56% of American Gamers Don't Buy Games

[Xman490]

But now video games are going on %-off sales left and right. For example, I got a new copy of Dead Rising 2: Off the Record 1/2 off on Amazon less than a month after release.

 

[Irridium]

Introducing Ignorant #1 - Lets discuss this another way. Not one of these companies is a top grossing company. They do all of the things they do for some of the lowest profit margins available in the market today. They also have some of the most overhead to cover for and the most finicky and whiny consumers. Have you ever seen a million people flame a one month delay of a movie and call every developer involved terrible names, cause I haven't either.

So as a consumer if you stop bitching suck it up a bit and buy new you will accomplish 2 things. The developers will get the money they need to make games and with that money they will make games cheaper. Many developers and companies have made countless statements to this end some saying the price should be $40 dollars.

In turn if the developer starts out cutting prices, used companies would just cut used prices and everyone would continue to buy used they never changed why would they decide that now is the time to change. If you look at a 40 dollar game and right next to it is the same game for 30 you'd still grab the 30. The consumer has to step up or shut up, those are their only options. The best part is that a new game that you buy used is priced at $59.99 while the used copy sitting next to it is $54.99. The big difference is that for $5 dollars more you can support the game and its developers.

You can never make a perfect sale time. The market is flooded with entertainment, video games are released every Tuesday with movies every Friday and books on Thursday there isn't a time that the developer can release anything competition free.

However you are clearly the victim in this area. So I think you should log off your computer. Sell all your consoles and video games, then you will have nothing to complain about and used dealers will lose one of their advocates that selling a used game for 5 dollars less is the ultimate life saver to gamers everywhere.

Alright, lets look at a company that has been so hurt by used sales they've tried everything from project $10 to online passes, EA.

Well, they seem to be doing very, very, very, very, very [http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=594196] well for themselves. Making lots of money. They've been on the rise year after year, and are set to rise farther with the releases of The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3. They are set to make a net profit in the billions.

Poor them.

Perhaps they should just stop bitching and whining about used sales hurting their profits, which they aren't.

Which is why they should offer a better deal on top of a cut price. PC players buy from Steam when they could get 99% of those games for FREE because Steam offers a better deal. The consumer has NO OBLIGATION whatsoever to buy from anyone. Only the one who offers the better deal. Offer the better deal, and people will buy it. Publishers should suck it up and actually implement consumer benefits to gain and keep customers like every other fucking industry already.

Yeah, they can't release things competition-free, which is why they need to market their games. Almost no publisher ever markets a new IP, and releases them at the same time as the next big sequel that everyone will already be buying. Just because you can't ever release it at the best of conditions, doesn't mean you should default to the worst. Put some marketing behind it, release it in the summer when nearly no games are coming out, don't charge so much for it, and see what happens. Kind of like what Activision/Sony did for Prototype and Infamous. And both of those games sold well, and got sequels. Infamous 2 came out this summer and did very well, making it to number 2 on the sales charts for the month it came out.

 

[Veylon]

I believe this. I remember doing quite a bit of wheeling and dealing in NES cartridges back in the day.

I also don't buy the supposed antipathy between publishers and Gamestop. The publishers are obviously willing to do special deals through them and get them new copies of games to put on their shelves. This kind of cooperation doesn't exactly smack of war.

 

[Irridium]

It simple really. Because used is there as a cheaper alternative with better profit for the distributor. Therefore buying new stock is bad business. In other words you got the order wrong. People arn't buying used because new isn't available. New isn't available because people buy used.

I can find new versions of old games for just about anything on the PC. No used available. Its not that games just disappear because the publisher decided to leave them. We decided to buy the cheaper used ones and makes it pointless for them to use money on making extra stock.

That's because Publishers aren't developing games with long-term strategies in mind, only short term. It's always hype before launch, launch, then more or less no talk about that game again from the publisher. This has happened for years, far before used sales got anywhere near as big as they are now. This leaves people only able to find out about the game from either friends who let them borrow it, or used sales, which they choose because they don't want to spend lots of money on a product they know next-to-nothing about and just generally being a smart consumer.

 

[exobook]

I suspect that this article is mainly concerned with console game only. The sad trueth is that since PC games are not suited for the trading model they had relativity ignored in this issue; along with all issues in gaming as the PC seems to be coming a niche machine due to the profitablity of the large console market.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

I hate Activision's Call of Duty DLC though. 15 dollars for three of last game's maps and two crappy ones a half-decent modder could whip up while drunk? Puh-leeze, Activision. that's not DLC. That's bullshit.

Yeah, I agree... it's the likes of these forms of DLC that generate the misrepresentations of DLC as a whole i.e extortionate prices for cheaply (evidently) made content.

Bethesda had their folly back in oblivion (horse armour and the like), but really stepped up their game after Nights of the Nine (Didn't Shivering Isles come out as an expansion?). Then in Fallout 3 they released several decent to great DLCs with hours of extra play(Anchorage, Point Lookout, Mothership Zeta -the weakest but still fun- and Brokem steel which continued the main game and added a beefy amount of new things to do). Obsidian followed with the somewhat sketchy starter packs, but made up for it with multiple large DLCs in the space of a year.

Kudos to Obsidian, that's what DLC should be like. EDIT: Minus the bugs of course.

 

[Zeriah]

I respectfully disagree with your assumption. To me if people are willing to not support the industry in order to save $5 on a used copy right now, I see no reason why the same people would still not buy the game used at $36 if they reduced the new game price to $40. I still believe $60 is a huge bargain for any AAA multiplayer game that you intend to play online, or any single player games that you can easily spend over 50 hours in. Games like Bulletstorm or even Bioshock (despite how good they may be) probably should not cost as much as the aforementioned games considering their length, but I guess it really depends on development cost for the publishers - not game time.

They won't support the industry to save $5 now because games are $60. And as plenty of people have already said, including people in the industry, $60 is too much to charge people for games these days. With the popularization of the iPhone and iPad, which offers thousands of games, quite a bit are high quality, for only $1 or even free, asking people to pay $60 for a game is slowly becoming outdated.

And if people still won't buy new if you reduce the price, then they'll never buy new, and are not lost sales, which means you are losing no profit from them buying used.

But yes, price isn't everything. As I said to the other guy, publishers need to start offering incentives to buy new. Customers have no obligation to buy from anyone other than the guy who offers the better deal. Right now Gamestop is offering the better deal.

I point to piracy on the PC. Why do people buy from Steam when they could get the game for free? Because Steam offers a better deal.

Offer a better deal than Gamestop, and people will buy from you. If they still don't buy from you, they will never buy from you and aren't lost sales/profit.

How can the devs'/publishers' offer a better deal than Gamestop's used sales when any decrease in price will be easily matched by Gamestop (since Gamestop will be spending less on buying the used copies)? They tried by giving incentives to buy new over used with free DLC but apparently that is evil. I admit a price decrease on some games is a thing that probably should be done, especially for digital downloads. However you have yet give any reasons why that would stop the people who buy used from suddenly wanting to give up their $5 saving regardless of how low the total price goes down.

Also your point on Iphone games is pretty exaggerated, Iphone games last a couple of hours at most and have next to no development costs.

As to why more people don't pirate, well because it is Illegal? You have to have a lot of technical knowledge? People probably feel a lot more bad about it too, since they got it for free (even though I myself consider them about as bad as each other on their damage done to the industry (unless you are buying used because you can no longer find a new copy, like with older gen games), though I wont get into that here).

 

[nothtr]

snip

I didn't say they need to give me a damn thing. It's just they need not to ***** when I choose to buy their game used when it was too damn expensive for me to buy it new. If Publishers want people to buy new they need to sell cheap and stop treating those that buy used, rent, and or share games like they stole money out their pockets.

Just for curiosities sake what price do you think a Triple A title should go at you know with the mulit-year development and total costs being over 500million dollars?

wut

http://www.digitalbattle.com/2010/02/20/top-10-most-expensive-video-games-budgets-ever/

Granted it's slightly dated, but there's never been a video game that's cost that much to develop -- not even close.

EDIT:

You also posted they were spending up to 300 million on advertising? COULD reach 50 million, which btw is not following precedent.

http://bf3blog.com/2011/07/battlefield-3-marketing-budget-to-top-50-million/

Actual game production?

Battlefield 3′s budget is rumored to be around $25 million.

The games don't need to be AAA to be good; frankly, if AAA companies are seriously having trouble making money, there will always being independents more than willing to forge their way into the business.

 

[portal_cat]

When I saw the title I thought it was going to be about how people were turning to renting games from Gamefly or Blockbuster than buying it. I just ended up getting confused. I know that game publishers don't like used games. It's just like how book publishers don't like used books

 

[Guardian of Nekops]

How can the devs'/publishers' offer a better deal than Gamestop's used sales when any decrease in price will be easily matched by Gamestop (since Gamestop will be spending less on buying the used copies)?

How much does Gamestop give you for your used game now? I'm not sure, since I keep my old games, but here's an estimate for me to work with... Ten bucks, and then they sell it for fifteen. Does that sound about right? A bit generous, actually... I think they fleece you worse than that.

How much less could they offer you for that game and still have it be worthwhile for you to go in and sell it? My guess is... not much. Not much at all. Some people would still sell it for five or even two, of course, but there would be fewer of them... and then there would be fewer used copies to sell.

Suddenly, if you want a used copy of the game you have to get lucky, or wait for it. And with a new game selling for 30 rather than 60, if they don't have the used game there and waiting, you'll spring for the new one.

 

[Odd Water]

I bought a used house. I've had a few used cars in my life. Some of my clothes when I was younger were preowned by other family members. I bought some used furniture. The entire concept of not buying new is because not everyone wants to spend the full money for buying new, when used or preowned handles your needs perfectly well. Now of course not everyone has to do that, obviously someone has to buy new, or the items won't get out there on the market at all.

Seriously, why is the gaming market the only place I ever hear about the 'evils' of buying used?

A rare sane voice!

I grew up wearing hand-me-downs and shopping at the used bookstore. Silly me, I didn't realize that I was single-handedly destroying the clothing and publishing industries.

The people that fuss over how people should only buy new, I wonder how many also have other used things like homes, cars, etc.

 

[Irridium]

It simple really. Because used is there as a cheaper alternative with better profit for the distributor. Therefore buying new stock is bad business. In other words you got the order wrong. People arn't buying used because new isn't available. New isn't available because people buy used.

I can find new versions of old games for just about anything on the PC. No used available. Its not that games just disappear because the publisher decided to leave them. We decided to buy the cheaper used ones and makes it pointless for them to use money on making extra stock.

That's because Publishers aren't developing games with long-term strategies in mind, only short term. It's always hype before launch, launch, then more or less no talk about that game again from the publisher. This has happened for years, far before used sales got anywhere near as big as they are now. This leaves people only able to find out about the game from either friends who let them borrow it, or used sales, which they choose because they don't want to spend lots of money on a product they know next-to-nothing about and just generally being a smart consumer.

That is bullshit

If I can find them selling 10 years after release on pc, but cant find the same game selling 10 weeks after on console. Its the same bloody game. Dont start with "its their strategy thats the problem" when the same game will have a much longer shelf life on PC.

Im calling bullshit. Dont tell me that they only market the pc side.

I'm not saying they're only marketing on the PC. I'm saying they're marketing on consoles up to and at release, then not marketing them ever again until the sequel and/or DLC comes out. The result is that the games generally fade out of the public eye, which leads to the public not buying it, which leads to sales dropping, which causes stores to stop stocking them(why stock a game that isn't selling anymore?). This can happen as soon as two months after release.

The reason games survive so long on the PC is because the PC is a long-term market. With consoles your stuff is on there as long as you keep it in the public eye. With PC's your stuff is on there until the end of the internet. The thing is though, damn near nobody is treating the PC like a long-term market. This is why I worry about a digital console market. Publishers are not the most prone to change, and I would not be surprised in the least if they use a short-term plan with a fully digital market, when they should be focusing more on the long term.

 

[Irridium]

How can the devs'/publishers' offer a better deal than Gamestop's used sales when any decrease in price will be easily matched by Gamestop (since Gamestop will be spending less on buying the used copies)? They tried by giving incentives to buy new over used with free DLC but apparently that is evil. I admit a price decrease on some games is a thing that probably should be done, especially for digital downloads. However you have yet give any reasons why that would stop the people who buy used from suddenly wanting to give up their $5 saving regardless of how low the total price goes down.

Also your point on Iphone games is pretty exaggerated, Iphone games last a couple of hours at most and have next to no development costs.

As to why more people don't pirate, well because it is Illegal? You have to have a lot of technical knowledge? People probably feel a lot more bad about it too, since they got it for free (even though I myself consider them about as bad as each other on their damage done to the industry (unless you are buying used because you can no longer find a new copy, like with older gen games), though I wont get into that here).

Well, lets just use EA as an example(good god I use them a lot...). They have their own service now, Origin. With it, they sell BOTH physical and digital products. What they should do, is but a little coupon into their retail games that gives them %40 off of their next purchase (physical OR digital) on Origin. And if you keep buying from Origin, they give you the occasional deal or if they're really crazy, any free product that's $20 or cheaper. This would cause people to buy new and from Origin for all the benefits, and to keep buying from them.

They could also have their own used game deal. Again, for both physical and digital. For physical, you could send in you're EA game, and they could add credit to your Origin account. They could easily offer more than gamestop offers. And then they could set up their own "pre-owned" section, sell them for quite a bit cheaper than Gamestop, and keep 100% of the profits. For digital copies, gamers can revoke their licences and get funds transferred to their account. EA could then set up a "discount" digital shop and sell the used licence back at a reduced cost.

Hell, they could even set up their own rental system! For physical products it could be similar to gamefly. Only instead of a monthly fee, charge $7 for a month before you have to send it back. Might not be ideal, and would need some details ironed out, but it'd be doable. For digital versions, the user could pay $5 to rent the game for 5 days. If they like it, EA could let them buy it for %10 off. If not, then the rental expires. Again, all of this done through Origin.

And if they could promise other publishers a nice chunk of the profits from this stuff if the publishers let EA put their games on Origin, then you can see similar things being done not just for EA games, but for all games.

Publishers would reap 100% of the profits, customers would get many, many options with how to play games, and it gives them reasons to not buy used. Or if they do buy used, they buy from EA who would be paying more for customer's used sales, and charging less than Gamestop.

EA could fucking dominate if they wanted. But they don't, instead they just sit back and complain.

As for other companies, well shit they could do the same(more or less). Let customers send them their used games for a chunk of money, and sell the used games themselves on their site for less than Gamestop, and get 100% of the profits(minus shipping and handling). Might not be able to do much with renting, but they already do get a cut from rentals. Well from Gamefly at least.

 

[Le_Lisra]

I do, so screw them.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

Dear games industry,

the cost to print a disc and inlay is prectically nothing.
sell those games cheaper from the start, many more peole will take a risk and buy new. Might even shift enough to have higher profits than $45/$60

Or stagger lowering the price in a regular the consumer knows when to expect it. if i knew a platinum edition will be released after 6 months at half the price, I'd wait rather than buy used

signed
A. Gamer

Dear Mr Ink

While the cost of a disk is low there are a lot more costs than the disk.
When everyone is paid of your 60$ we only see 27$ of them. Meanwhile a game like LA Noire cost about 100 million dollars to develop over 8 years, means that we will break even on our 8 year investment at about 3,7 million copies sold.

As you can see we are not trying to screw you over. We are just trying to stay in business.

Signed

A. Publisher

i understand there are costs, i'm saying sell at half the price and they may sell over twice as much.

If the situation is as bad as publishers make out; there are not enough consumers who believe in their business model (ie yourself and others on here) to buy the amount of games new that they would like. the consumers who'll wait for sales, go for used or borrow games ain't gonna get their minds changed and are feeling more and more penalised with each measure that comes in.

there is a recession on, at this rate we might have another video game industry crash like the 80's

But that wasn't your complaint.

Your complaint was its easy to make a cd so therefore they can sell the game to you cheaper.

I wanted to point out how much of a risk a publisher actually makes by paying people for 8 years to make a game. The pricing isn't unfair, and the profit margins arn't that insane.

If you want games to be cheaper then try to convince the publisher to go full Digital distribution. You can cut a lot of your price tag if you didn't want a CD to go with your game. Take section 8. A triple A title for 20$. Done purely by digital distribution. More game for less of your money.

ah see, here is the misunderstanding. it was a suggestion not a complaint on my part.
I'm happy importing, renting, borrowing and second hand purchasing.
I honestly wouldnt mind if nothing changed at all. I don't know what their profit marins are tbh just tired of being demonised.

 

[Irridium]

If they fade from public then they should fade from the PC market as well. To bring marketing is none issue again.
Also I am calling bullshit because if there were no long term market, then used market wouldn't exists. To say that it only exists on PC is bullshit. Would you please tell me why there should be a long term PC market, but not a long term on console market. Its often the same customer.

The main thing is the long term market is occupied by the second hand sales. The publisher cant compete because they have much greater costs when reproducing and distributing product .

last thing. That publishers arn't willing to change their ways has no effect on whether or not its good for us/them to change to full digital. I stand by my original statement of going full digital would make a steam like service the norm on any platform and lower prices of games in general.

They don't fade from the PC because of the likes of Steam and GoG promoting them through their constant daily/weekly/holiday/summer sales. Not to mention storing and distributing on the PC is insanely cheaper than manufacturing disks.

And yet the digital versions still cost just as much as the physical versions. Even though the digital one is much cheaper to maintain and carries a much larger profit. Look, I'm not saying that going digital is inherently bad, but I'm saying that with how they've already demonstrated with the general prices of digital content on the PC, prices won't go down.

Or maybe they will. I don't know. The PC is a very different market compared to consoles. Maybe things will be different. But that requires me to trust the publishers to do the right thing.

Fat chance of that happening.