Do Games Industry Folks Buy Games New or Used?

Gamasutra has another of its usually-interesting Question of the Week features up, and this one deals with the issue of used games. The question : Do Games Industry Professionals Buy Their Games New or Used? A lot of anonymouse answers this week. From one mouse: "I buy both used and new games, depending upon what the price differential is, and availability (old games are hard to find 'new'). I think the used games market is good for the industry for two reason: * it increases the value of game--people buy games knowing that they can get money when they sell it back, and * the game gets greater exposure--the purchaser of the used game might not otherwise have played it. This does not mean that people have the right to steal our products by copying them, reselling the originals, and playing the copy. But we made a product and sold it to them. It is theirs. They are free to resell it, the same way you're free to resell your car, house, or furniture. - Anonymous, Microsoft"

Comments

For those who make games.

[kinglink]

First off I work at ONE game development company, we get treated well, but this is not a standard for the industry.

There's the same split in society. People who buy it immediatly, people who wait for reviews, and people who wait for price drops, there's no rule for the industry or for the game. And btw we go "ooh" and "ahhh" to tech demos. We have guys who buy every EA sports game, we have guys who buy none. We have guys who play Smash brothers every day at lunch. We have guys who haven't owned a video game system in years, but plays board games weekly. We have magic fans, we have Warhammer 40000 fans.

However the best thing about my company is we get all that here. We can ask each other what's good or not. If we get sick of a game we sell it to someone else at the company, and there's a whole gamer culture here.

But the simple answer is we do the same in the industry as outside the industry. The only bonus is you work with gamers so instead of having to go to ebay, you can trade internally, get similar prices and get it from reputable sources rather then some guy on ebay, but in the end it's not different then regular society except everyone here is likely a gamer in some way.

the longer you wait, the more you need 'used'

[192939495969798999]

the percentage of new vs total games is always decreasing, because of the immense amount of games for non-supported consoles, etc. So over time, you have to buy more used games vs. new, assuming any fixed set of consoles.

Lots of reasonable people, a few whiners

[ChaosDiscord]

There is a lot of very reasonable commentary there. And a few whiners. The whiners are more fun.

From Anonymous at the University of Texas, "Perhaps a moratorium on the sale of used copies of a title within the first month of its release." If you have a serious problem with used sales in the first month of release, your game is probably either too short, or just plain sucks. My friends with tigher budgets note that they typically have to what two or three months before the find used copies of game they want available.

I'm also fond of Pierre-Luc Lachance at Ubisoft's response, "We can only try to sensitize people to the ethical integrity and fairness of buying new, first hand games." Ethical integrity? I'm curious about Pierre-Luc's view of the ethical integrity of purchasing a used car or a used book. Idiot.

This anonymous comment takes the cake:

I NEVER buy used games, nor do I sell my old games. I am continually disappointed by the fact that I cannot convince many gamers to buy new. The age of hard copy is at an end. Digital distribution is coming and will be here to stay. Developers hands have been forced. Soon, small games presented on X Box Live and Nintendo Virtual Console will challenge hard copy games for profits. At this time the age of hard copy will end. Used game stores are pushing themselves out of business with hard handed tactics designed to force players to buy and sell used games.

Again, I'm curious if anonymous has ever bought or sold a used car, CD, or book. Have the car, book, and music industries been forced to online distribution by resales? ("Now downloading Subaru Impreza 2006. 3% complete. Downloading at 6.02 zeptoatoms/second.") Also, exactly what "hard handed" tactics have used game stores engaged in? How do they force me to buy and sell used games? I've never been "forced" to sell them a game. When I buy a new game, they do sometimes offer me a used game ("You can save five bucks on a used copy"), but that's hardly a hard sell. They've never refused to sell me a new copy when one was available (which I usually do, as it's worth $5 to me to get a shiny new copy).

There is a subset of the video game industry who are giant whiners. This isn't some conspiracy against video games; it's the free market. Resale of copyright protected works existed for hundreds of years before your industry even existed. Expecting to get some special protection makes you piss-poor capitalists.

Re:Lots of reasonable people, a few whiners

[Red Flayer]

Again, I'm curious if anonymous has ever bought or sold a used car, CD, or book. Have the car, book, and music industries been forced to online distribution by resales? ("Now downloading Subaru Impreza 2006. 3% complete. Downloading at 6.02 zeptoatoms/second.")

I understand you're making light of the subject, but really, the car analogy is totally broken in this case.

As to CDs, there's more to it than you make it seem. First, the cost of producing a music CD is far less than the cost of producing a top-tier game. This means that the price point can be lower while profitability is maintained, and also means that the marginal effect of used CD sales is lower. Second, the music distro industry has indeed been "forced" to offer music online, though the impetus has been sharing rather than sale of used goods -- of course, part of that goes back to the price point, as well as ease of distribution. Do you think there would be more of a market for used CDs if they cost $50 new (assuming, of course, that it was difficult to just download a copy)? I sure do.

As to books, there's a big difference between a physical book and a downloaded copy. As for used books, yes there's a market (I frequent the Strand often), but many people don't like used books -- a lot of it has to do with the fact that the condition of a used book is often noticably worse than a new one. A used game? Not so -- though the packaging can be a bit disheveled, the content itself is identical (barring scratches). There's no discernable difference in utility.

I don't want to seem like I'm "siding" with the protectionist game companies, or that I'm "siding" with pure free market idealogues. But:

This isn't some conspiracy against video games; it's the free market.

Sure. But in the interest of wanting to play amazing games, what happens when I and all my fellow bargain-hunters make it unprofitable to develop the massive games that I enjoy? In a very real way, we are removing the incentive to develop large non-cookie-cutter games.

Re:Lots of reasonable people, a few whiners

[KDR_11k]

Stores do try to get people to buy used instead of new but that's mostly because they can't subsist on the profit margins new games have.

Re:Lots of reasonable people, a few whiners

[SatanicPuppy]

Why is it always the fault of the consumer that an industry is unprofitable? When the HELL did that become our fault?

I'm a gamer, I've been gaming since pong, and I still buy tons of games. And I sell some back to the store, so I can buy more games. You know which ones I sell back? The ones that SUCK.

If it's got no replay value, if it's got a crappy story, or a crappy interface, I sell it back. Why not? They don't care enough to make it fun, I don't care if they lose money on a new user.

On the other hand, I have computers and game systems that I painstakingly maintain so I can keep playing the older games that I love. And I buy new copies when the media dies, or when they release an "updated" version that's compatible with newer hardware and drivers.

So here's your wake up. Good products make good money. Good books are profitable, even when tons of used copies end up in the used bookstores, even though one person may buy the book and loan it to ten other people. That's what it means to be a good product.

The same goes for games; one guy buys a copy and loans it to ten friends. If it sucks, those friends give it the hell back, and he trades it for a new game. But if it's good, they go get their own copy, and if it's really good, there AREN'T any used copies. That's the way it works.

Always new for me

[th1ckasabr1ck]

I'm a game programmer and I always buy games new, unless it's an older game and I can only find it used. The money difference just isn't worth it for me to justify when it means not only getting a used product but also that I'm sending my money towards Gamestop/EB instead of a fellow developer.

I am often surprised at how many of my co-workers buy games used.

Either works.

[jythie]

I work for a small game dev studio. I almost always by used, partly because I browse the used rack and go 'oh! I remember that game I never played! 10 bucks, sure, I'll give it a try'. If I am really interseted in a game I'll buy it new but that is pretty rare (GalCiv 2 would be such an example). I never sell my old games though.

The Psychological Value of "New"

[miyako]

Just like most other people here, I buy games both new and used. When I was younger and on a budget I would often sell games in order to get new games- now that I have a job I tend to hang on to my older games (especially since I realized how much I've spent re-buying games for the sake of nostalgia).
I generally don't buy games when the first come out- simply because I already have a backlog of games that I need to get through as it is- so when I do go to buy a game there are generally used copies available. Most of the time though, if there is a new copy I'll buy it.
I think that there is some psychological value of having a new game- from peeling off the cellophane and cursing for hours as you try to get those stickers off the edge so you can actually open the case to the smell of freshly stamped pastic and toner from the instruction manual.

Systems like Valve's Steam make "used" obsolete

[Pvt_Waldo]

There is no such thing as a "used" game on Steam or other license/DRM management content systems. If someone sells you a "used" original CD of a game that's already been registered on Steam (for example), it's a fair bet that the CD key was already tied to a Steam account and it won't work for you.