Draech said:
Ralfy said:
Get it through your thick skull.
1 prevented sale = 1 sale lost.
FACT = PROVEN!
That's not right! Loss of money is NOT the same as loss of the opportunity to make money. If they were the same, then all business will argue that they are losing money no matter how profitable they are!
Which not surprisingly is what publishers are doing given this topic!
I dont need to to point out how much money is lost when I never argued a certain amount. I argued that there is money lost. END OF STORY! You need to prove that this doesn't happen in Order to refute it. That my proof was made up. You wont be able to, because you know that this is happening.
See, this is what I mean: you equate money lost with the opportunity to make money lost. They're not the same! To show that used games sold leads to money lost, we should be seeing DECREASING sales for the game industry, and the second article shows otherwise.
EDIT: I had time to scope the amount of horseshit you just linked me. The Statistics are completely irrelevant. He just trumps off a random reason he finds to be the cause and doesn't back it up. I mean him dragging out the "First sales doctrine" when the first sales doctrine doesn't go "You have a right to buy it" is just dumb on so many lvl. But the most mindblowing thing is this right here
No, the ONLY horseshit is coming from you. In fact, every point you made in the paragraph above describes what YOU have been doing perfectly, e.g., arguing that statistics are irrelevant (and then waiting for me to give them and using that to bolster your views), comparing games to "all services," arguing that any "doctrine" should include the right not to buy it, etc. Let's not forget the completely ridiculous analogy between buying games with paying for electricity.
"Let's call that $2.5B and further assume that every single used sale can be translated into a full-priced revenue sale for the publisher. Total game sales in the US for 2010 was $10B according to NPD--which means that even if GameStop gave all $2.5B right back to publishers, it's not enough to matter long term"
I am sorry but 1/4 of the profits from sales of a game doesn't matter long term? Is he fucking insane?
Wait, I thought statistics are irrelevant. So why the sudden turnaround?
Profits are not the same as revenues. And far from your claim that the article gives points randomly, it does the complete opposite: counter each non-proven assertion by Browne point by point.
For example, it was claimed that pre-owned games lead to loss of money. That's not true: sales have been going up each year. The only time it went down involved problems with the Wii and DS titles, and that didn't involve used pre-owned games.
Next, it was claimed that pre-owned games are the reason why game prices are high, and yet no publisher has stated that they will lower game prices if there is a decrease in sales for used games.
Given that, what is driving high game prices? The next chart shows that plus a cost curve for each generation of games. At that rate, not even the removal of used games will help!
THAT is the context of the paragraph you shared. Put simply, the problem isn't the used games market but increasing costs. That's why the writer argues that shutting down that market won't matter in the long term, because after that, given the cost curve, costs will continue rising. What will happen then?
That's the point in the last paragraph of the article which you didn't mention: removing the used games market will NOT bring down prices. However, it will cover increasing costs, but only to a point when the cost curve trend will lead to another increase in costs that even gains from a closed used games market will NOT cover. When that happens, prices will have to go up.
Finally, the point that wasn't raised in the article is this: how will publishers close the pre-owned market? Unless political lobbying is strong enough, I don't think they will be able to encouraging passing of laws to do that. In which case, what happens next? Well, think of it this way: someone mentioned the issue of piracy, which also concerns publishers. As shown in some recent titles, they have been experimenting with various ways to prevent piracy, and several of the schemes may also be used to prevent the sale of pre-owned games: online activation, continuous verification, locking the game to a particular product key and ID of the device where the game is installed, putting parts of the game online and requiring online access while playing the game, etc. But one option to supplement these may be placed in the TOA: that you don't own the game. Instead, you are given the license to play it, and the publisher can revoke that license after a certain period. In that case, the servers that check for online activation or that feed parts of the game may be shut down. You can't complain because you don't own what you bought; you simply rented it or was given the right to use it by the publisher for a certain period. And following what you wrote ealier, if the gamer doesn't like such terms, he can choose not to play the game, or maybe patronize publishers who will not require such terms.
Keep in mind that this option not only weakens the pre-owned market and piracy, it also strengthens publishers' needs to sell as many copies of as many titles as possible. Note that in the article it was stated that publishers may be releasing many titles, many of which don't do well, with the few that do well paying for the losses due to most. And since several games are now being sold digitally, then this becomes a better business model for publishers. To recap:
1. Publishers may require that gamers don't own games that they buy; instead, they are given a license to use them for a limited amount of time. With that, there won't be used games to sell. This will be necessary if no laws are passed not allowing pre-owned games to be sold.
2. Require activation, putting parts of the game online, etc. That way, it will be more difficult to pirate the game. Also, it provides for more opportunities to make money. For example, if you need to buy a new device to play your game, the publisher may require you to buy a new copy of the game because the old one was registered for your old device. This also makes attempts to sell used games useless.
The same process can also be used to make even more money, e.g., offer a "complete" game and then DLCs, etc., for a "better experience" for additional fees. Many of these points were mentioned in the video.
3. If prices go up, gamers will have no choice but to accept that. But publishers will have to assume that given their increasing costs (again, see the cost curve mentioned in the article) gamers will have increasing discretionary income to buy the same number of games (or more) even at higher prices. Will this happen in the long term? With that, your senseless argument, that gamers who don't like such terms can go away, makes no sense, as publishers NEED those gamers to buy MORE games to cover their increasing costs.
4. Browne's argument, that gamers shouldn't sell games that they bought because games are not supposed to be "disposable entertainment," ironically works AGAINST what publishers want, i.e., gamers should BUY MORE games and NOT SELL their old games. In short, for the gaming industry to continue profiting, games HAVE to be disposable entertainment. At the same time, given the cost curve, gamers have to buy more games each time, or publishers have to find MORE ways to make more money from the same gamers.
So, do you still think I am giving a straw man, or do you think I very much described the current phenomenon? And outside the senseless argument that "if you don't want it, then don't patronize it," would you be happy with the four points I raised above?
