Does buying a game NEW at a reduced price affect developpers/publishers?

[krazykidd]

Well this is more of a question than a disccusion , because i don't know much about the subeject , but i was wondering , since everyone makes threads about used games , but never about new games at reduced prices.

So my question is : Does buying a game new at a reduced price affect developpers and/or publishers ? [b/]

By reduced price i mean , when you buy a game new, but at 20$ or 30$.

And for dicussion value : Do you buy most of your games on release or do you usually wait for price drops ? [b/]

I personally never buy games on release for 60$ unless it is a Rpg/Jrpg , because i know at least with RPGs i will be getting 30+ hours of gameplay for my money. Like i will buy Skyrim new because i know i will play at least 100 hours, but i will wait until say Dead island is 30$ because for me a 10-20 hour game isn't worth 60$. Although there is replayabilty and multiplayer, but i don't really care for multiplayer.

 

[krazykidd]

Bumping this up just once , in case no one saw it.

 

[RollForInitiative]

Well this is more of a question than a disccusion , because i don't know much about the subeject , but i was wondering , since everyone makes threads about used games , but never about new games at reduced prices.

So my question is : Does buying a game new at a reduced price affect developpers and/or publishers ? [b/]

By reduced price i mean , when you buy a game new, but at 20$ or 30$.

Technically, in most cases the answer is likely "yes." A split percentage is often allotted for the publisher and the developer, as I understand it, rather than a flat value of X dollars going one way or the other.

Naturally, buying it at a lower rate will result in less money going to the developer but it's still much better than simply buying it used and denying the developers any money at all. As for folks that buy it used on the grounds that they want to "stick it to the man" and deny the publisher/devs their support, all I can say is this: you wanted the game enough to buy it, regardless of how you supposedly feel, and the only people you're really taking money away from by doing that are the developers that actually busted their ass on the title; you know, the guys and girls that you will never, ever know about because they aren't in news posts and interviews. They're too busy doing their jobs. =)

 

[Captain Bobbossa]

we saw it

 

[CManator]

Yes, it affects them. They get some money from a game that is no longer (or never was) worth $60.

 

[DigitalSushi]

Well this is more of a question than a disccusion , because i don't know much about the subeject , but i was wondering , since everyone makes threads about used games , but never about new games at reduced prices.

So my question is : Does buying a game new at a reduced price affect developpers and/or publishers ? [b/]

By reduced price i mean , when you buy a game new, but at 20$ or 30$.

And for dicussion value : Do you buy most of your games on release or do you usually wait for price drops ? [b/]

I personally never buy games on release for 60$ unless it is a Rpg/Jrpg , because i know at least with RPGs i will be getting 30+ hours of gameplay for my money. Like i will buy Skyrim new because i know i will play at least 100 hours, but i will wait until say Dead island is 30$ because for me a 10-20 hour game isn't worth 60$. Although there is replayabilty and multiplayer, but i don't really care for multiplayer.

Yes and No, the Publisher still gets the full price of the game, what happens is called "Retrospective Credit" (or other marketing buzzwords but thats the norm), Big Store sells the game at 20$ but pays the Publisher full price (normally about 32 dollars that the store pays on a 40 dollar game) then the publisher has to credit them if certain criteria are met

As an example
Basically WallMart get in contact with Bethesda and agree that they will sell Fallout 3 at 20$ for a limited time sale price (lets say 1 week), but they pay Bethesda monies of the higher priced game, the criteria is that WallMart have to sell 90,000 copies of Fallout 3 within that 1 week period, so once the sale has ended WallMart hand over their EPOS date (Electronic Point Of Sale) to Bethesda for the agreed week, if the criteria was matched (90,000 units sold) then Bethesda give WallMart the different of loss plus whatever the profit margin was agreed.

So yes they get full monies owed, but then credit the difference if the unit sold's in met.

edit: This goes for CD's and films in sales as well

Where it gets really fucking sketchy is in Boxsets, such as The Terminator Boxset each Terminator film was made by a different company and are valued at different prices, so the flat fee boxset of 30.00 dollars doesn't mean that each company should receive 33.333% of the profit, because the company that made Terminator 2 (the higher valued of the films) expect a bigger cut.

Same goes with the Fallout series, mixing F1 and F-NV in a box set, there would be ACCOUNTANT HELL TO PAY!

 

[RollForInitiative]

Not really. The absolute vast majority of any console/PC title is sold during the first month. That's when the sales are evaluated and more or less 'closed'.

That's a common misconception. Yes, many games sell the bulk of their sales during the first two weeks. However, titles with lower marketing budgets typically develop their sales over a lengthy period driven by word of mouth instead. These rely on lifetime sales values, not two week sales values, and can achieve similar numbers over a much greater span of time.

Assuming every game releases with a flash-in-the-pan sales count is far from accurate.

 

[DigitalSushi]

Also, most retailers buy games in massive bulk and pay in advance, so whatever is left after the opening week/month etc. is usually just the retailer's old stock. It won't give more money to the developers or distributors.

No they don't.
normally its on an "+30 EOM" basis, the retailer orders the copies and then plus 30 days after they receive the games that they pay at the end of month, hence +30 EOM.

There's only a couple of games for and a couple of stores at that, that are willing and able to pay up front.

COD MW2 was sold at a loss for the first day on purpose by big stores to get people to come in and buy something else which they ramped up the price of.

When a game is on sale its because their was an agreement, not because stock is left over, you don't sell stock at a loss, ever.