… is confusing as hell.

There’s really nothing I can say about Markdown that hasn’t already been said better by others, so I’ll just leave this here.

I’ve been playing with some new tools on my Mac, and I thought I’d share what I’ve found.

Chris Pereira over at 1UP recently wrote a well-balanced, though-provoking article on Steam Sales, Indie Bundles, and the value of games. I would highly encourage anyone interested in the gaming industry to read the article. Go on. I’ll wait. Now here are my thoughts on the matter. Most games reach their target audience within 6 months. These are the dedicated fans, and the guaranteed sales. After you reach the six month mark, sales start to decline. This is when the Steam Sales and Indie bundles kick in. There may be small sales early on, but we’re looking at 20-33% off instead of the 75% or more, or even the name your own price. By the time we start to see the door-busting sales Chris is referring to, I think a developer/publisher/distributor has reached most of their target audience and are trying to reach out beyond to the folks who may not normally be interested, or for a smaller team, an audience who may not be aware of said game until they see it plastered on the front page of a sale. TL;DR, I think Steam and the Indie Bundles have reached a happy medium.NOTE: I make a lot of generalities here. There are exceptions to these rules, but they are just that. Exceptions.

There has been quite a bit of vitriol toward DLC lately, and I wanted to share my thoughts. So far, it seems the chosen reaction by most gamers has been to hold their breath until they pass out, and when they wake up they go out and buy the game they were so upset about. I would like to propose a new reaction. So the issue at hand seem to be “Day One DLC” which is DLC released the same day as the game it applies to, and “On disc DLC” which is DLC that is present on the same media as the game it applies to. Before we get into this, I’m going to coin a long overdue new phrase, and we are going to call this “Additional Content,” because not all DLC is DL’able and because that term fits into this piece better.The first step to a rational reaction to the issue is to wrap our head around what it is that bothers us. Are we upset that the Day One content was originally part of the game and was taken out to nickel and dime the customer or are we upset the content took away from development time from the rest of the game? Are we upset that we can’t use this content on the disc we already paid for or are we upset about the value proposition of what we DID pay for?This is where the new term Additional Content comes into play. We need to separate the original game as it was purchased from the Additional Content that the developer/publisher would like to sell us. We will consider anything included on-disc and “unlocked” by means of additional purchase to be Additional Content. We also need to be familiar with the idea of the value proposition. What did you believe you were purchasing when you purchased the game and it’s value.When you purchased the original game, as an educated buyer, did you believe in the value proposition? Did you believe you were getting your $60 worth? If not, then DO NOT BUY IT. We hear it all the time, but how often do we speak with our wallets? The game industry is healthy and there are lots of alternatives to whatever game you are looking at.