quote:
Originally posted by ekylo:
But parents on that level of thinking tend to be the exception rather than the rule since most parents, even very liberal minded ones, tend to be conservative when it comes to their children. And when you target an exception, you're back to a small market. As for P.T. Barnum, it wasn't so much that he had a target market, but that he knew how to market what he had and about human nature.
I am not sure they are as rare as people think, most of those people I know that are parents, or new parents think along the lines of the following "The best way to protect them, is to arm them with knowledge, the best way to arm them with knowledge is to expose them to these ideas at an early age." Maybe I just happen to know a majority of the minority but from those that I know I see a huge untapped and perfectly legal market since the law only states, in my reading of it, it is illegal for people under a certain age to purchase, not play but purchase these games.
Barnum though knew how to market to the masses and he knew how to target the gullable, the best example is how he got people to leave, no one wanted to leave his wonderful show, so he painted a fancy sign that looked like another exhibit sign that read The Great Egress, and people filed out. If you know who to target and how to target them I am a firm believer any market with time can lead to profit.
quote:
Originally posted by ekylo:
Well, yes, most people forget about the age restriction, but that's also more specifically for stuff like bishoujo games with adult content. Having a legitimate market, with high availability and reasonable prices hasn't slowed piracy of mainstream games or music. There's a strong allure to getting something for nothing.
Music is not reasonably priced and the music industry is stupid enough to admit that in their attempt to stem piracy. If it were reasonably priced they would not offer each song for 1 cent downloads or under ten for the album. They are either admitting they can live with less money or that their songs and CD's are overpriced to begin with, meaning they reap what they sow when they see people trading for free instead of spending 20 plus dollars on a CD the music industry now will let you download for less then ten. Some might argue the same is with games, how else can a game from 2001 the day it is released be worth 40 dollars but two years later, despite the fact the same product times and production costs went into that game two years ago, now only be worth 25 dollars. Everyone pads so everyone makes a nice profit, therefore everything is higher priced then if everyone would be willing for a smaller profit. That is what leads to the piracy that you are referring too with the mainstream games and music, the padding to inflate the price while adding profit to many of those people that pass it down the line to the consumer. It is not cynical, it is based on many lectures by many professors who might themselves be cynical, but backed with enough research to take a life to sort through, on this being at least part of the reason prices are as high as they are in some cases.
Keep this in mind too, a basic idea about worth, an object is true worth, beyond break even on the production costs, lies in the amount of money, goods, services, etc, someone is willing to exchange to get that object.
[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 10-28-2003).]
