Industry Asks Gamers To Pay More

Last week we mentioned a Guardian post about secondhand games, with some industry commentary that the secondhand market was lowering the innovation expectations of developers. Today, the Gamers With Jobs: Press Pass reacts to the whining of the poor underpaid developers: "The always candid David Jaffe wrote: 'You know what? Why the **** should we even try anymore?' while Epic's CliffyB noted: 'What other entertainment medium that's mass market is at $60 a pop?' Cliffy would seem to have the right of it. The used market for DVDs, or CDs is relatively small. Why? Presumably because getting a five dollar discount on a fifteen dollar DVD is not as enticing as thirty dollars off of a sixty dollar game; when it's only five bucks, the natural desire to buy something perfect and new will, in most cases, outweigh thriftiness. While I certainly sympathize with Mr. Jaffe's frustration on this matter, his concerns are a result of working for an industry which refuses to intelligently adapt to a changing marketplace."

Comments

"poor underpaid developers"

[stlhawkeye]

I know a lot of people in the development community. UO and UO2 programmers, a designer for Galaxies, people from Digital Anvil, EA, Microsoft. Most of them make enough in 8 months to take 4 months off a year collecting unemployment. One is about to head back to work because he's blown through the $30,000 he had in his savings account after his last contract was up (was a gig with Microsoft). His new job is level design and mission scripting for a PS3 game. The pay is $50 hour plus double pay for overtime. So he'll work for 6 months then take the rest of the year off to play Warcraft. I have no sympathy.

It's not the price, it's the protection.

[sehlat]

I fall into the category of "casual gamer." Which means I've got a day job that lets me *afford* games, I don't have the time to cope with anything that's going to eat my life learning how to play. But that's not the major reason I've pretty much quit buying games.

The major reason is the nasty, intrusive and ugly copy protection, and yes, I mean *YOU*, Half-Life 2. The dozen or so times I tried to play the game, EVERY STINKING TIME I STARTED IT UP the program would run out to Steam's servers and ask "mother may I," making it VERY plain that Valve regards everybody who buys its game as a thief or thief wannabe. It also extended what should have been a less than thirty second startup time into five to ten minutes.

I got tired of being bitch-slapped by Valve's nastiness. Also, consider this: I can't sell the game to the used market because, once registered, you're pretty much stuck with the thing.

Feh!

EB Games sells USED games as NEW

[thpdg]

I'm really fed up with these gaming shops that open up EVERY copy of almost EVERY game in the store.
They keep them all locked up in a showcase, and put empty boxes on the floor.
WHY should I buy the brand new version, when they've already opened it up and rifled through it? They've probably even played it. That's not new product. Aren't there laws about selling used materials as new, any way?