Licensed software cannot be resold accord to courts

i don't see them being binding at all unless you agreed to it at the time of purchase. Since most places won't let you return open software and you can't read the eula till you actually open the software there really isn't much legal ground for these types of things to hold up on. The court decision applies to eula that the user agreed too not to the actual sale. This guy bought software from an non legit seller, we don't know the actual sale/license terms this company agreed to when first buying/leasing their software from autodesk. But if you buy something and there was no eula at the sale or anything indicating you only own a license at the sale then there really isn't much ground to stand on.

I think many people are reading too much into this case.

Agree that this case had nothing to do with the validity of EULAs, and is actually a terrible test case of licensing because of the specifics of the case. Unfortunately, the ruling that the Ninth laid down for what is considered "licensed" instead of "sold" is very broad and puts all the power in the publishers' hands - which can lead to abuse.
 
The gaming publishers aren't aiming at Average Joe selling his copy of COD4 on eBay, they have their sights set on piece-of-shit retailers like Gamestop that sell used games for 95% of the price for the brand-new copies. This decision isn't something gamers who sell their old games should need to worry about IMO.
 
The gaming publishers aren't aiming at Average Joe selling his copy of COD4 on eBay, they have their sights set on piece-of-shit retailers like Gamestop that sell used games for 95% of the price for the brand-new copies. This decision isn't something gamers who sell their old games should need to worry about IMO.

I'll give gamestop some credit they will buy anything, when nobody wants your sports game from 2008 at least game stop will give you $1.
 
The gaming publishers aren't aiming at Average Joe selling his copy of COD4 on eBay, they have their sights set on piece-of-shit retailers like Gamestop that sell used games for 95% of the price for the brand-new copies. This decision isn't something gamers who sell their old games should need to worry about IMO.

Yeah, but you can't have one without the other. They may not go after them, but illegal is still illegal.
 
I'll give gamestop some credit they will buy anything, when nobody wants your sports game from 2008 at least game stop will give you $1.

$1 isn't significant. You'd spend that much on gas driving there in the first place. Hmm sports games. I don't know what's wrong with the 2008 version of them. I still play Mario's Tennis 2000 and have a good time with it.
 
$1 isn't significant. You'd spend that much on gas driving there in the first place. Hmm sports games. I don't know what's wrong with the 2008 version of them. I still play Mario's Tennis 2000 and have a good time with it.

It's one dollar less I have to pay while driving there to buy something that I was already going to get there. Who drives to gamestop to trade in a $1 game and does nothing else?
 
Time to face the facts folks. Reselling is KILLING the game industry. As you have companies like gamestop ripping off people desperate to sell their collections to get the next Halo. The mom and pops are going out with the recession so it does not benefit the local economy anymore.

Time to make a choice folks. Support expensive prices for video games to keep reselling which overall will harm small ops and help ruin the industry.

OR

Give up reselling... Make sure when you buy a game you want to keep it for good. And maybe just maybe the industry can recover.
 
Time to face the facts folks. Reselling is KILLING the game industry. As you have companies like gamestop ripping off people desperate to sell their collections to get the next Halo. The mom and pops are going out with the recession so it does not benefit the local economy anymore.

Time to make a choice folks. Support expensive prices for video games to keep reselling which overall will harm small ops and help ruin the industry.

OR

Give up reselling... Make sure when you buy a game you want to keep it for good. And maybe just maybe the industry can recover.

I see the point being made here, but I think the problem is just too generalized. There are a lot of factors at work that contribute to the industry problems. A few I think hurt them more than resells are:

Repetitive games, this includes franchises that don't attempt to add anything beyond a graphics update to their games. They've addressed this somewhat with some series, but I can't help but feel that given the box price they should be doing more and they hurt their own IP operating like this (cashing in with minimal effort).

Sales, games go on sale at various places. However Steam rarely gets these price reductions at the same time except for maybe at release. And to add to this, if they sold the game via Steam at the sale price everyone else seems to offer...it couldn't be resold. But why would you want to pay an extra 10-15-20 bucks on Steam when you could get it elsewhere OR you wait to get it on Steam at the reduced price and it never comes around while you're looking. If second hand markets are hurting them so bad, why are they giving the stink eye to Steam when it pretty effectively prevents it? Im sure some will disagree, but just insert your favorite store or whatever and if it isn't a few of the bigger retailers you don't get the sales as often or as high of discounts.

DLC, It's a super grey area on quality. Some are worth it, some definitely aren't and a lot in the middle. If they want to drain people's wallets they are going to have to stabilize this and price things more in terms with their quality instead of what they feel they can charge for it. It's a big reason why a lot of people don't buy certain titles, if they plan on milking the DLC on it you might not end up with much of a game to begin with and the DLC might just suck. And waiting always pays off when you're not sure, for the consumer at least.

Strictly for PCs, is the constant bitching a handful of big publishers continue to spout and how they keep threatening to leave the market for whatever reason. This is equivalent to an automotive manufacturer telling you they are getting out of the auto making business but wants you to pay a lot for the product even though it may not have any support/coverage a year or less after purchasing. I might like your product, but if you feel I don't support you or can't be trusted with your product....you might want to re-evaluate your view point. You generally shouldn't hate your customer base as a whole. Get out or don't get out, but all these problems you're trying to pin on the customer is some twisted thinking.

Again for PCs, a console experience on a PC is not what people own PCs for. If you're going to do that, at least make it so you can actually play the game without needing console controllers. Jedi Force Unleashed game springs to mind for me, the controls on it were horrible for the PC but on the Xbox360 it was actually playable.

When they get a few of those problems worked out and still have issues, then I'll consider the second hand market they are so worried about. And we're completely ignoring that the economy has been in the toilet for 2-3 years and people are literally losing their homes, while these same publishers keep harping on about how they have poor sales. Well of course you have poor sales, damn near every business is suffering and luxury/entertainment items are not high on the list of expenditures if money is tight for normal folks.
 
Time to face the facts folks. Reselling is KILLING the game industry.
Actually $60 titles are killing the game industry. If mediocre titles weren't selling for as much as the GDP of small nations then there would be far less of a need to resell.

Sure, there will always be folks who would still sell for half of what they paid, but generally speaking most games are simply not worth $60 because they suck one way or another and players are only willing to pay half or less for them.

Reselling is a function of game quality, replay value (or lack thereof), and initial price. If you want to lower resell activity the right balance of the above needs to be found starting with more demos and lower retail prices in the first place.
 
They have to charge 60USD because by the time pirates rape their profits and then games end up in the bargain bin or worse resold to gamestop there is little left to develop the next game.

Simulations are starting to have to charge more or go completely kaput.

And frankly If one does not like this change to prevent reselling they can always go back to playing Quake 1 or Mario 3 because this change is coming like it or not.

As for game Franchises I assume you are mentioning EA Sports. People keep claiming they just spruce it up a little then slap a new title on it but that is NOT true. Development has a HUGE budget because people expect more and more every year. Going from the canned simple Animations of the first 3D versions to The fluid types today requires a great deal of MoCAP budget It takes money to renew the contract etc..

Oh BTW people keep mentioning automobile reselling. A BIG difference. Cars lose value for a reason, wear and tear. A car does not automatically devalue itself but does through parts getting damaged and needing replacement. Games automatically devalue because when you sell a used game normally the disc is in good enough shape that the gameplay experience is EXACTLY the same.
 
Cars aren't a perfect explanation as to why they lose value. Wear and tear is great excuse an all, but a new car driven off the lot has usually lost a significant portion of it's worth. And assuming it's not involved in any sort of accident, the only wear and tear on it would be the few miles you drive it home. It just isn't worth the sticker price simply because it's now "used", never mind the fact that a lot of new cars are test driven and such and aren't really "new' when you buy them. Barring freak breakdowns or accidents, the car is essentially the same as it was on the lot except now it's "used". And you don't know if the guy decide to go home and drain all the oil out of it or do something equally stupid to it, but you can be sure he's not a real smart fella if he buys a new car off the car lot and turns around to try and sell it....so caution with the car.


It's very similar to games, especially for the PC. If you buy a used game that has any kind of online components you don't know if the guy selling it got it banned permanently or is pristine. It's the same content but you can't play it. If it calls out to verify the CD key it might be at it's max installs and you might not be able to reset them if you're not the original owner. Again it's the same game experience, but you can't play it.

Used games for the PC are a gamble, even more so than cars. You can usually test drive a car even take it to your mechanic. If you buy a PC game, most times it's as is, no refunds...sometimes even new.


Pirates MIGHT reduce the profits for pure single player games, however multiplayer games pirates typically can't even get online with them. So if you want to play multiplayer, you gotta pay the admission fee. It's an argument that's trotted out a lot, but the "losses" figures are too insane to believe.

This whole thing is more along the lines of bowling shoes and bowling ball manufacturers wanting a piece of the pie each time someone uses those items at a bowling alley. I mean the bowling alley paid for the items, but it's preventing even more people from buying bowling balls and bowling shoes...if the bowling alley is going to continue to operate the shoe and ball manufacturers need to get a cut. Because if the bowling alley didn't let people rent/use those items everyone would run out and buy shoes and balls of their very own...100........no 200% of them would....maybe more. So the manufacturers are out (price of shoes + price of ball) x number of times either of those items has been rented or used. And since we can't easily tell if there are duplicates, triplicates, etc, we'll assume each "use" of those items would have resulted in a full price retail purchase of the ball and shoes. If it weren't for those damn bowling alleys, ball and shoe manufacturers would have made <insert insane number here>. Those damn bowling alleys are raping their profits, and they are going to get out of the ball and shoe manufacturing business if they don't get a cut of the usage fees *shakes fist*! And no one would ever NOT go bowling if the alleys didn't provide balls and shoes, that'd be crazy.

Then we have to go after go cart race tracks, car rental companies.....I mean you can't have people driving cars without buying it off the lot...that's insane.
 
They have to charge 60USD because by the time pirates rape their profits and then games end up in the bargain bin or worse resold to gamestop there is little left to develop the next game.

You realize a fact like piracy is too hard for a lot of people here to swallow. They do not understand the concept of why a person choosing to get games freely vs paying $60 hurts the industry. Also believe that it happens so infrequently because 95% of people would choose to spend the money than get it freely.

To the guy above me, not all games are multiplayer and many games that do have a multiplayer component are not worth playing MP. A lot of developers are just slipping in death match MP because if the engine already has network code, then slipping it in involves so little work however fewer than 25% of games that have MP are even worth playing online and for most those games, I doubt the lack of their lackluster online play will keep anyone from stealing the game and enjoying as much as legitimate buyers.
 
Piracy is too easy an excuse for the variety of factors that could impact sales. If they continue to ignore the other parts of the puzzle and focus on piracy, spending money, time, and pissing off paying customers with their schemes to stop it.....they will continue to spiral. And they will continue to blame piracy for their woes.

When I see them present it more rationally than throwing out losses figures and saying they are in a slump solely because of piracy, and then spend more money on anti-piracy methods that continue to piss off and trouble customers......I would probably change my attitude toward the topic. But if they want to be stubborn about ignoring the fact that people just don't have the disposable income to buy every title they release and other factors, I can continue to shake my head and hope they finally go to all console releases so they can be satisfied with their piracy free market (as they'd have you believe).

I will agree that piracy is a factor, but it is not the end all be all reason their games might not meet sales expectations. And until they look at it more reasonably, it's impossible to judge it's true impact on it all.
 
Sure piracy isn't the only factor but it is by far the majority.

Price probably accounts for 25% of lost sales (well day one at least, most lost day one sales will eventually buy it when they price comes down) but piracy is probably somewhere in the 70%. I have known many software pirates in my life and the only way they will pay for software is if they are absolutely unable to play the game without buying it. Price is irrelevant to them. If they can steal it going through tons of trouble and spending hours and still save $5, they will. This is why piracy is looked at as being the major factor.

Subscriptions seems to be the most effective countermeasure but of course that only works for online games. Not sure if there are WoW cracked servers but if there are, I'd be interested to know how many people play on them (if it is the same 5 people you see every time, then subscriptions are winning the battle). On the real servers we know there are millions of regulars.
 
Time to face the facts folks. Reselling is KILLING the game industry. As you have companies like gamestop ripping off people desperate to sell their collections to get the next Halo. The mom and pops are going out with the recession so it does not benefit the local economy anymore.

Time to make a choice folks. Support expensive prices for video games to keep reselling which overall will harm small ops and help ruin the industry.

OR

Give up reselling... Make sure when you buy a game you want to keep it for good. And maybe just maybe the industry can recover.

In my opinion shitty games are ruining the industry. Not second hand sales. The crappier a game is, the more likely it will be sold off.
 
free software with $29 shipping and handling fee.

So by this anything that is used can not be resold? Wonder when they will start that one?

Whats even more scary is the EULA they quoted....it was changed and if you want to continue to use the software you have to agree to anything they say or quit using the program.
>>>>>>>If I don't agree give me my money back. NOW ITS >>>>SORRY its used software and you are trying to sell it back to me which is illegal.
 
They have to charge 60USD because by the time pirates rape their profits and then games end up in the bargain bin or worse resold to gamestop there is little left to develop the next game.

I'm sorry I dont buy this for 2 reasons.

1. Its debatable the effect piracy has on sales.

2. Profits is not proportional to the price of the game. By increasing the price you dont increase your profits, you simply reduce the number of people buying which in the end may end up reducing your profit. Steam sales are proof that when people think games are going for a bargain, they spend more. The more they spend, the more money the publishers/developers make. This is a large part of the reason games drop in price so fast, its because the people who set the prices know how to get people to "spend" more rather than just "pay" more per game. They release at $60 and the suckers who can't live without having the latest and greatest go and buy it, while everyone else thinks "thats a rip off I'm not paying that". Then a month later when it drops to $40 heaps of people think "OMG ITS AWESOME VALUE!" and will buy it.

Its not about how high you price the games, its about how much money you can get the consumers to part from their wallets.
 
It's hard to say that resell is killing the industry when some games (think MW2) make as much money, or more, than a Hollywood blockbuster. What did MW2 do, like 500 million in sales? The video game industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, resell isn't killing it. It may be affecting the bottom line figure, but all industries have to fight resell (and do) - the only difference is that software has a way of preventing resell (online checks, etc) and has successfully convinced the courts that they are special, and that software is licnesed instead of bought. Don't you think every manufacturer, or creator, would like to be able to license you the product instead of selling it to you - the only difference is that somehow the software industry managed to do it and get away with it (even though I am buying a physical product in the form of a boxed DVD - just like a movie). I bet Samsung would love to be able to license your TV to you, and forbid resale.
 
Whenever somewhere brings up issues that are "killing the game industry," can you please cite some type of source that the industry is dieing or even remotely in decline? How you can blame any issue for "killing the game industry" when the industry as a whole is increasing in the revenue generated and investments coming in every year?
 
Whenever somewhere brings up issues that are "killing the game industry," can you please cite some type of source that the industry is dieing or even remotely in decline? How you can blame any issue for "killing the game industry" when the industry as a whole is increasing in the revenue generated and investments coming in every year?

I will tell you are secret. Usually when they end a series or do not make a sequal, it means that the game barely made enough money to break even. This is a generation of sequals and unless they think that a sequal will not make a profit, they do not make it.

Maybe the revenue generated as a whole is growing but there are more games every year. Also, the breakdown is very disproportional. Sure MW2 made hundreds of millions but name more than 10 games this year that have made even 1/10 of that.
 
Maybe the revenue generated as a whole is growing but there are more games every year. Also, the breakdown is very disproportional. Sure MW2 made hundreds of millions but name more than 10 games this year that have made even 1/10 of that.

The proportion per game is irrelevant when talking about the industry. Just like hollywood, some games will makes 100s of millions and others will lose money, and it will always be that way. What revenue growth shows is either that people are, per-capita, spending more money on games - or that developers are spending less money yet consumers are still buying. If you look at the numbers, I believe you'll find that sales are increasing along with increased investment in new games and increased revenue, not sustained revenue with decreased costs, but I haven't checked and I'm not 100% sure about that. This is definitely not the death or even decline of the industry, it is unequivocally growth in either case. In the middle of the deepest recession since games arrived on the market. Record sales of AAA titles just highlight that any perception of decline is manufactured by these companies to push their agenda.

Now think about how much more profit they could have if they stopped wasting money on pointless DRM?
 
I will tell you are secret. Usually when they end a series or do not make a sequal, it means that the game barely made enough money to break even. This is a generation of sequals and unless they think that a sequal will not make a profit, they do not make it.

Maybe the revenue generated as a whole is growing but there are more games every year. Also, the breakdown is very disproportional. Sure MW2 made hundreds of millions but name more than 10 games this year that have made even 1/10 of that.


I don't see how that is indicative that any of the common issues brought up is "killing the game industry," as this is based on the assumption that wealth/revenue distribution should be relatively balanced. However entertainment type industries/products as a whole all tend to have top heavy wealth/revenue distributions, this is true for movies, music, books, sports, tv, etc. There is no such thing as sure fire investment, and the game industry is no different, not every game should be successful. If I were to say have invested in and developed my own turn based strategy game and decided to release it to compete with Sid Meiers Civilization 5, should I blame things like reselling, piracy, industry decline or whatever for the eventual flop? Elemental (by stardock) also was just released, Civilization 5 will probably also blow it out of the water in terms of sales, is this also due to reselling/piracy/industry decline?

There is also the fact that the loudest complainers are those in industry that "have" not the "have nots." It is companies like Activision and EA who complain the most, yet they have increasing revenue and correspondingly increasing investments, ironic isn't it? Why would they increasingly invest in an industry they know that is in the decline?

Also I don't think your assertion that MW2 is buoying the industry is correct.

DAO, L4D2 3m in sales, Fifa 10m, Madden 2.3m as of Feb 2010 http://pc.ign.com/articles/106/1067807p1.html

Mass Effect 2 week 1 sales, 2m http://www.1up.com/news/mass-effect-2-week-sales

Pokemon 10m, Mario Galaxy 4m+ http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/article.php?id=19011

FF13 5.5m http://www.destructoid.com/final-fantasy-xiii-sales-break-the-5-5-million-mark-173958.phtml

Assassins Creed 2 9m http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=247161

BFBC2 2.3m in 2 weeks
http://www.1up.com/news/battlefield-bad-company-2-sales

Those are just random titles off the top of my head that broke 100m+ in revenue (judging from sales numbers), and are probably much higher then that now as those are relatively early sales numbers. I didn't even look up numbers for other likely high sellers like Starcraft 2, God of War 3, Red Dead Redemption, Mafia 2, Bioshock 2, Splinter Cell, the dozens of WII party titles (exaggeration), some DS titles I don't know about, and probably more I can't think of at the moment.

There is also the constant WOW juggernaut. Halo Reach numbers haven't come in yet. We still have Gran Turismo 5, and the FIFA refresh as well. Along with a lot more titles likely to sell 2m+.
 
Of course you don't mention how much they cost to make and didn't mention the simulator market being gutted.

The good news is you arent the one deciding, Anti-reselling is going to give future games a chance to shine at lower prices. Perhaps give smaller companies a chance to put out more sims and content again without worrying about their hard work being tossed into the bargain bin after less than a year.

And even better news it is going to mean even more and better sales on Steam. As you see when companies know that you cant resell your steam games they are in a much better position to offer sales themselves to actually make money off the lower prices instead of gamestop.
 
Of course you don't mention how much they cost to make and didn't mention the simulator market being gutted.
Why is that relevant? We're talking about profit. It takes how much the games cost to create inherently into account. And if simulators are failing, maybe nobody wants to play them? I don't know anyone who plays sim games these days, and I think it was a pretty small market to begin with.

The good news is you arent the one deciding, Anti-reselling is going to give future games a chance to shine at lower prices. Perhaps give smaller companies a chance to put out more sims and content again without worrying about their hard work being tossed into the bargain bin after less than a year.
Why can't they shine at lower prices now? It's a market. They need to compete in it.

And even better news it is going to mean even more and better sales on Steam. As you see when companies know that you cant resell your steam games they are in a much better position to offer sales themselves to actually make money off the lower prices instead of gamestop.
Right, prices are going down and we get more sales when they eliminate their lower-priced competition. Uh huh, that makes sense.

What's really going to happen is that game quality won't change, prices won't change, but nobody will be able to resell games anymore. When sales actually decline as a result, piracy is blamed as usual and we're back where we started, but we can't resell games and get more annoying DRM. Yay.
 
You realize a fact like piracy is too hard for a lot of people here to swallow. They do not understand the concept of why a person choosing to get games freely vs paying $60 hurts the industry. Also believe that it happens so infrequently because 95% of people would choose to spend the money than get it freely.

To the guy above me, not all games are multiplayer and many games that do have a multiplayer component are not worth playing MP. A lot of developers are just slipping in death match MP because if the engine already has network code, then slipping it in involves so little work however fewer than 25% of games that have MP are even worth playing online and for most those games, I doubt the lack of their lackluster online play will keep anyone from stealing the game and enjoying as much as legitimate buyers.

Because many around here are sadly pirates and it has gotten so "normal" anything against it is somehow wrong. And supposedly game companies lie like there is no tomorrow when it comes to piracy.

And even if it isn't piracy Reselling adds in that multiplayer loss of funds. However ateast that can be dealt with with the usual amount of whiny "NO NO Its just bits so I have all teh rights waa waa" Instead of a serious campaign to seriously undermine it with cracks. Unlawful servers can be shut down and those outside jurisdiction or request will have too much lag to play well on anyway.
 
Why is that relevant? We're talking about profit. It takes how much the games cost to create inherently into account. And if simulators are failing, maybe nobody wants to play them? I don't know anyone who plays sim games these days, and I think it was a pretty small market to begin with.


Why can't they shine at lower prices now? It's a market. They need to compete in it.


Right, prices are going down and we get more sales when they eliminate their lower-priced competition. Uh huh, that makes sense.

What's really going to happen is that game quality won't change, prices won't change, but nobody will be able to resell games anymore. When sales actually decline as a result, piracy is blamed as usual and we're back where we started, but we can't resell games and get more annoying DRM. Yay.

Wrong.. So wrong..

#1 Sim games used to be HUGE HUGE HUGE in the 80s and 90s minimal piracy and plenty of interest meant small potatoes had bigger impact. Then piracy hit and we went from sim after sim to the few we have today. A day where the makers of Dangerous Waters found it more profitable to continue developing for a single customer (The navy) than to continue to face the onslaught of piracy and low prices due to reselling. Why do you not see sims that much anymore? Well it is hard to make a sim for a console and because of effects they dont have enough funds to run serious marketing. Anti-Reselling will help that somewhat.

#2 Piracy and Reselling combine to make lower prices a near death sentence. They are having to rely on hype to generate enough funds intially to deal with the issues and then perhaps if things work right they can lower prices some. However by the time they lower prices enough.. Gamestop undercuts them by 5-10 dollars by paying people crap for their games and then they are forced to stop dev and move on.

#3 Piracy and Reselling is harming the small potatoes more than the big ones because they dont have much in the way of backup to start with. However, Digital outlets like Steam have given the small potatoes a market and the anti-reselling gives them a chance to lower prices on their own terms AND continue to support the game.

#4 Wrong they are going to have to lower prices as a direct result of Anti-reselling to start. DRM is here to stay but it is in far less hostile versions like the recent versions of Starforce and Securom and Steam. Don't like it? I hear there is a new Quake 1 mod out....
 
Wrong.. So wrong..
If you're going to make this kind of absolute claim, I'd love to read the research you're basing it on. Even given all the information, I don't think you can come to this conclusion, it is too complex a situation to definitively analyze even with all of the details.

#1 Sim games used to be HUGE HUGE HUGE in the 80s and 90s minimal piracy and plenty of interest meant small potatoes had bigger impact. Then piracy hit and we went from sim after sim to the few we have today. A day where the makers of Dangerous Waters found it more profitable to continue developing for a single customer (The navy) than to continue to face the onslaught of piracy and low prices due to reselling.
You're not really backing up your argument here. Yeah, sim games used to be huge, but they're not anymore, relative to other games. Why is that? I really doubt used game sales or piracy have anything to do with it, since both of those factors apply to all types of games. You will also not that games that are popular, even if they are resold and pirated like mad, still make tons of money. See the long list of examples above. It's not a surprise at all that the most popular pirated games are also the best-selling and most profitable. People want to play them.

Why do you not see sims that much anymore? Well it is hard to make a sim for a console and because of effects they dont have enough funds to run serious marketing. Anti-Reselling will help that somewhat.
You don't see them anymore because people don't want to play them or developers think there is too much risk to create them. You don't seem to understand that for lots of resale to happen, lots of new sales have to happen first.

#2 Piracy and Reselling combine to make lower prices a near death sentence.
WTF? Lowering prices makes their product more competitive with piracy and used sales, not less.

They are having to rely on hype to generate enough funds intially to deal with the issues and then perhaps if things work right they can lower prices some.
Yup, exactly how it's always worked. Suckers buy early, drive an up front shovelful of cash to the developers, and then the rest of the folks provide a trickle for a while. It's always worked this way. What's wrong with that?

However by the time they lower prices enough.. Gamestop undercuts them by 5-10 dollars by paying people crap for their games and then they are forced to stop dev and move on.
Why anyone would buy a used game from Gamestop is beyond me, I don't think they're really the type to pay full-price on release day, since used games don't show up on release day anyway. Sales can compete with this.

#3 Piracy and Reselling is harming the small potatoes more than the big ones because they dont have much in the way of backup to start with. However, Digital outlets like Steam have given the small potatoes a market and the anti-reselling gives them a chance to lower prices on their own terms AND continue to support the game.
From what I've seen, indie games are thriving right now. I'm seeing and have played many more indie games in the past 2 years than I ever had before. Many are gaining critical acclaim. Many are released DRM-free, with Linux, Mac and Windows binaries freely provided. I don't think this argument stands up at all.

#4 Wrong they are going to have to lower prices as a direct result of Anti-reselling to start. DRM is here to stay but it is in far less hostile versions like the recent versions of Starforce and Securom and Steam. Don't like it? I hear there is a new Quake 1 mod out....
Why do they have to lower prices? If they get rid of used game sales, they have just eliminated their legitimate competition and reduces your choices to pirate or buy from them at whatever price they set. How, exactly, are they motivated to lower prices by this?
 
Again the good news is that it is not your choice it is theirs thank geez for that.

What is wrong with that you say? That trickle becomes a trickle REALLY fast sales don't work because gamestop simply undercuts your sale price when they feel like it because they pay crap for used games and can afford to go as low and the game companies can. It does not matter if YOU do not buy at gamestop or related co. Many do because they can snag a game for 5-10 bucks less and then get rid of their collection in the same trip. What does the developer get from that? Zero

Initial game sales are normally great.. But then reselling permanently binds that. And there does not have to be extreme sales anyway to get reselling to do its damage. Even if gamestop sales 5 copies. Those will likely return later and after a quick trip to the resurface machine its back on the shelf denying yet ANOTHER sale. Over and over and over. You cant argue this does not happen or you don't know the types that use Gamestop.

Again that silly argument of being competitive with piracy as if suddenly the vast majority of pirates will consider a 10-20 dollar drop will keep them from running the torrent. Laughable.... As it is even more so that Gamestop would not take advantage of the drop by undercutting that price AGAIN as soon as people come in desperate to sell their collection to get the next game.

You have no idea about the history of Simulations. You have no idea the beating they took at the start of mass piracy. Claiming that they died because nobody wants to play them is beyond silly. And using piracy to gauge popularity is even dumber. They were too busy trying to recover from this element of people saying. "NO I will not pay you a fair price of 30 USD for a sim you developed for over a year I will download it instead **** you!" Then the reselling on Amazon and other places demonized them further. You have no business trying to analyze when you think that Sims are not very marketable.

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As a OT note while I was writing this post a surge happened and tripped everything yet somehow my post survived. Is that some kind of Firefox feature?
 
You have no idea about the history of Simulations. You have no idea the beating they took at the start of mass piracy. Claiming that they died because nobody wants to play them is beyond silly.

Please explain what allowed other single-player-only games to survive in the face of all the exact same market pressures that sims had to go up against.
 
What is wrong with that you say? That trickle becomes a trickle REALLY fast sales don't work because gamestop simply undercuts your sale price when they feel like it because they pay crap for used games and can afford to go as low and the game companies can.
Getting rid of gamestop won't change much here. It's a trickle because most of the game sales happen when it's fresh and new, not because of used sales. Regardless, as I've said a couple times, if the game doesn't sell new, there's no inventory to sell used, and probably no demand for it either. Gamestop doesn't just fabricate copies and sell them for cheaper, every single one of those copies was originally sold at full retail price.

It does not matter if YOU do not buy at gamestop or related co. Many do because they can snag a game for 5-10 bucks less and then get rid of their collection in the same trip. What does the developer get from that? Zero
And why should they? They've already got their money from the copy gamestop is selling, the first time it was sold. Maybe if they made games people didn't want to resell right away, Gamestop would have nothing to sell, hmm? Do you think you can walk into Gamestop right now and buy a copy of StarCraft 2? I really doubt it. Gamestop competes with them once the game has already made its money, and for good games, probably not until much later if at all, since people actually want to keep their copies.

Initial game sales are normally great.. But then reselling permanently binds that. And there does not have to be extreme sales anyway to get reselling to do its damage. Even if gamestop sales 5 copies. Those will likely return later and after a quick trip to the resurface machine its back on the shelf denying yet ANOTHER sale. Over and over and over. You cant argue this does not happen or you don't know the types that use Gamestop.
Resale does absolutely nothing to affect initial sales. Nothing at all. There are no copies on the used market to sell. You really think that the people who go to Gamestop to buy 3-month old games for a discount are going to pay full price just because Gamestop isn't around anymore? They buy from Gamestop because they're looking for something specific - cheap games. They aren't looking for the latest game. Give them inexpensive games, and they have no reason to go to Gamestop. Give the initial buyer a compelling experience that they aren't going to turn around and resell after 10 hours of play (hint: the money they get goes towards more new games). Provide some kind of trade-in program, or partner with companies like Gamestop to sell 'certified' copies that come with a fresh multiplayer account and guarantee for a cut of the sale. It's called a free market, and just like every other product, they need to compete with used sales.

Where do you get off thinking that game studios can double-dip on copies of their games anyway? Do you also feel that movies should be pay-per-viewer? CDs pay-per-listen?

Again that silly argument of being competitive with piracy as if suddenly the vast majority of pirates will consider a 10-20 dollar drop will keep them from running the torrent. Laughable.... As it is even more so that Gamestop would not take advantage of the drop by undercutting that price AGAIN as soon as people come in desperate to sell their collection to get the next game.
You can't do anything direct about piracy, period. It is going to happen no matter what you do. The only way to do anything about it is to try to lure some of those folks to paying for the product. You are naive if you think pirates don't or won't spend any money at all. It is certainly possible to encourage people who pirate games to spend more money on them. Just like movies and music, pirates are your biggest fans, and consume tons of your content. It's compelling to them, if you can provide some additional value at a price they are willing to pay, you can get some money out of them. Though that may not end up being optimal profit-wise, it might make more sense to just let them take it for the sake of higher up-front prices, but they can try some other ways to get money from them, like selling multiplayer-only passes and that kind of thing. Yeah, some will probably never pay - but they're never going to pay, so they're not really part of the equation anyway.

You have no idea about the history of Simulations. You have no idea the beating they took at the start of mass piracy. Claiming that they died because nobody wants to play them is beyond silly. And using piracy to gauge popularity is even dumber. They were too busy trying to recover from this element of people saying. "NO I will not pay you a fair price of 30 USD for a sim you developed for over a year I will download it instead **** you!" Then the reselling on Amazon and other places demonized them further. You have no business trying to analyze when you think that Sims are not very marketable.
Do put forward an argument as to why sims are somehow more prone to piracy than other types of games. I'd love to hear it. The only reason games stop being made is because people don't want to play them. And I'm not saying piracy is a way to gauge popularity, I'm saying it tracks popularity, and that shouldn't be surprising at all. If sim games were popular, they'd sell a lot, period, just like every other kind of game. Yeah, they'd be pirated like crazy, but they'd be selling well too. Piracy doesn't 'kill' anything. Every piece of real evidence backs this up. I have no business? You're not putting forward anything here, just conjecture without even a logical basis. In your eyes, what makes sims so different from other games? If people still want to play them, why are they not being made, when other types of games are selling in the millions?

I don't really care about the history of sims. They're games, like any other, and if people wanted them, they'd sell. So far you've not suggested any special circumstance that sims operate under, and I can't think of anything. If nobody is making them, it's purely because the market doesn't want them, or developers perceive it to be a risky venture. What type of sim are you talking about anyway, it's a pretty broad term... are we talking The Sims? Sim City? Colin McRae? X-Plane? Gran Turismo 5 is due out soon and should sell well...

As a OT note while I was writing this post a surge happened and tripped everything yet somehow my post survived. Is that some kind of Firefox feature?
Yep, can't live without it. It will also save your post if you accidentally click a link or something and go back.

Also this talk of games is getting rather off-topic anyway.
 
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Oh good because I hate when that happens. Firefox FTW Cant wait for 4!

Pirates don't spend much money on what matters. Trust me most of the pirates I know and yell about have not bought a PC game for years. And actually LAUGH at me for spending 600USD+ on my collection.

Game companies do not double dip nor should they. But Gamestop gets to and does it with a vicious mind game so by the time a game runs through their stores a number of times they make massive profit while the game companies get zero.

Is this whole things good for the customer in the short term? No it wont be. People will actually have to look at reviews instead of preordering an unknown game.

In the long run however, this will be great for fans of a game. When game companies can count on being able to control how the game is sold and is not at risk of being undercutted on their own product by the likes of Gamestop. They will be able to convince the higher ups that it is worth it to continue to support their product meaning more patches and less situations like Operation Flashpoint 2 gets left in a poor state because the developers are needed for another cycle too early due to reselling and piracy.
 
Time to face the facts folks. Reselling is KILLING the game industry. As you have companies like gamestop ripping off people desperate to sell their collections to get the next Halo. The mom and pops are going out with the recession so it does not benefit the local economy anymore.

Time to make a choice folks. Support expensive prices for video games to keep reselling which overall will harm small ops and help ruin the industry.

OR

Give up reselling... Make sure when you buy a game you want to keep it for good. And maybe just maybe the industry can recover.

The industry is hardly dying...
 
In the long run however, this will be great for fans of a game. When game companies can count on being able to control how the game is sold and is not at risk of being undercutted on their own product by the likes of Gamestop. They will be able to convince the higher ups that it is worth it to continue to support their product meaning more patches and less situations like Operation Flashpoint 2 gets left in a poor state because the developers are needed for another cycle too early due to reselling and piracy.

If a game is worth holding on to, worth *not* selling to gamestop for $10 2 weeks after you buy it, then it doesn't matter. If it isn't, then it's going to fail anyway!
 
You are not getting the mindset of the people that go to gamestop. It does not matter if say Mafia II was an awesome game to them. The new Halo Reach to them is a must have so what happens? Not only is Mafia II resold but a mess of other games denying sales to a whole swaft of the industry in one feel swoop.

Not only is it harming the industry it harms the people by creating a mindset of dependence. "You must depend on us to afford a game the industry had to price higher thanks to us." Christmas gifts? Sold Birthdays? Gotta have the new Halo...

When that bull ends they can offer the sale THEMSELVES at a lower price at a similar time so that people don't have to sell their collections.
 
Let's assume this judgment will hold and Gamestop can't sell games with licenses. Most PC games have licenses, haven't noticed one on consoles. What do you think will happen in both the PC and console market Zachstar?

For PC, Gamestop doesn't carry them as far as I've noticed..they stick pretty much to consoles. But people sell their games here on the forums, that would stop since the forums don't promote breaking the law. But it won't stop used games from being sold, licensed or not. And eventually it will be challenged in a court when they decide to use RIAA tactics on their customer base.

For consoles, I think I've only seen a EULA on Battlefield 1943 for xbox, but otherwise haven't noticed any. Although I have only played on an Xbox 360 and my brother doesn't have much of a collection. So they will have to add EULAs to future releases, going back and adding EULAs to current games would throw a kink into their argument if previously non-EULA games become EULAed. So Gamestop would have all previous titles and all future titles that don't include EULAs. And assuming the ruling never gets challenged, everyone will just be selling to each other via other methods. Maybe trading or doing exchanges, explain it as a temporary loan on both parties behalf.

The bottomline in both cases is that it will be circumvented, and probably legally if they use the exchange method. The only change is, Gamestop doesn't make money on the deals anymore....and the publishers/devs are still out the cash. Will they lower their prices at this point? I don't see why they would, they still have the piracy scapegoat to milk.

It may reduce the volume of used game dealing taking place, but it definitely won't increase the first few months of a typical games release. People are left with no way to turn their new EULAed games into cash to put toward a new release. So those people will be stuck with the used game exchanges for longer periods of time while they put away cash to buy new releases. And each new release opens them up to more exchanges, since no one in their right mind would exchange something 2-3 years old for something just released.

If the game industry was just a bunch of nice honest guys struggling to make a buck off their product, which arguably some Indies are, they might draw some sympathy from me. They however are not as a whole operating anywhere near to the honest side of the court, although some of the individuals might be nice...the companies as a whole are not. They want every bit of cash they can squeeze from your wallet for the least amount of cost to themselves, and we as consumers want to feel like we're getting our monies worth. And there's the root of the issue.

As for simulators, I don't particular care for the genre but I see plenty of discussions about racing games. Flight sim type games...I think HAWX was something like that... but the guys who made the popular flight sims was Microsoft or bought by MS. And MS has been focused on it's console in spite of PCs for quite awhile now. Plus most the flight sim guys seem to prefer their flight sticks and such, and I don't think they can expect that to sell very well as a console accessory after they get done tacking on the 40 or 50% markup that kind of stuff has. Assuming the console could even handle a flight sim....no idea.

Not sure what else there is for simulators, maybe provide some specifics on what you mean or what you feel fits into that category and is not being fulfilled.

Here's a sales figure chart from 2007:
1. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade &#8211; Vivendi (Blizzard) &#8211; 2.25 million
2. World of Warcraft &#8211; Vivendi (Blizzard) &#8211; 914K
3. The Sims 2 &#8211; Electronic Arts &#8211; 534K
4. The Sims 2 Seasons Expansion Pack &#8211; Electronic Arts &#8211; 433K
5. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare &#8211; Activision &#8211; 383K
6. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars &#8211; Electronic Arts &#8211; 350K
7. MS Age of Empires III &#8211; Microsoft &#8211; 313K
8. Sim City 4 &#8211; Electronic Arts &#8211; 294K
9. MS Flight Simulator X &#8211; Microsoft &#8211; 280K
10. The Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack &#8211; Electronic Arts &#8211; 272K

MS FSX was released October 17, 2006 so it's figures might have been higher not sure if this includes the late 2006 sales numbers. 4 years ago, and they have the next one in development. I thought most people agreed Microsoft's flight sim was the best ( I have no personal experience with it, don't care for it ). On that chart are multiple "The Sims" games, so if they are of the genre, that genre is represented almost heavily on the sales charts.

This is being added after I already posted this, but I noticed it on the wiki site.

Microsoft announced in early 2010 that there was currently a shortage of the game in retailers, after receiving complaints. They expressed that they had not stopped manufacturing the popular simulation game, but that there was currently a shortage of available product activation keys. As a result they needed to make an engineering change which resulted in reduced output. New copies of the game were expected to return to shelves in May of 2010.


So people still want it after all this time, but MS can't be bothered to get it on the shelf before all the current stock is gone due to problems. I thought it was kind of poetic point to make.
 
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Pirates don't spend much money on what matters. Trust me most of the pirates I know and yell about have not bought a PC game for years. And actually LAUGH at me for spending 600USD+ on my collection.
At least with music, actual studies (ie. not your idle conjecture backed up by two friends') have shown that those who pirate music spend money on it too. Some studies show they spend more. As long as we're doing the anecdote thing, hell, I pirate games once in a while, but I also buy games once in a while. I've spent a lot more money on Steam sales and inexpensive indie games in the past couple years than I ever did on games before. I don't think I've paid full retail price for a game in 5+ years, they're just not worth that much to me and I will never pay that. That doesn't mean I'm not putting money into the system, and recently most companies have been giving me more value for my dollar, so I've been spending more.

Game companies do not double dip nor should they. But Gamestop gets to and does it with a vicious mind game so by the time a game runs through their stores a number of times they make massive profit while the game companies get zero.
Huh? Gamestop is not double dipping at all. They buy a game and resell it. They pay money once and make money once. That's how retail works. Yes, Gamestop are scammers and I can't believe that people patronize them, but they are obviously providing a service people want. Game companies need to provide a service to compete with it, or live without capitalizing that portion of the market. If they choose not to compete, that's their problem.
Is this whole things good for the customer in the short term? No it wont be. People will actually have to look at reviews instead of preordering an unknown game.
Which means less trust in the industry, and I would bet a lot less sales overall. Games make a lot of money on hype. Resale makes a preorder much easier to swallow for some gamers. This is, I think, a critical time for them and presales make a lot for them up-front on big name games. Making the product considerably less compelling at this point in the lifecycle of the game doesn't seem like a smart move at all if they are to maximize their profit.

In the long run however, this will be great for fans of a game. When game companies can count on being able to control how the game is sold and is not at risk of being undercutted on their own product by the likes of Gamestop. They will be able to convince the higher ups that it is worth it to continue to support their product meaning more patches and less situations like Operation Flashpoint 2 gets left in a poor state because the developers are needed for another cycle too early due to reselling and piracy.
I think you're delusional if you think improving the business situation for the gaming companies (which I don't think this will do) will result in better support for games and better games over all. They are beholden to make as much money as possible, and to the same suits you're talking about, that means only spending money on it while it's profitable. These are the same suits that don't realize DRM is pointless, and they're the same suits that (at most companies) couldn't care less about customer goodwill and talk about things like being hurt by resales. They are out of touch with reality, and so are you if you think they're going to give you a better product because they can exert an iron grip over sales of the product. All that's going to do is make sure that older, less-profitable titles are no longer available for sale at all and make buying games riskier for gamers.
 
If a game is worth holding on to, worth *not* selling to gamestop for $10 2 weeks after you buy it, then it doesn't matter. If it isn't, then it's going to fail anyway!

Exactly! Why sell back a game or movie that you love? If developers make fantastic games than the 2nd hand market is a non-issue. I never sell my videogames that I like.
 
You are not getting the mindset of the people that go to gamestop. It does not matter if say Mafia II was an awesome game to them. The new Halo Reach to them is a must have so what happens? Not only is Mafia II resold but a mess of other games denying sales to a whole swaft of the industry in one feel swoop.

Not only is it harming the industry it harms the people by creating a mindset of dependence. "You must depend on us to afford a game the industry had to price higher thanks to us." Christmas gifts? Sold Birthdays? Gotta have the new Halo...

When that bull ends they can offer the sale THEMSELVES at a lower price at a similar time so that people don't have to sell their collections.

Two problems with your argument. First, every other industry has to deal with the resale issue, from houses to cars to TVs to refrigerators to toasters (to use Steam's example) to books and music and movies. And yet all those industries manage to survive. Why is software any different - besides the fact that the publishers want it to be? Second, what about Steam? It pretty effectively eliminates resale, but games are priced the same on Steam as they are retail when they are released. So publishers already have a resell-proof medium to sell games, and they haven't lowered prices even one dollar (for new sales). I think you are somewhat delusional if you think banning resale is going to cause lower prices - when in the history of the world has a monopoly (which is what it would be for each game) led to lower prices?
 
Steam does not give them nearly the same sales as elseware. It is nice but most still get it elseware otherwise they would have gone with Steam completely to remove the resale issue and some actually have. Valve obviously for instance does not have to worry about resell on PC and enjoys a somewhat effective anti-pirate solution. And they do lower prices on steam alot. It just that Valve prefers them to save up and do a big sale with other products at the same time. The Xmas sale, the summer sale. Prices do fall when resell comes out of the picture. So they can award those with a keen eye and a knack for patience.

The piracy bit will be a legit goat to milk considering the aburd about of piracy that goes on. However competition and lack of reselling will eventually urge them to lower prices. Steam has already become a battleground of who can offer the best sales and with steam wallet people will start to save for those sales. Effectively this is the future anyway. Publishers will one day sell completely over the net and that day cant come fast enough.

When it comes to the ruling I agree with it but my points have overall been about the changes more companies are making to stop reselling like EA. I know full well that it will up to the companies to implement the changes to break the cycle. And that too cant come fast enough.
 
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