Jimquisition: Fighting The 'Problem' Of Used Games

[TheLoveableMuffin]

I have noticed a new trend appear that somewhat combines a handful of points Jim mentions, where if you pre-order a game and buy it new on the day, you get a free upgrade to a special edition, encouraging new copies to be sold.

For example, this Friday I'm picking up Dark Souls. Because I pre-ordered, I got an upgrade for free where it comes in a steelbook, has an art book, soundtrack and full guide via digital download. I believe RAGE is doing it and also the new Ace Combat. This is the sort of thing that more companies should take up, because:

A: We all like getting more for our money, and special editions are always nicer to have (personally)
B: Actually encourages the sales of new games. Win win.

 

[Spud of Doom]

What I struggle to understand is why there's any problem with used sales in the first place. You don't see car or furniture manufacturers complaining about used sales. Most games don't even have an upkeep cost and those that have in the past didn't seem to have any problem. Hell, Guild Wars managed to make an entire MMO - which definitely has by far the highest upkeep cost of any genre - entirely a box purchase with no extra fees. This is nothing more than companies being ineffective with their production costs or greedy with their sold products.

 

[Jumplion]

I think people tend to forget that it isn't the publishers that get all the extra money, the developers also need that so they can, you know, continue making games.

Is there ever an end to this tired argument? They have continued to make games before the $10 price hike, before DLC and before online passes. This gen has seen game prices (if you want the whole game) almost double or in some cases, triple. What was once $50 for an entire game is now $100 or even $150 if you buy the collectors edition. The more money they make, the more they want and the more they have to create schemes to get it.

Please retire this excuse for their never-ending greed.

Movie theaters have turned in somewhat of a profit since before the digital revolution. Doesn't mean the model shouldn't change so they can still compensate for it.

Games are quite expensive to make. Games that don't make it past the 1 million mark often have their developers shut down. Developers have been denied bonuses at the last second because the publishers won't give it to them in the first place. Considering that publishers go for a 80-20 split in profits [http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/lets-talk-about-publishing] (I'm inclined to trust Portnow considering he's had much more experience in the industry than Jim), I don't understand why anyone would begrudge a developer for just trying to scape in a few more bucks. Doesn't mean you have to like it, of course, but heated words like "schemes" and "greed" make me think that people don't understand business at all.

Think of it, not so much that it should be fine to charge more for the product, but that the developer should get more of the cut in the first place.

They have gotten greedy this gen and it needs to stop. No more appeals to the poor developers, I've had enough.

If publishers are shutting down devs for one failed game, blame the publisher and don't keep giving them more money. Do you reward other industries for bad management? If a game can't be successful without a million sales then the budget should have been smaller.

I am sick of guilt trips being thrown on gamers because publishers are getting greedier and consumers are resisting. We have already seen prices double since last gen, enough is enough!

I direct you to my last sentence;

Think of it, not so much that it should be fine to charge more for the product, but that the developer should get more of the cut in the first place.

I completely agree with you, dude. I'm not trying to guilt trip. I'm just bringing attention that the "greedy" publishers aren't the only ones affected by this, and that the "poor" developers get shafted as well as the consumer.

Might not have been entirely clear in my original post, but still.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

And why should I pay 60 bucks for it when I can buy it used at Gamestop, or from a friend or eBay or whatever, waaaaay cheaper than that?

When you get it from a friend or even piratebay you aren't consuming $50 that you had reserved for spending on games. When you get it from ebay there isn't a management structure pressuring employees to redirect new purchases to used ones.

Even if Gamestop closes, people are STILL gonna sell used games. Your cousin will, eBay will, pawn shops will, and so on. Same with car sales, book sales, etc. You can't stop it and you can't claim it's a crime or else every single person on Earth would be a criminal.

Straw man, nobody is talking about prohibiting used games. The problem is that there is a finite amount of money people will spend. The question is who receives the money. Is it gamestop or is it the publisher. If it is gamestop then what motivation does the publisher have to finance games?

And furthermore how are used games different from piracy as far as publishers are concerned?

 

[MB202]

So people would rather punish the bad than reward the good? Somehow, I'm not surprised...

 

[Epona]

What I struggle to understand is why there's any problem with used sales in the first place. You don't see car or furniture manufacturers complaining about used sales. Most games don't even have an upkeep cost and those that have in the past didn't seem to have any problem. Hell, Guild Wars managed to make an entire MMO - which definitely has by far the highest upkeep cost of any genre - entirely a box purchase with no extra fees. This is nothing more than companies being ineffective with their production costs or greedy with their sold products.

With all the whining the game industry does you have to wonder how they ever stayed afloat in previous generations selling games for $50 and without DLC, online passes, pre-orders being shoved down our throats 6 month before release, $150 Collector Editions and in game advertising.

 

[Epona]

I think people tend to forget that it isn't the publishers that get all the extra money, the developers also need that so they can, you know, continue making games.

Is there ever an end to this tired argument? They have continued to make games before the $10 price hike, before DLC and before online passes. This gen has seen game prices (if you want the whole game) almost double or in some cases, triple. What was once $50 for an entire game is now $100 or even $150 if you buy the collectors edition. The more money they make, the more they want and the more they have to create schemes to get it.

Please retire this excuse for their never-ending greed.

Movie theaters have turned in somewhat of a profit since before the digital revolution. Doesn't mean the model shouldn't change so they can still compensate for it.

Games are quite expensive to make. Games that don't make it past the 1 million mark often have their developers shut down. Developers have been denied bonuses at the last second because the publishers won't give it to them in the first place. Considering that publishers go for a 80-20 split in profits [http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/lets-talk-about-publishing] (I'm inclined to trust Portnow considering he's had much more experience in the industry than Jim), I don't understand why anyone would begrudge a developer for just trying to scape in a few more bucks. Doesn't mean you have to like it, of course, but heated words like "schemes" and "greed" make me think that people don't understand business at all.

Think of it, not so much that it should be fine to charge more for the product, but that the developer should get more of the cut in the first place.

They have gotten greedy this gen and it needs to stop. No more appeals to the poor developers, I've had enough.

If publishers are shutting down devs for one failed game, blame the publisher and don't keep giving them more money. Do you reward other industries for bad management? If a game can't be successful without a million sales then the budget should have been smaller.

I am sick of guilt trips being thrown on gamers because publishers are getting greedier and consumers are resisting. We have already seen prices double since last gen, enough is enough!

I direct you to my last sentence;

Think of it, not so much that it should be fine to charge more for the product, but that the developer should get more of the cut in the first place.

I completely agree with you, dude. I'm not trying to guilt trip. I'm just bringing attention that the "greedy" publishers aren't the only ones affected by this, and that the "poor" developers get shafted as well as the consumer.

Might not have been entirely clear in my original post, but still.

As I said:

No more appeals to the poor developers, I've had enough.

This has gotten out of control. The developers work for the publishers, they are one in the same and your sympathy for the developers has been used against you. The developers aren't your friends, they are employees of the "greedy" publishers. You can't separate the two so sympathy for one is sympathy for both.

 

[carpathic]

Fabulous as always.

I just don't buy games from places with truly draconian DRM. I have not bought a ubisoft game in a long time, and I am trying to decide whether I will buy any EA games again. Now if they could reward me for buying a game, fuck; if they just didn't punish me, then I might buy EA games.

Meh, not sure.

 

[Kapol]

I completely disagree.

Everyone should get that extra content. And it is really just being held back from the used sales.

Want a way to fight used sales? Simple: replay value. That's all it takes. Get them not to sell their games in the first place, there will be a shorter supply of used games and the customer will think more about getting a new copy rather than a used one.

First off, no they won't think more about getting a new copy over a used one. Just because there's less used copies or more replay value doesn't change the fact that most people who buy used are going to do it anyways. The only reason they wouldn't is if there were absolutely no used copies, and that's not going to happen because (as Jim said in the video) some people are going to return it as soon as they're done with it anyways. Plus, there are the people who just didn't like it so sell it back. Just because it's a good game doesn't mean everyone will like it.

Secondly, having replay value doesn't always make for a better game. In fact, in most games where replay value is seemingly forced on, it makes it worse. Publishers throw in things like 'moral choices' that make people want to play it over again to see both endings when some people (like myself) don't have time to play through the same game twice just to see tiny differences when we could be playing a new game and having new experiences. They also go the 'sandbox' route, which in my opinion adds jack shit to a game most the time. It just makes me waste more time between going from mission A to mission point B. Some of the worst examples of this are L.A. Noire and Mafia 2. Both had sandbox gameplay that, in my opinion, was completely pointless.

And then you have good games bombing because they are single player and story focused and get ripped apart by used sales. Best example I can think of off hand is Alan Wake. I personally loved Alan Wake. I thought it was a game with good gameplay, atmosphere, and a fairly interesting story compared to most other games. But it got bombed in terms of sales because people played through it once and then traded it in. And the worst part about that? They tried to do the whole 'fight used game sales' THE RIGHT WAY. They included a code to get the first DLC for free. The problem was that most people weren't willing to wait a couple months to get $5 DLC for a game they'd likely never pick up and play again besides for that. Yes, it didn't have replay value. And I think that's a GOOD thing. If they had tried to force a sandbox or some stupid moral choice or other BS to pad replayability, then the game itself would have suffered for it.


Also Jim, don't think of the $1,000,000 as the CEOs stuffing their pockets. Think of it more in terms of the annual earnings of a decent chunk of employees going down the drain. And since they don't have enough extra money, those employees are more likely to get the axe then the companies saying 'oh, we'll just take a hit on this one.' Hence all the studios being shut down that turn out pretty good games that just don't sell well.

 

[Aprilgold]

But... Alright, hang on a second. I don't get this. How is it that Locked Away Content A is being taken away from used buyers, but Locked Away Content B is being rewarded to new buyers?

Because both buyers still get the whole game, but those who buy new get bonus content. It's like a pre-order bonus.

Alright, quick example:
Game A: Game A decides to fight used games by locking a certain chunk of the regular game content *online, quests, certain areas, ETC.* And call it DLC.

Game B: Game B decides to fight used games by giving away free DLC for those who bought the game full price.

Game C: Game C decides to fight used games by dedicating developer time to making new items as "incentives" to buy the game new.

Game B is the right example of how Used Games should be fought, because locking content from a legal action and not selling a full product is just blatantly wrong, while Game C takes too much time make the DLC the rest of the game lack.

In Conclusion: Fighting used games is just another word for "Incentive to Buy New" But Games like Red Orchestra 2 are almost a prime example, sell the game *regular* for less but sell a deluxe copy for 60, the deluxe includes new things to the game / to past games so you can show your loyal to the maker.
Saints Row the Third is another great example, you get a coustume to start out with, a vehicle that is put into your garage automatically and a new gun which you would have to work hard towards, usually. None of these would take long to make / are ALREADY in the game.
Rage is a example of doing it badly, if you don't buy the game new, you don't get a area, which was planned to release with the game, regardless of purchase time.

Fighting used games like games A and C are bad, B is a good example.
*Edit* Also forgot, fight the retailer who doesn't give you much money for your game, not the consumer.*End Line*

 

[Rookie1]

Excellent series, But I think this discussion isn't done yet. I think there is still room for one more argument.

There is still the issue of what the future holds for the used gaming market. Think about the direction of industry right now. Disks are going away, and soon everything will be streamed or downloaded directly to the console. The Vita seems to be a test of this market. Sony is going to be looking very closely at people who by games via download vs buying the game on one of their memory sticks.

I love the ability to download my games directly to my system and uninstall and reinstall them at my leisure. I am an active Steam user and I like their overall business model. However, if this is to become the future of PC and Console gaming there are a few things that developers need to look at and listen to the desires of their customers.

Cost. I don't know exact numbers but I am pretty sure that making copies of games digitally and then distributing them on a digital market costs less then the production of disks, boxes, game manuals, and shipping those items to stores worldwide. It would be nice to see those savings passed on to the consumer.

The ability to sign away my old games to another person. My brother and I are both gamers, and I find myself having to buy the console version of a title over a PC version strictly because if I get it for my PC it is locked to my PC. I realize that with the industry's dislike of the used market that this may seem like a bad move on their part, but it would go a long way to win over gamers of a new system like this.

I think this topic would make an excellent follow up to this series. I realize that we have no real idea as to the features of the next PlayStation and XBox, but it is fairly certain that they are both looking at expanding or even solely going to a digital distribution system and that could very well put an end to the used game market.

Thank You for Reading,

 

[Bob_Dobb]

Quit whining about $60, games cost $80-100 in Australia.

 

[NaramSuen]

I think you summed it up beautifully at the end - stop making crap games and selling them for full price. I have games dating back to the Atari 2600 era and I have never sold or traded in a good game in my life

 

[Jumplion]

As I said:

No more appeals to the poor developers, I've had enough.

This has gotten out of control. The developers work for the publishers, they are one in the same and your sympathy for the developers has been used against you. The developers aren't your friends, they are employees of the "greedy" publishers. You can't separate the two so sympathy for one is sympathy for both.

Yes, you can separate the two entities since, well, they are two separate entities. The video on publishing, while not completely related to this, does provide some insight as to the relationship between developers and publishers. One can easily sympathize with developers and not the publishers, as often developers tend to be at the mercy of them. If publishers would stop being "greedy", letting the developers have a fair share of the income, then less developers would speak out against it. More publishers would, probably, but they can take a bigger punch.

 

[Epona]

As I said:

No more appeals to the poor developers, I've had enough.

This has gotten out of control. The developers work for the publishers, they are one in the same and your sympathy for the developers has been used against you. The developers aren't your friends, they are employees of the "greedy" publishers. You can't separate the two so sympathy for one is sympathy for both.

Yes, you can separate the two entities since, well, they are two separate entities. The video on publishing, while not completely related to this, does provide some insight as to the relationship between developers and publishers. One can easily sympathize with developers and not the publishers, as often developers tend to be at the mercy of them. If publishers would stop being "greedy", letting the developers have a fair share of the income, then less developers would speak out against it. More publishers would, probably, but they can take a bigger punch.

No, you really can't. You can't say "Fuck EA" and then turn around and say "I am pre-ordering the super duper limited special collectors edition of Mass Effect 3 to support Bioware".

Spend that money on indie titles or groceries.

 

[Therumancer]

Looks like Jim has been shopping at "Spirit Of Halloween", though I didn't see those cups this year, they seemed to be availible in great quantities last year.

That said, I have to say I disagree with Jim this time around, largely because I don't like the idea of "rewarding" people who buy a game new. Cutting people out from content because they bought a game used is wrong, whether it's online or offline. Among other things it reduces the trade in value which is part of what justifies the price.

See, my basic attitude is that if a game company releases a game it's promising to support that content. Supporting a game for several years is the same, whether that game has gone through one owner, or several.

This is to say nothing of the collector's market, coming from a guy who had recently been considering trying to replace his Dreamcast and some of his favorite games, I will say that decent games that are self contained increase in value. If a game is released but requires special codes or additional purchuses for anyone other than the initial owner to access the product that reduces the overall value. Like it or not games, or at least decent ones, are becoming similar to other media like comic books and the like. What I find paticularly ironic is that the games industry seems to understand this with their various "Collector's Editions" while at the same time castrating the very market they are trying to appeal to. 10, 20, 30 years down the road some of these elaborate game sets might be worth big bucks if it wasn't for the game industry acting like a bunch of money hungry 5 year olds.

Truthfully I've wondered at the legality of selling someone as a "Collector's Edition" when the nature of the product prevents it from being a collectible. With some of these products even if the box was never opened, if you tried to sell it 50 years down the road when it requires online connection or the redemption of paticular codes... well that's an issue for a mint copy, for someone trying to sell a collectible like that in used condition it's even worse.

In the end my basic attitude is that this is about pure greed, there is no reason for the game industry... which is worth billions, to be concerned about the used game market and the trade of games in general, when that has been part of the business for a very long time. In the end it comes down to bean counters looking at the used game sales and thinking about how great it would be to be getting money there too... basically wanting to find a way to profit on the same product multiple times. As far as I'm concerned online and offline passes are both equally bad, because in the end the game companies aren't entitled to any more money, they go their money when the game was initially sold.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Why not include in every new game a voucher of a certain value to be used on ANY DLC brought out for that game, current or future?

That would extend someone's play time so less likely to sell while not taking anything major away from a used player since they can just buy it.

Sounds like a Sims game.
1000 simpoints for registering your product!
You can buy whatever you want from the store!

Too bad 1000 simpoints is worth about 4 pairs of shoes.

 

[Danzavare]

Quit whining about $60, games cost $80-100 in Australia.

I've seen new (non-collector edition) games go for $110! $80 tends to be the 'discounted rate'.

As an Australian consumer I'm really forced to either commit a heavy amount of money on a preorder or wait and eventually snatch up a game for $20 from a UK store on Ebay. There's no happy medium. A game like Fable 3 that has short gameplay lifespan still sells for $48 used at my local GAME store. As you can guess, it costs more new. I love FPS, but there's not a chance I can justify paying upwards of $30 for a 10 or so hour experience. The lack of variety in prices makes most purchases feel like an all-or-nothing gamble. I don't have enough reason to test the waters with new potentially great games like Rage. The only games I do buy full-price are preorders with companies I already trust (Games like Skyrim, Dragon Age 2, hopefully Saints Row the Third). The few times I do end up buying something from a store, it tends to be used.

Price plays a big role in my willingness to try new games. Mirror's Edge sold brand new for a much cheaper price than usual, and despite its brevity, it's one of my favourite games. The marketing departments of these companies need to learn that price does matter to consumers. I'm not going to chance $100 on a new game when I can get 5 games instead off ebay. I'm really using too many words to say: We're going to buy new if it's easier to afford new.