I wonder that too yes... I think some people like to be cheap-asses and want all the goodies without paying a penny more then the cheapest version of PoE... True, some people can't afford that much but then again they could save money to eventually buy this game and/or upgrade to the edition they actually want...

But 'thanks' to Sarah116 those people can get it too for free and Obsidian again in trouble. While, imho, Obsidian is one of the studios worth supporting! They put a lot of effort in this game. Yes, the price is high but I used to buy games for the Sega Mega Drive for 129 guilders, this game would cost around 180 guilders, true digital only, but has more stuff to offer. (And since I'm a backer I'm getting the CE box :-P)

There were couple of comments bellow the torrent like this one "I feel bad about pirating this, but I won't get paid until next week and I really want to play it now. I will definitely pay when I can afford it, and encourage all who can to to the same." I'd like to believe that lot of people who pirated it, did it because they wanted to try if their rigs could run it, or to see if it's any good and will eventually buy. I mean why don't devs do demos anymore? It would be especially easy to implement it on steam, since they run the weekend trials anyway.

Indeed, it seems connected to that time factor again. Investor want quick cash and customers want stuff quickly. Still, my question pinpointed a very specific kind of group: you have to care about the extras since why not just buy the cheapest otherwise, be bothered there's a edition you want but can't afford and be bothered, apparently, that the price is "outrageous". My wonder was largely about that "outrageous" price part.

I mean it's like you see people want to have Ferraris or other expensive cars but you don't really hear them say "they shouldn't be allowed to charge that much for a car" yet this entitlement that an affordable price for everyone is brought out in people in the gaming scene and I don't like it. Simple as that. However I started to thread to see if there was anything more to it and judging from the quick posts there's another testament that there's antire science (and art) to price setting.

Surely every industry has an optimal size. Some years ago there was an explosion of Indie titles but this growth surely cannot go on forever or people would have to spend more and more and more. The natural way is the competition regulates itself in a closed loop way. Unfortunately this means that some must not make enough profit to stay afloat. I do not wish it to anyone, but this is also part of the normal business. Failure is part of the game.

As a customer I do not have much overview about the current state. I do not know if the prices I need to pay are too generous or not enough to let the producers make a living. And if in doubt I may be inclined to rather not spent too much and wait what happens.

I can see that the big players (who publish quarterly information like GOG, Paradox, ...) still are profitable.

Maybe the number of games made is related to the well being of the industry. Judging by this the situation is not that bad, although I believe that for many Indies it already might be worse than for the big companies.

I'm rather pessimistic here and guess that the number of people who pirate a game and pay full price on it one week later is extremely small.

If this guy is really tight on money, probably he/she will not find the spare money next week too and also it needs quite a lot of morale to buy something that you already have and it shows not very much morale if you pirate something and cannot wait one week. One week is not that long. There are other nice games out there which are cheaper and can easily occupy oneself for more than a week.

Most recent answer comes from a post of Disco Dodgeball dev about Reddit ads:
http://82apps.tumblr.com/post/104854700703/analysis-of-reddit-ads-for-disco-dodgeball-demo

TLDR: the text section you're looking for is "Conversion to sales". Number: 1%.......

Thank you for the information. With it we can come to a more realistic judgement. It looks like the man in the middle like GOG and Valve with their 30% cut "industry standard" are mostly those who still live very well.

I can only talk about myself. I stopped buying at full price around 2005 when I saw that the AAA titles lost value/price quickly after around half a year. At that time I realized the immense value of being patient.

The second thing were the 50-76% discount sales first by Valve, later also by GOG. At that time I realized the immense value of waiting even longer and only buying during sales.

I see the risk for all (customers and producers) in being too cheapskate, but without more information about the financial situation of the whole video game business I'm not going to throw money at everyone who looks like he/she could need it.

All in all I think that pricing and business cycles and consumer trust/behavior/buying patterns are still a complete mystery to everyone involved. Therefore I judge that we should not blame the customers alone for their behavior. It's the result of everything coming together.

In general customers always want to pay the lowest amount and producers need to make a living. Making both coming together is the big miracle although it is kind of self regulating. If the working conditions are dreadful nobody is going to do it until working conditions get better.

Cannot find the post you replied to, btw, but possibly on the same lines, the cost of financing for developer like Obsidian who look for out of the box financing is very high.

KickStarter cuts about 15% (+?) for the pleasure of their platform, and Amazon (or paypal) a couple of percentage points for the cash transaction.

Add to that cost of fulfilment, such as producing and shipping physical rewards etc. And front-loaded revenue recognition.

In view that crowd-funding is essentially pre-paid, i.e. risk free and without the time discount factor, I find financial instruments lagging behind, and the cost of financing disproportionate.

Of course we fans of, say, Infinity Engine style RPG find the "option" of bringing forth a well made game most valuable. Thence on average 77 USD KickStarter pledge.

The value of "option" I understand - my scores on corporate finance be joyously revised ;-) - but still I think that something could be done about cost of financing.

No catering, no new PCs for everyone, no big luxury office building floor, not more than minimum wage etc... and being open about every dollar paid for crowd funded stuff. The lack of openness is just a no-go in crowdfunding imho.

I believe the Romero-Syndrome is going strong in some companys.

It's also a very American way of doing business: you rely on a lot of networking and apparent "prestige" to get more fundings and opportunities. That's why a lot of businesses go to San Francisco or the Silicon Valley so they're closer to Apple/Google headquarters for deals and relations.

Seeing it from a pragmatic and consumer POV, it makes no differences if the game was made in a garage or in high-tech building but for the company, it changes a lot if you live somewhere lost in the Italian mountains or in the silicon valley (that applies also for the common salaryman)

Upping the thread as while we're crying for a mere 80€ sum, Star Citizen now sells a concept spaceship (meaning: not done) for 250$...... Capitalism Ho!
http://www.pcgamer.com/star-citizens-vanguard-concept-fighter-costs-a-cool-250/

I referred to risk free financing (US sovereign debt most would say, this is the paradigm, at least) - plus the risk premium; which is not 15% with guaranteed financing.

But also, troll syndrome might be "strong like" and going about, but rarely as charming as Sir Terry would have it. Pity that, eh...

I am actually not sorry: 77,000+ persons indicated with their personal pledge that they would love to see an Infinity Engine successor.

And so it was delivered, with too much choir boy-seriousness I think for one, but adequately enough and too reverently maybe...

..but... ...up whatever it is with u, Pebble - and hail Sir Terry.

Pillars of Eternity has been made real because Infinity fans dreamed it, and wanted it. No more, no less. But hopefully even better as it evolves.