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 illuknisaa wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
Nah Live is fine...
GFWL is truly horrific though...

Isn't Live worse?

As far as I know you have to pay for gold membership inorder to play online and it still has adds.

Ads?
I guess...
I don't really notice it...

 illuknisaa wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
Nah Live is fine...
GFWL is truly horrific though...

Isn't Live worse?

As far as I know you have to pay for gold membership inorder to play online and it still has ads.

It has ads on the Dashboard, with the ads tailored to match achievements/games played.

It doesn't interrupt your game to pop up an ad or anything of that nature though.

Yea, and really you have to scroll over the ad to even hear it. So really, its no big deal, I dont even notice it most the time anyways.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not to mention, I dont think Ill be bothered by this new trend. Because Im usually 3 years behind everyone on games anyways. So I just buy new games, that are old, so the cost is pretty low. So if this is how I typically do things, I wont be affected. And personally, I hate Gamestop with a passion, so they can burn for all I care. Though I will feel a bit bad for other stores like that, that dont rip customers off

 KingCracker wrote:
Yea, and really you have to scroll over the ad to even hear it. So really, its no big deal, I dont even notice it most the time anyways.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not to mention, I dont think Ill be bothered by this new trend. Because Im usually 3 years behind everyone on games anyways. So I just buy new games, that are old, so the cost is pretty low. So if this is how I typically do things, I wont be affected. And personally, I hate Gamestop with a passion, so they can burn for all I care. Though I will feel a bit bad for other stores like that, that dont rip customers off

To be fair, most of the adds are tailored to things you're interested in. Now, if every time I turned on my xbox I got an add for tampon coupons I would be furious. So far though, the way they've handled adds has been alright in my book. You pretty much have to seek them out.

As for this whole used games thing, I don't get why video game companies feel they're special about the whole used market.

There are massive used markets for guns, cars, musical instruments, music CD's (although to be fair they fight it as much as videogames), DVD's, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. The government hasn't outlawed the sale of most other used items, so why do video game companies think they should be treated any differently?

Penalizing customers is not the way to earn their trust. Giving free bonuses to people that buy new is a good thing. Free DLC like Battlefield 3 did (where you got an entire DLC pack for free if you bought it new) is good. That's basically saying "hey, we would really like you to buy this game new. If you do, we'll give you this content for free." It's a reward and encourages you to buy it new.

HOWEVER, penalizing your customers for buying used is a bad thing. For example, the online pass deal. You're basically saying "If you buy used, you're an ass. If you're going to be that way, have fun playing alone until you pay us to unlock your game for you."

You'll never eliminate the second hand market. Game companies need to learn to man up like every other business and figure out a way to survive alongside secondhand sales, rather than taking the lazy route and just trying to crush them out of the market. Things like DLC packs for example have to be bought from the company whether your game is new or used. Offering more DLC to give used players incentives to buy something straight from the company for example are good fixes, even if I'm not a huge fan of them.

TL;DR: When videogame companies sit there and whine about their lost sales from used titles, they come across as childish and spoiled to me. If the used market truly destroyed companies, places like Gibson, Chevorlet, and Colt would have gone out of business a long time ago. They need to learn to adapt to a new environment, or suffer the consequences. Trying to just stamp out their competition rather than figure out a way to compete with them is just lazy business and borderline, if not outright illegal.

While I'm primarily a PC gamer, I do enjoy my XBOX a great deal.

This kind of thing would be a bit of a deal breaker for me. I travel a lot, and generally when I go to a place for a few months or more, I bring my xbox. I don't always have decent internet there. So, this would be a dealbreaker for me.

I am confused right now...so what your saying is if one console (lets say XBOX) has this new "feature" people will hate it and go to the different console to play second hand games/ do PC gaming?

On an ideological level, this is absolutely revolting and intolerable. On a pragmatic level, anything that weakens consoles can only be good, and this would be a devastating move for manufacturers as their only halfway redeeming feature is the easy availability of second hand games.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 KingCracker wrote:
Yea, and really you have to scroll over the ad to even hear it. So really, its no big deal, I dont even notice it most the time anyways.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not to mention, I dont think Ill be bothered by this new trend. Because Im usually 3 years behind everyone on games anyways. So I just buy new games, that are old, so the cost is pretty low. So if this is how I typically do things, I wont be affected. And personally, I hate Gamestop with a passion, so they can burn for all I care. Though I will feel a bit bad for other stores like that, that dont rip customers off

To be fair, most of the adds are tailored to things you're interested in. Now, if every time I turned on my xbox I got an add for tampon coupons I would be furious. So far though, the way they've handled adds has been alright in my book. You pretty much have to seek them out.

As for this whole used games thing, I don't get why video game companies feel they're special about the whole used market.

There are massive used markets for guns, cars, musical instruments, music CD's (although to be fair they fight it as much as videogames), DVD's, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. The government hasn't outlawed the sale of most other used items, so why do video game companies think they should be treated any differently?

Penalizing customers is not the way to earn their trust. Giving free bonuses to people that buy new is a good thing. Free DLC like Battlefield 3 did (where you got an entire DLC pack for free if you bought it new) is good. That's basically saying "hey, we would really like you to buy this game new. If you do, we'll give you this content for free." It's a reward and encourages you to buy it new.

HOWEVER, penalizing your customers for buying used is a bad thing. For example, the online pass deal. You're basically saying "If you buy used, you're an ass. If you're going to be that way, have fun playing alone until you pay us to unlock your game for you."

You'll never eliminate the second hand market. Game companies need to learn to man up like every other business and figure out a way to survive alongside secondhand sales, rather than taking the lazy route and just trying to crush them out of the market. Things like DLC packs for example have to be bought from the company whether your game is new or used. Offering more DLC to give used players incentives to buy something straight from the company for example are good fixes, even if I'm not a huge fan of them.

TL;DR: When videogame companies sit there and whine about their lost sales from used titles, they come across as childish and spoiled to me. If the used market truly destroyed companies, places like Gibson, Chevorlet, and Colt would have gone out of business a long time ago. They need to learn to adapt to a new environment, or suffer the consequences. Trying to just stamp out their competition rather than figure out a way to compete with them is just lazy business and borderline, if not outright illegal.

I do agree though. When I first heard about this argument with the companies feeling like they are missing out on the pie, I just couldnt (and still cant) wrap my head around that one. You sold the game new at some point. You made your money. Then the new proud owner of said game, gets bored and sells it. WHERE exactly, does the company in question think its allowed money from this? Just stupid.

This is a sad change, i dont own a xbox but getting rid of the 2nd hand market is bleh.

As a PC gamer, i have Steam.. steam has amazing sales on games all the time..

Along with.. a growing List of Amazing free 2 play games.

Buy a system.. free games... pay for the content you want and go on.. PC's ftw.

On topic though.. i hope they rethink this, Consoles and 2nd hand games just go together.

What's wrong with you people? This is an outrage! Where is your outrage? You can't even lend a friend a game you bought. Outrage!

PC gaming is free and the games are much less expensive.

I very, very, very rarely buy used games. I think the only used game I've bought this generation was Dead Rising 2, and that's simply because I didn't know much about it and wanted to give it a try. Turned out my fiancee adored the game but I hated it, so it wasn't a total loss.

Generally, I'm the type of gamer who researches games before I buy them, and then buy them the day/week they are released. So I don't see the point in buying a used copy for $5au less. I even liked EA's attempt to add $10 worth of DLC to new copies to spur new sales.

So yeah, this wouldn't affect me at all (especially since I don't game on a 360, but I wouldn't mind it going to PS3 as well). In fact, I'd be pretty glad that I didn't have to wade through piles of used copies of games to make my way to the new releases.

I don't think I've ever bought a new console on release, instead waiting for prices to fall and the pre-owned games market to ripen.
If this turns out to be more than a rumour then Sony and Microsoft are dicing with death. It doesn't seem like a logical risk to me, as this will probably happen of its own accord once download sales begin to dominate console gaming.

Loki:

The tech is being licensed from Sony. The likelihood of the PS4 not having it is so slim that you might as well try to convince people you are the reincarnation of Alexander the Great.

Well, this would have minimal effect on me, but I do tend to borrow games from my roommate who works for a large game retailer and gets them for free. I buy the DLC for the games to support the developer, but I've played at least four or five games over the last year that I did not purchase myself. It would mean I have to spend extra money on games if I want them, and I would be a bit more selective on which games I play, but otherwise I don't have a problem with it.

There is a huge problem with the current video game market because there are basically four major interested parties in every single game title. The retailer who actually sells the physical copy of the game, the publisher, who pays for the game's creation, the developer, who contracts with the publisher in order to actually produce the games, and the console maker, who whats a wide selection of games available for their console. The developer is at the bottom of the rung when it comes to getting paid. The retailer puts a standard mark-up on the product to make their initial profit, and the publisher takes the lions share of profits leaving the scraps for the development studio. The current game-trade and second-hand-sales market completely cuts the publisher and developer out of the loop on secondary profits for the title (hence online activation codes, etc...), giving the retailer a lot of power. The DLC market on the other hand, helps to give the developer some additional profits, which helps even the playing field between the developer/publisher dynamic. This is why I tend to buy DLC if I like a game.

Of all four of those interested parties, I would think the console maker would not really have a horse in the race of second hand games. Except for proprietary titles (Halo for XBox, or Nintendo first party titles, for example), I would think second hand sales actually boost console sales rather than harm them, and the more people that get their hands on a title and buy DLC through the console store with the console's points, the more of a profit cut they get from non-proprietary titles. They of course get a cut of the profits when a developer licenses the rights to develop a game on their console, but aside from that payout, I don't believe they get any direct profits from the sales of third-party titles, though I could be wrong. It would seem illogical for a console maker to be the one to push for cutting out second-hand sales since obviously the more affordable games become, the more consoles they will sell to a wider variety of individuals.

Honestly, I figured the publisher would be the one to go all-or-nothing on game sales before anyone else. Big name publishers like EA already require the purchase of online codes for second-hand games in order to access the multiplayer features. I figured the next step would be requiring a code to access certain single-player features on games purchased second-hand, which would effectively kill the game-trade business.

Requiring online activation in order to play any part of a game is not a new thing, and has been a feature in the PC gaming industry for some time. Almost every PC title that has any online play comes with an activation code that you have to register in order to play the game (especially EA titles), and recently Blizzard required that Diablo III players connect to their server even for single player, which caused a massive fiasco when players flooded the server and could not play the title at all until things died down. I foresee similar issues in the console world if this rumor is true, since it likely means that in order to play a game's single player features, you would be required to connect to the server for that title. If your internet connection went down, or XBox Live/PSN had an issue, or if the servers were flooded/down for maintenance, you would not be able to play the game at all. In other words, if they do this, anyone with spotty internet will basically be screwed, and game developers/publishers will be forced to move away from hosted multiplayer (ME3, for example) to a full server-based system, potentially increasing the cost of games and giving them a shelf life, since servers for certain games will eventually go offline to make room for new titles. It will also drive game retailers out of business since all of their profits come from second-hand game sales.

To the consumer like me, it really doesn't make a huge impact since I pay for XBox Live, am always connected to it on a strong connection, and I don't have a problem downloading games. But it represents a pretty big paradigm shift in the console gaming industry, and could drive a number of companies out of business while letting others flourish. But to be honest, it's not surprising, and it was not that hard to see it coming. Computers and consoles are moving to a cloud storage-based system, and everything is moving to a subscription/microtransaction format. It won't be long before video game consoles just have an online library of games stored in the cloud, and the player chooses a title and either pays a subscription to access all of the features for a period of time, or pays a one-time fee for the basic content, then uses micro-transactions to unlock other features. That would kill second-hand sales anyway, and this is just a step in that direction.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 KingCracker wrote:
Yea, and really you have to scroll over the ad to even hear it. So really, its no big deal, I dont even notice it most the time anyways.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not to mention, I dont think Ill be bothered by this new trend. Because Im usually 3 years behind everyone on games anyways. So I just buy new games, that are old, so the cost is pretty low. So if this is how I typically do things, I wont be affected. And personally, I hate Gamestop with a passion, so they can burn for all I care. Though I will feel a bit bad for other stores like that, that dont rip customers off

To be fair, most of the adds are tailored to things you're interested in. Now, if every time I turned on my xbox I got an add for tampon coupons I would be furious. So far though, the way they've handled adds has been alright in my book. You pretty much have to seek them out.

As for this whole used games thing, I don't get why video game companies feel they're special about the whole used market.

There are massive used markets for guns, cars, musical instruments, music CD's (although to be fair they fight it as much as videogames), DVD's, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. The government hasn't outlawed the sale of most other used items, so why do video game companies think they should be treated any differently?

Penalizing customers is not the way to earn their trust. Giving free bonuses to people that buy new is a good thing. Free DLC like Battlefield 3 did (where you got an entire DLC pack for free if you bought it new) is good. That's basically saying "hey, we would really like you to buy this game new. If you do, we'll give you this content for free." It's a reward and encourages you to buy it new.

HOWEVER, penalizing your customers for buying used is a bad thing. For example, the online pass deal. You're basically saying "If you buy used, you're an ass. If you're going to be that way, have fun playing alone until you pay us to unlock your game for you."

You'll never eliminate the second hand market. Game companies need to learn to man up like every other business and figure out a way to survive alongside secondhand sales, rather than taking the lazy route and just trying to crush them out of the market. Things like DLC packs for example have to be bought from the company whether your game is new or used. Offering more DLC to give used players incentives to buy something straight from the company for example are good fixes, even if I'm not a huge fan of them.

TL;DR: When videogame companies sit there and whine about their lost sales from used titles, they come across as childish and spoiled to me. If the used market truly destroyed companies, places like Gibson, Chevorlet, and Colt would have gone out of business a long time ago. They need to learn to adapt to a new environment, or suffer the consequences. Trying to just stamp out their competition rather than figure out a way to compete with them is just lazy business and borderline, if not outright illegal.

The problem here is that almost every other product being sold on a used market has a shelf life. Cars eventually break and have maintenance costs, guns break down and require new parts. Basically, you are not getting a "good as new" product when you buy second hand, which provides the incentive to buy new products. Video games on the other hand are digital and unless the disk is scratched (meaning most places won't take it in trade anyway) you get the exact same product second hand as the guy who first bought it.

The problem is the publisher/developer dynamic. A developer gets the idea for a game and wants to make it, but because production costs for most big name titles are similar to most blockbuster movies, a development studio often lacks the investment capitol required to produce the game themselves. So they contract with a publisher who fronts them the money. The issue is that this publisher takes almost all of the profits from the newly created game, meaning THEY are making all of the money when the development studio is doing all the work. Developers are not being paid fairly for producing excellent games, and quality suffers because they are required to meet deadlines set by the publisher who want their money back on the investment.

Now along comes a retailer who will take used games in trade, and sells those used games at a significantly reduced cost. Basically, this game is good-as-new and costs less than half of what the same game costs new. None of that money goes to the people who made the game, or paid for it to be made. The developer and the publisher are COMPLETELY removed from the equation, and the retailer gets ALL of that extra money. On a new game sale, they might get 5% of the $60 that game costs, so $3 per game. On a used sale, they pay out maybe $2-$3 in store credit, and charge $15-$30 for the game depending on title, release date, etc...That's pure profit for the retailer.

So in response, the game makers require a consumer purchase a $15 code to access the online content of the game if they don't buy it new, but the cost is still less than the $60 it costs to buy the game at release. In other words, the retailers are one step ahead of every single game that is released, and unless you want the game immediately upon release and are willing to pay $60 for it, you can wait a month and buy it second hand at a significantly reduced cost, which cuts out a significant portion of the already meager profits the developer sees as a return for their hard work.

So yeah, there is a perfectly legit reason why video game companies are opposed to second-hand sales of their titles, because it means the consumer gets the exact same product as anyone buying it new, but they see absolutely no return from the guy who only buys second-hand unless he buys DLC or an online activation code. Even then, it's less money than they would make if he had bought the same game new. There is very little incentive for customers to buy games new, and no legislation that prevents the sale of used games, or requires that retailers give a portion of the profit to the developer/publisher. This is vastly different than most every other form of digital media, and it's a significant problem.