Elemental: War of Magic at $5... Give me 10!!!

*cough**cough*

Sorry.

I consider interesting prices those who are at 20€ or less. Those under 30€ can be considered and those above 30E only if they are truly special (at least aparently) or I have personal motives. We have here in Spain distributors like FX Interactive or Codegame who sell games quite cheap, no one over the 20€ mark. Which is great. And yet, people pirate them. Even those at 10€. But I want to suppose that at least they sell a lot more than the other too priced games. In any case, it's always nice to find games like Sacred (1 & 2), Heroes V and expansions, Runaway (1 & 2), The Settlers (different parts) and a lot more to such interesting prices that makes them a must buy for people like me. A pity some disk checks here and there but better than other alternatives.

very good interview. Mr. Wardell has a great sense of the gamer world by mentioning different places to store your games if 1 were to go under. IMO he looks at the situations from both (bussiness/customer) perspectives which is great. Its a shame that pirates are so selfish and force bussiness's to create DRm.  Im glad your down to earth and I purchased 2 copys of Demi-God 1 for me and 1 for my son. 

A commentary from Techdirt.com :

As for me, I've played DOTA a bit as Warcraft3 mod, but it doesn't appeal to me in the long run. So I'm not even going to pirate Demigod. My primary interest and a reason to hang around here is Elemental.

I hate those stupid fucking "pirates". They should be arrested. They claim they are all about freedom of information and such, yet they are stealing from someone who puts thier soul into something, trying to make a living. It goes against freedom and capititalism... piraters, are lazy, selfish, dumb, and absolutely immoral idiots, who deserve to be shot. Get a fucking job, and quit being the pieces of shit that you are.

I don't pirate or use pirate copies but there's the down side: I don't buy a game which can't offer a demo first, or else I wait until people on forums tell how it's great and already patched. At that time, the price could well have already dropped; not my objective, but the producer/retailer 's loss anyway.

Give us demos!

QFT.

I'm one of those 13 years old that actually saves money so I can buy my favorite game instead of instant gratification.

Pirates make all kinds of excuses for stealing someones elses work. Oh no its not stealing its only copying; I wouldnt have bought it anyway, etc.   This is BS, you would have bought it if it wasent free but you hadent bought every game that caught your eye. Just save money or get a job.

Just don't forget the other side too. No one is truly innocent in this game called capitalism.

"We did lose about 300 pre-orders because of that. At $40 bucks a pop, that's [$12,000]. "

I think most of that 300 pre-order canceled and bought it at Gamestop instead.  I don't know how much retailers/gamestop makes but lets say half $20.  You still get $20 if they purchase it gamestop.  So I think $6,000 lost to gamestop is more accurate.

thats still money stardock lost that was then put into gamestop's pocket.   It wasn't all 12,000 dollars, but it was some of it.   And that doesn't count the people who ran out and bought it because they didn't have a pre-order so it was just like "ill go get the game right now rather than wait until monday" (I know at least 1 person who did that)

Believe me I know. I'm not exactly fond of CEO's and higher echelons of capitalism either. In a there own way, they are also pirates of a sort. Except they target small businesses and individual creativity, which is in a way worse. As pirates normally target big corporations.

Pirates are not some mystical Robin Hood bastion of hope and freedom.

Granted, not all "pirates" are the same, some truly do just "pirate" to demo a game, and buy it later. But regardless, they should not be doing it.

Believe me, I am huge supporter of freedom of information and open source, but piraters do it for the wrong reasons, and contrary to what they say, they are nothing more than thieves. They are not giving back to the poor. They are not spreading creativity. They are hampering someone elses ability to survive and make money, whether it be a giant corporation (in which I don't really care if they suffer) or a common man selling his wares or playing his music as an entrepreneur.

If Elemental was indeed $5, I wouldn't just buy it, I woud preorder it, even risking that it won't run in wine. I would easily be able to sell it to somebody if I couldn't manage to run it on Linux.

There are multiple sides to piracy. I do pirate stuff, like music. I used to pirate games when I was a teenager. I pirated cuz I geniunely had no fucking money and no means of obtaining the materials otherwise (strict parents, no means of transportation, no job or ways to get money, and I'm not even kidding). I still remember when I was 16 and used to have to wait till my parents went to sleep and sneak on the pc at 12 am to play some old ass Sega games lol..

But now that I'm on my own and have a steady job and a steady paycheck, I pay for everything I have. I still pirate music simply cuz it's not worth it to me to pay for an album just to have one song that I like. And I fucking hate itunes.

I agree that the majority of pirates out there are just greedy bastards who are looking for ways to make or save a quick buck.. but don't forget the people out there who really doesn't have the money to afford these lavishes. And yes, it's easy to say to save.. but if you have to save $40 to buy a game.. it's pretty easy to see that the $40 doesn't come easy, and if you do have it, chances are you're gonna need it to pay for something more necessary.

So my stance is, piracy is wrong when the people pirating it can afford to pay for it but just doesn't want to, but for the ones that have no other ways.. be glad that they want and can enjoy your creation as well.. cuz that's what putting a game out there is for right? People's enjoyment?

b0rsuk,

But would a $5 Elemental sell enough to offset the expense of making it? Would at least 10x as many people purchase the game as they would a $50 version? And then there's the packaging cost for physical copies.

I don't know - I'd definitely prefer a pricing system that worked like that for what amounts to downloading data. It seems to strike me as a way to stimulate more interest in some games, but at the same time, it needs to be profitable.