56% of American Gamers Don't Buy Games

[Koroviev]

Hunh...

I dont think used games are so much to worry about as publishers think they are or make them out ot be. You already collected the price on that new game. Publishers seem to forget that you cant have used without new, and I'd be willing to say that a good portion of bought used games are bought past the point where the publisher has to worry about making mad cash off it to justify development.

EDIT: then again the last time I paid full price on a new game was Catherine, and thats only cause I wanted to support the Persona team and SMT so much.

Same here, although a friend did give me Disgaea 4 for my birthday.

 

[Koroviev]

Sounds about right. 75% of the games I played in 2011 were done with the same 55 dollar credit at GameStop, with their retarded 7-day no questions asked return policy. Saves me money, and then I don't end up owning shitty games. And before I get yelled at for not supporting the developers and blah blah blah - I don't care.

It's not your responsibility to care. I don't cry for corporations.

 

[Koroviev]

I think developers should get a percentage for any used game they developed. At least between 20-30% for royalties or something like that. This might hurt used game sales but it won't hurt too much that we the consumers can still use it and trade in old games to buy brand new games.

No, they already received their due from the initial sale. First sale doctrine and all that jazz.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

Well... lets see.
(InsertGameHere)for $120 brand new.
(InsertGameHere)for $60 second hand.
The developers probably have way more money then me. I'm not going to spend an extra $60 giving money to those that don't need it.

 

[Twilight_guy]

You know I think developers should just go on strike and say they aren't going to work until people on the Internet quit accusing them of being greedy. See how long players can go without going into withdrawals.

Interesting. I can see why developers and publishers are nervous. That'd make me nervous too.

 

[Gothproxy]

Again, repost of article that's full of crap.

As one of these 85 million US gamers, I don't remember getting asked my game buying habits.

I call Shenanigans!!!

 

[gphjr14]

Meh still don't see the problem.
I bought Uncharted 3 and Arkham City New and I plan on swapping one of them with a friend for AC Revelations. Saves us both money.

Don't like it. Cry a river, build a bridge, and get over it.

We're buying the games new its up to us what we do with it.

Well this is disconcerting. I recall working at gamestop & hearing a fanboy complaining that capcom should make more games like godhand as he's BUYING a used copy. Irony.

By the way, ITS USED, NOT PRE-OWNED. There should be no euphemism for buying people's sloppy seconds. How does pre-owned condoms sound?

Really? Used games are condoms now? Also that game is like $10 on PSN not to mention the studio no longer exists.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Sounds about right. 75% of the games I played in 2011 were done with the same 55 dollar credit at GameStop, with their retarded 7-day no questions asked return policy. Saves me money, and then I don't end up owning shitty games. And before I get yelled at for not supporting the developers and blah blah blah - I don't care.

You shouldn't have to. You are a consumer, what the producer wants is irrelevant. A consumer should look out for themselves, not the people they are buying from.

 

[NoNameMcgee]

The games industry is the only one to complain about rentals and used copies. Why is it any different to renting a movie or buying a movie on ebay? Gamers and the gaming industry constantly need something to complain about. It's a non-issue, lets drop it...

 

[Therumancer]

[Well I think we do have the same Idea.

I evaluate every purchase I do before and after I buy it. If I think I have gotten my moneys worth then I am not going complain. If not Ill take my money somewhere else. I think this is more the "Insulin" attitude that has brought this about. I cant live without it. If the market wasn't willing to accept crappy product's then crappy products wouldn't survive.

I do have a disagreement with you on the "more wanting more" thing. I am not going to pretend to be a saint and say I wouldn't work less hours for more money if the opportunity presented it self. So I would feel hypocritical I imposed a different ideal on others. The true objection comes whether or not they follow business practises I believe.

Being very right wing I've run into the same ideological conflict. Overall I think capitalism is a great system, and am a lot like you in the same respect of wanting to better myself, and how I would not feel guilty by doing so.

My basic attitude is that while capitalism is a fine system, we're running into a situation where there are a few greedy arseholes ruining it for everyone else. It's rapidly become a matter of those at the very top keeping people down as much as anything. What's more when you get to the point where you have more money than you could ever possibly spend, heck more money than your kids and grandkids could ever posisbly spend once you leave it to them, why the hell do you need more money?

See, I don't begrudge someone being a millionaire, or a billionaire, or whatever else. Let the rich have their toys. However when a business is sitting here saying "well tens of millions in profits is not enough" I tend to have something of an issue with that when they want to gouge me. I bust on Bobby Kotick frequently because the guy has a private jet, and was involved in a sex scandal involving his personal stewardess at one point. When the guys in charge are THAT rich, WTF do they need to find ways to gouge us for every single dime?

In the end the basic answer is "because they can" and that's the problem IMO.

I love the capitalist system, however I think the big challenge facing it is to find a way to prevent a few greedy jerks from ruining it for everyone else, without creating some kind of dystopian hybrid-socialist monstrosity that makes things even worse. I don't pretend to know how to make that work, but I do think it's what people should be striving to find a way to do.

Also for the record, I rag on the gaming industry so hard because even beyond the general "exessive greed" thing, I feel it's a criminal enterprise, just as bad as the pirates they happen to persecute. Whether there is a legal loophole being exploited to avoid being criminal on some technical merits... in spirit they ARE operating illegally.

See, the US at least has laws in place to keep cartels, monopolies, and other similar types of control schemes from exploiting the people. A cartel being when multiple business interests conspire together to create a monopoly by setting prices and not actually competing with each other despite apperances. Gas companies are in trouble for this and under investigation all the time, how much pressure they are under from the federal goverment's investigations oddly influances what you pay at the pump. It's in and out of the news regularly. The gaming industry operates very similarly, you'll notice that all games have
the same prices, this is regardless of how much money actually went into developing a game. A game that took 2 million dollars to make and a 200 million dollar AAA title are both going to retail for $60. This is done so nobody tries to undercut anyone else's prices, and everyone can make tons of money... where the idea of the US laws and market is that everyone is supposed to compete to deliver the best product for the lowest prices, and the game industry should all be trying to outproduce and undercut each other, but that generally doesn't happen. What's more you'll also notice that the game industry makes pretensions of competition, but the various companies move their titles around to avoid competing with each other. Unless it's like the Christmas season or something, if someone is say releasing the next big shooter, the other companies releasing big games will wait to release theirs later, hoping to get more sales, and of course making it so that they compete for each other's business as little as possible despite how they might make it seem. It's probably that the game industry has not gotten big enough to get govermental attention in this aspect yet, but it could also be due to some technicality that makes it so they don't fall under the same standards as other businesses that have gotten nailed for the same thing in the past. The bottom line is that it's immoral, and even if legal circumvents the principles of the American market.

I'm not a big fan of piracy, and oddly the analogy I usually use in regards to the industry battles with pirates leading to all this DRM and garbage is likening it to gang bangers fighting the mafia. Both sides are dead wrong, and incredibly corrupt. It doesn't matter who wins, we wind up losing due to the crossfire. Really I'd like to see Uncle Sam get off his censorship kick, and take a look purely at the business aspects of this and come clean it up so to speak. Right now as someone who just wants to play games, I sort of fantisize about seeing some massive federal raids, and seeing pirates and game company CEOS sharing the same overcrowded federal prison cells. Removing the need of DRM, and getting rid of enough of the sleaze where hopefully the industry could get back to making good games with a reasonable expectation of profit, rather than simply making whatever sells the most at the moment and finding every possible way to exploit the user base in terms of both grabbing their money and crawling through their systems with spyware.


That's my thoughts at any rate.

 

[magnuslion]

And yet people will come here and say that used sales don't cause the publisher any reason to worry...

Of course they don't! After all, used sales are *legitimate* ways in which the developers/publishers don't get money, whereas piracy is bad because it's *illegitimate*. What matters is the principle of the thing, not the, ya know, actual effect being virtually the same damn thing in the end.

/end sarcasm

In twenty years, when nobody owns anything in the U.S. but is only renting everything they have, it will be because of people like you, who do not believe that a company owes them a physical product with future value, who we have to thank for it.

 

[UrieHusky]

And 78 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Honestly though, that's a pretty impressive, albiet worrying number, (if it's accurate)
I personally buy new as much as possible, but I'm getting sick of being punished for buying new only to be punished again if I buy used cause I simply don't have the money for a title or if it's no longer ordered in new.

Those kind of figures should certainly worry publishers and devs alike, but they're going about fixing this the entirely wrong way >_>

(not trying to turn this into a used sales debate, just stating my opinion)

 

[DSQ]

Yeah...but...what about books, and movies. They don't whine like this. Or at least as much. I'm really sick of the whole subject.

This. If publishing, Cinema and Cars don't make such stupid claims then I don't understand why games complain so much. I mean it is not like these players don't buy the games or that the publishers get no money in this system. For every used game their was once a new game!

Movies have theater time long before DVD sales begin. Cars don't turn over in days like games do. You will never find a used car at a store one week after the model was released. Similarly, you can't even buy movies until months after their theater release.

Cars maybe, but with films you can get DVD's somtimes on the same day of a cinema release and increacingly 2 to 3 weeks after a cinema run.

Every industry has it's challenges and used games being so fat to hit game shelves is just one of the game industry. Punishing the customer and calling them theives is only gonna make most gamers resent game companys rather that support their cause.

 

[])rStrangelove]

Though many gamers are irritated by "day-one" DLC and the concept of online passes, it's hard to see how publishers can avoid these methods without seeing a marked decrease in their profits.

I'm sorry, what - hard to see? Steam already showed how it works: cut prices down to 50%, and boost sales by 300%.

AAA titles are just too expensive.

 

[DracoSuave]

85% of gamers buy used. That means that the number of gamers who don't buy games at all is 15% or less.

As well, the study claims that more than 50% of gamers don't buy games. Let X be the total number of gamers, and G be the number of gamers who don't buy games.

0.5X < G < 0.15X

G DOES NOT EXIST

STUDY IS FAKE


Oh hang on a moment. This is Newzoo doing this work... they're the fuckers behind the Duke Nukem Forever review contraversy involving holding back games.

Zero. Fucking. Credibility.

And yet people will come here and say that used sales don't cause the publisher any reason to worry...

Of course they don't! After all, used sales are *legitimate* ways in which the developers/publishers don't get money, whereas piracy is bad because it's *illegitimate*. What matters is the principle of the thing, not the, ya know, actual effect being virtually the same damn thing in the end.

/end sarcasm

Except, the company DID get their profit from that used copy, when it was bought new. Whereas the pirated copy was created without them receiving a dime.

Or, are you going to suggest that people who buy shit didn't pay money for it. Cause they did. The publishers got it. That copy is paid for. Doesn't matter who else gets it.

Publishers want their games to stop being passed around as tho they were consumed they need to make less consumable (read: more replayable) games. Anything else is devaluing the rights of their initial buyer, and is a stripping of customer rights and crapping on the very notion of a contract of sale.

 

[Roman Monaghan]

I have 170+ games on Steam that disagree with this article.

You count for more then half of the gaming market in America?