[geeks] Second Life is not a game?

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 11:22:27AM -0500, Doug McLaren wrote:
> $1500 / 12 months / 2 games per month = $62.5 per game.
 
> I realize that $60 is the new price for `hot' console games, and maybe
> you're including tax, but there's lots of games that cost less.  And
> then there's the bargain bin, used games (though you did say `new
> games', so maybe they're not included), etc.

That was for "high end" games. They often bought more of the cheap ones
too. I figured $62.50 as an average. Most games are around $50 each,
some or more. If you add in postage/shipping from an e-tailer or sales
tax from a store in the mall, it comes out around there. Where I lived
in the states there was a 7% sales tax, which would bring a $59.95 game
to that point.

 
> Isn't the PS2 still selling the most games of any console?  It's games
> are generally a lot less than $60.  I know the PS2 sold more units
> last Xmas than the Xbox360, PS3 or Wii.

I don't know. The PS2 is an old device bought by people who are not
on the leading edge of gaming. They drive the high end market for games,
high end PC's etc. How many people buy quad processor PC's with $500
graphics cards for anything else? Why is Microsoft Vista's most expensive
version the gaming one? 

The market is relatively small compared to the cheap PC's you get at the
supermarket, but the customers pay heavily and buy new machines often.

People who buy a $1500 PC are more likley to buy a new one in a year,
while $200 PC purchasers will use it until it dies. 


> (Are PC games still included in these figures?  They tend to be
> significantly cheaper, as they don't have to pay
> Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony/etc to write a game for their console.)

Not really. All of the "hot" games are for at least one console and they
at first try to keep the PC games at the same price.


> There's a very few games that cost more than $60 -- they're mostly
> collectors editions and such, or include special controllers like
> Guitar Hero.

Don't know, Games don't last long. They sell out quickly or end up
in the discount bin.


> Also, I believe that the US video game industry brought in $12 billion
> in 2006?  That's about $40/person in the US.  Even assuming that
> everybody is in a five person family, that's only $200/family.

Meaningless. Most people don't buy games. Many buy them from the discount
bin, which is not counted in the those numbers.


> Also, that $200/family figure includes the consoles and accessories --
> not just the games.

But how many people actually have consoles? The general guestimate is
that a hot handheld device will sell 10 million over the life of the unit,
and a console a lot less. Even if they sell 10 million units in the U.S.
that's 1 in 30. If they sell a million that's 1 in 300. 


> On a side note, the idea that video games are `bigger than Hollywood'
> is wrong too -- they're only looking at box office receipts, when in
> fact most money is made elsewhere.  But give it time -- video games
> will probably beat Hollywood `for real' soon enough.  I know you
> didn't make this claim -- I think it was Jon Gilbert who did.

No, but they make a lot more profit and often they gross more than
the movie does in the theaters.

Geoff. 
-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
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