Game Designer Makes Case For Used Games

We've recently had a couple of discussions about the plans of various game developers to fight used game sales — in particular, the idea of a free, one-time download that may be bonus content or may be a vital part of the game. Now, Soren Johnson, a game designer who has worked on Civilization 3, Civilization 4 and Spore, has written an article defending certain aspects of the used game market. Quoting: "By opening up retail sales to a larger segment of the market, used game sales mean that more people are playing our games than would be in a world without them. Beyond the obvious advantages of bigger community sizes and word-of-mouth sales, a larger player base can benefit game developers who are ready to earn secondary income from their games. In-game ads are one source of this additional revenue, but the best scenario is downloadable content. A used copy of Rock Band may go through several owners, but each one of them may give Harmonix money for their own personal rights to 'Baba O'Riley' or 'I Fought the Law.'"

Comments

Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[apathy maybe]

Personally I have never bought a computer game in my life (I've only ever copied, without paying the asked for fee, about 4 times). So this isn't coming from my experience. (I have had games bought for me, and I have downloaded and played freeware games.)

Anyway, why is the used market so good? For people who don't have any money, the used market allows them to get good games cheaply. (I've never had much money either for that matter, but the main reason I don't buy games now is that I don't run MS Windows.)

They get hooked on the game, on the company, on the designer, and then, when they have money (after (if) they get a job), they can go and buy the games for the full price.

Used games are advertising for the company. Take Civilisation, I would happily buy Civilisation Four (or whatever number it is up to now), because I really enjoyed Civilisation Two (I don't, because I don't run MS Windows, and I don't like Digital Restrictions Management). Or Sim City or Command and Conquer, or a number of similar games, I have an older game, and would like to play the newer game.

That's what the used market can do.

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[asuzuki]

Anyway, why is the used market so good? For people who don't have any money, the used market allows them to get good games cheaply. (I've never had much money either for that matter, but the main reason I don't buy games now is that I don't run MS Windows.)

Used games are not only good for people who don't have money, but also for the ones who buy a lot of games (usually on the release date), play through them, and then never touch them again. This is of course highly dependent on the game. Some games just lose their appeal once you've defeated the final stage (or whatever). It happens to me a lot, so I decided to sell them again, preferring a couple of bucks in my hand (to buy beer, for instance) instead of a gazillion of games gathering dust somewhere in a drawer.

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[Hasney]

Yeah, Sports Interactive have said that their new Football Manager game can be sold second hand, because the activation code can be unlicensed and re-used.

They make a new iteration every year so they probably have the same idea of getting people hooked on the game

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[Anonymous Coward]

civ iv runs with standard wine on x86 ... (no special patch needed, just the official stuff)

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[Anonymous Coward]

They get hooked on the game, on the company, on the designer, and then, when they have money (after (if) they get a job), they can go and buy the games for the full price.

The problem being that currently games retailers don't want to sell anyone the game at full price - they would rather their competitors (supermarkets) sell the new copy and they buy and sell it in one weeks time, making more money. The end result being you can only buy a new game in the first couple of weeks of release - all "catalog" sales are of used games.

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[AvitarX]

Don't you need a Windows silence, or bootleg copy though?

I just checked through the AppDB and it appears to still be the case.

I would love to be corrected.

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[apathy maybe]

Oh that's nice. First post and it's redundant.

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[Sobrique]

Quite a lot of the RPGs out there are good to play through a couple of times to 'get' the story, but don't have much replayability beyond that.

Thus selling them on is the way to go I feel.

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[neumayr]

Probably you do need a Windows license to emulate Windows legally.
But I never needed the actual OS to use Wine for anything. Sometimes some DLLs are required, but those are easy to find.

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[jbeaupre]

Since you know you can sell your old games, you don't mind paying a few bucks more with the knowledge you'll get some money back. Since you'll pay a few bucks more, the publisher can get a few extra bucks, indirectly, from the used game buyer.

You know, this is sounding like market segmentation. Marketing companies pay millions to figure out how to sell the same product at different price points to different people, extracting the max cash each segment is willing to pay. And here the used game market is doing that for software publishers. Publishers would be silly to try to outright kill the used market.

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[TheGeniusIsOut]

Anyway, why is the used market so good? For people who don't have any money, the used market allows them to get good games cheaply.

The price is not always the reason for buying a used game, there are some games that I have picked up used because I could not find them new anywhere in-stock, or because they were out of print. Much like going to a used bookstore, the price is not the only reason for perusing the dusty shelves, you never know what hidden gems you may find.

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably you do need a Windows license to emulate Windows legally.

Wine Is Not An Emulator.

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[Anonymous Coward]

Advertising is no good if it doesn't generate revenue. As it is, there are a large number of people who only buy used games and wouldn't normally consider buying a new copy.

While there is a good balance between generating revenue for developers and consumers selling their old games, I don't like to see it abused by the likes of Gamestop.

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[Golddess]

Wine Is Not An Emulator.

WINAE? Is that a fork of WINE? ;)

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[Walpurgiss]

Problem with that though, is that while the used game market allows the game to be sold at a lower price point some guy is willing to pay, the game publisher gets only a 0% cut of that sale, having gotten their only cut from the new retail purchase.

That is their problem with used game sales. If the publishers had their own channel to sell the games used, where they got the profit from the used sale, I'm sure they would be exploiting it directly.

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[Anonymous Coward]

It also allows people with limited funds to sell their used games, and then turn around and buy more NEW games from the game developer.

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[Jabbrwokk]

If the publishers had their own channel to sell the games used, where they got the profit from the used sale, I'm sure they would be exploiting it directly.

Maybe they should buy shares in EB Games, then. I can't see any publisher putting much effort into selling used games when many can't even be bothered to provide follow-up and technical support to the retail products they do sell. Investing or partnering with an existing outlet might be the way to go - "Bring in three used EA titles and get 25 per cent off a new EA title" or something like that.

The following quote from TFA kind of irritated me, but I think he's right:

A used copy of Rock Band may go through several owners, but each one of them may give Harmonix money for their own personal rights to 'Baba O'Riley' or 'I Fought the Law.'

That's probably a good idea. Downloadable content would be an easy way to make money off the same game several times, without punishing the second-hand buyer by locking them out of the extra content, just making them pay a few bucks for it.

I have bought many used games because I just can't afford the release date prices. Charging $5 for an exclusive expansion or downloadable map pack for something I bought used would not be unbearable. I also look for the weekend deals on Steam (Got Overlord for $10) and bargain bin deals in retail stores (Titan Quest for $10). Are publishers making money on those? Probably, I imagine the retail store eats the cost on the bargain bin titles and I imagine Steam is still profitable even when the titles are deeply discounted.

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[jbeaupre]

But the new retail purchase price is higher due to the potential of the game being resold. The publisher gets a cut of the used sale before it even occurs. Haven't you ever seen car ads touting "highest resale value in class?" They are trying to boost sales and prices of new cars by letting potential buyers know that this car is "cheaper" than just the sticker price because you can get some of that money back some day.

Re:Teenagers, poor people and used games.

[geekoid]

Used games are necessary to maintain the classes.
Like anything, it help alleviate cultural difference among those classes..like libraries do.

It's Absurd!

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the used game markey exists because a lot of older games are still fun, despite being old? Age has nothing to do with enjoyability -- just because it doesn't look like a nature park and cost three hundred dollars doesn't mean it can't do that.

"Bookstores ban used books to encourage new-book sales and interest"

"Toyota combats used car market to promote new 2009 line of vehicles"

"Microsoft restricts sale of XP to encourage Vista sales"

Well, okay, you can't win 'em all.

Re:It's Absurd!

[Hognoxious]

By what methods are they trying to fight used sales? Whatever happened to the doctrine of first sale?

Re:It's Absurd!

[wild_quinine]

By what methods are they trying to fight used sales? Whatever happened to the doctrine of first sale?

It's not a product, it's a license. That is, until you need to take advantage of one of the legal benefits of being a licensee... then it's product.

Re:It's Absurd!

[Nursie]

It's definitely absurd, it's absurd that they don't feel absolutely disgusted with themselves for trying to fight people's right to re-sell content.

And FUCK YOU with your downloadable content. If I've bought that then I should have the right to sell it alongside the game, no?

Downloadable content and in box "bonuses" are a horrible way to squeeze customers ever more. The bonus should just be part of the game, not a one-time thing. And so should most downloadable content. A hell of a lot of it is just a trasnparent attempt to part people from even more cash to get the game they wanted.

As for in-game advertising being a continuing source of revenue from the used game market.... so... angry... hard... to... speak... must... kill...

It's my RIGHT to buy and sell used games. It's not your right to continue to make a profit for a single copy of a game, or a single license or whatever the hell it is after you've already sold it to me.

Die in a fire.

Re:It's Absurd!

[Anonymous Coward]

When did it become the gamestore's right to profit more than the developer?

If used is virtually equal in value to new, and used is slightly cheaper - then many people will choose used - particularly if it is pushed strongly by the seller right alongside the new product
"Why buy GTA4 for £50, when you can buy it for £45!"
The problem is that of the £50, probably most of that goes back to the game industry that creates these games.
Of the £45, probably £10-15 goes to the game store, and £30 or so goes back to the consumer (and often a lot more unfair ratio than that) but £0 goes to the game industry.

And as a poster above said, this is a pretty good deal for the game industries target audience, the gamer who buys lots of games.

So the industry gets fucked, the gamer gets a free game once out of every 5 or 10 games, and the industry has to make up for it by making no-risk factory produced crap.

I blame the used game market, and people who buy it for ... pretty much EA's whole market. The Sims X: Expansions A Lot, FIFA 'ogodwhenwillitend, and all the other reproduced dross that comes out year after year to guarantee profits.

Re:It's Absurd!

[Nursie]

"When did it become the gamestore's right to profit more than the developer?"

Where does the gamestore come into this? I'm talking about my rights as an individual to resell what I have bought.

"If used is virtually equal in value to new, and used is slightly cheaper - then many people will choose used"

Absolutely they will, like people do with all sorts of other things in life.

"The problem is that of the £50, probably most of that goes back to the game industry that creates these games.
Of the £45, probably £10-15 goes to the game store, and £30 or so goes back to the consumer (and often a lot more unfair ratio than that) but £0 goes to the game industry."

So fucking what? The games industry does not have a right to profit. I have a right to resell things I have paid for. End of story.
If you want to talk about lacklustre video or GAME or anyone else gouging kids on the used market and making obscene markups then I'm with you all the way.

"So the industry gets fucked"

No, it doesn't. It gets to sell games, people buy them, sell them, rent them, whatever. Just like every other type of product out there. The industry makes massive profits and is supposed to overtake Hollywood in terms of revenue pretty soon. That's not "fucked".

"the industry has to make up for it by making no-risk factory produced crap."

That's what sells. You can't blame the second hand market for the industry producing endless repeats of lowest common denominator bullcrap. What, you think if they got a new sale for each of the used ones they'd roll over and say "We've made enough money this year, lets not put out FIFA 2025:Drunk Edition after all". LOL.

No, they put out that crap because it's profitable. And they won't stop. And if they can squeeze more profit out by selling crippled games with "downloadable extras" or in-game advertising for perpetual revenue, they will, regardless of second hand sales.

Repeat after me - the games industry's interest in profit does not trump my right to resell what I own. And that includes downloadable extras in my opinion.

If you want to do poor wittle old EA a favour and not buy used or resell yours to protect their profits, then go ahead. I'll be sat over here in consumer rights corner.

Re:It's Absurd!

[wisty]

The game industry should definitely take a look at the music industry. The music industry pimps music videos, radio spots, live performances and other loss leaders, just to push more CDs. Does the game industry bother? I mean, they hardly release demos, because people might steal some fun, or something.

Re:It's Absurd!

[FictionPimp]

I buy new video games. I do not like used because I have had a few problems with gamestop and their return policy (I don't always play the games I buy within a month or two and they wont take a return on a used game a few months later.)

When I am done with the game I sell it and then use that money to help offset the cost of my new game. If you kill the used gaming market I will buy less games because I simply will not put out that much money as frequently.

Re:It's Absurd!

[traycerb]

Valve's Steam, for one. It's a nice service, but, as near as I can tell, it's impossible to transfer games from one account to another.

It's too bad, as I think allowing resale would create a thriving market and bring life back into games that people don't want to shell the retail price for. Of course, that's the goal: to eliminate the natural market price for the game.

Re:It's Absurd!

[SlashBugs]

Show me where it's written on the side of the game box that I'm buying a non-transferrsble license, not a copy of the game.

IANAL but I'd bet good money that I can't be held to the terms of a license that wasn't even mentioned to me until after I'd handed over my cash.

Re:It's Absurd!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a product with certain additional legal protections.

Why do people on Slashdot insist on pidgeonholing the issue into "must be A or B"? The world is more complicated than that and I think that's something we should be intelligent enough to understand.

Re:It's Absurd!

[wild_quinine]

It's a product with certain additional legal protections. Why do people on Slashdot insist on pidgeonholing the issue into "must be A or B"? The world is more complicated than that and I think that's something we should be intelligent enough to understand.

I take offense to that. Products and licenses are two different things. You cannot sell something which is both, without selling two things. It is not right, fair, or reasonable for companies which sell games to take the best qualities of both for themselves, and leave their customers in the lurch. Furthermore, it is perfectly reasonable to ask whether what you are purchasing is one, or the other.

You yourself go on to define games software as one of these things, rather than the other, assuming a selection of special 'legal protections', but don't go on to question what these are, or whether they are properties that can rightly be applied to something which is only a product. In fact, you paint a picture which is much more black and white than I do, you don't go on to question the status quo - even though I've opened that court - and then you accuse OTHER slashdotters of polarisation.

Re:It's Absurd!

[mabhatter654]

the legal protections are standard form, just like a book. For all practical purposes console games are products.. you pay for a shiny disc all other options of normal software are technologically banned...and companies brag about it. The disc is required for play. An average user cannot copy the games, or run them on anything other than the console sold for. Consoles are "welded shut", if you tamper with them they will kick you off-line. So yes, a console game is a product, put a shiny disc in, pay a game. One disc = one play. Even downloaded content is tied to one piece of hardware you can't modify.

Re:It's Absurd!

[nobodylocalhost]

The problem is, this is an issue with far reaching consequences. Under the first sale doctrine ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine ), it is perfectly legal and fair to re-sell games, but the aspect of how software sales fall into the category of first sale doctrine is still fuzzy. However, the counter point being if this is not the case, then large resellers such as best buy or office depot are all operating illegally. With the legality aside, There is really nothing stopping the developers from offering content to the first owner. However the ability to advertise those content in general should be under question. They have to specifically state that on the first owner has the rights to these content or else it would be a clear case of false advertisement. In that case, if you buy from best buy or gamestop, you can potentially be screwed because these companies would then have the rights to these first owner content.

Re:It's Absurd!

[Nursie]

"There is really nothing stopping the developers from offering content to the first owner"

Morality. It's part of the value of the product and should be available to the user to resell. Downloadable extras too.

False advertising or no, it's a question of consumer rights.

Re:It's Absurd!

[techess]

I actually love Gamestop's policy. The trick is to only buy a used game when you know you are going to have time to play it heavy in the 7 days you have for a no question return. I've always been hesitant to buy used games, but their policy converted me. I recently bought Baroque used and I couldn't stand the fact they don't give you time to explore (your vitality constantly decreases over time). I took it back after 6 days. I had the option to get my money back or pick out a new game. I picked out a pinball game which was *terrible*. I've seen more imagination and options in real pinball machines. I took that game back after another 6 days and got The Force Unleashed which I beat in about 10 hours. Returned that one and got Marvel Alliance which I really enjoy and I'm going to keep.

I still buy new games but I'm very cautious about those purchases. At twice the price I spend a lot of time researching game play & bugs before I shell out the dough. Used games are my "impulse" purchases and it does help me find games I'd never try otherwise.

FictionPimp also makes an excellent point that the money we get for turning in our used games helps us buy more new games. If a company makes a really good game with re-playability I eat the cost and keep the game. Most games though go right back to the store to feed my habit.

Re:It's Absurd!

[brkello]

And they have a right to charge money for downloadable content that can't be sold with the game. And if you don't like it, don't buy it. You have some strange anger issues if you care about this so much. Games aren't food. No one is going to die if they don't buy the latest game. You can still go to the used game store and buy games and your friend can still give you theirs once they are done.

Re:It's Absurd!

[Just Some Guy]

"When did it become the car lot's right to profit more than the manufacturer?"

"If used is virtually equal in value to new, and used is slightly cheaper - then many people will choose used - particularly if it is pushed strongly by the seller right alongside the new product"

My car and my house are both second-hand. I don't feel the least bit of remorse for either's builders who failed to earn a penny on the second transaction. They made their profit on the first sale, so why should they continue to get money down the line?

Re:It's Absurd!

[SwordsmanLuke]

FIFA 2025:Drunk Edition

Actually... that sounds pretty fun.

Re:It's Absurd!

[Anonymous Coward]

For brevity's sake, I did not attach any disclaimers to my initial claim. But you are right that I have no authority to deny alternate views of what is and is not a product. In fact, as I went on, I think the issue is far more complicated than product v. license.

In fact, it may indicate a blurring of the line between products and services in general. Are bits physical things? Do they deserve the same legal treatment as physical things? What about the products on which the bits are delivered? What about services which may be tied to products? What about EULA and other explicit and implicit contractual agreements?

This an incredible gray area made possible by technology. I don't think our legal system is well prepared for it, but as things stand, it appears that a boxed CD is indeed treated as a "product with certain legal protections". You can't copy the disc, except for the purpose of installation and usage permitted under law (and implicit agreement with the publisher). The publisher is under no legal restrictions from implementing technical measures to impede your use of the product, and indeed legally you are prohibited from attempting to interfere with some of them (DMCA).

So, I stand by what I said, both parts. The issue philosophically is complicated but the legal treatment is somewhat clear. And neither of these fall into the simple boxes of product or license, so accusing a company of wanting it both ways is not only unfair, it misses the point entirely.

Re:It's Absurd!

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a thought. The manufacturer can always sell you a copy of the game at $50. Gamestop cannot always sell you a used copy of the game at $45. For highly popular games with good replay value, there most likely won't be a used copy available for sale, and ... look at that, the manufacturer makes more money!

Re:It's Absurd!

[Nursie]

"And they have a right to charge money for downloadable content that can't be sold with the game."

I'd like to see that tested in law actually.

"And if you don't like it, don't buy it."

I don't sell my games anyway. I care about consumer rights.

"You have some strange anger issues if you care about this so much."

And you're complacent at the ever-extending abuse of consumers if you don't care at all.

"Games aren't food. No one is going to die if they don't buy the latest game."

Irrelevant.

"You can still go to the used game store and buy games and your friend can still give you theirs once they are done."

Not if it's effectively crippled or only half a game without either first buyer bonuses or online extras I can't. He has them sitting, useless, on the hard drive in his console, and I have an incomplete product.

Re:It's Absurd!

[LWATCDR]

"When did it become the gamestore's right to profit more than the developer?"
When they come up with a good business model.
If I buy a game why shouldn't I have the right to resell it?
If I buy a car and I no longer need it I can sell it. That used car is one less car the car company can sell.
When I am done with a book I can sell that as well.

I buy used games because they are cheap and often I can not get them new.
I got a PS2 only a few years ago so there are a lot of games for me to buy used.

It is just that simple. I do and should have the right to sell a video game that I am through playing. I get to recover some of my cost and somebody else gets to enjoy the game for less money.
I am sorry that games have too high of a resale value but that is just the way that it is.

Re:It's Absurd!

[hiryuu]

Frankly, this is one of those posts that merit a "+1, Righteous Vitriol" mod or something along those lines.

Re:It's Absurd!

[Anonymous Coward]

No one is pissing and moaning of you reselling your game on amazon. There's not a substantial amount of money to be made that way for 1 user. The issue is really with the Gamestops of the world who actively try to get their customers to buy the used version for a small decrease in price. No one really wants to stop trading or lending, or even reselling. They just want to make sure there isn't some 3rd party profitting off of their work.

Re:It's Absurd!

[Leonard Fedorov]

In a retail used market, the publisher gains nothing, but pays nothing extra ("lost sales" nonwithstanding)
Whereas with Steam, Valve still has to foot a bandwidth bill.

If Valve took a small commission it might be workable, but I doubt it being seen any time soon - since the disadvantages of used games (potential damage, seller far away, postage, less choice?) evaporate as the entire thing is a download service. So the basically aid the sale of the exact same product as theirs, except they get less money.

This entire thing was discussed endlessly on the Steam Forums, and I think the answer was a resounding no.

Re:It's Absurd!

[nobodylocalhost]

What consumer rights? The consumer is ultimately the person deciding what they purchase or not. You can either decide to buy something or you don't. What information you used to base your decision on has to be correct (thus the false advertisement issue). But if you purchase something, you agree to the terms and conditions attached to the product. You shouldn't go back and say "but I thought I have these implied rights" it doesn't work that way. It's a market driven system, it's much better to have the market drive products than moan and whine about some non-existent "rights". In essence, every "right" customers get are really marketing perks they get to entice the purchase.

Re:It's Absurd!

[mrchaotica]

They can claim that (and idiots might believe them), but that doesn't make it true!

Re:It's Absurd!

[mrchaotica]

but the aspect of how software sales fall into the category of first sale doctrine is still fuzzy

No it's not! Software is exactly like every other form of artistic work sold in a fixed medium! Books are subject to the first sale doctrine. Music is subject to the first sale doctrine. Movies are subject to the first sale doctrine. Software is no different!

Re:It's Absurd!

[mrchaotica]

But if you purchase something, you agree to the terms and conditions attached to the product. You shouldn't go back and say "but I thought I have these implied rights" it doesn't work that way.

What are you, a dumbass? Maybe you don't like the doctrine of first sale and the Uniform Commercial Code for some reason, but you can't pretend it doesn't exist!

Re:It's Absurd!

[Nursie]

Ah, the invisible hand of the market, that will naturally sort all these things out.

Sorry bub, doesn't work that way, we have consumer protections for a reason - without them people would try to screw the consumer out of everything they own, and get away with it due to unfair terms and conditions.

Re:It's Absurd!

[LordVader717]

The thing is that you will always need to have a house to live in and a car to drive, so you won't be saying "I had a marathon session last night and lived/drove this house/car through and don't need it any more", wheras a game will lose most of it's appeal after a short time.

When the business relies on selling different copies to different people, it can easily break the business.

Re:It's Absurd!

[Tronster]

I agree that once a game (or music, or video) leaves it's initial purchasing channel there should not be a required tax or fee that goes back to the originating party.

I don't agree that extras companies invest in providing (e.g., downloadable content) should transfer as well. It seems a fair balance, and don't feel my "rights" are being violated. I have a choice:
      1. Buy new, pay retail, and get additional content
      2. Buy used, pay less, receive no frills.

The companies aren't taking away my choice, and based on the quality of the downloadable content is how I choose to exercise it.

Publishers and studios are doing what they can to monetize their games. The games industry as a whole is pretty chaotic. EA is the juggernaut (ranked #1 again this year by Game Developer Magazine) but even EA has had to sack groups of employees and various studios:
e.g., http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=11289

The smaller studios, owned by publishers or independent, are also not as sustainable as many people believe. For every game that makes it out of the gate and is considered a "hit" there are multiple studios who must sack employees or completely close their doors:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21113
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20929
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17661
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=15486
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13759

Making money by offering product value to those who buy a game new is devoid of encroaching on one's liberities. Without doing so more studios would fail.

Re:It's Absurd!

[vux984]

The trick to Steam as near as I can tell is to simply purchase each game on its own account.

With each game in its own account, you give away or sell a title you don't want. Simply hand over the account information for the account for that game.

Plus if you get married or have kids you and your wife and/or kids can simultaneously play the different games that you own online. (With all your games on one steam account, only one person can play any of them online at a time.)

What if any, are the advantages of having all your games on one account? You don't have to re-login when you switch from title to title? Anything else? Is it worth having all your games forever tied to one concurrent user for that small bit of convenience?

Re:It's Absurd!

[KDR_11k]

Meh, they sold the copy, they made their money, now it's in circulation. They have no right to prevent the copy from circulating or demanding money from second hand buyers.

If "no-risk factory produced crap" was really the solution then why is EA bleeding money and forced to fire 6% of their workforce? Their costs are spiralling out of control. Besides, how does cookie-cutter game development make used sales hurt LESS? A game the customer isn't very happy with is more likely to land on the used shelves than one they are playing online for months or break out at every party. What EA is doing is spamming mediocre games that cost a fortune to develop and predictably they are losing money like mad (over 300 million dollar last quarter, shares down over 50% from last year).

Additionally:

And as a poster above said, this is a pretty good deal for the game industries target audience, the gamer who buys lots of games.

Heh, really? The whole industry's target audience? Or just the target audience of the part that's losing money and now needs to whine about every potential threat to their bottomline to make it look like they're doing something rather than admitting that they're throwing more money at games than they can reasonably return?

Re:It's Absurd!

[Leonard Fedorov]

I think it is... one touch login for all your games was one of the major selling features. Whereas your plan would require an unweildly amount of logins.

I think I'll pass on memorising 40 different logins and which games corrosponds to each.

Also.. how does that work with friends? Do you get each and every one of your friends to add all 40 of your accounts? And vice versa?

Unworkable.

Re:It's Absurd!

[geekoid]

No, it's product, like a book.;which also has a license, BTW.

See, that's why there are different laws and is in fact the point of copyright.

Re:It's Absurd!

[Anonymous Coward]

Some good points, but EA has been Game Dev Mag's #2 for the last two years, not #1. Nintendo has held the top spot for 2007 and 2008.

Re:It's Absurd!

[wild_quinine]

. The issue philosophically is complicated but the legal treatment is somewhat clear. And neither of these fall into the simple boxes of product or license, so accusing a company of wanting it both ways is not only unfair, it misses the point entirely.

I agree with everything that you said, except this last part. From what I can see, a lot of software companies, particularly games publishers, do want it both ways.

Large enterprise software has been sold for years under license. There are philosophical debates to have here, also. But the way in which they operate is fairly clear.

They arguably charge too much for the media, usually about 20 dollars a pop. But they also don't care if you buy 1 or 100 copies of the media for your 100 seats. Because the media is simply something containing the data, and the money you pay for the media is simply for the production of that media, not the software on it.

When you pay them for a license, you pay for a license to use that software. This will be explicit, agreed upon, in many cases negotiable. It will include guarantees of uptime, and generally a certain level of support. It is accepted that you are paying them for their time, for their development, for their continued involvement in your enterprise. They might not always deliver, but that's usally the understanding.

A game comes on a disc. You buy the disc, you buy the game. Sure, you can resell it. Sure, you can lend it to a friend. Sure, you can pretend there are license restrictions, but you never got a chance to read them, you never got a chance to negotiate, you can't return the software if you don't like the terms - not unless you're really willing to push it. And if you can't play it, tough luck. Company X has no responsibility to you - you bought a product, and you can do what you like with it. It's out the door, now.

But things have changed. Now Company X wants to tell you that you can't resell it. You bought, and agreed to, a license. One sale, one user - period. They also have the right to permanently revoke your access to the software - something that would never, could never, apply to any product which had been outright sold. That can only apply to a licensed service.

But where are the responsibilities that come with providing such a service? When their activation servers go down, whether for a weekend, or for life, what comeback do you have?

Nothing. Sorry, you bought a product, and we can't help you with it any more.

I see this more and more, and I see it coming to a head in the next few years. If entertainment is big business, where are the consumer rights? If you can face hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for not paying for your license, where are the fines for denying you access to a service you paid for - which companies like Valve and Take 2 are perfectly capable of doing - and it DOES HAPPEN.

Re:It's Absurd!

[xero314]

Where does the gamestore come into this? I'm talking about my rights as an individual to resell what I have bought.

Here is your problem. When was the last time you purchased a software product? If you list any time in the last 20 years I suggest you check again. You have purchased the media the product came on, but the product it self is only licensed for your use. You can argue that this is not true of something you physically bought in a store, but there is no doubt that all Downloaded Content is Licensed and not purchased.

And don't try comparing to other industries. Digital Media is the only product I can think of that has an infinite number of uses. All other products wear out. Most companies charge the original purchaser for the full use of the product, so when they sell some of that potential use it makes sense to get some capital in return. I doubt you are ready to pay an infinite amount for your media, and neither is anyone else.

Right or not you have to decided what you want from the companies you support, or in your case don't support. If you chose not to support companies that produce the products you enjoy then I support you, just don't bitch about it when those products don't exist anymore.

It's people like yourself that will end the availability of Physical media and everything will end up as a limited use rental (like all the MMOs).

Re:It's Absurd!

[vux984]

Whereas your plan would require an unweildly amount of logins.

You mean like I have different logins for all my other games? A login for battle.net a login for wow, a login for warhammer online,... I've managed to survive.

I think I'll pass on memorising 40 different logins and which games corrosponds to each.

loginame+portal, loginanem+civ4, loginname+hl2... make the login name correspond to the game.

Also.. how does that work with friends? Do you get each and every one of your friends to add all 40 of your accounts? And vice versa?

No. I have a cellphone, and IM accounts. The number of games I have in common with my friends is pretty small. And its not like my friends need to know anything about my portal or my bejewelled...

Unworkable.

Whereas I consider playing full retail price for a game that I can't effectively even lend to my brother while I play something else even more unworkable.

Still I agree... at 40 games its unworkable. Then again, my policy is simply not to patronize steam unless I have to. Ironically perhaps I don't really object to the fact that you can't sell games, but the inability to simultaneously play multiple games on your account makes the system completely worthless in my opinion.

If I want to play game X, and my wife wants to play game Y, we should be able to. Even if they are on the same account. There is NO justification whatsoever for that restriction.

Re:It's Absurd!

[Tronster]

My bad, you are correct, Nintendo is the #1 publisher with EA being #2 for 2007-2008.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3800/game_developer_magazines_top_20_.php

Re:It's Absurd!

[mr_mischief]

If you're playing as Man United, it's also fairly redundant, yes? ;-)

Re:It's Absurd!

[mr_mischief]

The game store profits on the markup of a new game sale.

The game studios have some leverage here, though. There are all sorts of signs and banners in the game stores touting a particular studio or that studio's games and when they'll be available. The studios could easily demand a cut of used game sales in exchange for the rights to use those trademarks in support of the store. They don't. I'm not sure why, but it seems to me that the game publishers are under the impression that if I want a game I'm not going to realize that GameStop will have it in stock on its launch date without being told.

Re:It's Absurd!

[mr_mischief]

It is not my responsibility nor yours to ensure the viability of the business plans adopted by EA, Valve, or THQ.

The game publisher just like the housing contractor invested the capital for the initial product. They have bought no stake in the second-hand market and therefore have no inherent right to profit from it.

The people who have a stake in the products after its initial sales are the game buyer or game store, the car owner or car dealer, and the homeowner or real estate company. They have invested in the original purchase or in buying from the original purchaser, and therefore have a right to expect that they can enjoy the fruits of their investment.

Mistaken reasoning.

[Thanshin]

He's talking about getting benefits from more people having the base game and relates that to second hand market.

However, in that marketing structure, second hand market is worse than simply free distribution of the base game. The money for the extra copies isn't going to the creators and the distribution is much lower.

It's sad to see someone watching so intently at the future and yet not seeing it.

Re:Mistaken reasoning.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a reason the 'used' game market thrives. When games were about 40 I usually bought new and would buy used only if there was no other way. Now that they are about 60. I *LOOK* for used first. As in my opinion most games are crap. They are not fun. There are a good amount out there that are fun too. But you have to TROLL thru mounds of crap to find the good ones. Used also is a good indicator of what is good and bad. The higher priced used ones are usually the better ones.

They have also crossed my 'utility' inflection point. For example Little Big Planet came out what a week ago? I bought it used for 55 instead of 60 new. THEY ALREADY MADE their money on that copy. Someone tried it and did not like it. I stepped in and bought it. The company is in an EQUAL position. They did not loose a sale but got to keep the one instead of gamestop just shipping the disc back to them. Now gamestop made a killing on that (i figure about 20 dollars).

Kill the used market at your own peril game industry. People are using it to make 'low risk' purchases. As most games are crap or just are not fun. They will only buy games they 'know' they like. They will not 'try' other interesting games. You will instead have to hit it out of the park every time. As games will sit on shelves and gamestop (and others) will not want to take as much risk to hold an inventory of games. It doesnt sell instead of just folding it into the used game market stream they will just ship it back to you. You will also end up with a inventory backlog of crap games you will not be able to sell as the used game market will be destroyed.

Now another reason I like the used game market. I can find games that I skipped buying the first time around. For example I recently bought Iron Tank for the NES. I had rented the game eons ago. I wanted to play it again. Do you think SNK would still have servers running from say 1988 for this game for that downloadable content 20 years later? That they LONG ago forgot about?

This reeks of when cable started putting commercials on the pay channels (and im not talking hbo or cinimax). You know the cable bill you get where *YOU* pay for the right to watch the show. They want to 'monetize' the 'extra'. Eventually people get tired of it and cut the cord and find something else to do. I could see a little 'add on' working. But if most of the game is that way (i am looking at you katamari) people will give it a skip and not get it in the first place.

Authors Make Case for Used Books

[Rie Beam]

As gamers age, they begin to seek out copies of games they played as kids. I know I have and I promise I'm not alone.

If you want to make more money, fighting the used game market isn't the way to go. Release a system for $100, make the games $10, and then we'll talk.

Maybe paying $50-$100 for a single game tends to turn some people off.

Re:Authors Make Case for Used Books

[EdIII]

Maybe paying $50-$100 for a single game tends to turn some people off.

It's worse than that. Parents are under so much pressure from their kids to get them these games constantly. Either the parents finally cave and find a "friend of a friend" that can hook them with a modded XBOX preloaded with a 1TB HD full of games, or the kids themselves are forced to find out how to do it themselves and start torrenting the games directly. To parents that are already under enormous stresses these days, a quiet and happy (even if it is just distracted) child is worth quite a bit. It is no surprise they take the financial path of least resistance when found.

You have a huge demand at unreasonable prices and whether or not is immoral and unethical you will see piracy rates climb though the roof.

Then we get to your point about gamers buying the games they loved as kids later on in life. You ARE NOT ALONE. I did the exact same thing. Some of those games I purchased 10 years after I had pirated them before.

Re:Authors Make Case for Used Books

[John_Sauter]

As gamers age, they begin to seek out copies of games they played as kids. I know I have and I promise I'm not alone.

Amen, brother! My first computer game was Spacewar, a video game for the DEC PDP-1. PDP-1s are hard to find today, so I taught myself Java, bought a couple of joysticks, and coded my own implementation.

Re:Authors Make Case for Used Books

[Corporate Troll]

a quiet and happy (even if it is just distracted) child is worth quite a bit.

You do realise that this is an extremely worrying statement, don't you?

Re:Authors Make Case for Used Books

[Anonymous Coward]

repeat with me: reality is not fair, real world is not nice.

Re:Authors Make Case for Used Books

[Corporate Troll]

I never assumed so, my dear AC... I never assumed so. That doesn't stop me from pointing out things I find worrysome.

Re:Authors Make Case for Used Books

[artificialj]

a quiet and happy (even if it is just distracted) child is worth quite a bit.

You do realise that this is an extremely worrying statement, don't you?

you have obviously never had a kid.

Re:Authors Make Case for Used Books

[EdIII]

I know it is a worrisome statement and I DID intend it to be a commentary on the quality of family lives.

My statement is entirely true unfortunately. We are all choosing the path of least resistance more and more to our detriment. It is easier to buy a deadly cheeseburger than it is to take 30 minutes and cook a highly nutritious meal with no chemicals and preservatives. It is easier to all go into different rooms with our technologies and tune each other out and enjoy our distractions being isolated.

I can remember a time when I actually ate real food with my parents and played King's Quest together! No kidding, that really happened. We ate as a family, and we played as a family.

Re:Authors Make Case for Used Books

[xero314]

I have a child and I agree with the parent. If you think buying your kids silence is a good way to raise them then I feel really sorry for my child's future since they will have to deal with your dysfunctional miscreant.

Re:Authors Make Case for Used Books

[artificialj]

you are lying if you are trying to say that as a parent you've never gotten your child a toy and been glad that they are

quiet and happy (even if it is just distracted)

so quit being a condescending asshole

Re:Authors Make Case for Used Books

[Corporate Troll]

About the eating: I cook daily for my wife and me. I must be a strange fellow....

Re:Authors Make Case for Used Books

[xero314]

you are lying if you are trying to say that as a parent you've never gotten your child a toy and been glad that they are

quiet and happy (even if it is just distracted)

Sorry I believe it is my responsibility as a parent to raise my child, not allow electronic devices to do it for me. I can honestly say that I have never given my child any toy for the purpose of quieting them down. And I most certainly have never felt any pressure to purchase, or steal, a toy for my child, as the thread originally expressed.

Believe it or not but there are still people in the world that believe parenting is a process involving human interaction and not just putting their child in front of some device to entertain them until they are old enough to move out.

Re:Authors Make Case for Used Books

[porcupine8]

As gamers age, they begin to seek out copies of games they played as kids. I know I have and I promise I'm not alone.

Can you imagine how much profit there is to be made if Nintendo released a $50 NES with $10 cartridges? Maybe put a few games per cartridge to sweeten the deal. All brand-new, unlike the used ones that are nearly unusable after 20 years. And not just the crap games, collections of those are everywhere. But Mario Bros 1-3, Zelda, Final Fantasy, the ones people have real nostalgia for. People would want it just for looks alone.

Re:Authors Make Case for Used Books

[mr_mischief]

There are the Atari Flashback console, the Atari Arcade Pack, and the Atari Classics Evolved package at a minimum for that name. The game packs are available for the PC and PSP and I think one is for the DS.

Capcom has a multi-game title I think called Capcom Classics Pack which I nearly bought for the PSP the other day.

There's a Namco Legends title with Pac-Man and more on it.

I own a copy of the Midway Arcade Treasures package for PSP. It has 720 Cyberball 2070, Mortal Kombat 1-3, Spy Hunter, Paperboy, Spy Hunter, Joust, Rampage, and more. I think it set me back about $30 about 3 years ago. Activision's Pitfall for the Atari 2600 cost me as much, and $30 was a lot more back then.

Speaking of Activision, they have the Activision Anthology for (at least) the PS2. It has 50 or so Atari 2600 games (including 5 homebrew games released after the 2600 became a classic console). It has Pitfall! and Pitfall 2, Kaboom!, Seaquest, Megamania, Enduro, Barnstorming, and other outright classics. I only own three of the aforementioned as 2600 cartridges, but I might just pick up this collection for the others.

The group pricing on older games is nice. Heck, even Valve does this. I paid $40 for the Orange Box. It gave me Half Life 2, Half Life 2 Episode One, Half Life 2 Episode Two, Half Life: Source, Half Life Lost Highway (or some such -- haven't played it yet), Team Fortress 2, and Portal. Blizzard has its Battle Chest packs for the Warcraft and Starcraft games and their add-ons. SSI, EA, and others have traditionally put together 5 or so old war games or all of two years ago's sports games into one package at a deep discount.

Who cares about the customer?

[J-1000]

Here's a case for used games: We don't hate your company for trying to railroad us into a new copy. These companies are pissed that Gamestop makes money doing something they don't. If they are so jealous of Gamestop, why not sell used copies from their own website? Instead of modifying their business strategy to meet market demand (or better yet, ignoring it altogether since the industry continues to grow in spite of used game sales being around since inception), they would rather try to alter the market itself by brute force. Nice.

They are welcome to do as they please, just as we are welcome to play other games. There's a chance it will work exactly like they want it to, I guess. Time will tell. One thing is for sure: It adds no value to the customer, and in fact *removes* value since they no longer have the option to sell or trade their own stuff.

I'd like to see a car company try something like this.

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop giving them ideas, please.

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[wild_berry]

If they are so jealous of Gamestop, why not sell used copies from their own website?

And offer a discount on upcoming titles, entry into beta testing rounds or early access to the full game. It's a business no-brainer but is hamstrung by the industry habit splitting production from distribution.

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[Sockatume]

I doubt that the games industry has much against second-hand games in general. However big-name game retailers have turned second-hand sales into a hideous profit engine. The big ones in the UK, Game and Gamestation (now one corporate entity), buy preowned titles from gamers for about 25% of the retail price, then resell them at about 75% of the retail price. The margins are so much higher on pre-owned stock that they really push it, offering bundles of pre-owned rather than new software with consoles, staff try to sell you a used rather than new copy when you enquire about a new game, etc. etc. and that cash goes straight into Game Group's pockets. None of it reaches the publisher or the developer, and gamers are given a shitty deal whether they're trading in or buying pre-owned titles, so they don't see the benefit either. I mean, £30 for a dog-eared, scratched, second-hand copy of MGS4? Seriously? Retail is the one part of gaming that pulls a profit in good times and bad. Do yourself, and gaming, a favour: buy your second-hand software anywhere but the big chains.

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[Prehensile Interacti]

These companies are pissed that Gamestop makes money doing something they don't.

Close. The publishing companies are pissed at how Gamestop prioritizes new vs. second hand games in the stores. More shelf space is devoted to second hand games, rather than new games. Additionally sales assistants are trained to offer up the second-hand version if the consumer takes a new version to the counter, as there is more mark-up for Gamestop on the second-hand title.

I'm not going to comment on who is right or wrong here, but I am going to note that pusblishers do not like it. Once Gamestop / EB were their presence on the high street, now their exclusivity has gone, they feel their sales are being diluted. Both companies need business models that work for them, and this is what we are witnessing; the tuning of the parameters to maximize returns. The ones that work out will stay.

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, as an actual employee of Gamestop I feel like I've got to say something on this whole subject.

I'm not the hugest fan of my company, and we do a LOT of stupid things. However, there's a reason for the high margins, and that's the customers.

1, Those used games are warrantied for 30 days by default. If a customer buys a used copy of, say, Fallout 3, takes it home, and decides that shaking the 360 like an etch-a-sketch while the game's still running will make the graphics better, they can come back with their irreparably damaged game and give it to us for a replacement. And then rinse and repeat.
2. Those used games are also warrantied for a full refund within 7 days. So, if someone can beat the game in under a week, they can simply return it without having paid a penny, making us a sort of rental station with a higher initial investment, but ultimately free. Also, if they manage to damage the game, we still have to completely refund within said 7 days. This goes for used consoles as well.
3. We HAVE to buy your used games if they're in good enough condition and for a console we still sell. It's just that simple. This isn't e-bay, or a garage sale, or a swap meet, you're guaranteed a sale of every game you bring in. Hell, if it's a good enough or simply recent enough game, we'll take it back if the bottom's completely scratched. So we also pay for the shipping and repairs of consoles and games.

Also, of course we dedicate more shelf space to used games. There are more used games! Believe it or not, EA doesn't keep producing copies of Madden 05, but we still have to take them in as trades. Almost every game stops production after a while, but there are still millions of copies in circulation. And with each subsequent release in a sports-based franchise, the previous iteration becomes instantly worthless to the customer and is thus sold to us, resulting in an ever-expanding spot in the racks occupied by the creatively titled (Sports Franchise) 03. Following that, few people buy those copies but rather wait for the new copies of the newest version to be traded in.

Also, we actually offer a year warranty for our games. I don't know about you, but until I started working at Gamestop, I'd never heard of extended warranties for games. Given the average lifespan of the average used game in the hands of the average used game customer, those are fairly often returned. And should it be something like Electroplankton or Marvel vs Capcom 2, and we simply cannot secure another copy in the district, we pretty much have little recourse beyond a refund.

Yeah, there's a large margin between sale price and buying price. It's a company, it has to make a profit. However, given the sheer volume of theft, incompetence, and simple loudness(it's amazing how often a customer will win not by being right, but by complaining to customer service until they get their way) from Gamestop's customers, there also has to be a buffer zone for all the things that will inevitably go wrong with sales.

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[petermgreen]

I dunno near where I live we have an independent game shop and they are even more into the buisness of selling secondhand games than the big chains. I suspect they have similar margins on the secondhand games too (though i've only bought secondhand, I don't sell secondhand)

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[Trojan35]

Seriously, if I couldn't buy used games, I probably wouldn't have a system.

Since owning an xbox ($600 after peripherals/2yrs Live etc), the only games I've found worth the initial cost and no re-sale were Gears of War ($60) and Rock Band ($170). That's $830 for two games.

If I was unable to re-sell the other 20 some games I'd bought, there's no way I would even own this system.

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are so jealous of Gamestop, why not sell used copies from their own website?

Because they don't want anyone to sell used copies.

Gaming is trying to move toward the model the RIAA has been working toward for a while now -- that they sell a disposable good. Electronic Arts would be just as happy if you broke the disc in half and threw it it the gutter as you were leaving Gamestop. They have your money and the transaction is done. If you want more entertainment, buy another new game.

Think about it this way: the "old paradigm" was books. You bought a book, it was yours. Lend it out, give it away, borrow one from the library -- the publisher didn't really care because more people reading means more books sold, one way or another.

The new paradigm is an amusement park. You can go and have fun, but once you leave, all you have is memories. You can tell someone else about how fun it was, but they'll have to pay for their own ticket to experience it themselves. You can't re-sell your old ticket to get in the park, and you can't go back in yourself with it. You have to pay all over again. That's what the entertainment industry wants because they decided it's just easier to get your money and be done with it.

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[mrchaotica]

Exactly: and that "new paradigm" only exists in the publishing execs' coked-out delusions, because people (hopefully) won't put up with it!

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[LordVader717]

Somehow I doubt that for someone who spends so much time with his hobby.

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[KDR_11k]

See the car company try which part? Denying used sales (hello Japan!) or getting into used sales themselves to reap those profits (I know VW was advertising something like that around here)?

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[J-1000]

I was facetiously referring to denying used sales. (Japan does that? Wow.) Anyway, it's worth noting that yeah, car companies have taken the correct path towards gaining some of those used-car dollars: By selling used cars!

More to the point, they didn't install some sort of speed governor that won't let you exceed 65mph until it calls home to ensure you are the original owner of the car.

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[KDR_11k]

Japan has tax laws that make it insanely expensive to own a car older than a few years AFAIK, the cars are still in very good condition when the tax gets so high that they're no longer affordable to use so they get sold to other countries instead...

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[Anonymous Coward]

1 and 2 are interesting points, but 3 is utter bullshit. GameStop doesn't HAVE to buy the games. That's their policy because of the tremendous revenue that it brings them. 25% of their income comes from used games, versus 38% for new games.

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's more or less what I meant, I did not mean to imply compulsory purchase from some sort of legal standpoint, but if it's in good enough condition, or simply a recently released game, we are mandated by store policy to accept said game, regardless of quality, or quantity of it in our store. So far the only exception I can think of is AO rated games, which I've never encountered thus far and therefore cannot give an informed statement as to whether or not we take them in.

Bottom line, you come in with your pristine copy of Madden 01 or your weathered copy of Ninjabread Man, we are not going to turn you away, and that's what I meant by the statement. If we were more selective, we probably couldn't justify the cost. We do, though, so we can.

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[rtechie]

What's the "good reason" for GameStop's illegal return policy?

In most states you have 30 days to return anything you buy at retail no matter what. That is THE LAW. GameStop has a return policy that says you're not allowed to return anything used, no matter what, and they will not give you your money back on new games, just another copy if they happen to have one. They won't let you return ANYTHING for cash. This is completely illegal in the State of California and in many other states.

Critically, they often won't accept returns of merchandise that is defective.

For example, most of the Guitar Hero World Tour drum kits are defective. Gamestop won't accept returns on World Tour, no matter what. Another example is Blue Dragon. The crappy packaging scratched up the discs, but Gamestop would not accept a return on Blue Dragon, no matter what.

I've has to sue Gamestop/EB Games twice over this crap.

For the record, Gamecrazy is only marginally better. There really aren't any other specialty game retailers around here.

If anyone knows of a specialty game retailer other than Gamestop and Gamecrazy in San Jose I'd love to hear about it.

Re:Who cares about the customer?

[rtechie]

Here is GameStop's printed return policy off of Gamestop.com:

Returns to GameStop.com Return to Help Center

Returned product(s) must be in the original packaging and include any manuals, cabling and accessories in saleable condition. We reserve the right to limit returns to unopened or defective products. Defective product(s) will be replaced with a like item, upon return. Terms and conditions of manufacturer's warranty apply to defective video games systems and computer hardware after 30 days.

We do not accept returns of:

        * Any product(s) returned more than 30 days from the date on the packing slip.
        * Any product(s) that has been opened (taken out of its plastic wrap).
        * Any product(s) not in its original condition.
        * Any product(s) that is damaged, played, or is missing parts.
        * Any product(s) that were sold as part of a bundle, unless the bundle is returned complete.

Please do not send us product(s) that do not meet the return criteria listed above, as we do not issue refunds for non-qualifying items and cannot return the items to you.

1, Those used games are warrantied for 30 days by default.

Lies. I can't get GameStop to accept returns on anything used. One time I bought a used game, I was looking at the game AT THE COUNTER and saw a big scratch, and a return was refused.

2. Those used games are also warrantied for a full refund within 7 days.

See above. What you're saying contradicts the printed return policy for GameStop. GameStop will not give you cash money for any return (without court order) as far as I can tell.

3. We HAVE to buy your used games if they're in good enough condition and for a console we still sell.

This is technically true, but Gamestop will give you as little as $0.15 (that's 15 CENTS) for some games. At that rate dozens of copies of Madden wouldn't cost a store very much.

And with each subsequent release in a sports-based franchise, the previous iteration becomes instantly worthless to the customer and is thus sold to us, resulting in an ever-expanding spot in the racks occupied by the creatively titled (Sports Franchise) 03.

So why not just put a couple copies of Madden on the shelf and stick the rest in a box in the back? This is what every GameStop I've seen does for EVERY used game where they have lots of copies. Hell, for new games there is ALWAYS only one copy on the shelf and more are grabbed from the back.

Also, we actually offer a year warranty for our games.

For a fee. And it's useless. What happens if you buy a new copy of Fallout 3, get the extended warranty, and then go into GameStop 6 months later with a scratched disk? Nothing. They'll tell you "scratched discs aren't covered", which is true. The extended warranty at GameStop is a pure scam that covers nothing. Ditto for the warranties on consoles.

What right do they have to prohibit this?

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

That's the question that comes to me ... I mean, they sell me a copy of the game, right? Since when do they have a legal right to prohibit me from reselling it? I can't think of another type of product where this can be done legally ...

Re:What right do they have to prohibit this?

[explodymatt]

There are laws against reselling certain adult products in some areas. Perhaps if they can prove the recipient's health is at risk they'd be able to slip it past ^_^

Re:What right do they have to prohibit this?

[hesaigo999ca]

Seriously I agree, what the hell ...does the music industry want to stop you from reselling some cds you don't like...even as stupid as they are, THEY know not to try such BS.

The gaming industry has become this big greedy machine that just can't get enough of itself.
I find the gaming industry (especially blizzard) just too successful for their own good.

The latest WoW expansion proves it....i call it "the 5 billion dollars in the bank is not enough" expansion...instills more game play...but does not make long time players level up any easier.

Unfortunately for me I am a WoW addict already...but try to limit myself to just that ONE game, and only 2 months at a time, the next 2 months are without play....the only way I can still get stuff done around the house.

Re:What right do they have to prohibit this?

[FishAdmin]

That's the question that comes to me ... I mean, they sell me a copy of the game, right? Since when do they have a legal right to prohibit me from reselling it? I can't think of another type of product where this can be done legally ...

How about designer handbags et al? http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/01/154231

Re:What right do they have to prohibit this?

[petermgreen]

Afaict they can't prohibit resale of the game CD/DVD/Blueray itself.

What they can do is make users tie thier copy of the game to an online account. Then have the terms and conditions of that account say non-transferable and/or strongly encourage people to tie all thier games from the publisher to the same account (the steam method)

They can also require online activation and limit the number of activations (the spore/ra3 method). This means a secondhand buyer may not be able to activate the game at all and certainly not the full number of times.

They can also limit each CD key to one login at a time to the multiplayer system (the starcraft method). This will mean that anyone buying a secondhand copy risks being unable to play online when they want to since they can't know for sure that the previous owner destroyed all copies of the CD key.

Of course not all theese methods will work for all games. Some games don't have significant multiplayer content. Console games tend not to have CD keys and console players are unlikely to put up with activation.

Re:What right do they have to prohibit this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Presuming your question was serious and not a rhetorical tool... here are a few of the ways they have the right to use to accomplish this:

• Copyright: not so applicable, since the original physical disc does not nead to be copied, and copies that are a part of installation and usage are implicitly and (in some cases) explicitly allowed by fair-use and other copyright law. Nonetheless, the ease of copying has caused most stores to not trade in PC games.
• Technical measures: Securerom, et. al. There is no law explicitly requiring companies to ensure that resold products work. Maybe you could argue it in a court case, but I personally am not interested in a court case. Bottom line is there may be technical means to prevent multiple installs.
• Services: Companies are under no obligation to provide services, including downloadable content, for free to anyone who asks. They may establish an implicit contractual arrangement with the first owner, the digital results of which are protected under copyright law and thus are non-transferable. In fact it may be arguable that purchases through Steam, et al, are services outright and not products in the first place.

In short, doctrine of first sale says you are not legally prohibited from reselling. It does not say that the company has to make this easy or even possible.

Re:What right do they have to prohibit this?

[Phyvo]

Does not make the long time it takes to level up any easier? Did you not notice that they decreased the experience required to go from 60 to 70? And, earlier, decreased the time it took to go from 1 to 60? And doubled the experience from quest rewards for most of your leveling? If that does not in some way make leveling easier, than what the bloody heck is easier?

Re:What right do they have to prohibit this?

[Nadaka]

Its called the "doctrine of first sale" and it is a fundamental aspect of capitalism and is legally protected in the US. Corporatist evangelicals have tried to subvert this through legal means (they failed in the US, but succeeded in parts of the EU), so in return they attempt to do so through technological means.

Re:What right do they have to prohibit this?

[soniCron88]

Think of it as a service, rather than a physical good. (It is, after all, imaginary property.)

Imagine you buy a ticket to see a concert. You go to the concert, they rip your ticket, and let you in. Once you're in, you can't leave and come back, so you have to watch the show, or surrender the right to see the entire thing. At this point, you've begun "using" the service provided (a live show) and no longer have the right to resell it. You could try to peddle the ripped ticket--nobody can stop you from doing that--but the ticket has no inherent value (at least, not for 20+ years), it just provides access to a one-time service.

Nothing prevents you from selling the physical property on which the game sits, to anybody you choose, but if it's "registered" to a single device, it has no value--it's a ripped ticket. You don't spend $60 for the DVD/Blu-ray. You spend $60 for the "service" that is conveniently stored on such a device. You are given the right to enjoy the imaginary property that exists on that medium, although it's far LESS restrictive than many other types of services. You can play as many times as you like for as long as you like, stop and start whenever you want, etc. I don't much care for this "service" perspective, mind you, but it's a reasonable case to make with any property that doesn't actually exist.

You could also ask why you can't transfer the "rights" to an all-you-can-eat buffet, but it's a perfectly legitimate transaction with an imaginary property. (You're buying the right to food, not the food itself.) I wonder when someone will make a Fair Use argument for buffets...

Re:What right do they have to prohibit this?

[mrchaotica]

Think of it as a service, rather than a physical good.

Why?

No really, why? Why should I help them destroy my rights as a consumer? Why should I help them fuck me over? What do I get out of the deal?

Re:What right do they have to prohibit this?

[soniCron88]

You get the rights to play a game. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

Do you see the irony that a champion of the rights-limiting GPL would raise a fuss about rights limitations? Why should I help them destroy my rights as a programmer and business owner? What do I get out of the deal? Free code.

If the terms don't jive with your needs or desires, close your wallet.

Re:What right do they have to prohibit this?

[LordVader717]

You've fallen for the trick though. Blizzard have realised that they can make much more money by tieing the game to an account and charging an absurd monthly subscription. They have no problem with the used market, because they totally killed it for their game.

The developers who aren't too pleased are the one's making traditional games, which don't require you to register your name and adress and delete your save files if you don't pay them.

Re:What right do they have to prohibit this?

[kramerd]

It happens all the time in the used textbook industry.

You buy a textbook, you get use out of it, publishers create a new edition, you cant sell it back to the bookstore. You cant sell it to other students, because they need the new edition for the class.

Although there is no legal right to prohibit resale, its a fairly effective method.

The video game equivalent would be an mmo(rpg), where you purchase a time-specific use of continually updating software.

Re:What right do they have to prohibit this?

[mrchaotica]

Do you see the irony that a champion of the rights-limiting GPL would raise a fuss about rights limitations?

Not in the slightest, and I'll tell you why:

There are two sets of rights in question in these situations: the rights of the publisher and the right of the user. The GPL, by requiring that users be given the source code, upholds their rights at the expense of the rights of publishers.

Similarly, by requiring publishers to abide by the doctrine of first sale, one upholds the rights of users at the expense of the rights of publishers.

It's completely consistent and not ironic at all, you see.

Re:What right do they have to prohibit this?

[hesaigo999ca]

Yes maybe a little, but I meant for the hardcore fans that have been there 5 years from the beginning, and have spent countless $ each month for their subscription. I can tell you as someone who has played this game AND ONLY THIS GAME for the last 1 1/2 years, I have only time for a bit of game play, and enjoy WoW too much to allow any other game to interfere....so for being so devoted to playing WoW and none other .....as well as the month after month of payments, and the fact they already have 500 billion in the bank....could they not allow each extra character after the first to go 2* as fast in xp....and the 3rd character 3* as fast, this means I could have many players
after my first lvl 70 that allows me to try diff. classes etc. All I am saying is take care (more so) of the guy that helped you get that 500 billion in the bank in the first place, and not the newly aquired accounts.....there is in the new expansion a freebie for the new comer, if they are invited to play from an existing member...they get a mount or something like that....WHAT ABOUT THE GUY WHO HAS BEEN THERE FOREVER...WHAT DO YOU GIVE HIM .... JESUS H CH.

Nope ...we just take car of the new guy

Re:What right do they have to prohibit this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some books are similar enough after one change of edition that reasonable professors will allow a student to take the class with the older edition. It is understood that the student is then at a voluntary disadvantage compared to the students with the newer edition. Often, two editions differ only as the errata for the earlier edition suggests anyway.

In other cases, either there is too much change between editions or the professor is not reasonable about the situation. There is also the case when a professor specifies an entirely new title for the class. That's quite common if a new professor is teaching that section, but some professors reevaluate their teaching materials once in a while too.

Is it just me or...

[ConallB]

Are game developers developing a distinctly MAFIAA type whiff about them?

Re:Is it just me or...

[theilliterate]

It's developed. Google starforce. Or look into ea's shenanigans with spore's DRM.

Liquidity

[Trevelyan]

Isn't one of the most obvious arguments, that being able to sell your games frees up money to spend on new games?

I know in the UK parents would make their kid sell games they are no longer playing in order pay for the latest must have game (The parents then pay for any shortfall).

I would say this whole anti-secondary sale issue is another example of the blind greed that is currently taring down the banks.

Re:Liquidity

[wild_quinine]

I would say this whole anti-secondary sale issue is another example of the blind greed that is currently taring down the banks.

The gaming industry is starting to eat itself.

It's something else to watch these gigantic corporate entities try to turn sharing, borrowing, and reselling into the next big evil. You'd think they'd stand no chance of getting the popular vote on this, but everywhere now you start to see ordinary regular people asking the question: What can be done about the second hand market?

The more pertinent question is: What the fuck? followed by You are kidding, right?

No other industry enjoys this priviledge. Not even the RIAA is seriously trying to argue that you can't sell a used CD, and they've argued that ripping to MP3s is stealing, and that you need to buy a new copy every time you listen on a new device.

The part I find the most ignorant and self-serving is the part where people talk about the damage it is doing to the industry. The industry is not an end in itself. It adapts to market pressures, or it doesn't. As an ordinary, rational consumer there's nothing that I need or want to do for the industry. They produce games at affordable prices, and just suck up the fact that I am not going to buy all of them as first sales, or they don't.

Something everybody seems to forget in the talk about the evil of second hand sales, is that every one of them, no matter how dilute from reselling, must have been a first sale at some point.

And for crying out loud - what happened to just being thrilled that someone wanted to play your shitty game at all?

Re:Liquidity

[Anonymous Coward]

Something everybody seems to forget in the talk about the evil of second hand sales, is that every one of them, no matter how dilute from reselling, must have been a first sale at some point.

See, but that's the problem. 1 legitmate sale could lead to several additional sales. Consider: Bioshock. Good game. Player plays it, knows the story, knows how to play the game, but there's not a whole lot of replay value, so the player trades it in. Next week, a gamer has heard about bioshock, goes in to buy it, but is offered the used copy and buys it at a $5 discount. That player plays it, beats it, realizes there's not a lot of replay value, and returns it. Next week, another gamer comes in...

Games are not like Cars, that one tends to keep for awhile and resell at effectively a loss (because it's more used). Games are more like a CD you don't like. you buy it listen to it/play it, hate it/beat it, and then sell it, and it's effectively lost no value, minus some wear and tear which does not affect the actual product. Since the games never really lose their value, there's no real incentive to buy a new copy of the game.

I'm not really suggesting that we remove the secondary market, or that we start charging for essentials of the game for non first time buyers, but I think there is a problem here, and I don't think that it's the Greed angle that everyone else is taking here; games cost a lot of money to make, afterall.

Rather what I'm saying is that we need to consider other options so that neither party gets stiffed. Maybe change policies so that game stops, etc don't sell used versions of the game for the first X weeks (maybe 1 month, maybe 3) so that game developers can for sure make a profit on a game. Maybe reduce the cost of the game enough so that players would want to just buy the new version. It seems like there must be a way to satisfy players, game developers and game stores.

Re:Liquidity

[mr_mischief]

Games do lose value over time. Unless they are classics or have some personal sentimental value, they are guaranteed to be obsolete in a few years' time. Automotive model years are the same process as a new game engine for the same tired content. If it's not the newest, coolest game ever using the newest, coolest tech ever then it's not worth as much. We humans are loathe to be wowed by what we've already seen several times. Neophiles are a special hyper subclass of that. Most gaming geeks are at least partly neophiles, even if we fondly remember when the cool new thing was Pong.

"Game Designer Makes Case For Used Games"

[Anonymous Coward]

I also have a case for my used games. I made it in woodwork class in ninth grade. In the case I keep my "Monkey Island 2" and "Police Quest 3". I didn't need a fancy "Game Designer" title to be able to make the case, that's how good I am.

Surely it's as simple as...

[clickety6]

If I sell my games, I have money to buy more games!

I can't buy games with money I don't have.

Re:Surely it's as simple as...

[Anonymous Coward]

But you'll probably buy used games with your profits.
So that's a lose-lose deal for the developer.

Re:Surely it's as simple as...

[clickety6]

ah, but eventually I will have played all possible second-hand games and will have to buy a new game ;-)

Re:Surely it's as simple as...

[SQLGuru]

Well, if they want my game $$'s, they have to price it appropriately. I'm a 2nd wave gamer. Most games that I buy new, I wait until the initial price drop before I buy it if I really *must* have it ($50 --> $40). Some games, I can be a little more patient with and wait for the second price drop ($40 --> $30). Others, I wait until it's a bargain ($20).

There have been times when games took too long to make their price drop that they became irrelevant. For example, I've never played Myst. I wanted to, but I didn't feel like it was worth $35 three years after it was released. Had the PC market had a better used game market at the time, I might have considered getting it. Had I played Myst at any point, I'm sure I would have been more likely to purchase the sequels -- even at the $40 price, but when I was ready to pay $20-$25 for Myst, it was still $35. A used copy would have matched my price target better and lead to a future sale of a new copy of Riven.

In general, I don't support used PC games because I do think they are a big component of pirated games (buy, copy, resell, keep playing) and I don't really condone that activity. With console games, however, duplication is not as rampant (generally harder due to proprietary formats and all), so I've bought used console games.....but I also buy new.

Layne

Re:Surely it's as simple as...

[pdusen]

no, that's a "breaking even". They're essentially just trading games they both already own at that point.

Re:Surely it's as simple as...

[mrchaotica]

Most games that I buy new, I wait until the initial price drop before I buy it if I really *must* have it ($50 --> $40). Some games, I can be a little more patient with and wait for the second price drop ($40 --> $30). Others, I wait until it's a bargain ($20).

Unfortunately, for some games that takes way too long to happen, if it ever does. For example, the Diablo 2 expansion came out in 2003 and still costs 2/3s of its original price.

Re:Surely it's as simple as...

[LordVader717]

But you won't buy the same game. Say you buy another game B, and sell the first game A to the next guy. So, the developer get's one sale of game A, vs. two if you both bought new. Even if the same company makes game B, they have to cover the development costs of two games.

Ideally, if game A is more popular, it should get more revenue depending on how many people play it.

Re:Surely it's as simple as...

[mr_mischief]

Let's use a Star Wars example, LordVader717.

So you're saying if I have four friends over and we watch The Empire Strikes Back, George Lucas should make more money off my DVD than if I watch it alone? Or only that if I sell my Return of the Jedi: Battle at Sarlacc's Pit boardgame or such that he needs more money?

I already bought all three original movies on VHS, two on Beta, all three rereleases on VHS, all three originals on DVD, all three rereleases on DVD, and all three of the new, inferior movies on DVD. (Not to mention Indiana Jones, American Graffitti, etc.)

I also have over 100 original-trilogy action figures, more than a dozen Star Wars video games, at least four Star Wars board games, some ships, an Ewok village, some miniatures, a dozen or so posters (mostly still rolled), comics, coloring books, novels, and I even ate C3PO breakfast cereal when I was a kid.

Now if I resell my Empire Strikes Back cartridge for the 2600 then George Lucas needs more money?
You know what, if George Lucas thinks that, then fuck George Lucas and fuck LucasArts. I've spent thousands of dollars on their merchandise over my lifetime. They have no right to demand more just because they are greedy.

Fuck EA, THQ, Blizzard, Valve, and whoever else thinks that fucking way. They have no right either. If they want a stake in the resale then they're going to have to put in on offering it for resale.

Game companies hate used games

[DirtyFly]

I've been in the process of trying to open a game store in Portugal, after several contacts with major labels, i've decided that IO do not want to be a sony employee, the margins are to low, game selling legislation i Portugal is ridiculous, the used game market could be a way out of it , but sony kills the market with their platinum series, what you thought the platinum was there so you could play cheap ? no its there to kill the used game market.
As for the copy protection mechanisms I see on PCs, they are plainly ridiculous, boycot all games that are drmed .

Jorge

Re:Game companies hate used games

[Nursie]

Platinum is not that cheap. Used games are usually overpriced. For instance, most of the places in the UK will buy your game from you for less than £10 and then try to sell it to the public at just a couple of pounds less than the new price - £30-40. That's not only a massive profiteering exercise by the company, but both seller and buyer feel ripped off.

What Platinum should be doing is setting the price cap for used games. If you're gonna pay the seller peanuts and charge the buyer a huge margin then you should expect to be undercut.

Especially when it costs Sony $0 to shove out more copies...

Re:Game companies hate used games

[MrAngryForNoReason]

but sony kills the market with their platinum series

I for one would much rather buy a brand new copy of a game on Sony platinum or Xbox360 classics for £15 instead of paying a comparable price for a used copy. The risk of problems with scratched discs and missing manuals is not worth the hassle in my opinion. Even if you visually inspect the discs before leaving the shop there is no guarantee that they will work flawlessly.

This is especially important for games that require a large time investment. Playing a game like GTAIV for weeks only to find that there is a scratch on the disc that stops the last mission from loading properly would be incredibly frustrating.

Re:Game companies hate used games

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, say, Tales of the Abyss, which took me nearly 70 hours to complete. I'd be pretty angry if I got to hour 65 only to find that one of the last dungeons won't load.

Re:Game companies hate used games

[neumayr]

I don't know if it's still the case on current generation consoles, but the discs of PS2 Platinum edition games were of lower quality than the ones from the original release.
Also, the originals came in prettier cases, often included things like better manuals, posters, and other goodies.

Re:Game companies hate used games

[KDR_11k]

what you thought the platinum was there so you could play cheap ? no its there to kill the used game market.

Really? Old games tend to fall in used value pretty damn fast anyway (especially once they're out of print), the budget lines seem to be used more to have a set of cheap games available for people who want something cheap and to keep some of the popular games available later on so they remain as a selling point for the system even later. If you could only get games from the last 6 months new that would leave a large part of the system's library unavailable and thus remove it as a selling point.

abandonia.com & gog.com

[RichiH]

So the guy thinks that selling add-on content that is not tied to the game but the user of the game is a great way to make money? Nice bloke, that. Now, head to abandonia.com & gog.com and bask in their glory. North and South, Master of Orion and Syndicate for free? Fallout for $5? You will find it there.

Re:abandonia.com & gog.com

[Lectoid]

Great. Thanks for posting those links. Now I am going to have even less free time.

But seriously, thanks for reminding me about those sites.

Re:abandonia.com & gog.com

[RichiH]

The reaction of my brother: "Argh, damn you! Time. Hole. Gone." After that, he did not say much more as the only path out of the south-east corner of the universe was a tiny corridor between Silicoid & Sakkra.. PS: If someone does not know what that means, Silicoid & Sakkra are amongst the races which expand fastest, by far.

Ads?

[EdIII]

In-game ads are one source of this additional revenue

Someone needs to kill these stupid fuckers like *right now*. I'm Serious.

Advertising ruins everything. I don't want to immerse myself in a game and have to put up with some bullshit about what drink is better, and that I need to buy this widget cuz the cool kids got it.

There is a cold war going on right now with advertisers and consumers and advertisers love using stupid bullshit arguments with ignorant judges like, "Not watching commercials is just like stealing content". That's why TIVO is going to cave soon under enormous pressure to thwart people from bypassing advertising and why the old company that made that DVR with the automatic commercial skip got sued into oblivion. They resurrected themselves as ReplayTV, but sans commercial skip.

We fight it everywhere in our lives right now. From blocking pop-ups, pixels, Ad Block Plus, the 30-second skip button on the DVR, etc.

How the fuck can you advertise a contemporary product for today's culture in a game like NeverWinter nights anyways? I would love to go down the local tavern to find my +5 Broadsword only to be faced with a "Do the Dew" logo on the front of it. Sheesh.

We all have to put our foot down now and REFUSE to participate in this else the games will be ruined. If you think I'm going overboard here, then present me a situation in which an advertisement actually adds real entertainment value?

Re:Ads?

[HungryHobo]

I have no problem with the subtle little brain washing things like product placement done well.
As long as it blends in I'd be perfectly happy with billboards in GTA advertising real products.
Seeing junked coke machines in a post apocalyptic setting would be only fitting.
But advertisers don't like subtle. That billboard can't be a washed out piece of the background, no it would have to be primary colours jumping out of the screen at me.

They could put ads on the loading screen but then the pressure is on the devs to prolong the loading screens rather than shorten them.

And because of that I will not accept adverising in pay games.

On the other hand if I get a game for free I'm not going to complain about the developer putting in ads.

Re:Ads?

[meringuoid]

How the fuck can you advertise a contemporary product for today's culture in a game like NeverWinter nights anyways?

On the loading screens. As for which products, know your target market. Source books, dice, miniatures, XXXL T-shirts, pizza delivery, and fizzy drinks. And expansion modules for the game itself, of course.

Re:Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://news.softpedia.com/news/In-game-Advertising-Coming-for-City-of-Heroes-82663.shtml

Re:Ads?

[sam0737]

Oh shoot.

This reminds me that, when I was teen, I made a VB program with a splash screen + progress bar and sleep the thread for a few seconds because I thought progress bar was cool!

Re:Ads?

[theilliterate]

If an online game were *free*. No cost to download, no cost to play, I'd put up with a watermarked coca-cola logo that followed my character around.

Re:Ads?

[neumayr]

Not that I'd enjoy getting spammed in a game I paid for, but there are products that would fit the NWN world good enough. Certain brands of beer (not American beer, obviously), fantasy fairs, LARPs, P&P games (I probably wouldn't have tried D&D if it weren't for Baldur's Gate and NWN)..
Could work, wouldn't neccessarily destroy the mood.
Of course, this assumes some sense on side of those making the ads, and the publisher - could fail on those grounds, admittedly.
But you have to appreciate the extreme costs of making a modern day game, and compare its price to how much you paid for, say, an N64 game. Where I'm from, the price is pretty much equal, even though the same kind of money is worth less nowadays than back then.

Re:Ads?

[J-1000]

How the fuck can you advertise a contemporary product for today's culture in a game like NeverWinter nights anyways?
On the loading screens.

One thing we do not need is incentive for longer loading screens.

Re:Ads?

[phorm]

You know. I could live with that in some cases. Battle.net, for example, has a few banner ads here and there, and stuff that pops up during load-screens.

As long as their not actually offsetting the gameplay (increasing load-times, sticking shitty banners in places they don't realistically belong), it's actually not that bad. Sometimes it's even humorous.

Banners while waiting for the game to find opponents in an online RTS, no prob (heck, it probably helps pay for the server bandwidth).

Billboards for Pepsi in GTA. Why not? a real city would have them.

Adds for a Pepsi in WoW. No fucking way. It ruins the meme. However, I seem to remember hearing about some ads that were recognizable, but adapted to fit the game. For a similar situation, how about the "Burger King" medieval meals, or Starbucks in the second Shrek movie, par example. I thought those added to the humor of the movie.

Re:Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

In-game ads are one source of this additional revenue

Someone needs to kill these stupid fuckers like *right now*. How the fuck can you advertise a contemporary product for today's culture in a game like NeverWinter nights anyways? I would love to go down the local tavern to find my +5 Broadsword only to be faced with a "Do the Dew" logo on the front of it. Sheesh.

How about a nice tankard of MountainGiant Dew? I happen to like MD so I'd find that cool. Have a dwarf doing extreme giant knee-capping or something :)

I'm against the idea in general, but I will say that, at least in the first month, the Hellgate advertising wasn't too bad - basically clan recruitment posters - in game ads for in game items (guild membership) really.

Besiudes, coke wouldn't want the bombed out machien in Fallout. They'd want the working one of +1 energy or whatever. They'd want the bomber out ones to be Pepsi...

Re:Ads?

[0x537461746943]

I actually like the in-game advertisements in Burnout Paradise. It just makes it seem more real. It is not like they forced advertisements on your car or something over the top like that. There are just billboards in the game as you drive around. I hope they do more non-intrusive advertising like that.

Re:Ads?

[ucblockhead]

It depends on the game. If I am playing Burnout Paradise, racing my car through the streets of a modern city, having billboards that advertise real products makes the game *more* immersive, not less.

Yeah, putting an ad in a fantasy or SF game is stupid, but if the game is something set in the modern world then it makes perfect sense to put ads in the game in places where the modern world has ads.

Re:Ads?

[rob1980]

Adds for a Pepsi in WoW. No fucking way. It ruins the meme. However, I seem to remember hearing about some ads that were recognizable, but adapted to fit the game. For a similar situation, how about the "Burger King" medieval meals, or Starbucks in the second Shrek movie, par example. I thought those added to the humor of the movie.

Heck it doesn't even have to be a traditional ad. Remember the /pizza command in Everquest 2? That's killer advertising because it appeals to anybody who's too lazy to alt-tab out and go to Pizza Hut's website. What if Apple and Blizzard put their heads together and built an iTunes interface for World Of Warcraft? What if it let you broadcast a "Now Playing: [United Abominations]" message in party chat (one that could be disabled, mind you) that had the song title linked so others could view track info, and possibly follow a link purchase it on iTunes? Then you wouldn't have to plaster an ad on the side of the zeppelin heading to Northrend or something clearly out of character with the game environment.

Re:Ads?

[gknoy]

While it wouldn't work for everything, I think I wouldn't mind trying a Nuka-Cola branded energy drink. ;) (I wouldn't want the radioactive variety, of course...)

Re:Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm normally the kind of person who has announce scripts for itunes in IRC and posts in now playing threads on forums.

That said, I ran Ramparts the other night with a healer who had an announce script for whatever he was listening to. It was the most annoying thing ever. Chat spam in WoW is bad enough as it is, we don't need more. Hell, sometimes relevant messages (my own tanking plugin's Avenger's Shield Missed!, for example) are too much. I'd hate Blizzard if that made it in.

Re:Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

I forgot: to be honest, my annoyance may have had something to do with the fact that he had the worst musical taste this side of Katy Perry.

Re:Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

what they mean is how in reality you see posters driving down the road or skip commercials on tv and use an ad blocker so why not do it realistically in a game. like you ever listen to the classic ads in gta vice city that was hilarious yet fictional though.

Re:Ads?

[nsteinme]

It's sad the commercial skip feature is not widely available. One thing I never understood was, why should I get the same amount of my time wasted by commercials on cable TV, which I pay a subscription fee for, as the guy down the street who just gets broadcast TV for free?

Re:Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

(not American beer, obviously)

Explain.

Besides, something like Dragonslayer would fit right in.

Re:Ads?

[Aoet_325]

All the ads they need are already in the games, but these companies aren't selling the products they advertise.

I played 'the world ends with you' and thought it'd be neat to have a player pin. I haven't seen one in stores anywhere but some random guy setup a cafe press shop where he's selling them and I'm buying! The advertising worked like a charm, but Square Enix isn't getting the money for it because they haven't made it easier for me to get what I wanted from them then it was to stumble upon the goods elsewhere. Given the choice, I'd pay MORE to get an official product from them than take my chances on some guy's website.

if game makers are looking for ways to increase the money they are making this is one place they could easily get it. I picked up this Cactuar cell phone charm (not mine in the pic tho) while I was in japan, but I'd have picked one up years ago if I'd seen it in a store here.

If game companies took advantage of the marketing power they already have it would turn the used game market into a win for them as more fans == more merchandise sold. The age of the game does not detract from that at all. It's been decades now and I'd still buy a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle if I saw one!

Re:Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're doing this in NHL09 for the boards on the ice where the advertisements would normally be. Clever use of in game advertising in that game in my opinion.

Re:Ads?

[mr_mischief]

Anarchy Online free play client download page

The free client allows you to play a game that is supported by in-game ads in proper context and a character perks system which includes buying game currency with real currency.

Fail! SEO dork, your link gets a "nofollow"!

[Anonymous Coward]

Crash and die --- somewhere else....

Cheating the Game

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's my case for used game sales.

By making it so I can't resell the entirety of my game by giving me a nontransferable license for a portion of the game's content, the publisher is stealing from me. Specifically, they're taking away the resale value of the goods I purchased from them by attempting to treat them as a privileged service instead. This emerging trend of nontransferable content licensing as rights management represents a profoundly backward view of commerce that attempts to justify undermining competition from resale companies by attacking the customer.

Everyone knows that this has nothing to do with eBay or old fashioned brick and mortar video stores. It has everything to do with Gamestop and the like. Publishers realize that when many gamers purchase a game they don't hold onto it long, and the major chain resellers can buy it back and put it on the market again for a profit, theoretically causing the publisher to lose sales.

Well, guess what? That's life. That's how virtually every good in the history of man has been treated. We buy something, we retain it while it has value to us, and we either dispose of it or give it away when we're done. It's not the resale company's fault that your products aren't valuable enough for the customer to want to keep them even though most major resale companies rip them off for a fraction of what the customer paid you for the game, and just because you brats think you're entitled to those sales doesn't mean you can take away one of my basic rights to product ownership. Maybe you should have capitalized on the booming resale market while you had the chance instead of complaining that Gamestop has its fork on your already overloaded plate.

This isn't just about maintaining robust game communities (which aren't profitable) or watering down Gamestop's bread and butter. This is my yard sale. This is eBay. This is my right to resale. Nontransferable content licensing as rights management is nothing but anti-competition against resellers and renters, and a scary and completely unnecessary trend that attacks consumer rights in order to cause the market to function in a way that unfairly favors the publisher. It should be considered criminal.

Maybe before people like Mike Capps and the bigwigs at Nintendo start considering making boneheaded moves like this, they should bone up on economics! Oh, what's that? Marketplace dynamics don't apply to software because it's not a tangible good? Baloney!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_saturation

How About Something Stupidly Obvoius?

[AnswerIs42]

Used Game Market Helps Keep Landfills From Filling Up With Plastic

I have a game I don't play anymore, what sounds better? "Trade it to a store for $10" or "Toss it into the garbage where it will break down in 1000 years"?

Re:How About Something Stupidly Obvoius?

[dangitman]

Used Game Market Helps Keep Landfills From Filling Up With Plastic

.... sniff... E.T, we barely knew you.

I only buy used...

[bbroerman]

As a parent of three boys, I only buy used. I'm not fuc#en rich, and games are absurdly priced. I have other bills to take care of first, like mortgage, car, gas, food, etc. If they stop selling used older games, I'll stop buying. End of story.

Non-replayability is amazing

[Moryath]

In the old days, many games had replayability because that was all they had space for. Early Atari, NES titles were almost universally replayable because they were designed that way.

These days, game companies seem to think that "replayability" is a buzzword, just like they think that padding "Hours of gameplay" with pointless and boring stuff (think the stupid "sail the world and haul shit up from the ocean for 100 hours" bit before you get to the end of Celda:The Wind Breaker, thank god nintendo finally learned their lesson for Twilight Princess). Or, they make a game that's short, and only kind of fun, but with a number of "unlockable" characters to play through each of which has more absurd unlock requirements tied to the previous (Viewtiful Joe, Devil May Cry, I'm looking at you).

After finishing these games once, I'm done. I see no reason to "replay" them, and so I sell them off and get new games. If they had been made to be more fun and less aggravating, that wouldn't be the case.

Here's a hint: if you feel the need to pad your "gameplay hours" or stick extra nonsense-characters in for "replayability", you're doing something wrong and need to fix your game instead.

Re:Non-replayability is amazing

[geminidomino]

Or, they make a game that's short, and only kind of fun, but with a number of "unlockable" characters to play through each of which has more absurd unlock requirements tied to the previous (Viewtiful Joe, Devil May Cry, I'm looking at you).

You forgot the most ridiculous example of unlockable characters ever: Resident Evil 2

When you've reached the point where you are unlocking a chunk of Tofu with a bandanna and a combat knife, you've gone too far.

Strange that all three of these examples are Capcom... I think someone in there needs to have a good talking to/psych evaluation.

Re:Non-replayability is amazing

[Skreems]

My question is, would you be as likely to buy a game such as that if you knew it would be difficult to resell? I'm guessing that there's a decent portion of the customer base for "new games" whose habit is financed through reselling their old titles.

Re:Non-replayability is amazing

[Moryath]

Those were just the three examples that came to mind most readily, but there are plenty of others industry-wide.

Squaresoft and Nintendo alike are both big on "padding the gameplay hours" with meaningless/annoying crap. Activision's put out their fair share of "unlock, unlock, unlock" titles.

It's an odd industry. We are burdened at once with the following problems:

- Shovelware (crap games or, worse, crap games based on movie/tv licenses).
- Endless reiterations of sports titles (Madden 2015, just an updated roster and now you can see the fibers in the shoelace, but the gameplay is still ass)
- Endless games that run a formerly great series into the ground.
- "Padded" games, where the gameplay is mostly solid but they skimped on making the world interesting/entertaining, and just put a bunch of "run from point A to point B, on foot" quests or "hey Link, go collect the 8 Pieces of Crap" quests into the game without much imagination.
- "Fake Replayability" games featuring 18 zillion characters to unlock just to play the same levels over and over and over and over and over and over again.
- The ultimate metagame, "how do I get around the DRM this time... and when will someone manage to patch the latest "update" version so that we can play in decent framerate without the drm infestation."

And of course, you can't trust any of the "reviews" anymore, because the companies simply cut off their access if they ever write an honest review of any of these titles, and all the honest reviewers were fired long ago.

Re:Non-replayability is amazing

[Walpurgiss]

I think Dynasty Warriors is worse than RE2. RE2 the characters were honestly just novelty characters, with little 'challenge level' type things to play after you were done.

But in Dynasty Warriors, there's like 30000000000000000 different characters from the Romance era you can unlock by playing the same 4-6 missions 30 times in musou mode. For example: Lu Bu:

To unlock Lu Bu you must beat the following character's Musou modes. 1. Liu Bei 2. Cao Cao 3. Sun Jian 4. Diao Chan In order to unlock the first 3 characters you must finish from their respective kingdoms 3 character's Musou modes as well. Diao Chan is unlocked by clearing Musou Mode with 1 character from each kingdom. So in total you will have to finish 13 Musou modes to get to our beloved killing machine. It will be however quite worth the trouble to go through.

It's a horrible timesink for a hack and slash game.

Re:Non-replayability is amazing

[LordVader717]

The old games weren't any more replayable as new games, it's just that gamers attitudes and preferences have evolved with time.
Gamers today would find it hard to understand how you could pay 60 dollars for Nintendo Tennis on the NES, and wouldn't be able to entertain themselves with it for longer than 5 minutes, never mind 20+ hours.
By giving the games unlockables and slowly advancing to a climax, the games become more interesting.
Gamers would be pretty angry if the developers were to go back to only making sports games, racing games, and short-lived games of skill.

A better trick is to ditch retailers entirely.

[EWAdams]

In the future many games will be distributed electronically on a pay-to-play service model requiring a unique serial number, verified online, that is valid for a limited period of time. Even if you make a copy, it'll be worthless after the serial number expires.

There won't be such a thing as a "used game." Or indeed a game that you "buy" at all.

Re:A better trick is to ditch retailers entirely.

[0x537461746943]

We are already very close to that. PSN, XBLA, etc. Time limits are only thing remaining. I am 100% sure the game companies would love for everything to go that route because it locks the games up in their DRM.

It is nice how convenient downloading games on PSN are but knowing that they have no resell value is a huge disadvantage. As long as they sell the games on PSN for a much reduced price (Currently they do not) it would help offset this downside to me though.

Re:A better trick is to ditch retailers entirely.

[Digital_Quartz]

And, in the future, publishers will have no customers. The industry can only sell what the consumer will buy.

Pay-per-play is not a new concept; this was what people used to do in arcades. The whole point of home entertainment was that you DIDN'T have to pay-per-play.

I have a certain amount of cash I spend on entertainment. If I have to pay a dollar every time I die in GTA4, then does that mean Rockstar will be rolling in cash? No, of course not, it just means I'm not going to play GTA4, or at the very least, a lot less of it.

A win win situation

[TheLuggage2008]

It seems to me that there is a simple enough solution available here.

If the games companies want to profit from a second hand games market (that they simply will not be able to shut down) they could actually get involved.

It has already been commented here that we sell our used titles to places like Gamestop for maybe $5 - $10, only to see staff tag it for $30 - $40 in some cases before we even walk out of the store.

Let the games publishers establish a game trading site where they can facilitate exchanges between gamers that benefits everyone; the original owner can get more than $10, the new owner can pay less than $40 and the games company can charge a few dollars per transaction.

Getting $3 per transaction on what could be hundreds of thousands or millions of transactions per year adds up to a whole lot more money than $0 of the same transactions; that's how math works, I just checked with a calculator.

Hell, they could even host one 20 second add while the transaction was completing, giving them add revenue as well. We can all survive a 20 second commercial if it's saving us a bunch on our next game, right?

Re:A win win situation

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony or some other company with lots of different business units could even integrate their optical drive business, music business, movie business, online presence, and game business to the point that they could sell you a per-copy right to make a friend a copy of a disc at your house.

They sell movies, music on CD, burners, PCs, TVs, set-top DVD and Blue-Ray players, and game consoles. They also have an online presence that lets you download games to your console for money. Why not charge you half the price of a new shrink-wrapped game to download a program that reads an ISO of your disk, grabs a new CD key from their server, tweaks the ISO for a new CD key, writes it to a CD, and deletes the ISO after a successful burn?

The game, the drive, the blank disk, the PC, and their web site would all become more valuable to the game's initial owner. Of course, if you do this on a PC then the drive, PC, and media might be some other brand. If you enable this on the console, though, then you have multiple purchases right off the bat. Putting a burner instead of a reader in a console might seem like suicide, but I'd much rather pay $60 for a game if I can share it with a friend for $30 more instead of $60 more.

Games are Unique

[Prehensile Interacti]

I'm sat here racking my brain for any other product that is readily available 2nd hand on the high street. Besides the ex-rental in Blockbuster, which is a tiny part of their trade, the best I got is a car analogy (this is Slashdot).

Car dealerships do more trade in 2nd hand cars, than new. However if they are a dealership, then the car manufacturers do make money on the transaction. I believe they all have some sort of 'Approved Used' 2nd hand product, and these funnel money back to the original creator. This is why it costs you a lot more to buy the same 2nd hand car at the dealership, than from the classifieds.

I believe this does make the second hand trade in games unique, and does put the publisher in a uniquely bad position in the world of retail.

There is a place in the world for second-hand stuff, and that place is eBay. Curse however much you like about our economy, but it is built on rampant consumerism. If other industries start finding their new product in direct competition with 2nd hand on the high street, then they will collapse. Games is currently uniquely strong, as the average age keeps getting older each year as Gen X ages.

Of course the best way to tackle the 'issue' of 2nd hand gaming is to bring the price down of new games. If there are more customers (there are), then there is more room to bring the price down. I'm not holding my breath.

Re:Games are Unique

[Grym]

Of course the best way to tackle the 'issue' of 2nd hand gaming is to bring the price down of new games. If there are more customers (there are), then there is more room to bring the price down. I'm not holding my breath.

Exactly. The gaming industry's greed created this monster. By insisting on agranular pricing, so that nearly all games are MSRP priced at $50-60, regardless of production costs and actual value, they virtually ensured the gamestop niche. As a consumer, if you only had $30 to spend and wanted a new game, until very recently (via XBLA and steam), you were basically out of luck.

The secondhand market filled that gap. Plus, it also allowed a way for consumers to recoup some of the cost of bad games which publishers insist on pricing the same as triple-A titles.

-Grym

Game Industry's Worst Nightmare

[Beyond Opinion]

I recently graduated college and got a job. Now that I have a source of income, I started to look at getting a current-gen game system. But after doing the math ($250-$400 console + $50-60 x number of games) I decided that since I still have my GameCube, and there were plenty of games for it that I would like to play and didn't already own, I would fall into the used games market. So I have been playing lots more games lately, but the game industry hasn't seen a dime from me. And you know what? Tony Hawk 4 is just as fun now as it was then, and it cost less than 6 bucks including shipping (just as one example). By the way, don't shop for used games at GameStop, you can get them brand new online for cheaper.

Electronic is special?

[Galen Wolffit]

And if I buy 'Baba O'Riley' or 'I Fought the Law,' then give it to whoever I sell Rock Band to?

With physical property, it is clear that as a consumer, I have the right to do with that physical property as I see fit, including transferring ownership in full to another individual. For example, if I buy a book, I can give the book to someone, I can sell it to them, etc.

I have yet to hear a compelling argument for why the same should not be true of electronic content. Certainly, if I buy a game I should not be able to give or sell someone else a copy of that game while retaining a copy for my own use. However, there should be no restriction on me giving it or selling it to another person, including any additional content I've purchased.

Book authors derive no revenue from the secondary market. Musicians derive no revenue from the secondary market (though there are multiple primary markets, including radio play, licensing songs for use in movies, games, etc.) Why do game designers feel they have the inalienable right to derive revenue from the secondary market?

Re:Electronic is special?

[burris]

So called "electronic" copies are physical. There is a physical embodiment of the work in the pattern of magnetic particles on the disk. Without being fixed in a tangible medium, the work would not be subject to Copyright!

If this copy of the work was authorized by the exclusive rights holders, such as having downloaded it from their site, then you are free to sell that physical copy it along with the HD. However, Copyright law doesn't allow you to make a new copy on another hard drive and sell that after deleting the original.

When you purchased and downloaded something, you may have separately agreed to not resell the work in a contract with the publisher. That is an issue wholly independent of Copyright. However, such a contract is usually a contract of adhesion. Since the Doctrine of First Sale, prior to being included in the statute, was first articulated in a case where books had contracts printed in the covers forbidding secondary sales, these antireselling provisions might not withstand legal challenge. Is an end run around the first sale provisions of Copyright law "unconsciable?"

There's Only So Much

[jonesy16]

First off let me say that absolutely despise them for trying to stop the used game market. On the other hand, I understand how that does eat into profit. I won't pretend like we all wouldn't mind some extra cash, deserved or not. So what's the answer? They've made a few suggestions that I'll address.

1) In game advertising - doesn't really bother me at all. I could really care less if I'm driving down the street in GTA and I pass a billboard for CocaCola, whoopdi-do. If done in that way then it's non-invasive. Now if you paused the game every 12 minutes to show me a 30 second ad like television you better believe your game is getting burned / hacked / whatever.
2) Downloadable content - again, this can be done tastefully or as an insult to your customer. Almost all games currently sell additional content on the Xbox 360 Marketplace and I've gotta say that I love that. New maps for Halo every 6 months? Sweet. A new 30 minute mission for Mass Effect to tide me over til the next part of the trilogy comes out? Sweet. On the other hand, if you remove crucial elements of the game and make me pay additional for those, then your game is not going to be bought by me.

A suggestion that I'd throw out there is making Gamestop, etc pay royalties for used game sales. I do think it is a RIPOFF that Gamestop gives me $12 for a used game, turns around and sells it for $40, and all they had to do was put a sticker on it. I mean, their used game sell for $5 less than their new games, how absurd. Obviously I'm still gonna pay it cause it's less than the new game and there's no risk for me cause I can return it if it doesn't work, but still, what a ripoff. Make Gamestop pay a couple of bucks from their profit to the game studio.

Re:There's Only So Much

[LordKronos]

I do think it is a RIPOFF that Gamestop gives me $12 for a used game, turns around and sells it for $40, and all they had to do was put a sticker on it.

Yep. The rent is free, as are the employees, the advertising, the storage of games, the risk it won't sell, the insurance in case the game gets stolen, the computer that rings up the sale, the accountant that does taxes, the taxes they pay on that income, end even the sticker that they put on the used game. Yep, that's all free. All they have to do is put a sticker on it.

Re:There's Only So Much

[SwordsmanLuke]

Why make GameStop pay royalties on their used sale? Just like you, they've paid cash to own a copy of the game and just like you, they're reselling it. They don't pay a "royalty" (look that word up, BTW, it doesn't mean what you think.) on new games, either. They buy new games from the publisher and then resell them with a markup to turn a profit.

They do the same thing with used games. The only difference is that they're able to enjoy a higher profit because they are able to purchase a used game from an individual for much less than what they pay the publisher for a new copy.

Re:There's Only So Much

[jonesy16]

Wow, an entire comment dedicated solely to sarcasm.

I would assume that you've already done a thorough analysis of their business model and how it might survive if they're no longer allowed to even sell used games, I guess your post should have read more like this:

"Used game retailers have a business model that is largely based on the resale of previously played games. A move by the gaming industry to ban used game sales would ultimately lead to the death of the very retailers that purvey their games today contributing to a positive feedback loop of reduced sales and game exposure."

Re:There's Only So Much

[LordKronos]

Huh? What the hell does that have to do with your claim of "all they had to do was put a sticker on it" while completely dismissing anything that went into it? Did I say anything in favor of or against them selling used games, or anything about their business model? No. I was simply commenting on your (not uncommon) misconception about what expenses are involved in running a business. The basic idea of my post could just as easily been applied to someone saying Best Buy rips you off by charging $20 for a DVD when the raw materials to make each DVD only cost a penny each.

How in the world you turned what I said into what you replied with, I haven't the slightest idea.

Re:There's Only So Much

[jonesy16]

Your claim, implied through sarcasm since you didn't actually make a statement, was that the store must charge what they do on used games in order to survive because they have fixed and marginal costs associated with each used game transaction including, but not necessarily limited to: transaction processing, storage, rent, advertising, salaries, etc.

Since retail stores would still have to find a way to exist even without the market for used games (which hasn't always been there), then the store must have a very low marginal cost to "store and market" their used selection. That being the case then their only justification for a 300% mark-up is greed. I do understand that the market will ultimately decide what they can and cannot charge for used games, I'm just using this as my pedestal for complaining. And then you had to go and start stating that their justification for charging 10% less for used games as opposed to new was due to operating costs.

Re:There's Only So Much

[LordKronos]

Wow, that's the second time you've taken my post and turned it into something it wasn't.

I made no such claim. I only claimed that your suggestion that "all they had to do was put a sticker on it" was utterly ridiculous and absolutely devoid of anything having to do with reality.

I wouldn't bother trying to discuss actual figures or anything like that with someone who can't even grasp the fact that operating costs exist (or at least, since you seem very interested in implying things, that is what was implied by your post). Even now, you resort to that same sort of logic with statements like "their only justification for a 300% mark-up is greed".

Complain all you like if it makes you feel better. However, if you read carefully, you will noticed that not once did I attack or defend anything about their business model or pricing. All I've done was point out that you are complaining from a stance so extreme that you don't even acknowledge the possibility that their markup is anything but 100% profit.

If you can twist my neutral comments that far one way or the other, I'd hate to see what you'd do with my words if I actually took a side on the issue.

Used games are not substantially cheaper...

[Tetsujin]

I very rarely (almost never) buy used games in a game store, because honestly I just don't think they offer a very good price on them. It'll be like new copy: $60, used copy: $55. Or if it's an older game it might be new copy: $30, used copy $25.

Now from a practical standpoint I don't care at all whether it's a new or used copy. There hasn't been a significant difference in quality in my experience. Plus I own a smallish house, I really can't take more accumulation of "stuff" - so in many cases I don't even keep things like the DVD case or manual. But if the price difference is so minor, it becomes a matter of principle: I don't want to pay new game prices for used games. The previous owner of the game got something out of the deal, the game store gets something out of the deal, I want something out of the deal, too. Like a real non-trivial savings.

Re:Used games are not substantially cheaper...

[log0n]

People who buy used games generally don't buy used when it's a new/recent release. People buy used when the game is 6 months old and goes for $15-20 less than a new copy.

Recent: Silent Hill 5 new $59.99 used $54.99
6+ months: Alone in the Dark new $39.99 used $19-24.99

I bought Silent Hill new in-spite of a potential savings of $5, but I bought AOTD used because I saved just under $20 new.

Re:Used games are not substantially cheaper...

[Tetsujin]

I don't know - in my experience usually the new price of the old game has lowered, too.

Re:Used games are not substantially cheaper...

[0x537461746943]

I agree with you when there is only a $5 to $10 difference in price on a $60 game but...

Gamestop sometimes has used buy 2 get 1 free or 20% off used coupons that make it substantially cheaper. I just picked up FarCry2 and Resistance2 for about $43 each used with a 20% off coupon. I saved $34 that day. It is VERY hard to pass up savings like that.

$40 is about the price range where I personally would always buy new and never used. I picked up Warhawk, Burnout Paradise, Resistance1, Motorstorm1, etc all new and did not even look for used prices on them because they were all around $30.

just more propaganda from big biz

[Anonymous Coward]

Piracy is taking over ships at sea, it is not sharing. Sharing what you own or create with others is both ethical and productive. Those who oppose sharing do so strictly out of a sense of greed. The public domain is where works of mind are inspired and needs to be replenished by the fruits of our thoughts. If we let the incompetent chain our creativity to their wagon, we'll simply keep pulling their load for them. We need to stop seeing exploitation as business and realize market corruption and creative theft are the real crimes going on here. Games and games would be much better served by affordable and wide-spread community development rather than the current platforms owned by monopolistic control minded multinational corporations.

Please, stop supporting evil by buying it's products.

It's not entertainment anymore ...

[GunDawg]

When I see an ad for a product inside a game it becomes a marketing.

This whole subject is stupid. Stick to entertaining and keep the marketing out. If you (game designer) don't want to follow the suggestions of your customers, I hope the next time you make it with your partner, they have the words, "Condom Depot.com" tatooed across their chest. Just so you know what it tastes like to have advertising mixed in with your entertainment. Chump.

Overpriced.

[MaWeiTao]

My personal issue with used games is that they cost only $5, at most $10, less than a new copy and what I'm getting out of the deal is questionable. Most of the time the instruction manual is missing, sometimes the package in damaged, and in some cases the CD has seen too much wear. And yet the condition of the package seems to have no bearing whatsoever on the cost of the game.

My thinking is, if the game isn't worth the money new then it's not worth buying period. Maybe I'll reconsider when the game is going for $20, which is an even better deal than getting one used. I've seen quite a few cases where discounted games were going for the same price or cheaper than used.

I've always felt that what retailers ask for used games is a blatant money grab, especially since they know that too many gamers lack the patience to wait for prices to drop.

That said, I have no problem whatsoever with the used game market. I can buy and sell used cars, furniture and electronics, why can't I do the same with games?

Used games market boosts the new games market

[ElGanzoLoco]

Judging from how my little brothers manage their game collection (Wii, DS, PSP) I am pretty convinced that the ability to sell their old games (to a game store) is what allows them to buy the newer ones, usually first-hand.

Otherwise they wouldn't have nearly enough pocket money to buy them.

Restrictions on the second-hand market are silly. It will just push more people on Piratebay, since that other silly restriction pushed by the industry, DRM, has also failed spectacularly.

Bringing in new people

[VGPowerlord]

If it weren't for the used game business, my aunt and uncle, both retired, probably wouldn't play video games.

As it is, they now have 3 PS2s (2 for home, 1 for when they head to Florida for the winter) and 1 Gamecube (which I gave to them when I purchased a Wii).

They buy a lot of used games. My cousins buy them new games for various holidays and birthdays, but whenever they buy games for themselves, it's always used.

Re:Bringing in new people

[SparkleMotion88]

They buy a lot of used games. My cousins buy them new games for various holidays and birthdays, but whenever they buy games for themselves, it's always used.

That's what I do, too. If there is a game that I want, I will put it on my wish list and someone will buy it for me on my birthday or Christmas (optimally spaced 6 months apart so I never have to wait too long for a new game). If there is a new game that I only "kind of" want, I will wait a year or two and then buy it used. So I am responsible for just as many new game sales as used game sales. However, if I couldn't buy games used, I probably wouldn't even own a console. So the ability to buy games used is the only reason the industry gets any money from me at all.

Re:Bringing in new people

[VGPowerlord]

My aunt was born in mid-April and my uncle in late-September... it's not optimal, but it still segments things into 3 parts for them.

They also tend to like most of the same types of games... 3D platformers like Ratchet & Clank mainly.

Economics of used games

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that eliminating used games sales would only benefit companies that are producing games that already make gads of cash. Used game sales are much less prominent in the PC market, and we have popular systems like steam that prevent their sale. In more casual markets, besides providing marketing for low-income folks, the used game market allows the fixed price of games to become a variable price for consumers of new games. Judging by the scads of used console games available at Gamestop and Ebay, there are many people who purchase a new game for 60 dollars expecting

to be able to turn it around for 35 or 40 dollars when they've finished with it (or if they don't like it). Effectively, they've reduced the price of a poor purchase or finished experience from 60 dollars to 20, and my guess is that this factors in to a lot of players' decisions to buy new games.

the solution to developers gripes on used games

[Allison Geode]

its really, really simple. I don't know why nobody's thought of this before, its so brilliant. if developers want people to be forced to buy the game from them, they should simply make games that people want to keep! Make better games, and you'll sell more original copies! WOW!

In a not dissimilar vein - piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Would I have purchased fallout 3 at full price on the day of release had I not been able to download and play fallout 1 and 2?

In all honesty. no I wouldn't.

Used sales has never hurt anyone [citation needed]

[w0mprat]

Fact is the, trade in used [games/anything] has never been shown to hurt any industry, there is no reasonable and pertinent argument in support of any such claim. At least not without seriously distorting the facts and figures to prove one's point.

It's disappointing that the games industry is anti-used sales. The music industry has been quietly shutting down used sales for a long time, doing the same thing using the piracy issue as a distraction also.

Used $ale != 1:1 Lost New $ale when you look at the industry holistically, and observing long term, it's rather the opposite.

The effect of used sales (which I contend is small if any in isolated cases) varies for some media more than others, for example: certainly not for literature, if we didn't have libraries, used books, borrowed and given, we wouldn't read books, wouldn't buy books. It's been well covered in other comments here, but a used game market is a good thing, if not an essiential thing. Especially where it gets people playing classic games that are no longer available new, it avoids a kind of event horizon that stuff disappears over.

Infact the inability to on sell, recycle or reuse something you buy actually puts people off making a purchase. I'll skip the obligatory car analogy here....

If you deny your consumers what there is a high demand for (and abuse their rights along the way) they will invariably take matters into their own hands. Some markets get it right some don't. I've long argued the obvious that the any industry reaches an equilibrium with it's co-dependant blackmarket, in this case the balance favours the piracy black economy depends on PC games sellable being produced, as does retail sales depending on the free promotion of the overall from piracy. Indeed piracy props up gaming hardware sales, and that hardware in turn creates sales and more piracy.

My concern about this kind of direction in economics is this kind of thing may slip through into legislation under the guise of recycling, which would go along the lines of: you have to hand your car back to the manufacturer when your done with it, for recycling purposes, it's too dangerous to the (now precious) environment and the (proven unstable) global economy to have it bouncing round the used market until it ends up rusting on a lawn somewhere. This puts total control back in the channels and shuts down any unauthorized trade. So suddenly there would be an immensely profitable black market...

Re

[Anonymous Coward]

I expect more companies to make a steam (valve) type distribution for their games.

I'm fine with in game advertisements so long as it is done with taste. Swat 4 it was mostly signs or vending machines. I find that acceptable. Other games however are not as subtle.

As for used games my purchases (for consoles) tend to be the $20 or less selections. Older games that I would otherwise not own or play.

Example of acquiring and old game

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to say that the used game market probably helps the game studios, simple example, somebody once gave me a copy of Diablo, I had never played any Blizzard games before that and really did not intend to, not thinking their games sounding that interesting to me. After this guy gave me Diablo, and I actually played it, I ended up getting just about every other game that Blizzard makes! Which would not have happened had I not been given that first Diablo game. Although I did not pay for this game it did introduce me to a company's product line that resulted in me buying many more of their games.

These companies need to quit fighting off the free advertising and promotion they are getting from used games (and admitadly even some piracy) that only helps them. They need to start looking at the big picture.

Here's a case for used games also..

[AbRASiON]

If I CAN'T re-sell 110$ AUD games which I've purchased with my money, I won't be willing to continue to pay for them, so their market will go down overall.

Half the reason I got in to consoles was good re-sale value for games, plus the fact that unlike a PC game, I can buy a used copy of a console game and play online, due to lack of serial numbers etc.

Drop games to 40$ AUD a pop and sure I'll buy them without the ability to sell them but any higher and I expect more for my $

Nobody would charge you every time you die!

[EWAdams]

But what if you had to spend 50c a day to play? You'd never miss it, and it's a WAY better deal than the arcades.

Renting or owning?

[AnalogJunkie.com]

If you can't sell it, give it away, ect. Then you do not OWN it. They want to rent you a game for $60 a pop; not give you one to own. If you buy a house it's YOURS. It can be sold to anybody, any number of times. The builder doesn't get to charge the new owners a fee for using the damn driveway just, because they didn't make any money off the new sale. If they want to increase sales then they need to make games that are good enough that people do not want to get rid of them. So that new players HAVE to buy a new copy. Will that totally kill a used game market? No, but it will make it less available. btw - LOL @ not watching commercials is like stealing content.. 'Stealing digital content' is basically like Publix sending Wal-Mart a letter that they've stolen potential customers from them by being open, and so should send retribution. Cash please. k thanks Nothing material has been taken (so no money lost), but that was potential for them to make money from somebody that was not interested in buying their crap anyway.