We've achieved pretty much all we can for
now. The FairPlay Campaign did more to bring the issue of rip-off videogame
pricing into the public eye than has ever been done before. Attracting coverage
in scores of publications, from the smallest website to the largest of national
newspapers and broadcasting institutions, over 500,000 people heard our
message on this website alone, and millions more through other media.
The industry's paralysing fear of debating the
issue with us (the link above was the only time they dared go head-to-head with
the campaign) says more than we ever could about the truth of our claims, but
the campaign was vindicated in many more ways.
1. Nintendo's conviction by the European Court
during the campaign, and huge £100m fine, for illegally fixing prices at
an artificially high level. 2.
The massive waves of price-cutting in the UK during the Christmas season -
normally the most lucrative time for videogame sales - which meant practically
every game in the release schedules could be bought on the High Street for
£10-15 below the RRP. 3.
The big sales blip during the campaign week which saw Game, Europe's biggest
videogame retailer, lose a massive 80% of its share value overnight in
response to disappointing sales. When the campaign was over, sales shot up
again. 4. A long line of
disastrous financial results, redundancies and studio closures among
publishers and developers continued to demonstrate the economic unsoundness of
the industry's current business model.
5. Huge reductions in the pricing of,
particularly, the Xbox and Gamecube, leading to massive sales increases.
6. Dixons Group and Game, two of Europe's biggest
game retailers, slashing the price of all Gamecube software to between £15
and £25, resulting in enormous sales boosts.
7. And most rewarding of all, the news, reported
by IGN, that Nintendo have quietly restructured their licensing fee exactly
in accordance with the primary demand of the FairPlay Campaign, so that
publishers can now sell games at a variety of prices without having to pay the
same fixed licencing fee to Nintendo.
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