Heavy Rain Dev Says Pre-Owned Sales Cost it Millions

[major_chaos]

as always with these stories he pulled that number straight out of his ass failing to consider factors like the fact that people who bought the game used might never have bought it at all without the lower prices on used games / the money from trade ins or resale, also iirc when I saw this story on Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2011/09/12/heavy-rain-developer-estimates-13m-loss-on-second-hand-sales/) the source of the player numbers is "the trophy system" which means that there is no way to tell how many of these "lost sales" are actually from the secondhand market and how many are borrowed/shared/rentals

 

[Sgt Pepper]

The point that is overlooked is that game retailers will often go out of their way to push a used copy of a game over a new one, as it makes more money for them.

Of those 1 million used copies, let's say 20% of those were sold to people who went to counter, box in hand for a new copy of the game and persuaded to save a few quid by buying a used copy that the store happened to have.

Those 200,000 copies are lost sales - the 80% that were only ever going to buy the game used were never going to buy a new copy. Same for people who pirate a game, they too were never going to buy it so technically not a loss (and, in fact, piracy can generate some sales when people try the pirated version and actually decide they like it enough to buy it - might not happen often but it does happen).

It's also not comparable to other industries, at least not in the UK - here second hand books, CDs and DVDs have generally never been sold alongside new ones - I think there have been a few places in the past but very small scale, indie retailers, certainly not stores with the market shares of places like Game and Gamestation.

Here the selling of a used product, alongside, and often in prefer to, new products has been pretty much unique to videogames. For CDs, DVDs and books you generally have one retailer only selling new and another who specialises in second hand.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

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.

I call fucking bullshit. "Oh, poor us, we only made money from 2 million games, everyone feel sorry for us." Triple A games aren't going to disappear because people bought it used, used games were never a problem in the past and now they're only a problem because people are getting greedy.

Yes, this is an industry and it needs money, but there's a point where it reaches milking a dead horse; yeah, milking a dead horse. They're asking for money that they couldn't get because the game was too much or it wasn't good enough for the consumer to consider getting it new.

Of course there's a bit of an issue, but you can only please so many people and too few people are trying to make positive changes, they're just penalizing people who bought the game used. Wrong approach entirely.

Whenever this issue is raised I only ever see estimates and general figures, never a reliable chart or actual statistics. "We lost $50,000,000,000 because we said so". Ner. Fuck off.

 

[Togs]

People dont tend to want pay video game prices for a movie, no matter how "interactive" it maybe.

Funny that.

 

[Royas]

I just don't see it. Used product sales has a long history, and it's not killed any other industry that I know of. Yes, they lost out on millions of euros, but it was millions of euros that they had no right to have to begin with.

Dude, seriously, just deal with it. The book publishers learned to deal with it, so can you.

 

[wulfy42]

The game industry has changed drastically over the years. The number of people who buy a game (2 million sales for heavy rain for instance) is almost on par with movies at this point, but the base cost for a game is still many times that of seeing a movie...even in 3d.

The cost to create a game though is often much less then the cost to create movies, so the profit margin can be HUGE.

As the customer base for video games has increased the prices should have decreased...but instead they have done the opposite. Even factoring in pirating, used game sales, game rental companies etc way more games are sold now then 10 years ago on average. The increase is far larger then that in any other media field (books, movies etc). You would think game companies would be happy with that (especially since so many total crap games actually make large profits even if they shouldn't have), but instead they are complaining about only making a HUGE profit instead of an extremely HUGE profit.

Honestly that Heavy Rain (which many people enjoyed...but it still is a pretty niche genre games) sold 2 million copies is FREAKING AMAZING. They should be over joyed with such numbers and in fact it sold far more then they expected.

Even with used game sales and gamefly etc....the video game industry has been doing just fine. The only games that really seem to have problems are those that suck...and thats mainly because of the internet allowing people to find out games suck much faster now. That in my opinion is a good thing.

Bad games should crash and burn....and therefore, make future releases of bad games less likely to happen. I've been ripped off so many times with bad games in the past (Thousands of dollars worth) that I have no pity for game developers at this point. If a game is good, I'll buy it.....but if I don't like a game I have no problem renting it first and then never buying it. Heavy Rain fell into that category for me....and if they never made a Heavy Rain 2 it would make no difference to me at all. Those that do love the game should buy it......and if that is enough people to support another incarnation (or similar game) great. If not....don't go crying about people buying used copies etc. If anything that will get you more customers willing to buy the next one you release (since they obviously were not interested enough in buying it when it was first released that is a net profit for the gaming company that produced it).

That they can't see that is just sad. That they are complaining about used game sales is ridiculous.

 

[shrekfan246]

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!"

2 million sales isn't exactly bad. Heavy Rain far outsold even the studio's own predictions in its first month of being on shelves, it outsold every single Xbox 360 game for about three months in Europe, and debuted as the #1 best selling game of the last week of February in the UK, outselling every single- and cross-platform release. And it was exclusive to the PS3.

Yet all Quantic Dream can do is complain about how they could've gotten even more money.

For comparison, Demon's Souls has sold roughly 1,250,000 copies (750,000 less than Heavy Rain), and not only did SCE admit that their original decision to not bring it to America was a mistake, the sales are the entire reason that Dark Souls was created and is being released later this year. And using your own example, Alan Wake has only sold roughly 1,050,000 copies. All three of these games that I've mentioned are known for being games that "push the envelope", or rather, aren't sure bets to sell extremely well, and were all platform exclusives. Quantic Dream should be happy 2 million people decided it was worth the full price.

 

[willsham45]

Its all theoretical money isn't it. They still get a lot of money and surly they cannot complain about what they are getting.

If Game developers think they can complain about trade and resale where does that leave all other products. I can buy a lawn mower for cutting the grass in my garden I could then sell it off or offer to use it on other peoples lawns for profit the company I fought it off can and does not get any more money off me. But it seams if it was a computer game they should.

 

[9Darksoul6]

You're not losing money, mr. Fondaumiere; that money was never yours. If I think your product has no use to me anymore, I should have the right to sell it, and thank god there's a market for that.
Pointing the finger to pre-owned sales is the same as pointing it to a right that's fundamentally mine.
Again, mr. Fondaumiere: wanna make more money? Try adding more replay value to your games.

 

[internetzealot1]

Oh gee, maybe you should make a game with some actual replay value. You know, one that doesn't try to be a fucking movie.

 

[Michael Hirst]

Well lets see. When I bought my preowned copy of Heavy Rain it was £12 I seem to remember the brand new copies costing £25 in the same store at the same time, maybe the store was just late on marking the new copies down but a saving of £13 justified itself especially for a game that doesn't have much replay value.

Lets face it preowned titles are cheaper and offer the same experience (unless its an EA game ¬_¬) as a brand new copy. The developers task should be to make an experience that doesn't make people want to give the game away. The second thing they need to do is reward people who bought the game brand new and not in the stupid Day 1 DLC way because that's just ridiculous. Finally, pricing, this is your biggest problem in the preowned market, if I can choose between spending £40 (a lot of bloody money really) and £32 I'm going to go with £32 it's logical.

 

[imperialreign]

Well too bad, somebody buys a DVD with a copy of a game on it then decides to sell that DVD containing the game, it really isn't anyone elses business because it's private property.

Make the games cheaper or just rent out the disk to people.

Private property doesn't just extend to corporations and business.

Well, technically you don't own that property, all you've paid for is the license to use said IP based on the restrictions and regulations outlined in the EULA, which you agree to by installing/playing said game.

Technically, the license to play said copy of title isn't exactly trasnferable by the EULA either . . . never has been. The used games market has simply been left alone when publishers and devs could've really decided to drop the hammer on it years ago.

I can see the devs point in all this. I've known quite a few friends who'll purchase a game new, beat it in a couple of days, and immediately sell it off (new titles bring high re-sale); and vice versa, they'll purchase new titles used because it's a little cheaper. Sorry, but within the first 30 days of a title's release, I don't believe there should be any activity in used sales of a new title. Maybe later down the road is alright, but not that new.

 

[Xannieros]

I gotta say one thing. Waaaaaaah.

Okay, maybe more than one. I won't buy a game I am unsure of for full price. Pre-owned is the alternative to not buying it. Why should I shell out $60 for a game that might be utter garbage? Reviews don't help, don't trust them.

I bet if they took the number of people who would've bought it at full price. If there wasn't a second hand market, they'd realize they didn't lose millions. But that's just speculation, no one has those numbers.

Oh and this just in "PS3 Exclusive Heavy Rain could have made millions more if made multi-platform."

 

[Korey Von Doom]

Why don't you make more games for PC where pre-owned sales are pretty much nonexistent? Oh wait, piracy.

You do realize piracy on consoles is becoming huge, right?

Partly because it's pretty easy and pretty much all console games are available a week or two before release.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Excellent to see a developer actually attach some numbers to this obvious yet debated issue. It really is something that needs to be addressed on a much deeper level, and it will likely include some cooperation on both the dev/pub side and the retail side.

Of course, I think a lot of what Heavy Rain in particularly experienced is because of the type of game it was. When you create a completely cinematic game with little depth or reason to replay, you're automatically going to be at the mercy of the predatory used market.

Those numbers only exist because they realized that they can ban used video game sales. But there are no legal or moral grounds for them to do that. It's just greedy and wrong. They already came to a realization that cutting out the content from the game to sell it as DLC brings in millions. Some of them even think DRM is a good idea. Or what if they decide to sell cutscenes separately because it would bring in more money. Possibilities for being a dickhead are endless.

You have to treat your customers with respect. If people trade in games, it means they don't like the game. And they should have the right to sell it to whoever they want. Or maybe they just need money. Some people buy used games because they don't have enough money to buy new games. Imagine that. There are people out there who can't afford everything newest and greatest. And guess who doesn't give a shit? And since they don't give a shit about that, do you really think they give a shit about you? Do you have any idea how much money these people make? And you think they have the right to ask for more money? In this manner? Banning used sales can influence you too. Ask yourself what are they gonna take away from you next if you let them do that. They say greed has no boundaries, but in this case you as a consumer can actually do something about setting some boundaries.

 

[StrixMaxima]

Again, it's the classic issue of an industry complaining about something that affects them, but at the same time refusing to broaden the discussion to understand the real cause of the 'problem'. Typical business hindsight.

The game industry needs to stop thinking it is special. It isn't. It produces IP that are consumed via media or download. If you sell me a disc, then you tell me that I have limited rights about it, my reaction is stop buying your products. I have already started doing this with several developers.

When the industry gurus man up and discuss the problem more comprehensively, admitting their share of the problem, then I'll have some respect for them. Until then, all I see is people that drive expensive cars complaining about more money, and trying to go 'gloom and doom' on the consumer. No matter how much you frown, mister, I will have no sympathy for you.