Buy used? Can't complain.

[Spandexpanda]

The difference is when a person gets a car, they tend to keep it for a long time. If they do eventually sell it is a used dealer, it will likely be well after the manufacturer has stopped making money on that particular model. Compare that with games which, in a lot of cases, can be seen on the used market less than a week after its release.

Though I will argue that video games is the only industry I can think of that withholds content if you buy the product used. You don't really see book publishers getting the ending removed until you pay an additional fee to them if you buy a book used. Frankly I think publishers/developers have far too much control over their product after it ships. While that can be a good thing (gives them a chance to add content, fix some bugs, etc...) it does allow for some pretty dickish things you don't really see in any other industry.

Well I don't trade in games a week after I buy them... I return them for a refund if they're that shit (or short). Again though, I traded in my original DS a full five years after I bought it. I'd say that's a pretty reasonable trade in time. The reason being that I used it for all that time, just like you would a car. However, I feel that comparing a car to a game is not good enough. In my mind, the only reason someone would trade in a car so soon after buying it is if the car is faulty, or not to their liking. Similarly, with a game, I'd trade it in if it was faulty (well, get a refund) or not to my liking. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Holding on to a game that I'm never gonna play again just to buoy up the industry seems a bit ridiculous, especially seeing as you get the best price for games the sooner after launch you trade them in. So, if you buy a game, don't like it, and trade it in for someone else to buy, does that make you a bad person? Not in my mind. It also doesn't make the person who buys that game second hand a bad person. If, like me, you want the newest games on release day or soon thereafter, but rarely have the money to buy them, then you'll want the cheapest copy you can get. Preowned.

 

[MasochisticAvenger]

The difference is when a person gets a car, they tend to keep it for a long time. If they do eventually sell it is a used dealer, it will likely be well after the manufacturer has stopped making money on that particular model. Compare that with games which, in a lot of cases, can be seen on the used market less than a week after its release.

Though I will argue that video games is the only industry I can think of that withholds content if you buy the product used. You don't really see book publishers getting the ending removed until you pay an additional fee to them if you buy a book used. Frankly I think publishers/developers have far too much control over their product after it ships. While that can be a good thing (gives them a chance to add content, fix some bugs, etc...) it does allow for some pretty dickish things you don't really see in any other industry.

Well I don't trade in games a week after I buy them... I return them for a refund if they're that shit (or short). Again though, I traded in my original DS a full five years after I bought it. I'd say that's a pretty reasonable trade in time. The reason being that I used it for all that time, just like you would a car. However, I feel that comparing a car to a game is not good enough. In my mind, the only reason someone would trade in a car so soon after buying it is if the car is faulty, or not to their liking. Similarly, with a game, I'd trade it in if it was faulty (well, get a refund) or not to my liking. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Holding on to a game that I'm never gonna play again just to buoy up the industry seems a bit ridiculous, especially seeing as you get the best price for games the sooner after launch you trade them in. So, if you buy a game, don't like it, and trade it in for someone else to buy, does that make you a bad person? Not in my mind. It also doesn't make the person who buys that game second hand a bad person. If, like me, you want the newest games on release day or soon thereafter, but rarely have the money to buy them, then you'll want the cheapest copy you can get. Preowned.

Oh no, I have no problem with people buying used games. I think everyone that goes on about how "everyone should only buy new, and they are EVIL if they buy it used" are up themselves. If someone only wants to buy new, that's good for them, but it's not something they should be trying to force on everyone else. Really, the game industry needs to cut this shit out; there is no excuse for them punishing gamers like they are.

Also, I don't know how it is anywhere else, but down here in Australia is has become nearly impossible to return games even a day after you purchase them (I remember trying to return a 3DS game 2 hours after I bought it and had trouble getting them to take it back because they consider it "used"). Often trading a game in is your only outlet to getting something back for a shitty game.

 

[Sparcrypt]

Since your mind is clearly non functional, I will make this as simple as possible. If the major place to buy the game new is telling you you should buy used instead of buying new, then sales that would have gone to new go to used copies. This does not occur in any other medium or product.

The fact that you were only able to respond to one of my points shows you clearly don't have much to say to refute the rest of them. But whatever, I'm sure your response will be that you didn't respond to them because they were so hopelessly stupid and you don't have time for that crap and blah blah blah.

Anyway, please explain exactly why it is Gamestops job to push customers to new games instead of preowned? Why don't the publishers make it more appealing for them to sell new copies instead?

And for that matter, why do you assume people are such stupid sheep they just do whatever a random employee tells them? I generally buy things new because - shock - I prefer them new. Gamestop might stock preowned games but if there wasn't a legitimate market for them they wouldn't do so. The preowned games are there because people see the value in them - that isn't a threat, it's competition. There is a big difference.

You're also forgetting a few other things. First of all - every one of the games that are sold preowned were originally bought brand new, and for quite a while there won't BE many preowned copies in circulation.

You seem to think that every time a game is released, gamestops shelves magically fill up with hundreds of preowned copies of the game. This is not the case. As I mentioned before, I worked in a games store and we pushed trade ins HARD, as the company required us to. However trade ins for new release games were very rare... oh you might see a couple in the first month or two but you didn't see a huge amount, and even then the price for the preowned ones was so close to that of the new copies most people still bought new.

The majority of games I sold preowned were older games - the most popular ones are the games that have been out for years and are now basically impossible to buy new, but are still availible to buy preowned for a few dollars.

This also brings me to another point you've made - that 'sales that would have gone to new go to used copies'. Bullshit. The logic that goes into this statement is like saying 'every music download is a lost sale!'. Just because someone bought a game for 30 dollars preowned does not mean that if there was no preowned option that they would have bought it for 50 dollars new instead.

Yes - SOME sales go to preowned that would have gone to new. That does not mean every preowned sale is a lost new sale. That's like saying 'oh man, if that guy hadn't bought Assassins Creed he would have bought Call of Duty instead! Ubisoft stole their sale!'. The buyer in question may well have gone 'oh.. no Assassins Creed.. I'll buy pizza and a movie instead'.

You really need to figure out what your argumement is anyway. Is it that preowned is bad, or is it that you just don't like gamestop? Maybe you should take a closer look at the business practices of some of the big publishers before you weep for their 'lost sales'.

THAT is why it is a problem for games,

If by 'problem' you mean 'legitimately competitive market' then yes. It is a problem.

you troll!

Learn the definition of a troll. A troll is not someone who doesn't agree with you and your made up facts.

Got that cleared up? Feel free to insult me if you like, but calling someone a troll when they are making reasoned arguments that are being backed up with logic and reasoning just looks idiotic.

 

[Spandexpanda]

eally, the game industry needs to cut this shit out; there is no excuse for them punishing gamers like they are.

Also, I don't know how it is anywhere else, but down here in Australia is has become nearly impossible to return games even a day after you purchase them (I remember trying to return a 3DS game 2 hours after I bought it and had trouble getting them to take it back because they consider it "used"). Often trading a game in is your only outlet to getting something back for a shitty game.

Hear hear. And here in Ireland it's pretty easy to return games if there's a problem with 'em, especially around christmas time when everybody and their mum has a load of crappy games kicking about that they don't want.

 

[joe-h2o]

I take it you also think the used book market "severely damages" the publishing industry, and that the used car market and used housing markets also "severely damage" those industries?

The game companies (or I suppose, the publishers that own them) complain about used sales as "lost revenue", but that's simply disingenuous. The reason that the used market is as big as it is is because of the high cost of new games. Certainly the costs of development are high, but when a AAA title can have *millions* spent on it and then *still* turn out a mediocre to poor product, then yes - people are going to complain. Especially if they buy it at the full price.

I'm amused that you equate the practice with theft, since that's the sort of rhetoric that the music industry uses, and the movie industry did (especially around the time when the VCR was invented - they tried to lobby to prevent the sale of VCRs to consumers, arguing that it would destroy the movie industry, only to later discover that they made more money selling VHS copies of movies in stores).

The game industry has backed itself into this corner - games are very expensive, and are often poor showings for the price asked (even with the gigantic budgets). They need to address why so many people find second hand games so attractive - value for money. Brand new games simply do not provide that, with a few notable exceptions.

Go make yourself a dunce hat and sit in the corner.

NONE of the industries you mentioned are comparable to games.

1) books, its simple, low risk, low break even book, we are tallking less than 100k in sales is a success. To write, edit, print and distribute a book costs very little, also remember, books don't really advertise, theres no big release expenditure, it is literally just the writing editing and printing costs.

2) Cars have a higher unit cost because there is component cost involved, so they put a fair margin on each one and end up in the green. And a used car is always worse than a new one go on say the same about games, i dare you.

3) Housing is paid for by the first time buyer, again its a labour and resource cost. Its a fundamentally different system.

I mean the closest you can really get to games is films and even they have 3 teirs of income vs games one (cinema,television/plane syndication, dvd). We are our own industry and have our own problems, and need solutions that fit, atm thats dlc, but as infrastructure and interconnectivity increase in size speed and reliability there will be a shift to always online drm, and the big shocker is because of the increased reliability nobody will really notice. Now it won't happen yet, but it will happen eventually. And we will be better for it, PC gaming is on average 25% cheaper for a new game and for an old game the prices drop quicker and lower than console counterparts.

Food for thought. Although your probably just going to start flaming because "I WANT MAH RIGHHTS" rather than whats good for you.

Goodness me, would you like some back support for that chip on your shoulder?

You claim the games industry has nothing in common with any of the industries I have listed, but you're ignoring the biggest and simplest criterion common to all business ventures: the requirement for a sustainable business model. To put it another way, (and I have already, but people keep ignoring it because it's convenient), your product needs to provide value for money such that the sales outweigh the expenses.

You dismiss the three industries I mention out of hand because the products are not identical to games, but it's very short sighted.

As it stands right now, many game titles are not value for money. You can try and reframe the argument all you want that "games cost a lot of money to make, and therefore it's necessary to charge $60 for them to recover the costs", but my approach would be to look at it from the other side - if it costs that much to make a game then the model is simply unsustainable in the long term.

To bring it back to cars, since you're so convinced the business models are not the same, we'll look at a hypothetical new car. Let's also make it an electric car so that it has one really big, expensive component that is not fully "mature" yet (for example, compared to being able to build using aluminium, or high economy ICE, fully computerised systems etc that are mature and relatively cheap for manufacturers) - the traction battery.

Now, the car company wants to sell this car for $x thousand since that is the price the market will bear. Pricing it higher than that means that consumers *simply will not buy it* on a large scale - ie, on a scale that ensures your product line is profitable. Sure, you'll always sell some to people who want one and who aren't really concerned about the cost, but you can't build a business on those people.

Now imagine that it's a little along the road (ha!) and the car has been out for a year or so. It still costs a lot to make the car, but now used sales are undercutting them - do they whine that second hand sales are undercutting their business? (Perhaps, but that does not get away from the fact that if your product is not value for money, people will look elsewhere to obtain it if they want it but cannot afford it, or they'll simply not buy at all)

This all boils down to sustainable business models, and the games industry is not immune to it. Nor can it dictate the market price in reverse and whine when people claim it is too expensive. If your new games are not value for money then *reduce the budget that goes into them* in the first place.

No other business would get away with having a gigantic budget for what are often mediocre products and then blaming the poor sales[1] on the fact that people can simply by a second hand product.

You've spent time in this thread "schooling" people on how business works, yet you seem to be missing the very first lesson.

[1] I'd also make the claim that games companies have little to complain about in the first place given how profitable the publishers that own them are, but they simply want more, more, more and take the attitude "how dare people buy our product second hand and not pay us!" .

Edit: you said a "used car is always worse than a new one", but that's a useless statement. Worse in what way? In purely technical factors, sure (miles covered and so on), but it's also a known quantity - it's been bedded in, and if you're looking at a well-looked-after vehicle an immaculate used car can be much better value for money than a new one.

As for "daring" me to say the same about games I have one word for you in just the last couple of months: Catwoman.

 

[joe-h2o]

I take it you also think the used book market "severely damages" the publishing industry, and that the used car market and used housing markets also "severely damage" those industries?

The game companies (or I suppose, the publishers that own them) complain about used sales as "lost revenue", but that's simply disingenuous. The reason that the used market is as big as it is is because of the high cost of new games. Certainly the costs of development are high, but when a AAA title can have *millions* spent on it and then *still* turn out a mediocre to poor product, then yes - people are going to complain. Especially if they buy it at the full price.

I'm amused that you equate the practice with theft, since that's the sort of rhetoric that the music industry uses, and the movie industry did (especially around the time when the VCR was invented - they tried to lobby to prevent the sale of VCRs to consumers, arguing that it would destroy the movie industry, only to later discover that they made more money selling VHS copies of movies in stores).

The game industry has backed itself into this corner - games are very expensive, and are often poor showings for the price asked (even with the gigantic budgets). They need to address why so many people find second hand games so attractive - value for money. Brand new games simply do not provide that, with a few notable exceptions.

Go make yourself a dunce hat and sit in the corner.

NONE of the industries you mentioned are comparable to games.

1) books, its simple, low risk, low break even book, we are tallking less than 100k in sales is a success. To write, edit, print and distribute a book costs very little, also remember, books don't really advertise, theres no big release expenditure, it is literally just the writing editing and printing costs.

2) Cars have a higher unit cost because there is component cost involved, so they put a fair margin on each one and end up in the green. And a used car is always worse than a new one go on say the same about games, i dare you.

3) Housing is paid for by the first time buyer, again its a labour and resource cost. Its a fundamentally different system.

I mean the closest you can really get to games is films and even they have 3 teirs of income vs games one (cinema,television/plane syndication, dvd). We are our own industry and have our own problems, and need solutions that fit, atm thats dlc, but as infrastructure and interconnectivity increase in size speed and reliability there will be a shift to always online drm, and the big shocker is because of the increased reliability nobody will really notice. Now it won't happen yet, but it will happen eventually. And we will be better for it, PC gaming is on average 25% cheaper for a new game and for an old game the prices drop quicker and lower than console counterparts.

Food for thought. Although your probably just going to start flaming because "I WANT MAH RIGHHTS" rather than whats good for you.

Goodness me, would you like some back support for that chip on your shoulder?

You claim the games industry has nothing in common with any of the industries I have listed, but you're ignoring the biggest and simplest criterion common to all business ventures: the requirement for a sustainable business model. To put it another way, (and I have already, but people keep ignoring it because it's convenient), your product needs to provide value for money such that the sales outweigh the expenses.

You dismiss the three industries I mention out of hand because the products are not identical to games, but it's very short sighted.

As it stands right now, many game titles are not value for money. You can try and reframe the argument all you want that "games cost a lot of money to make, and therefore it's necessary to charge $60 for them to recover the costs", but my approach would be to look at it from the other side - if it costs that much to make a game then the model is simply unsustainable in the long term.

To bring it back to cars, since you're so convinced the business models are not the same, we'll look at a hypothetical new car. Let's also make it an electric car so that it has one really big, expensive component that is not fully "mature" yet (for example, compared to being able to build using aluminium, or high economy ICE, fully computerised systems etc that are mature and relatively cheap for manufacturers) - the traction battery.

Now, the car company wants to sell this car for $x thousand since that is the price the market will bear. Pricing it higher than that means that consumers *simply will not buy it* on a large scale - ie, on a scale that ensures your product line is profitable. Sure, you'll always sell some to people who want one and who aren't really concerned about the cost, but you can't build a business on those people.

Now imagine that it's a little along the road (ha!) and the car has been out for a year or so. It still costs a lot to make the car, but now used sales are undercutting them - do they whine that second hand sales are undercutting their business? (Perhaps, but that does not get away from the fact that if your product is not value for money, people will look elsewhere to obtain it if they want it but cannot afford it, or they'll simply not buy at all)

This all boils down to sustainable business models, and the games industry is not immune to it. Nor can it dictate the market price in reverse and whine when people claim it is too expensive. If your new games are not value for money then *reduce the budget that goes into them* in the first place.

No other business would get away with having a gigantic budget for what are often mediocre products and then blaming the poor sales[1] on the fact that people can simply by a second hand product.

You've spent time in this thread "schooling" people on how business works, yet you seem to be missing the very first lesson.

[1] I'd also make the claim that games companies have little to complain about in the first place given how profitable the publishers that own them are, but they simply want more, more, more and take the attitude "how dare people buy our product second hand and not pay us!" .

i addressed your point already, see the line saying that cars lose value, quite fast, with any use. a car used for a year, is less useful than a new one, fact.

As for the rest its down to opinion but when going to the cinema costs around 4 quid for an hours entertainment (based on the last trip i took, not even 3d, and a dvd is similar price point). I usually only have to get 7 hours out of a game for it to be worthwhile (i get most of my games less than 28 quid, go pc gaming) and its a pretty shoddy game that can't provide 7 hours entertainment. I would bring in comparisions to television series but since the price per hours entertainment varies hugely thats down to what particular series is chosen.

And yes i don't mind arguing for corporations, because without them we would have less games, the more money they have the more chances they can afford to take.

Don;t get me wrong - this is not an anti-corporation rant, it's a sustainable business model rant. I don't believe the games industry is in a position to complain given the decisions it is making regarding what it spends to make a game and what it gets in return.

If we let them get into the complacent perch (and it's a bit late for this) that truly mediocre games that they spend millions on "deserve" some special status regarding how we should treat used sales then we're doomed.

Great games that are worth the expense are not a problem - if it's worth it, people will buy them, and the costs incurred by the devs will be recovered.

Also, re: used being worse than new: Catwoman.

Shame, since it was otherwise a great game. They didn't need to be sleazy about second hand sales like that.

 

[Nyaliva]

As for the rest its down to opinion but when going to the cinema costs around 4 quid for an hours entertainment (based on the last trip i took, not even 3d, and a dvd is similar price point). I usually only have to get 7 hours out of a game for it to be worthwhile (i get most of my games less than 28 quid, go pc gaming) and its a pretty shoddy game that can't provide 7 hours entertainment. I would bring in comparisions to television series but since the price per hours entertainment varies hugely thats down to what particular series is chosen.

And yes i don't mind arguing for corporations, because without them we would have less games, the more money they have the more chances they can afford to take.

You're misrepresenting value for money. Sure, I can spend AUD$6 (here in Australia) to go see a 2 hour movie, but if that movie is mediocre or bad, I've only lost $6 and 2 hours of my life. If I buy a game for $60, it takes 20 hours to complete and it's rubbish, then I'm going to complain a lot more. But if I get it for $30 used then I'm less likely to complain loudly to the publisher for wasting 20 hours of my life. The quality of the entertainment is essential to the argument (albeit I'm not quite sure what the argument between you and joe-h2o is anymore). Also, you say a game that can't give 7 hours entertainment is "shoddy", but may I as, have you ever played Portal? For less than 4 hours, you can get much better value for money than any modern FPS on the market.

Also, using your low-priced PC games as a justification is poor practice when console players are lucky to get games for $60, giving their argument more weight and rendering yours arrogant and most people won't listen to you.