Would it be a neat idea to add a declining inventory balance? Buy.com does it, Neo-Geo.com does it, that way people will know whether or not to order something, or how soon their ordered product will arrive instead of the vague ‘Shipping usually within 48 hours’ or ‘Shipping may take 2-4 weeks’ or ‘Shipping may take 4-6 weeks’.
quote:
Originally posted by woodelf:
PP does that allready , but they say stock is limited when they have about 10 left of a
item. I tend not buy at places that say 'shipping in blah' because I don't have my money tied up for many months waiting around when it is not in stock.
They don't do it for their Bishoujo games or Bishoujo games from other companies though... And only when the inventory is very low will they list the number they have left. That's not declining inventory balance, you have to list it for all the stock you have in the store.
But honestly I don’t see a single reason why Peapri should or would list how many copies of games we have in stock unless we are running really low…that’s really the company’s internal business in my personal opinion.
For a external retailer like buy.com, yes maybe this system works. But I don’t think it will work for peapri, especially for games that peapri releases.
Neo-Geo.com is as small as retailer goes, but I profess my ignorance to the advantages or disadvantages of listing declining inventory balance.
What inventory balance means? You have a certain number of this game listed, and from this inventory balance the number of games ordered is subtracted from it. Does that answer your question?
I’m confused why inventory balance should even be an issue when it comes to a software product. If demand for a title is high enough, can’t the suppliers call their manufacturers and ask for another run? I realize there are printing costs and so forth, but after all, every CD sold brings in new revenue and it shouldn’t be that hard to ‘keep the presses running’ as long as there’s a market. It’s got to be cheaper to order pressing of old titles than to develop new ones. I was puzzled by G-Collections announcement that they had ‘sold out’ Kango Shicyauzo, for example. I guess I just don’t understand the economics involved.
Disclaimer: This is just my personal opinion and observation (and therefore doesn’t reflect the views of peapri), and I can be wrong.
Let’s say if I am made a game and sell via my own website and I show how many of them is left in stock, don’t you think I am in a way revealing my sales figures (well, partially)?
For a third-party retailer who will gets a few copies off peapri, then the declining inventory system works. But for peapri themselves who are the ones that actually made the release the product itself, I think it should work in a different manner.
Now, about GC and Kango:
I am not sure about how GC works in terms of how many cds they make in a press run, but cd pressing has to come in batches in the thousands, and I am not sure if the current bishoujo market is large enough to ‘keep the presses running’ if something gets sold out. Also, GC may be working under the Japanese mindset that I tend to see in Japanese game companies (this is just an observation and again I can be wrong): when it’s sold out it’s sold out and we have to move on - which may be one reason why GC announced that kango is sold out with no future print runs. Personally I don’t see it as a bad thing because I don’t think you want to stay in circles and keep re-pressing the same product especially when the game will get dated in time; you do need to move on with new products. And if there is enough demand then sure you can give it another press run, but as everybody here knows the current bishoujo market is still in the niche, and will I be able to get rid of my new press run of 1000 (arbitray number; but that’s the typical minimum quantity for cd pressing) cds if only few people requested it?
But again, I too myself am not sure about the sales figures to justify anything I wrote above, so if I am wrong in any way sorry about that. The logic I am using here is the one I use myself as a newbie doujin artist in Japan and other parts of Asia who is nowhere as popular as the experienced people in Japan and with very few fans. To show you an example, I printed 100 copies of my second doujinshi in early feb. I sold most of them in a month (which is of course a good thing) before I came back to Canada last week, and I currently have less than 10 copies left. My mom asked me why I don’t make a second print run, and my reasons were: the market for me here is too niche (do people still remember that “teenage boy orgasm material” statement last year and I was only able to sell one book in anime expo last year?) that it doesn’t justify making 100 copies. And plus, if I have the money to make another print run, shouldn’t I use that money on my next book instead? Anyhow, that’s my logic, and mind you that a doujin mindset may not be suitable for use as a company mindset which is why I said I can be wrong with anything I wrote above, and they are nothing more than my personal observations.
Here’s a suggestion for those of you who want to buy kango but it’s sold out. How about gathering up and make some kind of petition and submit it to GC? If the numbers do favor them, maybe GC will decide on an another print run.
Man, another long post…sorry ^^
[This message has been edited by Lamuness (edited 03-23-2003).]
Everytime you do a long post like that, I wonder if you’re feeling quite yourself Lamuness-san…
shrug I can see some of the disadvantages and advantages to a declining inventory balance, but none are so overwhelming to support going either way. It more or less depends on what marketing strategy a company decides to adopt for their products.
I have no way of knowing if this is true, but…
There’s always the possibility that they feel that piracy of the product is inevitable and that obtaining pirated copies grows easier as time-since-first-released increases, so newly-printed copies would be much harder to sell than the first run were.
Even without piracy, games in general supposedly make most of their sales right after release, when they’re the new-hot-thing.
I’m basing this off an article where the creators of some playstation game (Spiro?) were talking about the anti-piracy mechanisms they put in, where they knew they couldn’t prevent it from being pirated forever, but if they could make it difficult enough to keep it uncracked during the crucial two-month period in which most sales would be made, it would be worth it. After that point, the release of a crack wouldn’t impact profit that much.
(Of course, suspecting piracy would make future sales difficult becomes self-fulfilling, because if the game can’t be legally purchased, a lot of people will feel like it’s their RIGHT to pick up a pirate copy, since they CAN’T buy it.)
If I were them (which I’m not) I would make the game available as a download-only purchase after the physical copies sold out, since that negates the need for a print run. Of course, this also means you have to make a copy of the game without the CD-check, and that copy would, again, probably be easier to pirate… but if the alternative is selling no copies at all, wouldn’t selling SOME be better than selling NONE?
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some japanese sites that do sell downloadable versions of previously-released-on-CD games, but as I can’t read japanese and am having to trust babelfish, I could have misinterpreted.
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Originally posted by ekylo:
Everytime you do a long post like that, I wonder if you're feeling quite yourself Lamuness-san...
Nah, I feel perfectly fine...just that I am a thoughtful person that's all :P
Don't worry, no offense taken at all.
Thanks to Lamuness for answering my question on CD production. It sounds like game companies use a different model from other entertainment industries.
I know that book publishers can produce a photocopy edition for an out of print book in single quantities - for a hefty premium of course. Similarly, I’ve heard that single copies of audio CDs can be manually created for collectors as long as the masters are available.
When I hear reports about out of print H-games like True Love being sold on eBay for $165, I’m surprised that it isn’t profitable for the game manufacturers to offer a similar service. But I guess, as you say, the priorities are different.
quote:
Originally posted by perigee:
When I hear reports about out of print H-games like True Love being sold on eBay for $165, I'm surprised that it isn't profitable for the game manufacturers to offer a similar service. But I guess, as you say, the priorities are different.
Don't take eBay as a barometer for market demand, it's all about a lot of Impulse buying, and I've also noticed there seems to be a large number of people who are bidding on these games seem to do so because that way, their purchases don't leave records that people close to them can scrutinize carefully.