Richard Browne is full of shit - Anti-Used Game Systems |OT|

[Eel O'Brian]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-04-12-the-real-cost-of-used-games

A colleague of mine brought to light how bad this has become just the other week. He went into his local GameStop and was point blank REFUSED the option of buying the game he went to get new. After pressuring the sales assistant for a few minutes he finally got his new game - but only after the assistant got his manager's approval to sell it to him.

i don't like gamestop much, but to put it kindly that anecdote sounds fictional

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.

i believe that evidence would be people taking their used games inside the store, exchanging them for store credit, and exiting the store with a new game - like i just recently did at best buy with ssx

I was a student once, albeit briefly - I was certainly a kid once - and when I bought a game the value of it to me was far more than the disposable entertainment construct that surrounds games today. I played those games to death. Because the second rebuttal is that without trade-ins people can't afford games. But you know what? I've grown up, and so has a large part of our user base. We don't necessarily sell to "kids" anymore. We sell a lot of product to adults with decent disposable income - people who will find a way to buy Skyrim, Saints Row : The Third, Assassin's Creed, Battlefield 3, Batman and Call of Duty in November. Look at the numbers, they did. As for the kids, well, those over 17 will find a way too.

 

i believe for a lot of those people, richard, the "way" they found was trading in used games towards those titles

but i realize that answer wouldn't serve your agenda

So personally I hope and would actively encourage Microsoft and Sony to embrace the "Nuclear Option" and put an end to this. Give us no used games, give us digital access to software on the day it launches to retail. I don't think we'll see even a minor drop in sales; in fact, I think we'll see it rise. Oh and don't worry either of you, I'll buy my Durango or Orbis from Amazon.com, Sony.com or Microsoft.com if I have to.

in a way i hope so, too, richard, because it'll be wildly entertaining to see the goggle-eyed fishmouthing when you cocksuckers get exactly what's coming to you

[pilonv1]

very definition of living in a bubble

[Positive Touch]

this attitude that gaming is a charity that fuels starving artists can diaf already.  there's already enough sexless nerds out there that act like major publishers owe them a blowjob for buying a game; these arrogant tools need to realize that most people don't have the luxury of throwing away thousands of dollars to play some video games.  if you all are so concerned then start a fucking charity for people that can't afford a $60 game every month you assholes.

[Stoney Mason]

Used Games raped my wife is essentially what all these crazy people are saying. It's the only answer they can give instead of looking at the over-priced nature of games in general, or the myriad of other things that are contributing to this. Yeah its starting to piss me off more and more.

[Great Rumbler]

Bloated budgets and over-saturation of the market with $60 games [plus DLC] is doing far more harm to the industry.

[Joe Molotov]

I was certainly a kid once - and when I bought a game the value of it to me was far more than the disposable entertainment construct that surrounds games today. I played those games to death.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure publishers don't want you to buy one game and then play it to death. Unless there's tons of DLC or a monthly fee involved, of course.

[Eel O'Brian]

people will find a way!

[Positive Touch]

Bloated budgets and over-saturation of the market with $60 games [plus DLC] is doing far more harm to the industry.

WHY DIDNT THIS NICHE GAME THAT I LIKE SELL TEN MILLION COPIES UUUUURGH PEOPLE ARE SO STUPID WITH THEIR CALL OF DUTY!!!!


well maybe if the developer and publisher weren't stupid enough to sink tens of millions into a project that any fool could have seen would not set the charts on fire we wouldn't be in this mess

[Trent Dole]

Prove it.

Release games at retail and digitally the same day and promote the shit out of the digital version. Don't give every store with a video game section some bullshit pre-order "bonus", either.

You want to save the industry? The answer isn't cutting out used sales, the answer is tiered pricing. But that'll never happen because publishers are afraid that a $40 game at launch looks "weaker" than the $60 game next to it. I bet games like SSX, Asura's Wrath and Ninja Gaiden 3 would have almost doubled in sales at $30/$40 at launch.

THIS, this a thousand times over. Not every game is worth $60 at launch or any other time ever. A CoD or madden can have that price argued due to its endless multiplayer potential. Some goofy 6-10 hour Suda 51 single player only romp? FUCKING NO. Do I have Shadows of the Damned? No. Would I have jumped on it if it'd launched at $40? YES. That is $40 a publisher could've had vs the $0 that they've gotten from me. I'm hardly the only person like this and the sooner the industry as a whole figures this out the quicker it can quit being so fucking anemic.

[Flannel Boy]

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.

i believe that evidence would be people taking their used games inside the store, exchanging them for store credit, and exiting the store with a new game - like i just recently did at best buy with ssx

It wouldn't be evidence because he's looking at the overall macro-level, as he indicates in his next sentence:

If used game trading fueled new game sales then when used game trade-ins became the new standard a few years ago new games sales should have spiked.

(his conditional sentence is problematic because it assumes game sales wouldn't have declined without trade ins. In other words, trade-ins could fuel game sales without seeing an overall spike).

Back to the micro-level, you will probably trade-in your copy of SSX eventually and someone will then buy it maybe instead of a new copy. If that's true, you have one new game purchased, but it prevents the purchase of another new copy of SSX. Net result: The trade-in is neutral. If the used game continues to be sold, it will, in theory, prevent the sale of further new copies of SSX.

[Stoney Mason]

The thing is the rise of the used game market has had an effect. And I do think gamestop overly pushes used products at the expense of new products. There is an intelligent discussion to have where you factor that in with a whole lot of other stuff. But people like this dude (and an increasing number of devs) have just lost their mind. I make this same exact post every time this issue comes up which is alot.

The market has changed. Gaming is social. I know its obvious to most people but the reason the Call of Duty's, The Battlefields, the Halos, & The Gears sell way more than traditional single player only games is because people put dozens if not hundreds of hours into those mp modes. It's a value proposition. And especially with gaming being an expensive hobby, people (especially those with less disposable income) are going to spend it on games they can play with their friends and spend all those hours on that. They aren't going to spend it on a 6 to 10 hour single player only game. That's considered a waste of money. Especially with the current pricing structure.

People thinking that locking down used games is going to lead to some glory days of single player games both critically and commercially are fucking nuts. The only possible thing that could even help that situation is increasing the proposition length of nearly all single player games to GTA/Skyrim/Zelda length. Not only the time length but probably the quality metric too. Which is impossible budget wise for 95% of devs. So instead they add things like MP to Uncharted. Because that's the only way to compete with the market reality. Either you have to increase the play value through increased length and or quality, social features, or reduce the price. There is no magic fix for this situation. The world has changed. The sooner devs realize this the more intelligent the conversation can be instead of used games are teh evil and the only problem we face.

[Eel O'Brian]

true, but i wouldn't have bought it at all without the trade, is the point i was attempting to make

[Flannel Boy]

Used game sales cannot fuel new games sales overall IF the amount people will spend on games per year is fixed* (or, obviously, capable of decreasing). The reason is simple: only the retailer profits from trade-ins and used-game sales (obviously the gamer benefits, but we cannot call this a profit). This is money taken out of the pie.

Simple model: total video game spending is $6,000. Publishers get $40 of each new game (sold at $60) and zero for each used one. Retailers make $20 per used game, whether acquired outright from the consumer or as part of a trade-in. The amount consumers receive is irrelevant because their spending is fixed in this model.

Hypothetical 1:
Zero used games are sold.
Result: 100 new games and $4,000 to publishers.

Hypothetical 2
Three used games are sold. This is $60 taken out of the pool of $6,000 going directly to retailers.
Result: 99 new games sold and $3960 to publishers.

Hypothetical 3
30 used games are sold.
Result: 90 new games sold and $3600 to publishers.

*I'm not saying it is fixed, though I imagine it is for many without high incomes.

[Eel O'Brian]

and again, this is all bullshit misdirection because it isn't and never was about stopping gamestop, otherwise publishers wouldn't offer them preferential treatment regarding store displays, preorder promotions, and online codes printed on register receipts

it's about stopping you, the consumer, because if you didn't trade in games then gamestop wouldn't have any used games to sell

so the solution, of course, is to stop you by locking you behind a paywall, because you're the secret bad guy here

gamestop will be fine, they'll continue to sell you new and used games, and oh hey by the way we also sell unlock code cards for used single player games now!

you? you're the one who'll be shit out of luck and money

[Stoney Mason]

and again, this is all bullshit misdirection because it isn't and never was about stopping gamestop, otherwise publishers wouldn't offer them preferential treatment regarding store displays, preorder promotions, and online codes printed on register receipts

it's about stopping you, the consumer, because if you didn't trade in games then gamestop wouldn't have any used games to sell

so the solution, of course, is to stop you, because you're the secret bad guy here

gamestop will be fine, they'll continue to sell you new and used games, and oh hey by the way we also sell unlock code cards for used single player games now!

you? you're the one who'll be shit out of luck and money

I don't even like to get into the whole how eager and gleeful these devs are to fuck us over on our rights as consumers while still trying to preach to us that said fucking over is actually good for us. I get down right angry when I start thinking about that.

[Positive Touch]

Used game sales cannot fuel new games sales overall IF the amount people will spend on games per year is fixed* (or, obviously, capable of decreasing). The reason is simple: only the retailer profits from trade-ins and used-game sales (obviously the gamer benefits, but we cannot call this a profit). This is money taken out of the pie.

Simple model: total video game spending is $6,000. Publishers get $40 of each new game (sold at $60) and zero for each used one. Retailers make $20 per used game, whether acquired outright from the consumer or as part of a trade-in. The amount consumers receive is irrelevant because their spending is fixed in this model.

keith buys a used game because he's willing to give the game a shot for $20.  keith loves it and spends $25 on dlc.  two years later keith cleans some cars in the neighborhood and makes enough to get the sequel brand new for $60, then he gets dlc too.

-or-

keith wants a game but it's sixty fuckin dollars or bust.  keith gets a different hobby.

[Eel O'Brian]

keith gets an ipod touch and buys need for speed: sequel on itunes for 99 cents because if it sucks and he gets stuck with it forever he's only gambling one dollar instead of sixty

[Eel O'Brian]

this part killed me:

Oh and don't worry either of you, I'll buy my Durango or Orbis from Amazon.com

www.amazon.com/tradeingames

[Flannel Boy]

keith buys a used game because he's willing to give the game a shot for $20.  keith loves it and spends $25 on dlc.  two years later keith cleans some cars in the neighborhood and makes enough to get the sequel brand new for $60, then he gets dlc too.

-or-

keith wants a game but it's sixty fuckin dollars or bust.  keith gets a different hobby.

First

IF the amount people will spend on games per year is fixed* (
. . .
*I'm not saying it is fixed

Getting that out of the way. . .

Not sure what your DLC argument accomplishes IF spending is fixed. That $25 isn't added if it would have been spent anyway.

If Keith cannot afford the $60 and doesn't buy the game or buys a used game the net result is the same: zero to the publisher. If Keith is going to find a new hobby because he cannot afford the $60, how much was he going to give publishers* anyway? And, in a way, you're implying his gaming budget is . . . wait for it . . . fixed.

We can create all sorts of neat scenarios: gamer buys used games, plays drums for a Nirvana-cover band, eventually becomes a lawyer, then funds "Final Fantasea."

[Great Rumbler]

this part killed me:

Oh and don't worry either of you, I'll buy my Durango or Orbis from Amazon.com

www.amazon.com/tradeingames

Yep, I even traded in a few games recently. And what did I buy? New games. *mind-blown*

[Stoney Mason]

When you spend $60 dollars on a disposable entertainment product, you better damn well love it. When the consumer spends $60 and gets something like Brink, or Homefront, or any crappy $60 dollar game you can name he's pissed. And he learns well I'm not spending money on that again. I'll buy the new Call of Duty or something because I know that works and is at a certain quality level. This is why the gaming press is useless in this discussion. They have no sense of value here in gaming. They get everything for free. But for normal adult joe's wasting $60 bucks on a bad game is a kick in the balls. 

Their model is fundamentally broken in a world of facebook gaming, ios gaming, etc. You can only squeeze so much juice out of a lemon. And devs have got all the juice they are going to get but still squeezing for all its worth. Fix your fucking broken model. Or adapt to the reality of the modern market and make that work I suppose. But just stop lying about how things are gonna get all better once this lock out system is in place. Deus Ex ain't gonna sell call of duty numbers. Ever. So you need to rethink how to balance your budget and your artistic ambitions.

And with that I've done enough industry pontificating to last a lifetime (or until the next thread on this subject which will probably be next week)

[Human Snorenado]

I find that the more likely someone is to make the anti-used game argument, the more likely they are to make the queer "games as art" argument that always makes me want to cave their skull in with a fucking hammer.

[Positive Touch]

words

my point is that used games allow flexible pricing, flexible pricing allows games to reach more people, reaching more people causes industry to expand vs. fixed price locks out consumers and kills off a big part of the industry

[Human Snorenado]

Also, as someone who loves massive timesink single player experiences, gaming has largely passed me by, ESPECIALLY console gaming with the bro-tastic shooters and sports games and whatever the fuck Uncharted is supposed to be.  I've had more fun with Avadon on my icrap per dollar spent than anything in recent memory barring perhaps Skyrim.  Fuck videogaming right in the ass.

[Eel O'Brian]

but game spending isn't fixed, even for those on a tighter budget it will always fluctuate depending on what games are out, trade in bonus deals, coupons, etc

not to mention variables like coming into extra money during the year, christmas, birthdays, etc

even the poor folk i live amongst never sit down and say "i have X to spend on this hobby," it always depends on what you have and when you have it

the richard brownes out there are gonna get what they want, of this i have no doubt, it wouldn't be such a hot topic of discussion if there weren't some truth behind it - but i do think that soon after they get it they're gonna find out they really didn't want it after all

i mean, i'm telling you right now that even though i love games i'm not buying into any shit like this, i'll walk away from consoles  brushing my shoulders and stick to buying shit on steam sales because if i am gonna get fucked forever by a permanent purchase, a $5 fucking doesn't leave your asshole bleeding as much as a $60 one

[Eel O'Brian]

I find that the more likely someone is to make the anti-used game argument, the more likely they are to make the queer "games as art" argument that always makes me want to cave their skull in with a fucking hammer.

please repeat this on the next podcast

[chronovore]

I think the thing which worries me is that we're probably looking at universally priced $60 downloads.

Sure -- There will be talk about a varied pricing model, but it will boil down to something like when Apple said iTunes' 99¢ songs are now going to be between 69¢ and $1.29... and then almost everything went to $1.29.

And look at digital books. Instead of being reasonable about selling a nontransferable license to read a book, publishers are trying to charge hardcover prices for something which breaks due to DRM every other time the reader app is upgraded.

[maxy]

I don't think offline passes will change things much,if all.People will quickly adapt.

Totally killing used is very unlikely scenario.

[pilonv1]

If anything Amazon is making things worse by driving down prices of new games. Why aren't people up in arms about Amazon's price cutting? If you loved games you'd pay full price.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Prove it.

Release games at retail and digitally the same day and promote the shit out of the digital version. Don't give every store with a video game section some bullshit pre-order "bonus", either.

You want to save the industry? The answer isn't cutting out used sales, the answer is tiered pricing. But that'll never happen because publishers are afraid that a $40 game at launch looks "weaker" than the $60 game next to it. I bet games like SSX, Asura's Wrath and Ninja Gaiden 3 would have almost doubled in sales at $30/$40 at launch.

I suspect part of the roadblock to tiered pricing is that some suit sees that they might be making less money with a $40 game than a $60 game and it is worth the gamble in their minds to go with the higher price.  For example, if SSX sells 1 million copies at $40, he/she will scratch their heads and want to know how much money they would have brought in at $60 vs. $40.  If SSX theoretically sells 800,000 copies at $60, in their minds, the company lost $8 million in potential revenue.

[maxy]

$60 is like an old habit,difficult to change

[Human Snorenado]

I find that the more likely someone is to make the anti-used game argument, the more likely they are to make the queer "games as art" argument that always makes me want to cave their skull in with a fucking hammer.

please repeat this on the next podcast

We might need to do a "games as art" segment.  Not sure who we're gonna get to play the devil's advocate on that one though, sure as fuck won't be me. 

I'm not even completely hostile towards the notion of games trying to present themselves as art... just make sure that you're still a fucking GAME though.  Either that, or go full distinguished mentally-challenged fellow like Killer 7.  I didn't think that was a good game by any stretch of the imagination, but I will give A's for effort and uh, A for effort there duders.

[archie4208]

It's pretty funny seeing dinosaur publishers cling to life with their broken $60 "AAA" business model while other avenues (free to play and indies) seem to be doing ok.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Prove it.

Release games at retail and digitally the same day and promote the shit out of the digital version. Don't give every store with a video game section some bullshit pre-order "bonus", either.

You want to save the industry? The answer isn't cutting out used sales, the answer is tiered pricing. But that'll never happen because publishers are afraid that a $40 game at launch looks "weaker" than the $60 game next to it. I bet games like SSX, Asura's Wrath and Ninja Gaiden 3 would have almost doubled in sales at $30/$40 at launch.

I suspect part of the roadblock to tiered pricing is that some suit sees that they might be making less money with a $40 game than a $60 game and it is worth the gamble in their minds to go with the higher price.  For example, if SSX sells 1 million copies at $40, he/she will scratch their heads and want to know how much money they would have brought in at $60 vs. $40.  If SSX theoretically sells 800,000 copies at $60, in their minds, the company lost $8 million in potential revenue.

Maybe SSX is a bad example (It's doing pretty well) but in order to show people that good games will be sold at a "budget" price, you need a game like SSX to be released at that price-point.

SSX can be substituted for a lot of games these days.  Either way, my point is that you probably have a lot of higher ups at certain publishers who probably think that they can gamble on selling the game at $60 and making more money that way.  It is why publishers are going the route of $60 + $60 worth of DLC + Anti-Consumer Measures + Railing against the used game market than the other way.  They most likely assume that there are a core constituency of consumers who are going to get the game regardless of the price and dropping it to $40 won't do a damn thing except bring in less money.

[Stoney Mason]

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

 

[Stoney Mason]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-04-16-the-price-is-wrong

 

[Eel O'Brian]

"Nintendo goon"

both of those links are great reads

[etiolate]

Publishers are refusing to take risks all on their own. I would argue their over-saturating the market with overly familiar titles is why people try to take as little risk in buying as possible. 

[Human Snorenado]

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

 

I never thought I'd agree with Kohler so much.

[Stoney Mason]

Publishers are refusing to take risks all on their own. I would argue their over-saturating the market with overly familiar titles is why people try to take as little risk in buying as possible.

It's all interconnected. Budgets increase. Which means massive sales become even more important because one big budget miss could sink your company. So risk taking decreases as a result of those two factors. That's the dilemma. You have to counter-act that by having multiple price points and multiple budget points. There will always be big AAA games that people buy. There is a low end option where indie and free to play and XBLA/PSN exists. What happened is the massive middle has been cut away. It's like in the NBA. You either want to be at the top or the bottom. The middle is death.

[magus]

you know as a pirate hur dur u are an hypocrite,i shouldn't say this but people are noticing games are expensive only now that some jerk has been ranting about the second hand market?!?!?!?!? here in italy most of the big game are published all by one single big publisher called halifax... who then proceed to sells them for 75 euro

that's 25 euro less than what i paid for a gamecube in his late life-cycle

[pilonv1]

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

 

I never thought I'd agree with Kohler so much.

Me either. Some good points there

[Stoney Mason]

Interim DICE CEO and Battlefield 3 executive producer Patrick Bach has weighed in on the debate surrounding the rumoured introduction of anti-used game measures for next-gen consoles.

"Yeah, I heard about that. I think that can be a win and a loss," he told CVG at a recent EA event. "I think it's a loss if it only means that you will be able to get fewer games for the same money. But in theory you could see it the other way, because a lot of companies making games today are struggling based on second-hand sales."

"So if you think that there are too few new IPs on the market, no one can take that risk if their game is at risk of being resold too many times. Therefore you see a lot of online games being the most popular. You mentioned that you feel like a lot of [online shooters] have the same formula and this is one of the reasons, which most people seem to not realise.

"So on the positive side you could see more games being created because of this, and also more new IPs, because there'd be a bigger market for games that don't have for instance multiplayer. There could be awesome single player-only games, which you can't really do these days because people just pirate them, which is sad.

"From a gamer perspective, if you want to buy as many games as possible then this could be a problem, but if you want more diverse games then it's a more positive thing than negative. The only thing I know is that people are not doing it to be evil and stupid, it's about trying to create some benefits for consumers."

  at the bolded. The reason pure single player games have a tougher time is not because of piracy at least on the consoles and in the biggest markets.

[Trent Dole]

A Battlefield dev is sad about no single player stuff? Go make a cool single player game and maybe people will check it out, making more godawful multiplayer shooter shit and whining about it isn't going to help fucking anything.

[Joe Molotov]

These guys are so full of crap. "Games will cost more, but they will be a lot better if you just let us squeeze more money out of you." Yeah right. 

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah, just look at a recent single-player game like The Witcher 2, everyone just pirated it and nobody bought it. Oh wait, it sold over a million copies on PC and was a success for the company, so much so that they released a huge update just a few weeks ago, despite having zero DRM.

[Positive Touch]

but rumbler they could have sold EIGHT MILLION copies if it weren't for those damn pirates! they're destroying cd projekt red!

[Eel O'Brian]

these people will never learn

no, wait, scratch that - they will learn, and it'll be pretty funny, but they will refuse to acknowledge what caused it and continue to blame something/everything else

i see a lot of parallels with what led the comic book industry into a downward spiral from the mid-90s onward

[pilonv1]

I like that if Gamestop closed down today it would result in hundreds of new IP games spawning out of nowhere.

[Joe Molotov]

DICE is just dying to give us new IPs out the butt, but they can't because of Gamestop and you bought a used copy of Mirrors Edge one time, now they have to make Battlefield 4: Modern Shitware.

[Great Rumbler]

"Hey, guys, if next-gen consoles locked out used games, we'd be able to make Mirror's Edge 2!"

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I'd choke out 50 pirates if it meant getting RalliSport Challenge 3

[pilonv1]

I look forward to the next reason for games not selling after used games have disappeared from our lives.

"Game renting is preventing us from making new IPs"
"People lending games are stealing money from devs"

etc...

[Positive Touch]

"you all aren't buying enough of our dlc; don't you want us to have enough money to make a sequel?"

[Great Rumbler]

"All new $60 games now come with mandatory $15 DLC to activate on your console!"

[Positive Touch]

"this upcoming title will not be available for purchase, but we will allow you to rent the game in small, overpriced chunks"

[Eel O'Brian]

"think of it as episodic gaming without the hassle of waiting to pay"

"and if this doesn't work, we're lobbying to get buying used declared a hate crime"

[maxy]

Publishers should unite and buy Gamestop.All problems solved,new $40 million IPs spawning like crazy.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Mirrors Edge already had time trials, thats all the multi it needs.

Game of the generation.

[Brehvolution]

I worked in the piracy/copyright field for 4 years albeit in the music industry but i can tell you that studies WERE conducted back in the mid to late 90s that -conclusively proved- that

1) piracy actually increased sales long term
2) it was a general noise factor to hide the fact that rampant commercialism had lead to labels backing "boy bands" and other turgid short term profit centers.

"WHY ARE OUR SALES SO SHITTY?! do we go with

1) we dumped all the actual music artists in favour of BOYZ TO CATZ! , FRISKY FRISKY GIRLS CLUB, and S CLUB BROS IN THE HOOD! and they all sold like shite, showing our complete lack of foresite and ability to understand our demographics

or

2) THEM FILTHY PIRATZ! If everyone with no money had money and decided to buy stuff that we don't offer online then we could have made <imaginary number> profits!"

Goddamn you are on a roll lately.