I hope it works with Steam or it might not do well at all. Isn't Steam pretty much out (/way ahead) of the digital download competition because D2D and other distributes knew they had no chance of beating them?
Pre-Owned Games Market Goes Digital
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
If they also have the deals like the ones that steam does, that beat the shit out of all used car salesmen that claim to be crazy, I will permanently buy all my games for the pc from them.
What he said. "Used" digital files are the same as "new" digital files. So what would be the incentive to buy a DD game new, if you could go to Greenman and get it cheaper? It's not like when you go to Gamestop and get a partially scratched disk and a manual that someone spilled coffee all over.IlikeLolis said:
Mmmm I don't see this working so well for PC games that require cd-keys and what not but, console games sounds good.
Okay, I was working this out with a buddy:
First, you have to assume a few things. One, that it will work like Steam and you have to authorize against the Green Man system to start the game. Two, that the Green Man has a set number of purchasing rights to the game, meaning they bought the right to sell "Bioshock" 10,000 times, paying $45 for each right.
They sell the rights to the game for $50 ($5 profit). The buyer downloads it and enjoys/hates/etc... He wants to trade it back in. Green Man buys the rights to the game back for $25 and puts that into a "Used" right queue. That gets sold for $45 giving Green Man a $20 profit, some of which is given to the publisher as royalties.
At least that makes the most sense to me.
First, you have to assume a few things. One, that it will work like Steam and you have to authorize against the Green Man system to start the game. Two, that the Green Man has a set number of purchasing rights to the game, meaning they bought the right to sell "Bioshock" 10,000 times, paying $45 for each right.
They sell the rights to the game for $50 ($5 profit). The buyer downloads it and enjoys/hates/etc... He wants to trade it back in. Green Man buys the rights to the game back for $25 and puts that into a "Used" right queue. That gets sold for $45 giving Green Man a $20 profit, some of which is given to the publisher as royalties.
At least that makes the most sense to me.
Since when did we start caring about who sees the money on a used sale? Used markets exist in practically every domain of consumer product types you can imagine, and they all operate the same way.
I've never heard of thrift stores that pay a fee to Levi's for every pair of used jeans they sell, or an indie record store that fires a couple dollars off to Capitol Records for every used copy of Kid A they sell.
This whole industry position of "Used games are bad for the industry" is horseshit, and the fact that gamers are buying into it is troubling as all hell. Limiting the ability of people to do what they wish with a product they have purchased is bad for consumers, and what's bad for consumers is bad for the industry.
Game stores stay alfoat on revenues from Used software, and say what you will about them, the specialty game shops account for a large proportion of overall new game sales. Trade-in credit is also a major driving force behind the consumer's ability to purchase more titles, new or used.
I mean come on, music, movies, cars, homes, clothing, guns, watches, you name it - there's a thriving used market for all of them - and I've never heard another industry ***** and moan like this about how "they're losing so much money" because of it.
-m
I've never heard of thrift stores that pay a fee to Levi's for every pair of used jeans they sell, or an indie record store that fires a couple dollars off to Capitol Records for every used copy of Kid A they sell.
This whole industry position of "Used games are bad for the industry" is horseshit, and the fact that gamers are buying into it is troubling as all hell. Limiting the ability of people to do what they wish with a product they have purchased is bad for consumers, and what's bad for consumers is bad for the industry.
Game stores stay alfoat on revenues from Used software, and say what you will about them, the specialty game shops account for a large proportion of overall new game sales. Trade-in credit is also a major driving force behind the consumer's ability to purchase more titles, new or used.
I mean come on, music, movies, cars, homes, clothing, guns, watches, you name it - there's a thriving used market for all of them - and I've never heard another industry ***** and moan like this about how "they're losing so much money" because of it.
-m
Okay, when we're talking Digital Distribution; we're already talking about a pretty much pure profit center. You can sell as many as are demanded. There is virtually no extra cost per unit once the cost of production has been covered.
In this system, I imagine you would have a certain profile, and when you purchase a game digitally, it would be noted in that profile. You would have to access this profile every time you play to verify that your profile is still authorized to play. You could then "sell back" your access to that game; removing the authorization to that game from your profile. This could also work to create "digital returns".
They wouldn't go through the trouble of making you uninstall or delete it, or move the information on your hard drive to the next user's PC, they would just deactivate your account and when the next user purchases it, they just download the software from the server (they might use p2p technology in this scenario, but not necessarily a specific user X to user Y).
So, essentially, the second user is receiving exactly what a user buying new would receive. Really, it could be sold back and resold at the current retail price of new because no value would really have been lost. However, to make a profit, the retailer would want to buy it back for less than what they sold it for and resell it for more than what they bought it back for. The resell price could be the same or less than current retail price and still be profitable to the retailer; and reasonable for the purchaser as both new and used would be the same product. However, that would not create incentive for a new buyer to purchase used over new; and the retailer has more profit with used. So the retailer would create the incentive by offering the "used" versions for less. This would then necessitate the retailer being accountable to not sell more "used" copies than had been bought back.
In short, it would end up working like the current "pre-owned" market, without the risk to the customer of a broken disk or missing manual. So, Yay!
My one gripe is this royalties nonsense. Pre-owned is not piracy so long as there still remains only as many copies in use as were sold new. Also, the number available for purchase is limited by the number of originals sold; you can't sell 1000 used disks if you've only ever sold 500 new. This system would digitally enforce that. When someone circumvents this by creating copies and cracks, that is piracy. It happens with disks and with digital distribution; however, those aren't the ones getting sold back to retailers and resold.
When Ford makes an F-150, they sell it to a dealer, and that's the last direct profit from the sale; they don't get any more money if it is then sold to another owner directly, given to a friend or relative, or sold to a different dealer. They actually realize a direct cost per unit sold. Never have more F-150s been owned than were sold. The same has held true for any other physical product.
In the digital distribution arena, the same rules can be tracked and enforced. Yes, they can be circumvented, but that is an inherent risk of the medium. A risk that is better mitigated by not treating paying customers as though they are the criminals (which generally leads them to determine that they might as well be).
If we apply what "intellectual property" proponents have to say about digital distribution and royalties for resale, or no resale, to any other property; you would own as many houses as you have lived in, which would be handy because you would also have every car, computer, piece of furniture, television set, game console, pencil, pen, dish set... you get it. Everything you buy; you would either keep or throw out. There would be no assets because there would be no resale value, everything is an expense. Nobody wants this, and I think digital distribution people get that point.
Now, they want people to be able to resell, but they want a cut. So now the developer who built your house gets a cut when you sell it, and every change of hands afterward. If you give your F-150 to your kid, you have to pay Ford 5% of the current retail value. Let a friend borrow your pencil, Ticonderoga gets a penny, and a penny again when they hand it back to you.
I am aware that I am using a twisted form of reductio ad absurdum. Is the problem in that I'm using it, or that it applies?
In this system, I imagine you would have a certain profile, and when you purchase a game digitally, it would be noted in that profile. You would have to access this profile every time you play to verify that your profile is still authorized to play. You could then "sell back" your access to that game; removing the authorization to that game from your profile. This could also work to create "digital returns".
They wouldn't go through the trouble of making you uninstall or delete it, or move the information on your hard drive to the next user's PC, they would just deactivate your account and when the next user purchases it, they just download the software from the server (they might use p2p technology in this scenario, but not necessarily a specific user X to user Y).
So, essentially, the second user is receiving exactly what a user buying new would receive. Really, it could be sold back and resold at the current retail price of new because no value would really have been lost. However, to make a profit, the retailer would want to buy it back for less than what they sold it for and resell it for more than what they bought it back for. The resell price could be the same or less than current retail price and still be profitable to the retailer; and reasonable for the purchaser as both new and used would be the same product. However, that would not create incentive for a new buyer to purchase used over new; and the retailer has more profit with used. So the retailer would create the incentive by offering the "used" versions for less. This would then necessitate the retailer being accountable to not sell more "used" copies than had been bought back.
In short, it would end up working like the current "pre-owned" market, without the risk to the customer of a broken disk or missing manual. So, Yay!
My one gripe is this royalties nonsense. Pre-owned is not piracy so long as there still remains only as many copies in use as were sold new. Also, the number available for purchase is limited by the number of originals sold; you can't sell 1000 used disks if you've only ever sold 500 new. This system would digitally enforce that. When someone circumvents this by creating copies and cracks, that is piracy. It happens with disks and with digital distribution; however, those aren't the ones getting sold back to retailers and resold.
When Ford makes an F-150, they sell it to a dealer, and that's the last direct profit from the sale; they don't get any more money if it is then sold to another owner directly, given to a friend or relative, or sold to a different dealer. They actually realize a direct cost per unit sold. Never have more F-150s been owned than were sold. The same has held true for any other physical product.
In the digital distribution arena, the same rules can be tracked and enforced. Yes, they can be circumvented, but that is an inherent risk of the medium. A risk that is better mitigated by not treating paying customers as though they are the criminals (which generally leads them to determine that they might as well be).
If we apply what "intellectual property" proponents have to say about digital distribution and royalties for resale, or no resale, to any other property; you would own as many houses as you have lived in, which would be handy because you would also have every car, computer, piece of furniture, television set, game console, pencil, pen, dish set... you get it. Everything you buy; you would either keep or throw out. There would be no assets because there would be no resale value, everything is an expense. Nobody wants this, and I think digital distribution people get that point.
Now, they want people to be able to resell, but they want a cut. So now the developer who built your house gets a cut when you sell it, and every change of hands afterward. If you give your F-150 to your kid, you have to pay Ford 5% of the current retail value. Let a friend borrow your pencil, Ticonderoga gets a penny, and a penny again when they hand it back to you.
I am aware that I am using a twisted form of reductio ad absurdum. Is the problem in that I'm using it, or that it applies?
In summary:
Implemented well, this is a very good idea.
My complaint is that the publishers shouldn't receive royalties for pre-owned sales.
What I really want is for the prices of digital games to decrease over time, like a retail game does as there are many games I wouldn't pay $60 for but would pay $20 for. This hasn't really happened (I believe microsoft has a platinum hits collection for XBLA games but not many games are part of the collection which sells the games for $5) Maybe if games become all digital publishers will have to lower prices to compete.
OT: I like this idea more than retail used games as a download cannot be damaged without accessing the code and thus a used download will be in the exact same condition as when it was first downloaded, unlike the used games Gamestop sells.
OT: I like this idea more than retail used games as a download cannot be damaged without accessing the code and thus a used download will be in the exact same condition as when it was first downloaded, unlike the used games Gamestop sells.
Worst company name and logo I've seen in a while, woof ...
There's a lot to this. The used games market takes many sales away from publishers and is part of the reason games are as expensive as they are today. And unless this company strikes some kind of deal with the digital distributors, it won't necessarily be possible for them to transfer the purchase of a game from one account to another.
Just by proposing this idea to, say, Steam, Valve itself might think "hey, good idea" and implement it themselves. To them, the question would be, why include a middle man for a cut of the profit? It wouldn't make sense to the digital distributors who could probably just as easily build their own systems for transferring digital games.
There's a lot to this. The used games market takes many sales away from publishers and is part of the reason games are as expensive as they are today. And unless this company strikes some kind of deal with the digital distributors, it won't necessarily be possible for them to transfer the purchase of a game from one account to another.
Just by proposing this idea to, say, Steam, Valve itself might think "hey, good idea" and implement it themselves. To them, the question would be, why include a middle man for a cut of the profit? It wouldn't make sense to the digital distributors who could probably just as easily build their own systems for transferring digital games.
How...interesting! Normally I'm not a fan of the used-games market (especially as presented by Gamestop where Epic's guy has a legit point---gamer saves $5, publisher gets nothing for their efforts---it IS almost like piracy!)
But for everyone to get a piece of the action and to be able to save money without feeling like you've ripped off the publisher? If it works, it'll be awesome.
But for everyone to get a piece of the action and to be able to save money without feeling like you've ripped off the publisher? If it works, it'll be awesome.
If this works well, it could change buying habits of gamers forever...
On a lighter note, what a crap name.
On a lighter note, what a crap name.
