[3:54 PM] radian2pi: ugh. Extra Credits's new video "Games Should Not Cost $60 Anymore" uses bad economic arguments and it anoys me. Considering doing a video responce to it.
[3:55 PM] Morrígan: You should do it
[3:56 PM] Morrígan: If you want too
[3:57 PM] Garrett: oh god is it another "dynamic pricing" argument? Jim Sterling demolished that idea in a Jimquistion episode(edited)
[4:02 PM] radian2pi: the argument is inflation happened, games should be $75, and thus we need to accept the existance of alternative payment methods, and "reward" the non-abusive methods.
[4:05 PM] Morrígan: How about we go to anarchism and not pay for anything and not be forced to work unless we want too :>
[4:16 PM] Garrett: oh, so a flat increase, not dynamic pricing. the problem with that is, the existence of all the different avenues of monetisation that each AAA game uses nowadays. They all have season passes, silver and gold editions, microtransactions etc. $60 flat price hasn't been the norm for a long time
[4:18 PM] radian2pi: So, they spent the first half explaining why an increase is needed, the second half explaining why they don't expect the flat price to go up, and so if we do not see an increase in the flat price, alt methods of payment are required.
[4:27 PM] Garrett: alt methods of payment that already exist and have existed for years....
[4:27 PM] radian2pi: they argued that dlc doesnt work unless its day one, and people got mad
[4:28 PM] radian2pi: then they argued that season passes arent working
[4:28 PM] radian2pi: and normal microtransactions stopped working, so now the thing to try is lootboxes, and after that fails its on to something else
[4:30 PM] Blaze "wertercatt" Marshall: God fuck off EC
[4:38 PM] Garrett: agreed
[4:38 PM] Garrett: the AAA publishers aren't doing these things for existential reasons they are doing it for greed
[4:39 PM] Garrett: they are making plenty of money, and the thing that is actually hurting them is their insanely huge marketing budgets
[4:40 PM] Garrett: EA said in a call with shareholders that if they take microtransactions out of games, they still make profit
[4:40 PM] Garrett: they are legally required to tell the truth to their shareholders, but not to everyone else
[4:40 PM] Conrad Toothbrush: ^
[4:40 PM] Conrad Toothbrush: Yep
[4:42 PM] radian2pi: My video is going to go like this:
1) show the buying power of most workers  has gone down (I know it has in the US for sure) despite increase in productivity
2) quickly say how this breaks one of the assumptions of modern economics (marginal utiltiy) and that we need to look elsewhere for explinations
3) show that with LTV, once videogames (and media) had digital distrobution, they stoped being commodities and are now things with a price but without value.
     This means normal market forces don't really apply and the price sat at 60 for AAA. Videogames have no economic value, as the best videogame, Dwarf Fortress,
     is and always  will be free, and development is and always has been through donations.
4)  Now that AAA publishers can't undercut the competion, they need to increase the spectical of the game, with 60 dollars a copy as a given. This lead to an unsustainable
      mindset of development and now all these alternative payment methods are needed in order to fund this constant increase in spectical and marketing.
5) something about the social reprocussions of this, and how the game industry does not clean up its own messes (gamer gate)
[4:43 PM] Garrett: sounds good
[4:44 PM] Garrett: I just a wrote a page-long tangent in my MCU video about the film industry scandal surrounding the film Life of Pi
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