Wasn't sure until the end whether he realized why Minecraft's pricing made sense; it was beta. You weren't buying a finished product.
I tend to play consoles and while I pick up a few games at full price every year (3 preordered at three moment) I do tend to wait for the price drops (about $10 each time unless the game is a flop) more than sales.
Kerbal Space Program is (mostly) doing the same as Minecraft. As they're hitting milestones the base price has been increasing, but they're still allowing themselves to get pegged during the major Steam sales.
The other potential problem with rampant Steam sales (because honestly, they've won the mindshare) is that it's affected my price sensitivity. There's so many good games out there that I've picked up for a pittance, and have yet to play, that I can't really justify paying full price for anything -- if I don't have the time to play the all those other games, why pay more money for yet another game I won't have time to play?
The sole exception to that rule is games with a compelling multiplayer component, as something I can do while socializing with some friends.
I think the low-priced beta model is a fantastic one for games/game companies that are trying to get themselves off the ground. They get constant user feedback and guidance, and get food on the table (or even rich). In return the players get to give feedback and have it mean something, and get a fun game that gets better over time.
I strongly suspect that if KSP hadn't adopted this model and instead tried to wait until it was done, it would have long since gone the way of vaporware. For an incredibly ambitious game with highly experimental gameplay, in some cases still not fully cemented in place, I think you really need continuous feedback and funding.
Most AAA games still have ridiculously short tails. Even before the sales at 6 months Bioshock Infinite was probably at something like 80-90% of its expected lifetime revenue.
The game is also free on PS3 for PlayStation+ members this month. I noticed that all of the games due to be on PS+ this month (BI, Brothers, Don't Starve, etc.) were heavily discounted in the Steam sales.
Once they add a option to skip/autoplay the predictable-outcome fighting sequences I would buy any sequel. Seriously if you're over 30 you shouldn't have to prove to anyone anymore that you can beat scripted hoards and boss fights.
Some goes for Spec Ops: The Line after playing the first two levels I preferred watching the play-through on youtube over having to kill the equivalent of whole population Staten Island one by one just to follow better than average plot.
Also what Dara Ó Briain says:
"I love video games for this reason over all other art form. They do a thing that no other art form does, right. No other art form does.
You cannot be bad at watching a movie. You cannot be bad at listening to an album. But you can be bad at playing a video game, and the video game will punish you, and deny you access to the rest of the video game.
No other art form does this. You’ve never read a book and 3 chapters in, the book has gone, “What are the major themes of the book so far?”
You go “I, I, I don’t know, I wasn’t paying close enough att…”
And the book goes THOOMP."
> Once they add a option to skip/autoplay the predictable-outcome fighting sequences I would buy any sequel. Seriously if you're over 30 you shouldn't have to prove to anyone anymore that you can beat scripted hoards and boss fights.
What? You bought an FPS (or at least a game with FPS elements). The mechanics of that, the co-ordination and the thinking, are part of the game, part of the challenge, part of the fun. If you're too old for games and would rather watch a movie, buy a movie.
If there are way more games than you have the time to play, then there's little justification for higher pricing for video games.
Whether you buy them or not, time is the premium, the only difference is whether the money involved in >your< sale goes to lots of developers or just a few.
But there's a twist: games are hit or miss. Since time is the premium, and there is no guarantee that a game will satisfy you, it makes sense that you can buy a large number of them, try them out, and only complete the ones you liked enough to commit time to.
It's hard to see how a system with fewer, more higher priced games would benefit the end user better than the current set up.
I don't think this is the fault of sales. It's simply a statement that most games' "full" price is more than it would be rational for you to pay given your priorities.
I can't speak for the person you're responding to, and I'm sure this differs by person, but you're right in my case.
I also own a lot of games on Steam that I've never played, but if not for Steam sales I almost certainly never would have bought most of those games in the first place. The developers may have only gotten 10%-50% from me compared to a full price sale, but if there were no sale they would have gotten nothing. And I still do buy plenty of other games that I want to play more urgently for full price or near to full price.
Also FWIW, I've bought a lot of games over the years and I've never felt "screwed" by a developer because of a price drop after I had bought the game. It isn't like this is a surprising event, it is simply the way of things (and not just for games, but books, movies, cds, virtually all media). It is up to me to decide if having it today is worth $60 compared to waiting 6 months to get it for half that or less.
I tend to play consoles and while I pick up a few games at full price every year (3 preordered at three moment) I do tend to wait for the price drops (about $10 each time unless the game is a flop) more than sales.