
Call Of Duty Invades The Mac App Store at $50 - apress
http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/13/call-of-duty-mac-app-store/
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tvon
I'm not sure how telling a 3 year old game hitting the Mac App Store at near-
launch prices will be.

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ryandvm
Hmm. I had assumed that it was the latest Call of Duty: Black Ops juggernaut.
You're right - trying to sell Modern Warfare at this price is silly. This has
the fishy smell of an experiment designed to fail...

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brudgers
> _"Apple wasted little time in featuring it in a main store banner today._ "

I don't know which is worse. Apple featuring a 2+ year old game at the app
store, or TechCrunch writing an article about it.

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apress
Some apps are appearing in the mac app store at what look like bargain prices
(Aperture for $80, but due for an upgrade soon). But Call of Duty, which is
years old and available online for like $30, went up yesterday at $49.99.

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ugh
Why should Aperture be due for an update soon? It was only updated a year ago
and has had a much longer release cycle than that in the past.

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apress
Aperture 2.0 came out in Feb 2009. Aperture 3.0 came out in Feb 2010. But I am
basically speculating that Apple is following a very common software pricing
strategy of significant cuts ahead of a major update...

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ptomato
I think it'll be interesting to see what Apple does regarding upgrades.
Personally, my guess would be on them providing Aperture 4, next version of
iWork, &c, without needing a repurchase to whoever purchased it on the App
Store.

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oneplusone
The Mac App store really has no chance against Steam when it comes to games.
It is a better platform and not tied to a single operating system. Never-mind
their approval process not being so finicky.

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revorad
But who's got more advertising and marketing power? Apple deserves a lot of
credit for its high quality products, but people seem to forget they also sell
a lot because they sell hard.

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michaelbuckbee
Given the comparatively small number of games for the Mac pricing situations
like this have existed for some time (visit your local Mac Store to check out
the exciting line of 5+ year old games for sale at full price).

The other way to interpret this is that the $50 price isn't the "full price"
of the game so much as it is the same discounted price as elsewhere plus the
30% EA would otherwise lose to Apple.

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ptomato
As far as the second, I'd wager that Valve's cut on Steam is not significantly
<30%, even for publishers the size of Activision.

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uxp
I recall the split between publisher or developer and Valve on steam is
determined per game, but for many indie games it hovers around 40% to Valve.
For larger publishers and franchise games, this starts to drop considerably.

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alexophile
So if MW1 is available for Mac, why isn't it available on Steam? MW1 for
Windows is listed at $30, perhaps EA won't sell the Mac version at that price
and Steam doesn't want to endorse a precedent of multiple price points for
different platforms?

I try not to presume ill-will, but there does seem to be something amiss here.

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ottbot
The Call of Duty series is published by Activision, not EA.

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alexophile
woops - good call. A few years ago, I think I just started assuming everything
was published by EA by default.

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kayoone
I still dont get what drives people to pay more for a digital download than an
actual boxed version of the game. I also dont get why publishers dont try to
reach a bigger audience with lower prices instead, which should roughly equal
to the same amount of revenue.

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cryptoz
> I still dont get what drives people to pay more for a digital download than
> an actual boxed version of the game.

Convenience. People pay for convenience all the time. That's why Starbucks can
charge $2.50 for a medium coffee that you could make at home for $0.10. Or why
the corner store milk is $2 more than the grocery store milk.

Driving to a store takes up to an hour out of your day. You buy the game,
accumulating more garbage and shit that you don't need. Then you have to keep
it safe and not scratch the disc. Care must be taken.

A digital download is _incredibly_ more convenient. You don't have to leave
your home, it's faster, safer, easier, and even better, you don't have to take
care of more garbage or carefully handle optical discs.

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kayoone
You still pay more for less. Id argue that for a game you would want a good
buying experience, and original box and stuff like that. That why people pay
more fore Gold Editions etc. But paying more for just a download, i dont
know...

Its not that its something you badly need like something to drink, its on the
market for 3 years after all.

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ugh
I get access to the game immediately, that’s pretty sweet. I can absolutely
see paying more for a digital download than some box with a load of crap in
it. Who wants to still use CDs or DVDs?

From my perspective, I’m paying more for more.

This doesn’t really apply to this particular game which is shamelessly
overpriced and old but it applies to other games.

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bane
Ridiculous on its face, but probably just an effort to feel out the top-end of
the market (and ignore all the great market data Valve has been collecting
over the years).

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Prisen
_The game is also massive in size, at over 6 gigabytes, so it’s going to take
a while to download even on a fast connection._

That's pretty small these days.

