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This only gave grief

3 (6.1%)

Grakelin is not stupid

6 (12.2%)

Are you happier now?

1 (2%)

------ Haiku, the encore -----

17 (34.7%)

Disagreeing, Fine

0 (0%)

Why you make a fuzz 'bout it?

3 (6.1%)

Lets just be happy

19 (38.8%)

Total Members Voted: 48

[JoshuaFH]

Alright, alot of information has gone up that I can't really comment on, but I have a question to Aqizzar: Earlier you mentioned something called "Razor-and-blade" selling or something or other. Can you explain what that is to me?

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Ah, buggerfall. Almost completely unplayable even with the patch, but I loved it so.

[Cthulhu]

Alright, alot of information has gone up that I can't really comment on, but I have a question to Aqizzar: Earlier you mentioned something called "Razor-and-blade" selling or something or other. Can you explain what that is to me?

Sell them a razor for cheap, milk them on the disposable blades they have to buy every few weeks.

[Aqizzar]

Alright, alot of information has gone up that I can't really comment on, but I have a question to Aqizzar: Earlier you mentioned something called "Razor-and-blade" selling or something or other. Can you explain what that is to me?

It's not perfectly applicable really, but I was referring to an old marketing concept, where you try to trick the consumer into coming back and buying something over and over, making money on what's really a minor part of the product.  The name comes from the original disposable-blade razor, where you got the actual razor frame cheap, but then got gouged on the blades for it, to make an easy pun.

I see the same kind of model running through the Downloadable Content system like wildfire, especially buyable content made available the same day as the gamebox itself.  $5 or less for extra Dragon Age quests, or car skins, song packs, or horse armor, or whatever, doesn't seem like much at any one time, but if you parse it out and get addicted to buying things you can wind up paying twice as much for what would have been one complete purchase not ten years ago.

It's basically the application of the Korean "a la carte" MMO subscription model.  Like eXteel or Guild Wars, you get the actual game for a flat fee, if not free, but you have to pay a little bit here and a little bit there for stuff that any rational person in days before high-bandwidth connections would have assumed an inherent part of the game you shouldn't have to buy separately at extra cost.  The pricing, availability, and in some cases perceived necessity of extra buying features (I'm looking at you Star Trek Online delux editions) is observably growing.  I'm increasingly wary of games that have the same relative amount of content as other games, but ship as essentially bare-bones shells and then charge you extra to own what's really the complete product you should have gotten up front for the original cost or at worst a bundled expansion pack, like it was in the good old 1990s.

Objectively, I don't begrudge anyone trying to make a buck, including video game producers.  They've just gotten considerably more brazen and shameless about trying to nickle-and-dime the customer for all you're worth, since the bandwidth and Internet infrastructure now exists to streamline the process.

[Cthulhu]

ZT online is the worst about that.  It's a Chinese game, and if you want to accomplish anything in the game, you're spending money from day 1.  It's all really cheap, but since there's so much people end up spending the equivalent of hundreds of dollars a year on it.

[tylor]

Hmm, actually, Daggerfall for me is very similar to DF. Huge, buggy and full of theoretically exciting, but half-implemented things.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Of course it's similar. Haven't you noticed?

DaggerFall.
Dwarf Fortress.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Here's something else about modern games that may or may not be a problem.  OnLive game streaming.  Now you can pay a monthly fee to play video games on someone else's computer over the internet.  I guess it's not that terribly different from GamFly or something, except that your save data is stored by them as well.  On the one hand it might bring back the industry to computer games, on the other hand it would be without the most important things that make computer games completely superior to consoles.

My instinct is to dislike it because it's just another form on control, but it could actually turn out to be harmless to those who don't use it.

[Sensei]

Wait... I thought the entire point of that was that servers are doing the processing, so you can play games your computer normally couldn't run?

[Draco18s]

Wait... I thought the entire point of that was that servers are doing the processing, so you can play games your computer normally couldn't run?

That's what they want you to think.  In reality you're playing games that you bought, but don't actually own, because they're running somewhere else.

All you did was pay money to have the privilege of playing the game, sorta like pay-per-view movies: you never actually own the film itself.

They are, however, 100% pirate proof*

*Assuming their system isn't compromised in such a way that it is possible to get free games and without paying the monthly fee.

[Huesoo]

Turning great single player games into MMOs. Point in case KOTOR. (Will it be for the Xbox360?)

[quinnr]

You could use that sweet, old fashioned Irony Mark.

Or a new-fangled SarcMark.

awesome. Made of awesome!
Wait, I can't find it on my keyboard.

[Dwarf]

You could use that sweet, old fashioned Irony Mark.

Or a new-fangled SarcMark.

awesome. Made of awesome!
Wait, I can't find it on my keyboard.

You need to buy the SarcMark.
You heard me right.
For money.

[Sensei]

You need to buy the SarcMark.
You heard me right.
For money.

Lulzy. I tried to think of a few things to say, but concluded that this is so stupid it is beyond words.

[JoshuaFH]

You need to buy the SarcMark.
You heard me right.
For money.

Lulzy. I tried to think of a few things to say, but concluded that this is so stupid it is beyond words.

I think this just means it's the perfect gift.