Not exactly, though I see your point. I think it would be more accurate if McDonald’s charged for ketchup, mustard, salt, drink cups, lids, straws etc.
The big difference with physical goods is that it’s much harder to steal a McDonald’s burger that it is to crack a single player, offline game.
Furthermore, once you ate your burger, if you want more, you have to buy another because it’s a consumables.
On the other hand games are prone to piracy, expecially on pc, you pay once but can play anytime while patched and updates require prolonged work after you purchase.
It isn’t strange that developers look at dlc, microtransanction or game as a service with subscription, because they allow a stable flow of income that can support development, and it’s harder to avoid paying when the game is always online and stuff like that.
Furthermore, once you ate your burger, if you want more, you have to buy another because it’s a consumables.
The same goes for single-player offline games, though. There’s only so much entertainment you can get out of one before you’ve seen everything, get bored, and look for another one.
you pay once but can play anytime while patched and updates require prolonged work after you purchase
If a studio fails to budget for that and make sure those costs are included in the price of the game, it frankly deserves to go bust.
Movies and books exist and they are one time purchases that you use once and stop interacting with. Why do games get special excuses for being extremely exploitative and shitty to their players? I don’t have to pay for a book chapter by chapter or pay extra for a character to appear, but authors and filmmakers still make TONS of money.
The game industry makes lots of excuses for it’s shitty behavior but none of them hold water.
Not exactly, though I see your point. I think it would be more accurate if McDonald’s charged for ketchup, mustard, salt, drink cups, lids, straws etc.
The big difference with physical goods is that it’s much harder to steal a McDonald’s burger that it is to crack a single player, offline game. Furthermore, once you ate your burger, if you want more, you have to buy another because it’s a consumables.
On the other hand games are prone to piracy, expecially on pc, you pay once but can play anytime while patched and updates require prolonged work after you purchase.
It isn’t strange that developers look at dlc, microtransanction or game as a service with subscription, because they allow a stable flow of income that can support development, and it’s harder to avoid paying when the game is always online and stuff like that.
The same goes for single-player offline games, though. There’s only so much entertainment you can get out of one before you’ve seen everything, get bored, and look for another one.
If a studio fails to budget for that and make sure those costs are included in the price of the game, it frankly deserves to go bust.
Movies and books exist and they are one time purchases that you use once and stop interacting with. Why do games get special excuses for being extremely exploitative and shitty to their players? I don’t have to pay for a book chapter by chapter or pay extra for a character to appear, but authors and filmmakers still make TONS of money.
The game industry makes lots of excuses for it’s shitty behavior but none of them hold water.
Fun fact: In literally every single analogy that has ever and will ever exist, you can add things to it to make it even more analogous.