Gaming Economics

12.23.2011

I was reading a post over on Wife-Aggro that got me back to thinking about how the model of releasing games (video mostly, but also and board games to some extent) is changing. Prevalent these days on the social networking sites are free games you can play with the option to pay for expanded content. I've seen more MMORPG's move to this once the game has been out for a while. World of Warcraft will let you play for free up to level 20. DC Universe has moved to a base free-for-play model (not sure what premiums you can pay for there, I haven't looked in a while). My big "dissapointment" game of 2009, Star Trek Online, is moving to free to play on Jan 17. Some may say this is all due to today's economy, but I think people are just smarter with their money.

It used to be that when a new game came out, you were lucky if you could get a demo before slapping down an average of $50 for the real thing. The demo might be a level out of the game, or lacking certain features. Just enough to whet your appetite. Now I see a proliferation of smaller publishers. With smaller publishers comes cheaper prices, and unfortunately a better chance of getting crap. Demos are still out there, but so often it's easier for somebody to just charge $10 for a download. I mean, it's only $10, right?

Then you always get somebody bitching about what they got for $10, because mentally they're used to spending $50 and want five times more quality/story/play time.

I've still got my 7-game Road to my Wrestling Game planned out (no, I haven't made any more progress on it that this time last year). It's not going to be a money maker, but I think I know how to make it a money maker if I wanted to invest the time, effort, and get more people than I want to involved in the development.

Lots of games focus on downloadable content once the game is released. Just take a look at games on Steam and you'll see that most $50 games have tons of extras you can purchase. Borderlands has map packs, Space Marine has alternate armors and weapons, Arkham City has, well it has extra stuff but I'm not sure if it's extra people or re-skins. Here is where I think the key for independent game publishing lies.

Let's say I have a magical year and my wrestling game is playable. I would release the game for free. The game would be fully functional - save games, create characters and venues, whatever limited online stuff existed - and have the equivalent of 1 local wrestling organization of fictional NPCs. No licensing from anyone required at this stage. People can download the game, see if they like it, make sure it works on their system, etc. If they enjoy it, then they can come back and pay for extras.

What extras would be available? In the perfect world, each wrestling organization would work as downloadable content. I will always be too small to get the ones that have "real" games like WWE and TNA, but there are plenty of smaller groups that would see this as free advertising. Groups that publish DVDs (Ring of Honor, PURE, etc) would be fine targets that already have a fan following. The classic territories from the 80's would work, and may be beyond licensing requirements since they're no longer in business.

Besides my wrestling game, this model would work great for first person shooters. You get the basic shooter game and a couple of maps for free. Monthly, a new map pack with some different weapons would be available for a nominal fee. This translates wonderfully into a continuous revenue stream. I know, I'll never retire on that stream, but I like the model. I think for this to really work, even though the game is free, the additional content you're paying for has to be inexpensive. People buy magazines and never think about what they cost. If you can keep the cost of extras to the cost of a magazine, a price that doesn't even show up on their radar, folks will be much more likely to plop down a little money to get something extra. Plus, if it's cheap enough most people won't go to the trouble of trying to pirate it (yeah, somebody will always pirate it).

I've bought lots of crap games for $50. There are some games I've gotten way more entertainment out of than what I paid - Matt and I played Smackdown Vs Raw pretty much every Monday night for a year, not even counting the 16 virtual seasons I played through at home. If I have the option to play a game for free, I'm more likely to try it out. Like Dog Robber mentioned, I'm also more likely to tell 10 other people I'm playing it. Although I may not opt to pay for extras down the road, the chances are good one of those 10 people I told might.

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Wahammer Fighters

12.21.2011

Well, after starting 4 months ago I finally got around to finishing the squad of Warhammer soldiers I started. I'll be the first to admit they're not the best painted/constructed figures out there, but I've got to admit that the 2 Saturdays I spent watching Scott paint figs at The Deep improved my finished product. The key things I learned from Scott were:

• As little paint as possible on your brush tip.
• Prime with white (for me it makes the details I'm painting easier to see)
• Use washes, it brings out the details naturally

It would have been cool to have soldiers with expressive faces, eyes filled with rage, and nametags you could read. But honestly, this was the first batch I had painted in years (decades?). I was really shooting for "better than a 3rd grader". Although not award winning quality that I've seen from Lazuli or Vampifan, I'm pleased enough to show off what I made. Plus, I managed to have fun while putting everything together. I forgot how relaxing painting miniatures can be, if you don't count the frustration.

Permalink gaming miniatures hobbies

19 Comics

12.20.2011

Today I received a little Christmas present to myself (I know, big shocker that I'm getting myself something for Christmas). Today from the Amazon I received 19 comic books.

You may notice a proliferation of GI Joe comics. It's also not a big shocker that I'm a big GI Joe fan. I get most of the GI Joe titles currently in print, but I tend not to read them. I know, it's stupid, but I've gotten spoiled reading the collected trade paperbacks of all the other series that I read, I've just gotten in the habit of reading comics that way. Instead of picking up part of the story every month, I just wait 6 months or a year and get a collection in one easy to read volume.

Huh, come to think of it that's how I watch TV now. I just wait for the current season of whatever I'm interested in to be released on DVD. If I don't mind watching the ending of Smallville 14 months after everybody else it's not too bad.

But I digress. After visiting one of my local comic shops this past week, I saw that the collection of the classic GI Joe series from the 80's was up to volume 13 (usually with 10 issues per volume). I remember some hullabaloo causing a pause in the printing back years ago, so I wasn't sure where I had stopped. When I got home and looked, it turned out I had stopped at volume 5. Rectify!

That got me to looking at the other Joe series. Some of them are a discreet collection - GI Joe Origins ran for 23 issues, now available in 5 easy to read collected volumes. I may actually have those 23 issues, but if I do they're scattered amongst boxes in a closet that I never go through, and I'm too lazy to dig out 23 issues in the proper order to read when I can just get 5 books that do all the hard work for me. Plus, they fit on my bookshelf so neatly.

Those single issues that I get, I do so to help support my local comic book store. Trust me, they need the help most of the time. If I want to read the stories I've got bad enough, I can suck it up and dig through those boxes.

Now I've got bathroom reading for months!

Permalink books/comics

2011 Gaming Season Standings

12.16.2011

Everyone has enough travel going on that it doesn't look like there will be much more board gaming going n before the end of the year. So with that, I hereby present the 2011 standings:

	Wins & Losses					Win %			Points Rank + Win % Rank - # of Wins
	Wins	Losses	Points	Ranking		Win %	Ranking		Combined Points	Combined Ranking
Russ	2	5	18	2		28.6%	5		5	2
Jer	4	2	20	1		66.7%	2		-1	1
Keith	2	3	14	3		40.0%	4		5	2
Matt	1	0	4	5		100.0%	1		5	2
Brady	1	1	6	4		50.0%	3		6	4

The championship list is:

Wins Champion Based on total # of wins Champion with 4 wins Jer	Win % Champion Based on win/loss record 100% W/L Matt	Points Champion Based on game points. 20 Points Jer
	Overall Champion Lowest combined points in rankings. Champion with -1 point Jer

There's actually some twisted logic to calculate the above.

This marks Jerry's 2nd overall championship, the last being the inaugural Widgey season of 2007 when he was co-champion with everyone else but Keith.

Now onward to see what we'll play in 2012!

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16 More Hours

12.14.2011

I've got 2 more days of work before I begin my Christmas vacation (assuming nothing important that's work related pops up during my Christmas vacation - I guess it's more of a "vacation as long as nothing's happening". Normally 2 work days wouldn't be much of a big deal. Heck, I'd even skip most of the last day. This time around, I've got meetings to go to. Important meetings. "Hey, you want a job after March?" kind of meetings. Meetings about contracts. And proposals. Generally, all kinds of stuff I don't know a thing about. 2 weeks ago I went through the first round of these meetings and actually found them informative and a little refreshing. I didn't completely suck at whatever I was doing, and I learned a little more of how life beyond coding works.

But by about 4:00 on Friday, all that will fly out of my head.

I've got a list of things I want to try to do over my Christmas vacation. After Friday I [hopefully] won't go back to work until Jan 2. One of the reasons I wedge in a week of vacation on top of the company allotted holiday week between Christmas and New Years is to try and get some personal stuff done on top of all the family/friends activities that always pop up. Some things are housekeeping chores that I've been putting off ("Hmmm, can I hook up the wireless access point in the living room so the Xbox can talk to the internet again?") while others range from hobbies that have been on hold (Unity, various website updates) to new variations of old ideas (I've got an idea for a miniatures board game that can best be summarized as "Zombie Mall", which may just be bastardization of 3 other games). The key here is that by the time Jan 2 rolls around, I want something to show for my time off.

Hopefully there will be more updates to come. With pictures, because pictures make life more interesting.

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