Koki on 15/2/2012 at 21:01
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Adam Sandler, meh. He's got a conditioned and pre-determined audience.
And artshit like Dear Esther doesn't?
Far as I'm concerned, we should buid a giant Colosseum and have the kind of people who bought Dear Esther and the kind of people who go see Jack and Jill duke it out. Now that's a constructive idea.
ZylonBane on 15/2/2012 at 21:08
Quote Posted by demagogue
What they're paying for is a way to send the message that they like this kind of artfaggotry in games and want to see more of it. I doubt many people ever thought, wow look at that graphics upgrade. I gotta have that!
If this were true, then they would have just put the original up on Steam for $10 and not bothered with the astoundingly labour-intensive graphic upgrade process.
Sulphur on 15/2/2012 at 21:12
Quote Posted by Koki
And artshit like Dear Esther doesn't?
Far as I'm concerned, we should buid a giant Colosseum and have the kind of people who bought Dear Esther and the kind of people who go see Jack and Jill duke it out. Now that's a constructive idea.
Nope. Not yet. Give it a couple more years.
Right now, if you want a conditioned audience: I'd rather see FO1 and FO3 fans duke it out in a colosseum -- hell, invite Mel Gibson to inaugurate the proceedings, get Ridley Scott to film it, and then people could sell it as an 'experimental indie movie'.
demagogue on 15/2/2012 at 21:13
The only thing I have to knock on Dear Esther is that it doesn't really deliver on what it's getting credit for. It's not like the modern lit revolution in the interwar period with the lost generation, where Hemingway, Faulkner & Joyce were rewriting the rules of literature and knew exactly the kind of revolution they were leading... or the Surrealists in interwar Paris or the Abstract Impressionists in postwar NYC. It's still something of a gimmick, maybe pointing in that kind of direction but it's not really articulating what that direction is or even what it's trying to do itself, so it's getting more credit than it's actually delivering on. Contrary to ZB though, I think it's not demanding
enough on the player if it really wants to be at that level, not like a good Faulkner or Joyce novel was.
Edit:
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
If this were true, then they would have just put the original up on Steam for $10 and not bothered with the astoundingly labour-intensive graphic upgrade process.
If you wanted to take that hypothetical seriously, the problem is the status-quo bias is one of the strongest impulses in commercial behavior. People just can't bring themselves to pay money for something they could already get before for free. So they add some extra crap on... Which gives people the "opportunity" to buy it and feel like they're getting their money's worth. Also when people spend money on something they have certain expectations about production value that goes beyond the normal homebrew offering. So the upgrade gets into the backdoor through that. But I still think the actual purchase is more about making an affirmation than buying the added production value for its own sake, just the upgrade pulls down one hurdle to that kind of purchase (the status-quo bias). It was the same thing with that upgrade for Cave Story.
I don't even think I'm entirely disagreeing with you, since your whole original point was something like, these people are dumb because they're spending money for a glorified audio book and the graphics upgrade they're paying for doesn't even add all that much to it, since the base non-game "game" is still the same. Well my theory at least gives you a reason why they seem to be acting in exactly the way you're talking about, otherwise it really is sort of irrational.
Koki on 15/2/2012 at 21:15
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I'd rather see FO1 and FO3 fans duke it out in a colosseum
Well shit, if you ever get around to doing that count me in
june gloom on 15/2/2012 at 21:21
Through the power of internet magic I have acquired this thing. I'm not expecting much.
Don't really understand the draw of things like this. If I wanted to play a pretentious artfag non-game there's plenty out there that are in flash and weigh in at maybe a few megs. And are also free. And don't smother their message in trumpets.
Seriously, how the fuck can they justify charging $10 for what's essentially short multimedia prose? Especially when the original mod was free?
faetal on 15/2/2012 at 22:01
Because people will (and have) pay it?
Like it or not, that's the market talking.
june gloom on 15/2/2012 at 22:04
Yes well. If everyone jumped off a bridge...
Volitions Advocate on 15/2/2012 at 22:20
People bought the Broken Saints DVDs even though the original flash comics were and still are free to view. It was a good story and the fans wanted to thank the producers in a way that would benefit them.
Why pay more than $0.01 for a humble indie bundle?
june gloom on 15/2/2012 at 22:24
Because those are developers I actually care to support? (Also most of my money goes to Child's Play)
