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Publishers Frustrated With Second-Hand Sales
Via Joystiq, a look at MCV into the increasing frustration publishers have with second-hand game sales. From the article: "As pressure has increased this year on sell-through and pricing of new
releases, so games publishers have become more sensitive about the size of
the pre-owned market - which is believed to be worth as much as £50m a year to leading chain GAME and possibly £100m across the market as a whole. Publishers have agreed to discuss privately what action may be possible to stop the trend, either under the auspices of trade body ELSPA or simply via legal protection." We've already reported on Epic VP Mark Rein's opinion on reselling games.
Publishers have agreed to discuss privately what action may be possible to stop the trend, either under the auspices of trade body ELSPA or simply via legal protection.
"Our business model isn't as profitable as it could be, let's outlaw competing with us!"
Isn't the point of capitalism that you're supposed to fix that yourself instead of bribing a politician to do it for you? The software industry already has a lot of special rights that should have been taken away long ago (beginning with that "it's not a sale, it's a license" crap), they don't need more.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
> frustration publishers have with second-hand game sales.
If you'd make a DECENT GAME to start with, I wouldn't want to sell it.
So... they're frustrated that they can't make more money?
Well, damn, we have a lot in common.
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
This is ridiculous. You don't see car manufacturers trying to stop people selling second hand cars.
These people need to get it through their thick heads that once you've sold something to me, it becomes my property. You can't have it both ways. If you offer something for sale, then give it to me in exchange for money, then it's mine. And if it's mine, then it's mine to sell.
And don't give me any bullshit about "selling me a license". Do you say "buy a license NOW!" in adverts? Does the box say "License to play Gran Turismo" on it, or does it say "Gran Turismo"? You are selling the game, not a license.
You really want to make people stop selling second hand games? Fine. There's a legal way of doing that. Make them sign a contract when they buy it. That'll stop people selling second-hand. Why? Because they won't buy it in the first place, you eejits!
Now I'm a Linux user and much more willing to shell out that kind of money if the game is good and has native Linux support, so there's one angle you could persue. ;) [thank you for UT2004, NWN, Doom3, and Quake4, amongst others!]
Unfortunately, I suspect "prevention" has much more to do with screwing the customers over (Even Better CD Checks and Licensing! Whoo! Just what I wanted--new ways for things to break so that I can't play the games I purchased from you [the CD check has to be the #1 reason I cannot play a game]!) than listening to the customers.
--
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Through the sale of their second hand games fans can afford to buy new games.
If you stifle second hand game sales you also stifle new game sales with the same stroke.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
for under $20 total off ebay (shipped). Onimusha, Auto modellista, Tekken Tag Tournament and Omega Boost. Sure, they're a little long in the tooth, but they're still great games.
The real problem as I see it is the console manufactures (Sony et al) have been dragging their feet too long on this generation. The latest stuff just isn't that much better then the backlog of games. It doesn't help when big name titles like Soul Calibur III aren't any better than their predessesors.
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Game makers need to understand that they themselves are to blame for the impact of used games on their sales. It's the same situation as with music and film: Overpriced shitty product. Bottom line: They need to lower the prices.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I am not a hardcore gamer. Two or three times a month I'll fire up the X Box and play for a few hours. I enjoy games like the Call To Duty series, or Ghost Recon 2. Buying these games new at $50-$60 doesn't make sense to me. I'm more than happy to pay $15-$20 at the mall for a used game. The few times I have paid the $50-$60 cost of a new game, I've deeply regretted it and won't let it happen again.
If new games were in the $20-$25 range, I'd have a lot more games (and probably play more often).
Now the real question is, are there enough guys like me out there to justify charging half as much for the game to make the profit on volume?
And how much less will resellers have to charge for a used game at that point? Is it even worth it for them to sell used games at $10?
Is to make games people want to keep. Nintendo's publicly discussed this for a while now, so I can't help but wonder why these other companies haven't picked up on it. Are they worried that they don't know how to do that?
Or maybe EA's just wants their practice of dumping yearly sports franchise revisions to be supported by retailers, despite the obvious used game trend it creates.
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This is not the issue is the gamer selling the game. It's the retail outlets pushing sales on used games instead of new games. This means when a customer comes into the store, the store will push them to buy a used copy of Gran Turismo 4, instead of the new copy (which is nearly always only a fraction of savings for the customer anyhow, but almost 100% profit for the store).
This causes the publisher to lose out on a sale for every used copy of the game sold. The game could be the best one made ever, with every gamer intending to buy a copy in the first place, but it won't sell well enough to keep the publisher afloat if the majority of the sales on it are used.
Granted this requires a lot of gamers to sell their copies in the first place, but I can kind of see where the publisher is coming from in this regard.
Either way, resorting to legal action and the whole "you're buying a license, not a game" crap is quite stupid, so I hope it doesn't come to that. My personal fear is that we're going to resort to locking down games to only play on one system and never run again on a different one (it's been discussed), or games actually degrading in quality over time forcing used copies to display their age after they've been played previously. Then we're just enforcing a superficial limitation on the digital medium, which is a smaller part of the overall digital copyright issue in the first place (falsly limiting otherwise limitless resources under the pretense of actual, lost material wealth).
But for multi-million dollar budget games, though, do have to recoup the costs somehow, so *those* may not come down in price.
I understand that life's not fair, just why is it never unfair in my favor?
Game manufacturers stop selling older titles. If I want to purchase one how am I supposed to do that without buying a used title from someone else?
If they want these new laws maybe there should be some more laws created that force them to keep every title they've ever produced available for purchase.
If they claim to be "licensing" the games instead of "selling" them won't there be consequences? The tax laws are different since the company still "owns" the product. Also there should be more warranty -- if the media (cd/dvd/whatever) gets scratched the company should have to replace it (since I've purchased the right to use the product).
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Yes. And they do: when console games hit a certain rate of penetration, the Big Three turn them over to "Platinum" status, slash the System Licensing cost to a few bucks, and let the publisher re-release the game at that magic price-point of 20-25 bucks.
Is it worth it for them to do this with new games? Hell no. Market research demonstrates that casual gamers such as yourself almost never know when a new game is coming out anyway, don't read the magazines where those dates are advertised, and don't frequent the websites that hype them (although, since you're reading Slashdot Games, you might be less "casual" than you'd like to believe). So releasing a new title at a lower price point doesn't gain the publisher anything: they can release it at full price, wait while your hardcore friends play it and tell you how great it is, and by the time you decide to see what the fuss is about, the price is already in the sweet spot.
And if your gaming friends aren't playing it and telling you how great it is? Then you probably wouldn't buy it even if it was $20 on launch day.
This second-stage of a console game's life is extremely profitable for the publisher: sales volume typically goes way up. But it doesn't work with new games. I was at Atari when they considered releasing a title at a $25 price point for launch: the problem is that hardcore gamers see this as a sign that the game isn't good (not because we released it cheap, but because they hadn't heard much about it and, seeing it at that price point, presume it's been on shelves for months and wasn't selling), and casual gamers don't hear about it from hardcore gamers, so they don't give it a second glance. It's not impossible, mind. But it doesn't usually pay off.
And even for people who are willing to spend $50 on a game, not everyone is able to spend that much at once all the time. If someone was going to buy a $25 used game, they now have to wait until they've got another $25... And in that time, they might decide they are just better off borrowing it from a friend or renting it.
Of course, I have no idea how I'd get SNES games, seeing as how no one rents them anymore, and you can't even get them used except on eBay.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
1) Make a better game that someone is proud to keep in their library, either to loan to a friend for a weekend or to replay at a later time, perhaps on a more difficult setting.
2) Offer trade-ins: EB, Gamestop, Rhino, et al employ a large number of people and they make a good deal of money off second-hand games. Also, other establishments make an extra $10 or so taking games as trade for other merchandise and then reselling them later.
Institute some sort of voucher system. Let's use Nintendo as a hypothetical. Say for example a customer purchased Pikmin 2, beat the game fairly quickly, and had no desire to keep it in his collection any longer. If Nintendo had a system where the purchaser could send the game back to Nintendo for coupon for any future Nintendo media purchase. Nintendo could then evaluate the state of the game, repackage it (if the package has been stained, or damaged) and then resolicit it at a discounter price to a specialty electronics vendor with a seal saying it has passed inspection.
The game looks new, plays as well as a new one (not having scratches, smudges, etc.) and is certified by the company.
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With the typical assumptions, part of the value of a game is the ability to resell it. A rational consumer may only be willing to buy a $60 game knowing that he can sell it back for the equivalent of $20. Otherwise his initial price point might only be $40.
Similarly the publisher might only be willing to sell a game for $40 if it knows that the game will not be resold in a way that will stifle an average of $20 of original sales. Otherwise it might only be willing to sell the game for $60.
So it's not entirely clear to me what advantage publishers think they will get from banning resales. If they think customers are willing to pay the same amount for less benefit -- that is, a game with no resale value -- why don't they just increase the price of the game instead of lobbying for legislation?
Sounds to me like this guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
Up until a few years ago, it was illegal to sell used games in Japan. If you have an imported game from this period it's likely it will have a NO RESALE icon on the back. A Japanese court decided it was illegal to do this, but it took an act of Parliament to actually reverse it (their legal system does not have precedent).
The system failed in Japan because it was against consumer rights.
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager