Used Game Sales "Killing" Single Player Titles

[Darkness665]

Same for me. Amazon physical copy first day usually gets a $10 discount and four months later the game is on sale for $20 off anyway. I checked Origin lately and every single game was $59.99. I didn't see a significant discount for digital download although I may have not known where to look.

 

[Darkness665]

Does Chevy, Ford, Chrysler, MB, BMW, et.al. get a cut on used car sales? Yes, on their own lots. Oh wait, they don't have any. The used cars are only sold by dealers. The inability to run your business is not the customers problem. It is the business.

 

[Francisco Aguirre]

I don't think it's game stops fault. In fact, I think it's the publishers fault. And COD, but that's another topic. I won't act like I know the system, and I won't try to act like it, but if publishers are so big and still own all the rights to the games, wouldn't they be the ones able to shell out the cash?

 

[Fijiman]

Really the only way to fix the "problem" of used games is for everyone to stop buying games until the developers, publishers, and retailers are forced to come to some sort of agreement that benefits both them and the consumers. And when I say that we should stop buying games I mean stop completely. No new games and no used games. I don't care if you've been waiting all year for it to come out, or if it's on sale, or if it comes in some sort of bundle deal on Steam. Until we can make the developers, publishers, and retailers stop bitching at each other and make peace the only party who is ever really going to be injured is the consumer and anyone with even half a working brain and some common sense should be able to see that.

 

[lacktheknack]

To be fair, only being able to sell your titles to the brick-and-mortar shops ONCE and having your physical copies' demand immediately hit zero is about six different kinds of terrible.

 

[lacktheknack]

Movies still come on DVD/BluRay and Music still comes on CDs - so saying that Video Games being sold for 3 times the price of a movie and 6 times the price of a music CD aren't profitable is absurd.

Uh... compare the budgets of movies/music to video games. Notice that video games have hilariously larger budgets.

Also compare the audiences of movies/music to video games. Notice that the audience of video games is immensely smaller.

 

[Wintermoot]

the only way to fix it is by making the community love you or add cool stuff.
for example the reason I pre-orderd Skyrim was because of the map.

but wait what about DVD,s,CD,s and books? shouldn't those things have been out of print considering those also get re-sold?

 

[Darkness665]

Your reply does not make sense. Used cars of the same model year function just like their newer siblings.

I am saying that a three month old car will lose ~20% of its value. This is a product that has at least a three year life span and several times that under normal conditions. A used car in the current market will have a reduced warranty but will get the same milage and will provide the same basic function for many years. The car manufacturers know that not everyone can nor will buy a new car. It does however expand their customer base. Satisfied used car customers turn into new car customers when they can. Do some basic econ course work and/or research, it was this way before there were video games.

Just a personal data point for me. I have a couple used games. Ones for older systems or PC games that I could not get new. All the rest are boxed retail with a few digital downloads.

First sale is still the law of the US. Bad business decisions are legal as well.

 

[Tanis]

Where were all this 'used game sales are evil' people back in the SNES days?

Hey, here's a few ideas assholes!
STOP DAY-1 DLC
&
Online Passes
&
60USD for games that will NEVER be worth more than 20USD
&
Treating LEGITIMATE costumers like criminals
&
Games that REQUIRE game fixing patch...the first damn day
&
ect
&
ect
&
GFYS

Kai, thanks, bi

 

[gamegod25]

And once again it's time for me to play my invisible fiddle. Wah wah we're poor boys not getting money we don't deserve. For a game to be sold used then it has to be sold in the first place which means you already sold a copy. And just because someone bought a game used for less doesn't necessarily mean that they would have bought it for full price otherwise. I can't afford to drop $60 on a game that may or may not be worth it. The price will drop in a few months anyway and I can live with waiting to play them. Maybe if you made better games for less and with better incentives to buy new then more people might be more willing to spend $50-$60 on what is (really) a luxury, especially in this poor economy.

Do used games have an impact on sales? Sure. But don't exaggerate and cry like a drama whore that used games are "killing" the industry. Stop being a whiny ***** and give people a GOOD reason to buy new instead of crying and punishing them.

 

[zachusaman]

dont sell your crappy games for 60 bucks and with day 1 dlc then?
maybe you shouldnt just throw all the money at the advertising and bribing of reviewers for that day 1 big sales, but instead focus on making a game worth playing and remembering?
or better yet you god damn morons, HOW ABOUT MAKING THEM FOR THE PC? (and releasing some mod tools so players will make the game better for you)
bigger profit margins, better fanbase, and used game sales? whats that? (if you actually bother with retail)

 

[Frotality]

Everything is worth what the buyer is willing to pay.

this statement is all anyone needs to know to call bullshit on statements like this. games would cost 500$ dollars if people payed that, or they would cost 5$ if that was all they were willing to pay. businesses will fuck you over in any and every way they can, and not one step further. they are greedy degenerates, but they like to play it safe. if we suddenly decided hello kitty racing games were awesome, guess what publishers would be ripping off? it is a sad situation when someone can convince consumers that it is their fault a business' outdated schemes arent working anymore, that the abysmal state of the industry is because you arent buying things the right way.

every other business in the fucking world deals with a secondhand market. you are not fucking special. make less shit games, lower the price on your own, make games worth fucking keeping. the world changes. change with it or die in the corner with PanAm and the new york times.

EDIT: wow. there was one page when i started typing this post lol. i was supremely ninja'd like 5 pages ago by xanthious, and probably a lot of other people along the way.

 

[glenbruton]

Just another industry looking for government protection. I wouldnt be suprised if a lobby group is just bombarding media sites with easy to modify template stories for support of this baloney.

PC games, no resale market (perhaps more piracy) but the prices are the same because *thats what people are willing to pay* . Economics 101, demand/supply, set our price to maximise profit, turns out $60 is it.

 

[I.Muir]

So what they are doing is trying to have believe that a lack of new and interesting titles can be blamed on piracy and used games which is a lie. Also that this used games nonsense (which suddenly became an issue) is anything more than greed at having not received another piece of the pie.

GTA4 one of the most expensive games ever and cost $100 million to make, about half of what it cost to make spider man 2. GTA 4 made a profit of $500 million within six months, everybody paying at least four times the price of a DVD. Any triple AAA publisher trying to tell me that they are not making insanely high profits is lying. If they want to convince me otherwise I want to see some bloody numbers and not from them or anybody with a paper trail connected to them.

 

[I.Muir]

So what they are doing is trying to have believe that a lack of new and interesting titles can be blamed on piracy and used games which is a lie. Also that this used games nonsense (which suddenly became an issue) is anything more than greed at having not received another piece of the pie.

GTA4 one of the most expensive games ever and cost $100 million to make, about half of what it cost to make spider man 2. GTA 4 made a profit of $500 million within six months, everybody paying at least four times the price of a DVD. Any triple AAA publisher trying to tell me that they are not making insanely high profits is lying. If they want to convince me otherwise I want to see some bloody numbers and not from them or anybody with a paper trail connected to them.

Oh and spider man 2 made $100 million pretty much the first day it came out and that movie was crap. Perhaps if gaming were cheaper and more accessible maybe more people would play them and profits would be higher anyway instead of enforcing the soulless corporate mans wet dream of DRM, Day one DLC, owning a licenses not the game itself that can be taken away at a whim, and user agreements that stop you from suing them.

Pardon me if I feel less sympathetic and more homicidal.

 

[Nukem]

Used games are not an option in sweden they usually cost around same price new so i call it bs. And with all the online pass bs they still get a cut, and they complain about piracy. They can go fk them self for all i care.