Heavy Rain Dev Says Pre-Owned Sales Cost it Millions

[xPixelatedx]

What a dumbass. You know what people were doing before the used-game-boom? They were renting them from blockbuster/Hollywood Video/etc. Games have survived just fine since the days of the NES, and people have been playing them without paying full price since then. A video rental store only buys the game once, to. If say, 500+ people rent it, thats 500+ sales the developer lost IF we were to go by the logic Guillaume de Fondaumiere is spouting. That just isn't true, here's the sad fact of the matter:

If people are renting your game or buying it used, chances are they would have never paid full price to begin with. Therefor you didn't lose any sales, because those weren't sales you would have made to begin with. To think they were kind of makes the developer an ego maniac. Often the only games a person buys new are the ones they know - without a doubt - they will want: a game that gives you your money's worth. If you cannot make people do that for yours, then you didn't make an interesting enough game, or you didn't advertise it right.

 

[mcnally86]

Tough shit. I dont see car manufacturers whining that half their cars get bought pre-owned...

That comparison doesn't work. Used cars and used games are not the same, and neither are the industries behind them.

I would think its worse actually. Take a car, there are a lot of raw materials that go into it. Raw materials used car salesmen did not have to buy and pay to get them made into car part and then pay more to have them assembled. Basically the game is done and it costs barely anything to make disk copies and plastic cases. An unsold copy of a game costs a company next to nothing, and unsold car is a huge waste of metal.

 

[TrevHead]

Ive been a PC gamer for ages and have recently bought myself a 360 so I can play some exclusives, one thing I have noticed is just how much more expensive the games are especially on XBLA.

PC for the large part seems to be much more healthier for both the industry and the consumer. There is no 2nd hand sales but the games are by and large much cheaper.

I think a large part of the problem is that has to do with gamers picking titles that they feel safe with rather than risk money on something unknown. Steam sales allow ppl to try out new games. Its a shame consoles dont have something like steam sales it would help gaming as a whole get out of this COD FPS rut we are in atm.

For example many ppl have 50-100 plus game on their steam accounts. So many games that theyll never have time to play them all, but gamers dont mind this since the individual games are cheap.

Its because the PC is an open platform that nurtures all of this, something which sadly Sony, Ninty or MS will never allow. And neither will the big publishers like EA who are trying their best to turn PC into a closed system with the high prices on their digi distro games and setting up their own DD sites like Origin

Speaking of Open platforms I was reading this blog article today which suggests that Apple games sold for $10 make the same money per sale than a AAA console title http://games.greggman.com/game/should-nintendo-microsoft-and-sony-open-their-platforms/#more-1733

 

[ScrubberDucky]

You know, I can sort of see where devs and publishers are coming from on this one, but.. for christ's sake, seriously. This is LITERALLY a bunch of people saying "Boo-hoo, we only made 30 million dollars in profit instead of the projected 35 million!" That makes it incredibly hard for me to feel sorry for them.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Alright, a little bit of mathematics here:

3 million people played the game.

Only 2 million played it new.

Therefore, 1 million played it used.

Therefore around 1 million people would likely have traded it in.

Therefore, half the people who bought the game new decided to trade it in for another game.

Your're right there's a problem there. Make a fucking game good enough that half the people who buy it don't want to sell it fucking on. Don't go bitching about what certain people 'owe' you when you quite clearly couldn't make a game that kept people's attention!

Totally this.

I didn't get to play the game since I don't have a PS3, but from what I could tell from other people in threads and from Yahtzee's review of it, the game has absolutely no replay value. The killer is always the same, and as Yahtzee said, the multiple kinds of endings that game did have boiled down to the equivalent of some of the characters wearing different clothes at the end.

I for one have never sold a game back to a store, for one thing, all the games I have have some kind of replay value. Second, I'm the type of person that holds on to every game he as ever played, no matter if he ever plays them again, because there maybe one day that he might get a craving to play the game again or his future kids might be interested in gaming and get to see what the old man use to play.

In today's game resale mentality, game makers that don't put replay value in their games will have to expect this.

 

[theultimateend]

Alright, a little bit of mathematics here:

3 million people played the game.

Only 2 million played it new.

Therefore, 1 million played it used.

Therefore around 1 million people would likely have traded it in.

Therefore, half the people who bought the game new decided to trade it in for another game.

Your're right there's a problem there. Make a fucking game good enough that half the people who buy it don't want to sell it fucking on. Don't go bitching about what certain people 'owe' you when you quite clearly couldn't make a game that kept people's attention!

Damn. I didn't think of this. That's some baller math there.

I don't see any flaw in it either.

Man...that kinda makes me relook at used game sales a bit.

...so like I'm not being sarcastic, but I reread that just now and it sounds like I am. Assume I'm more in awe than sarcastic.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Why does retail have to die out as we move onto downloads, I was in my supermarket today, and they had a wall of gift cards, which either had a scratch off code, or credit was loaded onto them at the till.

Just stop making discs, and have a download code in the case. People can still go into a store and buy games, but there's no preowned market, and no 'stock' to get damaged, stolen, or lost, just codes digitally created at point of sale.

The store gets a wall of game display cases, and sales, the only thing that's lost is the preowned value.

The thing is, games companies need to understand, we as consumers factor in the preowned value, often, when making a buying decision. If you want no preowned market, we want at least $10 of the price of games, knowing they're worthless the moment we install them.

No, I know it won't happen either.

When we pay $60 for a new title, we're often doing that knowing we'll get $20ish back for it in a few months.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

If they aren't making enough money they have 2 choices. Try to raise the value of the product or try to lower the cost of making the product.

They can't raise the price of the product because people won't buy it, the second hand market shows a much better value for games than the rrp. Lowering the price so they sell more units might be an option but they don't seem willing to think much on that idea. DLC isn't working for them, not many gamers i know are willing to pay a 1/4 of a games price for 1/10 of the content of the original.

So we are left with cost cutting. They could collaborate as an industry and come up with a universal system. One that doesn't mean every game needs writing multiple times, for each format, and thus save 2 times on development. They could stop wasting money on pointless graphics and lower their staff levels. They could stop advertising everywhere which im sure would save them a fortune.

I'd be interested to hear what the second hand sales of really popular games are like. It's kinda hard to judge a game like Heavy Rain which esentially isn't much of a game at all.

Maybe if games developers started paying more attention to what people play instead of a story you only care about once then maybe people wouldn't just trade it in after the first go. Maybe then we can get past the deluge of games that take less than 6 hours to finish that we have had in recent years. Maybe then the game will not be on the second hand shelf 2 days after release.

 

[TheDarkestDerp]

Alright, a little bit of mathematics here:

3 million people played the game.

Only 2 million played it new.

Therefore, 1 million played it used.

Therefore around 1 million people would likely have traded it in.

Therefore, half the people who bought the game new decided to trade it in for another game.

Your're right there's a problem there. Make a fucking game good enough that half the people who buy it don't want to sell it fucking on. Don't go bitching about what certain people 'owe' you when you quite clearly couldn't make a game that kept people's attention!

This states my opinion fairly concisely.

People who played it used had to buy it used, implying people who bought it new had to sell it used. That's right devs, your game wasn't entertaining enough to the consumers to hold a place on their shelf. It's not the 2nd hand shoppe's fault for taking part in some evil scheme to keep money out of your pocket. If they didn't exist, the games would have been traded to a friend or maybe even yard-sale fodder, just like old movies, clothes, whatever else no longer holds the interest of the original owner.

Get over it, you big whiney crybabies and work at making better games.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

No mention of the rental market either. Don't they eat into game developers profits aswell?

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Or add replay value. I won't ever sell my copy of Dragon Age: Origins because of how much content there is in that game.

And didn't you say in a thread past (Or perhaps I'm confusing you for someone else) that 90% of sales are made within the first month? Beyond then, why should devs/publishers really care? They've gotten the Lion's Share of what they'll get for that game.

I generally don't "replay" any of my games, so that doesn't really matter to me. What does matter though is the quality of the content and the fun I'll have going through it (e.g. see Portal, King's Bounty: The Legend or Batman: Arkham Asylum and more and more Indie games lately) and/or a solid multiplayer that I can play for a longer period of time (Battlefield 2, Counter Strike: Source, Left4Dead, WarCraft 3, a lot of MMOs etc.)

I also can't remember ever reselling any of my games, but then again I only buy/play PC games, often don't particularly care to play the game "Day1" (even if I already bought it say Deus Ex: Human Revolution or Rock of Ages that I can only play in ~3 weeks from now: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Dexter111/games?tab=all ) and wouldn't bother with the reselling anyway... what I did do is lend or give games to friends to play every now and then.

And yes, games do a very large part of their sales in the very first few months, the majority of that probably in the first month (including Pre-Orders which are in the millions on some titles). Problem is by saying "make games that are worth keeping" or generally buying certain types of games "used" or reselling them you are pushing the industry into the direction of either multiplayer shooters or MMOs, which offer longevity through repetition. Single player RPGs like your mentioned Dragon Age: Origins can often do this too, but only up to a certain point e.g. ~90 hours or so and it often also involves repetition in say fighting, areas or quests etc.

By saying games that you can play through once (and have a hell of a time with them) say LA Noire, Portal, Batman: AA, Heavy Rain, MAFIA 2, Mass Effect 2, Dead Space etc., often titles that have been in the works for 3-5 years or more and offer an extremely satisfying condensed experience should "offer more replayability/longevity" or suffer from re-sales within 3-5 days after they are out you are rendering that kind of experience "worthless" or at least not desirable and pushing the industry into preferring things like the yearly Call of Duty or FIFA/Madden, which barely change anything about the gameplay and come out in yearly iterations but have these kinds of sales through multiplayer:
http://www.vg247.com/2011/02/01/ea-q3-results-moh-and-hot-pursuit-sell-over-5-million/

FIFA 11 has now sold more than 11.5 million units, a 16 percent increase over the 2010 version, the company said in a call following the release of the figures.

Madden 11 has now sold over 5.5 million units. Sales of over 5 million units were achieved by five games last year, the publisher said.

Personally, I WANT my awesome 3-8 hour intense-fun Portal or Dead Space experiences along with everything else.

Wait, are we talking keys to play single player? If so, I think this industry need another crash at this point. To show that "Just like any other form of media" comes with great things, but also conditions.

Not necessarily, although it wouldn't be as "outrageous" or "new" as you are insinuating, Valve did it with Half Life 2 in 2004 and while there was an initial wave of outrage people have largely gotten over it and Steam has grown to the biggest Digital Distribution Market on the PC (and they are still doing it for every single one of their games, even the latest Portal 2, which I believe also requires you to create a Steam Account on the PS3, at least for the CoOp experience). This could be handled on a developer to developer or publisher to publisher basis e.g. depending on if they rather want those people that can't get any kind of Internet for a one-time Activation to play their game or rather stifle any "Used Sales" profits for the respective title.

This alone would be enough to largely damage GameStop's and other retailers business model as they would have to do it on a title-to-title basis and other titles would have other restrictions like no CoOp or no Online Multiplayer, which ultimately large killed the "used games" market on the PC over time.

SONY already started doing something similar on their Playstation 3 btw. with Resistance 3 and their "PSN Pass": http://quarterdisorder.com/2011/09/07/resistance-3-online-pass-detailed-works-for-all-psn-accounts-on-same-system/
You require the one-time Pass/Key for both Multiplayer and the CoOp Mode, I could imagine it being extended for any other online features like if you want to get or play any DLC or (Content) Patches.
It is happening, and it will happen and intensify once the new hardware is here, be sure of that.

And although a "crash" could happen and would be healthy and beneficial for the industry in more than one way (aside of the companies that want to gouge people of all their money with near to no effort), I am largely sure that "one-time" CD-Keys or the eradication of GameStop's obscene resale profits aren't the straws to break the camel's back.

If they are going to go fully digital, will they change their prices to reflect the fact that they now get the full ammount from a sale, rather than half? I highly doubt it.

And honestly, if the day comes where I'm stuck with such restrictions, I think I'll find a new hobby. One that doesn't demonize the second hand market.

 

[Draconalis]

Your're right there's a problem there. Make a fucking game good enough that half the people who buy it don't want to sell it fucking on. Don't go bitching about what certain people 'owe' you when you quite clearly couldn't make a game that kept people's attention!

Nail + Head.

I haven't even really touched a game I've enjoyed in months... unless you count a few classics I've played on my portables.

 

[Bluntman1138]

Why dont the game companies just exercise a little Innovative thinking, and make their own type of Gamestop kind of store, thus allowing them a slice of the pre-owned pie?

Oh wait, that's right. It would cost money. And game companies would rather skimp on their games, and not spend money, so they can churn out carbon copies of games every year.

 

[Clonekiller]

The flaw in this logic is assuming that I would buy these games new if used wasn't on option. I can't speak for others, but I can speak for myself. A great number of games that I have played I would have never bought new. Warcraft III, Arkham Asylum, and Force Unleashed are all great games in their own right, but I would never have purchased them new, mainly because they are not games that suit my personal preferences. The only reason I purchased them and tried them out was because used copies were cheap, so I figured "why not?" Some I kept, some I hocked at garage sales, and some I gifted to friends. The point is, I have played games that I other wise wouldn't have played simply because I could buy them used.

As for games I do like, I purchased Dragon Age new, even though I discovered it two years after it's release. I also did so with ME2, even though there were much cheaper used versions online. Why? Because I knew I would get a great deal of enjoyment out of the game, and was willing to spend the extra bucks to support the genre. Same thing goes for the Total War franchise. (Though my computer is now too old to run the most recent Total Wars) As it stands, I have pre-ordered the collectors edition of ME3, and am looking forward to the release of War in the North and The Cursed Crusade, depending on how well they are reviewed.

The point is, cutting off the sale of used games is not going to cause a huge influx of purchases for the developer. In fact, it might cut down on the number of sales since buyers might be a bit more hesitant to buy, say, Dragon Age II if they know they can't re-sell it should it turn out to be crap, or have little to no replay value. Should stores like Gamestop or Best Buy be selling used copies? Perhaps and perhaps not. I don't know one way or another. What I do know is that if game developers think we as consumers shouldn't have the right to sell something that we already legally purchased, they will have a fight on their hands, because I retain my right to sell old games on Amazon.

 

[KurtzGallahad]

I've never heard a book publisher complaining about losses from people buying books second hand, or a DvD manufacturer complaining about DvDs being lent to friends
Why are games special?

 

[rainbowunicorns]

Suggestions:
PC gamers accept (if dislike) that games cannot be resold. Perhaps developers should consider console ports that include things that would make purchasing on the PC over the console desirable (control settings, graphics settings, dedicated servers, modding capabilities, etc.); this gives you the larger console market, with an incentive to purchase on a platform where we don't trade in games.

PC gamers can realistically download games from digital distribution stores; hard drives are cheap, easy to install (or can be installed by your local electronics retailer for a fee), and hold terabytes. I'm not aware of any digital distribution store that also sells "used bytes". If you're into releasing terrible games, "returning" games for cause is usually impossible.

Release games that a person would want to play many times over their lifetime. Games like Baldur's Gate, Deus Ex, and Vampire: The Masquerade ? Bloodlines get played over and over. A suggestion that this decreases profits would be a touch absurd, as a user will not play every game released (limits in time, money, and genres of interest), so if they remember the last game you released fondly, they will probably choose your new game over some other developer's new game.
This one isn't unique to PC games, but it is more likely. I can run old games on my new PC, though it can take some effort. Iffy backwards compatibility for one generation is generally the best you can expect with a console, and the user can't do anything to try and make a game work. Even if a user keeps every console forever, they will eventually die.

For consoles, how about "insert GameX's disc to unlock Y", your returning customers can get frivolous things like skins or starter items without ever having to go online.

Games with a story that is engaging are more valuable before every interesting event is known, whereas games that have no story or whose story is not engaging (i.e.: afterthought) do not decrease in value after the story is known. "Spoilers" of the story happen in the first few weeks after launch, before used copies of the game become common. The multiplayer or grinding component of your game will remain unchanged or actually improve over that time (if you release patches for flaws).

Observation:
Books and Blu-rays/DVDs/VHS cassettes can be resold, have been resold for years, and the industries that produce those products continue to survive; they can be pirated, and the industries continue to survive; they can be shared, and the industries continue to survive; Blu-rays/DVDs/VHS cassettes can be experienced by multiple individuals simultaneously, and the industry continues to survive. These are also not the only industries where new products compete with used, it's pretty common. Gripe all it wants, but if the industry doesn't have a business model that reflects the current reality, the consequences will be borne by them.

As to lowering prices:
I expect people would purchase more games if they were less expensive. I don't know if the percentage preferring to purchase new games would actually increase, but perhaps people who sell their games would be less inclined to do so if the price of the next one wasn't so high and so reduce the supply of used games.

 

[instantbenz]

Alright, a little bit of mathematics here:

3 million people played the game.

Only 2 million played it new.

Therefore, 1 million played it used.

Therefore around 1 million people would likely have traded it in.

Therefore, half the people who bought the game new decided to trade it in for another game.

Your're right there's a problem there. Make a fucking game good enough that half the people who buy it don't want to sell it fucking on. Don't go bitching about what certain people 'owe' you when you quite clearly couldn't make a game that kept people's attention!

1 Heavy Rain isn't exactly a replayable game though, 2 it doesn't matter how good your game is, 3 it'll still get passed on once its original owner has finished playing through it.

1. This further confirms jeffer's statement. In this case, the game had no replay value and that is something that should be in the game if the devs wanted it to be kept by the initial customer.

2. Mmm, nope. It does matter how good (how much we enjoy the game) and how much replay value the game has. There are games that I've purchased for me and several others (multiple copies), there are games I've played, taken back, and purchased again (new and used). And of course there are games that I've held onto for years. Like 15 years.

3. This can be a good thing sometimes. If a borrower of the game enjoys the game enough from their interaction with it, they might purchase the game themselves.

op: I'm purchasing more and more via Steam which isn't a direct purchase from the company that made the game. However, in this situation, it is purchasing used that is in question and that is significantly weakened by Steam and its deals.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

The issue is pretty new on its own and already I am sick of hearing developers whine about it. not that i don't agree with them. It must really hurt to see someone else earning your money, i feel for them, really, but at the same time, its tough luck, its the nature of the gaming business in 2011.

i've always been a fond believer in offering people solutions based on how they use a product. Don't try to tell people how they should be using your product, instead, find a way to make it work for you.

If Heavy Rain dudes wanted to cash in on the used sales, they'd find a way to let people sell them their license key, could be done online, then re-sell these keys to new people for a lessened price. game could be mailed or downloaded. and that's only one example, im sure other people could be more creative.

Bottom line is, its the publisher's job to find a way to harness that new income source, otherwise, somebody will do it for you, like EBGames.

Hell... steam has already put a system in place that will allow you to trade games to each other, maybe not yet used games but the ground work is already there. This is not just a game development team, but also producer and reseller rolled into one and they are looking at ways to make it easier to get cheaper games. It is simple the smart way to survive in a market place, looking at new ways to do business when you encounter an obstacle to making money.

Other game developers... seem more willing to whine that the obstacle exists in the first place. Remind me again, who make almost a billion dollars in revenue last year? Oh yeah, STEAM.

Would not be surprised in the slightest if Steam makes it possible to trade used games in the future... for a small fee. Maybe you have to buy special gift wrapping paper, as steam seems to love such visual gimmicks to hide the fact you are giving them even more money, but mark my words: It will be included in the future because there is money to be made in used game markets. It might not be overly encouraged, particularly on new titles, but I am sure Steam is already looking into ways to make a profit off this market and good for them. They can even make agreements with the original designers, flowing even more money into the dev. teams pockets, unlike other 'rip you off on the buyback' system that other used game markets employ.

Instead of whining about the nature of the market place and trying to 'shame' or 'outlaw' the parts you don't like you should embrace them. Outlawing it just makes a black market that thrives, in this case pushing people to pirate and find other ways around the artificial systems designed to stop 'reselling' which they feel completely entitled to do with a product they purchased. While trying to shame a person for saving a buck will never work as we are not all rich and fabulous, some of us need to pinch pennies to survive and considering your game a luxury to begin with. People willing to be customers, if only you will produce the product in a method that will allow us to afford it.

Even the fact these game designers make the argument is one of the things that drive people to piracy.

Simply find another way to market your product to the people you are bitching about, make it easier for them to feel like they are saving money and... they will pay you for the privileged! It is that simple to end this being a problem completely. Don't try and outlaw it, embrace it and turn it to your advantage! Put a system in place that allows people to return used games for a small credit and they will likely do so through you then any other means. Hell, a lot of used game stores will offer 5-15 bucks depending on the title and how easy it is to resell. Most will turn around to sell it for 40, sometimes in the very same hour, so simply offer a few dollars to in a 'recycle your game' program that will simply destroy the disk/key so it won't interfere with the new game market would be a marketing move worthy of consideration.

Is that really a stupid idea?

Let us take the argument at face value that Heavy Rain, as the example here, lost 1 million users who purchased the game second hand that would of otherwise bought the game brand new. This is important to note, if they would not of otherwise bought the game they can not be considered a 'lost customer' as they wouldn't of contributed a cent to sales in the first place. So lets say that would of been roughly 30-40 million dollars in revenue lost. Offering 10 bucks and having the other 2 million customers turn in their games once done, worse case scenario but likely to happen on a game with no resell value, still puts you in a net profit of 10-20 million dollars you would otherwise have not seen!

Your customers? Singing your praise as they are able to feel like they made some money when in reality they just paid you 20-30 bucks to 'rent' a game!

Now this where it gets very interesting. Lets say you offer credit instead of money back, which is not abnormal for used game stores to do as well. Instead of real money you are now giving a non-valuable, worthless, number that can only be used to purchase new products from your company. True, you loose a small chunk off a new sale when you release the next 'newest release' but there is a silver lining: You have guaranteed a sale. So you loose 10 bucks from a new purchase of a game that you can easily sell for 60-70 dollars, as it is brand new, bringing in 50-60 in revenue per unit. A unit you know for a fact you are going to sell even before you put the game onto the market.

Is that really a bad system to put in place?

Most times... PROFIT! The one loophole that could, in theory, allow someone to dump a lot of old games and get a new one for free can easily be closed off. Simply put a limit on how much credit can be used to discount a new product and nothing will stop you profiting off this system. If you are generous, and you should be as it makes more customers, lift the limit on games after they pass the cost of production and kill even more older, possible to become used, games out of circulation with the comfort of knowing it will not cost your company a cent as you have already made your money back.

It is simply the nature of being an entrepreneur to recognize the market and adapt and sadly we do not have many good entrepreneur in the gaming world.

Now I have to go bath, I hate praising Gabe as the bastard has taken so much of my money in micro transactions it is no longer funny... damn you TF2....

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

I'd say he's right, used games did hurt his sales. Having a lackluster, dull product probably didn't help either