Thursday, December 28, 2006

The strange economics of PC Games: why are so many junk?

Amazon.com: Cars Radiator Springs Adventures (Win/Mac)
sells for $18. My son wants it, but the reviews on both Amazon and the Apple website are unusually dismal. It appears to be genuine junk.

Now, I admit it's not that unusual in the 21st century to buy stuff that's pure junk. The cost of ownership of this worthless junk is mind-boggling -- but it's everywhere. PC/Mac children's games, however, seem even junkier. Console games don't seem to have the same problem.

Why does this strategy, which is basically fraud, work for PC/Mac games vendors but not for console vendors? My guess is it has something to do with the absence of copy protection, naive buyers, and the collapse of the PC/Mac games market. In this environment, maybe fraud is the only successful strategy ...

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