Maybe used game sales are actually good for the industry?
What is it with publishers fascination with second-hand sales? Yes, for every used video game you buy on eBay, the publisher sees zero dollars and zero cents, but are they operating at such razor-thin margins that teens auctioning off their old PSP games is worth their attention? You don’t see Ford or GM or Toyota or Honda or anything complaining about used cars sales, do you? (Actually, do you? I know next to nothing about cars.) Electronic Arts’ “Project Ten Dollar” was concocted to battle against the scourge of second-hand video game sales, forcing gamers to pay upward of $10 for DLC that usually comes for free alongside the purchase of a new video game. Turns out, not only does it hurt consumers and retailers, but it hurts publishers in the long run!
Anyhow, the deal is that retailers that specialize in second-hand sales have explained that, the reason why so many people sell their old games is to fund the purchase of new video games. Little Timmy sells Madden NFL 09 for $10 so he can afford Madden NFL 10. Of course, publishers like EA are far too myopic to see this—all they see is the “lost” Madden NFL 09 sale (assuming the game is sold at some point) and not the enabled Madden NFL 10 sale.
It’s but a part of the same ethic that I complained about, quite shrilly, might I add, the other: exclusive DLC is a menace. Why do I have to buy the game from four different stores to get, say, all of the available weapons and armor in the game? To me, rather than being a “value add” (“bonus armor when you buy from us!”), it’s a removal of functionality. “Oh, so if I pre-order the game from Store A, I won’t get the weapons and armor from Stores B, C, and D? Well that stinks. Way to sell me an incomplete game.”
Not that I buy used video games much—I think I bought a used Castlevania for the GameBoy Advance like five years ago.
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Maybe used game sales are actually good for the industry?
The $9.99 Ebook Is Dead: Third Major Publisher Hachette Dumps on Amazon [Amazon]
Amazon's ebook pricing structure has crumbled. Hachette's the third major publisher to push for the agency model, following MacMillan and HarperCollins: They'll set the ebook prices (higher, natch) and the bookseller takes a cut. The $9.99 ebook? Poof.
It looks the pricing model reportedly first proposed by Apple to publishers—from $12.99 to $14.99 as a suggested price for harcover bestsellers, though the publisher will set whatever price they want—is the way things are indeed going to shape up, so Steve Jobs wasn't idly riffing when he said the price difference between Kindle and iBooks would go away. MacMillan CEO John Sargent has specifically mentioned those same pricepoints as their baseline, so you can expect every other publisher will hew to that.
With a majority of the major publishers now going to the agency model, it's logical that the final two, Penguin and Simon & Schuster, won't be far behind, especially since they're a part of Steve's team. (HarperCollins hasn't officially switched, but Rupert Murdoch said on their earnings call they're renegotiating to that, so I'm counting it.) Three out of five, we're calling it: Amazon's dream of a flat $9.99 for ebooks has flatlined.
Amazon's price advantage over iBooks, also evaporated. Even though Amazon won't take losses on ebooks anymore to sell them cheaply, it's a bad situation for them, because they lose that marketshare-building advantage. (That is, Amazon's happy to spend $50 subsidizing cheap books to hook you into Kindle for life. If, eventually, they're the only game in town, like iTunes was for music, then they'd have the power to push back against publishers anyway.)
Amazon has two months before the iPad launches. They better move fast. [Media Bistro via MediaMemo]
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The $9.99 Ebook Is Dead: Third Major Publisher Hachette Dumps on Amazon [Amazon]
GOG.com inks deal with Activision to sell DRM-free classic adventure games
Hot damn, you guys. Hot damn. Good Old Games — GOG.com — is now selling old Activision games for six bucks a pop. And you know what Activision owns? All the old Sierra games.
While the ink’s likely still drying on the legal paperwork, GOG.com is already offering up Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura alongside Sierra classic Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers with additional games to be rolled out “gradually in the coming weeks.”
Here’s more from GOG.com’s forum:
“In a landmark deal for the DRM-free digital distribution movement, Activision Publishing Inc. is bringing a wide range of classic games to GOG.com!
It’s now official, we’re bringing you the biggest announcement in GOG.com’s history – Activision with it’s wealth of PC gaming gems has joined our DRM-free family. With the announcement we’re revealing first two classics which should be instantly recognizable to any fan of good, old games: Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura and Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. Other games from the Activision catalogue will be unveiled gradually in the coming weeks, so expect more from this publisher during Month of Activision on GOG.com!”
That’s some nice work, there. Can’t wait to see which other games get offered up for sale. The DRM-free bit is icing on the cake, too.
Activision Games [GOG.com via Joystiq]
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GOG.com inks deal with Activision to sell DRM-free classic adventure games
The Price of Ebooks for the Apple Tablet: $12.99 or $14.99 [Rumor]
Book publishers' last-minute negotiations with Apple revealed by the WSJ: Apple is pushing for bestsellers to cost $12.99 or $14.99—and some books $9.99—with Apple taking a 30 percent cut, like iPhone apps. Publishers set the ultimate price, though.
Despite the higher price to customers, selling books through Apple could actually make less money per book for publishers than through Amazon, who sells a number of bestsellers for $10 by taking a loss (paying the publisher, say, $15). Amazon's latest scheme does look more like Apple's, where publishers want 70 percent of the revenue, but book prices are capped at $10. And it's the $10 pricepoint that's the problem for publishers, both philosophically and practically: They want people to believe books are worth more than $9.99, and they want to set the prices themselves.
On a smaller note, the WSJ says that HarperCollins is trying to wedge its way into the starting up lineup tomorrow (though don't expect to be blown away by what they show). McGraw-Hill, who was pretty gabby about the tablet earlier today, won't be showing anything. And, like we and others, notably Peter Kafka, have said, the WSJ says most publishers are in fact still in the dark about most of the tablet's details, from development to pricing to distribution.
Amazon vs. Apple. Should be a fun show to watch, though if it goes like music, we already know who's going to win. I wonder if the publishing industry should be quite so keen on that. [WSJ]
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The Price of Ebooks for the Apple Tablet: $12.99 or $14.99 [Rumor]
Amazon Announces 70 Percent Royalty Option For Kindle Digital Text Platform
Amazon is looking to further tighten its stranglehold on the eBook market with its latest announcement of a 70 percent royalty option for its Kindle Digital Text Platform. This would mean that authors would stand to get a significant amount of the profits, though there are some conditions. The books much be priced between $2.99 and $9.99, and the list price must be at least 20 percent below the price of the physical book list price. The title must also be available in all geographies the publisher has rights for, and this only covers books sold in the U.S. With this in place, you can be sure that authors would want to put a lot more emphasis on the Kindle platform, which is certainly going to be good news for Amazon and its Kindle. Press release.
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Review: Cory Doctorow’s Makers
Those of us immersed in the maker scene can't help but wonder how it will all play out. Will we, at some point, return to the bad ol' days of the last few decades when the word 'crafting' was associated with grandmas, 'making' with middle-aged shop teachers, and the closest thing to DIY was figuring out how to program your VCR? Throw out instead of fix, borrow money to buy cheaply-made consumer junk? It was a dark time.
Most would agree that we're not likely going back to that mindset, but the question remains: just where is the DIY movement headed? Cory Doctorow's latest book, Makers, takes those musings and plays them out decades into the future. In his story, the traditional economy has cratered, and who steps up? That's right, hardware hackers, DIYers, makers.
At the beginning of the story, corporate executive Landon Kettlewell holds a press conference plugging Kodacell, his quixotic merger of Kodak and Duracell. What possible reason could there be to combine two failed, bankrupt corporations? Kettlewell's dream is to create a maker company that specializes in monetizing DIYer projects with loans and know-how. Say two people in a garage need fifty grand to turn an idea into a business. Kodacell supplies the capital and a business manager, in exchange for a cut of the profits.
At first, Kettlewell's revolution -- dubbed New Work in the book -- seems destined for success and Kodacell even suffers the tribulations of an up-and-coming corporation: employee poaching, ripoff companies, that sort of thing. We're introduced to Kettlewell's star makers, Perry and Lester, eccentric tinkerers with a million ideas. Kettlewell convinces tech blogger Suzanne Church to travel to Florida to cover the duo and provides a business manager to monetize their ideas. The five of them form the bulk of the heroes in the book.
The New Work revolutionaries find themselves facing seemingly insuperable challenges like cowardly investors, trigger-happy cops, and the makers' own lack of business savvy. They gamble on new projects, some of which pay off, while others tank. In one important plot element, Doctorow explores how open source technology plays out in the business sector.
I loved the main characters, particularly Perry, Lester, and Suzanne. I didn't always agree with what they were doing or saying, and sometimes, I didn't even like them all that much, but in many ways, that made for more compelling heroes than mere stereotypes.
There were villains, of course, foils for the noble hackers and bloggers populating the story. For instance: Freddy, a vindictive blogger, and Sammy, the hard-hustling Disney exec. Ultimately, the central conflict seems to be an internal one amongst the nerds: being driven to monetize their ideas by greedy suits and struggling to keep their self esteem, sense of ethics, and dignity intact as their efforts pay off.
Will the magic leave the maker movement? Will we see it co-opted by suits? Time and time again, we see Perry and Lester battling to keep their ethos from being perverted -- they don't care if they ever get rich, they just want to keep on making. In that sense, Makers is as much a cautionary tale as a speculation on what the future will bring.
If you want an imaginative and enjoyable exploration of the future of making, Makers is definitely worth the read.
Makers by Cory Doctorow
Publisher: Tor Books
ISBN: 978-0765312792
Note: True to his pro-Community Commons beliefs, Doctorow has made Makers available for free download on his site.
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Review: Cory Doctorow's Makers
New York Times Releases BlackBerry App, USA Today Allies With Fark
Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines....
- The New York Times has steadily adapted to the journalistic shifts of the Digital Age, providing a model for how to survive in the face of dwindling subscription numbers. The news outlet's latest technological development is its free BlackBerry app (for select models), which aims to provide "a faster, more dynamic and more personalized experience." [From: Editor and Publisher]
- The nation's most generic newspaper is apparently teaming up with what is quite possibly the most random and arbitrary source of news on the Web. USA Today has reportedly drafted Fark.com to help sponsor its Geek page. [From: The New York Times]
- DVD sales took a major hit in 2008, a trend many insiders attribute to the rising popularity of live video streaming. The streaming phenomenon may also be adversely affecting the TV industry, as TiVo lost over 300,000 subscribers during just the last quarter. [From: TV By the Numbers]
- The next time you're home alone enjoying 'Gigli' on TiVo, comforted in the belief that you're safe from judgmental eyes, remember that Google may actually be monitoring you. The site is reportedly going to track TiVo "viewing data" to help determine what, if any, advertisements the service's subscribers are actually watching. [From: CNET]
- eBay is unrolling some mobile upgrades today, as well as an entirely new app known as 'Deals.' The site has already produced some staggering numbers with its previous mobile services. To that end, eBay claims that every month it attracts 750,000 unique mobile viewers, who, it believes, will spend more than $500 million on goods this year. [From: Tech Crunch]
New York Times Releases BlackBerry App, USA Today Allies With Fark originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.