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Comment by shados | Hacker News Reader

> IMO it's both counterproductive and futile to keep national markets separated.

And honestly, I think its a shame, because regional pricing makes a lot of sense.

Selling a AAA game at 2 bucks a pop in the US doesn't make sense. You have to get back the 10s of millions of dollars you spent somehow (if the game is good!).

But that locks out underprivileged markets, who can't afford 60 bucks games. They'll likely just pirate it then. Regional pricing is a nice solution to that. Unfortunately then people abuse it.

That's why we can't have nice things.

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Regional pricing usually means the product is encumbered with region-locking DRM... and honestly it makes sense but I hate region locking DRM.

"What the...? Why am I paying $60 for a game when I can buy the same game in Nigeria for $5!"

vs.

"Aw man, there's a cool Japan-only Fire Emblem game that I can't play because it only works on Japanese consoles..."

I'd rather feel ripped off, but have access to a game, than to not have access to the game at all. Of course, its easy to say that now and in reality it probably drives people to piracy. Its a difficult problem.

Wouldn't it make sense to region lock cheaper versions, while keeping the "fully priced" version for non-underprivileged markets unlocked? AFAIK that's how it is done, and it makes some sense. However, I admit, I thought through the scenario for a grand total of 5 minutes, so I probably have missed something.

The companies have no issue in using labor from "underprivileged" markets, so why shouldn't we customers be able to buy from wherever?

Good for the goose, good for the gander.

I get it that this is a joke, but more seriously I'd argue most labor is "region locked". Likely to within a few dozen miles of where you live.

It's actually fairly difficult to just buy labor from another region without doing the equivalent of "buying a regional console" (i.e. building a local office/factory, where people actually speak the right language).

A bit of a sidenote before I address your point directly: do you have a source confirming that all those companies that favor regional pricing for their games use labor from "underprivileged" markets?

As for why we shouldn't be able to, there are two good reasons:

1. If everything is priced at a regular price, no one in "underprivileged" markets will be able to afford those games, so cue piracy.

2. If everything is priced at the price point of "underprivileged" markets, it makes zero sense to produce those games, as it would mean that the company will surely go broke by doing so.

>do you have a source confirming that all those companies that favor regional pricing for their games use labor from "underprivileged" markets?

If not directly, they still benefit indirectly from any downward pressure put on wages.

> so cue piracy

Piracy is inevitable. No matter how low of a price you set for it, there will be countless people who'd rather have it for "free".

Say hello to my leetle VPN.

Instead of price discrimination based on location, do it by time.

Start at $69.99, in English only. Then add language localizations in order of decreasing mean disposable income for native speakers. Gradually drop the price by $5 per quarter, but also randomly put it on sale for 25% off for 36 hours at a time, to catch the folks who wishlisted the game and are watching the price.

Rich folks buy at $70 and play it right away. Poor folks wait 3.5 years and then get it for $5 .

That's Steam sales, modulo the localisations.

Other people speak English too.

Why would "poor folks" in other markets wait?

They don't have to, but it's probably because they don't have enough in their entertainment budget to buy at the higher price.

They could always pirate now, and then buy a catch-up license at a price they could better afford at a later time.

That is basically already the reality of Steam with the discounts, albeit it timed, in addition to regional pricing.

Why should people in underprivileged markets have to wait years before they can play the game?

Why should a development studio have to wait years before they can pay off the costs of production? The only people who have some inherent right to enjoy their product are the ones who created it. Samuel Clemens directed that the Autobiography of Mark Twain be published 100 years after his death, which was 2010. Why did we have to wait for that? Because of intellectual property laws.

Poorer people have to wait, because the developers have high rent and daily expenses, and price discrimination helps the supplier capture enough of the trade value of their good that they can pay those expenses.

A software program is unlikely to have repeat buyers. It's not like corn or toilet paper, where you use one up and buy another. So, if you hypothetically line up every potential buyer by the price they are willing to pay, you can capture the maximum value of trade by walking down the line and selling one copy to each person at their price. Once you sell one copy to everyone in line, you're done. But buyers keep their price secret, or lie about it, and paying your walking salesperson would eat up all that extra money. So instead, you put your price up on a big board, decrease it over time, and when it drops below a buyer's price, they just step up to the counter and purchase.

Paying more allows a customer to buy earlier. Waiting in line longer allows a customer to pay less. How is this unfair? And if it is unfair, how is that the supplier's fault, rather than being inherent in the copyright system?

Just make it localized in the region language only for that price. Ok, doesn't work with Nigeria, since they speak english. But it would work in Asia, and in a lot of other African and south American countries.

Now you are conflating geography with language.

On that note: why not just skip geography entirely? Just sell the localized versions worldwide, which each translation being priced according to what the users of the respective languages would on average be willing/able to pay.

Yes but it can be a useful business approximation depending of your target.

Well, that's just not true. It can be, but most stores I know just focus on limiting your pricing based on geographical location, while making it harder to spoof your address. DRM just isn't a factor here.

This isn't limited to digital goods.

Here in Norway we travel to Sweden and buy mainly meat, tobacco and alcohol, due to lower taxes.

In 2017 it was estimated[1] to be about 2.6 billion USD worth. This is in a country with some 5.5 million inhabitants, many of which do not participate in this due to distance to border.

Businesses and the government aren't too thrilled about this, for obvious reasons.

[1]: https://www.svenskhandel.se/nyhetscenter/pressmeddelanden/20...

That same game will be $30 in a year, $20 on sale shortly after that, and eventually you can probably find a sale for $10 while the game is still somewhat fresh. Why not schedule regional releases to coincide with the changing price floor in privileged markets?

Because you'll get a lot more sales in developing countries at $10 when the game has the latest tech, is freshly released, has load of buzz and is being heavily marketed, than you would 5 years later for the same price.

Plus in 5 years the company might not have the same sales and marketing teams, management or even owners.

I think your time table is questionable. Within a year, a $60 game will generally be $30, and $20 or less a year after that. I don't think you have to get total price parity for a regional release. Fewer people in the privileged markets are going to bother seeking out the game in another region to save $5 or $10 than they are to save $40 or $50.

I'm struggling imagining who can afford the equipment to run 'the latest tech' but will not be able to afford a game that uses it. I strongly suspect 'the latest tech' is important mostly to the privileged markets.

You might be right about the marketing. A hit game will probably be just as profitable later; maintaining or growing its own hype. The bigger problem I think is for games that are flops. Companies probably want to sell as many copies as possible before word gets out; and greatly staggering releases will result in a lot fewer copies being sold as you suggest.

Latest tech is far less important for games these days. I have a laptop that is 4 years old currently (admittedly it was pretty top end when I brought it) and it still runs latest games perfectly fine, and I'm still not really seeing any need to replace it. Last year's Farcry 5 ran at close to max settings.

Tech just doesn't make the gains it used to any more.

Back in the 90's a 4 year old machine would be lucky to even start a new released game, let alone run it at close to max settings.

Because anything that impacts availability will result in piracy.

If users can't or won't be able to afford it, they will pirate it. This cna be tempered with pricing strategies.

If it can't be purchased, people will pirate it (e.g. region locked games, even w/o localizations, or delayed releases by market) - pricing doesn't matter here - if users can't get it, they will just pirate it, sometimes especially because they know it's going to be released later, and that decision by the studio has made them feel second class.

If it's no longer available (abandonware, game developers that have gone out of business, etc) then people will pirate it. There are lots of platforms that are thriving on nostalgia right now because people want to pay for supported, working stuff. (For example, the resurgence of the Baldur's Gate and related games updates)

Take a look at any $streaming_service threads and you will see that anything that interferes with streaming service catalogs or pricing will yield shouts of "Arr" and people clearly stating they will pirate shows or use gray market streaming sites.

It's anecdotal but I suspect that most folks on this site are more comfortable with pirating movies or music, but often draw the line at video games because it is easier to relate to the development work done to make video games (even though modern blockbusters movies often have a lot of software development associated with them as well).

Because no one wants to wait, so they’ll just pirate it. This isn’t judgmental. It’s just fact. That’s how consumers behave. If you don’t make something instantly available, people will pirate. Pricing is a mechanism you have to affect that given that you can’t sell at the lower price everywhere and the higher price will lock out people in certain places.

Piracy ain't forever, though; eventually folks (myself included) might end up buying the game for various reasons (chief among them being the relative bugginess of pirated versions, incompatibility with mods, inability to use online features, or sometimes even just feeling guilty).

For single player games that works. Artwork gets out of date, but hardly a dealbreaker (perhaps in VR?). However multiplayer games might become less popular over the course of 2 or 3 years. To the point where they're less fun.

Revenue over time is basically a log graph. Some games are practically worthless a year after release (see: yearly AAA junk)

Indie markets work well with that model though. I've seen many indie games launch English-only and adding translations later on to sell to more users.

It does make sense but the implementation doesn't at all. There are plenty of people in underprivileged markets in the US who can't afford a $60 game. Plenty of people in Lagos who can comfortably afford that $60 game as well.

If I'm homeless in SF or NYC--despite being some of the wealthiest cities on this continent--maybe I should get that $2 regional pricing too rather than piracy (what me and plenty of others resorted to while living broke in uni).

If you want to sell your game to a wider market, don't go out of your way to make it harder for the wider market to access your product, just lower your price.

> If I'm homeless in SF or NYC

You'd be buying PC games as a homeless person?

The reason regional pricing makes sense is that costs for most things are lower in other regions, like rent and food, and therefore so are the salaries. That would mean a $60 game can cost as much as half a month's rent.

Homeless people can own PCs and cell phones, believe it or not. But homeless, broke, college student, single parent, paycheck to paycheck, medical bills, etc. lots of reasons why a $60 game can be completely out of reach for a lot of people in the U.S., so why can't we have subsidized low income pricing here as well, if the whole point of regional pricing is to get games into the hands of people who can't afford to spend $60 on the title?

If you want more low income customers, set the worldwide price of your product lower. Don't arbitrarily ban entire countries from buying your digital game.

There's plenty of middle ground between $60 and $2, and it ain't like a $60 game can't go on sale every once in awhile to attract people who would otherwise be unable to afford it. Most games also get cheaper as they age, giving more permanent opportunities for it to be affordable to a broader and broader base.

I wonder how services like Stadia will play into this moving forward.

Why not get a copy in Nigeria, have a server hosted there, and just play it streaming.

latency

Latency.

La cy ten

Also out of order packets and drops.

latency

Stadia will completely avoid the issue of key resellers since I would imagine they are completely removed from the system of keys issued from publishers. They also have only announced plans to launch in US and Europe currently and it may never make economical sense to have an African datacenter for Stadia.

latency?

  > You have to get back the 10s of millions of dollars you spent somehow (if the game has a big budget!).

FTFY. Or, FTFE. Numerous examples.

You read this wrong. I was specifically mentioning AAA games with large examples to make the point more obvious. I then mentioned "if the game is good" because if it isn't you shouldn't expect to get your investment back.

I did NOT mean that you spent 10s of millions of dollars to make any good games. That would be silly in a world of Hollow Knight, Cadence of Hyrule/Crypt of the Necrodancer, Dead Cells, Gungeon and more, where indie games are kings.

Creeping up to that 100M mark for AAA at this point.

I feel "if the game was big" would've been more fitting than "good". Reading it (can) imply any game that didn't spend money is bad.

I got downvoted already, and honestly could've let that comment be, it's not that big an issue, and I think we see it similarly.

Also, I'm posting this to clarify my stance and remove any doubt.

...the word came into mind: I was nitpicking. Yes, I should've let that be. Cheers!

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