OK, So I know most people equate the two, and really, they're in the same boat in a lot of different cases, but the thing is, the MPAA is different to the RIAA. What I mean by that is, for a movie that costs 20 million dollars and two years to produce, it costs you about $25 for two DVDs filled with extra features. I got two DVDs for $15 each for movies that are slightly new (Incredibles and Pirates). I also got two CDs for an average of $25 (new Soilwork and Lacuna Coil), which I thought I did pretty well at (you get em at $20 if you do really well).
Here's the difference: 20 million dollars, a couple of years, a hundred odd people, and practically a day's worth of content, including a complete musical score, commentary, acting, etc. Sometimes you even get these separately (as in, the musical score by itself). This is incredible value when compared with a CD. What you get with a CD is a work of 20 thousand dollars in a couple of months, by about 10 odd people. You get about an hour's worth on a CD. Does it make sense that it's costing you more for the CD than the DVD? It doesn't to me.
Don't get me wrong, the MPAAs ridiculous screwy secure HD intiative is totally fucked up, and shows some idiotic minds at work behind the scenes there, but you simply can't argue that value for money wise, a DVD is a lot better than a CD. You can't even argue on content here, because an excellent DVD can equal the impact of an excellent CD, and recording artists have gotten lazy from years of image building and "cool" over skilled audio.
So like Nathan said "fuck computers" and bought... a mac, I'm saying "fuck music", and I guess I'm going hunting for something that makes music worth it again.
Here's the difference: 20 million dollars, a couple of years, a hundred odd people, and practically a day's worth of content, including a complete musical score, commentary, acting, etc. Sometimes you even get these separately (as in, the musical score by itself). This is incredible value when compared with a CD. What you get with a CD is a work of 20 thousand dollars in a couple of months, by about 10 odd people. You get about an hour's worth on a CD. Does it make sense that it's costing you more for the CD than the DVD? It doesn't to me.
Don't get me wrong, the MPAAs ridiculous screwy secure HD intiative is totally fucked up, and shows some idiotic minds at work behind the scenes there, but you simply can't argue that value for money wise, a DVD is a lot better than a CD. You can't even argue on content here, because an excellent DVD can equal the impact of an excellent CD, and recording artists have gotten lazy from years of image building and "cool" over skilled audio.
So like Nathan said "fuck computers" and bought... a mac, I'm saying "fuck music", and I guess I'm going hunting for something that makes music worth it again.
Seriously maybe movie studios could spend like actual money on creating a decent script. Rather than finding them as prizes in cereal boxes or where ever they find them now.
Also, I have always found it strange that DVDs start off at inflated prices (I'm not disagreeing with you Sunny, vs a Music CD, it's justified), and then go down in price after a few months (eg. Incredibles started at $30-$35, and now you've picked it up for $15).
But a lot of times popular (that's important here, as I don't think this argument works for Sunny's music) music CDs start at around $20 in stores like K-Mart and Target etc, and then go up in price as it becomes less popular. If you go looking aroud for a CD that was popular a few years ago, and not in the "top 20" or "new release" section, they go up to close to $30.
Of course, where the initial release of the CD was not as popular as they thought, and they have excess stock of them, I'm sure they would go down in price - suppy vs demand.
I know I'm half going to contradict myself with this next line, but this also can happen with DVDs, but in a different way. A movie can be old, but "new to DVD", not be heavily marketed, and stay at a higher price.
Generally though, I find that DVDs are on sale for the $15 mark a LOT more often then any CD.
All this comes down to one thing though; "what is someone willing to pay for this?".
You've made an excellent point about games, Tim, and in fact a lot of gaming coders are very worried that most of the money's gonna go to some no talent rapper for their game. Hence the push for pocedural pogramming.
With Xbox games, like the Nintendo 64 games of old, a large chunk of that goes to the company that owns the console.
When the N64 came out the only company that was legally allowed to produce cartidges for the N64 was Nintendo which cost something like $20 each. Now days with the Xbox Microsoft chrages a licence fee for each game sold on the Xbox/Xbox 360.
As for the difference there's alot more entertainment life in a computer game over say a cd or dvd. Plus there's generally a smaller audience to pay for the large fixed costs in making the game. In regards to PC games alot of work goes into making sure the games work on all hardware as well as payment for licences for engines, drivers and the creation/licence of artwork.
In contrast to N64 and Xbox games there used to be a huge number of cheap Playstation games appeared due to the cheap cost of producing the games for the Playstation compared to the N64 and Xbox.
This is due to the PSOne having a huge penetration rate, low cost in distribution (dvd/cd case and a cheap cd, no boxes or large manuals), low royality rate from Sony and probarbly most importantly, it was easy and very cheap to produce games for the PSOne.
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