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Vital Parts of Games As DLC?

Posted by Soulskill on from the drm-by-any-other-name dept.

Epic Games president Michael Capps did an interview recently with GamesIndustry, and he had some interesting things to say about the future of downloadable content, and how it will affect the retail games market. He also discussed the trend toward social gaming, and Epic's plans in that regard. Quoting: "I'm not sure how big it is here [in Europe], but the secondary market is a huge issue in the United States. Our primary retailer makes the majority of its money off of secondary sales, and so you're starting to see games taking proactive steps toward that by ... if you buy the retail version you get the unlock code. I've talked to some developers who are saying 'If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free.' We don't make any money when someone rents it, and we don't make any money when someone buys it used — way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it."

19 of 446 comments (clear)

  1. They're insane. by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do they seriously think their customer base will stand for behavior like that? Anyone who has ever bought a used game will cease to buy any games, new or used, by companies that try to pull this shit. Consumers don't like being raked over the coals.

    --
    "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
    1. Re:They're insane. by Iamthecheese · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If a person or entity has a secondhand copy of the game and wants to sell it, thats fair use. If the real market value is higher than $20 for the seller or lower than $50 for the buyer, well no one is stopping you from setting up your own online used game store.

      Any tactic like not selling the whole game is, if not a blatent violation of fair use, a dispicable act that will have the manufacturer forever banned from my collection.

      --
      If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
    2. Re:They're insane. by Kohath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's just it. The renters and the used game buyers aren't their customers.

    3. Re:They're insane. by narcberry · · Score: 5, Funny

      This article got me thinking. We should really shut down sites like Ebay and Craigslist. It's unfair that people are able to sell their assets without generating any profit for the manufacturer.

      --
      Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
    4. Re:They're insane. by Fremandn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why not just make games worth keeping?

      --
      I'm NaN, I'm a free variable.
    5. Re:They're insane. by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Except they are. No one (or at least, very few) rents or buys used games all the time. The average customer likely buys used sometimes, and buys new sometimes. Now they're screwing him over, and he'll never buy from them again. This is stupidity at its finest.

      --
      "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
    6. Re:They're insane. by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When you decide to start punishing non-customers rather than finding ways to entice them into being customers, that's a really bad sign.

      --
      If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
    7. Re:They're insane. by CSMatt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The first sale doctrine is the good excuse. For someone who claims to have nothing against it, you seem to be all too eager to restrict markets that don't even need restriction, not counting of course the harm caused by these restrictions. (Used record stores, for example, could not exist without the first sale doctrine.)

      I don't know what used stores you are taking about where the used copy is sold far above the price of a new game, but if they exist, then customers will just buy from the retailer selling the new games. Any business reselling games at or higher than the price of a new game is not going to be in business for long.

    8. Re:They're insane. by startled · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When you decide to start punishing non-customers rather than finding ways to entice them into being customers, that's a really bad sign.

      Then it's a good sign that they're enticing non-customers into being customers, right?

      Gears of War 2 has special downloadable maps for people who buy the game new. People who buy it used still get the full single-player game, plus full multiplayer functionality-- they just don't get the bonus maps.

      They've identified a problem with their business model, and instead of legislating to protect their business model (like the recording industry), they've found a solution. What's the problem?

    9. Re:They're insane. by BillyGee · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except they will buy from them again. The real world doesn't have the percentage of zealots that slashdot has, meaning in the real world, a statistically insignificant number of people care about who makes the game they want. They've heard about the game from somewhere, their friends are playing it and now they want it. You really think someone who wants Unreal Tournament 2010 is going to go "ah crap, that's made by those Epic bastards who screwed me over, forget it, I'll not play that game even though my friends are playing it"

  2. In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... a large printing company has started replacing the last page in it's books with a 900 number readers must call to find out the ending. Apparently the greedy buzzards weren't making any money when people checked books out at the library.

  3. Killing used/rental by jmorris42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ok, they want to kill of rental and used games. Fine. Doesn't matter to me.... but the value of games as a bought item like a DVD or book is a lot higher to me than a non-tranferrable license. Price accordingly and I'll bite. Oh! You idiots thought we are going to keep paying $60 and not be able to loan it out to a friend or turn it at Game Stop? That's very different, that is just a big old price increase heading into a recession. Brilliant move guys!

    --
    Democrat delenda est
    1. Re:Killing used/rental by ZephyrXero · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly. If the game industry wants to kill off the used game market...and piracy for the most part too...in one fell swoop, all they need to do is lower the average game's price to around $20-30. If I can get a brand new copy of a game for $20, no way in hell I'm gonna pay Game Stop $15 for a used copy. It's simple economics really...

      Not only that, but if the industry really truely wants to make gaming a mass market affair, they are going to have to lower the costs for players. If movies cost $50-60 per title, hardly anyone would buy them either.

      --
      "A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
  4. Doctrine of first sale by MikeBabcock · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Doctrine of first sale still applies to other properties that can be purchased and re-sold, despite the fact that authors make no money off sales of used books, nor Ford off sales of used cars and trucks.

    Its like the music industries attitude problem has somehow infiltrated the thinking of other digital organizations worldwide.

    Harry Potter will have had way more readers than it had sales (probably more than twice as many) before accounting for privacy at all.

    "Get over it" comes to mind.

    --
    - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
  5. Umm... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "We don't make any money when someone rents it, and we don't make any money when someone buys it used".

    Welcome to the real world! Want to be rich? Keep working!

  6. DLC as DRM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Behold the future of gaming: using DLC as a form of DRM.

  7. Right of first sale by syousef · · Score: 5, Informative

    We don't make any money when someone rents it, and we don't make any money when someone buys it used -- way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it."

    So what? A car manufacturer doesn't make money when a second hand car is sold. An actor doesn't get more money when a movie is rented.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

    This fiction that every time a product is used, the people who made said product deserve to be compensated just shows up how greedy these people are. It's never worked this way before, and if you take this position and have ever bought anything second hand you're a hypocrite. Get a clue.

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
  8. Re:That would be like getting people to pay for se by Killer+Orca · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't know, if you were in the middle of sex and suddenly she stops and refuses to continue unless you pay the "climax fee" of $20, in the heat of the moment you probably would pay.

  9. Re:I was under the impression by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Grandparent is actually correct: As you note, first sale applies. However, there is nothing stopping you from making some other agreement. In the case of movie rentals, the peculiar economics of movie production often makes this a preferable arrangement.

    If you are a rental place, buying movies at retail makes it very expensive to build up a large collection, particularly obscure stuff that will take ages to recoup the initial investment, or the bursty demand for new, popular, releases. Instead, you can establish a revenue sharing agreement with the studio, who will furnish you with as many copies of a given title as you need at the cost of pressing, which is trivial, and then share the revenue from each rental.

    http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118972449/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
    http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=16851899
    http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=258