Total Biscuit vs the Jimquisition

[Sir Christopher McFarlane]

How come one of the big anti-used arguments always involves talking about how evil gamestop is, as if it's the only place to deal in used games? What happened to eBay, amazon, or just plain selling straight to a friend?

I think it goes unmentioned because it's not relevant in numbers to impact sales, while Gamestop who has a near monopoly of USA game reatail is big enough to cause harm.

 

[Toxic Sniper]

Total Biscuit misses the point that the PC is an open system while consoles are not. Therefore, the loss of used games will not lower prices on consoles because there will be a monopoly. We know already that many gamers will purchase even with malware or drm attached to the disc; they're not going to be dissuaded by games not getting cheaper.

All of his other points are irrelevant to me as a consumer. It doesn't matter to me if the games industry will suffer or game developers will lose money; none of that means I should tolerate them taking away my ability to give away, rent, borrow, and sell games. Speaking of which, Total Biscuit is so focused on Gamestop and other resale retailers that he forgets that plenty of used games are sold directly between gamers, and unlike Gamestop, the games industry doesn't cuddle up with services like Ebay.

Essentially, until there is some real benefit to me as a consumer in taking away the ability to sell used games, I will not support this bs protectionism. Other industries have learned to open new sources of revenue to avoid the perils of giving property to people. If the game industry is unable to adapt in the same way, it's not going to do any better just because I give them my consumer rights.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

To everyone who says "Used games take away from a developer" let me say this. Unless they are contracted for royalties or published the game themselves they do not (and should not) get ANY money from game sales. The reason is they are already paid to make the game, they don't get paid after (again unless it's in the contract and that is a stupid deal to make). If you bought a game used that EA published (Mass Effect 3) then EA didn't get the money for that game, programmer Joe won't lose that money. Second issue I have with this, why should a publisher be able to double dip once a sale is made. By the way people act we shouldn't be able to share anything without paying the maker of the product per person we share it to.

Lets make it fair, if we want to watch a movie we bought (not rented, bought) and wanted to have a movie night then you should have to pay the movie studio/publisher a fee per person. And if you wanna say that is too far it really isn't, because you bought the movie for your personal entertainment, not a license to share with others. If you have a family and you want to buy a movie the whole family can enjoy, then you need to buy each member a copy. Can't share accounts either, if you bought a app with one account and you want your who ever to play with it, you should buy that person a copy of the app on his account (or tell him to buy it himself).

Also games have costed 50-80 dollars in the bloody 90's and I don't wanna hear crap about pricing. If publishers want to charge more nothing will stop them, most did it because a game had "24 megs of memory". We have games that can go up in the millions, yet is at a stable 60 bucks.

 

[Orks da best]

Personally I'll side with Totalbiscut, because Even though I like it when Jims talks about problems consumers personally have, and those that deals with important topics such as sexism and racism, things important on a social level. I loathe his opinions on topics such as used games, dlc, and publishers "evils". He has in those regards becomes more of a mouthpiece for gamers to latch onto to because he says what there thinking, which is what 90% of gamers say, the publishers beside valve are "evil!!!"

While Totalbiscut says his own opinion which I agree with more often than not and makes him seem less of someone who agrees with the masses and choose his own opinion, which in this day and age is something to be valued.

My opinion on used games, bugger all really, my game library is 95% new games, 5% uses, and those used games are not my most popular among my selection, they there just because I was curious about the game and couldn't find a new copy in the store.

But with today media going more and more digital its a fact that heavy use game buyers and lovers of physical media will have to face that such things will be of the past, so stock up on them now . I for one am happy of my halo collection, all the current games and halo 3 leg. edition. Because even though such things will fade. The memories and collection of today will not, and will not fade for years to come.

And like most things gamer related today, gamers one again annoy and disappoint me. Will they have make me happy to play games? Will they ever make me happy of the culture gaming has made? Or will we once again become what we have been for years? I hope we can change.

And anyone who wants to argue with me right now, think about it, What purpose does it serve to argue with someone who has made up his own opinion and will not be swayed without strong evidence.

 

[Jandau]

While I love both of them and enjoy their content, I think TB is in the wrong here, simply because he's missing a few points. Namely that the main difference (at least in that context) between PC and consoles is that there is more pricing competition on the PC. Why is this relevant? Well, simple: Even though the PC has pretty much done away with used games, there's so much competition that any content source has to try hard to stay relevant. Why do you think we have Steam sales? Because Valve isn't stupid and knows it has to contend with other distributors and even pirates.

On the other hand, what MS is doing with Xbone is taking away its only competition (or placing it firmly under its control) and getting to dictate all the pricing themselves. At that point, there will be no sales, there will be no discounts. Why? Because there will be no reason. Companies don't discount their products because they're nice, they do it to get you to buy their stuff instead of the other guy's stuff. But if there is no other guy, it's their way or the highway.

In general, Xbone seems to be all about giving console gamers the worst aspects of PC gaming without any of the benefits...

 

[Signa]

In short (because that's all I have time for), I think Totalbiscut is full of shit. There's so many gaping holes in his logic just because he worked at Game at some point in his life. It's like how I used to be convinced that piracy only hurt retailers because I worked at CompUSA and saw the ridiculous amounts of shit games they would buy (and no one else would) that obviously wouldn't sell if people pirated them. The logic was sound enough, because CompUSA had to buy those copies from the publisher, who then got the money, but clearly the effects of piracy run deeper than just that surface issue.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Past that, its sales. Publishers take a huge amounts of profits though, with rumors going as high as 30-50%. Developers DO NOT get paid enough from publishers, and neither from console manufacturers for exclusives.

Developers should get royalties because they are the ones on the line here, they have the bulk of the risk because how cut throat publishers are.

Let's not also forget, the resale market is in part a beast birthed by triple-A publishers' less-than-ethical business strategies.

"Annualization" minimizes the lifetime of a given title, favoring new releases on a regular schedule opposed to continued support and periodic content releases for the game that already exists over a longer period of time. When games have extremely low longevity, there's little incentive to hold onto a new purchase -- especially when it can be quickly resold to mitigate the cost of the next low-longevity new release. Not only does that precipitate a flood of resales, but it nominally drives down the price of new purchases by the law of supply and demand!

Designing game titles to not be disposable -- meaning players had reason to hold onto their copies of games -- would go a long way towards curtailing the used game market.

 

[Xdeser2]

Honestly my take on this is that it does not matter whether or not its hurting devs or publishers. You cant constrict consumer rights because you're losing money. You get into the game of capitalism, you accept all the potential risks as well as the rewards. Its supposed to be a consumer driven and directed system, and its completely unfair to ask consumers to give up the ability to say, IDK SELL A PHYSICAL COPY THATS THEIRS TO BEGIN WITH because "Oh no, I cant think of a legitimate way to compete with that."

The move to digital on PC showed a positive way to compete with that, seeing as it had many different competing sources to keep the competition rather high. Consoles, however, are (as everyone well knows) closed systems, and I doubt Sony or M$ are going to allow an independent third party to digitally sell games on their console. Physical sales NEED to be there to counteract complete control.

Besides, every single used game represents a sale of a new game in the first place. places like game and gamestop (while, yes, shitty in their buisness practices) dont just open new games and sell them used. The problems publishers and by extension Devs are having is coming from the ridiculous cost of making games nowadays. AAA games get monitored ridiculously closely by publishers (sort of understandably, seeing as their throwing the kitchen sink into their production) and for the most part get railroaded down a particular path (seemingly at least) by focus groups, and then they expect every single game to sell like Call of Duty. What Publishers (and some Devs) need to do is (as hard as this is) is to lower their expectations somewhat. Unless your name is "Assassins Creed", "The Elder Scrolls" (well, any RPG by Bethesda for that matter) "Mass Effect", "Battlefield", "Call of Duty" or "Halo" dont expect 3 Million sales+ first week -_- (Im not saying dont try now and again, but curb it down a bit, gaming is all about finding that right balance between the art of its creation and the finances needed to do so, and TOO DAMN MUCH is being spent on marketing)

Oh...the original topic? Yeah, I quite like both Jim and TB. Sure, TB might not always align perfectly with my opinions, but isn't that kinda the point of his channel? Think of him like a gaming pundit.

 

[xPixelatedx]

To summarise;

Sterling: Stop blaming retail stores, it's all because of the publishers! Microsoft is ruining the video games industry!

Bain: Stop blaming the developers and the publishers, it's all because of the retail stores! Blame Gamestop! Used games are ruining the video games industry!


I'm grossly oversimplifying, but I feel like they've both got tunnel vision. No one is innocent here. The stores and the publishers are all sharks trying to take chunks out of each other - and us.

True, but objectively speaking its still more the developer's fault. Let me elaborate: Used game stores have always existed. Not only that, when video rental stores were popular they rented games as well! While I understand Total Biscuit's arguments (SOME of them hold water), what Jim said is still valid, there is always a dragon to slay.

The only thing that's truly changed over time are games; the way they are made and the way they are sold. If used game sales have increased enough that it is truly hurting the industry, the developers and/or publishers have done something in this last gen in the way they make and/or sell games that has deterred people from buying new. Again, that's their fault. But if instead used game sales are more or less the same as they were 10+ years ago, (like I think) why are they now hurting the industry when they weren't before? Because games cost too much money to make these days. Again, this is the developers and publishers fault.. We don't need Hollywood actors for good games. We don't need multi-million dollar developed blockbuster set-pieces for every game, either. These things haven't made video games any better, and it's only the developers and publishers fault for feeling they must insert these things into nearly EVERY single game that comes out. Like Dead Space for example: the production cost of that series just kept getting higher and higher with each sequel because they kept jamming in things NO ONE asked for. That is indicative of the attitudes and practices that are really causing this problem. Even without used game sales hurting them, it's getting to the point that publishers and developers might not even break even, and it is ALL their fault.

The worst part? They know this... They know they are using an unsustainable model, and they know killing used games won't fix it. But it will extent the time they can use this business model, and to them that's a better solution then actually changing and adapting.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

my take on it.

my son, his main supply of games is; used old games (£10 range he gets with pocket money) Christmas/birthdays new games as gifts.

People who regularly sell their games; put that money straight back into their next gaming purchase as they purchase regularly.

then the 3rd demographic is the people who are just selling their old stuff to make money.

take used games out the equation; whats the point of my son getting a console for maybe 5 or 6 maybe games a year max? (and he wont be the only child in a similar situation)
Mr/Miss regular games purchaser now has to find that cash elsewhere while games they dont play anymore gather dust.

how people can not see this having a negative effect on sales, is beyond me.
the publishers are going to be shifting less units, so the loss will be passed on to the gamer to recoup
(dont know who believed they would see any savings passed down to them from the publisher if the publisher did make more money from thsi idea. whoever you are, please donate me some of your optimism)

used games don't go to the publisher, so they don't give a shit. All the money goes to places like Gamestop, who are very shady in their business practices and just as anti consumer.

whether tthey give a shit or not, this war on used games is going to hurt the console industry

 

[ThriKreen]

So why isn't the game industry demanding royalties from Gamestop on each used copy sold?

They do, but the response from GameStop et al is "LAWL NOPE" and they can't do much about it like withhold the game to that retailer chain, since, well, they still have to get sales. With Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc., they don't push the used games as much because they have other revenue streams (electronics, appliances, clothing, etc.) to rely on.

And what also makes it worse is that publishers and developers don't see the sale numbers for the used copies either, not just for royalties but just to see how well a game is doing. How would you feel if a game you made could be 10, 25% higher in units sold? Might help add some weight to the next contract when asking for funding.

-So... where's the evidence that stores have threatened publishers over selling cheap Steam games? Or are you just pulling this theory out of nowhere? Thought so. Moving on

Because it's true. One would think that with digital PC/Steam or PSN/XBL versions of the games, with no cost of physical media, they could price it lower. But as they are (usually) released at the same time as the physical ones at the retailers, they are priced the same (or at the relative $50 PC to $60 console). Someone throwing their weight around? Sure.

But notice that at the half year to year mark, as inventory at the stores gets exhausted, bam, the Steam version has tons of sales and permanent price drops. But the stores still tend to sell it new at $60, because they had bought it at the wholesaler price and want to keep it at $60 to make their profit from the sale.

Maybe devs/publishers should adapt to the market rather than attacking it.

We are, it's called going 100% digital - oh wait, you want your physical copy. Adding content via DLC - oh wait, you want everything now even content made a year later. Multiplayer perks - oh wait, you want a single player game. Single player stuff - oh wait, now you want multiplayer. I could go on, but I'll bet you on every type of change devs and publishers have tried to implement, there's been resistance.

The only act that hasn't met with resistance is lowering prices, but you mostly only see that on digital only titles. And even then, there's a certain mentality that a $60 game is better than a $10 one, with the thinking the latter is a bargain bin shovelware title. Although thankfully that's changing with Steam and mobile titles and people more accepting of the lower price.

I don't like this war on used games either, since it's clearly a way against Gamestop's business and we're all stuck in the middle.

I wish a publisher would just balls up and offer a game at a $30 price point on release just to see what happens.

 

[Olas]

TotalBiscuit has a point... wait no he doesn't, he's completely full of bullshit. His argument against used games boils down to "developers need to make more moneys" which I can see no justification for. His only suggested benefit to the consumer is the fairly speculative belief that removing used games will make all games cheaper because developers will suddenly feel more charitable now that they're earning larger profits. So TB, your saying we should abandon a system that we already know gets us cheaper games for one that will theoretically get us cheaper games, all because you have some bitterness toward retailers it seems.

The used game market formed as a natural response to inefficiency in the distribution system, people had old games they had no desire to play anymore and they were willing to sell them for a reduced price to someone else who'd be happy for the discount. That's reallocation of resources to where they can do the most good.

Developers, you don't want used games costing you sales? Create games that people will want to keep, make games that are unique, high in quality, or that have large replay value, games people will want to hold onto, not trade in as soon as they're done playing it through once. Don't make games with a throwaway 5 hour campaigns that are really just an excuse for an updated multiplayer mode. People are trading your games in because they only provide them with a limited amount of value.

You think I'd ever trade in my copy of Majora's Mask? Metroid Prime? The Orange Box? I'd never let go of the games I truly cherish. And if you aren't going to make games I have reason to want to keep, maybe you should make fewer profits on them as a result.


oh... uh... Jim!

By the way, I'm not defending retailors, as far as I'm concerned they're just a necessary evil. Actually they aren't even that necessary. Me and my friends tend to just trade and/or buy games from one another directly rather than subjecting ourselves to the jacked up rates of retailors. Cut out the middleman.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

Used games and consoles market is an entry point for people to become gamers.
My first two consoles,(SNES,N64) and all the games I bought for them,were bought used. Because at that young age I didn't had the opportunity to carry enough money in my pockets to afford non-used consoles and games!

I only started buying new consoles and games enough later,when I started doing things to earn money.
Today I might not buy used games,but if there werent the used market for both consoles and games when I was young I'd have never bought them and I'd have find other hobbies to grow with,and today perhaps I wouldn't be a gamer at all.

If companies ban the used market,they might force some people who were buying used games to buy new ones,but it will cut a lot of people from entering gaming.The amount of new people starting gaming will lessen and in the long run they'll be losing money 'cause the total of people playing games will be less.

 

[Pebblig]

I don't really get the "it hurts the industry" argument, yes potentially it may do, but it's like the whole piracy argument, not everyone who bought the game used would have potentially paid full price for it if they couldn't have bought it used.

It's like with any used medium, such as second hand bookshops, it may "hurt the industry", but it's not like noone is benefiting from it, at least it provides jobs and income for other companies who buy and sell the used games.

Also, I totally agree with Jim, it's just the current "thing" that people in the industry will blame, until they find other things to blame.

 

[Eve Charm]

Ok here is a good question, do you know what gamestop doesn't sell? Xbox, ps1 games old nintendo games, Hell most are getting out of ps2 and psp if they haven't already gotten out. Since there isn't a gamestop nor any other big retailer selling these. All you have are the retro mom and pop stores or people themselves online. But you know who can sell these game digitally have have been able for years on end? MS, Sony, and Nintendo.

So where are the steam sales? And no I'm not talking about half off a 40 or 20 dollar game, Where is what would be a steam sale or hell even a weekly sale on these old console games you can't even buy new anywhere? Nintendo has just recently ran a certain game for 30 cents but still wants 15 bucks for any old n64 game. Where are my other games under a dollar or around a dollar or hell under the 5 dollar price point these guys won't drop under. During a summer steam sale there are about 50 to 100 games on sale for under 2 dollars and that's being kind. And that's just steam, The indie bundles and such themselves I can get multiple games for a dollar.

Hell lets look at 3 recent indie bundles.

Double fine bundle, stacking, costume quest and psychonauts for as low as a dollar, brutal legends with it for 8 dollars and the preorder and other junk at 35 and 80. Aren't the 4 games both all available digitally on 360 and ps3, why not get all of them for 8 dollars on the consoles?

Alan wake weekly, for a dollar I can get alan wake and alan wake american nightmare plus a ton of bouns stuff, Why can't I pick up the games on 360 for a dollar? I can still buy this one now till the end of the week.

THQ bundle, Some of if is pc exclusive but hell red faction armageddon, darksiders, metro 2033, and saints row, a game still sold new for 40 bucks, I picked up those and some pc exclusives for less then 8 bucks all of em. Pretty sure what I listed are on both consoles on demand, so why not cheap?



They'll do anything to cling to their outdated pricing model, used games or not, Digital or not, even not being sold new or not. They've had their on demand gaming for years and steam's been around for twice that. If they were gonna grow hearts and get into competing sales instead of just greed, they would of done it long ago.