The best news I have heard from the 'Business World'...

...for a long while:

http://businessnetwork.smh.com.au/artic ... /2896.html

That Amazon statistic suggests this is more than just wishful thinking.

Are we seeing the start of a 'content renaissance' ushered in by digital delivery?

Hopefully this means for RPG developers that there's good reason to not throw away those so-called 'niche' concepts just yet.....

 

Very interesting trend. I think the digital revolution is definitely changing the face of the consumer market. Let me quote something I've seen said on another board (http://www.fohguild.org/forums/showthre ... 600&page=3). It has to do with music and P2P, but probably applies to digital distribution in general:

"Many economists have theorized on this topic, but let's think about this from a laymen's common sense perspective. First, who's in charge here? The artist, the business man, or the consumer?

Let's first look at the proposition that the consumer is in charge. If we follow the rule that a market for music exists only because there is a demand for it, then how will music as a industry ever disappear? If people stop paying for music because they can get it for free, then the artist will, presumably, stop producing it because they can no longer make a living out of it. If people still *want* music, then, they would need to support the artist by paying/donating to him. If so, then logically we can imagine the creation of a contractual market wherein the artist continues to produce music as long as he is supported. That is, there must be *some* group of people who care enough about his music to support him, and the rest of the world will reap the benefits from that group's money. That doesn't seem fair at first glance, but really the power lies in both the consumer and the artist's hands: the artist may decide that the offer of money is not sufficient for his well-being, and so that he would rather take a job elsewhere. Or it maybe the case that NO consumer decides that his music is worth supporting, in which case he shouldn't really be in the industry anyways, right? In the end, if it's really true that society actually *wants* art (instead of simply buying it b/c corporations tell them, ie see below), then there is no reason why art would disappear because there is no longer a systematic method for selling it.

The reverse of that view is that current consumer society is *constructed* by the studios, not the other way around. We get crap like pop music/film because that's what the studios produce, thats what they promote, and people suck it up because hey, what's the alternative? What else are you gonna do with your money? If this is the case, then piracy will indeed damage the industry in that no one will support artists who produce common crap. But then where's the loss? And if we're really a sociey that prizes personal choice and freedom, do we really want the studios telling us what we *should* want, instead of what we actually want? Do we really want to waste our money in such a way to support a industry that's not really in demand?

Lastly, we may assume that it's really the artist who's in charge. Our taste in art exists insofar as there is an artist whose work we can identify with, and without having first perused the categories of art, there is no way for us to know exactly what we want. Under this view, however, the current industry stands as a barrier, and we can see that simply from looking at the gaming/film industry: a collection of publishers whose job it is to stifle creativity and try to play "safe" by producing sequels and "what people want." If you're a new artist, and you're trying to make a name for your new, innovative stuff, you simply CAN'T break into the industry if these men in charge don't think your work is going to succeed, even if it potentially can, because they're interested in the entrenched "tried and true" art instead of the potentially new art.

But if we abolish the in-between, if we allow music to be freely and digitally shared, then the entrenched artists and genres will not really have the same kind of stranglehold. Instead, the new artist will be able to break into the "industry" simply by releasing his stuff and seeing the public's reactions. And we can see examples of this already in the modern world where starter artists are giving away their music for free in hopes that people will spread them around, like them, and start buying them.

Now is that right? In all *three* circumstances, the current industry is in fact contrary to what we really want. Reality, of course, tends to be a combination of all three, and if you follow my argument, then it stands to reason that the current system is really inferior to P2P sharing, isn't it?"

 

I'd like to think the classic second-hand, hobby, special interest just plain quaint, independent bookshop will live while the Barnes and Noble dies off, as the B&N types are the ones with absolutely nothing more to offer than Amazon......

More than the 'old stuff' selling better aspect, I'm also excited by the sort of stuff Azarkon is talking about, the idea that public tastes are actually a lot better than what the charts might indicate - it's just that the charts reflect a concentration of distribution power.

When that is smashed, the true desire of most people for interesting, unique (which can be new) stuff can bubble out and eventually burst in a raging torrent, one that washes over the world bringing nearly-forgotten joy and love. People will look each other in the eyes again, will speak with imagination again, hope will return,

(ahem)

 

While this does apply to books and movies, however games are a little bit different, as DU already pointed out, I don't think many today will agree to play older games, alot of the UBAR X-Boxz0r and PS2 crowd, and those that take things at face value in PC gaming simply will not be able to enjoy those old gems, becouse of sound or graphics, "awkward" control or for some other reason.

I think DosBox will help you, it has tons of options and most of the old games work fine with it.

ScummVM - with help of this I recently played through Full Throttle without any problems, it works flawlessly

You are kidding, right? Unix and linux is known for it's dependency problems, try to update some module with dependencies, ugh ...

 

For me it skips any fight on motorcycles (including anything related to the Mine Road). But being the evil pirate that I am, I don't deserve any better, whether it be that or my inability to install Daggerfall, not that I'm especially bothered given that I'm still working on my illicit Planescape Torment game :twisted: .

 

Why does everyone keep banging on about OLD stuff? Are you all missing the most important point - that the trend of digital delivery consuming is away from BLOCKBUSTERS? In other words, people are not just buying old stuff, they are buying stuff that is unusual, different, 'niche'.

THIS is the good news.

 

ummm
not realy. while rpm(red hat package management) has dependencey hell, which i think your refering too. not all linux is like that.
i sujest you try
Ubuntu
Gentoo
or at least
Debain

 

Have you tried DosBox, it should work too.

Well not exactly old stuff, but in the gaming area - it's the old stuff that really stands out. And also people start to read older books, which almost always surpass the new ones, by using the suggestions on amazon (like the article pointed out). The same can be applied to movies, I just don't understand why Bollywood monkeys like to make so many useless remakes, which usually flop and generally are so horrible that it just doesn't do any justice to source material.

Well, times change, but I still would not call *nix systems a pinnacle of compatibility (don't get me wrong, I know these systems are really good at what they are supposed to be - servers, but this really isn't end user material).

 

While that is true most of the time, it just means that "the long tail" the article talks about is cut short for games. But the long tail still exists, just going back maybe 7 or 8 years, tops. For example: Baldur's Gate 2 ranks higher than KotOR 1 and KotOR 2 (on those pages, scroll down a little ways to see the "amazon sales rank" numbers). For that matter, the Fallout 1 & 2 bundle is also up there, although I expect the number to fall off now that Amazon ran out of copies.

Basically, the game industry has "catalog" hits that just keep on selling, and while new games debut at #1 or #2, after the first few months they drop like rocks. I think this is a pretty good indication that certain styles of games have a bigger market than expected, or that such games continue to have merit for customers.

You can also interpret it as a big f-you to the super-pretty, dull games that have glutted the market today. Or maybe it's a sign that gamers are rejecting the hype and returning to tried & true quality games. Or not.

-Tony

 

use the programs dos box dude

 

You can't use Windows games in DosBox. To slow those down, you'd have to get an emulator or MoSlo.

 

they do i have been using linux for the past year as my primary desktop and i have had no trouble that did not require the same stuff behind your eyes that rpg's should require.