the gaming design business likes to loose money. and game designers are loosing a SHIT load of money in console games because EB games or gamestop allows you to trade in your games. i used to have 25 xbox 360 games now its down to six. you think about what i said....Rohirm wrote:
The PC version of MW2 will cost as much as their console counterparts: $60 US, $70 CAD, £54.99 GBP
Goddamn you Activision...stop skull fucking the consumer for God's sake. This game will be pirated the shit out of.
Honestly, what the fuck!? Yeah sure, its only ten fucking dollars, but why raise the PC Version price...it can't be licensing fees a la consoles. Bloody greed probably right guys?
Jesus, I remember paying $50 bucks Canadian for MW1 (40 bucks for you Yanks right?).
I can now expect every other publisher to soon follow suit seeing as Activision just set the precedent for things to come.
http://www.beefjack.com/blog/news/call- … ced-60-pc/
Oh and PC won't be getting the Prestige Edition either for those who wanted it.
If Activision wasn't run by a bunch of monkeys like Bobby Kotick, they would realize that a price drop to a more reasonable level would actually increase demand for their product. Sure there would still be pirates, and they would be make less profit per unit, but in the long run it is better for their bottom line as more people are willing to buy it at a lower price. Raising the prices would be the inverse; less demand, more profit per unit, but a smaller bottom line due to lack of purchases and increased piracy.
As for the used game market, I can't really comment on that. I only buy games new.
Here is a little article about competing with piracy
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/200902 … 3835.shtmlValve Exec Explains How To Compete With Piracy
from the service,-value,-pricing dept
Last month, an exec at Valve Software noted that "Pirates are underserved customers" and said when someone realizes that, they also discover: "I can do some interesting things and make some interesting money off of it." It looks like the company is sharing some data to back that up now as well. A whole bunch of you have been sending in reports from Gabe Newell's keynote speech at DICE. Newell is the founder and managing director of Valve, and he provided plenty of reasons that show that "piracy" is not the issue at all: service, value and pricing can easily trump piracy.
He started out by pointing out something that we've discussed in the past: digital content is best viewed as a service, not a product. As a service, you focus on providing continual value -- and people are paying for that future value (which is a scarce good prior to delivery), rather than an infinite good already created. There's value in paying for that future (scarce) service, and it trumps paying for an abundantly available good.
From there, he noted that the reason "piracy" is doing so well is that the "pirates are ahead not just on price, but on service." In fact, he noted that since DRM decreases the service value for customers, it also tends to increase piracy, rather than decrease it.
Then, he showed how that combination of service and smarter pricing allowed the company to run experiments and make a lot more money -- competing quite successfully against piracy. The most stunning example: last weekend, the company ran an experiment with the game Left 4 Dead. It heavily discounted the price, and sales shot up 3,000%. And this wasn't just a case of building off a small base. The sales over the weekend were more than when the game launched.
In fact, it looks like a big part of the problem facing the industry is that they charge way too much for their products. Here are the numbers Newell shared from Valve's experiments with "sale" pricing:
* 10% off = 35% increase in sales (real dollars, not units shipped)
* 25% off = 245% increase in sales
* 50% off = 320% increase in sales
* 75% off = 1470% increase in sales
Newell then says when they decrease the price by 75%, they are making 15% more than when they were charging at full price -- though, I'm not sure how that math works out from what's stated above (I've been playing around with the numbers, and something is missing...).
Between all of this, it's pretty clear, yet again, that "piracy" is hardly the issue. If you provide a valuable ongoing service at a much more reasonable price, there's no problem at all. Once again proving that the issue is a business model issue, rather than a legal issue. It's too bad so few old school content providers are willing to recognize this, and quite troubling that some folks in our government are still missing this as well. It's going to lead to bad laws and even worse enforcement of the law.
And also, this doesn't excuse the fact that Activision isn't producing special edition sku's for the PC. That is just a dick move especially when there is a market for them on the PC.
Last edited by Rohirm (2009-07-27 11:38:58)
