Used Game Sales "Killing" Single Player Titles

[cookyy2k]

Frankly I couldn't care less if a publisher's bad business model drives them to bankruptcy. The used market exists and I'm not here to subsidize the champagne at an EA shareholder's meeting, I'm in this for the gaming. You spend too much money making a game so you can't turn a profit, not my concern. You make a crappy game that gets instantly traded in, also not my problem. Don't blame the consumer for your lack of evolution in your business model that's seeing you become extinct.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

Than ***** to Gamestop. Make them give you more money, don't attack the consumer.

Or, maybe bring down the 60 dollar price point of your games?

 

[Phanixis]

This is utterly ridiculous. People resell everything from cars to homes to books to jewelry and everything in between. This is their right as property owners. Why should game publishers enjoy some special privilege where consumers are prevented from reselling games, while every other industry has to play by the normal rules where consumers can do what they please with their property? This seems to be what they are asking for, special privileges that go beyond the rules of the marketplace and apply to them and only them, privileges that would have to be obtained at the cost of consumer property rights.

When someone sells or buys used games through Gamestop or another venue, they are entering into a mutual agreement in which both parties exchange property they own. This is not only perfectly legal, moral and ethical, but is the foundation upon which our market economy is built, and is indistinguishable from the publishers themselves selling their property for a profit. There is nothing wrong with this activity, but the publishers want to have their cake and eat it to, benefiting from the payment obtained selling their wares while not having to make any of the sacrifices associated with giving the product to the consumer in exchange for payment. So they accuse consumers of wrongdoing for reselling the games that were bought and payed for even though the consumers are doing nothing wrong. These types of accusations are beyond petty, and people should be disgusted with any publisher acting this manner.

If product turnaround is such a problem, maybe the publishers need to stop making expensive to develop games with near photo realistic graphics but only several hours of game play and start focusing on games with stronger game play elements and better replay value. If publishers are repeatedly making games that only managed to entertain for a couple of weeks before quickly being resold, that is hardly the fault of the consumer. They get to choose what games they want to produce, how much they want to invest in each, how they will support and distribute the game, and how much to charge for the game. If they can't make those decisions correctly and turn a profit, its their own bloody fault.

 

[Robert Ewing]

Hmmm, pay £40 for a game? Or £10 for the exact same game, in the same condition, and with a DLC bundle thrown in?

Yeah, what the fuck do you expect.

 

[chronobreak]

Sell the game for 40, people would be less likely to trade it in for credit towards another title, because it wouldn't be worth it. Seems pretty simple. Then, sell the MP component separate for ten bucks or something. Bam, even less people will trade in the game, since they need the disc for the MP. Why can't these guys think?

 

[Heart of Darkness]

Hmm, here's a thought. Actually, here's a few of them:

-Most games get returned shortly after they go on sale because of the lack of content. Increase the singleplayer content from a 9-hour ordeal to something that can last a bit longer, or give players an incentive to actually play the game again--don't just sell us a nine-hour long hallway filled with cutscenes.And treat multiplayer as a way to pad the singleplayer, not the other way around.

-Find a way to cut development costs. Games do not need the most realistic graphics to sell well, so license an engine that's a little behind rather than the cutting-edge polygon renderer. Keep team sizes small until you absolutely need to go bigger, and then reduce as you need to. Get a solid prototype working early, and maintain a strong design focus to reduce the amount of work you'll eventually waste on the game. Sell game for a fraction of the cost.

-Make people actually want to keep the game. Use expansion packs to greatly increase the game's content (not just "lol weapon reskinz!"), create an engrossing multiplayer mode, something. Make them want to keep the game for some reason, even if it's only for the next quarter.

Or, alternatively,
-Go an all digital route. Release your game to Steam, Xbox Live, PSN, WiiWare, something. Cut out the middleman, and let your game prices actually reflect that.

Evolve or die, console developers. Treat your customers like customers instead of wallets.

 

[Beautiful End]

The obvious solution? Make better games.

Look, I support developers all the way. But if I pay 60 bucks for a game that looks awesome and it turns out to be a piece of crap, I think I am entitled to sell the game ASAP before it devalues.
(NOTE: I think people underestimate the great role devaluation plays in the videogame industry. Look, new games are released almost every Tuesday. It sucks that you only get around 30 bucks for your $60 game, but that's the videogame industry for you).

GameStop gets used copies of games that came out a couple of days ago because there's tons of people who go to their stores with a disappointed look on their face and a copy of a game that didn't live up to their expectations.

There's only a handful of games that I buy brand new because I KNOW they're gonna be good no matter what. Either that or they have a high-replay value.

GameStop, GAME, your cousin, it doesn't matter who you sell it to or where you buy the game. Once its your property, you're entitled to do whatever you want with it. Sorry, but few people are gonna stop to think "Hm! Maybe this will hurt the video game industry!". Nope, they're just gonna look after themselves. If someone offers me a game I want, but cheaper, I'm gonna buy it. I'd prefer to buy that game cheaper and then go out and buy myself some ice cream than to buy the game and no ice cream.

It sucks that developers are not getting as much money as they used to (I guess?). But I hate the fact that videogames are the ones being targeted when it comes to the used market. Like it was said before, you don't see car companies and book publishers throwing a fit every time someone buys one of their items used.

So to summarize: Good games = eternal loyalty. Bad games = Me trying to find a way to get at least a portion of my money back. I still have my copy of MGS4, Rock Band 3, Dragon Age: Origins and The Orange Box among with others because I love those games. Even though some of them have a small replay value, the game itself is amazing.

 

[GraveDigger27]

Braben's comment about prices going down really rings false to me since the pricing on the PC version of the game has risen to match the console pricing - this started back when Modern Warfare 2 was introduced and ever since most A-level titles released for PC & consoles are sold at $60 versus the $40-$50 that PC games used to come out at.

I buy few games used - most of my purchases are digital downloads (through Steam or Impulse) or indie bundle packages. Too many games are pushed out with major issues and once they go past their initial surge the price is dropped by retailers trying to clear shelf space for new titles.

I'll wait for a Steam sale to buy many of the newest games - I don't buy used games from GameStop because they take the trade-ins for next to nothing and then mark it down less than $10 under what they sell the same game for brand new.

 

[DirgeNovak]

Bethesda Game Studios would like a word with you, Mr. Braben. Their last three games were singleplayer only and sold millions. MILLIONS! If you can't make your clients want to keep their copy of the game, it's your own damn fault.

 

[gideonkain]

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.

 

[theultimateend]

Prices of Video games for the NES in 1989 ranged between $30 and $70, with most sitting around the $50 mark. See here: http://www.salzmafia.com/uploaded_images/GamePro_Issue006_February_1990-092-791162.jpg. In today's dollars, those prices would be $55 to $128

Yet today, most xBox360 games cost between $20 and $60 if you exclude special editions and the like. That means the most common price today is only a few bucks more than the lowest prices in 1989.

Here's your swords and sorcery game from 1989: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ab/Ironsword.png

Here's your swords and sorcery game from 2012
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/121/1217313/the-witcher-2-assassins-of-kings-20120126092508666.jpg

Yeah, game companies are *so* ripping us off when they continue to charge us about the same amount as they were charging for the bargain titles some 20 years ago.

Shush, you're talking sense and presenting facts.

That is like to upset a lot of people who make it their hobby to complain and wave around their self-entitlement.

It only ever appears to be entitlement when its the consumer.

Remarkable .

I have to laugh at all of the naive posters who say "Well just lower the price point!"

Well, let me tell ya guys, that wont work. Why? because if they drop the price point to 40 dollars, then gamestop will just sell their used games for 35, and all the cheapskates will just buy the 35 dollar version instead of the 40!

Especially with the current gamestop practice of asking people why they don't like to save money. The only change would be that the developers and product makers would be making even less money off of the new copies.

Eh...I get games cheaper new from Amazon and Steam than I do Gamestop used.

But I also am not a day 1 purchaser.

Basically with every new way that manufacturing a game gets cheaper, the cost to the consumer never changes or goes up.

One of the HUGE pushes for digital was that it would be cheaper. I can quite often get a physical copy of a game cheaper than a digital one.

As I mentioned above, entitlement works both ways, businesses will charge as much as people are willing to pay and no increase in profits will cause them to start charging less.

Valve is probably the only major company who is actively using competitive prices to dominate the market and that's why they are doing so well with (relatively) so little effort.

Edit: Also a bit hard pressed to not accept used books or movies vs. used games. I have books that are from decades before I was even born that are still in near perfect condition. Just because something >can< atrophy doesn't mean it by necessity does.

Because if we start calling entropy into the equation we've just included all things in the universe.

 

[PhiMed]

Kickstarter only works when there is a beloved name or franchise involved. I'm sure Kickstarter is littered with dozens of games that didn't get enough interest to be funded.

And that's a shame, because the traditional financing of games totally "works". I mean, every idea that gets a solid pitch gets funded there, right?

I think you're looking at it wrong. If games consumers don't care about aren't getting funded, that means it is working.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

I view people who buy and trade in used games as leeches--not really harming the growth of the beast, but doing nothing to help it grow and reaping the rewards all the same. Alone, not an issue. Just a parasite. On mass? Problem.

I don't like them much.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

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.

A) Movies make their profit in cinema sales, digital downloads and physical media sales (as well as merchandise, TV slots, advertising, etc., etc.)

A2) People who watch movies: hundreds and hundreds of millions. People who play video games: much less.

B) Music sales account for a tiny, tiny portion of actual revenue. In fact, the artist makes next to nothing at all from CD sales, nor do the people selling them in stores or online. The actual profit for musicians comes from merchandise. The music industry is very bad at making money. 99% of people will never see a profit.

Comparing movies and music to video games doesn't work. So don't do it.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

And here I thought the lack of innovation and taking risks on games was because of the over spending on making your game look so polished and have cutting edge graphics, that you spend millions and can't risk a fail.

 

[Casey Bowen]

Cutting price points has shown to spur sales in some things. Often hardware. So maybe it would make a few more sales for the new software. But will it make that much of a difference? Hard to say since software is a different beast.

Make something worth your price. Give the people who are buying your games something to rave about to everyone they know. Give them a reason to not just want to buy your game once but to KEEP it. Hell, I played Borderlands through on the 360 and the friends I knew had kind of stopped playing so I traded it. Months later had the itch so got the PS3 version (used) and played through that. Lo and behold -- I bought ALL FOUR DLCs for Borderlands on the PS3. Played through all of those (a bunch!) Finally traded it in. A couple weeks ago I had the urge to play it again. It was late at night so I went with the PSN download rather than wait until Monday morning to buy a copy (if I could find one). Sure, I bought a used one in the middle of all that -- but it got me to buy all the DLC. 2 years later I bought it again (still had the DLC). I'd say they gave me a *reason* to buy their game and dlc.

Bought a CoD World at War many months ago, used. Thank heaven for the 7 day return policy on used games at GameStop. Not only did I not want GS to have my money for that game, EA and Treyarch didn't deserve it either. (Oh, but you played through it, don't they deserve something for all their hard work!? -- NO. I didn't play through it, I hated it. If I had spent $60 on it new I'd have been PISSED and probably never looked at another CoD game since. As it is I've only played 2 since then, but still that's 2 more than zero).

Give me that reason to want your games and you'll get my money. Or perhaps I'll use the trade credit from trading other games but to you, it looks like a new sale for cash.

The used video game market is not the devil. GS may be evil in some of their practices, but they're not the devil either.

 

[Darkness665]

Short over priced games, buggy releases, cut-scenes and corridors, DRM, right of first sale and the inability to grasp user satisfaction is killing big games. I can only find the fixes to this on Steam and Indy games. If that kills AAA, their publishers and developers I will be happy. These people don't deserve to be in the business much less have my business.