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

[Turio]

So, how many of you jackasses immediatly went to *greedy game developers?*

What? All of you? What a fucking surprise.

Well, I've got a scope for you. Obsidian doesn't even earn anything from Retail Sales. Nothing. Nada. The intention behind this comment isn't about sales.

It's about creativity.

Why you ask?

Well, which games are the most unaffected by Used Game Sales? Popular Games like COD!

Which games are the most affected? Games that take creative risks, only appealing to a smaller audience which leads to people not willing to pay full price for it.


What do publishers think?

"Well, only popular games are successful in sales. We don't want to take risks on creative products"




But, I guess none of you actually spent time to think about this rather than just full on RAGE.

I'm not agreeing with him there myself but I at least can understand where his position comes from.

 

[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.

I agree, if they're so worried about losing sales then drop the $60 price tag (which I have always felt is unreasonably high) and maybe offer incentives like turn in credit if you happen to own a used version of one of the companies earlier games.

Its not that 60 is unreasonably high but it's that not EVERY game needs to be 60 dollars+70 dollars in DLC. Sega realized this I think when they put out Sonic Generations, it's not a giant game and it's not overly deep so on PC it launched at 30 dollars, that's a fine price for the game. 60 for Skyrim? Well I mean I'm 25 hours in and I don't see an end in sight so that's worth the 60.

60 dollars for a 4 hour long first person shooter? Um, that's silly, very silly.

 

[Scrustle]

Well that guy is now officially a dick. I get where he's coming from with the idea that digital distribution being more environmentally friendly but if he thinks it's okay to take away consumer right from me then he is sorely mistaken. And also it's not true that the second hand game market "cuts publishers out of the sales loop". For every second hand copy of a game that is sold, at one point it has to have been a new game. With piracy all it takes is one person to buy the game, then the potential for how many people can play it without paying the publisher becomes infinite. It doesn't even necessarily demand that someone buy the game in the first place either. They could download a leaked build or something. The impact is nowhere near the same. And publishers have no right to the money of a game once they have sold it off. That's how a sale works! You agree to give away one of your possessions in return for money. You have no right to say what happens to the item after that. Publishers have some real nerve to even entertain the idea that this is not the case.

And publishers are so fucking greedy about this. They make such a huge deal about nothing. When was the last time any publisher has gone under because of the used game market? Never, that's when. And the ones that complain about it the most and are the worst with all these online passes and stuff are the richest publishers out there! They have nothing to worry about! It's pure greed! And we always forget the developers in this. When a publisher finds that they are losing sales they just close down the studio. These people lose their jobs over this, but publishers don't care. And without the developers this industry doesn't exist. Simple as that.

 

[gphjr14]

I'd be concerned if I hadn't just looked up Obsidian games and seen that I haven't played any of their games.

Not to mention unless you withhold portions of the game and require an internet connection to play people are still going to pirate their games.

A pass for access to the online portion of a game is reasonable but seriously if single player games go this route they'll just see an increase in piracy and a decrease in sales.

 

[Pearwood]

That's something I can agree with. Criticising used games just because they don't give money to people I've never met before is just silly, actually providing a price reasonable enough that used games can't compete with is what they should be doing. Steam does a damn good job of that so yeah, I totally agree.

 

[ZenoX969]

It's not as much about Obsidian not wanting customers to resell the games after they've bought them. It's that the used games stores are getting all the profit from it. The customer is getting just as screwed as the developer when they trade in a game. Because you get so little for it most of the time. While the used games stores make a huge profit by then selling it for a lot more than what they paid you for it.

I personally never even go near a used games store, here in Sweden. Because they go out of their way to make new games more expensive, so that people would then buy the used version which is slightly cheaper. And they keep taking off the plastic wrapping to put their annoying stickers directly on the box. That's annoying as hell.

But, anyway... there's a really good store that I've always gone to ever since 2005. Because they have the best prices and they treat their customers fairly. And they don't deal with used games. Haven't bought a used game in 6-7 years.

 

[Neyon]

And devs have every right to do legal things to stop it. That is also called capitalism.

No it isn't. It is a barrier to trade and is the opposite of competitive capitalism.

 

[DEAD34345]

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.

And devs have every right to do legal things to stop it. That is also called capitalism.

And consumers have every right to do legal things to stop them from losing their rights. That is also called capitalism.

But they don't. That is called retarded.

[sub]Not insulting you here by the way, I mean people in general who let companies get away with this crap.[/sub]

 

[android88]

I like the bag, where can I get one?

 

[Turio]

Again.

Obsidian (and Chris Avellone)doesn't recieve money from sales.
Obsidian ("") doesn't recieve money from sales.
Obsidian ("") doesn't recieve money from sales.
Obsidian ("") doesn't recieve money from sales.

Chris Avellone does not have this opinion because of money. He does not.

The thing he cares about is working on interesting projects.

Which is directly influenced by publishers beeing interested in taking risks.


Publishers are not interested in sales through used game sales. Publishers are interested in sales they can see. Publishers can see digital sales.

Digital Sales > Used Game sales

for publishers to take risks.



Easy as that.

 

[Vault101]

hey make some games that are fun play with out crashing every 3hrs or less "new vegas i am looking at you", don't hold out on dlc and think of those who have a FU**** bandwidth cap, then we can talk. I love how game publishers hate this model but tell me?? How else am I going to re-buy old games for the ps2, saturn, dreamcast, or games from companies like nisa if they go out of print before I can make a purchase? "not a huge fan of drm if there is option around it with collectors editions sorry" I just love how they think they are losing huge profit when mf3 just reached the billion dollar mark... on offense to activision i will be buying that pre-owned, think the meet their bottom line.

download cap?


....I feel your pain *hug*

 

[Aprilgold]

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.

Because they want ALL the money. It has come to a time to where making games almost means you have to get over 1,000,000 copies sold to get a full back fund on your making. Then we have the better answer...

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.

I agree, although it may have something to do with the burst of Digital Distribution, but consoles are going the way of the arcade. Because its to the point to where Consoles aren't as necessary for playing a game as they were before. Especially with things like 'Cloud' gaming coming around, which allows you to play a game without downloading anything and over the internet even if you don't have the specs for said game.

Consoles haven't exactly done wonders this year, as their starting to top-out on their own graphical fidelity. Not counting that all these pushes to stop piracy and used-game sales, you might as well just go this route.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Digital Distribution is a pretty freaking terrible way to kill the used games market. Not that it couldn't but enough people know that buying a digital anything isn't really buying anything at all. When you buy used you at least get something out of it.

 

[Michael Hirst]

Devs and publishers act so entitled to all the sales of games when they're working within a capitalist system, the same system that makes them so rich so they have no place for acting like an open market is unfair, if they don't like that they can fuck off to North Korea and see what it's like opening business there.

All devs have to do is make a game good enough for me to keep, I'll list a few that have done this CURRENT GEN ONLY. Skyrim, Demons Souls, Uncharted 2, Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction, Assassins Creed 2 (but not the original) Saints Row 2, Red Dead Redemption.

As for games that don't manage this, FF13, Heavy Rain, Resistance 1/2.

Oh as for the digitual distribution market in general, it has some good ideas yet no savings from retail costs are passed onto the consumer instead we get charged the same in fact sometimes HIGHER prices for what should be a cheaper copy (I got Skyrim for £10 less in retail than through Steam and it wasn't a special offer) Though I definitely approve of holiday seasons when Valve put on lots and lots of Steam sales, I can happily spend £60 on those because I end up with a vast amount fo stuff to play some of which I may not have tried otherwise.

 

[Beryl77]

Hey Valve, I'm still waiting for you to implement game trading on Steam.

 

[StarCecil]

Huh. I wonder if Chris Avellone really, really hates shoddy programming in his games. I, personally, hope the used game market forces developers to realize that sub-par products will hurt them in the long run.