The Value of a Video Game: Part 1

Often, one would wonder - how much is a video game worth? For the purposes of this post, and the many after it: let's talk about the value of Halo 3 Collector's Edition. For the first part, let's just look at the visible value your money pays for when you buy this particular game. When Halo 3 was released, the RRP for it's collector's edition was AUD109.95 (if I am not mistaken). Being the shrewd customer, I took advantage of certain market mispricings and a certain trade-in promotion to get hold of my copy for a lot less than that. But that's not the point.

So let's have a look at what you pay for:

  1. Nice plastic cover for the case.
  2. A painted steel case emblazoned with the Halo 3 logo.
  3. Halo 3 Game Disc (this is why you bought the game after all)
  4. A Halo Bestiarum - hard cover book with nicely laid out information on Halo 3's races
  5. Halo 3 Manual
  6. A folded controls cheat sheet/poster
  7. 48-hour XBox Live Gold Trial Membership
  8. Halo 3 Essentials Disc One (with Making of and other videos)

(The photo is just meant to give you an idea of what's inside :P )

So just look at the box, that's the tangible goods you pay for - 2 discs, a steel case, and many many printed sheets of paper - some more valuable than others.

Let's put aside the two discs for a while. Do you see value in the other 6 items?

Some people don't - but I do. The plastic cover may feel stupid - but it is the one with all the details, the nice artwork for the logo, and overall completes the package for retail sale. A lot better than Halo 2's plastic cover mind you.A lot of people are attracted to the steel case - and so am I. The steel case is black, which makes it look sleek - and it's got a big stylized number 3 on it so you know what it is. Ths case is what makes it special and stand out from all the other XBox 360 games in their typical green DVD cases.

The Halo Bestiarum is simply somewhat a small hardcover book filled with info and pictures of the races in Halo 3 and brings you a little up to speed with what's been going on if you haven't been to the world of HAlo before. The Halo 3 Manual is what you'd expect, the mandatory manual. As much as I make it sound like that - I value the manual highly. A game without its manual is significantly less valuable to me, since I buy games mostly for collection purposes. A manual gives it completeness - not to mention it is more often than not, good fun to read. Some games come with thin manuals which are extremely lacking - which I do not like. Thin manuals to me feel sloppy and convey a message that the game doesn't have enough depth or features to put into a manual, or that the company was just plain stingy. We paid for the game - we deserve a fair thickness manual together with it.

Controls cheat sheets are very normal nowadays - but this one happens to be a nice poster all well, which is a nice touch - I don't use it, I don't use posters, but having it around makes one happy that one bought the game. The 48-hour trial was worthless and still is worthless to most people - it's more of an advertising ploy - some later games came with a more generous one week or one month trial - which is a lot more valuable.

OK - back to the discs. Now, I'm from Malaysia. Piracy is rampant there. I am used to not caring about copyright, acquiring counterfeit discs, and all other nonsense normally associated with a typical Malaysian. If there's one thing you learn - it's that original games and discs come with nice fancy manuals - some people make take these for granted: I do not. I think it's extremely important that you make originals look nice and fancy.

Good looking discs make game publishers look good, they make consumers happy as well. The Halo 3 discs are no different - they look beautiful and well thought out. The discs are a pleasure to look at, not to mention play in my XBox 360 - carrying the Microsoft XBox 360 holograms. On the other hand, some original discs look like crap. Wii discs for one are usually ugly - and PS2 games suffer similar treatment. I find it unacceptable original discs look worse than pirated discs. Effort to make your discs look nice do go a long way to making people convert. I like having presentable discs.

Lack of Profound Things to Say

I realise it's times like this that made me want to start the story and webcomics to begin with. The days when I can't think of anything to blog about, talk about, write about or even think about. Unfortunately, I tend to get very involved, and start to develop them beyond their intended purpose for improvement. The story is very much alive, and I've worked out the entire thing, believe it or not - taking some cues from all over the place while I'm at it. I've even worked out the complex combat style I intend to describe in the story. The webcomic is suffering from a combination of a lack of ideas and a lack of interesting occurences to describe. That means I have to actually write stuff out, and that means that I'd like to develop out the characters (although there's only two currently) before I start churning it out on a regular basis.

Getting overinvolved isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is a bad thing when people are waiting for it, then you get something like what happened to Duke Nukem Forever. Since you're always looking for ways to improve it, every once in a while, you find a way to take a huge leap, but to make that huge leap you have to spend more time on it. So you keep pushing back your deadline (since there isn't one, just one you made up) in an effort to satisfy yourself that it will satisfy whoever it is you intend to distribute the product to (be it a webcomic, a blog post, or even a game.

Sword Fantasy has been in the making since 2001. And I still haven't completed it. Imagine - I've planned out everything: dungeons, characters, storylines (for 10 games no less), gameplay and even multiplayer at some point. However, every year, I also revise it massively. The gameplay now is nothing like my plan in 2001. Multiplayer has been added and scrapped. The storyline has been revised to stretch 3 games instead. With the revised gameplay, comes revised dungeons and enemies, as well as a new levelling system. That's not to mention now that we are in 2008, there's a lot more leeway for my game engine. I can now go high resolution - high quality sprites, animation, particle effects - and it'll actually run faster than the original alpha version I built for DGX in 2001.

Despite all this, I've no doubt I'll go back, scrap it, and remake it anew within 5 years. The same goes for Fantasy of War. I keep moving back and forth on the story, filling in the gaps, and realise some gaps require a massive rewrite of everything else. Then I finish the story. For now. And then I decide to add some new story element, or cut down on the convoluted sections of storyline, and I rewrite the entire thing again.

I've never truly procrastinated on any of these things, it's just that you want them to be perfect, and it really chokes when you try to go that extra mile - and realise that at some point, you need to reach a destination.

It just won't be the same if I just came back and said I'd write them out as they are now. I wouldn't be happy with the result, and would probably regret it more than never finishing. And so now I realise I didn't have a lack of profound things to say after all.

Anyway, I thought I'd post something else too:

In the Geek's Toolbox

Every tech geek has to have a toolbox. The toolbox will generally be for small things like opening stuff up and putting stuff together. In Malaysia, I bought a dedicated computer toolkit that'll cover just about most things you need to do. Here in Australia,without that toolkit, I've collected a unique set of tools that will do another series of things I happen to perform often.

From the left:

1. A digital multimeter - I bought this since it was on offer at Jaycar. I would've preferred getting hold of a more traditional analog one, which I'd imagine will happen eventually.

2. Screwdriver bits  and screwdriver (at position 6) - Essential for opening up just about anything. The bits let me deal with just about any kind of screw you find in a computer, and even XBOXes and XBOX 360s.

3. Pliers - Essential for any toolbox. If you need an explanation, then I guess you don't own a toolbox, or have never actually done anything. If I stay any longer in Australia, this will soon grow into a repertoire of cutters and crimpers.

4 & 5 & 7. - Small specialty screwdrivers -  If you've ever dealt with small proprietary-ish screws on electronics, you've probably got a set of these. Small flatheads, Philips heads, Torx heads and even a Triwing to let you open most small electronic devices, be it a Nintendo DS, mobile phone, or even *gasp* an XBOX 360 controller! (Yes, 5 is the mini equivalent of 2 and 6, but occasionally provides a little too much torque when tightening small screws.)

I know my toolbox isn't much, not to mention the mandatory soldering iron and solder are missing, but I intend to rectify that eventually. (Yes, I have a bad habit of opening up my consoles. So what?)