An Interesting Argument Against Buying Used Video Games

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
75,399
There are pros and cons in the battle for reselling video games, which breaks down to the basics of ownership against production factions. In a nutshell, the designers and producers of video games are against resell because they claim it hurts profits and makes production costs rise. The video game owners claim the games are overpriced to begin with and reselling the games helps offset the initial cost. Is this the chicken and the egg all over again or would this be the irresistible force against the immovable object? The next generation of gaming consoles may tell the tale.


Braben goes so far as to claim that used games are actually responsible for high game prices and that "prices would have come down long ago if the industry was getting a share of the resells."
Click to expand...
 
Yeah and "in game purchases" (DLC) was also suppose to reduce the cost of the game. Now we get a game more expensive with less content (because they hold original content back so they can sell it as DLC).

The reason games are expensive is because there are way too many producers, assistant producers, and assistants to the assistants. Then, there is the on location assets creation like weapon sounds and animations. You know the same ones they have in version 1,2,3,4,5......

Time for the game industry, developers and publishers to take responsibility and start cleaning up their own act before blaming their customers.
 
It's not an interesting argument at all. It's an incorrect argument . Looking at that pie chart, GameStop only makes about 20-30% of its sales in used games. It's already too much to charge $60 for a new game, if you take away the ability to trade a game in for a new one, you remove that incentive to get a new game. If you outlaw resell rights, piracy goes up. It doesn't necessarily reduce new game cost.
 
How about another theory: The more control the content mafias have, the more comfortable they feel with charging higher prices.

Piracy, used goods, and now indie devs perhaps may be what keeps the prices in check, if they didn't exist, the prices would have been higher and options would be more limited, it would be a stagnant market with established gatekeepers trying to milk consumers for all they could get away with.

And they have a new front to deal with now: The growing casual market of one dallar games on tablets and cellphones, stealing away new potential customers and driving price expectations even lower than before, the old guard will need to adapt to the changing digital age, and it's likely gonna hurt these dinosaurs, hurt them bad.
 
Bullshit. If anything getting rid of used game sales would make prices go up since they wouldn't have to compete against the price of used games.
 
I call bullshit, here's why.

Digital release? Costs $60 . . . .

ALL profit except for bandwidth costs. (supposing you are buying a Valve game thru Steam, or an EA game thru Origin).
 
Like EA or Activision are really going to reduce the costs of games if they stamped out the used market.
 
I think that's exactly the opposite... If games were less expensive nobody would buy second hand....
That's an argument like some other just to prepare people that game prices will go up - and I expect it sooner than later... Sorry for saying this but torrent is your friend...
 
I see some problems with his thinking, if claims "day one" (which probably means the first initial batch of sales) is the only ones that developers might get, but what percentage of overall revenue does that make up for any particular game?

Also, prices at Gamestop aren't significantly lower than new for a considerable time unless they get a LOT of re-sales for a particular game or it's a tired fucking rehash of the same shit (Madden, NBA Live, WWE Smackfuck, etc). I see Final Fantasy XXIV² for $5 cheaper than new, then I'm really less motivated to buy a used game that could be missing some map, or have scratched media etc. Now a year later, then yeah, you'll get a good deal, but again point one, how many of the sales are over the life of a cart.

In 2010, Gamestop did $2.46B in "used video game sales and other products." Let's call that $2.5B and further assume that every single used sale can be translated into a full-priced revenue sale for the publisher.
Click to expand...
Snip this shit in the bud right now, this is the tired fucking argument made with piracy and it's wrong there it's wrong here. How much of that $2.5B in sales is store credit? How many of those people buy new games? There's a whole lot of flaws in his logic.

Bottom line is this is a chicken and egg argument at best. Claim that used games means less money for developers so they won't make as many, or claim that shitty games get resold at higher and higher rates. I don't know, you make a good game that takes more than a weekend to finish for all but the most hard core of gamer (which is a small percentage of the overall market) and you have some potential replay value in it, people are less likely to sell within that window of opportunity that makes up your majority of sales.
 
This logic is flawed because good gaming companies make good profit, and bad ones lose because the people who buy bad games have the option of selling them to at least get part of their money back. good games don't get sold to used game stores nearly as often.

The same goes for books, movies, music, etc. Notice all those companies are also rallying against used sales for their very same reasons, yet used book, music, and movies stores have been around for ages.

The fact of the matter is they don't want used sales because they don't want to risk behind making bad content. Without used sales, even the bad stuff gets far more sales, while the good stuff doesn't get nearly the reward from it. If we don't have used sales for this kind of thing, the quality of the whole market goes down dramatically.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have so much bad music, books, movies, or games. We let them restrict used sales, and we all lose. Let the lazy companies that produce crap die.
 
I'm not a game reseller, but I think its total horsesh*t. This makes me want to re-think buying digital copies. I may become a re-seller out of spite. I get piracy, but come'on!
 
Lol nice try at feeding bullshit to readers.
Steam ensures no used market - didn't have any impact on pc games prices on release days.
 
Michaelius said:
Lol nice try at feeding bullshit to readers.
Steam ensures no used market - didn't have any impact on pc games prices on release days.
Click to expand...

Exactly, Steam is a great example on how eliminating the used market doesn't work.

Don't point at Steam sales, they are not the same thing, the issue here is $60 price tags, not $7.50 Steam sale games.
 
Joel Hruska reaches the correct conclusion in the article--that these developers are basically full of it. I am so tired of listening to barely talented game developers whine and moan because every dollar that every game brings in doesn't go into their pockets in perpetuity.

I own two types of games--those I sell or give away or throw away, and those I keep. I'm surely not unique. It's pitiful to hear them lament not having a "piece of the resells" when they and their publishing companies and their warehousers got 100% of the original proceeds of the original sales. What--they don't think it's OK for someone who paid $50 for a game to sell it for $15-$20 three years later--to get some of their money back? They think they're entitled to the money instead of the person who bought and owns the copy?

These people are idiots. Can you imagine what people would think if GM or Ford or Toyota came along and demanded a cut of the sale every time one of their automobiles was resold as used? These software guys have really got to sit down and get educated and understand that when Joe Blow buys *a copy* of your software, it's Joe Blow who *owns* that copy--not you. You sold it to him, don't you remember, you moron? (That's what I feel like telling these ungrateful, spoiled, selfish schmucks!) SHeeeesh.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday afternoon...;)
 
Michaelius said:
Lol nice try at feeding bullshit to readers.
Steam ensures no used market - didn't have any impact on pc games prices on release days.
Click to expand...

exactly. the first time an AAA title comes out on steam for 75% or less the release price on console, this argument will have SOME validity. so far steam has been selling AAA titles for what, a decade? this has not been the case, making them flat out liars. yes it affects long term prices, with steam games regularly being discounted after launch. but to claim the release price of a game will go down is a complete lie as proved by steam.
 
I can see how used games and pirates might be killing single player games. However a simple but evil solution is to do a system like onlive for single player part of the game.

This will make everyone need internet connection though and either people will buy it or not still. However you will prob have less potential buyers.

This will most likely start making people sell their game account of that one game.

So you will always lose for people that want to sell used games and for people that wants new games for cheap.


You can do a humble bundle thing for games. Let them name a price they will pay for it. I know you will get a lot more buyers however most likely you wont get as much profit.

Main thing is that you can't please everyone so stop trying and blaming the problems are because of used games or piracy.


On another point i think I figure out a solution for single player games. Make it for a console system that the cartridge binds with the console it is on. So once binded, the cartridge you cant resell because it wont work on other console. Sure people might figure out a way to copy the cartridge in the future and start producing flash carts that can keep rebinding. However if security was good enough to plan the console hacking, it should stop the whole pirating. So that means if the game still doesnt sell, it is because only some people are willing to pay for a certain price.
 
Lately, I've been wondering something. Video games cost as much as movies to make. Actually, from what I understand they cost a 1/10th as much as movies, but lets give the benefit of the doubt.

The cost for a movie ticket is like $12 give or take, and the DVD is about $20. So grand total a movie costs you $32. On the other hand a video game costs you $50-$60.

Avatar made $2,782,275,172 according to wikipedia. Call of Duty Black Ops sold about 12 million copies. Which if the game was sold for $60 would make about 720,000,000. Avatar costed $237 million, yet Black Ops probably never came close to 1/10th of the cost for production. Estimated to be $18-28 million.

In terms of price deterioration, Amazon lists Blu-Ray version of Avatar at $10, while Black-Ops for Xbox 360 is $45. So I don't see a reason why companies should be concerned about profits, when compared to movies. Given that you get a lot of value out of a video game, but in terms of profit making there really shouldn't a reason to crazy over the used game market as well as the high $60 price tag for video games.

Unlike movies, games can pull even greater profits through DLC and micro-transactions. Yet nobody is trying to stop the used DVD or Blu-Ray market what so ever. So please, cry me a river.
 
If a game is more than ten dollars, I won't be it unless it's called the Witcher 2 - I'd worry more about GoG.com and store.steampowered.com sales than I would about used games.

It's only a matter of time before computers with ample graphical capabilities become so common place that people abandon consoles altogether and congregate around a true free market for videogames.
 
Creating a game is a risk like opening a restaurant or filming a movie.

Having us subsidizing your risk by eliminating used sales is ridiculous. If your game blows and people don't buy it, make it not suck next time or find a different industry.
 
MavericK96 said:
I highly doubt that would be the case.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

Sorry but people have been trading , selling used games since gaming was a platform. How about not offering 4-6 hour $60 games with little to no replay value and then we'll consider your point of view publishers/developers.
 
And kickstart projects show that people are willing to buy, sight unseen, games that they wish would be made...and sometimes at extremely exorbitant prices in comparison to AAA titles.

So......why can't the big guys make games people want to see instead of the same old thing over and over and rake in that money? Because they are unable to, they bleed talent like crazy.....because they are just a screwed up industry that is full of people who want to make games at any cost and more people who want to exploit those people for all their worth.
 
I guess interesting around here smells like bullshit.

Here's the more likely scenerio--used games HELP sell new games.

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/04/opinion-kohler-video-expensive/

The rebuttal of course is usually the same. Used games fuel new game sales; this is GameStop’s response and some buy into it. Of course, in reality it’s pure conjecture without any evidence.

No evidence at all, except for things like this 2008 study that shows that of the 26 million or so regular sellers of used games, 16 million of them used that credit to buy exclusively brand-new games.
Click to expand...
 
Game Stop sucks in a lot of ways. I'm not sure why I would buy a used game when it is only $5 less than the new version. Even if the used game came into the store looking "like new," the store always puts a bunch of "used" and price stickers all over the box so I can't get them off after buying. Not having the stickers all over the box alone is worth the $5 to me.

Still . . . I have never purchased a game for $60. I've purchased plenty of new games for $50, but $60 is insane. Now, more than ever, I don't buy any new games because I know I'm going to get screwed with a much shorter experience than I hoped for and a whole bunch of DLC I'm expected to pay for.

What makes the DLC worse is that so much of it is already finished when the game ships. They plan on screwing me over. It's not even like they make an entire, whole, complete, good game, and then release an expansion pack a year later based on whether or not the initial title sold well or got good reviews. Nope. Instead of serving their customer base they just screw them over from the beginning.

So, instead, I wait for a "game of the year" edition or equivalent to be released with all the DLC and the reasonable price tag of $45. Wow! A whole game one year later for the low low price of $45, only five dollars less than what it should have cost (and what the game should have been) on release day.

I like the point in the wired article that people return games because they suck. I try to only buy games that I know I'll like, and then I proudly keep them forever, even if I only play through them once. Good games will get people to be emotionally attached to them in that way. People will feel like they have some sort of real ownership in them.

Most games made today aren't like that. You can just skip them. I think that's one of the biggest things driving people to independent developers. They make games that are reasonably priced that you want to keep after you finish them.
 
veterator said:
So......why can't the big guys make games people want to see instead of the same old thing over and over and rake in that money? Because they are unable to, they bleed talent like crazy.....because they are just a screwed up industry that is full of people who want to make games at any cost and more people who want to exploit those people for all their worth.
Click to expand...

The thing is...the "big guys" do make games that most people want to see. People who play games, are just normal people, you know, the people who watch jersey shore. If popular games such as CoD/Halo/GOW didn't sell a fuck ton, and continue to sell so well, as they appeal to the "common man", they wouldn't be made by big publishers. They all make the kinds of game that most people want very, very well. If the world tomorrow became full of people that would only play games in Shakespearean colloquy, then all of the big developers would be pretty theatrical within a few months. If people wanted other games more, they would buy those games in a greater amount.
 
More than a koinkydink that new game prices were on the rise, when reselling second hand games grew in popularity, to the point that publishers now hit you with DLC that should have been in the game to start with, especially the multi-player section of the game.
 
DeathPrincess said:
The thing is...the "big guys" do make games that most people want to see. People who play games, are just normal people, you know, the people who watch jersey shore. If popular games such as CoD/Halo/GOW didn't sell a fuck ton, and continue to sell so well, as they appeal to the "common man", they wouldn't be made by big publishers. They all make the kinds of game that most people want very, very well. If the world tomorrow became full of people that would only play games in Shakespearean colloquy, then all of the big developers would be pretty theatrical within a few months. If people wanted other games more, they would buy those games in a greater amount.
Click to expand...

Kind of true, but they eventually boil down to making only the games they make the most money on. They don't handle making a lot of lesser known titles that aren't top of the line graphics very well. They usually kill them off because they spend too much money on the project thinking they can nickel and dime people to death on it, or the margins they have to have from a game can't be met...because their companies are top heavy.

Just look at the kind of money they spend on marketing.....they market the hell out of games that most people already know are coming out...because it gets more preorders and first week sales. And then support is stopped or drastically scaled back well before the game price drops to 50% of retail.

While indie games get support for as long if not longer and at 1/4 to 1/6th of the price in a lot of cases. Haven't seen indies complaining about people reselling their games either, although I have heard of piracy on them being pretty high....but most of them don't spend all of their time in the news complaining about it..they are thankful to their customers instead.

Just think about how many dev houses they've absorbed over the years who used to make stuff you were interested in, and how those games were utterly ruined as time went on with sequels. I can think of a lot of studios that were bought out and a lot of their talent fled before 2 years had passed, mostly only keeping the name of the original studio to show they had anything of it remaining. They try to make one game fit everyone, instead of a lot of niche games that appeal to the overall spectrum of gamers and in the process they drive out the talent who made the niche games great in the first place.
 
Bullshit. Games still cost 60$ on PC platform although many publishers have defeated 2nd sales on PC platform with DRMs like Steamworks, Origin and Battlenet.
 
Fail said:
I call bullshit, here's why.

Digital release? Costs $60 . . . .

ALL profit except for bandwidth costs. (supposing you are buying a Valve game thru Steam, or an EA game thru Origin).
Click to expand...

Because massive server farms and IT staff are free right?
 
A title like skyrim on steam for PC at $60 earns the company at least double what they make on the console for $60. Its also nearly impossible to sell steam games used. Do they discount the game on PC appropriately? Nope.

Argument disproven by counter example.
 
Fail said:
I call bullshit, here's why.

Digital release? Costs $60 . . . .

ALL profit except for bandwidth costs. (supposing you are buying a Valve game thru Steam, or an EA game thru Origin).
Click to expand...

Ah Fail but you flawed your logic there. Steam, Origin, etc all take a nice big chunk out as well, just like the retail stores would. Sure there's no printed materials, boxes, discs or shipping costs but that isn't too expensive for how large of orders these companies make. And they are also all made in second world countries where it's cheap labor anyway. So I highly doubt a developer makes anymore money per digital sale as a physical sale unless the developer also owns their own distribution method, which still isn't free as Oldie pointed out.

And at least the new AAA releases are only $60 on consoles. Chrono Trigger was something like $70 or $80 at release! Probably the reason I never owned it for the Super Nintendo.
 
Only a single format will lower the price.

While competition is good, the war right now is being waged between the consoles, not the games. A universal game-console architecture would force publishers down to compete with games that were never competitors before (think Halo vs Resistance), and increase sales because more people would have a version of this universal architecture instead of owning one out of three consoles and only buying games released for that hardware. Development and production costs would drop because they wouldn't have to port the game so many times. Games would get better as more developers would be working on the same architecture, learning how to optimize for it. Game prices would also drop because, for the first time, all games would be competing against each other, instead of console-flagship games helping support a console war.

I'm not saying one hardware manufacturer, I'm saying there should be multiple hardware manufacturers working under a license. The license would enforce compatibility and specs, but the manufacturers could shop around for the actual hardware, and modify the systems to make the machines more desirable to different consumers (think built-in surround sound, Media-Center functionality, wireless network, different sized/expandable HDDs... etc...)

Sony, MS, and Nintendo could collaborate on the license, and sit back and collect the royalties that manufacturers like Samsung, Toshiba, Panasonic, Magnavox, LG, Sharp, etc would all throw their way to make their versions of the console. Even MS, Sony, and Nintendo could continue to make a version, but the key is that all console games would work on every manufacturer's console.

There's no reason this couldn't happen. Aside from greed, pride, and stubbornness, there's nothing stopping the big 3 from getting together to create such a thing. Although, it's likely that they would make more money in the long run by developing the architecture, and letting someone else build it.

Think of all the other forms of media, when the dust settles, there's only one type, and the price for hardware AND software plummets once there is a handful of manufacturers. Betamax VS VHS... DVD vs Laserdisk. Blu-Ray vs HD DVD... there was only one winner in each of those formats, and prices dropped considerably shortly after that winner was crowned.
 
I see that supply side economics bullshit has come to the gaming industry. "If we give the publishers higher profits, they'll use some of that money to make the experience cheaper for consumers!"

LOL. Keep dreamin'.
 
This is all BS. Is the same argument going to be used for used cars hurting the car industry, used books hurting the book industry, ect? Are they going to make it illegal to sell my DvDs once I am bored with a movie? The entire gaming industry needs to be slapped down.
 
Taldren said:
This is all BS. Is the same argument going to be used for used cars hurting the car industry, used books hurting the book industry, ect? Are they going to make it illegal to sell my DvDs once I am bored with a movie? The entire gaming industry needs to be slapped down.
Click to expand...

Beat me to it. Plus, what if the guy selling the game uses the money to buy another new game and wouldn't have if he couldn't sell the old one. I am sure we are all tired of these media companies blaming their mismanagement on the customers.
 
You can argue about it but one thing is clear when the "industry" said well games are so expensive because of shipping costs and printing materials and storage, people swallowed it whole. Now we in the last few years have digital content where is the price reduction?

Same stupid stuff by the same stupid companies and for what reasons ?
The reason is that they can't control that part of the market the insistent whining about it makes me sick. It would make as much sense as charging people for inhaling 2nd hand smoke by tobacco companies ...
 
I work with the heads of these megacorps directly and I can tell you that there is only one reason they charge $60 for a videogame:

Because that is what the market will bear.

It has nothing to do with production, distribution, or resale costs, etc.

In other words, as soon as consumers show they are willing to shell out $100 per game, they'll up the price to $100 - which is what they are doing by releasing DLC at $10 per unit on top of the $60.

It's really that simple. Everything else they come up with is a lie...a scam designed to burn the candle at both ends and get ever more control and profit.
 
After the game is sold the first time the studio has made their money, end of story.

Once sold for the first time publishers now have the options to further gain money from customers with aftermarket purchases, such as Downloadable Content. DLC, can range from micro transactions all the way to such seldom seen items as the Expansion pack. In the case of Capcom they just re-release the game. These purchases are forever tied to one account and can not be used without the original game.

However most to all gamers will not care about this when they are truly done with the game. Spoiled milk is just spoiled milk. Now two things can happen, one seems to be what companies want but is actually a bad thing.

1. The Original Purchaser when done with the game can just put it on the shelf on or in a box and never play it again. This is bad for the publishers because the revenue stream and interest credit of the game is now dead. The only way to possibly* make money off the game/consumer is to release new content and more than likely a new game. * it depends on the reaction of the game to the consumer and the future production of content that would provide the possibility of a future sale, many things can and have gone wrong from there.

2. The OP could sell the game, now as long as all legal rules are followed such as this is still a one to one situation, one disc, one game being played, This actually INCREASES profit! Fro the same price of production for one media you now have two who have/had played the game, boosting interest credits by widening your audience and! Giving you a second target which to focus DLC at. If you later release a squeal or dramatic update to the game, you could have two potential buyers.

I'd hope the industry allows option 2, which is good for them, to continue and not force an options 3. People refuse to buy games until they reach "liquidation" prices and only after they are certain they like the game, if at all.
 
excalpiis said:
I work with the heads of these megacorps directly and I can tell you that there is only one reason they charge $60 for a videogame:

Because that is what the market will bear.

It has nothing to do with production, distribution, or resale costs, etc.

In other words, as soon as consumers show they are willing to shell out $100 per game, they'll up the price to $100 - which is what they are doing by releasing DLC at $10 per unit on top of the $60.

It's really that simple. Everything else they come up with is a lie...a scam designed to burn the candle at both ends and get ever more control and profit.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I was going to say. All DLCs are is a way to increase the price of a game without the average person seeing it. They claim it as a "choice" being you can choose to not buy that DLC. In reality they're just selling partial games now and charging you for more content.. I kinda hope next gen consoles try to ban used games just so we can see this whole bullshit big corporate gaming bubble implode. I just don't see MS and Sony being that dumb to risk that much of an investment on their end for their third party game making partners. Especially MS who already runs xbox live with an iron fist and basically tells developers to kiss their ass if they want to introduce anything that doesn't match their per-determined formats.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top