Quote from: Strod on August 27, 2013, 10:38:49 pm

Well I wouldn't consider those AAA titles

The term ""Triple A Title" is basically a bullshit term.  It means so many different things to so many different people that it's worthless.  When people use it what it comes across to me as a subjective term that they trot out to make a point they really don't understand.

Sorry Strod.  Use something like "top subscribed games" or "top selling" or "most expensive to produce" or "fastest growing" or "longest lived" to make better points.

I think the gaming market is a lot like many other markets now.  They give you a taste for cheap/free and if you really enjoy it they ask you to sub for the premium features.  Many folks call this the "Freemium" model, while gamers use FTP to label it.  From my perspective it's the future's model, not only in gaming but in many other markets.

I'm a lot less likely to commit my resources (time, money, effort) to something I haven't experienced and enjoyed.  From market trends a lot of people think this way about a lot of things.  That's what makes the FTP or Freemium models work.

From a economist perspective, the relative decrease in the consumer's income has reduced demand for the non-freemium models in the MMO market.  Many gamers have found poor substitutes for large scale, well designed MMOs.  This also has lowered demand, and therefore also reduced the consumer surplus in the models.  As the demand is relatively inelastic at launch, the original purchase of the game generally includes the first month's fee, although companies camouflage this as a free month, which it truly isn't.

However, from the firm (ie Zenimax Online), they have a higher production cost, at least according to them, and I'm making an assumption (as all economists must to model situations) that they project a budget which out ways at least an initial freemium model.

I feel as most subscription based games will be following SWTOR's example, by starting out as a Sub Base with a free to play "freemium transistion" model in place for a point down the line where start up costs are no longer carried by the firm but rather the consumer via the voluntary subscription.  For this example, Bioware's claim that SWTOR would be solvent at 500k subscribers, only exists after the sales of the two million subscribers at launch.

If I went a tad overboard, I found it interesting and just got out of my Econ classes.

Interesting

Yay, Strod.  Can't wait to see you back in TS!

Well get in what you can when you can if you can. Because once my rigs ships, I'm going to hit the ground running.

Someones suffering from withdraw...

I knew the fight when we ran it the first time.

Did y'all do Furious for the week yet?

I'm on shift tuesday night, so I guess its possible, but with it being right after holiday, probably be at least an hour late; if not more.

Supposedly 2.4... supposedly... or it may not be resolved at all.