Llamasoft does TxK for Sony Vita

[gilesgoat]

I would hate to think what manufacturing those little boxed cards would cost (to say nothing of consumer prices, and the risk involved in making too many). What is it with you people who like physical artifacts?

Physical artifacts can be sold when no longer required or lent to friends so they can test out the game. As has already been seen digital downloads are outrageously priced on the next generation consoles

Are you SURE they are OUTRAGEOUSLY priced ?

Yes, when a digital copy costs more than a physical copy from a retailer then the digital copy is outrageously priced. If you look at th Xbox 360 digital games, the price of the digital copy just didnt fall in line with the falling price of the physical version.

As for always being able to download a copy, thats a brave statement, many many times have we seen the digital copy servers vanishing and the person having no access. An example being the many Mp3 services that no longer exist.

Give me an example of two prices, remember retailers can sometime "play tricks" that are not necessarely even the intention of developers/etc.

About "brave statement" I could tell you well yes/maybe but here you are talking about Sony it that vanishes it's going to be a big flump.

However I see the point but the point is the COSTS ARE ENORMOUS, if people like you thinking this would go behind the scenes and try to make a game from start to end and see all the costs up front and such involved your jaw would drop and your skin would pale.

I know it's "normal" to think/say "but those games should make a load of money" .. but they haven't made it yet .. and they haven't paid back all the investment that went into it.

Yes I agree with you I too would like/want to have a physical media in my hand I could store in a safe and maybe play it 50 years later when the PsVita that was in a safe as well is still working.

Unfortunately for the moment in this case we can't afford a physical copy, the only thing I could maybe say "maybe if things would go so well".

It's truly all down to costs, time involved and yes pretty high risk as well.

Trust me if I say "you do a couple of things like those that don't go as they should" it's game over the next day .. and probably 10 years after the fact you could be still trying to pay debts out ..

[The ghost of raids past]

I am not worried about TxK being download only. I can see why its much easier to ship it that way. What I was complaining about is where physical media is available then the digital copy should never exceed the cost of the physical media in a shop.

Currently games digitally on Xbone and Ps4 seem to be priced above the physical price I could pay at say Amazon. Now you would argue that Amazon are operating a wafer thin margin and havent had to expose themselves to produce the game, but in the same way Amazon are paying the wholesale price as set by the game company. If the game company is prepeared to sell as one price to a retailer and then try and charge more to have an inferior digital product to the customer then things need to change.

Sell digitally to me the end user at the same price you sell to a retailer. Set that price to recover your costs after X sales, you will upset the retailer probably but if you go full digital then you dont have a second hand market to worry about.

What I do worry about is the major players going full digital and once the retailers are crushed out of existence using the now monopoly to increase prices.

[The ghost of raids past]

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news ... loads.html

So Ryse is 49.99 digitally, Sorry cant check the price other than via that article.

Now Amazon today sells me a physical copy for £42.97, so thats seven quid less for an actual copy that I can sell, burn ceremoniously, feed to a passing owl.

Amazon is probably making a profit on the sale, maybe only a few pence but a profit, that means the digital copy is royally screwing the customer.

Another one on the Xbox 360

GTA 5, a semi popular game

Amazon today £42.43 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grand-Theft-Aut ... ords=GTA+5

Xbox 360 digital today £54.99 -http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msu ... e_rot_gta5

Thats over 12 quid more.

Digital pricing is not defendable in its current state

[gravy]

I would hate to think what manufacturing those little boxed cards would cost (to say nothing of consumer prices, and the risk involved in making too many). What is it with you people who like physical artifacts?

Physical artifacts can be sold when no longer required or lent to friends so they can test out the game. As has already been seen digital downloads are outrageously priced on the next generation consoles

If they were really outrageously priced no one would buy the would they?

That doesn't seem to be the case.

[The ghost of raids past]

I would hate to think what manufacturing those little boxed cards would cost (to say nothing of consumer prices, and the risk involved in making too many). What is it with you people who like physical artifacts?

Physical artifacts can be sold when no longer required or lent to friends so they can test out the game. As has already been seen digital downloads are outrageously priced on the next generation consoles

If they were really outrageously priced no one would buy the would they?

That doesn't seem to be the case.

Well anyone paying 12 quid more for GTA 5 digitally must have more money than sense.

I would dearly love to see the sales figures of digital games when physical media is also available. I cannot see any sane person paying more for a digital copy. Now if the digital copy is on sale for less than the physical version the opposite applies, but outside of Steam sales and bundle sales I just havent observed it.

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

I would hate to think what manufacturing those little boxed cards would cost (to say nothing of consumer prices, and the risk involved in making too many). What is it with you people who like physical artifacts?

Physical artifacts can be sold when no longer required or lent to friends so they can test out the game. As has already been seen digital downloads are outrageously priced on the next generation consoles

If they were really outrageously priced no one would buy the would they?

That doesn't seem to be the case.

Well, that's not *strictly* true - I'll give you an alternate scenario:

When you go somewhere like Alton Towers or Thorpe Park and decide to eat there... The food is generally more expensive than it is out of the park, but for the convenience you get charged more - not unlike being able to download/play something there and then.

It *is* price gouging, but people begrudgingly tolerate it for the convenience.

[gravy]

People buy things for a variety of reasons and it's the market that decides whether a price is right not you.

Convenience and impulse purchases are a big factor. I get this every time a new, big game comes out on the 3DS. I decide I'll nip into town and buy the physical cart and then forget to do it. And I only have to cave to my own weakness once to end up giving Nintendo upwards of 30 quid for a load of ones and zeros.

Anyway, TxK is super cheap and however much you don't like the lack of price differential between retail and electronic purchases it's not really relevant to this thread.

I mean this is a game people are buying consoles to play, I don't think the 6 quid game price is something there should be a lot of concern about

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

Yeah, anyhoo... TxK, super-affordable and a lot of shooty-bangs for your beer-tokens.

[gilesgoat]

Amazon does not sell just video games .. they sell thousands of many other different products .. I think that "to attract more and more customers in and make them think that everything is more convenient on Amazon so let's go there as first place of choice" they can probably even afford to sell something at loss ( which is illegal except certain circumstances ) but who knows maybe they really decided "we are going to get 1p out of selling this game as that" and they don't really give a shit about the game but the fact they 'caught' you in.

Looking at just the prices without knowing all that goes behind it's a bit 'too easy' to make assumptions/speculations.

6 pounds is reasonably cheap, trust me

And also trust me it's NOT just "Jeff and me" doing a game, there are quite a bunch of people that worked with us as well to make TxK a reality on the Vita, I almost nearly lost count of all the people involved so far, there's really LOT that goes behind to "just" say "ah it's a Vita game" .. "just" .. actually all this experience made me look a bit with a different eye about all the stuff on Vita .. I mean it's ON THE VITA .. anything "for PS Vita" had quite a complex road to get there

And that "extra complexity" mostly is there to add Quality.

Trust me is well worth all those 6 pounds every single penny of it, you are getting quite a value for price.

[The ghost of raids past]

Lets stop this right now, I am not saying TxK isnt value for money. I answered a question posted in the thread asking why people were still wanting physical copies.

As soon as TxK is released on a non Sony controlled platform I will be buying it.

[gilesgoat]

Lets stop this right now, I am not saying TxK isnt value for money. I answered a question posted in the thread asking why people were still wanting physical copies.

As soon as TxK is released on a non Sony controlled platform I will be buying it.

No worries man, it's all cool

You never said that it's not worth in any of your posts, was just a digression on physical media.

And you DON'T HAVE to buy it if you don't want As I said MANY time, there WILL be a PC version as well, so don't despair

[Yak]

I don't think anyone's trying to sat TxK is expensive, only that for a lot of mainstream games the online prices seem pretty high, often higher than buying the physical versions. Same situation seems to happen with ebooks too.

[axel000]

That's it, and yep TxK is a ridiculous bargain and will probably be rebought by us on each platform it hits Just asked about the box in case Sony had some program of doing limited physical release of their download titles, kind of like how MS did for a few XBLA titles.

10 days to go

[Dave]

Sony's running a promo in the US, Mexico, Chile and Argentina, which includes TxK (out Feb 11th, 2014). Buy 2, 3, or all 4 games listed, and get $3, $6, or $10 in-store credit: http://www.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/us-vitaplay

Also, Plus members get 20% off TxK during launch week.

[Dio]

I don't think anyone's trying to sat TxK is expensive, only that for a lot of mainstream games the online prices seem pretty high, often higher than buying the physical versions. Same situation seems to happen with ebooks too.

Right. In my opinion, digital has a problem in that the laws of supply and demand aren't working properly.

Although the real experts at it (Steam) seem to get it about right.