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SilverMK2 wrote:
@ Kan - so, you don't have a problem with used games as such, you just have a problem with people making money from it? There is nothing stopping Rage and other developers setting up their own stores to sell second hand games. But then that would be a whole other expense for them and they just want to make money for free... kind of like the 2nd hand game stores... except, you know, without any actual additional expenses...

The "2nd hand gamestores" aren't stores dedicated exclusively to selling second hand games. They run it as a side business, which is as you put it, giving them "money for free".

They already have the shops and the employees. They, officially, are selling "new" games and consoles. But they buy the stuff in question back from people at a steal and then resell it for a stupid amount, and then furthermore go to pull crap like we saw where they were pulling the promotional codes out of games and selling them by themselves.

If you can come up with a way for Bethesda, Bungie, etc to run a "buyback" program that doesn't lose them money--I'm sure they'd be interested. Because otherwise, they're going to be shelling out a rather large amount in shipping costs or having people whine about how they "had to pay to send the game back for the Buyback Program".

Kanluwen wrote:See, that's actually the thing that causes the problems in the developers' eyes.

You get a lot of these single player games(The Force Unleashed, for example) where people buy them brand new at launch--and then trade them in as soon as they do one playthrough. Gamestop will pay something like $35-$40 on the title depending on how 'in demand' it is. They then resell it for $52 or $57 as "PREOWNED", and they pocket the difference entirely on their own since the developers and publishers are only paid for the original sale.

But what does this guy that just sold "The Force Unleashed" do with the $35-$40 he just spent? He buys another game, brand new. Without that $35-$40 that he made selling his old game, he couldn't/wouldn't buy the next one, and possibly wouldn't have bought the first one. This type of customer is going to have a real hard time justifying $60+ on a game they will only play once (maybe 40 hours of play), but $20 for 40 hours of entertainment might be easier to justify. With the used market, this guy can buy 3 times the games that he could without. If even half of the games he sold were then bought by a person who would not have paid full price, then the developer is making more money this way.

For example, let's say this guy has $120 in disposable income per year. Games are $60 per game, with resale at $40. He buys 6 games per year ($360) and sells 6 ($240) for a net of $120 spent. Developers make $360 off game sales. Now, assuming 50% of those people that bought his used games would have bought new, and resale is not allowed: Our guy buys 2 games ($120) and 50% of the 6 is 3, so another 3 people buy games ($180). Developers make $300 instead of $360. In order for the numbers to become equal, you have to assume that 75% of the people buying used, would buy new if forced to.

What do you guys think? Do you think 3 out of 4 people that walk into a game store, would pay full price for all their games if there was no used market? I don't think so.

There is a humongous difference between a software pirate and a used game buyer. The used game buyer was willing to pay money for your product! It is a lot easier to convince a person that is already paying money for what you sell, to spend that money with you, then it is to convince someone getting the item for free to switch to paying.

Here's one: Game company takes the game back, either mail them back the discs, or the game becomes deregistered in Steam, or whatever, and offer a percentage of 'credit' toward another game, make it something comparable with what you would get for a trade-in at GameStop. Perhaps even a percentage more, as you want to make it just lucrative enough, and that way you're not 'losing' the copy to someone else who will simply reap the benefits. You then allow people to use the credit toward new games and continue to offer 'preowned' copies via mail order if people want the actual disks.

Literally just suck all the business out of GameStop. All it would take for Steam to facilitate this right now would be to simply strike up agreements with the game studios.

Tye_Informer wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:See, that's actually the thing that causes the problems in the developers' eyes.

You get a lot of these single player games(The Force Unleashed, for example) where people buy them brand new at launch--and then trade them in as soon as they do one playthrough. Gamestop will pay something like $35-$40 on the title depending on how 'in demand' it is. They then resell it for $52 or $57 as "PREOWNED", and they pocket the difference entirely on their own since the developers and publishers are only paid for the original sale.

But what does this guy that just sold "The Force Unleashed" do with the $35-$40 he just spent? He buys another game, brand new. Without that $35-$40 that he made selling his old game, he couldn't/wouldn't buy the next one, and possibly wouldn't have bought the first one. This type of customer is going to have a real hard time justifying $60+ on a game they will only play once (maybe 40 hours of play), but $20 for 40 hours of entertainment might be easier to justify. With the used market, this guy can buy 3 times the games that he could without. If even half of the games he sold were then bought by a person who would not have paid full price, then the developer is making more money this way.

Which does not matter to the developer. He is not guaranteed to spend that $35-$40 on a 'new' game, especially with the shady practices used by companies like GameStop where the trade-ins only get you store credit, and they shove "deals" in the form of "Buy X preowned games, get Y games(only available as preowned) for Z% off!"

There is a humongous difference between a software pirate and a used game buyer. The used game buyer was willing to pay money for your product! It is a lot easier to convince a person that is already paying money for what you sell, to spend that money with you, then it is to convince someone getting the item for free to switch to paying.

Debatable. The "deals" and "store credit" towards preowned games that draw people into buying preowned games from the shops that focus majorly on the preowned market draw in the people who aren't actually interested in the games, but rather whoring out their Achievement/Trophy scores. It encourages the constant buying of preowned and trading them back in for store credit towards other preowned games.

They just want another slice of the pie.

Interesting, so the game companies are greedy for wanting you to buy the game new, but this doesn't apply to Gamestop where they want to essentially sell the same copy of the same game ten times? And yeah, they do pay some (relatively small) amount of cash to buy the game back, but an overwhelming majority of the time, that goes right back into Gamestop's coffers when the customer spends it on more games (often used).

What I find even more insulting is half the time the used game is like $3 less than new. I mean, Christ, I might as well just fork over the extra three bucks and buy a shiny new shrink-wrapped copy.

RatBot wrote:
What I find even more insulting is half the time the used game is like $3 less than new. I mean, Christ, I might as well just fork over the extra three bucks and buy a shiny new shrink-wrapped copy.

And then you get that intoxicating "new game" smell. It's like opening up a tube of tennis balls for the first time.

I don't, it just seems like a token gesture to sell a used game for such a tiny discount. It probably matters less to me because I buy like one game every four months on average. Perhaps if I was the type of person to walk into the store and buy a huge stack of games in one go I'd appreciate it more.

RatBot wrote:Interesting, so the game companies are greedy for wanting you to buy the game new, but this doesn't apply to Gamestop where they want to essentially sell the same copy of the same game ten times?

I don't recall ever said that there isn't money being made. What I am saying is that the second hand market is not costing the games companies any money. The vast majority of all my console games are pre-owned because it is usually cheaper (though the cost drop these days does not seem to be as good as it used to be). Almost all of my PC games are bought new.

The reason? PC games cost less than console games, have more features (most of the time), free DLC, or free community made DLC anyway (or just DLC in general). I buy them new because they are worth buying new. Console games; what do I really get for buying new? The fuzzy feeling of handing over lots of my money to a games company? The knowledge that I could have bought it £10-£20 cheaper if I had bought it new on PC? Or I could have got it for £5-10 cheaper buying it pre-owned (for relatively new games)?

Things are worth what people are willing to pay for them, and the prevalence of the 2nd hand gaming market, as well as its value that games companies want a slice of, is absolutely huge, which would indicate that a lot of people are not willing to pay "buy as new" prices for a game you can blow through in 5 hours on the hardest setting, which is no different from 1000's of other titles and which you will forget within days.

SilverMK2 wrote:

RatBot wrote:Interesting, so the game companies are greedy for wanting you to buy the game new, but this doesn't apply to Gamestop where they want to essentially sell the same copy of the same game ten times?

I don't recall ever said that there isn't money being made. What I am saying is that the second hand market is not costing the games companies any money. The vast majority of all my console games are pre-owned because it is usually cheaper (though the cost drop these days does not seem to be as good as it used to be). Almost all of my PC games are bought new.

The reason? PC games cost less than console games, have more features (most of the time), free DLC, or free community made DLC anyway (or just DLC in general). I buy them new because they are worth buying new. Console games; what do I really get for buying new? The fuzzy feeling of handing over lots of my money to a games company? The knowledge that I could have bought it £10-£20 cheaper if I had bought it new on PC? Or I could have got it for £5-10 cheaper buying it pre-owned (for relatively new games)?

Things are worth what people are willing to pay for them, and the prevalence of the 2nd hand gaming market, as well as its value that games companies want a slice of, is absolutely huge, which would indicate that a lot of people are not willing to pay "buy as new" prices for a game you can blow through in 5 hours on the hardest setting, which is no different from 1000's of other titles and which you will forget within days.

This is a good point, I suppose, and admittedly one I hadn't considered since I don't own a current gen console and play PC games exclusively. I actually didn't even really realize that Console games are now $60 a pop brand new? L. O. L.

I don't think the nearest Gamestop even stocks PC games (dunno, I moved recently, haven't been in, took a peek through the front window a didn't see any). I get 'em from the Best Buy next door.

daedalus wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
This is an illogical argument. The cost of a 10+ year old used game plus DLC will be CHEAPER than a new copy of the game...

Indeed. So cheap it won't cost you a dime, because you won't be able to find it. You'll probably be able to find the game, sure. Where are you getting the DLC from? The company that stopped selling the game 10 years ago? They might have and offer it still.

Listen, I'm not pissed about the fact that the used guy has to pay still for it. I mean, I am, but that's not the drive behind my argument. I'm arguing that it just WON'T BE THERE. If there was a way to guarantee that the extra content, whatever it was, would exist in perpetuity somewhere for a flat fee, then great. But we're talking about what is effectively evaporating art here, and that's not cool.

I don't know how XBL works, but in terms of the Playstation Network, the DLC data is maintained in Sony's database/servers. There is no DLC available for games that old because they simply don't exist, but there is DLC for games that were released when the PS3 first came out, which is something like what 4 or 5 years ago? I know I purchased a game recently (Lair) that had DLC available for it from '07, as well as instantly being patched to the latest version (whatever that was/whenever that was released) when I went to start it up.I assume XBL works similarly.

Used copies of games don't require extra servers, extra technical support or anything extra on the part of the developers or publishers. No extra resources are used by people selling on their used games. To the company that makes them there is no difference (other than a change in IP address) to denote one person having sold the game on to someone else.

I've heard you argue this before, and its as flawed an argument now as it was then. While it doesn't 'cost anything extra', it still requires the maintenance cost to upkeep the servers, pay the tech support crew, and to pay the developers to patch the game. That cost doesn't change. The money used to pay these people and maintain/upgrade these systems so that you can utilize and play the game, as well as so that the developer can continue to pay people to develop NEW GAMES, COMES FROM PURCHASING NEW COPIES OF THE GAME. By purchasing a used copy of the game, you are essentially piggy backing in off of someone else, for all intents and purposes, you are a parasite, taking what you want without giving anything back to the system and its associated workplace economy. While you aren't adding any extra load to the servers or anything, you are accelerating the degradation of the system by denying the developer an additional revenue stream which is used to maintain it and improve it.

As for other DLC, such as map packs, etc. what percentage of games purchasers ever actually pay for most of that stuff? I know I very rarely do, ditto most of my friends. I would say that its a very limited source for additional revenue for the developers, might be enough to cover some functions, but it won't make up for all the lost sales resulting from a used game.

You clearly seem to be interested (otherwise why are you arguing about it so much?) in acquiring this extra content offered as a reward to people who support the company... yet you refuse to do so and shell out some extra cash. It seems kinda odd to me. BTW, the cost of a new video game is actually less now than it was years ago. Video game price points have been and continue to be well below the rate of inflation. An atari game or whathaveyou from way back when costs approx. 120 USD in today's terms, while a PS1 era game would be approx 90 USD in todays terms IIRC. While the actual dollar amount might seem higher, you have to take into consideration the actual worth of a dollar as well.

I also find it odd that you complain that the developers want another slice of the pie (more like they want a slice of the pie that was stolen from them, which is perfectly understandable) and not of the used game retailers that are making a killing off the practice. The average amount of money I receive from trading in a used game is less than 10 dollars, unless its a new game that came out earlier that week in which case its usually less than 20, and that is in store credit... so I am then forced to either provide them with more of my money if I don't have enough for another purchase, or I purchase another game from them using the credit I have, in which case I effectively traded 5 to 10 games (depending, in some case more than that) for 1. Gamestop will then resell that game (or those games) for several times the price they paid for it. You don't think Gamestop wants too large a slice of pie for giving me 7 USD for a game and then selling it the next day for 34.99? Perhaps I would agree with you if those numbers were a little more balanced, but they on average resell for 400% profit.

Besides, the way I see it, the practice of rewarding people who purchase a new copy of a game is way better than the practices that CAPCOM and certain other companies have engaged in, whereby they rerelease the game approx 1 year later with more content (usually extra characters/weapons, etc.), but they don't offer that content as DLC to the people who purchased the original game at all, forcing them to purchase it again if they want to have a fully enabled game.

Melissia wrote:

daedalus wrote:Listen, I'm not pissed about the fact that the used guy has to pay still for it. I mean, I am, but that's not the drive behind my argument. I'm arguing that it just WON'T BE THERE.

Then you should start a thread bashing ALL DLC, rather than drag this one off topic with your hatred of DLC? Because ALL DLC will have this problem.

That's not really a fair comparison, though; DLC is ADDITIONAL Content that isn't required to play through the full game. What they are doing here is locking part of the game unless you can provide some sort of activation which simply won't be there after those ten years.

More replies as follows, saw this and had to reply.

Slarg232 wrote:

Melissia wrote:

daedalus wrote:Listen, I'm not pissed about the fact that the used guy has to pay still for it. I mean, I am, but that's not the drive behind my argument. I'm arguing that it just WON'T BE THERE.

Then you should start a thread bashing ALL DLC, rather than drag this one off topic with your hatred of DLC? Because ALL DLC will have this problem.

That's not really a fair comparison, though; DLC is ADDITIONAL Content that isn't required to play through the full game. What they are doing here is locking part of the game unless you can provide some sort of activation which simply won't be there after those ten years.

More replies as follows, saw this and had to reply.

Did you actually read the article?

“If you bought the game new, [the sewer hatches] would be open for you. You still have to download [the Online Pass], but you don’t have to pay for it. Those hatches are all over. Most people never find them. But as soon as you do, you’re like, oh. And then you start to look for it. That’s our first-time buyer incentive. But as you can tell, most people never even see it.“

It looks like it's content that has to be activated by the Online Pass, but is present in the game no matter what.
This is no different than the Dragon Age items that come with your 'new' purchase of the game.

Kanluwen wrote:

Slarg232 wrote:

Melissia wrote:

daedalus wrote:Listen, I'm not pissed about the fact that the used guy has to pay still for it. I mean, I am, but that's not the drive behind my argument. I'm arguing that it just WON'T BE THERE.

Then you should start a thread bashing ALL DLC, rather than drag this one off topic with your hatred of DLC? Because ALL DLC will have this problem.

That's not really a fair comparison, though; DLC is ADDITIONAL Content that isn't required to play through the full game. What they are doing here is locking part of the game unless you can provide some sort of activation which simply won't be there after those ten years.

More replies as follows, saw this and had to reply.

Did you actually read the article?

“If you bought the game new, [the sewer hatches] would be open for you. You still have to download [the Online Pass], but you don’t have to pay for it. Those hatches are all over. Most people never find them. But as soon as you do, you’re like, oh. And then you start to look for it. That’s our first-time buyer incentive. But as you can tell, most people never even see it.“

It looks like it's content that has to be activated by the Online Pass, but is present in the game no matter what.
This is no different than the Dragon Age items that come with your 'new' purchase of the game.

Ummm.... I posted the article, Kan......


I personally have no problem with a shiny Sword for buying Dragon Age 3 new. I don't have a problem with these little hatches being closed until you open them up.


What I don't like is that, once Activision or EA gets ahold of this sort of idea, they will start locking down half of the game. I have no problem with denying Used Game Buyers anything; I quite agree with it, and I am trying to go into the game industry myself.

What I am worried about, is people who buy a game New, keep it locked up for a while, the server for the game does down due to it's age, Bobby's Xbox Hard Drive breaks, and after tracking down a new Hard Drive for $300 (Due to inflation/what not), and suddenly he doesn't have access to the game he bought and payed for all that long ago; his Hard Drive broke, and so he lost his download, only now there is no way to download it again.

I mean, how many of us love to boot up the old NES or SNES or even Playstation1? Now imagine if our favorite games were right there, in our hands, but there is now NO way of being able to play them anymore?

Well, again, can't say I know about Xbox Live, but as I stated before, PSN stores all that data on its own servers (not EA/Activision) so unless Sony decides to drop the content (which it has yet to do), it'll be there, besides that, I think the data (like Serial Code based activation) is all tied to your PSN login as well...

the alternative is that the content is eventually all mashed up into a single patch that unlocks the stuff automatically after a certain while for everyone anyway (say when Sony/the developer determines that the game is now 'obsolete').

Personally, I would be more upset if I was one of those few unfortunate people that DON'T have internet access...

You're aware that EA publishes Dragon Age, right? And Dead Space, Battlefield, etc?

And you're also aware that the promotional DLC is stored on Xbox Live(can't speak for PSN, since I really have had no cause to use it), right?

And really if Bobby "keeps it locked up for awhile" and that "awhile" is long enough for the game's servers to go down, that's your own fault in my opinion. Even a relative flop of a game like Chromehounds had its servers live for almost what, three or four years?

Kanluwen wrote:You're aware that EA publishes Dragon Age, right? And Dead Space, Battlefield, etc?

And you're also aware that the promotional DLC is stored on Xbox Live(can't speak for PSN, since I really have had no cause to use it), right?

And really if Bobby "keeps it locked up for awhile" and that "awhile" is long enough for the game's servers to go down, that's your own fault in my opinion. Even a relative flop of a game like Chromehounds had its servers live for almost what, three or four years?

And you're aware that Microsoft takes items down if they need space and/or it hasn't sold for a while, right? And you can't tell me that wanting to play a game ten years after it's creation (Pong, Mortal Kombat, Adventure, the original Legend of Zelda, Harvest Moon, Earthbound), and having these things ONLY available in digital format, where if your HD breaks your completely 100% screwed, that is not your fault.

I'm not talking about Chromehounds, I'm talking about a Single Player game being only available if your willing to pay for the shell of the game, and then that shell is unfillable just because the only way to "fill" it, figuratively, is just simply not available anymore.

Slarg232 wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:You're aware that EA publishes Dragon Age, right? And Dead Space, Battlefield, etc?

And you're also aware that the promotional DLC is stored on Xbox Live(can't speak for PSN, since I really have had no cause to use it), right?

And really if Bobby "keeps it locked up for awhile" and that "awhile" is long enough for the game's servers to go down, that's your own fault in my opinion. Even a relative flop of a game like Chromehounds had its servers live for almost what, three or four years?

And you're aware that Microsoft takes items down if they need space and/or it hasn't sold for a while, right? And you can't tell me that wanting to play a game ten years after it's creation (Pong, Mortal Kombat, Adventure, the original Legend of Zelda, Harvest Moon, Earthbound), and having these things ONLY available in digital format, where if your HD breaks your completely 100% screwed, that is not your fault.

You keep saying this. You're talking about a situation where if your HD breaks that you'd be screwed, but in reality you are not completely 100% screwed. If your HD breaks, you can redownload the material without having to purchase it again.

I'm not talking about Chromehounds, I'm talking about a Single Player game being only available if your willing to pay for the shell of the game, and then that shell is unfillable just because the only way to "fill" it, figuratively, is just simply not available anymore.

Find me an XBL game that has had its DLC removed.

No, seriously. I'd love to see some proof of your statement about "Microsoft taking items down if they need space and/or it hasn't sold for a while".

The only stuff I'm aware of offhand would be the Marvel beat em up RPG games had character DLC's removed, but that was copyright issues, not "space or lack of purchase".

SilverMK2 wrote:Almost all of my PC games are bought new.

The reason?

Because they arent' sold used in the first place.

Kanluwen wrote:

Slarg232 wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:You're aware that EA publishes Dragon Age, right? And Dead Space, Battlefield, etc?

And you're also aware that the promotional DLC is stored on Xbox Live(can't speak for PSN, since I really have had no cause to use it), right?

And really if Bobby "keeps it locked up for awhile" and that "awhile" is long enough for the game's servers to go down, that's your own fault in my opinion. Even a relative flop of a game like Chromehounds had its servers live for almost what, three or four years?

And you're aware that Microsoft takes items down if they need space and/or it hasn't sold for a while, right? And you can't tell me that wanting to play a game ten years after it's creation (Pong, Mortal Kombat, Adventure, the original Legend of Zelda, Harvest Moon, Earthbound), and having these things ONLY available in digital format, where if your HD breaks your completely 100% screwed, that is not your fault.

You keep saying this. You're talking about a situation where if your HD breaks that you'd be screwed, but in reality you are not completely 100% screwed. If your HD breaks, you can redownload the material without having to purchase it again.

I'm not talking about Chromehounds, I'm talking about a Single Player game being only available if your willing to pay for the shell of the game, and then that shell is unfillable just because the only way to "fill" it, figuratively, is just simply not available anymore.

Find me an XBL game that has had its DLC removed.

No, seriously. I'd love to see some proof of your statement about "Microsoft taking items down if they need space and/or it hasn't sold for a while".

UMK3 used to be on there, but was pulled off. I don't know why, the reason I was told was that it just took up too much room.

http://www.trmk.org/news/12845/midway_xbox_live_arcade_titles_removed_including_umk3_updated.html

Five seconds on Google netted me an answer.

Major Nelson of Xbox wrote:FYI: Some XBLA titles are no longer available for purchase from Xbox LIVE Arcade due to publisher evolving rights and permissions...

If you purchased it in the past, you WILL be able to re-download them...so don't worry.

The list of titles is: Cyberball, Defender, Paperboy, Rootbeer Tapper, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Robotron, Joust, Gauntlet & Smash TV

Look for discussion on the games that were removed on my show this week

If you purchased any of those titles...you will still be able to play them or redownload 'em. An no, it's not Game room related

I'm on the fence about the whole situation. On one hand, when someone buys a game, the company get's their money regardless. Whatever they do with the game after that should not matter because the company already go their money. On the other hand, I can see that if someone can't get a used copy, they might have more incentive to buy it brand new, thus turning a bit more profit for the company.

Another thing is that I feel that if you make a good game you don't have to worry about it because it will sell enough for you to make your money back. Look at Halo and gears for example. On the other hand, you still might lose a decent hunk of profit (that is in all likelihood small compared to revenue made anyways).

To be honest though, I've become strictly a PC gamer over the years, so this really doesn't effect me. More so, if a company does something with a game I don't like, all it takes is a single modder to crack it and fix the issues for me, which happens pretty often when devs pull one of their stunts.

Kanluwen wrote:http://www.trmk.org/news/12845/midway_xbox_live_arcade_titles_removed_including_umk3_updated.html

Five seconds on Google netted me an answer.

Major Nelson of Xbox wrote:FYI: Some XBLA titles are no longer available for purchase from Xbox LIVE Arcade due to publisher evolving rights and permissions...

If you purchased it in the past, you WILL be able to re-download them...so don't worry.

The list of titles is: Cyberball, Defender, Paperboy, Rootbeer Tapper, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Robotron, Joust, Gauntlet & Smash TV

Look for discussion on the games that were removed on my show this week

If you purchased any of those titles...you will still be able to play them or redownload 'em. An no, it's not Game room related

Still.... I just don't like this. I have that feeling.

Of what? Them doing nothing that isn't already in existence?

Seriously. This is no different than "Battle Codes" or "Online Passes" or whatever incentive program you want to mention.

Necroshea wrote:On one hand, when someone buys a game, the company get's their money regardless. Whatever they do with the game after that should not matter because the company already go their money.

And here's where the disconnect seems to be coming.

The company gets their money for one copy of the game. The store that an individual resells their copy to gets the money to cover their cost of buying from the distributor--and then gets to sell the game again, in many cases for a few dollars less than the retail price.

Necroshea wrote:More so, if a company does something with a game I don't like, all it takes is a single modder to crack it and fix the issues for me, which happens pretty often when devs pull one of their stunts.

Yeah, how dare those devs put in methods to ensure their work isn't fiddled with or reproduced in full and distributed for free.

Kanluwen wrote:
And here's where the disconnect seems to be coming.

The company gets their money for one copy of the game. The store that an individual resells their copy to gets the money to cover their cost of buying from the distributor--and then gets to sell the game again, in many cases for a few dollars less than the retail price.

If you're referring to the company missing on someone else buying the game for retail instead of used, netting them profit when the other gives the third party profit, I already addressed that.

Kanluwen wrote:Yeah, how dare those devs put in methods to ensure their work isn't fiddled with or reproduced in full and distributed for free.

DRM hurts legit customers more than it does the pirates. I'm the idiot that paid money to get assassins creed brotherhood, and I have to stay online with it while I only play single player. The pirate on the other hand gets the game free AND has a cracked server meaning he can play offline all day long.

While us upstanding customers have to eat the crap DRM they dump on us, pirates usually don't have to mess with any of it. So yes, how dare they.

I seriously hope this catches on with other game devs' and gamestop gets a good punch in the groin, I'm sick of them.....

chaos0xomega wrote:I've heard you argue this before, and its as flawed an argument now as it was then. While it doesn't 'cost anything extra', it still requires the maintenance cost to upkeep the servers, pay the tech support crew, and to pay the developers to patch the game. That cost doesn't change. The money used to pay these people and maintain/upgrade these systems so that you can utilize and play the game, as well as so that the developer can continue to pay people to develop NEW GAMES, COMES FROM PURCHASING NEW COPIES OF THE GAME. By purchasing a used copy of the game, you are essentially piggy backing in off of someone else, for all intents and purposes, you are a parasite, taking what you want without giving anything back to the system and its associated workplace economy. While you aren't adding any extra load to the servers or anything, you are accelerating the degradation of the system by denying the developer an additional revenue stream which is used to maintain it and improve it.

Again, I'm going to point to pretty much every other industry which has a second hand market - books, cars etc... just like the games industry they seem to cope quite well with large 2nd hand markets. Car companies still try to attract people to their garages to either buy 2nd hand or service their car, buy spares etc (DLC) and can make quite a good return - after all they have already sold the car new, may have sold it 2nd hand again, and are making money hand over fist by servicing the car over the years. I've yet to hear of a car company going bust because people buy used cars, or a publisher going under because of car boot sales or even national 2nd hand chains.

Would they all make more money if people only bought new? Possibly - it is not a guarantee that people will always buy new; take a look at pirated movies, games and films. I recall an "on the street" survey which asked a few hundred people how much they would pay for the tracks on their MP3 players. The vast majority of people said they wouldn't, even if they had 1,000's of songs on there. Even back in the days before computers and the internet, bootleg tapes and records were still being said.

So really, what you are saying is "computer games companies are going to go bust because people will sell their games on thus extending the lifetime of the games they produce without giving any money to the games companies" - OK; please show me a company that will be stupid enough to pay the running costs of servers for games that are no longer making them money? Or release patches? As was mentioned before - Chromehounds shut down their servers when the return they were getting made the game no longer viable for support (which was a shame as I went to try and play it the other day only to find that I can't ).

Games companies are wanting to get a slice of the 2nd hand pie without having to have the expense of owning and running physical chains of shops - they want their money for "free".

Don't get me wrong - I understand development costs and maintenance costs for products. But I also understand supply, demand and cost thresholds. Games companies are creating demand but are not supplying at a cost threshold that most people are happy paying. To put it another way, do you see a product and buy it straight from the manufacturer at whatever price they are selling it for, or do you shop around for the cheapest price (given other ease factors)? There is a reason price fixing is illegal - it encourages competition and helps prevent people holding you hostage for their products.

As for other DLC, such as map packs, etc. what percentage of games purchasers ever actually pay for most of that stuff? I know I very rarely do, ditto most of my friends. I would say that its a very limited source for additional revenue for the developers, might be enough to cover some functions, but it won't make up for all the lost sales resulting from a used game.

Anecdotal evidence is not evidence

Sales of DLC are obviously worthwhile or companies would not put it out.

You clearly seem to be interested (otherwise why are you arguing about it so much?) in acquiring this extra content offered as a reward to people who support the company... yet you refuse to do so and shell out some extra cash. It seems kinda odd to me. BTW, the cost of a new video game is actually less now than it was years ago. Video game price points have been and continue to be well below the rate of inflation. An atari game or whathaveyou from way back when costs approx. 120 USD in today's terms, while a PS1 era game would be approx 90 USD in todays terms IIRC. While the actual dollar amount might seem higher, you have to take into consideration the actual worth of a dollar as well.

I'm not complaining about companies releasing extra content, even extra content that is only available for new copies or pre-orders that is in essence extra "bling" - I'm complaining about companies chopping out big parts of the actual game and then selling it back to you.

I also find it odd that you complain that the developers want another slice of the pie (more like they want a slice of the pie that was stolen from them, which is perfectly understandable)

My car was 2nd hand, bough, paid for, licensed, taxed, insured with all the proper paperwork. The thought that I somehow stole it from the company that manufactured it is more or less as ridiculous as the thought that the game I play having bought it second hand is stolen from the company that made it because I did not buy it direct from them.

and not of the used game retailers that are making a killing off the practice.

I would please like you to find anywhere in anything that I have said that would indicate that I believe this way. Indeed I have stated a number of times that while the 2nd hand gaming sales generate a lot of money, 2nd hand game stores are out there with expenses, staff and physical presence on highstreets, the same as any other store, providing a service which, as I have said, is apparently in quite high demand given the value of 2nd hand sales. They are earning their money in the same way as any other store - buying cheap, selling high, supplying demand. There is absolutely nothing stopping games companies from starting up their own 2nd hand trade. But that would require extra expense, extra effort and wouldn't just let them sit back and make people pay for online codes to get their games working properly.

The average amount of money I receive from trading in a used game is less than 10 dollars, unless its a new game that came out earlier that week in which case its usually less than 20, and that is in store credit... so I am then forced to either provide them with more of my money if I don't have enough for another purchase, or I purchase another game from them using the credit I have, in which case I effectively traded 5 to 10 games (depending, in some case more than that) for 1. Gamestop will then resell that game (or those games) for several times the price they paid for it. You don't think Gamestop wants too large a slice of pie for giving me 7 USD for a game and then selling it the next day for 34.99? Perhaps I would agree with you if those numbers were a little more balanced, but they on average resell for 400% profit.

I've traded in a few games in my time (not many as I usually hang on to them); you usually get, in my experience, 2 prices, one for cash, one for store credit (with the former being less than the latter). Obviously this will vary from store to store but I've never heard of stores not offering a cash price. I think that is an issue with your 2nd hand chains rather than the 2nd hand market.

Again, you seem to be putting words into my mouth - I'm not talking about the moral rights and wrongs of 2nd hand gaming stores; simply that games companies are wanting to make money from a market that they have not invested in.

Besides, the way I see it, the practice of rewarding people who purchase a new copy of a game is way better than the practices that CAPCOM and certain other companies have engaged in, whereby they rerelease the game approx 1 year later with more content (usually extra characters/weapons, etc.), but they don't offer that content as DLC to the people who purchased the original game at all, forcing them to purchase it again if they want to have a fully enabled game.

There are many ways to continue making money from games (new and used); I just don't believe having to pay for core content is the way forward.

Kanluwen wrote:
Find me an XBL game that has had its DLC removed.

No, seriously. I'd love to see some proof of your statement about "Microsoft taking items down if they need space and/or it hasn't sold for a while".

Part of the issue with responding to this is that no one can do it yet, as the game manufacturers are just now implementing this. For this conversation to have a point, we'd really have to revisit it 10 years from now, and see that either, this 'doomsday scenario' happens, or the sky isn't falling after all.

And Microsoft isn't above turning off services that it deems unnecessary anymore. See their MSN Music service and Original XBox Live. Not the same as this specific situation, but a service is a service, right? Missing a part of your game because you're trying to play it 10 years later sucks.

I think that this topic has nearly exhausted itself for me though. I'm going to go daydream about being able to play Hellgate: London with friends again.

Kanluwen wrote:Of what? Them doing nothing that isn't already in existence?

Seriously. This is no different than "Battle Codes" or "Online Passes" or whatever incentive program you want to mention.

And once again; what happens five/ten/twenty years down the line?

If you have to pay to play online in a mostly single player game, that's one thing; eventually the games servers will be cut off, and you wouldn't have to worry about it that far down the line. But once you start cutting off content, that makes it alot harder to justify trying to play it down the line.

Slarg232 wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Of what? Them doing nothing that isn't already in existence?

Seriously. This is no different than "Battle Codes" or "Online Passes" or whatever incentive program you want to mention.

And once again; what happens five/ten/twenty years down the line?

A new console is introduced and your point is irrelevant in either case?

If you have to pay to play online in a mostly single player game, that's one thing; eventually the games servers will be cut off, and you wouldn't have to worry about it that far down the line. But once you start cutting off content, that makes it alot harder to justify trying to play it down the line.

Once again.

You are not cutting off content to anyone who is buying the game in a manner that supports the developers(i.e. buying it new). You are cutting off content to the people who are buying the game from a company that buys up the games secondhand, and pockets the profit themselves. These companies are not supporting the developers, they are doing nothing at all to encourage the growth of these game developers. If they were to start being required by law to return a portion of what they get from preowned sales to the developers--be under no illusions, they'd throw hissyfits and pull the preowned service.

Daedalus wrote:Part of the issue with responding to this is that no one can do it yet, as the game manufacturers are just now implementing this. For this conversation to have a point, we'd really have to revisit it 10 years from now, and see that either, this 'doomsday scenario' happens, or the sky isn't falling after all.

It's been implemented since Dragon Age: Origins, at the very least. The problem with responding to this is that people are seeing these announcements and not framing them properly in their heads. They view it all as an attack upon the customerbase, when in reality it's being done to screw over the spankers who own chains like EB/GameStop.

And Microsoft isn't above turning off services that it deems unnecessary anymore. See their MSN Music service and Original XBox Live. Not the same as this specific situation, but a service is a service, right? Missing a part of your game because you're trying to play it 10 years later sucks.

So your argument is that ten years later, you should still be considered a customer even if it's a free service?