Obsidian Hopes "Digital Distribution Stabs the Used Game Market in the Heart"

[BoredRolePlayer]

-snip-

That's all as well as may be however a few things here that need be said. First the viability of their business model should not be something I, as a consumer, need worry about. Costs too high? Their problem, not mine. Not enough people buying new? Again their problem not mine. This is all things that are INTERNAL problems that should never, EVER, be blamed on the consumer. Those are self inflicted problems with their business model. If they can't balance income vs cost in the free market then maybe they need to fail.

The great thing about a free market is that at the end of the day the products that people want to buy are the products that will ultimately succeed. If their product isn't selling well then they need to ask what THEY are doing wrong not what the customers are doing wrong. The customers are there only to buy, or not buy, their product. By blaming used sales they are blaming the free market, and by extension consumers, for their own failings. .

Secondly to claim the gaming industry is hurting in any way shape or form is pure and utter garbage. The game industry has been posting RECORD SALES AND PROFITS in one of the worst economies in over a century. Gaming is one of the few industries that has not only not been hurt by the economy but has managed to grow despite of it.

Thirdly just because we see some companies going under this doesn't herald the end of the industry. It's just the natural progression of any industry. Some companies don't make it. Meanwhile, others thrive. It's just the way of things.

Finally I refuse to believe that over the multiple centuries that items have been bought and sold while every other single maker and seller of goods has managed to do just fine with their goods being bought and sold second hand that video games are somehow deserving of special treatment against the used market that no other maker and seller of goods has EVER enjoyed.

If they ever succeed in doing away with the used market they will be selling us literally worthless products. The games they sell us will have absolutely ZERO value once they have our money. Sure the publishers make out like bandits with that scenario but the consumers would be getting totally and utterly fucked over.

Except that console market will ultimately fail.

You refuse to acknowledge that console gaming and PC gaming two different entities. Its only PC gaming and casual gaming that is growing. The console market has been shrinking for well over a decade.

Profits do not mean shit in terms of market health. You need to put those numbers in perspective. If a company makes 100 million dollars, but their games cost them 99 million, that's a low return. People may see a high number, but in perspective of the market its not that good. This is normal for a AAA game.

console gaming is run by a monopoly. Very few companies can even operate in the console market. That requires capital that cannot be gained easily. Once you're kicked out of the market, you cant get back in. Its getting smaller and smaller while PC gaming is getting bigger. This is why a company can post such high profits, there is literally little competition in terms of companies and games being released. This is also why a console developer or publisher struggling is a bad herald for the whole market. It should not be that hard to succeed in a market where few companies operate. You are the only game in town.

These are not their own failings. These are the problems of the console manufacturers. They delegate the cost to the developers, who delegate the cost to you. Its simple pricing, and trying to use second hand sales would only kill the market. In a world where people want to play console games but refuse to support it, this spells disaster not only for a consumer but for the economy at large.

The value of the game is technically irrelevant. PC gaming has been growing and no one cares for "game value." PC gaming WILL survive the fall of console gaming, but console gaming is on its death bed. Used game sales would only kill consoles much like the 1980s.

Ow...ow that hurts on so many levels from sheer stupid it hurts so bad.

1)The crash killed by PC and Console games in the 1980's because people saw it as a fad that went no where

2)The market crashed due to to many systems (PC and Consoles, but mostly consoles) being pretty much the same with little difference so consumers didn't know what to get (look at all the pong consoles for a good examples, or multiple versions of one game like frogger).

3)How is console gaming on it's death bed? They seem to be doing well, and even more so with games consoles has that PC's NEVER GOT. Skies of Arcadia will always be my reason to love a console .

4)Console systems have been growing also, I take it the sales of the Wii and Xbox 360 mean nothing neither does the sales the PS3 is getting either?

Just ow everything you have said in this whole topic is just wow _>_

 

[Zom-B]

I would strongly disagree that the used game market and piracy have little in common for an ethical perspective.
Both result in the copyright holder not getting paid for there efforts. Both include people not paying for a license to use that copyright (in the form of the game).
Just because you paid some money does not make it ethical anymore than paying for a pirated game would be.

Actually its true. Pirates have far more ethics than used game buyers. Allow me to explain

Who makes money off of these ventures?

Piracy: No one, its all free.

Used Games: The used gamer who is getting 30 dollars, and the gamestop assholes who get another 20 dollars by selling it so some sheep of a used gamer that buys it for 5 dollars less than new.

Sorry dude, logical fallacy. People selling their used games aren't "making money". You have to purchase a used game first, right? You generally pay full price (and even if you buy a game used, then sell it, 9 times out of 10 you'll sell it for less than you paid). When you sell it, you get less than full price. That's the nature of used goods. So when I purchase a game for $60 and sell it for $30, I'm not "making money".

I will agree that Gamestop makes money off of used games, but first and foremost they are providing a service. They've created a business where thousands of people can take games so that thousands of other people can find them, with little to no hassle. Buying and selling online or via classified or what have you, is of course doable, but not as many people want to go through the hassles involved. Take eBay or Craigslist for example: creating your listing, hoping to get an offer, talking to buyers/sellers, setting up shipping or arranging an in person meet. All these things take time and can cost money as well.

Gamestop provides the convenience of letting anyone come down and sell any game with no cost (aside from your own transport) and then they turn around and sell that game for a price the market will bear. It's like a consignment store, without the consignment. Instead of waiting for another customer to buy your clothes, they purchase them from you outright.

In the end, it really doesn't matter what you or game devs think, but second hand sales have been around forever and will be around forever and the video game industry does not need nor deserve special protections from the second hand market.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, but there's only one way to combat used sales and piracy: make your product more attractive to buy new. Whether that's buy offering deluxe editions, special packaging, special downloads, collectible figures, vouchers for future purchases or whatever, that's up to the publisher/manufacturer. Bottom line is, you have to make people want your product. If you product doesn't have a perceived value that matches the asking price, people won't buy it.

your argument has a flaw, they won't be around forever.
Not in the slightest, as internet infrastructure increases in speed and stability, the spread of streaming/downloading content will be the most efficient and consumer friendly method, and the second hand market will cease to be relevant.

Now some people like yourself will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to this point BUT when it arrives the market will be on even playing fields, where price and quality will decide what succeeds.

Granted, we might not have physical media forever, but even so, it's still going to be around for many years to come. Until that day arrives, publishers will have to deal with those physical copies being sold on the free market.

Beyond that time, when we get to full digital distribution, the games industry will have to follow pricing models that are being developed by other media publishers right now. Look at music. Standard album price on iTunes is $9.99. Some artists are also releasing directly to the public for similar prices or "pay what you want" schemes.

E-books as well are embroiled in pricing struggles. When people don't get a physical book, they want cheaper, despite getting the same product, i.e., the story/words. Once those prices stabilize, e-books are going to be cheaper than paper books ever were.

So, one day game publishers are going to have to accept the fact that no one will want to pay $60 for a digital download. We may not have used sales, but if pubs think that piracy is going to stop and everyone is going to buy "new" digital products, I think they are in for a very big wake up call.

I actually won't have to be dragged kicking and screaming to DD. I actually embrace it and buy lots of cheap games off of PSN for my PSP. I'm also stoked to see PS2 games for $9.99, which I think is a totally reasonable price and am happy to pay.

As long as game companies make full digital games available at a fair price, I'm happy to buy.

 

[Zom-B]

One thing I will say is that you just need to look at Used College books sales to realize how backbreaking buying used can be to a developer, publisher, etcetera. I bought a book for a senior level A&P class a good while back that was $200*--and that's virtually guaranteed to be because of Used book sales. With a single college-level book being sold from student to student to student a good three or four times during a year before a revised edition comes out (if it does get revised), the book distributor, publisher, and don't forget, the actual writers and researchers of the book will only get one portion of the profits that might have been made.

If Used College books didn't exist, then that A&P book I bought would probably only have been $75, if not $60 or something like that. Lower-division course books would be cheaper still.

I don't think this is correct. For a long time, college and university text books were a massive scam, basically. I've known plenty of people who buy books off campus and used because the new prices were too outrageous. You can't blame used sales for rising text book costs because text books used for curriculum have a built in customer base. If you need a book for a certain course, you have to purchase it and schools took advantage of that fact for a long time.

Now that you can buy books used, off campus and online, these publishers have realized that the gouging is over and prices have come down to affordable levels for people. I mean, post secondary schooling in general is expensive, but lumping text book costs on top of it can put it out of reach for many people, without loans, grants, scholarships or other financial help.

I realize that the people writing text books should get paid for their time and knowledge, but at the same time, prices for many text books were astronomical with the schools themselves getting the lion's share of the profits.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

I like Chris Avellone but I respectfully diagree with his stance on this matter.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

There is literally no way Microsoft and Sony can put the genie back into the bottle

You mean dump profit via licencing and try to sell their hardware at a profit instead of a loss? It'd be the shortest console generation ever as both companies would have to pull out of the industry within a 12 months or face a shareholder revolt.

Unless they're willing to compromise on the tech/go completely off-the-shelf like Nintendo did with the Wii, which they won't, MS and Sony have absolutely zero wiggle room on pricing - once they stuff their playboxes and Xstations with 'new' tech (laugh from the PC crowd), they can't afford not to subsidise the shit out of them to below manufacture cost other they'll never shift enough units to start recouping that loss via licencing. Without that price subsidy a new console that didn't cut corners Nintendo style would enter the market costing as much as a mid-to-high level prebuilt PC.

 

[Yosarian2]

1. costs have been rising for ten years now in an exponential rate. Its getting so bad companies have stopped making new IPs altogether until the new generation in 2015, then stopping new franchises again until the next (if there is one).

So, they might have to stop making super-expensive mega- graphics- obsessed extravaganzas and have to go back to making games that are driven by story and gameplay and thus are actually fun to play? Heaven forbid.

Seriously, anyone who thinks that the video game market is going to vanish simply doesn't understand how economics works. It's a huge, vast market; if Sony, Nintendo, and EA all went bankrupt tomorrow, a dozen other companies would move in instantly and find a way to make games that people want and make a profit off of them.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

-snip-

That's all as well as may be however a few things here that need be said. First the viability of their business model should not be something I, as a consumer, need worry about. Costs too high? Their problem, not mine. Not enough people buying new? Again their problem not mine. This is all things that are INTERNAL problems that should never, EVER, be blamed on the consumer. Those are self inflicted problems with their business model. If they can't balance income vs cost in the free market then maybe they need to fail.

The great thing about a free market is that at the end of the day the products that people want to buy are the products that will ultimately succeed. If their product isn't selling well then they need to ask what THEY are doing wrong not what the customers are doing wrong. The customers are there only to buy, or not buy, their product. By blaming used sales they are blaming the free market, and by extension consumers, for their own failings. .

Secondly to claim the gaming industry is hurting in any way shape or form is pure and utter garbage. The game industry has been posting RECORD SALES AND PROFITS in one of the worst economies in over a century. Gaming is one of the few industries that has not only not been hurt by the economy but has managed to grow despite of it.

Thirdly just because we see some companies going under this doesn't herald the end of the industry. It's just the natural progression of any industry. Some companies don't make it. Meanwhile, others thrive. It's just the way of things.

Finally I refuse to believe that over the multiple centuries that items have been bought and sold while every other single maker and seller of goods has managed to do just fine with their goods being bought and sold second hand that video games are somehow deserving of special treatment against the used market that no other maker and seller of goods has EVER enjoyed.

If they ever succeed in doing away with the used market they will be selling us literally worthless products. The games they sell us will have absolutely ZERO value once they have our money. Sure the publishers make out like bandits with that scenario but the consumers would be getting totally and utterly fucked over.

Except that console market will ultimately fail.

You refuse to acknowledge that console gaming and PC gaming two different entities. Its only PC gaming and casual gaming that is growing. The console market has been shrinking for well over a decade.

Profits do not mean shit in terms of market health. You need to put those numbers in perspective. If a company makes 100 million dollars, but their games cost them 99 million, that's a low return. People may see a high number, but in perspective of the market its not that good. This is normal for a AAA game.

console gaming is run by a monopoly. Very few companies can even operate in the console market. That requires capital that cannot be gained easily. Once you're kicked out of the market, you cant get back in. Its getting smaller and smaller while PC gaming is getting bigger. This is why a company can post such high profits, there is literally little competition in terms of companies and games being released. This is also why a console developer or publisher struggling is a bad herald for the whole market. It should not be that hard to succeed in a market where few companies operate. You are the only game in town.

These are not their own failings. These are the problems of the console manufacturers. They delegate the cost to the developers, who delegate the cost to you. Its simple pricing, and trying to use second hand sales would only kill the market. In a world where people want to play console games but refuse to support it, this spells disaster not only for a consumer but for the economy at large.

The value of the game is technically irrelevant. PC gaming has been growing and no one cares for "game value." PC gaming WILL survive the fall of console gaming, but console gaming is on its death bed. Used game sales would only kill consoles much like the 1980s.

Ow...ow that hurts on so many levels from sheer stupid it hurts so bad.

1)The crash killed by PC and Console games in the 1980's because people saw it as a fad that went no where

2)The market crashed due to to many systems (PC and Consoles, but mostly consoles) being pretty much the same with little difference so consumers didn't know what to get (look at all the pong consoles for a good examples, or multiple versions of one game like frogger).

3)How is console gaming on it's death bed? They seem to be doing well, and even more so with games consoles has that PC's NEVER GOT. Skies of Arcadia will always be my reason to love a console .

4)Console systems have been growing also, I take it the sales of the Wii and Xbox 360 mean nothing neither does the sales the PS3 is getting either?

Just ow everything you have said in this whole topic is just wow _>_

its dying now because:

1. costs have been rising for ten years now in an exponential rate. Its getting so bad companies have stopped making new IPs altogether until the new generation in 2015, then stopping new franchises again until the next (if there is one).

2. Sony and Microsoft are having a harder time profiting off these consoles in a timely manner. We barely saw the first non-nintendo profit in 2010. That is a very late return, and very close to the new generation.If the costs double, and they will, you're looking at a guaranteed loss. Companies don't care for the console, they care for money. If they don't reign in the costs, they will move to casual and PC gaming. If they reign in the costs, games are less advanced, and the consumers will complain. There is no way to win this.

3. Used game sales have skyrocketed with the sky rocketed cost. Your money pool is slowly getting smaller, while your costs are growing bigger than ever. In fact, the bare minimum for a AAA game now is 20 million. If the market cannot support them, they will head to markets that will. This is bad for the consumer who is too lazy to go PC gaming, and is too elitist for casual gaming.

4. Console tax, which gets Microsoft and Sony their profits on a console, are passed on developers. The tax gets bigger as the costs increase, this forces developers out of the entire market. Only big companies can afford this. Its making the entire market shrink, a game in which only the richest of the rich can play. Console gaming is literally run by a handful of publishers and developers who can pay off the manufacturer. This is what I mean by little competition.

There is literally no way Microsoft and Sony can put the genie back into the bottle. The only thing they can do now is grab as much profits as they can before shit hits the fan. In fact, I wrote the exact same thing in an article I wrote in 2010.

1)The only reason game costs are going up now is the people's demand for high productions in graphics, music, and the cinematic aspects. Before then the only costs for consoles was (atleast on cart based systems) was making the stupid carts. Not going to lie it wouldn't hurt companies not pour their money on the graphic aspects to draw people in.

What is it you see plastard all over games now? Every engine used to make a game look good, because people have gotten to the point where if it isn't ultra realistic they don't want it (Minecraft showed it can be a good example of how to do things, gameplay over graphics). And how would the shift back be a problem when the sega saturn, n64, and playstation came out BOOM 3D effects where the norm (Even sony demanded all games use 3D polygons till capcom said no).

2)I'm pretty sure a big reason sony and microsoft couldn't make a return as fast as nintendo is because

A)Sony sold the PS3 at a massive lost and didn't do anything to fix it till later

B)RRoR cost a lot of money to sweep under the rug

And if costumers are pissed at a less advanced game then maybe they will stop demanded games be made with production values that go up to 20million dollars (And hell only the FPS's you were going on about brag about spending that much, small games I doubt go that far).

3)I believe used game sales went up because gamestop got big. Because I could find a lot of places to buy used games (hell I think 70% of my old SNES collection was used at one point). Also because most games don't last as long for reasons to many to list. Why is it I can still play Doom over Call of Duty? I haven't found every secret in Doom yet.

4)...I think that's why Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo started to support indie devs...I mean I read into the XNA publishing club for the Xbox 360 and it's just I think 100-400 dollars to publish it on the console. That is a lot cheaper then a full SDK for the 360, and I've seen good games on the indie market for these systems (WayFoward is my favorite for the DSi games). But your point is kinda moot when these companies try to play nice with indie devs (besides Nintendo), and not throw them a SDK of some kind to work with.

 

[Luke Cartner]

Most of your arguments are the same justifications used by pirates.

Speaking as someone who pirates quite often: I'm not justifying anything by not caring if a multi-billion-dollar corporation doesn't make sixty dollars because I pirated my copy of their game, or bought a used copy.

In fact, I don't think it's possible to care LESS that they didn't make another sixty bucks.

exactly my point

 

[Darius Brogan]

Most of your arguments are the same justifications used by pirates.

Speaking as someone who pirates quite often: I'm not justifying anything by not caring if a multi-billion-dollar corporation doesn't make sixty dollars because I pirated my copy of their game, or bought a used copy.

In fact, I don't think it's possible to care LESS that they didn't make another sixty bucks.

exactly my point

Your point was... what?

That pirates don't justify anything? Or that not caring is already justification?

I honestly don't think 'Couldn't care less' is a justification...

 

[ultrachicken]

You know what else would "Stab the used games market in the heart?" If games depreciated in value at a sensible clip. As things are, games retain their value of about $50-$60 for a ridiculously long time unless they didn't sell, whereas if you buy a game used during that time it's going to be much, much cheaper. The retail system is flawed, and that is what allows the used games market to flourish.

 

[Yosarian2]

1. costs have been rising for ten years now in an exponential rate. Its getting so bad companies have stopped making new IPs altogether until the new generation in 2015, then stopping new franchises again until the next (if there is one).

So, they might have to stop making super-expensive mega- graphics- obsessed extravaganzas and have to go back to making games that are driven by story and gameplay and thus are actually fun to play? Heaven forbid.

Seriously, anyone who thinks that the video game market is going to vanish simply doesn't understand how economics works. It's a huge, vast market; if Sony, Nintendo, and EA all went bankrupt tomorrow, a dozen other companies would move in instantly and find a way to make games that people want and make a profit off of them.

A point I covered in my article from 2010. The problem is a shift that big would do harm to the already fragile economy. Its this reason people need to support console gaming. There is just too much money thrown around in the market for it to be wiped clean.


I also said consoles will be killed, not video gaming entirely.

The point is, it's not going to happen. CD's just aren't that reliable, for one thing; a game is only going to work for so long before it gets too scratched up to work, at which point someone has to buy a new game if they want to keep playing games. It doesn't really matter if it's the same person who's been playing the same game until it dies, or multiple different people who buy it used and then re-sell it; eventually people are going to buy new games, because of a total lack of options, just like someone eventually has to buy a new car since cars only last so long. Anyone who actually buys used games knows this, since half the time they don't work when you buy them and you have to return them to be destroyed.

I also think that people who bash gamestop don't realize just how often they buy a game and it doesn't work and they get no money out of it.