Unlockable Content pricing strategy
DLC stands for: Downloadable Content, this is were the player has the option to purchase further content upon the game so they can advance or gain a higher satisfaction that was previously not as anticipated. This is used as a pricing method to slowly gain an income with small withdrawals out of the consumer with each expansions release. The episodic pricing is great within the industry for the flow of money among the company.
Understanding the Games Industry:
Trends May 2015:
Conflict of Used Game Market
Ways of which the Dev’s can stop used game purchases include using an activation pass of which complies with the DRM laws, this pass ensures that only that platform can play the game, thus resulting in the fact that the game cannot be rented or traded. This is a valuable technique upon the games industry.
Preventing Piracy
One way in which we have found that Dev’s can stop piracy is by sticking to the Digital Rights Management, this includes: CD Keys, Limited installs, Online Activation and software tampering. If these methods were included into each game in production, this could put a stop to the current piracy issues.
Physical Release Parties
Physically release parties is a trend of which is exploited for the consumers to purchase the game on the release date. Dev teams would pay stores in order to have the largest amount of orders and purchases upon the first day of release.
For the Dev’s, this would earn recognition, respect from the consumer, that the company itself has hosted the party, so its fans can enjoy on release. Upon recognition, fans spreading word to each passing person would enthuse the games hype, earning even more respect and the most dominant, sales. For these reasons, release parties would be used as to lure the audiences and raise the sales at launch.
For the majority of the information involved in release parties, I looked at statistics and other such blogs that cover the matter:
Physical VS Digital Distribution
We live in an age where the avid gamer can now purchase content digitally, as oppose to the old way of actually going to the local game store and grabbing a physical copy of the game, upon this blog, I shall en-dearly discus this current trend, starting with the market shares.
Digital shares have had a rapid growth over the seas, in the US, a report on early this year claims that over 6,000 people over the age of 13 download games upon online markets, eg. Steam, this is 36% of the survey,The Blog mentions the fact that 16% of the survey results endorse physical copies of the game, where as the rest in-between don’t purchase games.
There are multiple reasons of why consumers actually purchase digital games, one of them being the fact of sales.
Another one, of which the fact is that digitally the game is delivered, no need for any transportation to the local store.
For the Dev’s, digitally distributing a game offers a range of audiences across the platforms, and even the cost of it is worthwhile, due to the fact of no physical copies are in creation.
A few disadvantages upon the digital distributing, is the fact of marketing, digital copies of games are in need of a great pitch upon the avid Indie team, it takes time.
Physical copies offer the immersion of other items, such as collectors editions may include a statue, art book etc. Not available in digital distribution.
I have mentioned a few pros and cons of digital distributing, upon this trend, we can note the same flaws upon physical distributing. Overall, as a trend, I prefer physically purchasing a game, it grants the immersion of actually having to go out and earn the game buy venturing to the store in hopes that it’s still in stock, whereas the digital market offers it just given to you, no physical copy, no achievement, just a notification in your game library.
Here is a site that I researched upon this information:
http://www.egmnow.com/electricsistahood/physical-vs-digital-media-the-pros/#
Eastern Vs Western Development
When bringing up Eastern and Western developers, it sounds like World War 3, in its self, it is simply just a different culture of creating games. The cultures themselves are explored within: art styles, experience, ethnic groups, etc. Implicating these ideas into a game is all about the industry as itself.
Upon thinking of the Western dev teams, we are often repressed with the ideas of the cliché first person shooter, financially these games may pay off, but when it comes to boasting off all the creativity the western side has, it never really appeals to anyone. This is where the Eastern side has flawed the western, in innovating their creative side and expressing their imagination, then placing these ideas in their games
.
For this general information, I looked at forums and interviews such as this one: