Wyrmlord
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2008
- Messages
- 28,886
They would cost $70 or even $80 in the early days - that's for any possible software, not just videogames.
They were specialty products, made for niche people easily willing to pay more for them, and they were the only market in whom developers used to be interested.
And they all offered their own special variety of a game, and could afford to charge more, since they did not have to compete with people making the same sort of game, like they do now.
Since it was all a wide variety, each offered only for specific individuals interested in that small variety, they could spend their budgets making it only according to what those specific individuals wanted, and would get all their money back from those specific individuals. Although it was expensive enough to keep other buying groups out, it's not like they would have been interested in their product anyway.
Those small niche-oriented buyers of games themselves took greater efforts in finding the games they wanted to find, and the makers of games did not have to make much effort on their own end to advertise their product; and they would be shipping it out to demanding consumers by mail order anyway.
The time on marketing was obviously saved, and that meant they could easily spend more time on decorating and dressing up their product as much as possible, so the game would come with cluebooks, a large colourful detailed manual, a nice catalogue of other games they would be glad to ship to you as well, some nice collectibles, in-game lorebooks, and even a little prologue to their documentation with the developers specifically writing to you about how much they enjoyed making their game for you, how they went about making their game, and how they feel about their project and the fact that people like you willingly buy what they worked so hard on.
Sometimes, you would beat the game, and make a tremendous accomplishment with it. You could draw out your final score and mail the developers proof of your beating the game, and they would personally take their time to prepare a certificate congratulating your amazing accomplishment in your party's long journey in negotiating through the hard bossfights and puzzles they put through your way. It would be written in an elegant font, with your name beautifully pressed on to it, your high score labelled, your rank as a person who beat the game (Master, Grandmaster,.etc), and their personal signature and the team's stamp of approval of your brilliant accomplishment.
They were specialty products, made for niche people easily willing to pay more for them, and they were the only market in whom developers used to be interested.
And they all offered their own special variety of a game, and could afford to charge more, since they did not have to compete with people making the same sort of game, like they do now.
Since it was all a wide variety, each offered only for specific individuals interested in that small variety, they could spend their budgets making it only according to what those specific individuals wanted, and would get all their money back from those specific individuals. Although it was expensive enough to keep other buying groups out, it's not like they would have been interested in their product anyway.
Those small niche-oriented buyers of games themselves took greater efforts in finding the games they wanted to find, and the makers of games did not have to make much effort on their own end to advertise their product; and they would be shipping it out to demanding consumers by mail order anyway.
The time on marketing was obviously saved, and that meant they could easily spend more time on decorating and dressing up their product as much as possible, so the game would come with cluebooks, a large colourful detailed manual, a nice catalogue of other games they would be glad to ship to you as well, some nice collectibles, in-game lorebooks, and even a little prologue to their documentation with the developers specifically writing to you about how much they enjoyed making their game for you, how they went about making their game, and how they feel about their project and the fact that people like you willingly buy what they worked so hard on.
Sometimes, you would beat the game, and make a tremendous accomplishment with it. You could draw out your final score and mail the developers proof of your beating the game, and they would personally take their time to prepare a certificate congratulating your amazing accomplishment in your party's long journey in negotiating through the hard bossfights and puzzles they put through your way. It would be written in an elegant font, with your name beautifully pressed on to it, your high score labelled, your rank as a person who beat the game (Master, Grandmaster,.etc), and their personal signature and the team's stamp of approval of your brilliant accomplishment.