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

[Redweaver]

It's getting to the point where I'm wanting to buy all of my games used just to spite these greedy bastards in the industry.

If the game is USED, it's already been SOLD, and you've already made your PROFIT. Shut your festering gob, you tit.

 

[teqrevisited]

Are film/tv producers or authors this bitchy about the pre-owned market for books or DVDs?

I love his "saving the environment" argument.
Where does all the money saved from logistics and packaging go? They're not hosting the distribution themselves so it's just lining their pockets. To add to that, retail copies are, more often than not, cheaper than digital copies.

 

[TheDooD]

I honestly hope developers lose money on digital distribution and it all goes the way of the origin thing so there's a slap upside every retard's head that doesnt understand that a used game has already brought them money of a full game and this is the market that almost every form of media has and follows.

It's funny but true. You gotta used game on a disk you can resell it and boom money is still being passed around. With digital distribution on the PC can lead to more piracy.

Which for some reason publishers and developers seem to ignore completely because they're too fucking jelly that Gamestop is full of copies of their shit game that were RETURNED and making the money they were hoping for.

Basically all I can say Developers make better games and get better testing. Publishers stop being greedy lower the fucking prices of games and cutting corners to save a fucking buck.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Annnnnnnd there goes quite a bit of respect I held for the man. Pity. I love his writing skills.

Spoiler: Also related

 

[Berenzen]

Real answer (that they won't just come out and say): "We're trying to expand our profit base to avoid the "make a mega-hit or die" situation we've found ourselves in as publishers; to put it bluntly, we need more money."

Sad corollary to this: If people have to pay full price and can't trade in old games for new ones, fewer games will be bought. Any potential gains seen by the publishers will be minor and not enough to stave off disaster.

Yeah, they need more money, and they're trying to be diplomatic about it. Honestly, I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Avellone, reselling games is causing a massive hit to the game industry. Say if 2 million copies of a game are sold pre-owned, that's about 54 million dollars (~27*2000000) that the company doesn't make on a $60 game. That's production cost of a new game.

The money argument is also applicable to why publishers like Digital Distribution, it's a 70/30 cut for the publisher rather than less than %50, that means that they're making 15 dollars more per game sold, or about 42 dollars a game rather than 27. Also, it means no pre-owned games.

Assuming that those 2 million games don't get sold, that's only a 24 million dollar total loss, rather than a 54 million dollar loss, or equal to less than a million purchased games in a retail store, or about 570000 games using Digital distribution.

That's a 30 million dollar gain, which is massive.

Now, this is not reality, there will not be full transfer to digital distribution, nor will every person that bought used will not buy new, so there is no real way to tell real results. But there seems to be net gain, not net loss, particularly if the game is standalone, without a sequel.


To be honest though, if you really wanted to end used-game sales, make console games enter a EULA that states that you can't redistribute the license.

I know people like to resell their games, but it's causes detriments to companies. It's only a matter of time before people come out and say "other forms of entertainment don't do it", but it is different, there are many, MANY different ways that they recoup there money (cinema showings (movies), massive profit margins per sell(cars), advertisements/subscriptions (TV shows), cheap production cost (books)), games have none of these, they HAVE to make money on new games through 3rd party retailers. Which means that they have to have a Mega-hit, otherwise lose money.


Also, there have been some studies that show that we have been conditioned that selling a game less than an MSRP of 60 dollars has shown that people have less faith in the condition and quality of the game. I'll see if I can find the study for you guys, I heard it from James Portnow of Extra Credits during Desert Bus.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

i don't see the problem with preowned games being sold.
we do it with everything else so why not games?

Real answer (that they won't just come out and say): "We're trying to expand our profit base to avoid the "make a mega-hit or die" situation we've found ourselves in as publishers; to put it bluntly, we need more money."

Sad corollary to this: If people have to pay full price and can't trade in old games for new ones, fewer games will be bought. Any potential gains seen by the publishers will be minor and not enough to stave off disaster.

Horse shit. Any people who won't buy if they can't then resell the game are people who would then lead to at least one more lost sale through used games, making it moot. People who sell old to buy new do not help the developers long term, thats a purely short term thing. Getting rid of preowned will only help them. This isn't an economics, its basic algebra. If you cost them three sales through trading in used games to buy one new, thats not a good thing for them.

Now now, my friend, there's no need to get uppity and use naughty words. What about when you have old games that you no longer wish to play? The used game market allows you to sell the game then to put towards a new game.

 

[omicron1]

i don't see the problem with preowned games being sold.
we do it with everything else so why not games?

Real answer (that they won't just come out and say): "We're trying to expand our profit base to avoid the "make a mega-hit or die" situation we've found ourselves in as publishers; to put it bluntly, we need more money."

Sad corollary to this: If people have to pay full price and can't trade in old games for new ones, fewer games will be bought. Any potential gains seen by the publishers will be minor and not enough to stave off disaster.

Horse shit. Any people who won't buy if they can't then resell the game are people who would then lead to at least one more lost sale through used games, making it moot. People who sell old to buy new do not help the developers long term, thats a purely short term thing. Getting rid of preowned will only help them. This isn't an economics, its basic algebra. If you cost them three sales through trading in used games to buy one new, thats not a good thing for them.

Potential value to spend with (hypothetical) 50% value addition for trading in used games: 150% of total money.
Potential value to spend with no trade back: 100% of total money.
That's what I'm talking about here. A gamer who buys new and sells back will buy 1 game for $60, plus 1/2 game for the $30 credit.
A gamer who buys used and sells back will buy ~2 games for $45 ea., but the publisher sees none of it.
Together, they probably average out to $45 income per person.

Contrast with all-new sales: Excluding the possibility of locking out lower-income budget buyers, at best you're increasing sales from an average of $45 ea. to $60 ea. This may be some, but it's not night and day.

 

[Krion_Vark]

Honestly why are devs getting so mad about the used games model? When someone buys your product they have the right to sell it again, that's called capitalism.

Personally I have no problem with the used game thing. What I have a problem with is day 1 when the store opens used game sale. I have seen it in the gamestops around me. There is no way 10 minutes after the store opens that there should be a used game there to buy.

 

[Hal10k]

i don't see the problem with preowned games being sold.
we do it with everything else so why not games?

I'd just like to declare a blanket "Ceteris Paribus" on the following passage:

For most goods, the status of being 'used' denotes a degredation of quality from the original product. A used car will require more maintainance than a new one, making it harder to keep running for as long; used clothes will be more faded and threadbare, making them less comfortable to wear; used books yellow and lose their bindings with age, thus becoming marginally less pleasant to read. All of these decrease the economic utility of the product, thus forcing the distributer to decrease his price if he wants somebody to buy it.

With digital media, however, this is significantly less of an issue. The consumer is primarily concerned with the data on the disk, not the disk itself: so long as the disk plays, it's just as good as a brand new one. There's the chance that the disk won't play due to negligence on the part of the previous owner, but stores like Gamestop typically have a trade in policy that allows substitutions in this scenario. So long as the threshod of "being readable" is passed, a used disk can last just as long as a new one, providing that the owner does not do something mind-boggingly stupid. Thus, the economic utility of a new and used disk are roughly the same.

So we have two products, each with roughly the same value to the consumer, with one offered for a slightly lower price. Naturally, the consumer is going to tend towards purchasing the cheaper good. Hence the hullabaloo.

 

[Snotnarok]

I think developers and publishers should stop bitching about used games and start doing something about their sales like oh, I don't know...Not sell every game they make for the full $60. If your game is 4 hours long, is not very replayable sell it for cheaper, more people will buy it and less people will sell it because of the low price they get in return for it.

But no it's used games and pirates fault, not the price or the DRM these idiots push into it.

 

[AarinSwift]

Cutting off used game sales means losing customers at release, who have figured in the resale value.
Of course you earn from every game sold later in the lifespan of the game, but that is lost at the start of the life cycle, a much more important point to have money trickle in.

Another thing to consider is, that a physical copy is subjectively worth more. I'm not buying digitally distributed games before they hit the bargain bin, since they aren't worth much to me. ?60 for a bunch of bits with DRM on top of it? Go f*ck yourself.
The difference between pirated copy and bought copy is slowly going down to zero, and the difference is usually legit buyers have to cope with obstructive DRM, while pirates can cruise smoothly.

The bottom line is: You are effectively removing value from the games, and you cannot expect that to work without negative impact on sales.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

i don't see the problem with preowned games being sold.
we do it with everything else so why not games?

Real answer (that they won't just come out and say): "We're trying to expand our profit base to avoid the "make a mega-hit or die" situation we've found ourselves in as publishers; to put it bluntly, we need more money."

Sad corollary to this: If people have to pay full price and can't trade in old games for new ones, fewer games will be bought. Any potential gains seen by the publishers will be minor and not enough to stave off disaster.

Horse shit. Any people who won't buy if they can't then resell the game are people who would then lead to at least one more lost sale through used games, making it moot. People who sell old to buy new do not help the developers long term, thats a purely short term thing. Getting rid of preowned will only help them. This isn't an economics, its basic algebra. If you cost them three sales through trading in used games to buy one new, thats not a good thing for them.

Now now, my friend, there's no need to get uppity and use naughty words. What about when you have old games that you no longer wish to play? The used game market allows you to sell the game then to put towards a new game.

1. That isn't what the argument is about here. He's saying that Developers need used game sales, I say thats complete bollocks. 2. If that were the extent of it there wouldn't be a problem. zthe problem is people selling their games off even if they aren't old.

If people are selling their game that soon, it's likely because they didn't like it, or because they finished it and have no desire to replay it. They're exercising their consumer rights by reselling it. Consumer rights are a good thing, my friend.

 

[Racecarlock]

You can go as digital as you want, just give up making full price for your games, I have allot of games on my steam but only like 3 of them were bought for full price and 2 of those are from valve, the rest are all on sales for cheap as hell.

Well then there's their next target, isn't it. If games are sold at a discount, they're not getting as much money as they can, therefore stealing the discounted part of the price.

Hey, don't look at me like that, it's their logic.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

i don't see the problem with preowned games being sold.
we do it with everything else so why not games?

Real answer (that they won't just come out and say): "We're trying to expand our profit base to avoid the "make a mega-hit or die" situation we've found ourselves in as publishers; to put it bluntly, we need more money."

Sad corollary to this: If people have to pay full price and can't trade in old games for new ones, fewer games will be bought. Any potential gains seen by the publishers will be minor and not enough to stave off disaster.

Horse shit. Any people who won't buy if they can't then resell the game are people who would then lead to at least one more lost sale through used games, making it moot. People who sell old to buy new do not help the developers long term, thats a purely short term thing. Getting rid of preowned will only help them. This isn't an economics, its basic algebra. If you cost them three sales through trading in used games to buy one new, thats not a good thing for them.

Potential value to spend with (hypothetical) 50% value addition for trading in used games: 150% of total money.
Potential value to spend with no trade back: 100% of total money.
That's what I'm talking about here. A gamer who buys new and sells back will buy 1 game for $60, plus 1/2 game for the $30 credit.
A gamer who buys used and sells back will buy ~2 games for $45 ea., but the publisher sees none of it.
Together, they probably average out to $45 income per person.

Contrast with all-new sales: Excluding the possibility of locking out lower-income budget buyers, at best you're increasing sales from an average of $45 ea. to $60 ea. This may be some, but it's not night and day.

You messed with the math here. Lets follow the sum. 1 game purchased for $60. This game sold back for $10. Person buys it secondhand for $55. That person repeats the scenario. This is a very likely outcome I'm sure you'd agree. So thats two lost sales and the Dev only made $60.

Your fallacy is assuming that people who buy used will buy new if that option is taken away. You're also assuming that people who buy used will trade the game as soon as they finish with it.

And there's that whole matter of putting credit in the games towards your further purchases.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

i don't see the problem with preowned games being sold.
we do it with everything else so why not games?

Real answer (that they won't just come out and say): "We're trying to expand our profit base to avoid the "make a mega-hit or die" situation we've found ourselves in as publishers; to put it bluntly, we need more money."

Sad corollary to this: If people have to pay full price and can't trade in old games for new ones, fewer games will be bought. Any potential gains seen by the publishers will be minor and not enough to stave off disaster.

Horse shit. Any people who won't buy if they can't then resell the game are people who would then lead to at least one more lost sale through used games, making it moot. People who sell old to buy new do not help the developers long term, thats a purely short term thing. Getting rid of preowned will only help them. This isn't an economics, its basic algebra. If you cost them three sales through trading in used games to buy one new, thats not a good thing for them.

Now now, my friend, there's no need to get uppity and use naughty words. What about when you have old games that you no longer wish to play? The used game market allows you to sell the game then to put towards a new game.

1. That isn't what the argument is about here. He's saying that Developers need used game sales, I say thats complete bollocks. 2. If that were the extent of it there wouldn't be a problem. zthe problem is people selling their games off even if they aren't old.

If people are selling their game that soon, it's likely because they didn't like it, or because they finished it and have no desire to replay it. They're exercising their consumer rights by reselling it. Consumer rights are a good thing, my friend.

Games I saw on the shelves within 3 days of their release this year -Deus Ex Human Revolution. Portal 2. LittleBigPlanet 2. Modern Wafare 3. Uncharted 3. Skyrim (360 version). Arkham City.

Annnnnnd? Not everyone likes the same games. I knew a bloke who bought Deus Ex and hated it.