Bargains Are for Cheaters

[dochmbi]

I play xbox 360 games for free* legally. How? Buy em used, sell em used, and no middleman like gamestop in between.
I'm just really confused about the Gamestop phenomenon, isn't there an online auction site in the US which you can use for free? Couldn't you just sell your game on say craigslist?
Maybe people just want to throw their money away, buying and selling at terrible rates.
I don't know about that stuff because I live in Finland and here I use a free auction site where I can convienently sell my game after I'm done playing.



*-shipping costs and slight devaluation over time

 

[dochmbi]

I stared at that pricing for a second, cheered at myself for not buying Modern Warfare 2 yet, put them back in the shelf and walked away.

Of course you could just a have gone online to searched for the best price, MW2 is about 28e on ebay with shipping and with a little more searching around with google you could probably go even lower.

 

[ItsAPaul]

I wish I lived in fantasyland where used games were super cheap like people on forums always claim. Personally I don't need to save $2-5 (usually $2) that badly, and if I did I damn sure wouldn't be buying video games.

 

[Sebenko]

Games are too expensive.

£40 for Starcraft II? And you expect me not to buy used?

I'm not cheating anyone. It's the fuckwits who put the prices that high that are cheating consumers.

 

[dochmbi]

I wish I lived in fantasyland where used games were super cheap like people on forums always claim. Personally I don't need to save $2-5 (usually $2) that badly, and if I did I damn sure wouldn't be buying video games.

I suppose its a mindset thing, I enjoy minmaxing, whether it be in RPGs with the stats and abilities of my character, or in RL with my money.

 

[proghead]

Games are too expensive.
£40 for Starcraft II? And you expect me not to buy used?
I'm not cheating anyone. It's the fuckwits who put the prices that high that are cheating consumers.

They put whatever price they seem fit on their product. You either pay, or you don't. Simple as that. That's how a market works.
Whatever happens AFTER someone has bought their game, is none of their business until there's a law that says differently. That's my POV. How they deal with this is none of my concern. As a consumer my only means of control is buying, or not buying, so i'll make use of it as i see fit.

P.S.: Have they really caught all the illegal downloaders yet, that they're now going after paying customers?

 

[Fetzenfisch]

This whole re-selling discussion really is the most idiotic "problem" of the year. You buy stuff, its yours, you can do whatever you want with it, eat it, burn it , re-sell it.
No one sais that people who buy a used car are criminal leeches, or second hand clothing, old books, used furniture. NO that's all normal, but the game industry has to double cash here. And it is double-cashing, because everything you can not eat, always was re-sold. You want it shiny and new , go get it more expensive when it comes out, you just want it some time , get it used when its out for some time.
Thats no new "problem" of this industry, its just normality.
If Volkswagen came to me when i sold my car, demanding 10% of the money, i would've kicked them out the door, with a massive boot of steel.

 

[Nazrel]

I mostly buy new games.I really don't trust used ones; I've seen how some people treat their games.

I really see no problem with the used game market, save one; the people who actually trade in their games.

With all this talk about fiscal responsibility, you are being ripped off.

Even when it was 3 for a new game you were being ripped off, but what is it now? Each game gives you $10 off?

I am reminded of that story of the kid who got a dollar, then traded it for 2 quarters, then 3 dimes, then 4 nickles, and ended with 5 penny's.

What I'm saying is if you want to get rid of your game, don't use gamestop, use E-Bay.

 

[raskyred]

If I don't buy a new game off of a Gamestop shelf, the developer loses nothing. Gamestop already paid the developer/publisher for the game in order to put it on the shelves. Half of the argument is invalid from the get-go.

Except that Gamestop can choose to order fewer new copies as trade-ins occur, while charging full / near-full price for used copies and pocket all the money.

 

[Hudson_sir_he's_Hicks]

Very good article Shamus, although I think you missed a reason why stores such as GameStop, GAME, GameStation, HMV and CEX (these are in the UK) offer used games to consumers. It's the same reason that Cineworld charges £4.50 for popcorn and £3 for a drink - the need to survive. As cinemas receive next to nothing from ticket sales, they have to generate income from other sources, hence why food is insanely expensive.

I don't know what % of a games price goes to the retailer, I'd hazard a guess and say that it's a very small cut - probably less than £5 for a £45 game; and as consumers start to buy more of their media online, high street retailers need to find a way to generate income to stay in business and used games bring in cash just for the retailer, it the only way to survive for a lot of stores - although GAME is currently in liquidation which acts as an indicator as to the fine line that retailers are operating on.

Instead of pointing fingers at each other, retailers and publishers need to start working together to find a mutually beneficial solution, preferably one that doesn't involve blaming consumers who are simply trying to find value in the games market, we're not made of money!

 

[MasterV]

What Shamus says is common sense, and it amazes me how many responses I've seen of the kind "Awesome idea Shamus". It's simpple, really. When a customer wants something, he pays for it. If he's not that interested, he won't, or will find alternative, chaper ways to get it. If he does get it and he's displeased (and that's the product and the producer's fault), he sells it. And so on and so forth.

When you see masses of used games these days, it can only mean one thing. Masses of disappointed/disinteressted customers. Why not stop spending untold millions on crap then developers? Used games exist since the start of the phenomenon, it's only bugging them now and this is the reason. They make expensive, crap and incomplete games which people get bored easily. People buy but mostly don't want to buy or might buy it if it was cheaper. And they're saying that in the end it's the consumer's fault. The Gamestop crap is just a facade because simply, they can't tell you, the customer, that you're a thief and a scumbag. But they can attack a successful enterprise. As for you and me, they say it indirectly, by applying additional fees.

 

[Krakyn]

If I don't buy a new game off of a Gamestop shelf, the developer loses nothing. Gamestop already paid the developer/publisher for the game in order to put it on the shelves. Half of the argument is invalid from the get-go.

Except that Gamestop can choose to order fewer new copies as trade-ins occur, while charging full / near-full price for used copies and pocket all the money.

As I said in my other posts, there is a price threshold for used game consumers. They won't purchase a $60 dollar game. They'll pirate it, borrow it from a friend, get it on craigslist, go half-sies with someone, something. I remember typing more options yesterday, but I don't feel like looking it up.

Thus, the developer makes no more money, and Gamestop loses money. So there is only a loss, no gain.

 

[TheDoctor455]

Of course... this whole argument is completely irrelevant to the three studios that are still PC exclusive and of course... to PC gamers like myself.

 

[carpathic]

It strikes me that the game developers en masse should just buy gamestop, then use it as their exclusive marketing tool much like "The Beer Store" is run by the breweries in Ontario.

You want to sell beer in any volume in Ontario? You buy shares in the beer store. That way, everyone makes money and the ones with lots of shares make more in relation to the amount of the store they own.

This would co-opt the market. By still allowing distribution through Bestbuy etc, they would also avoid the monopoly issues.

 

[Xanthious]

On the rare occasions I buy console titles I almost always buy used. Even if the prices were identical I would still likely opt for the used copy. Reason being, at Gamestop, used titles have a 7 day no questions asked return policy. I'm sorry, I simply don't care how awesome a game might be, if I'm laying down 60 bucks I want to know that if I beat it in 2 days or it doesn't ring my bell I can take it back and call it a wash and get my money back or get another game.

Unlike used games, new games offer no such return policy. If I pay 60 dollars and the game it total shit I'm stuck with it and my options are selling it online or shelving it and eating the loss. Neither of which I relish. Looking at it strictly as a customer when presented with two identical copies with one being 5 dollars cheaper with a 7 day return policy and the other being more expensive and no return policy what so ever the call is a simple one.

If these developers whining about used games want me to buy their games new then they need to give me a reason to and holding content hostage won't be that reason. If they want to do that, I will just go without that content like in the case of online play, or skip the game all together if it is content I would of made use of.

Right now the console game market is putting out about 1 decent game for every 10 garbage titles. Of those good titles maybe a 1 out of every 10 of those has enough content to justify paying anywhere near 60 dollars for it. Considering that 1 in every 100 games put out is actually worth 60 dollars is there any question as to why people would be shy about buying new games and opt to buy used games that come with a guarantee.

 

[Vrach]

Tanfastic article - I was just talking about this with my mate a week or so back.

I have to ask though. Does the video game industry even have a right to complain? This is not trolling or flaming the industry, it's an actual question. Are they losing any money that wouldn't otherwise just go to a Scrooge McDuck swimming pool? Or are they just greedy and want the full amount just because they're 'entitled' to it?

Anyway, there's one more thing. See, seeing a movie (which is the top dollar thing, right?) in a theatre comes at a price which ranges from country to country - and it scales with the fucking earning you can make in that country. My friend in UK wants to go see a movie? The theatre is going to cost them 10 pounds, which is roughly 12 euros. I wanna see a movie in Serbia? It's gonna cost me about 3.5 euros. Notice the difference? It takes into account the living standard of the country - not completely of course, but there's a decent effort at least and as a result we're no strangers to going to the cinema.

Now let's compare game prices. Starcraft 2 in UK? 42,5 euros. Starcraft 2 in Serbia? 57 euros. See anything wrong with this picture?

Lets look at minimum wage difference between UK and Serbia - 7 euros an hour to 128 euros per month (data from wikipedia, might not be spot on or 100% current, and we're not just talking about minimum wages, but it illustrates my point). That's 18 UK hours, which is a bit over 2 days with a 9-5 job for an entire month of work in Serbia. Assuming a 3 day/week job in Serbia, that's a comparison of 18 hours in UK to 96 hours in Serbia, which is over 5 times the difference. So how can you expect the people in the latter to pay you a higher price for the product?

What that results in is that they don't get any money from us at all - this is not just an overstatement, out of all my gamer friends, I don't think I know anyone who owns a new game (exception sometimes being an MMO), at the very best they buy it when it gets dirt cheap just as an homage to a great game. People can't afford a game so they either download it or buy a pirated copy. Even places that rent games just rent you the pirated version.

You can bang on about how evil piracy is, but I'd love to see you shell out some 250 euros for a 40 euro game and come back with the same story. Instead, they could scale the prices down to something reasonable and get some decent profit in return. Or they can bang on about what they're 'entitled' to and get nothing. Makes little difference to me.

[small]Note, while this post paints certain facts and points about the ethics of piracy, it does not condone piracy or indicate the practice of the same by the poster. Any resemblance between fictional characters and real life is purely coincidental.[/small]

 

[Daveman]

Gawd, I've literally been saying ths since the argument began. Games don't depreciate in value nearly as fast as they should. They should really be half price after a year. It's ludicrous to expect me to pay such huge prices for games. The whole reason for me not getting a console was because I'd have to spend the cost of the console to buy like 4 games. I'd say much more work goes into consoles than games surely... so frankly the video game industry can fuck off.

 

[CrashTestZombie]

Maybe when games are actually worth $60 (depending on the country), I'll go buy them.

 

[KDR_11k]

If I'm buying used that's usually because the option to buy new isn't really available. Even got an import game used that wouldn't even be available in stores here.

 

[Generic_Dave]

I am of the opinion that used game sales in places like Game-stop are BAD for the consumer. I'm not saying used games per say. But look at it this way, I went to trade in Modern Warfare 2 back in Jan in Gamestop. They offered my ?10 for a game less than 3 months old, and they were selling it for about ?35-45. So I stuck it on Gumtree and got ?40 for it. I do this regularly now, and I have always gotten "near" retail price.

Gamestop aren't just ripping devs and publishers off, they're ripping you off too.