cost of buying from matrix

[bink]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I think Sarge was suggesting that it was unlikely the original author of that book actually authorized the Chinese version you purchased or got any money from the sale, given the lack of IP respect in China overall. No way to prove that, of course but it's worth keeping in mind.

Erik,

What does the lack of IP respect in China have to do with legitimate production there?

Also, can you please address my earlier response to your post, querying your definitions of retail?

Thanks,

bink

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: Sarge

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

How is it a "chinese knockoff"? He "bought" a translation of a military book and the company printed it in China to save on cost...it's called business.

Seriously JD ,

Are you really agreeing that Perturabo’s ”Chinese knockoff ” is one our hobby and Matrix should follow ?...........................[8|]

No I'm not Sarge. But no-one here has any knowledge how the printers printed it in China...if it's been reprinted illegally, then your point is valid. But you nor I have any knowledge of how he came about the book and whether the printer/publisher was legitimate.

I'm not daft...I know what goes on in China and other regions of the world...that doesn't mean there are not legitimate businesses and it certainly doesn't mean that someone who bought a translated reprint of a book cheaper because it was printed in China broke any law...that's all I was saying.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I think Sarge was suggesting that it was unlikely the original author of that book actually authorized the Chinese version you purchased or got any money from the sale, given the lack of IP respect in China overall. No way to prove that, of course but it's worth keeping in mind.

What? A Chinese version?
It's not a Chinese version. I can't even talk Chinese. It's a Polish version from a main publisher of military history books in Poland.

It was printed in China. It's probably because for some weird reason costs of printing books in Poland are as high as costs of printing books in Western Europe despite that wages in Poland are 3-5 times lower than in Western Europe.

Sarge could as well call Digital Downloads an "internet knockoff" because one doesn't have to pay for postage and costs of producing a physical version[8|].

Anyway, adjusting prices to local market seems to be a normal practice in some parts of book market (i.e. certainly military books and not novels) and news magazine market. I have recently bought an Osprey book from Polish publisher and it costed 30PLN (10$) - English versions cost 72PLN which is definitely too much for me and the Polish version is the only way I can buy them (I'm not sure if they'll continue publishing them, though. They made a deal for Campaign series and are going to see if they'll sell - the problem is that they have not only chosen the series that will interest a narrow group of people and have a saturated market but also have chosen some of the most uncool campaigns possible.), now I have bought Tank Warfare for 49PLN (~16$), while the English version costs over 100PLN.
There are series of books about criminal divisions of SS - I'm planning to buy some of them - one book costs 39PLN (13$) while English version costs 93PLN.
All of them are from different publishers.

Similarly Polish edition of Newsweek costs 5PLN (less than 2$) while the US one costs 5$.

[bink]

Chinese Book Publishing Industry Facts:
 
Since some prior posts suggest that books printed in China do not reimburse the author, and are in some way not legitimate, here are some facts about the Chinese printing industry, from the Book Manufacturers' Institute (from 2005 data):
 
bmibook.org/html/ppt/John%20Maine%20Pres.ppt
 
 
Key Takeaways:
- Asia exported $1.3 billion of books to the US in 2005 - equal to 4.6% of book sales
- Over 500 million books per year now exported from China to the U.S.
- China is the dominant exporter of books to the U.S.
 
Here is a link to details about a U.S. title published in China that encountered some problems:
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/28/business/media-china-seizure-halts-delivery-of-us-book.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/K/Kirkpatrick,%20David%20D.
 
I have come across many books printed in China, and it is disingenuous to suggest that a Chinese book is, ipso facto, not genuine.
 
Note that the book Perturabo was referring to was a "translation", and products are often (except in Matrix's case) priced taking into account the income of the sales market.  So a product gets a premium price in the U.S. market, but is priced at a lower level in Mexico (for example).  In some cases, repricing a product for a different market means cost-cutting, for example, by production in a lower production cost center (such as printing a book in China!).
 
 
 

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: bink
What does the lack of IP respect in China have to do with legitimate production there?

I think my comment was pretty self-explanatory. I didn't see anything from the original poster that would indicate whether his copy was an authorized translation/reprint or not. I was clarifying what seemed to me to be Sarge's point.

The fact is that a lot of stuff that is made in China, often for local consumption, involves effective theft of foreign IP. At the same time, a LOT of very legitimate, legal stuff is made under license, etc. by Chinese companies for local and foreign markets. Just about everything I can buy in the store these days is made in China.

Also, can you please address my earlier response to your post, querying your definitions of retail?

I'll look for that.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: bink
Chinese Book Publishing Industry Facts:
<snip>
I have come across many books printed in China, and it is disingenuous to suggest that a Chinese book is, ipso facto, not genuine.

I wasn't suggesting that, though I think Sarge was. Is this an issue of personal/professional interest for you? I agree that you can't assume it's not genuine because it was printed in China.

Note that the book Perturabo was referring to was a "translation", and products are often (except in Matrix's case) priced taking into account the income of the sales market.

Actually, we have priced for local markets in the past and had some bad luck with it. It's a lot easier to price for local markets when you're a large company with better economies of scale and products that sell at mainstream levels rather than niche market levels. The cost of localization and local pricing for a niche company often combines to simply make no sense when it comes to the bottom line, especially if local partners don't respect local market limitations and with international re-sale sites like Amazon and E-Bay that's becoming increasingly hard to enforce.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: bink
I think we have different definitions - I consider a high volume physical store as retail, but it sounds like yours is more exclusionary. What do you consider retail? How do you differentiate that from a dealer?

Nationwide stores that primarily focus on computers and software (such as Gamestop, Best Buy, etc.) and a few very large retail outlets that are big into software (like Wal-Mart) are what we consider to be retail. If you're sending out a game to retail, these chains together will likely make up 90%+ of your total sales and getting into them with your game will pretty much determine the success or failure of any full "retail" release. When you look at those kinds of releases, you're often looking at thousands of copies (or tens of thousands for more mainstream titles).

Chain stores that are primarily local or regional or carry software as an extra item but don't focus on it, as well as smaller hobby stores, book stores and online web stores are in our definition of "dealer". That means we'll generally deal with them in small quantities and frequent shipments, including games that don't go to full "retail". That's what I think is happening with a store like J&R and HPS, and they would definitely be more of a "dealer" for us, someone we might deal with directly and restock periodically rather than doing one big release and letting it work its way through the retail channel. In total, they probably account for <10% of any "retail" release and we look at them more as normal resellers than really sending a game to "retail".

Regards,

- Erik

[bink]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: bink
Chinese Book Publishing Industry Facts:
<snip>
I have come across many books printed in China, and it is disingenuous to suggest that a Chinese book is, ipso facto, not genuine.

I wasn't suggesting that, though I think Sarge was. Is this an issue of personal/professional interest for you? I agree that you can't assume it's not genuine because it was printed in China.

Note that the book Perturabo was referring to was a "translation", and products are often (except in Matrix's case) priced taking into account the income of the sales market.

Actually, we have priced for local markets in the past and had some bad luck with it. It's a lot easier to price for local markets when you're a large company with better economies of scale and products that sell at mainstream levels rather than niche market levels. The cost of localization and local pricing for a niche company often combines to simply make no sense when it comes to the bottom line, especially if local partners don't respect local market limitations and with international re-sale sites like Amazon and E-Bay that's becoming increasingly hard to enforce.

Regards,

- Erik

Erik,

Regarding the first point, it is of no professional interest to me. I have no vested interests in this. I do have an unvested personal interest in the way that the Perturabo's observation of buying a book made in China was turned into an assertion that the author was not reimbursed.

Regarding the second point, whilst I acknowledge the difficulties you face at a retail distribution level with different pricing levels, I would have thought that your direct downloads would have obviated that problem? I have not looked at your direct download pricing for non-US regions, but am going on your comments.

Surely it is unreasonable to expect consumers in countries with low incomes to pay the same price for products that consumers in higher income countries do, particularly when the marginal production costs are trivial?

Take a look at this Wikipedia page showing purported IMF GDP per capita data (it looks reasonable, if not completely accurate):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... per_capita

Take a few numbers to compare (rounded up/down to nearest '000)

USA $47K
Russia $12K
China (PRC) $3K

If you compare the China to USA GDP numbers, pricing a USD 60 game at the same level in China would be analogous to a $900 price in the USA. This type of pricing would only encourage piracy.

There was a recent article in a games magazine (PC Gamer?) that looked at PC gaming in Russia, and how piracy was combated - partly by stiff judicial sentences for piracy, but also by direct retail distribution and reasonable local market pricing.

I don't think any company that tries to adopt US based pricing in low-GDP countries (such as China) can feign any surprise when its products are pirated because it has priced itself out of that market.

[SireChaos]

ORIGINAL: bink

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: bink
Chinese Book Publishing Industry Facts:
<snip>
I have come across many books printed in China, and it is disingenuous to suggest that a Chinese book is, ipso facto, not genuine.

I wasn't suggesting that, though I think Sarge was. Is this an issue of personal/professional interest for you? I agree that you can't assume it's not genuine because it was printed in China.

Note that the book Perturabo was referring to was a "translation", and products are often (except in Matrix's case) priced taking into account the income of the sales market.

Actually, we have priced for local markets in the past and had some bad luck with it. It's a lot easier to price for local markets when you're a large company with better economies of scale and products that sell at mainstream levels rather than niche market levels. The cost of localization and local pricing for a niche company often combines to simply make no sense when it comes to the bottom line, especially if local partners don't respect local market limitations and with international re-sale sites like Amazon and E-Bay that's becoming increasingly hard to enforce.

Regards,

- Erik

Erik,

Regarding the first point, it is of no professional interest to me. I have no vested interests in this. I do have an unvested personal interest in the way that the Perturabo's observation of buying a book made in China was turned into an assertion that the author was not reimbursed.

Regarding the second point, whilst I acknowledge the difficulties you face at a retail distribution level with different pricing levels, I would have thought that your direct downloads would have obviated that problem? I have not looked at your direct download pricing for non-US regions, but am going on your comments.

Surely it is unreasonable to expect consumers in countries with low incomes to pay the same price for products that consumers in higher income countries do, particularly when the marginal production costs are trivial?

Take a look at this Wikipedia page showing purported IMF GDP per capita data (it looks reasonable, if not completely accurate):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... per_capita

Take a few numbers to compare (rounded up/down to nearest '000)

USA $47K
Russia $12K
China (PRC) $3K

If you compare the China to USA GDP numbers, pricing a USD 60 game at the same level in China would be analogous to a $900 price in the USA. This type of pricing would only encourage piracy.

There was a recent article in a games magazine (PC Gamer?) that looked at PC gaming in Russia, and how piracy was combated - partly by stiff judicial sentences for piracy, but also by direct retail distribution and reasonable local market pricing.

I don't think any company that tries to adopt US based pricing in low-GDP countries (such as China) can feign any surprise when its products are pirated because it has priced itself out of that market.

And you, sir, cannot feign surprise if someone buys cheaper games priced for the Chinese market, re-imports them into the US, and undercuts Matrix Games there.

If people cannot afford the price of a computer game, then they cannot buy it - and if they cannot buy it, they cannot have it. It´s as simple as that. Having access to computer games is not a universal human right, and computer game publishers are not obligated to provide them to people when doing so would cost them money rather than earn them money.

[bink]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: bink
I think we have different definitions - I consider a high volume physical store as retail, but it sounds like yours is more exclusionary. What do you consider retail? How do you differentiate that from a dealer?

Nationwide stores that primarily focus on computers and software (such as Gamestop, Best Buy, etc.) and a few very large retail outlets that are big into software (like Wal-Mart) are what we consider to be retail. If you're sending out a game to retail, these chains together will likely make up 90%+ of your total sales and getting into them with your game will pretty much determine the success or failure of any full "retail" release. When you look at those kinds of releases, you're often looking at thousands of copies (or tens of thousands for more mainstream titles).

Chain stores that are primarily local or regional or carry software as an extra item but don't focus on it, as well as smaller hobby stores, book stores and online web stores are in our definition of "dealer". That means we'll generally deal with them in small quantities and frequent shipments, including games that don't go to full "retail". That's what I think is happening with a store like J&R and HPS, and they would definitely be more of a "dealer" for us, someone we might deal with directly and restock periodically rather than doing one big release and letting it work its way through the retail channel. In total, they probably account for <10% of any "retail" release and we look at them more as normal resellers than really sending a game to "retail".

Regards,

- Erik

Thanks for the clarification. I always associated with retail with the concept of going into a store and making a purchase.

In regard to an earlier thread about the difficulties of Matrix posting dealer information on it's website, why not post dealer/distributor information? There are other models for this, and it lets you list U.S. based dealers and other distributors. These distributors can then be contacted for sub-dealers. If you like, I can provide examples of other manufacturers who adopt this model. For example, if you have 2 distributors in Canada (I am making this up), list them, and the consumer who wants to find a dealer can then call the dealer or look up their website to find a list of sub-dealers.

A great example here:

http://www.haagendazs.com/reserve/

Pick a flavor, and Haagendazs will tell you who carries it!!

I think that it is a fairly costless way for you to make Matrix more consumer friendly and accessible.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: bink
Regarding the second point, whilst I acknowledge the difficulties you face at a retail distribution level with different pricing levels, I would have thought that your direct downloads would have obviated that problem? I have not looked at your direct download pricing for non-US regions, but am going on your comments.

The direct downloads are indeed our answer to the challenges of getting any kind of global distribution.

Surely it is unreasonable to expect consumers in countries with low incomes to pay the same price for products that consumers in higher income countries do, particularly when the marginal production costs are trivial?

Not really. We and our developers are located in first world developed countries with commensurate costs. The partners we deal with (Digital River) also require a first-world share for their services. The end result is an effective base cost per copy given niche market quantities that precludes the kind of pricing that would really be required to release into a place like Russia or China. Our experiment with Poland, for example, effectively turned into a net loss for us.

As far as using the digital downloads for this, even there we have a higher base cost per copy than you might assume, but the real problem comes in confirming the location of the consumer. There are ways to do this, but they are not foolproof at all and vastly different download pricing without a foolproof method of confirming customer location is an invitation for abuse.

If we were a mainstream game company, with those kind of economies of scale and much lower marginal costs, I think it would make a lot of sense to price for these markets. For a niche market company like ours, it doesn't really work.

I don't think any company that tries to adopt US based pricing in low-GDP countries (such as China) can feign any surprise when its products are pirated because it has priced itself out of that market.

I disagree. If anyone thinks piracy is justifiable they get no sympathy from me. We do all we can to make our products more affordable for our customers within the limitations of the costs to develop and publish these games. We try to get as many of the obstacles to purchase out of the way as possible, through digital downloads and very customer-friendly copy protection. That's about all we can do for now.

Regards,

- Erik

[bink]

ORIGINAL: SireChaos


And you, sir, cannot feign surprise if someone buys cheaper games priced for the Chinese market, re-imports them into the US, and undercuts Matrix Games there.

If people cannot afford the price of a computer game, then they cannot buy it - and if they cannot buy it, they cannot have it. It´s as simple as that. Having access to computer games is not a universal human right, and computer game publishers are not obligated to provide them to people when doing so would cost them money rather than earn them money.

But I did acknowledge that this can be a problem with retail distribution. My point was that it is surmountable with direct downloads.

From a business perspective, you can either write-off low-GDP markets to piracy, or try to make some revenue from them.

And no, it is not as simple as "if they cannot buy it, they cannot have it" - they can have it, but illegally.

How would selling a direct download (assuming bandwidth and electronic processing costs are trivial) cost a company money?

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: bink
I think that it is a fairly costless way for you to make Matrix more consumer friendly and accessible.

Thanks for that suggestion, I'll see what we can do.

[bink]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I don't think any company that tries to adopt US based pricing in low-GDP countries (such as China) can feign any surprise when its products are pirated because it has priced itself out of that market.

I disagree. If anyone thinks piracy is justifiable they get no sympathy from me. We do all we can to make our products more affordable for our customers within the limitations of the costs to develop and publish these games. We try to get as many of the obstacles to purchase out of the way as possible, through digital downloads and very customer-friendly copy protection. That's about all we can do for now.

Regards,

- Erik

So, are you saying that you would be surprised if your games are pirated in China?

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: bink
How would selling a direct download (assuming bandwidth and electronic processing costs are trivial) cost a company money?

Well, the problem is that those costs are not actually trivial in the end, though they are less than the costs of retail distribution. Some are set percentages or scaling costs (payment processing, bandwidth, customer support, etc.) some are more fixed costs (marketing, phone orders, setup) but in the end if you aren't selling a LOT of copies, the result is that you have a basic price per download that you can't go below if you want to actually make a profit at the end of the day.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: bink
So, are you saying that you would be surprised if your games are pirated in China?

I misread you there, no not surprised at all, but I would not consider it in any way justifiable and I am disappointed that it happens. There are many games released each month, both computer, board and miniatures games, that I simply can't afford. I would guess that I can probably afford to buy about 20% of what I would actually want to buy gaming-wise each month. Yet, I don't feel the need to pirate or otherwise steal those things that I can't afford and I think the vast majority of our customers feel the same way.

To expand on that, when I find a game I enjoy I actively look for opportunities to buy more stuff made by that developer/designer/publisher to give them more of my support. Now, if I could only afford to buy one game per year, it would just mean that I would research all the more carefully before I made my one purchase. I wouldn't go pirating the rest.

I do realize this happens however and that's just the way some folks are.

Regards,

- Erik

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: bink

Note that the book Perturabo was referring to was a "translation", and products are often (except in Matrix's case) priced taking into account the income of the sales market.

Actually, most of the digital industry (programs/music/movies) simply chose to ignore the income differences - which is pretty weird taking in account that unlike book industry they are practically not limited by the reproduction cost - which of course results in much lesser sales and much higher piracy than in the Western Europe.

Personally, I used to buy full priced new games and later new music CDs several years ago, but in a long run, it was overspending - it led to stupid situations where my mother was waiting for a payment a few times bigger than monthly income of an average family and we were hungry for a few days before it because we ran out of money XD .
It's something I'm not going to do again, even when I'll finish school and then finish the entry period in work and start earning a bit bigger money.
Mainly, because it's a financial suicide and great way to dig oneself in debts in case of health problems or loss of work. Building a basic financial security is much more important than foreign entertainment and upgrading a computer, which sadly, many young people in Poland don't understand.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Perturabo
Building a basic financial security is much more important than foreign entertainment and upgrading a computer, which sadly, many young people in Poland don't understand.

I agree with that completely, games are a luxury after all and can also be expensive when you consider some of the mainstream titles with limited gameplay time and limited replayability that also practically require top end computer hardware.

With that said, for those that have the money to spare, computer games are one of the best entertainment values in terms of bang for the buck.

[bink]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: bink
I think that it is a fairly costless way for you to make Matrix more consumer friendly and accessible.

Thanks for that suggestion, I'll see what we can do.

That would be great. Using Google (or other search engines) to find a dealer is not always easy, particularly when there are many search results.

Here are other examples (to give you ideas) of a manufacturers approach to providing dealer information:

http://nhthifi.com/current/store.html
http://www.audioengineusa.com/resellers.htm

In the meantime, who are your dealers in DC, Philadelphia, and New York? If I know who they are, I will definitely visit any that are within a reasonable distance! (I spend time in all 3 cities...)

[Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
&nbsp;

ORIGINAL: bink
Chinese Book Publishing Industry Facts:
<snip>
I have come across many books printed in China, and it is disingenuous to suggest that a Chinese book is, ipso facto, not genuine.

I wasn't suggesting that, though I think Sarge was. Is this an issue of personal/professional interest for you? I agree that you can't assume it's not genuine because it was printed in China.

&nbsp;
I was not suggesting anything, I simply responded to Perturabo comment below and his position of “Whatever” I want cheap or no support !
&nbsp;
China or bust…………………[:D]
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

ORIGINAL: Perturabo
Yeah, whatever. I'm still not buying unless I can buy for a more reasonable price.
Anyway, I bought myself a translation of a western military book - it was two times less expensive than the original book. They went as far as printing it in China to make the price more reasonable[:D].

This is the comment I responded to , personally I don’t think this comment can be described as constructive . Perturabo, Bink and JD obviously have a different definition of how to support our hobby
&nbsp;
Sry for the fireworks
&nbsp;
My bad