The value of money and games
polycounter lvl 9
So I've been thinking about this for quite a while. Had conversations here at work about this as well, and it seems like people have very black and white opinions when confronted with the value of money now a days. Specially in the game industry.
To me, it's just not the money, but the value of the things that you decide to spend your money on. Should there be a standard as to what you are receiving? does someone regulate this? as a consumer are you allowed to complain about you not getting your moneys worth? If people buy a game that is broken what does that mean?
What makes me think this? Well, take for example D3. Is it appropriate for an MMO clone to charge 60 dlls for a game when it doesn't even have all of its features there? When other MMOs are free to play or you pay a subscription? I guess WoW has it right since it was able to milk the game price for all of its lifetime, and as soon as it starts to wear down, they make it free to play, until level 20. I mean. What is it exactly that you get? A guy told me, well, if i got more than 100 hrs of game play and i had fun, then the price doesn't matter. People feel this way? So maybe charging money in relation to how many hrs would fit better with this kind of thinking.
So that is one side of the coin. But what i really wanted to bring up is the fact that games are no longer tangible. You no longer have a copy that can play at any time. I miss the days where you owned your games. I still have copies of Nes, SNES, Dreamcast, N64 and i can plug them in and play them even now when the console is obsolete. But recently I dunno, but i tend to get my games on Steam a lot more than on console, and some games don't even let you play if you are not online. So you pay full price for a game that you might not be able to play at some point? Should this affect the value of the game? Some people might think that this kind of thinking is troll-esque, but i can't stop to think that there is some truth in what people say. But, can you always play your games after purchase? Should this have a repercussion on how much games should cost? sure, games go down in price, you can wait for steam sales and get your games 75% off. But if you are like me, i like to pay full price. I like being able to support games that i like, and would like to see more, and support the studios that worked so hard to make them.
So are games really expensive? A friend said that the cost is super cheap compared to what they should really cost. If you take into consideration the amount of money that it takes to make one, and if they will ever make the profit back.
I dunno... if the movies can spend the same amount of money, and get away with selling movie tickets for 12 dlls, the a dvd, blu ray and what not for say 30 bucks. That is still a lot less than 60 dlls. Maybe a better example is Call of Duty. You spend 60 dlls on a game. Back in the day the dlc would come out and it was i think 7 dlls. Then sometime someone must've said, lets increase the price of the dlc to 15... people kept buying it, even tho its the same kind of DLC that you would get for half the price. So what is the standard? Recycled DLC that sells for more money to me seems a little bit greedy. But i guess the video game industry is in for the money. but i can't help to think that there should be some awareness in people and consider what it is that you buy, what do you expect in the game, and what do you expect for the price. I feel like the value of my money has diminished... and i am sure that if that is the case, some changes will have to occur in the industry to compensate for it. After all, the game industry has not been around for that long, so its still trying to mature.
Sorry for the lack of structure in some of those rants. But i really think that awareness is key in moving forward in a good direction. I work really hard to get my munnies, and i also dedicate my time thinking what it is that i want to spend it on. What do you guys think? do you feel like you own your games lately? It might not be something as aggravating as i make it sound. But i guess that it should be something at least discussed and share thoughts to have a better understanding of this.
To me, it's just not the money, but the value of the things that you decide to spend your money on. Should there be a standard as to what you are receiving? does someone regulate this? as a consumer are you allowed to complain about you not getting your moneys worth? If people buy a game that is broken what does that mean?
What makes me think this? Well, take for example D3. Is it appropriate for an MMO clone to charge 60 dlls for a game when it doesn't even have all of its features there? When other MMOs are free to play or you pay a subscription? I guess WoW has it right since it was able to milk the game price for all of its lifetime, and as soon as it starts to wear down, they make it free to play, until level 20. I mean. What is it exactly that you get? A guy told me, well, if i got more than 100 hrs of game play and i had fun, then the price doesn't matter. People feel this way? So maybe charging money in relation to how many hrs would fit better with this kind of thinking.
So that is one side of the coin. But what i really wanted to bring up is the fact that games are no longer tangible. You no longer have a copy that can play at any time. I miss the days where you owned your games. I still have copies of Nes, SNES, Dreamcast, N64 and i can plug them in and play them even now when the console is obsolete. But recently I dunno, but i tend to get my games on Steam a lot more than on console, and some games don't even let you play if you are not online. So you pay full price for a game that you might not be able to play at some point? Should this affect the value of the game? Some people might think that this kind of thinking is troll-esque, but i can't stop to think that there is some truth in what people say. But, can you always play your games after purchase? Should this have a repercussion on how much games should cost? sure, games go down in price, you can wait for steam sales and get your games 75% off. But if you are like me, i like to pay full price. I like being able to support games that i like, and would like to see more, and support the studios that worked so hard to make them.
So are games really expensive? A friend said that the cost is super cheap compared to what they should really cost. If you take into consideration the amount of money that it takes to make one, and if they will ever make the profit back.
I dunno... if the movies can spend the same amount of money, and get away with selling movie tickets for 12 dlls, the a dvd, blu ray and what not for say 30 bucks. That is still a lot less than 60 dlls. Maybe a better example is Call of Duty. You spend 60 dlls on a game. Back in the day the dlc would come out and it was i think 7 dlls. Then sometime someone must've said, lets increase the price of the dlc to 15... people kept buying it, even tho its the same kind of DLC that you would get for half the price. So what is the standard? Recycled DLC that sells for more money to me seems a little bit greedy. But i guess the video game industry is in for the money. but i can't help to think that there should be some awareness in people and consider what it is that you buy, what do you expect in the game, and what do you expect for the price. I feel like the value of my money has diminished... and i am sure that if that is the case, some changes will have to occur in the industry to compensate for it. After all, the game industry has not been around for that long, so its still trying to mature.
Sorry for the lack of structure in some of those rants. But i really think that awareness is key in moving forward in a good direction. I work really hard to get my munnies, and i also dedicate my time thinking what it is that i want to spend it on. What do you guys think? do you feel like you own your games lately? It might not be something as aggravating as i make it sound. But i guess that it should be something at least discussed and share thoughts to have a better understanding of this.
Replies
This applies to almost everything. A Variax guitar is considerably more feature packed than a Les Paul or Stratocaster of a comparable price. But by having lots of features crammed in it's not very focused and lacks a lot of the x-factor of the latter two guitars. (which haven't changed much since the 60s)
With regard to older games having more replayability, a lot of that I think is due to more focused direction inherent to the smaller teams. A lot of people then were paying what we pay now for games with orders of magnitude more man hours spent on them as well.
Regarding Steam, I have to agree. They're further devaluing a lot of good products rather than just the poorer ones, are otherwise very expensive (GTA IV is half the cost in shops, Flatout II in its heyday was 1/3 the price) and the monopoly they hold (try buying a PC game anywhere without needing to install Steam - shops are full of Steam vouchers in DVD cases now) and worse they appear to be above criticism by anyone. I'll probably get flamed for this paragraph by someone.
I forsee an upcoming crash for Valve. Hedging their bets on Linux (which is still flimsy for desktop use given my recent experiences with it, two periods of casual six month usage in the past three years) is risky and I'm amazed they've gone this long selling games people just don't play.
So you say that the value of the money spent is justified in this case?
yes.
And about "the good old days", when you adjust for inflation the price of games have gone down significantly while the cost to develop them have gone up. Here's an article about it
yeah. it was nice to own disks back in the day...i don't know about you, but i have small kids...that shortens the lifespan of any disk by several years...so it's nice not to have to buy the game again every time it gets too scratched to run properly.
there's also the fact that pressing and distributing game disks is a prohibitively HUGE added expense - and digital downloads being a well used distribution method has allowed games that wouldn't otherwise be widely distributed to compete in a world market without ever pressing a single disk.
this is a good thing IMO.
when discussing the sale of games you also have to take into account how much money the studio actually gets from it and how much goes to the publisher/distributor.
i'll agree though that there is a huge can of worms involving ownership when buying a game, especially one digitally distributed.
What i am saying is, Minecraft (if its your kind of game) has more value for what it has been through, and it should still receive than say D3. It was developed in less time, and with the tools to mod and experience you can even say that they should be charging more for it. So where does that value come from? DayZ peeps are talking about releasing on the same model. Kickstarters let you do that as well. What is the value that people put in their money? 30 flights of loving is a 5 dll game. i payed 50 to support the kickstarter, cuz i like what they are doing and Brendon should be making more games. So i guess my money holds value to me. Does that make sense?
@ReverendK: I agree... one scratch and your game is done... i can understand that. I like the fact that i can keep my games in one place. Download them anywhere i want. But lately i just think about the trade off. What if steam ever goes out of businness (which i think its unlikely) but what if something happens? what happens to my collection of games? I know its a bit extreme. But i guess it should be important to be aware of it, and in some cases to read the fine print of what is yours. MMO's now a days should say RENT the game... not own the game. Things of that matter. If games are advertised for what they really are, i don't see how they would be deceptive.
The thing that seems totally inappropriate to me is the price of boxed games compared to digital downloads. They're the same! How could this be? I go to a store to get some game, it costs $60, which covers the money developers/publishers make, the amount the store makes and the overhead for producing and shipping a boxed product. Then you go on Steam and it's the same $60? In what world does that make sense? It means that either they're keeping a larger chunk of that $60 by cutting the stores and physical production out of the loop, or that they're paying the stores royalties for something those stores didn't even sell.
Either way, the savings that the digital-download technology brought to the industry is not being transferred to the players.
no. it's not you. welcome to planet earth. If there's money involved you can bet that greed will be there in ever increasing numbers.
regarding getting what you pay for: there's a risk involved. always will be. i still want my money back for watching the second transformers in the theater. but so be it: that's the nature of entertainment. you pay to be entertained - if you're not happy with what you get then too bad.
kickstarter and models like minecraft are great. they've been working well for those who've managed to use them properly and that's fantastic. It would be awesome if it could become the standard for all games to be developed independently of large publishers and corporations - but it's not going to happen. and if it did you would probably never see another huge, beautiful and EXPENSIVE AAA title again...they just usually cost more money than those other models can usually promise.
would that be such a bad thing? i don't know.
do the suits make their money on other people's backs and damage the industry as a whole? yes.
they also do it in EVERY SINGLE industry in the world.
who should it go to? 'sides - if they dropped the price too much (and who knows what it actually costs to run distributions like steam?) people would be less likely to buy from game stop and walmart and the like...which means they'd be less likely to distribute - which likely would equate to less people buying games, playing games, introducing games to friends, etc.
i'm sure the real copy will eventually die out on a large scale, but don't assume it would be a good thing for the industry as a whole..
on that note: i'd be interested to know the percentage cuts that game stop and wal-mart take compared to something like steam...if anybody's got any insight
If they stayed the same we'd be paying $80-$100 a game.
Just looking up some info, Final Fantasy IV had a team of 14 people, took a year to develop and launched in the US at $69.95 ($113.57 in current dollars).
I do like AAA titles... i play most of them. But i think some studios are more committed to the exp of their audience than others. Rockstar tends to give really expansive games. IMO worth the money. But i guess they want to be recognized as such. Sony games like God of War, Uncharted are in the same boat. Something like Episodic Starcraft 2 games, each 60 dlls with expansions at say 30 dlls is pure greed.
Also, why do you use 'dlls' instead of $. It's more effort, and the dollar sign is on every keyboard I've ever seen.
And time sunk into entertainment is a horrid way of judging it's value. No one would argue that a 3 hour movie is better than a 90 minute one just because you sat through it for twice as long. I don't understand why people continue to make this argument with games.
Thought it would be a provocative and good thread to hear what people value in their games, and what not. Good thing you didn't pay money to see the thread, eh? j/k
d3 is not an mmo. i often wonder why people say d2 is superior to d3 but i tried playing it again it actually sucks. i cant play it. but i also enjoyed it back in the day and i realize that it was only good back then, when mmo's didnt exist. now people are expecting the amount of content than an mmo brings, people have higher expectations nowadays and the old diablo formula just isnt up to par.
as for satisfaction, for example, i regret ordering diablo 3, but i loved the mass effect games. i think a very important factor is immersion, theres just no immersion in diablo3, i was not brought into a world that i cared about. but thats only one motivation in gaming of course theres competition, skill, chance/luck, and others. personal preference. you just need to find the game that caters to your motivation, and pray it succeeds. honestly id be willing to pay more for the bioware rpgs, but their mmo sucks, i wouldnt touch it.
But say Guild Wars 2, it's also an RPG, it has an auction house and whatnot. Obviously supports group play. It's also $60, and also doesn't have a subscription fee. The features line up pretty well. Only in GW2 you get a whole lot more bang for your buck. Much more unique content. The group play obviously blows Diablo out of the water. Etc.
Mobile is quite interesting right now, in that complexity is so rapidly increasing on devices, both graphically and in terms of gameplay experiences. Yet the marketplace was established on an incredibly low pricing scale, where consumers have been used to getting games for a dollar or less. It's now at the point where you can see some people balking at the price of any game at the upper end of the scale, even though those games still cost less than most people would spend on a coffee here. Even established names, like Final Fantasy and GTA come under fire in their app's ratings sections for being 'too expensive' when those games still retail on console for far more than on mobile (FFIV, at £11 here, is one of the more expensive sellers on iOS but is still up for sale for £25 on Nintendo DS on Amazon, and as just pointed above was originally 7 or 8 times that price).
Perhaps once F2P/DLC/Episodic matures on traditional platforms, we'll find a 'fairer' experience for the end consumer - if you think the first part of the game that you've actually paid for sucks or isn't worth the price, you're no longer obligated to buy any of the further levels, items, upgrades, or whatevers. Hopefully devs can also avoid sinking vast amounts of resources into development if they can add content and tailor the experience after a more cut-down and cost effective release, and only if and when they realise that there's a demand for the extra work.
Considering how much money people pay to watch or buy or even rent a film, games still, in my opinion, offer ridiculously good value for money. You can always wait out the initial release of the biggest blockbuster game for the inevitable price drop if you disagree with how much it is worth. I do think, though, that people need to get used to paying an appropriate amount for a 'gaming experience'. DLC needs to priced appropriately, how much of your game is free and how much is paid for, etc, needs to be balanced fairly. Which I'm sure is an art in itself.
I think the issue of 'fair pricing' is a far bigger issue on the mobile platforms than on consoles and computers. Having to fight piracy on games that cost less than a bottle of coke on the app store horrifies me far more.
I think it's such a common comparison because the physical packaging and size of downloadable files make it a near perfect analogue to games. That and they are both throwaway 'intangible' entertainment products that cost a lot of time and money to make. This helps in partially breaking past any 'packaging, localisation, format, distribution' issues when it comes to talking about 'fair pricing' between the subjective experiences involved in each.
[ame="
Just a thought.
You can play a game like diablo 3, CS, left 4 dead, BF3, etc for endless hours, but that won't justify a higher price. Not all players are addicts.
I bought CS:GO for 10 euros and i think that's the way of selling games (it's more of the same, and i only played it 1 hour). Cheaper games will sell better or maybe not... but all depends of what it offers.
DLCs are another thing that are being sold very expensive.
Another thing to consider is that games have a huge issue, they will be obsolete/trashed in less than a year, and sales will always fall down weeks after release if the game it's not called "COD". So at the end, we can buy any AAA game for less than 5 euro a few months later. for example, In May, I bought The Need for the Speed: The Run for just 2,25€ at priceminister.es.
Games are worse than computers, they lose value faster.
When i pay more for a game, it's because it offers more, just like the witcher 2 CE or Mass Effect 3 Digital Deluxe CE. An artbook, a cd with the OST, exclusive items, and some cheap merchandise is always a great thing to sell with a higher price (never, more than 42 euro)
I have spent more time on COD than I have spent on shadow of the colossus but I value SOTC way higher than COD.
Just saying.
But it's definitely one worth considering. Why? Because people (usually the ones with lots of time but little money, i.e., kids) nowadays rail against games like Mirrors Edge that are 'only' 5 hours long.
http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/qba2o2/pach-attack--episode-111
Pach breaks down how much a developer generally gets from that $60.
But for everything else, i can say that 60 bucks is too freaking much for any piece of entertainment.
LoL - free but bought a small amount of RP - massive amount of play time
CS:GO - cheap - ~20 hours play time so far
Starcraft2 - Bought full price - massive amount of play time
Need for speed hot pursuit - Bought cheap - Maybe 100 hours play time?
MW2 - Bought for almost full price - Over 30 days multiplayer time
Couple of cheap classics like theme hospital/AoE for around £5 a pop in between
Can't say i don't get my moneys worth
For 60 bucks the reviews have to be pretty damn good for me to pick up a game, and there shouldn't be any stupid crap attached to the experience like "always on DRM", mandatory accounts for this'n'that or "facebook integration crap" and other annoyances. (yes, I'm amazed how old school I sound).
Games are expensive to make and their (sales) life is rather short. A movie you can sell much longer - cinemas, airlines, DVD, online, TV...
The game i got out most... must be either one of the Civ titles, tetris on the gameboy, the original Pirates, Lotro with the lifetime account or monkey island (thank you ScummVM!)
The market decides if the price makes sense, and the demographic you target to buy it.
If people are willing to pay, and then retain content they don't like, then that is their problem. Clearly the market is willing to bear some of the prices these days and that is just good business in my view. Everyone is probably happy from developer to gamer
I usually return stuff I don't like, or try demos first, or read reviews.
But it's very likely those same customers that DON'T buy into long-term content as much, games like flight simulators, stuff like sim city or transport tycoon, or perhaps stuff like XCom and syndicate etc.
They just like to load it up, shoot people or slash them with a fantasy sword, turn off, and buy the flashiest looking one every year. That is great if that is what they want, and chances are they do want just that!
I don't believe games are expensive to make per se, nor should their sales life be short. That is just an outcome of catering to a certain (big) demographic in the gaming market.
There are still businesses making content for longer life sustainable stuff out there, and it's still seriously impressive content. Ie, DCS flight sim stuff. Completely different demographic and business model to blockbuster games... and in my view buyers of those get a LOT more value for their money because it's *not* designed to be a flash in the pan game!
It's also fairly expensive but there are enough buyers supporting it to make it work, that just shows good content has people willing to hand over money
Different games and business models for different demographics.
Now I'm old, ish, I prefer the investment games much more than before, and I guess as the 'new' gamer market gets older and they still want games but ones which offer more mental challenge then maybe the investment game demographic will grow again?!
I hope so hehe.
Dave
who would decide if that game was overpriced or not?
But I'll be god-damned if I spend one red cent on a mobile game. I will spend weeks researching and reading reviews of a $1.99 game on my phone, only to end up not buying it.
Go figure.
I think that is the reason most games are over-priced, or apparently over-priced.
Each game on it's merits is the only way to consider value.
At the time had I known how AMAZING my £30 for Half Life was going to turn out as a gaming experience investment I'd have been happy handing over £100 for it!
And to think I bought HL1 after taking back a horrible game I didn't like, and tried HL instead! The manager at GAME was having a real strop but the game I'd just tried was really turd (was 'meant' to be good from a trusted developer)
But just because HL set a benchmark in story telling, it's now almost expected that a game like that should have a plot more like a film.
But tomorrow another company may innovate again and offer something amazing for not much cash and your perceptions and expectations will change again!
I think the two best games I've had for hours of actual fun for the price paid have been Roller-coaster Tycoon and Transport Tycoon, oh and Tornado by DiD.
Consider that all three are non-story games but have a fantastic sand-box for repeat gaming in new environments it says a lot for how long-lasting they can be.
Play a game like HL1/2 or whatever once and once the plot is known it's not so nice to play again.
Multiplayer doesn't really fill that gap. That said I did play FreeSpace 2 a few times... and I've read plenty of books a few times too if they are good...
So I guess part of me likes the idea that I can buy a game and I buy a single player experience that can be enjoyed again and again... even if a REALLY good story can have you go back a few times eventually it will get a bit past being played again.
Hmmmmmm
I just wish that studios would not transition from awesome studios. To corporate driven institutions that forget the passion of making a good game.
I still remember paying $139.95 for my copy of D&D Warriors of the Eternal Sun - because thats just how much it cost for a cartridge in New Zealand back in the day.
Was it worth it ? yup worth every penny as far as I was concerned as a kid - blew my mind wide open.
The difference today is, or the question i ask myself now is, would i pay full price to have the same experience, ie warriors of the eternal sun 8 - probably not, especially if its an an almost identical game with some fancy new graphics. Although sometimes i admit ill buy a game purely because i like the look of it, regardless of how shitty the game actually is - I buy it to study it.
I'm not sure about that, we can debate whether or not those middlemen are ultimately necessary, however they have still delivered a service (marketing, shipping, shelf stocking, etc) and I do feel like they deserve to be compensated for that.
The past couple of days I've really been wondering if whether or not the indie development route is the best route. Seems like having less money changing hands as well as less red tape and a more direct line between you and your customers would be the most economically efficient option.
In my mind, I would prefer to pay for the services I receive, rather than pay the same aggregate price as everyone else for services I may or may not have received. I don't believe I should pay the marked up price for a game if it never required being on a shelf for me to purchase it.
I never buy games from a physical store anymore unless its the cheapest option available ( usually never ) - and absolutely never buy second hand games because the developer gets no monetary compensation from my investment.
Its a very complicated thing, and yeah we could definitely get right into it, but the OP asked about value - and this is part of it for me.
When i put my hard earned $$$ down for something, I'm a firm believer in only being a maximum of one step removed from the source of any product as much as possible. ( ie if i cant buy direct from the developer / producer of said product then hopefully only one step removed maximum )
I hope more developers think about making stores for their company, internal marketing so more of that $60 can end up in their pockets as opposed to the 6 - 10 bucks average they would traditionally get via the 'standard' distribution methods - that's just never made any sense to me.
Social media is probably the biggest marketing tool of all time - im speculating here but I doubt marketing as a whole could have ever been cheaper in terms of reaching numbers.
Pretty interesting video.
And it makes me wonder even more about what I remarked on in the previous page. Why is it that a boxed game is $60 and the same game on Steam is also $60? If a big chunk of that is money that goes to physical distribution, where does that money go when I buy a game off of Steam?
Yeah man, that's definitely strange...... also a damn good question to ask Pachter. Speculation again, but maybe the developer is just looking to get that extra $$$ because people are used to paying that amount anyway ? Sneaky... but I wouldnt put it past them!
Edit: [ame="
Doesnt REALLY answer your question man, but there are definitely a few people wondering about these differences:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2848188
Double Edit: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=32035923&postcount=20 <--- that post makes the most sense to me.
I also don't like the hours spent playing vs. dollars spent comparisons. I don't get it, I mean, if I was just looking to kill time, there's lots of free ways I could do it. Feeding geese at the park is an example. Quality is far more important than quantity.
I dont think ive seen a game that wasnt a collectors edition over £40. Infact, i got the Dark souls collectors edition, with an artbook, cd and poster for £29 so i really have NO idea what shit youre talking.
@Haz
Without wanting to really come across as an arsehole, I find the idea of buying bad games for the art to be a strange thing. Basically because the artists youre inspired by were inspired by other artists or got their art direction from a specific source. This can be either dilution or evolution its just i'd always favor being closer to the root, like when i see artist C studying artist B, while artist B got to his level because he was studying the people who are on the upper echelon above that i think they miss the point a bit. (or i do)
An example of someone around these parts who stands out would be larolaro, but how many of you know who hes inspired by? Im not saying this to discredit him in anyway at all, its just that once you start seeing the relationships between these things, man theres so many fucking worlds out there.
http://marnette.canalblog.com/
http://www.orenblog.net/?paged=6
That and i really dont like the idea of paying for a bad game with good art, dont reward cuntlike publishers that force generic shit out the doors.
I found this piece on Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/02/16/the-numbers-behind-steams-success/
which makes it seem like there's a 70%-30% split in the $60 in favor of the retailers. Meaning after the expenses of selling a retail game, there are $18 left. And that ratio is flipped on Steam, where Valve keeps 30% and the other 70% goes back.
This makes it much more profitable to sell something on Steam. But it still begs the question, why do they keep it at $60? It sounds to me that if they sold a $60 for $26, and valve kept 30% of that, they'd be left with just over $18. Which is the same as they'd get from a $60 sale in retail. Yet obviously the consumer base would be much larger at $26 than it is at $60.
Edit:
Watched the Pach video again, and he puts it at $36 that's left for the publisher. Of those $10 is "R&D", which I personally find offensive as he's talking about our salaries. The people who actually make the game, the developers. That's not R&D, that's actually making shit. Then there's another $8 for marketing. So that puts it right back at that $18 mark for developers. Which is very interesting that the number ends up being the same.
The rest of the $36 is $18 that goes to the publishers for what I consider basically doing nothing, other than fund initial development.
This is yet another argument for trying to change the developer/publisher paradigm. We could offer our customers games at a much lower cost by cutting all this overhead of retailers and publishers.