Heavy Rain Dev Says Pre-Owned Sales Cost it Millions

[Donbett1974]

Lets be honest Heavy Rain is for all rights and purpose a $30-$40 game new day one. So if 3 million buy at $30-$40 thats $90-120 million and if it was priced better most likely would have doubled sales vs. 2 million buying at $60 is $120 million most likely they lost money.

 

[Booze Zombie]

He didn't lose any money at all, these people would've never bought the game at full price, I reckon.

 

[Scow2]

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

All I'm saying is that if you want to support a game's developer and publisher you shouldn't pirate the game or buy it used. If you do you're outside the whole developer-publisher-customer relationship.

Buying it used is nowhere near the same as pirating it: In pirating a game, there is no conservation of the product: One person has it, then two people have it. In buying a used game, the product is conserved: One person has it, Another buys it from him, First person does not have it, Only one person has it.

The trick to lowering the used-game market is to make games that people don't want to get rid of. Or, would Heavy Rain's developers rather not "lose" any money to the second-hand game market, and make it PC/Steamworks exclusive, and selling about 300,000 (If that!) unique copies?

 

[faspxina]

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!

Well said.

I borrowed this game so I'm one of the people who played it but didn't pay for it. Guess I'm a threat to the industry too. xD

 

[bombadilillo]

I think these quotes come from devs with $$$ in their eyes after reading some trophy metric data.

"Dude if that extra XX million people bought this the I would have made XXXX More!" When its just not true.

Its an annoying arguement and I activly dislike the people who use it. I liked Heavy Rain, I was planning on buying there next game. Now Im going to rent the fucker and be a blip on their didnt get paid chart.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Oh, boo hoo. I'm so sorry your interactive over priced movie was stolen by Jack Sparrow.

:/ How about making a game with replay value so people won't say, "Beat the game. Now to get rid of it"

 

[Scow2]

Id think flea markets n ebay make up a smaller percentage of the problem. What I dislike about companies like Game is that they make a lot of money out of people by selling their games. They give you about 10% of a games worth and then sell it for about 80% of a new version.

Also, I really don't think the companies have and issue with someone borrowing a game of a relation or friend. What they're probably annoyed at is that people are buying games, thinking everythings alright, when both the customer and the developer is getting fleeced.

Except, nobody's getting Fleeced. Sure, Gamestop buys at a low rate, and sells hig... Then again, they buy any game, with no guarentee they will be able to sell it. If you want more money for your game than what Gamestop's offering, use the Auction House (E-bay, Craigslist, etc.) instead of vendor-trashing it.

Those places need to turn a profit too... and they have unreliable supply, and are selling frequently-inferior versions of the new games: They are missing New Purchase-exclusive content, and often missing minor peripherary(Damaged case, missing manual, etc.)

 

[UnravThreads]

Trivia: Heavy Rain was initially intended to be a PC game (crossplatform, like Fahrenheit) but went PS3 exclusive pretty quickly.

Pretty much like Alan Wake, then, and that did pretty much the same as Heavy Rain. With something as niche (And as high budget) as Heavy Rain, you need to go multi-platform to get sales. Plenty of games perform well on all three platforms, so why HR couldn't is beyond me. Dread to think who's in these companies...

"Guys! We have this game, it'd be great on the PC, so let's not put it on the PC, restrict it to one platform and then get bad sales. Once that happens, we can QQ on the internet and make our customers look like giant dicks!"

 

[Scow2]

This is missing my point a bit. If I made a painting and sold it to a person for 5 dollars I would still only have had one customer for 5 dollars even if that person either copied it and handed it out to a billion people or sold it on for 3 dollars to another person who in turn sold it to another for 15 dollars and so on and so forth. Piracy and buying used games are similar in the effect they have on publishers and developers - someone gets to play their game while they get squat.

As an artist myself, I can say this: It's your fault for selling the painting for only $5, despite knowing that it has a high chance of being re-sold for far, far more... How much do you think Rembrant got paid for any of his drawings? Certainly nowhere near the amount they're selling for now.

The console market includes a used-game market: it's one of that field's greatest strengths. You'd be an idiot to think you could get mutual exclusivity in that kind of market.

 

[bombadilillo]

Its also funny how with all this raving about Gamestop (I mean used sales) and the industry bend over backwards to accomidate Gamestop whenever is says BOO. See the HR malarkey.

 

[faspxina]

Although I think this is silly I like the idea of game companies trying to compete with second-hand sales with methods like cheaper games, and atleast trying to avoid butchering the game so people who don't buy it new feel guilty.

 

[O maestre]

what the hell are they whining about

1. if they made a good game in the first place people would not resell them

2. after i bought my product it is my product, not the publishers or the developers

3. every other media has to contend with the same frakking problems, yet i have not heard move,music or book publishers and creators throw a collective tantrum

4. lowered prices would definitely help IMO... i often wait a couple of months and buy a second hand game solely because of the price difference.... look at dvd movies for example, they are dirt cheap, there is little incentive to deal with the hassle of finding second hand movies


.... i swear sometimes it feels as if we gamers are the only consumer base having to actively put up with being screwed over every other week... i know that is highly exaggerated but that is how it feels

 

[Zerbye]

Makes you wonder how developers feel about public libraries. Borrow a PS3 game from the library for a couple weeks at a time? From their point of view, that would be robbing developers blind.

 

[Ubermetalhed]

It's great to see that this thread isn't filled with people who haven't played the game and just want to bash it...oh wait.

Heavy rain was a great game and alot of hard work had gone into it. I can understand why the co-founder would be sore about losing so many sales, I'm sure the money would have been used to fund future projects. Plus Quantic dream aren't Activision, sales really do matter for these guys.

Although there is nothing that can be done about this and frankly most people like buying used games. So I guess QD will just have to cope.

I mean as long as the studio can continue to innovate and produce content like Heavy Rain then the effect of used sales will be little more than an accusation than a truly contributing factor.