What I was describing is covered by substitution and income effects, which are taught to every economics student, and are something that is believed by everyone who is rational and understands the concepts.  I've also seen this firsthand, as many of my friends are younger millenials.   Stardock also still has an image problem with this crowd, which doesn't help- for multiple reasons that aren't deserved.

Has nothing to do with my own personal beliefs.

You'd be surprised.  Also many of these folks are using their college laptop for games.    There's a reason why F2P games are so big.

 @tid242 It's a good thing communist countries have adopted more mixed capitalism otherwise they might have failed too. 

Sure, sure.  But ..

The personal computer market itself is shrinking (with the exception of high-end rigs, which is somewhere about 30% larger than it was ten years ago), with a lot of people skipping PCs altogether because they're an unnecessary expense in the era of iPhones and chromebooks.  (source if you're interested) Far from being a sign of nuevo riche and money to spare, smartphones have become a swiss-army-knife stand-in for all sorts of good/services that unbundled costed a lot more money (TV, computer, phone (obviously), maps, and the rest).  In fact, if you read any automotive blog or magazine you don't really have to read too much before you'll stumble upon an article talking about the 'problem' whereby millenials don't love cars.  If you start looking into the issue on a deeper level one will find that smartphones have replaced cars - at least in the cultural sense - even though at face value the notion seems ridiculous - but the numbers speak for themselves.  Phones are also much cheaper than PCs, if for no other reason than that you already have a phone because it's virtually impossible to function in society without one (unlike a car, or home internet - so long as you have a phone).  Cars get you repair bills and court fees - especially if you can't really afford one, computers get you a $50/month internet bill without any benefit not already had by having a smartphone..

The fact that it costs $20 for four people to eat fast food doesn't mean that four people have an extra $20 to spend.  The highest ratio of calories/dollars is found in fast food (and also junk foods at grocery stores).  Sure these aren't good calories, but you have to eat something (and you also can't eat games from steam).  There's a reason that poor neighborhoods are filled with fast-food restaurants - it's because this is the format that impoverished people can afford when it comes to calories.  It also doesn't require the infrastructure (having a functioning kitchen for instance) or the time to cook a meal.  Or the institutional knowledge of how to actually prepare food.  There's a ton of literature on the problem of people who are impoverished being more or less institutionally mandated to eating fake food.. (at least in the US this is the case, I'm not sure how this all actually works in civilized countries..).

There are numerous surveys that bear out the dire and precarious nature of American's household balance sheets here and here for example, which pretty much keeps saying that the /average/ person is really poorly situated, financially (and probably shouldn't be buying computer games at all, tbh).  Especially when one considers things like healthcare and college are increasingly so expensive that really, theoretically, there really shouldn't be any discretionary spending at all for a whole lot of people.  

While I totally agree that a $40 expense is something that people should be able to manage here and there, those people really don't extend particularly far down the socioeconomic ladder.  The whole industry is chasing the top 5% of households, because these are the ones with true disposable incomes - and it's crowded up there.  Extend down the foodchain and you hit people with crap computers, then no computers pretty fast.  (one of the open question I have about "high end PCs" is how much of this is an artifact of having so many totally crap PCs for sale that didn't exist in the 90's when every new PC ran things reasonably well?).  There was a recent article on Bloomberg about millennials increasingly foregoing employment (I'm having trouble finding the article) - but basically the gist of it was that the (post-college) labor market is so competitive (or such crap, depending on your perspective) that they're too busy taking AP courses and the like to get a summer job.  So even that top 5% with disposable income has a lot of people who aren't looking for deep immersive computer strategy games for /economic reasons/ - even though economically they're doing just fine (for now). 

I mean, what's the market like for deep, immersive /board/ games these days?  - I'd guess it's basically the same 100,000 people buying every single one of them on kickstarter.  It's the same 100,000 people buying the cool computer games.  It's really not a ton of people. Getting them to buy a $40 game is easy, same with the less well-heeled fans that already know they will like it (but may have to save up or work  it into their budgets), but the marginal buyer who used buy it on a whim is increasingly scarce, and you have to try to outmaneuver everyone else in this marketplace (the AAA's with millions in advertising budgets, the consoles with their dedicated playerbase, the free games (League), etc) . 

I'm really not sure what the answer is.  I /wish/ more people could and would buy the types of games that I like, but it's definitely been a market in decline (apart from the recent crowdfunding and steam Renaissance, but it remains to be seen if this is a blip of pent up demand or an actual thing going forward (and I'm not even talking about SD games, my favorite games growing up were RPGs, so I was super stoked about Pillars and Torment, no one had made one of these in  10+ years)).  Every market is pretty much having this problem right now.  Movies all tend to lose money (I really don't understand /how/ but somehow they manage to), retail stores are all continually flirting with bankrupcy (and they're increasingly in empty malls), etc.  Even successful outfits are one flop-release away from oblivion (for example, what happens to Sony if the PS5 is a total flop for some reason, or HBO can't find the next 'game of thrones' when the series wraps up?)..

Sure it seems like i9's and high end desktops are a bright spot - until you realize that the "market" for these are actually the high-end servers that the i9 customers order up at work with the corporate budget because they like their home PCs..

I really, really /want/ to agree with your sentiment - but it's just not what I see when I look out the window at the people walking by..

If you actually read what I wrote, nowhere did I say that Socialism or Communism was a terrific idea that worked.  What I did say was that Marx's critique of capitalism had a lot of merit, and the ideologies that we are currently married to (neoliberalism) does not have any useful answers to the mess we've made for ourselves.

I do not buy Starbuck's coffee.  I cannot afford a house because I occasionally spend $4 on DLC.

and I do not understand why "socialism" is a bad word, nor how it really applies to the OP.

thinking about it further...

if any of you use Leaders for the double-all-planet bonus, which can be swapped at will, you are using socialism

placing citizens on planets is localizing the resources, hopefully for a big gain, but pulling out is difficult.  That is capitalism.

The OP was about polish vs price vs gameplay. Regarding Stardock's lineup of games. Don't some of these verbose replies belong in the World Economic forum? I think there's a thread called Video Gaming for the Uber Intelligent.

Well I would like to ask everybody what were you doing for easter frogboy was debugging text files. I would say features then polish I would prefer, but I have never paid more than a hundred dollars for software. Most of the time I get bargain ben 10$. 

Carl Marx have had good points on economics until you realise before the invention of stocks it required rich powerful people to make jobs and stuff. Do you think it was a bunch of serfs in the middle ages who rebelled against the well armed lord to create cities, or does it make more sense that it was a rich businessman who decided that the man who had the god given right to do whatever he wanted needed to be replaced. A bunch of peasants with no weapons did not take out the lord. It was armed peasant militias.

I read the communist manifesto it lined up with joseph stalin to the teath. Whoever thought the world could function where all businesses could be owned by the average joe invented stocks, but that sounds to much like capitalism. 

Ok you are all gamer's who also know how to program does that mean when the company got reorganized in 2010 everyone got fired. It is easier to think that most of you are just joe programmers. I'm not going to argue that making games on steam is timing. I can't say that it is sad that more people buy software for there computers more than games. I did read a call to make a tablet version of galactic civilizations. I am positive it wouldn't be that hard to modify the original galactic civilizations for the tablet. I'm pretty sure that galactic civilizations 1 will work for the tablet. I'm hoping that galactic civilizations 2 will work for the tablet.

I agree with the gist of Oliver's article, and I think, frogboy, if you as a game designer think that 1) Polish; 2) low price and 3) Sophisticated gameplay were the 3 "components", then, with all due respect, I think that is somewhat beside the main points. To illustrate my point - and catering to the fact that Oliver is speaking a lot about 4X SPACE games (since there have been so many in the last 5 years) - I point to an old game by New World Computing called Spaceward Ho! The game has been the opposite of sophisticated, but on the strategy level it has everything it needs to be played regularly (not the least of it a mean AI).

You do not HAVE to be always bigger, more sophisticated, more systems, more screws to turn and so on - on the contrary. AoW3 is such a good game BECAUSE, it's quite limited. The game is based on a few ideas and a very consequent design, so consequent, in fact, that I find myself more often than not thinking about MODDING something into it (which also works to perfection).

I DO think, that the original ES 5 can be compared. It's a design based on a couple of ideas that were consequently put into a game, and it was a cool game. Endless Legend has been fine as well, although it's been a different process, with a much more "sophisticated" design and DLCs and whatnot, and I fear that ES 2 will follow the same trail.

I think, what Oliver says, that we need to go back to SMALLER designs. What I would like, for example, is a remake of Emperor of the Fading Suns, a very interesting game design with extremely complex ramifications (the developers couldn't solve).

What I think we need is LESS, but BETTER games, that can cost more, because, let's face it, if the game is sufficiently complex, and most 4X are, you'll play it a lot of hours and over months, if not years, if the game is good, that is, and once you ARE part of a gamer community, develop mods and so on, it's hard to abandon a game for another one - if that other game isn't either something completely different or the same, but better in basically every respect.

Practically spoken, I think "different" works better than "better in every respect".

I agree with every word. You expressed what I was trying to say before much better. We need better designs of the limited number of basic functions, which together produce coherent gameplay. Not big amount of loosely connected functions, which feel quite separate from each other. 

Yep.

I mean, if you look at Spaceward Ho!, there are only 2 resources, Metal and Money. You need Metal to build ships, and the Total Metal in the Universe is limited (if a planet is empty of it - that's it, except when there is a battle at a planet, then part of the metal of the destroyed ships falls down and can be mined again (mining is one thing you need money for). Money on the other hand, is EARNED by population and SPENT on a) Research (all 6 research fields are for ships ONLY and measured simply in levels) b) Mining; c) Terraforming d) ship-building (including colony ships). You need to colonize a planet to mine metal, which needs you to build a ship AND to maintain the colony, because a colony costs money, until it contains a certain number of pop, at which time it starts to MAKE money. Most planets have to be terraformed in order to get a pop growth and to make them profitable.

Planets have integral defense.

That's it. It works. Because each decision you make is important. We need to go back again to what is making these games interesting at the CORE.

Agree with Auramagma - I'd rather a game have three feature done well that you take time to master over a seven feature game where all the features are simple ie too much "If I do A then B, take option 7 then result 13 happens every time no matter my Food Production/Diplomatic status with whoever", not "I could pick choice A but because I picked 7 earlier which resulted in the Drengin did that then if I pick A and...War leads to Death leads to the Losing Screen! No, better pick C because of the war with the Drengin, big diplomacy hit from the Terran and food production will fall.." kind of thinking.

This is where the implementation of Elections will be interesting and where your Ideology choices should really start to have long-term if not permanent consequences. "Yes, I could expose my people on that Bug infested world to those Bugs for the extra Research, but I have an election in four turns. My people on other colonies might not be best pleased."

And then, of course, how Elections/Ideology/Morale mix. Cue le revolution!

Actually, even putting back Elections would be fine, just work on making the current features mesh as well as you can, then bring in Elections.

So... I guess I agree in theory.  And I do agree that CG3 suffered from the sort of 'disconnected systems' issue where all of the various systems didn't necessarily feel like they meshed super-well together.  But then conversely it's game 3 of a franchise so this also has to be balanced with the obvious criticism of "this was in GC2, but not in 3 what the hell guys!?".

For a brand new franchise (like Sorcerer King, or Fallen Enchantress, for example) I think that this is a lot easier in practice than it is as a sequel.  ...

Where is Spaceward Ho now?

It's been ported for iPad in 2012.

Annoying.

If you disagree with Alstein that is cool - but tell us why you think he is wrong instead of just calling him a commie liar. 

In a box somewhere in one of my cupboards

Sadly not playable on a current machine though...

Thanks for the detailed insights

I really appreciate the efforts in the new engine, it is the main reason why I don't like Stellaris. The problem is that the galciv gameplay is not primarly designed for gigantic and long games so many players who only play on smaller maps are not impressed by the performance of galciv 3 (The odd thing is that stellaris needs a new engine much more than galciv did).

Concerning DLCs, I know this is not the most popular opinion but I really like this new approach for modern games (especially the more niche games like Galciv, Paradox games,..). I really love playing a game for a long time and thanks to DLCs those games are supported much better and longer than in the past.

When people talk about having super polished smaller games (like Spaceworld Ho) they are, in effect, talking about mobile games.  There is no viable market for that on the PC.

What people want philosophically and what they actually spend money on are often two different things.

The point IMHO is not only about small games design, but coherent one with different systems interlinked on many levels and working together. Endless legend and endless space 2 and civilization 4 are not small games, but all are very well designed. And I think people are buying them.  

Even at a $5-10 price point?  Or otherwise at a pricepoint consistent with mobile gaming (I don't buy any mobile games)?

Although I think that Plague Evolved is way too expensive, it seems to sell at its 'almost PC' price point.  And Darkest Dungeon sells at that same price point and I would consider it, fundamentally, a mobile game (simple graphics, linear gameplay, not cpu intensive, intuitive format, conducive to touch-screen control, etc.), which isn't to say that it isn't a great game, it is.  Same with Battle Brothers.  I mean consider Battle Brothers - it's really strange to me that it's 50% more expensive than Sorcerer King when they are both games that are predicated pretty much on the exact same concept and BB looks like it a Kongregate game to play on an ipad (which isn't to say that it's not a great game, again, it is), and SK has much more of the 'polish' that I would expect from a $30-40 game.

I've never played Spaceworld Ho, but it sounds to me like it'd be a great game for $8 ... but not one I'd ever spend >100 hours playing.

I think somewhere in this conversation there should've been some delineation between a serious game and a fling.  The OP article was definitely talking about games he wanted to marry, not "oh that's a cool idea" games that you play for 14 hours then never really go back to or pick up again, can anyone think of a mobile game that isn't gimicky or a game with a really short playability lifetime?

I go back to Dungeons of the Slyn for semi-regular flings.  I even forked over a whopping $3 for the paid version on my computer.

Interesting article.

Why don't you try offering a subscription model for a game? Ie pay an initial cost ($40), then subscribe  $5/mon in exchange for regular new development and polishing etc.

That way you can scale up or down team size based on game popularity. For example if galciv has 20000 paying subscribers, at $5 per month, then you would have maybe 50k per month to spend on salaries to build galciv. This could then be scaled up or down as required.

Recurring revenue is amazing from a financial perspective as well

To be clear - I would happily pay a recurring fee if it meant the game regularly got new content balancing polish and features

Another option is to become like dota2 - try and build an artist driven model. Let us sell ship designs to each other and take a clip

Ok, fine... You should "Get a Job". If you can't afford a luxury item then make a budget. If you still can't afford a luxury item, get better training. If you still can't afford a luxury item, continue to work harder and improve. Trying to attribute "the public is so squeezed financially that $4 is a lot these days" to some flaw in capitalism is fundamentally dishonest and expecting some redistribution of wealth to solve your ills is also fundamentally flawed.