Sacred Symbols+, Episode 212 | Gaming While Indian
Added 2022-08-02 16:01:03 +0000 UTCIndia is the second most-inhabited country on Earth, and in just a few years, it'll be at the top of the heap. There are 1.4 billion people and counting there -- that's 'billion' with a 'B' -- an astounding four-plus times America's population, so when it comes to market economics, well, that's a whole lot of prospective customers. But there's a problem: India is woefully poor. And it's these two dueling and unavoidable factors -- population and poverty -- that have morphed India's gaming scene, one predicated largely on the free-to-play machinations of some of your favorite mobile and PC offerings. From competitive Counterstrike at Internet cafes to nightly FIFA tournaments amongst friends, in a society largely devoid of the likes of Nintendo and a development sector only in its infancy, there's nowhere in the world quite like India. To discuss the Indian gaming scene, I (Colin) welcomed Sam Sharma to the show, a resident of Pune (home of a Ubisoft studio!) who, thanks to his merchant marine father, had a must more expansive gaming experience growing up than many of his friends, who can't afford gaming hardware and play solely on their phones. It's a different world, albeit on the same planet. We hope you enjoy our chat.
Comments
We are fucked here because EU is an open market. We simply cannot get regional pricing. It goes for all kinds of Global products. Like Netflix costs almost double the price I used to pay for gas in my apartment. GP ultimate costs more as I pay for mine and my wife´s mobile plan together. PS plus extra costs more as I pay for 300mbps internet connection and that is including cable TV, GoW ragnarok digital deluxe equals three months of electricity bills etc.
Robert Olbert
2022-08-13 13:16:49 +0000 UTCThis series is some of my favourite SS content to date. It's giving me some insight about gaming around the world, and it's always fun to see an American have their worldview challenged. 😉
Mark Whittington
2022-08-12 08:56:48 +0000 UTCGreat episode. It seems Nintendo just wasn't that into EU market, since Sony was always more prevalent in Poland, and Xbox was just late to the party, here (though MS consoles have become pretty popular with time). Pc legacy and rampant piracy are another commonalities, but maybe for different reasons. And game and console prices are getting way too expensive here, too - $90-100 is just too much for a weekend of entertainment, when our wages are like 1/4th of what people in the US make, for instance. My digital PS5 console cost $500+ at launch, too. These are luxury non-essential items, there are far more important expenses to deal with, especially with the war destroying our livelihood. I'm not surprised that Sony's profits are down, and I've been saying it's going to turn out like this, since the launch of PS5 - sooner or later they're going to find out that they've reached and exceeded the ceiling of what people are willing and able to pay for video games. As a gas station manager I can tell you that setting the prices is an art form in itself, and this looks like either Sony didn't care about this market at all, their financial analists decided that fewer games sold at higher prices is the better strategy (it's not), or whoever came up with the new prices had a bad case of 'they're gonna take a 2nd job just to buy our products'. If the games are getting too expensive to make, they gotta scale them the f down, cause this is just too much to ask for this kind of a product, and it's a great way to chase everyone away to competition, like steam, or chase everyone away from gaming in general (though Control seems to suggest you can make a game with high production values on the cheaper side, and in a timely fashion, too, so maybe they'll figure it out someday).
MISZCZOGRZMOT
2022-08-10 19:26:04 +0000 UTCI'm surprised that prices are different even here in Czech Republic: PlayStation Plus Premium yearly: USA $199.99, CZ $130.37 Netflix: USA $15.49, CZ $10.83 HBO MAX: USA $14.99, CZ $5.56 (lifetime discount, normally $8.32) Disney+: Complicated since we don't have Hulu Crunchyroll Mega Fan: USA $9.99, CZ $6.27 I've never really thought about regional prices before, so thank you for this wisdom.
Aladin_Run
2022-08-10 08:46:48 +0000 UTCIn the UK we get insulin made by whoever can do it the cheapest. In the US you get it made by the company that invented it in the first place and because they can charge what they want, you get changed a lot. Licences for the global market only last like 10 years. After that it's basically public domain. Its not like a patent that lasts forever. In the US it does behave like a patent. That's how I understand it anyways. Could well be mistaken. It was a topic of conversation a couple years ago when the UK gvnt and US held some trade talks and medication licencing was on the agenda from the US side and "experts" explained what the US was asking for (they basically wanted us to have the same US licencing laws for meds).
Greg Dawson
2022-08-09 12:18:38 +0000 UTCI would like to hear politicians explain why a unit of insulin in Canada cost around $12 in the UK $8 or $7 in Australia whilst it’s $98 in the US.
Robert F
2022-08-09 11:46:15 +0000 UTCAmericans pay more for medication because the politicians want it that way. On one hand you can't say that medication is priced fairly/correctly, and on the other have a trillion dollar industry where hundreds of billions are made every year in the US alone. A lot of the medication other countries get for "free" are due to the licence expiring. Meaning any company can make the drug and can't be monopolised, therefore the free market takes over and you can get, for example, 16 paracetamol / ibuprofen (basic painkillers) for less than 50¢.
Greg Dawson
2022-08-08 17:57:11 +0000 UTCThanks for listening!
Colin Moriarty
2022-08-08 16:53:04 +0000 UTCHey Colin ! It's great to see my home country on your show. Sam touches on some great points but I felt the need to add to the conversation from my own experience. A lot of what Sam talks about is from his experience of growing up through the 2000s and being from a decently earning family. I grew up through the 90s, lived in a small town and was part of a middle class family through that period. So given those differences I think I can shed some light on a different experience. My first experience with games was on Windows 95/98. One of my uncles was given a laptop from his workplace so the very first game I played was Prince of Persia. That experience eventually led us to getting a desktop PC. We didn't have the internet, so the only way to get access to new software was through the technicians who would help you setup the PC. So that's where I got access to Dangerous Dave, Wolfenstein 3D, Flight Simulator and the likes. One of the things Sam talks about is that people didn't have access to Nintendo - that's actually not true. Despite being in a smaller town we eventually got access to cheap NES knock offs and pirated cartridges. So I got to play Contra, Duck Hunt (with the gun), Super Mario etc. It's just that nobody knew they were playing a NES and we were of course getting access to these NES titles over a decade after the US. Sharing demos on floppy discs and eventually CDs was a huge part of the culture in those early days. That eventually led to a lot of piracy. It was only in 2001 after my family moved to Mumbai did we even have stores to buy games legally. There were very few places that sold games and they were expensive - 1000 INR (12 USD today.) I remember trying the Metal Gear Solid demo on a neighbor's PC and I was in awe at what I experienced because I had seen nothing like it. I begged my father to purchase me MGS and after a lot of convincing that was my very first legal purchase of a video game. Playstation was around but incredibly expensive. PSX (PS1 emulator) was around in the early 2000s as well. But few had PCs that could successfully run it. I did eventually get my hands on a Gameboy Advance and that was huge in Mumbai. A lot of my friends had it and we played (and watched) a lot of Pokemon. Eventually PS2 came around and that was definitely the most popular console in India by 2006 - partly because how easy it was to mod and sell pirated games for. I hope that sheds light on a different experience. I am in a very fortunate place now - I live in Singapore and have my dream job of developing games at Riot. If there's more you would like to know I'll be happy to chat with you on/off the show :)
Shubham Goyal
2022-08-07 20:43:17 +0000 UTCThanks for sharing your insight. =)
Colin Moriarty
2022-08-06 17:01:45 +0000 UTCGreat conversation! The 'arts don't make you money' mentality is quite prevalent here in SEA as well especially amongst the older generation. To understand that mentality you have to consider the circumstances and values they grew up with. Extreme poverty, political instability and being susceptible to the cruel twists of fate made them very frugal and practical. Everything you do is for your family and the next generation. What you earn you invest into your children so that they can be better off than you. Financially stable children means a good retirement for the parents and stability for the grandchildren. The jobs that gave the most stability at that time were government servants, engineers, doctors, etc.. Any deviation from those paths was risky. And so their children picked up these values and instilled them into their children, so on and so forth. It’s gradually changing, some are still against the arts as a career, “We worked so hard to give you a good future, why squander that?” they’ll say. Some will say “You can do your artsy stuff, but that’s your side hustle, get a degree and a proper job.”. It doesn’t help that most governments don’t give adequate funding to the arts, because those in charge grew up with the mentality that “arts don’t make you money”. The only way to change this mindset is to show them that the arts can give you a stable, comfortable future. A high chance of becoming a millionaire also helps.
Sam Lee
2022-08-06 14:35:31 +0000 UTCWell, thank you. But take good care of yourself. You can always come back when things are better. <3
Colin Moriarty
2022-08-05 20:14:42 +0000 UTCThank you!
Colin Moriarty
2022-08-05 20:14:26 +0000 UTCHonestly I considering stopping my subscription because things are tough and I’m currently buying a new home, so I need to be careful with my money. But you know what? It crossed my mind that you reply to every single Patrion post and that really wanted my heart. I can’t cancel. Your content is great but the fact you put so much effort in to appreciate every subscriber really makes me feel like you deserve my money and support.
Matt Wiles
2022-08-04 23:39:19 +0000 UTCGreat interview. LSM is the gold standard when it comes to video game journalistic content.
James R Langley
2022-08-04 17:33:49 +0000 UTCThis conversation underscores the reason why I would advocate for free trade, no tariffs across the board globally. Regulations and tariffs make products cost prohibitive.
James R Langley
2022-08-04 17:32:10 +0000 UTCThank you!
Colin Moriarty
2022-08-03 19:44:47 +0000 UTCThanks for listening.
Colin Moriarty
2022-08-03 19:44:35 +0000 UTCWhat's funny is that games are actually cheaper than ever.
Colin Moriarty
2022-08-03 19:44:30 +0000 UTCI'm so glad you're running with this theme Colin, it's a great window into fellow gamers habits around the world. I really appreciate it.
Yiorgos
2022-08-03 09:52:01 +0000 UTCDigital first party releases used to be ₹3999 (~$50) and they have increased this gen to ₹4999 (~63). Sony likes to keep game prices at a nice even figure so that’s where the disparity comes from since ₹5502 won’t be such a nice number to look at
Sam
2022-08-02 20:55:51 +0000 UTCIt was a life changing game for me so yeah
Sam
2022-08-02 20:53:30 +0000 UTCSorry, was it mentioned how much a physical or digital first party Playstation release is in India? Was kinda needing that bit of information when trying to make the argument vs costs of other forms of entertainment. When I do a quick google, the price of GoW: Ragnarok pre order is 5000 rupees. Around 63 dollars as a straight conversion. Dont know how accurate that is.
Phil Walker
2022-08-02 19:30:27 +0000 UTCThis was very fascinating. Excellent conversation.
Boots!
2022-08-02 18:48:53 +0000 UTCAnother interesting conversation. Games being one of the more expensive media forms having regional pricing is hard to wrap my head around. Just seems to easy to abuse.
Noah Trujillo
2022-08-02 18:12:56 +0000 UTCThis guy really likes counter-strike
Dakota Brown
2022-08-02 16:59:37 +0000 UTC
