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Kanluwen wrote:As opposed to the "Gamestop is a friend and hero to the people; letting people buy the game for a whole $5 less used and also giving us obscenely powerful preorder bonuses letting us wreck the fun of the game for everyone else" line you were posting?

No, please try to think of yourself (or at least me) as distinct from a corporation. GameStop allows consumers to do something that is both in their own interests and in the interest of GameStop. This does not make GameStop a hero of the people.

I'm not sure where you're equating that with GW's line, by the way. Or are you trying to spin this off into comparing Gamestop to CHS? Because that deserves a special mention of the Chewbacca defense.

I am referring to GW's "we sell a hobby" idea.


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Melissia wrote:

Manchu wrote:This is because the interests of GameStop and the publishers are aligned at launch. It is only afterward that they drift apart.

Actually I was gonna say that ALL new game buyers, not just preorders from a specific store.

Here's a question: do you think EA prefers to make it's money sooner or later?

Manchu wrote:

LordofHats wrote:Post launch and DLC content fund themselves. EDIT: Unless all those things became free while I wasn't looking.

Not patches.

Patches would have to be funded and released anyway, unless the game sold so poorly that there's no point in making them

If 500,000 need a patch to fix game imbalances in Underwater Super Soldier Man Extreme 3, then whether those copies are new or used is irrelevant. Its unlikely that the majority of users are using used copies, and the development costs of the patch are finite and independent of how many people need it. Distribution of the patch is a miniscule cost, meaning under what circumstances a copy was acquired doesn't effect costs for patches at all.

And besides, even then if 500,000 new copies were sold then you never have to support more than 500,000 people. A used owner is to a company, no different from a new owner as far as ongoing costs of support are concerned. New or used, they'd have to pay that cost anyway.

Manchu wrote:Here's a question: do you think EA prefers to make it's money sooner or later?

So release the preorder bonses as a day one DLC bundle. I mean it already has to be in the game at day one, after all, and we know the best way to have DLC sell well is for it to be day one DLC. This would mean that people could purchase both a preorder from one company and then on day one they'd purchase whatever other preorder bonuses they want as DLC.

LordofHats wrote:Patches would have to be funded and released anyway, unless the game sold so poorly that there's no point in making them.

This also ties into the idea of publishers rushing shipping dates and not performing QA. But patches still cost money and publishers still assume that post-launch sales should cover it.

Again, I'm building a case of why publishers are the issue rather than the used game market.

Manchu wrote:

LordofHats wrote:Patches would have to be funded and released anyway, unless the game sold so poorly that there's no point in making them.

This also ties into the idea of publishers rushing shipping dates and not performing QA. But patches still cost money and publishers still assume that post-launch sales should cover it.

Again, I'm building a case of why publishers are the issue rather than the used game market.

Ideally speaking a patch is not a large cost unless there are serious bugs in which case they should have been addressed before release (and I refuse to allow developers or publishers blame anyone other than themselves for a mistake like that, its disingenuous). Going into game files and changing some numbers around to change balance doesn't cost that much. One guy can do it and test it and be done in a few hours.

Assuming they made a significant profit, the cost of patching is miniscule and negligeable unless serious issues were not addressed in development. This could explain in part why free content has gone the way of the dodo, but its not an argument that the developers/publishers are losing money.

Manchu wrote:

biccat wrote:Are you talking about the "gold editions" or whatever, that bundle the original game with any expansions?

I thought she meant having content that anyone who doesn't purchase a new copy of the game will have to purchase that would be free to everyone who did purchase a new copy.

So you buy a new copy of Super Soldier CLXVII and get the Lastar 5300 Sniper Pistol for free, which you download online with a code that only works once. And if someone later buys your copy of the game after you traded it in, they'll have to buy that download if they want the weapon.

So again -- what publishers already do, in partnership with companies like GameStop, who in turn push sales of new games at launch as hard as they possibly can.

This is because the interests of GameStop and the publishers are aligned at launch. It is only afterward that they drift apart.

The "Gold Editions" which I think biccat is referring to are the "Game of the Year" editions.

In the case of some games(BF3, for example) they slap a "Limited Edition" tag onto the box and then do something in there to encourage you to buy it new at launch and keep it.
BF3's "Limited Edition" gave you a voucher which allowed you to download "Back to Karkand"(a big DLC package which came out a few months later) for free when it launched.

The online passes which EA packages with new games do not necessarily allow you to get any items. In the case of BF3, the Online Pass gave you access to the "meat" of the game: the Multiplayer. They, of course, allow you to buy an Online Pass from XBL/PSN directly--but at the cost of a difference between the "Used" copy you bought and the "New" copy you could have bought.

That works out for EA a bit in conjunction with them staggering their big DLC releases and doing it in such a way that it undermines the "new hotness" title launches.

Someone told me today - with a completely straight face - that if I bought a used game I was no better than someone who pirates the game.

Yeah. I stopped listening to him after that.

Melissia wrote:Tying post-launch content and multiplayer to a specific account works, especially for console games where said account can be tied to a specific console game, or on such systems as Steam where games are owned by the account specifically.

I guess I worded that wrong:
There's no way for game companies to distinguish between new and secondhand users that wouldn't also allow them to wholly eliminate the secondhand market.

If console games can be tied to a specific account, the publisher can stop other accounts from using the game. Steam also is a particularly heavy-handed form of DRM. Mandatory registration (same thing as "coupon codes") would also serve the same function.

Melissia wrote:

Manchu wrote:Here's a question: do you think EA prefers to make it's money sooner or later?

So release the preorder bonses as a day one DLC bundle. I mean it already has to be in the game at day one, after all, and we know the best way to have DLC sell well is for it to be day one DLC.

Melissia, now you're getting at what D1DLC really is!

Ahtman posted a helpful graphic earlier but I'll summarize it:

Publishers get developers to make a game and before it ships the publishers carve out a piece. That piece becomes D1DLC. Does this encourage anyone to buy a new copy of the game? Does it discourage anyone from buying a used copy of the game? Nope and nope. What it does is makes all copies of the game incomplete. In effect, all copies of the game become invitations to buy more content from the publisher.

This is why D1DLC as it is actually sold is not at all related to the used games market.

Ah, in that case yes, I agree with you, Biccat.

Manchu wrote:Melissia, now you're getting at what D1DLC really is!

I don't think you quite understand what I was saying.

Even today, we still have preorder bonuses that are not released later on as DLC.

Space Marine's power sword preorder bonus, for example, took a long time to be released. Which doesn't really make any sense-- if it was released on day one as DLC it'd have made much more money than several months down the line. And unlike the Chaos unleashed pack, it was already finished on day one anyway.

No, I understand what you mean.

What I am saying is that publishers are using DLC to make more money. Any attack on the used game market is completely incidental. Their complaint that the used market undermines them is true but they don't seem to be interested in actually addressing it other than tarring businesses and customers engaged in the used game market. The idea that this market is unfair or immoral or unethical is completely false.

Oh yeah, almost forgot about this:

Manchu wrote:Melissia, now you're getting at what D1DLC really is!

Ahtman posted a helpful graphic earlier but I'll summarize it:

Publishers get developers to make a game and before it ships the publishers carve out a piece. That piece becomes D1DLC. Does this encourage anyone to buy a new copy of the game? Does it discourage anyone from buying a used copy of the game? Nope and nope. What it does is makes all copies of the game incomplete. In effect, all copies of the game become invitations to buy more content from the publisher.

This is why D1DLC as it is actually sold is not at all related to the used games market.

Er what?

You're arguing two different things here.
Preorder bonuses are not the same thing as D1DLC.
Collector's Edition bonuses(ex: vouchers for early access to later DLC or some kind of unique item exclusive to the CE) are not necessarily the same thing as D1DLC.

When a developer's forums are loaded up with people complaining that "X gets Y, but why doesn't Z get Y too!" and they choose to release the DLC which was scheduled to release some months later early--that's not really "D1DLC". That's caving to the complaints.

Manchu wrote:The idea that this market is unfair or immoral or unethical is completely false.

But so is the idea that their efforts to undermine it is unfair as well. If gamestop is wholly moral and righteous for wanting to do nothing but expand its profits at the expense of everyone else, then surely the producers and developers are wholly moral and righteous for seeking the same path.

Replace "now" with "2010" and "2020" with "2012."

Electronic Arts: Building Better Worlds


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Melissia wrote:If gamestop is wholly moral and righteous for wanting to do nothing but expand its profits at the expense of everyone else, then surely the producers and developers are wholly moral and righteous for seeking the same path.

There is no question of being moral or righteous. The question is what is best for me, the customer. All the companies can worry about themselves and they sure as hell are not going to worry about me.

Honestly? The customer is probably served best through some program such as Steam as opposed to Gamestop.

Steam allowing the producers to have sales or lower prices whenever they want, while also having minimal overhead compared to Gamestop thus allowing Steam and the producers to have a higher profit margin and thus have more game content (or new games) released.

Melissia wrote:Honestly? The customer is probably served best through some program such as Steam as opposed to Gamestop.

A lot of customers (who play games on PCs) seem to think so. No doubt publishers will one day claim that Steam will destroy the PC gaming industry.

Then again, we also have to take into account all the Xbox and PS3 gamers who don't have the internet hooked up to their consoles/don't want it hooked up/don't want to pay 60 bucks a year.

Discs are the best way to market a console game. There's a reason that no-one lined up around the block to play Trials HD, while COD fetched queues of massive size. It's because using a download only system blocks off a lot of console gamers.

The Steam system only works for PC. Consoles are another beast entirely.

Just a general note, whenever any company says "doing X will destroy the industry!" all they really mean is that they themselves stand to lose.

Manchu wrote:

Melissia wrote:Honestly? The customer is probably served best through some program such as Steam as opposed to Gamestop.

A lot of customers (who play games on PCs) seem to think so. No doubt publishers will one day claim that Steam will destroy the PC gaming industry.

I'm sure EA will at any rate, solely because of its pushing of Origin. But that just means that EA is now competing with Steam, and doing it poorly.

If EA's Origin becomes as good as Steam, they'll do just fine-- after all they have a good customer base and profitable games, and they'd not be selling any of their games on Steam unless they specifically chose to do so (notice Battlefield 3 and Mass Effect 3's absence on Steam, for example). I have my doubts that EA would want to sell any other publisher's titles on Origin, so EA vs Valve will be a different monster than EA vs Gamestop.

Of course, that's a big if. I doubt Origin will be able to compete with Steam in terms of quality of service, so they'll have to rely on the popularity of their games entirely.

I don't think there's any inherent problem with DLC, as long as it is an expansion on the game and not content removed from the finished product.

If publishers want to kill used games then fine, but they need to stop Day 1 DLC and especially on-disc DLC... fething Street Fighter x Tekken... fething Capcom...

H.B.M.C. wrote:I don't think there's any inherent problem with DLC, as long as it is an expansion on the game and not content removed from the finished product.

The distribution channel seems to play a big part in the outcome. It would be difficult for a game company to put ME3's true ending on a disk, send it out to stores for $20, and have it sit on a shelf next to the $60 copy of ME3. That's basically a display communicating to the customer: "this game actually costs $80." DLC is a format that allows publishers to get away with that.

Except for the fact that DLC isn't $20 for the most part.

Come to think of it, I can't think of any one piece of DLC which has been $20.

Maybe the Gears 3 Season Pass; but that has encompassed multiple DLC packs(at least 4-5 so far, with the Season Pass still having more content to come according to Epic).

Maybe it's just Steam's average ,but most DLc I've seen is <=$5.

From Ashes was $10. If you think DLC will remain this "cheap," especially as DLC becomes more central to the game itself, you are in denial. Of course, by "cheap" I mean insanely expensive given that I already paid $60 for this content and then found it absent from my game.

Manchu wrote:From Ashes was $10. If you think DLC will remain this "cheap," especially as DLC becomes more central to the game itself, you are in denial. Of course, by "cheap" I mean insanely expensive given that I already paid $60 for this content and then found it absent from my game.

Its on the game disk actually

Manchu wrote:From Ashes was $10. If you think DLC will remain this "cheap," especially as DLC becomes more central to the game itself, you are in denial. Of course, by "cheap" I mean insanely expensive given that I already paid $60 for this content and then found it absent from my game.

What exactly is on From Ashes?

My understanding it's got a planet and a whole chain of quests for the Prothean guy, yes?

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2012/03/15/mass-effect-3-from-ashes-dlc-review/

Yeah, not anything that adds to my gameplay then.

In a game about the struggle to fight an ancient race of universe destroyers, against which we only have hope because of the Protheans, a Prothean character and mission line is indeed comepletely extraneous. It's so extraneous, furthermore, that BioWare/EA didn't even need to include it on-disc because it effects one of the game's major selling points, the cause & effect decisions feature.

Oh sorry, I was posting from Bizarro World. Just read all of that as if it were the opposite of what it says.