steam sucks.
But in order to keep a game in sale a pricing mechanism should be added too.

real gaming :
box apears at release date Y1M1W1 for 51.99 per copy, complete with
full user rights :
-Consumer right : return the game within 14 days after purchase (even if you played it for those entire 14 days)
-Owning right : lend out your copy, sell your copy or buy copy's from other customers, since the licence is full retail.
-Full control : Licence bound to holder of disk, and you could play all your disks at the same time (rather than steam only alowing you to play 1 of your games), no online registration needed, if you had the disk, and the install key printed on it, you were good to go.


What happened next depended on how well a game was recieved.
If the game was well recieved, it could get 1-3 expention packs depending on how well.
Expention packs delevired a lot more value for money than todays crappy DLC, they were substantion expanding of the game, hence the name.

If the game was bad recieved, it would drop in price after 3 months to 29.99, after 6 months to 19.99, after 9 to 9.99 and if not sold after a year to 3.99 (the discount bin price)
after that time it would be unaibalable to obtain.
(stock could run out before ending up in the bin, as shops bought a pile of supply and order new supply in batches, this lowering of price came out of their profits)
->
working as actual market control mechanism, bad stuff would have no medium anymore to distribute, unlike steam that allows scamming devs to keep fleecing people.

But suppose it was at least moderately good, in that case the base game would still drop in price (steam NEVER drops price, steam is way more expensive than those fysical gameshops were, give users much less rights, and is bad for the art of gaming and the local economy to boot!)

The moment that this price dropping starting to happen varied between those same 3 months upto 9 months for extremely well liked games (the games with longer top price would have more batches delivered to the stores and would often sell out. Once demand was close to be reached, shops dropped price to 39.99,(a point I guess they could still affort to purchase new copy's and break even (with more batches released, this also opened room for negociation and lowering price for follow up batches, bad recieved games never had that option)

than 3-6 months after that the first expantion pack would apear.
depending on the recieval of the game it would be a stand alone game (with base game included, essentially a gold edition, or a seperate one requiring ownership of the base game to instal and play.
-> this expantion pack would always release at 29.99 and the base game would at the same time drop to 24.99, in the following up months the game would drop to 19.99, 14,99, 12,99 and 9.99, 7.99 and eventually 4.99.
-> this process would happen faster if the base game was included.
-> the expantionpack would also drop, faster than the base game did usually in 2 month steps to 24.99 19.99 16.99 14.99 11.99 7.,99 and eventually also 4.99.


=> if the base game was not included, you always had the option to bring out a gold edition (essentially a bundle) that would ofcource end your sales of the expantion pack and base game and was usually only done at the point shops started to refuse to buy new stock of base game, hindring sales of said expantion pack. Release price of gold packs was always low 19.99 and they would drop in steps to 4.99

Than for rare games that remained populair AND sold very well, a second expantion pack was released, between 3 and 9 months after the first expantion pack, same 29.99 same 2 month discount steps after that. very many studio's released a gold pack at this point if they not already had, some even went straight to platinum, selling both the base game and EP1 with EP2, but a few could get away with selling EP2 seperately -> usually in that case one did not need previous expantion packs to play later ones, they were compatable but it game the player chooice in what to install and what not.

And ditto for the third, only that was reserved for the best and most well selling games, by now we could be talking 2 years after release, after which your regulair sales would have dried up.

but : for those very few titles that are just legendary, those were included in the Games Classics collection, and while only selling at 3.99, and hard to be included in, basicly a kind of top 100, if you were you would forever gain a small trickle of revenue from a game.

ON TOP of this all, stores gave sales like buy 2, get 3, or even 50% discounts.
-> stores by defeault are as cheap as steam at a 75% sale, with the conveniance of having that low price year round, but stores with sale, are cheaper than anything steam has.
-> but stores COULD run out of copy's, than again buying a 2d hand copy was much more easy.

So lets presume we add those longer release times to this game (I am all for that)

we would have first have to add publishing as a part of the game, you would have to pick how to publish.
-> first quality settings (better artwork, printed box, include manual, etc) better quality does increase the chance you get batches sold but is also more expensive, this is not the games quality, but rather the way it is packaged.

(a simple slider could depict this ingame)

-> next you would need to set a batch size (number of copy's per batch) and a batch price.
(batches cost money to distribute independant of size, but make them to large and you would have to lower batch price to much and ruining future sale options, need to find a balance.

(again two sliders can depict this)


Finally you select a medium to distribute too (the larger ones have a higher price per batch, have a higher demand on quality and popularity of your game, and it's package but also potentially more demand for batches than the smaller ones, making them only viable later in the game)
-> streetcorner (selling copy's to your friends and relatives on your own school and lawn)
-> pile on a desk (you try to convince a few local shops to keep a small stash of your game on their counter
-> local toy chain (you try to convince a national toy chain to put your game on their shelves)
-> Game Retail (you try to get entry in the international world of gaming, by winning yourself a little bit of the very limited dedicated game shelfspace) (Large and AAA games only, and you have the option to select a market
(like Japan, Asia, USA, North America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, etc, not all markets have simimair taste in games, and each market added increases the cost to market your game)
-> Digital (no cost of packaging, batches of 1 always, but no marketing options (so only viable once you already have a lot of fans), no cost per batch, but you recieve only 20% of your revenue, and are charged a montly fee to keep the game on their webpage.
-> Your own platform (available after research in R&D)
(same as digital, but no montlee fee and you recieve 60% revenues.

It will be possible to select multiple distributing options.
-> each distributing option also comes with a customer base/market share (the more games are released on a distributer the bigger it's customer base.

(a choice menu depicts this)

gameplay wise :

When you are ready to release a game you get a chooice menu :

first you can set the quality slider, and add options like manuals , posters, boxart, etc.
second pick 1 or 2 distributing channels from the list.

if any of those channels is not digital you also get a production tab.
(you order a number of games to be made every month select 1 10 or 100, and optionally click K (for thousants or M (for millions) -> the more you order the cheaper cost per copy gets.
-> certain mediums like cardridges are also more expensive to make than others like cd's, you should consider this when selecting platform. (some platforms have multiple mediums (Pc starts with floppy, than cd and ends DVD+digital, G64 starts with casette, gets floppy later) in that case you can chooice what to order.
->
if you released multiplatform, you are to select a medium and production number per platform.
you however still get the volume discount as if it was one platform.
->
added functionality, certain mediums can only contain games upto a certain size.
(small only : cassette & floppy, medium : Cardridge Large : CD/Minidisk AAA : DVD/Digital

=> you can select the option to stockpile a game before release for 2 months, if you expect it is sold out at realease (as that angers customers and looses you fan)

surpluss onsold stock is a loss to you.

Next you set a batch size (slider) and batch price (slider)

Now your game is on sale, and batches start selling (or not if you did something wrong)
-> you cannot change your distributing channel after release nor increase or decrease batch size, but you can edit at any moment the price a batch is sold for.


You can change production orders of copy's at any time, or chooice to halt production.
-> halting production does not take a game off the market, that only happens if your stock has sold out.
-> there is a point where you just won't sell any more batches, even if you still have stock, not even for dump prices, at that point you can opt to destroy stock or "give away" -> if good game giving away wins you fans, if bad game it looses you.

for large and AAA games, after release you now can also create expantion packs.
-> you can select the quality of content by selecting a size (small, medium, large, AAA)
1 size smaller than games size is okey, same size is good, larger is excelent!, two sizes smaller will be badly recieved, and three sizes smaller even worse.
->
this recieval only plays a part in how likely it is you sell batches, if the original game is very well recieved, you might get away with milking it a little with a slighly bad or okey expantion pack.

you cannot pick platform, genre or topic, thats same as base game.
you cannot select features already in the base game instead you now have the option to add or improve features (alowing you to add features you had no room for before)
=>
you also get a quality slider, called added content with 5 settings(the higher the more content is added) and different pricetags (small expantions only allow setting 1 and 2, medium 1 to 4 , large and AAA 1 to 5)
(think of setting1 as only adding a few skins, setting 3 of increasing playable content like adding levels but it's just more of the same game and setting 5 adding actually new mechanics and features on top of all that)

Once ready to release you get the option to "bundle with previous content"
-> if you do this, it will remove the base game from the market, and any stock left of it will be unsellanble, but it will increase sales of this expantion pack.

for subsequental expantion packs, you get the added option "bundle older content only" the rest works the same. but it gets ever harder to add enough new content and features to keep releasing expantion packs, eventually they just won't sell.
-> you are to deciede when it is best to take items off the market, usually you stop production first, and have your stock to sell out, but watch out, if to many customers are left wanting a copy but none available, you loose fans (but being left with to much unsold stock looses you money) -> at any time you can destroy your stock or give away your stock of a certain game to gain a few fans.

Stock eats warehouse space, it costs money to keep -> so you will want to trash it or give it away at some point.

An seperate expantion pack can ALWAYS only sell a fraction of sold copy's of the original game, at best the same number (though in reality never reached)
while a combined expantion pack though influenced by this original sales number, can exceed it.
This effect is increased if you release more than 1 Expantion Pack if for a 2d or higher number expantion pack the option "bundle older content only" it works as if you sold a first expantion pack seperately, as a fraction, if you instead opt to keep selling every EP seperately, every next EP will give you an ever smaller fraction of sales based on base game sales.

also : when you have them as seperate releases it costs you more money in distribution costs.
=> but seperate releases might also earn you more money (those owning the base game see no value in the bundle meaning to not loose sales and nullefy the boost in sales bundling gives, you would have to set your bundle price at about the same or slighly more than you would for the seperate EP, so you are essentially just giving the older content for (nearly) free in order to boost EP sales.
=>
if you did not bundle older content you can always do so later but this does remove your option to sell your stock of the seperate items in the bundle.
When to bundle is another strategic decicion you should pick.

Medium risk, medium profit case
Base game
EP 1
(bundle 1)
EP2
(bundle 2)
EP3
(bundle 3)
you end up with a lot more unsold stock, but reasonable sell numbers while
still getting full price for your new releases.

High risk, high profit Case
Base Game
ÉP1
EP2
EP3
Bundle 1 (including BG, EP1, EP2, EP3)
You maximise your per item pricing, and sell out most of your stock, but at the
cost of much lower numbers of sales.

Low risk, low profit case :
Base Game
Bundle 1 (including BG, EP1)
Bundle 2 (including BG, EP1, EP2)
Bundle 3 (including BG, EP1, EP2, EP3)
You maxisise your number of sales, while being left with medium amount of stock,
but your income per sale is lower.


when batches start to sell badly and you are forced to drop batch price below distributing cost per batch, bundling is a good idea.

GAME AWARDS :
(added functionality) a rare gem of a game can get the "gamers classics" award"
Games with this award are like some literary works, they never go out of fashion.
-> those games sales damand will never drop demand to zero, but allow for a small but continues revenue, though finding a cheap enough way to distribute to harness this potential revenue and keep them working on newer platforms can still be tricky.


RE:Releases
you can at any time bring out older games from your library both those still on the market and those removed from it.

Type 1 re-release
-> a plain old re release, you can select another platform and distribution medium.
(this does cost some research cost as it has to be made compatable with these new options)
(ofcourse this goes much quicker than making a brand new game)
yes you can get multi platform games this way, but you will not have the printing discount.

Type 2 : remake
-> not the same as a sequal it is the same game gameplay wise as the original, but rebuild from the ground up on a more modern engine. remakes are great to help sell a game that is still populair but strugles to work on new devices due incombability.
(a complain you can get in game reports or pop ups)
=> topic, name, size and genre are set, but the rest you can chooice
a remake replaces the original game in your libary (so from than on you can only re-release the remake)

Type 3 GAME BUNDLE
-> you can put multiple games together to sell as one big pack, unlike bundles with EP where you are unable to sell the game seperate from it's EP after bundling, a Game bundle still allows you to sell the seperate items in it and merely creates a combined item
-> you cannot change platform (thats where re-release is for) so you can only bundle games that came out on the same platform(s), and you can only select those platform(s) to release your bundle for. thats the only option the create game menu lets you pick, the rest is skipped, time to make the bundle depends on the number of items in the bundle. (quality of bundle is average quality of items in bundle)
once done with this you get the option to "create start menu", doing so increases quality of the bundle a little, but does cost a little money and time.
(releasing game bundles needs the right media to publish)

1 casette can only hold 1 small game (no bundle)
1 floppy can hold 2 small games
1 cardridge can hold 1 medium game or 5 small ones
1 minidisk can hold 1 large game, 4 medium ones or 12 small ones
1 cd can hold 1 large game , 5 mediumn ones or 16 small ones
1 DVD can hold 1 AAA title, 2 large games, 9 medium ones or 28 small ones
Digital can hold unlimited sized bundles.
(for releases with a mixture of sizes counts 1 large = 4 medium = 12 small)

in other words, it would take a considerable amount of added content to the game;)

as you would need to add the batches type of gameplay instead of the counted type we have now thats less realistic.

and as I just explained you, it is realistic for games to have a short time earning the studio money. while most games are on the shelves of a store between 1-2 years, that shop orders from a distrubuting center and that center stops ordering copy's long before that time has passed.
-> so it's quite realistic that for most large and AAA games you as a studio only earn 3 months revenue. and for smaller games much shorter.

But I agree the duration of your game on the market should at least be based on how well it sells, (no logic in pulling a high selling item) at the moment it is a fixed amount based on the size of the game.

but even programming in that would take much more time that just insert a static value.

Epic ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Necro dude.