It's Happened - A Major Publisher (Square Enix) is Considering Using Crowd-Funding (Like Kickstarter) for Games' Localizations

[Az]

I can almost give SFII a price increase pass due to it being the biggest 16-bit cart release ever at the time; at least I know my few extra bucks gave me something physically under the hood to account for it. Same with PSIV to an extent, Virtua Racing, Starfox, etc. I felt the sting on more on 32x games being $69.99 due to them simply gouging early adopters.

Beyond Steam sales, console digital pricing is a complete joke. Physical overhead was so bad they had to cut manuals and give you half a clamshell case, yet digital pricing remains totally across the board just as high on day one releases and insultingly even higher th physical copies of older(!) releases. Seriously, many older games that have dropped $10-30 in normal, everyday in-store brick & mortar prices still remain original MSRP on digital stores. Who's going to pay $19.99 for Call of Duty 2 (a fucking 360 launch title!) when you can buy a physical CoD triple pack for $10 more?

I find it hilarious to walk in GameStop and see these used titles they're having firesales on, like Gears of War 2 for $1.89 or Rock Revolution for 50 cents, and they still can't move 'em, yet online they're still $49.99. Where's the NX so I can pay $8 American dollars to play Clu-Clu Land again?

[Tanooki]

Good point about Steam, but maybe that's why they leave them up too, or at least their overly convenient excuse to point a finger at. If Steam rolls around to every game and gives it a 33-50+% off deal a few times a year or more, those greedy big game publishers will play along but not really like it, even if it generates a lot more income. They'll see that $50 digital game doing $30 and blindly hate it despite they sell maybe 20 copies at that price to 1 at full price. They care about the margin not as much with the sale perhaps. I refuse to ever buy a console port on computer unless it's at least 1/2 off because of that pricing game they play. I saw Namco finally clued in and got one of their Tales of... games up on Steam this month, for $50. Zestiria is $60 new, $55 used (gamestop), and $50 on steam. At least they're knocking it down $10 since you are stuck with DRM and no physical version.

[Graham Mitchell]

I sort of think of it as a convenience fee. I don't have to go somewhere to get it, I don't have to wait for it to come through the mail (after shipping fees you wouldn't be saving much money anyway), and it's not taking up space.

Listen, guys I have shelves and shelves and shelves full of games, and boxes and boxes full of PCBs. That's the physical media I care about.

Modern games are so huge, I'll probably only play them once. This system makes sense for me. Probably not for everybody, but I know there's other people like this out there too.

[SparTonberry]

Browsing eShop on my Japanese 3DS.
I see Square-Enix still listing the 3DS Bust-A-Move at original MSRP (that's like over 5,000 yen or about $50). I guess I'd like some puzzle games digitally for convenience but damn that price. It's looking like the Japanese card version is maybe $30 used, and the US version is only about a $10-15 game. I'd have given SE that latter figure considering it's a launch game (4 1/2 years ago) that I don't think is even printed anymore.
But then the kicker: it's not even actually for sale anymore. Apparently Nintendo is pretty dumb and still lists games, with prices, that aren't even for sale digitally anymore. And then there's some that ARE for sale that don't have the price listed on the main page (can only see by attempting to buy).
I noticed that only after seeing another bad thing about going digital: the publisher can not only control price but availability as well. I see what Sega's doing there: Puyo-puyo 20th Anniversary (2011) is listed for about 3000 yen but not available, nope they want to sell the newer Puyopuyo-Tetris (from last year?) for around 5000 yen, so they took down the older one.
(there's a "mini" version of the 20th, as well as a few Game Gear games, but that's besides the main point)

[Tanooki]

Very good observation, I can't remember if I mentioned it, but the US does this too. TMNT went from Konami to Ubisoft in the WII era. TMNT1 NES was up on there early on as a $5 download, but when Konami lost the license they flipped the switch and removed all existence of it. Licensing agreements screwed everyone there too. Ubisoft didn't want to put it back so it stayed gone for whatever reason they had, other than perhaps the game booting up with the Ultra(Konami) logo on it not that most would even know who Ultra was as that fake front is long dead. And as I said I had a Loco Roco game pulled away from me and erased after paying for it on a mobile phone, a T-Mobile download and then Sony wanted to in-house their stuff with their line and I got robbed. The Kindle story I mentioned of the licensing over Orwells 1984 that Amazon erased off peoples kindles and from the site, which got them successfully sued over it.

THe thing is as tempting as Zestiria is on Steam, do I (a) want to put up with bullshit DRM forcing an online connection to use a 1P game and (b) do I want to support non-ownership of the games I buy when some of the stuff hits GoG and you do get to own it and make a physical version of it if one so chooses. ...I choose B in every case possible. Steam is when there is no choice and when there's at least a 50% off sale if not more, usually I'm cheap and wait for the 66%+ off holiday/season change runs they do.


Graham I'd agree with you on the convenience fee if it were setup on Steam where you could actually own what you pay for, it's just a slightly less scummy version of how consoles do it. There's no convenience in being at the game maker or makers publishers whims on if I can have a game, how long I can have it, and how I may use it or not -- that's not convenient, it's a lie wrapped in it. With GoG you don't have to keep the downloads, they have the same locker system Steam has more or less. Just download when you want it, run install, play. Steam is the same it just auto-downloads is all.

[kupomogli]

With how profitable Steam is, unless there's licensing issues, I don't think you have to worry about losing any games, but one thing Steam has over GOG is the amazing OS.

[Tanooki]

Question is though, why should someone care about Steam OS in a Windows environment? I'd rather the game run on its own without layered overhead and nagging community popups. GoG has created their own setup too, I've avoided it.

[RP2A03]

Question is though, why should someone care about Steam OS in a Windows environment? I'd rather the game run on its own without layered overhead and nagging community popups. GoG has created their own setup too, I've avoided it.

SteamOS doesn't run on top of Windows; it is an operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux.

[Graham Mitchell]

@Tanooki--Steam runs in Offline Mode for me. I can still boot games without a connection. Don't know why. I haven't tinkered with it much.

[Tanooki]

Graham it's very hit and miss and it depends on the developer unfortunately. Google steam offline mode and you'll find this wiki type page people keep updated with all the stuff that will or won't run. NO surprise but usually the console based people are scumbags about having a connection while the smaller fish don't bother.

I think when I was thinking of SteamOS when I wrote that, it's that weird frontend they made awhile back where you can almost consolize your system with that goofy GUI they created for it, can't stand the thing.

[kupomogli]

SteamOS doesn't run on top of Windows; it is an operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux.

He was replying to my reply about the Steam program which I called it an OS since I don't know what else to call it as it's an operating system for the games it runs. Not the SteamOS that's Linux based.

[Gentlegamer]

He was replying to my reply about the Steam program which I called it an OS since I don't know what else to call it as it's an operating system for the games it runs. Not the SteamOS that's Linux based.

Client.