Heavy Rain Dev Says Pre-Owned Sales Cost it Millions

[Zeekar]

Being honest, the developer is looking at that estimated amount of money all wrong. He sees that, understandably so, as his company's money.

I understand: he made the game, so his team should see the profits from everyone that plays it.

That is, as it turns out, wrong. They aren't owed a single dime for second hand sales of a game. He should just see it as what it is -- a completely separate market where his game still has value, and be happy that he even has THAT.

This is a case of an unwarranted sense of entitlement on the part of a developer. I'm sure they'd LIKE that money, but it isn't theirs, and there is no solid evidence (that I've seen) that this is marking the end of gaming or AAA gaming in the slightest.

Edit: As expected, I've been ninja'd several times. Oh well. Repetition can never hurt anything hurt anything.

 

[bombadilillo]

Heavy Rain developers actually cost me money. I bought the Platinum Move Edition advertised three times on the case to come with DLC, move support and other goodies.
Did I get what was promised to me? No! The Move support had to be added in with a 1,142 MB patch (so why bother releasing a "Move Edition" if you don't include it on the disc!) and the DLC I couldn't even frikken download! Something to do with the wrong version of the disc, only that the "correct" version wasn't being sold in my country.
Therefore, these developers can just go F*ck off!

Wait, did you buy the game AGAIN to get the move support that didnt exist for you? Man...

 

[LuckyClover95]

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!

Loads of people play games then sell them. I bought Fallout 3 2nd hand, and I would argue that that game holds peoples attention perfectly. There's only so much you can play a game. Let me guess, and Xbox fanboy?

I liked Heavy Rain, and now I feel bad cos I got it on ebay and I sort of wish I'd got it first hand. But it was cheaper, and I ain't rich.

 

[Ritalynn]

3 million played it? and 2million purchased it? well how many rented it? Isn't renting games ruining your company?

If millions are returning your game, make a better game.

Paying 59.99 for a game that blows sucks, of course people will return it and try for something they enjoy.

It pisses me off that someone says "3million played but i only was paid for the 2 million that paid for it!!!!"

^ F that, if you want to sell more, make something decent.

paying for DLC that takes 20 minutes to beat is bad enough.

I can't stand the development stages now.

 

[CrystalShadow]

long post

Yes what you are talking about can be summarized as profit maximization and attempts to capture [link href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_surplus"]consumer surplus[/link]

The publisher doesn't know the profit maximizing price point so they guess based on their experience with he market or in the case of games they just say "$60". We can assume the people who bought used would prefer to buy new if the price was the same as used. So this is the publisher's fault for failure to have price flexibility.

But it still is a zero sum game, the publisher wants the maximum profits, the customer wants the lowest price, but that is still a loss for the retailer. The retailer maximizes profits by cutting out the publisher and going used games. That is why they don't stock many new copies and continuously pimp used games.

Good point. Admittedly I'm no economics expert, and I had completely neglected the retailer in this calculation. (especially with regards to how second-hand sales affect anyone.)

Though a zero-sum game still implies any gain to one party comes at the expense of another. (Yet this is functionally impossible when trade is concerned, because if trade where a zero-sum game, nobody would ever do it. It can only be a zero-sum game if you restrict your focus to being entirely in monetary terms - If it were truly a zero-sum game in an absolute sense, nobody would ever trade anything at all.)

Of course, while I stand by my assertions in other posts that the developer is just whining about not getting special treatment,

It does remain irksome when I go into a game shop and see the tactics being used.
I mean, actively trying to sell used copies in preference to new, even if you explicitly pick up a new copy...
Trying to sell a second-hand copy for £37 when a new one is £39 - (though at least there's usually plenty of much cheaper second hand stock around here), and sticking new and used games on the shelf in such a way that it's sometimes difficult to spot what's going on...

It's all pretty nasty in some ways. But nasty or not, it's what you have to deal with unless you can cut out game retailers.

It seems a large part of what's allowing this to happen is that the second-hand sales are being conducted largely by the same people dominating new sales.
While this isn't unheard of in other industries, (go to a car dealership for instance and you might see it too), it's rarely this extreme.

I'm disappointed consumers will buy a used game for 95% of the price of a new one though. That just seems stupid.

The whiny tone developers are taking puts me off, but there could be some room for consumer education so they at least aren't buying second-hand goods at ridiculously over-inflated prices.

If a second-hand item is going for more than about 50% of the price of a new one, I'd be very wary of it. (even 50% is quite high, but it's reasonable enough in some cases where something is particularly popular.)

Anyway, I've gone off on a massive tangent to what we as such were talking about...

 

[bombadilillo]

Loads of people play games then sell them. I bought Fallout 3 2nd hand, and I would argue that that game holds peoples attention perfectly. There's only so much you can play a game. Let me guess, and Xbox fanboy?

I liked Heavy Rain, and now I feel bad cos I got it on ebay and I sort of wish I'd got it first hand. But it was cheaper, and I ain't rich.

This is an interesting point and there is a compelling arguement for a teired pricing structure. If gamers see your game and think...not for 60$ I will wait for it used. Then if you opened at 40$ a lot more poeple would buy it.

The problem with tiered pricing is that nobody wants to be the first to take the plunge becuase poeple will think that game must just suck.

I think it would alliviate a lot of used game sales if they just sold it for what people are obviously willing to pay for it.

Sorry Dev, your game wasnt worth 60$ to 1 mil people. Stop whining and do something about it.

 

[Brad Shepard]

Ok, going by this logic here, they don't make money on used games, games that have already been bought, and that's bad, but if you pirate a game, you don't pay for it in the first place, so by his logic, buying used is worse then pirating?

 

[Eicha]

Speaking as a consumer that makes barely enough money to pay their bills, if I'm going to spend $60 of my hard earned money on a brand new game, it either needs to be GLORIOUS or REALLY FUCKING FUN. I have not had the financial ability to buy brand new games for quite a long time. The last game I purchased was Saints Row 2 for $20 via Xbox live. Seeing how much fun that game was, I'm actually willing to save up $60+ to get SR3. Why? It appears to fall under both criteria. More than a 4 hour campaign, and I can't see anything more glorious than leaping out of a VTOL jet onto pedestrians to then begin assaulting them with a giant purple dong.

In short: 1) games are too expensive. 2) Games are too short. Please, game industry. Make us feel like we're customers,not money bags.

 

[RikuoAmero]

Heavy Rain developers actually cost me money. I bought the Platinum Move Edition advertised three times on the case to come with DLC, move support and other goodies.
Did I get what was promised to me? No! The Move support had to be added in with a 1,142 MB patch (so why bother releasing a "Move Edition" if you don't include it on the disc!) and the DLC I couldn't even frikken download! Something to do with the wrong version of the disc, only that the "correct" version wasn't being sold in my country.
Therefore, these developers can just go F*ck off!

Wait, did you buy the game AGAIN to get the move support that didnt exist for you? Man...

No, only bought the game once. I consider it outright bloody theft because they promised me certain things for my money, which I never got.

 

[bombadilillo]

While I agree with most of you in that you can never really account for lost sales, I will say this;

Buying used games has, in broad strokes, the same effect on the gaming industry that piracy has. It means someone is playing a game without paying the developer or the publisher a dime. That player, in the eyes of the publisher, doesn't exist. So, if one hundred thousand people played a game and only fifty thousand people generated revenue for it, the rest being second-hand purchases or pirates then sure, these latter fifty thousand might not be lost sales but they don't count for shit either. When the publisher looks back on that project he's going to see fifty thousand customers and adjust his budget for any following project accordingly. Meaning that if those latter fifty thousand actually wanted that kind of game on a hundred-thousand-purchases budget then tough titties, they'll most likely get half of that next time around.

Now, I'm not saying that this makes used buyers bad people. I'm just saying that in terms of "voting with their wallets" they effectively abstain. As far as the developers and publishers are concerned a used-games "customer" is indistinguishable from a person boycotting the game. If that's what you want, fine. But if you do this to a game like Heavy Rain that at least attempted to push the envelope a bit then, in my opinion, you have no right to complain whenever publishers choose to go for the easy money in the future.

So people should just pirate because its the same effect on devs. And we dont want to support the used games industry?

 

[RikuoAmero]

While I agree with most of you in that you can never really account for lost sales, I will say this;

Buying used games has, in broad strokes, the same effect on the gaming industry that piracy has. It means someone is playing a game without paying the developer or the publisher a dime. That player, in the eyes of the publisher, doesn't exist. So, if one hundred thousand people played a game and only fifty thousand people generated revenue for it, the rest being second-hand purchases or pirates then sure, these latter fifty thousand might not be lost sales but they don't count for shit either. When the publisher looks back on that project he's going to see fifty thousand customers and adjust his budget for any following project accordingly. Meaning that if those latter fifty thousand actually wanted that kind of game on a hundred-thousand-purchases budget then tough titties, they'll most likely get half of that next time around.

Now, I'm not saying that this makes used buyers bad people. I'm just saying that in terms of "voting with their wallets" they effectively abstain. As far as the developers and publishers are concerned a used-games "customer" is indistinguishable from a person boycotting the game. If that's what you want, fine. But if you do this to a game like Heavy Rain that at least attempted to push the envelope a bit then, in my opinion, you have no right to complain whenever publishers choose to go for the easy money in the future.

So...because the developer doesn't earn the money he feels, but is actually not, entitled to, he will make the next game deliberately sub-par, thus giving gamers even MORE of a reason not to pay $60 new? Imagine yourself put in that position. You're one of the fifty thousand people who bought new. However, the developer turns around and announces a new game with half the budget as the first: you would quite logically think its going to be a sub-par game and thus either avoid, or look for a cheap way to test it out.
Basic Economics 101 is convincing the customer that your product/service is worth the price you are demanding. If your product fails to sell, either change the price or entice the customer with something more. It's that simple. You can't get around that hard and fast rule.

 

[bombadilillo]

Heavy Rain developers actually cost me money. I bought the Platinum Move Edition advertised three times on the case to come with DLC, move support and other goodies.
Did I get what was promised to me? No! The Move support had to be added in with a 1,142 MB patch (so why bother releasing a "Move Edition" if you don't include it on the disc!) and the DLC I couldn't even frikken download! Something to do with the wrong version of the disc, only that the "correct" version wasn't being sold in my country.
Therefore, these developers can just go F*ck off!

Wait, did you buy the game AGAIN to get the move support that didnt exist for you? Man...

No, only bought the game once. I consider it outright bloody theft because they promised me certain things for my money, which I never got.

That does suck. I rented it post patch and had to wait till it downloaded that huge beast and then found out it was for the move. Which I do not own because I have a wii. So it cost me waiting and a lot of wondering what was so messed up then needed that patch for.

 

[Whateveralot]

Retailers are really shooting themselves in the foot here (eventually). They might be making more money now, but the developers and publishers don't get any coin from second-hand sales. By doing this, the retailers can make the developers and publishers start selling stuff online-only, cutting any profit from the retailers.

But, meanwhile, the retailers are having their short-term solutions work out for them. I hope they do sit around the table and not let the users pay for the retailers' greed.

 

[Scow2]

What needs to be done is pretty freaking clear. It's not the fault of the people buying the used games. You cannot blame people who're just looking for a legal bargain. What we need to do is force shops like Game or Gamestop in America, to still give a portion of any profit made from a game back to their respective companies. Like some sort of royalty. Obviously they aren't buying the games from them, but it could easily be made a legal requirement that they track any games they are given on trade in and are forced to send a percentage to the games publishers.

In all fairness this would probably mean that you would get a very small amount money when trading a game in and there wouldn't likely be as good bargains to be had. And that could kill the second hand business any way.

So, what about E-bay, yard sales, flea markets, and other people individually selling their console games?

Protip: If you want everyone who plays the game to buy the game, don't develop for the platform(s) where allowing multiple people to play the same copy of the game are its greatest strengths!

By their reckoning, Relic lost $120 yesterday when I bought Space Marine new, because there are two others in my family that will be playing the game.

And ooh boy... How much has Nintendo lost on the Wii and it's games, where those who play well outnumber those who purchased the console and it's game!

And Bungie lost how much on Halo? All those Console LAN parties where dozens of people played on only four copies of the game must have really killed their profits.

 

[dyre]

meh, in the future, digital distribution will take over the world, and used game sales (not to mention shitty game stores like Gamestop) will just cease to exist.

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!

And this is almost exactly what I intended to say.

Designers, if you want us to buy your games new, make them worth buying new.

That doesn't make any sense. Even the best games are just as good new as they are used (barring special features you only get from using a CD key the first time or w/e, but that's just a dick move). A lot of people buy games new because they don't want to wait; in fact, a solid two million people did t for Heavy Rain. But the used game crowd is always going to buy used games, because at the end of the day, it's the same game, and they don't have infinite disposable income to throw at their entertainment sources.

It's so easy to make demands from developers when you never put any thought into how they could meet those demands. I don't agree with the dev here, and I think he should just suck it up about used game sales, but your demand that they should use some magic wand and make their new games better than their used games is just ridiculous.

 

[bombadilillo]

Gamefly is pretty damn big as well. I have cost the game industry literally 1000's by renting. Only buying the games that I know I will play again.

So if they are using trophy data to assertain "lost sales" then they discount a lot. Borrowing games, multiple accounts on 1 machine, renting.

 

[Trishbot]

Cry me a river...

I would be THRILLED if 3 Million People played my mediocre game. Even Sony themselves said Heavy Rain outsold their predicted sales numbers by over 4X... and yet all they can do is COMPLAIN that people are doing nothing illegal.

It reminds me of what the guys that made Dead Space said; over 3 million people PLAYED the first game, but they only sold barely above 1 million copies, meaning more than half the people who played it didn't buy it new. Did they whine? Complain? Throw a fit? Call the used game industry evil?

No. They said that was great exposure and they were sure that it would help their numbers when the sequel came out. And Dead Space 2 did come out... and sold 3x as many copies as the original game did in its FIRST MONTH.

They understood the used game market is a GOOD thing, and if you make a great product with an incentive to buy it new, people will buy it new because they love the product and become willing to pay the full-admission fee for it.

The Heavy Rain guys would be wise to remember that.