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DragonFire11 said:
I think major publishers make a mistake discounting their titles. I seldom purchase a new title because I know if I just wait a few months I'll get a steep reduction. I assume that the publishers are pressured into this due to the fight for shelf space at retail. But I guess that is the sacrifice for a deep market distribution. Anyway, I think quality titles deserve a fair and consistent price. For this reason, I appreciate how Shrapnel markets its products. I would, however, like to see them hold a yearly sale or something of the sort. This might convert fence sitters and grow the dom brand until we all say "Blizzard who?".
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I think you're mistaken here. While i still wonder about the incompetence that is displayed everywhere in the IT indsutry, (while working there i get to observe it first hand. I blame it on the older generation in higher management ranks who grew up with electric typewriters not computers) i'm sure that the economists at the big publishing companies know exactly what they're doing.
I'd say that in most mainstream games new graphics make up 50-80% of the selling point. Basically, crap like halo 2 or WoW sells because it's shiny and new not because it's so much better than the predecessor from last year. Ok, maybe those were bad examples since in bose cases they've ben massively overhyped too.
Anyway, mainstream games have to be shiny to sell, and on the mass market, games aren't shiny anymore if their graphics are a year old. Many posts in this thread show how important shinyness is for many gamers.
So, the way i interpret it, publishers of mainstream games don't have a choice but to reduce prices over time or they wouldn't sell the game anymore. Because you can always pick up the newest shiny clone of one of the five or so game types that are still produced en masse if you're willing to pay full price. No point in buying a virtually identical game with older graphics.
Niche games are different. Unlike Oblivion or Doom 3, games like Dominions or UFO: Aftershock (to name a semi-niche game not from Shrapnel) age very well, since shinyness isn't important in the first place, the value doesn't diminish with time.