LordIllidan
05-04-2008, 06:26 AM
Warning: Extremely radical views are about to be expressed.
Let's start this off with a question:
Have you ever seen The Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation) before? It's a rather good documentary, in which they compare the actions of most American Corporations to that of a derranged phychopath: "callous unconcern for the feelings of others, incapacity to maintain enduring relationships,... deceitfulness (repeated lying to and deceiving of others for profit), incapacity to experience guilt and failure to conform to the social norms"
For some reason, that's not what I want to think about when I think about Disney. So, why is this exactly what they're doing?
Callous unconcern for the feeling of others: "Oh, you likes them VMKs? Oh, you have... friends? Oh, we've given you inspiration? Well, you see little child, those things don't make us money. So we're just going to take that from you like taking candy from a baby, okay? What's that? You don't like it? Awww, that's cute. Keep pretending that we care."
Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships: "Welcome, everyone, to the Virtual Magic Kingdom. Please, enjoy this wonderful land we've given you, and I'm sure we'll be great friends and you'll buy all our stuff. Even after we suddenly snatch what we've given back three years later"
Decietfulness in the name of profit: "VMK will be around for quite a bit longer. Oh, nevermind... Well, it was just a promotion anyway. Our next games will be a bajillion times better, though!"
Incapacity to experience guilt: "Say bye-bye to VMK! Trust me, it's a good thing for us! We're going to be making money! Oh, by us, I mean Disney, of course. You're getting nothing out of this. But that's okay! At least I'm happy!"
Failure to conform to social norms: "Oh, look! Letters from our fans! I should probably read them... nah. Guess they're former fans now! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!"
Disney used to be an inspiration for people of all ages, a magical group of people who wanted to spread joy to the world.
Now look at them. "That's what it's all about, right? Money."
They're closing VMK because some number cruncher sitting in a windowless office all day said that "This number will have more zeroes at the end if these servers were being used for this, and these players were over here." And, of course, the Corporation, being the mentally handicapped being it is, doesn't take into account that people aren't statistics.
"VMK was free, anyway!" many people shout out. Yes, it was. And, you know what? It's been proven time and again, that, if you give something out for free, it actually makes more people buy your products. Let's look at some examples:
"Gamer Theory" by McKenzie Wark was originally released online IN FULL for free. I can't find an exact statistic, but quite a few people still bought the physical, hardcover version AFTER READING THE FREE ONE anyway. Why? They wanted to support the author who was kind enough to provide such a high-quality product for absolutely nothing.
Nine Inch Nails recently released the first nine tracks of their album "Ghosts I-IV" for FREE, along with a large amount of goodies. They also had the full version of the album up for only $5. They also had several, more expensive versions of the album, but most of that extra stuff was trivial, unimportant things. From Wikipedia: "A week after the album's release, the official Nine Inch Nails site reported over 750,000 purchase and download transactions, amassing over US$1.6 million in sales. Pre-orders of the $300 "Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition" sold out in less than three days of its release.
." Also of note was that Ghosts I-IV was DRM Free, meaning that there was nothing stoping you from copying the CD and distributing it yourself
Radiohead's album, "In Rainbows" From Wikipedia: "Radiohead's seventh album, In Rainbows, was released in October 2007 as a digital download for which customers chose their own price (That includes for free, my friends!). Although it was reported that 1.2 million digital downloads were sold by the day of the album's release, the band's management did not release official sales figures, claiming that the Internet-only distribution was intended to boost sales of the physical album. (Hmmmm... sound familiar?)Yet according to Yorke, Radiohead's profits from the digital download of In Rainbows outstripped combined profits from digital downloads of all of the band's other studio albums."
There you have it. Three high-quality examples of free high-quality stuff making money. They can do it, Disney, so why can't you?
Let's start this off with a question:
Have you ever seen The Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation) before? It's a rather good documentary, in which they compare the actions of most American Corporations to that of a derranged phychopath: "callous unconcern for the feelings of others, incapacity to maintain enduring relationships,... deceitfulness (repeated lying to and deceiving of others for profit), incapacity to experience guilt and failure to conform to the social norms"
For some reason, that's not what I want to think about when I think about Disney. So, why is this exactly what they're doing?
Callous unconcern for the feeling of others: "Oh, you likes them VMKs? Oh, you have... friends? Oh, we've given you inspiration? Well, you see little child, those things don't make us money. So we're just going to take that from you like taking candy from a baby, okay? What's that? You don't like it? Awww, that's cute. Keep pretending that we care."
Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships: "Welcome, everyone, to the Virtual Magic Kingdom. Please, enjoy this wonderful land we've given you, and I'm sure we'll be great friends and you'll buy all our stuff. Even after we suddenly snatch what we've given back three years later"
Decietfulness in the name of profit: "VMK will be around for quite a bit longer. Oh, nevermind... Well, it was just a promotion anyway. Our next games will be a bajillion times better, though!"
Incapacity to experience guilt: "Say bye-bye to VMK! Trust me, it's a good thing for us! We're going to be making money! Oh, by us, I mean Disney, of course. You're getting nothing out of this. But that's okay! At least I'm happy!"
Failure to conform to social norms: "Oh, look! Letters from our fans! I should probably read them... nah. Guess they're former fans now! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!"
Disney used to be an inspiration for people of all ages, a magical group of people who wanted to spread joy to the world.
Now look at them. "That's what it's all about, right? Money."
They're closing VMK because some number cruncher sitting in a windowless office all day said that "This number will have more zeroes at the end if these servers were being used for this, and these players were over here." And, of course, the Corporation, being the mentally handicapped being it is, doesn't take into account that people aren't statistics.
"VMK was free, anyway!" many people shout out. Yes, it was. And, you know what? It's been proven time and again, that, if you give something out for free, it actually makes more people buy your products. Let's look at some examples:
"Gamer Theory" by McKenzie Wark was originally released online IN FULL for free. I can't find an exact statistic, but quite a few people still bought the physical, hardcover version AFTER READING THE FREE ONE anyway. Why? They wanted to support the author who was kind enough to provide such a high-quality product for absolutely nothing.
Nine Inch Nails recently released the first nine tracks of their album "Ghosts I-IV" for FREE, along with a large amount of goodies. They also had the full version of the album up for only $5. They also had several, more expensive versions of the album, but most of that extra stuff was trivial, unimportant things. From Wikipedia: "A week after the album's release, the official Nine Inch Nails site reported over 750,000 purchase and download transactions, amassing over US$1.6 million in sales. Pre-orders of the $300 "Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition" sold out in less than three days of its release.
." Also of note was that Ghosts I-IV was DRM Free, meaning that there was nothing stoping you from copying the CD and distributing it yourself
Radiohead's album, "In Rainbows" From Wikipedia: "Radiohead's seventh album, In Rainbows, was released in October 2007 as a digital download for which customers chose their own price (That includes for free, my friends!). Although it was reported that 1.2 million digital downloads were sold by the day of the album's release, the band's management did not release official sales figures, claiming that the Internet-only distribution was intended to boost sales of the physical album. (Hmmmm... sound familiar?)Yet according to Yorke, Radiohead's profits from the digital download of In Rainbows outstripped combined profits from digital downloads of all of the band's other studio albums."
There you have it. Three high-quality examples of free high-quality stuff making money. They can do it, Disney, so why can't you?