What would you do about used game sales?
- Thread starter Secret world leader (shhh)
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Because copying a car or a microwave is very hard. Even copying a book is alot of work and costs resources.Powlee said:
Data on the other hand is in infinite supply and is trivially easy to reproduce, so it has no real value.
The disc with the software is worth just a few cents and that's what a used copy would sell for if all consumers had brains.
True, but how come nobody has an issue with used movies or CD's? Those are even easier to copy than games.veloper said:
I like what EA did for BC2 with the VIP Code. Giving you all those extra maps and the Vietnam expansion for purchasing it new is a great deal and keeps the customers playing your game long enough for the sequel to roll out.
You can't really compare music and film industry to games. Movies for one, make most of money from their time in cinema's, you dot get DVDs out the same day. Music on the other hand is a bit more complicated with tours adding up to profits. Games are a full product you get to your hands. Imagine if instead buying a music CD you would have to buy a band to play it live for you.ManOwaRrior said:
Another reason is the fact that game consume money even after they went gold. You need to provide support and often develop patches - it costs money. Movies and music CDs once done are done.
It's basicly the same thing going on there, but it's just less talked about, especially here on a gaming forum.ManOwaRrior said:
Still, same type deal with music and vids: you don't buy a product that costs significant money to produce; if you buy new, you're only giving your money (very indirectly) to the people who spent money on doing the performance and recording it.
That's after alot of people take a big cut for merely getting to game to you.
The way we currently distribute games and movies and music is just very inefficient.
What we'd really need is a system where you only give something to the people who put effort and money into making the content you wanted. A way for consumers to contribute directly only to the actual development and not to the bullshit currently surrounding the distribution of games.
Project 10 dollar seems to work well enough. Either that or make games overall cheaper but you have to pay to unlock stuff. Make the game 40 bucks but that only gives you single player content. Ten bucks more gives you multi-player. Ten more gets you the day one DLC.
Sadly that won't work any time soon mainly due to how corporations work. It's simply not in their best interest, and artist is a product, like anything else. We do have ways of such distribution however - it's called internet. Every artist can sell their own work through their own website, some musicians do it, some graphic designer do it, even some game devs do it, problem is majority of market is still held by big corps called publishers.veloper said:
Why? Because apart from getting money the publisher is also responsible for promotion. In case of music industry it's getting a band to go on tours, creating promo materials, looking for interview opportunities, etc. All the background job that makes wide audience aware of given band. In case of games it's even more complicated.
Consoles are in full control of companies that are also big publishers. They have full control of what get's released on their platforms, you can't release a game without OK from Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft, even more so, you need to pay them royalty fees.
PCs, while having the benefit of being much more open systems, still are mostly bound to retail sales. Sure, digital distribution is growing, services like Steam are hub for ~2 million of players online at same time, but again Steam is part of Valve, not an open service.
To make money form a product, no matter what it is, you need two things: a place to sell it and way to tell people about the product. I doubt average gamer visits websites of all developer studios regularly to check for news and is constantly on the lookout for new products. You need read about them in gaming press (webzins included) or see a box in the shop (digital services included).
We're kind of talking about the same thing here, just putting a different 'spin' on it.
'Desperate Greed' or 'Low-Risk ventures to stay in business' it boils down to the same thing...
Games which are derivative and not innovative or creative are usually simply not as good and not as much fun.
Just because we can understand why they did it doesn't mean it was the right choice. 'The economy is bad' is no reason to make bad games. Whatever their reasons we're well within our rights to criticize bad games.
Over the last year there were a lot of sequels but many of the biggest successes last year were doing something original (Alan Wake, Heavy Rain, Red Dead, Limbo, Minecraft).