Heavy Rain Dev Says Pre-Owned Sales Cost it Millions

[fenrizz]

Alright, a little bit of mathematics here:
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!

Not a valid reason.

When you're complaining as a developer about the fact that one million people bought your games used, that only shows that you failed to convince those one million people that it was worth buying new. Making comments like this really doesn't help your cause.

So first they tell people to not play it more than once, then they complain that people sold it?

That is some pretty impressive douchebaggery right there.

 

[natster43]

Wow someone that isn't EA or Activision actually talking about lost sales. That is a suprise.

Now I am probably going to get called a retard for this, but if those people did not buy it used, you would have possibly had less people playing it and, as such, may have less customers for your future games. Just as an example, I bought both the first 2 Gears of War games around the same time used, because I thought I would not like it and it had been out for a few years. Now I am going to probably get the EPIC Edition of Gears 3, so because I bought it used and found out I liked it, EPIC gained another customer.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

I do sincerely wonder why this guy isn't also complaining about rentals. If your game is literally only 6 hours of play AND you insist that people should only play it once, why would I shill out $60 for it when I can rent it for a weekend (and beat it) for $5? Make game prices lower again and you'll see more sales of new games, simple.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

Quantic Dream co-founder Guillaume de Fondaumiere says that the studio lost millions of Euros in royalties to people buying pre-owned copies of Heavy Rain. He estimates that three million people played the game, but Quantic Dream only saw money from two million sales.

Well, yeah, but how long after release were those 'used' sales? It's not like two million people bought the game on release day, finished it over a weekend, then flipped it to a friend.

"On my small level it's a million people playing my game without giving me one cent," de Fondaumiere said. "My calculation is, as Quantic Dream, I lost between €5 and €10 million worth of royalties because of second hand gaming." He said that pre-owned sales were one of the biggest threats to the videogame industry as a whole, and one that would affect everyone from developers, to retailers, to publishers if it wasn't fixed.

But...you haven't lost it. That implies that the mere act of playing the game is something gamers are expected to pay for. By that definition, I was stealing from Bungie when I would play split-screen at my friend's house before I owned an Xbox myself. It's true what they say: you get what you pay for. When you buy new, it's guaranteed to be in mint condition. When you buy used, it's not, and rarely is. That's the reason they're priced lower. But they generally play just the same, and that's just how games work.

de Fondaumiere thought that the loss of money from triple A titles would eventually make them unprofitable, and - as the industry isn't a charity - they would simply disappear as a result. If this happened - or if publishers went the "download only" route - then retailers would obviously suffer as well, as one of their biggest revenue streams dried up.

You sold two million copies on a pretty artsy game exclusive to the most expensive of the three main consoles. That isn't very indicative of the downfall of AAA titles.

"Now I know the arguments, you know, without second hand gaming people will buy probably less games because they buy certain games full price, and then they trade them in," he said. "Well I'm not so sure this is the right approach and I think that developers and certainly publishers and distributors should sit together and try to find a way to address this, because we're basically all shooting ourselves in the foot here."

Well, some games package themselves with a DLC code that only works once. That works fairly well. I'm afraid that the only approaches developers will take is some kind of intrusive DRM system, seeing as...wait a minute. What's this next sentence here?

He said that there was a case to be made that games were too expensive, and he thought that there was a price point that would make everyone - from the consumers to the publishers to the retailers - happy.

Wow. I...wow. That's the first time I've heard a developer give a solution that actually implies that they're trying to compromise with their customers, or treat them with...well, respect. Major props to him.

However, as much as de Fondaumiere might want it to be so, just lowering prices isn't going to fix everything. As it stands, the amount of money a retailer makes on a used game is significantly higher than the amount it makes on a new one. If the industry is serious about tackling used game sales, the going to have to make that not be true anymore, and that's a really tall order. Sure, cutting prices would help a little but it would really only be treating the symptoms and not the disease.

Well, that's one problem: treating pre-owned game sales as a "disease."

And no, trying to cut down the profit that retailers gain from pre-owned games won't help. Gamers will just use third-party means of trading and selling. The only thing that would accomplish is raising Ebay sales.

 

[Archemetis]

Now, I'm honestly trying to see this guys point...

But without soundng too much like a cock-end his point is hidden by the horrendous amount of
'Waaaah! I didn't get all the money I think I deserve! Waaaah!' that's seemingly going on here.

 

[Maclennan]

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

Agreed, i said before gm never got a cent from my car and they sent me a congratulations letter.

 

[0986875533423]

The way I see it, QD, what you have here is this:

Customer base A buy the game new. They are the only people who will buy it new because they are the new buyers.

After a while Customer base A sell the game on. Customer base B buy it.

This now means that if any of customer base A at any later point decide they want to play the game again (and this is where replay value comes in) they will no longer have it. Whether they decide to buy it new or pre-owned is impossible to say, but I should think a number of them might well seek it new again and that gives you more customers.

Basically: NEEDS MOAR BEING AN AWESOME GAME.

 

[Skratt]

This just in: libraries and second-hand bookshops pose greatest threat to printing industry.

Stop making sense. The Devs don't like it.

 

[Mxrz]

You guys can ***** all you want, but he has a point. Pouting about libraries or other non-nonsensical things isn't going to change that this is shitty for the industry.

 

[Poster1234]

By God am I fed up with this used game bullshit.
If the devs were actually able to make a game that lasted longer that 6 hours, or had some replayability, maybe, just maybe people wouldn't sell them back right after they bought it.

I'm sorry, but I still have my old Morrowind, and I like to give it a go now and then. I could NEVER sell it. It's just that simple : make us dream, and we'll pay.

 

[Hitokiri_Gensai]

im pretty sure you cant ever justify that games should never be "used". Thats pretty much telling people that you think that they should buy a car new, and it should NEVER EVER EVER be sold to anyone else, that EVERYONE should be forced to buy a new car. Im pretty sure, that shit, will never fly with anyone.

The used games market is a large part of the gaming industry and it should be taken for truth that people will always buy used games.

 

[Shifty Tortoise]

Well, if you really don't want players to trade in your game, or buy it pre-owned, make a game with more than an ounce of replay value(that doesn't mean add more trophies/achievements), and for gods sake give me a little less linearity.
I usually won't buy pre-owned, but Heavy Rain is one of the few that i did. It's a good game, don't get me wrong, but i was reluctant the pay full price for a game that is essentially a 9 hour movie/QTE that i'll likely never play again.

 

[PrototypeC]

I am actually sure that they're right, in that they lost a good deal of money from used-game sales, and I certainly don't agree with people who argue that it isn't worth buying new (I guess I'm one of the only ones who replayed it more than once).

If Heavy Rain IS a big trade-in game, that's partly because of how it was designed. There are so many possibilities moment-to-moment that they didn't end up making the game longer than 8 hours. For a single-player game that is very short. The other thing is that it's an experimental, "you've-gotta-try-this-weird-game-just-once" kind of game, so often rather than keeping the disc people will give or sell it to friends so that they get a chance to try it. It's not the kind of game that a person puts a lot of love and attention into because they can always just borrow Heavy Rain and do something different this time, rather than load their old save just to see the ending.

 

[Mister Linton]

This just in! Pawn shops have totally destroyed all retail sales! No industry is profitable as long as they exist! Millions cower in fear!

 

[Scow2]

Why do people vilify the game re-sellers? If I remember, GameStop sells new games too. People don't use re-sellers as toilets for their video games... it's an entire exchange. And, there are a lot of people who exchange old games, and games they likewise bought second-hand, for new games (Covering the price difference themsevles.)

There's a really cool game Re-seller near where I live: Game-it-up. It doesn't sell any new games. On the other hand... it's right next to Wal-Mart, so people can sell old games to them, then go over and buy new if they don't have a used copy already (Which means the company got full profit from someone who didn't get full return-on-investment). Furthermore, it also has advertisements everywhere, a massive TV that displays upcoming games over Xbox Live, the employees are avid gamers themselves (Word-of-mouth advertisement FTW), and they even let customers test the games on their systems before any purchase: Great Customer Service = More, loyal customers = big time advertising for worthy games. And buyback = more money for gamers to buy new games with.

Consoles will always have a second-hand-game market. The simple plug-and-play nature of the games, coupled with a lack of DRM, make them extremely attractive to customers.

If developers don't want people "stealing" from them through the used game market, then they should develop for PC instead of consoles. Then, they could even sell for less without cutting into their profits because they don't have to shell out to the platform's company.

 

[Sansha]

My first thought:
Well ain't that just a cryin' fuckin' shame.

My second, more grown-up thought:
I think he should be looking at the fact that so many people are trying to get a return for their investment in his game by selling it back to the store, or exchanging it for something better.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Wow someone that isn't EA or Activision actually talking about lost sales. That is a suprise.

Now I am probably going to get called a retard for this, but if those people did not buy it used, you would have possibly had less people playing it and, as such, may have less customers for your future games. Just as an example, I bought both the first 2 Gears of War games around the same time used, because I thought I would not like it and it had been out for a few years. Now I am going to probably get the EPIC Edition of Gears 3, so because I bought it used and found out I liked it, EPIC gained another customer.

That isn't retarded, it is a good point. I was introduced to NIS, Atlus, and Aksys by buying some of their games used because they were very cheap. I am now a loyal customer of each and rountinely buy new from them.

 

[Susurrus]

Wouldn't it make far more sense to tackle the whole 'piracy' issue first, and then move on to whining about games being bought second hand? At least some money is going somewhere when buying second hand, and it's, you know, legal.

Also, I generally only buy games I'm likely to want to keep (strategy/rpgs, a few recent shooters). The idea of spending £30 on MoH, when it was supposed to be only 5 hrs to me is ludicrous. I've clocked 96 hrs in fallout new vegas, 108 in empire, 100 in Men of War: Assault Squad, (and a further 50 in various other versions), 53 in Mount and Blade - I dread to think how many in BG, BG2, etc. Games I like enough to keep playing don't ever get resold (or dumped).

Resale illustrates that your game either: didn't hold attention, or wasn't liked, or has become boring. Solution: Make a better game. If you insist on making a short, cinematic game with little replay value, that's fine, but don't then moan that people sold it on once they'd finished it - what else do you want them to do? Leave it around gathering dust? At least that way you get exposure to markets you might otherwise not reach.

 

[Saika Renegade]

Seeing how many big-name Nintendo first-party titles are on the shelves marked "pre-owned" in Gamestops and similar video game resellers I've seen, the company must be hemorrhaging money...oh, wait, no, even a cursory glance at historical data (http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/historical_data/index.html) shows that the company is still turning up a profit. Sorry Heavy Rain, I gave you a try, I honestly did, but I could only really justify one go through. From the sounds of it, so did half of your initial market, so at least I can take solace in the fact that I am not the only one.

 

[pwnzerstick]

Do pre-owned sales hurt the game industry as a whole?: yes.
Is makeing it impossible to play the game if you bought it used the answer?: no.
There needs to be a middle ground where the developer sells the game at a lower price point new, but also where the consumer is able to buy games at a lower price point than they would be if the game was new, but then still have the game developer have some sort of profit, after the consumer buys the game from the store such as a more refined project ten dollar. It might sound like it would be unfair for the consumer, but the way it would work out would be so that the used game is still cheaper in total, than the new version.