Why Game Developers Should Shut Up About Used Games

Ssquared22 writes "It may feel like a rip-off to some, but you've got to admit that paying $30 for Gears of War 2 sure beats paying $60! Game publishers and developers may not like it, but people are going to trade in used games for new games and those old games will be sold back to other people. There's nothing game developers can do to stop them, and companies like Gamestop continue to laugh all the way to the bank. In an article at Crispy Gamer, David Thomas dissects one of the most critical issues in gaming today: used games and merchants (online and brick-and-mortar) who specialize in this 'sleight of hand.'"

Comments

Great advertising for new versions!

[flowsnake]

Let's say I buy $GAME second hand for $30. Perhaps I'll like it enough to buy the sequel $GAME_2 new, full price, when it comes out and not wait.

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[NotWithABang]

Who knows, developers could learn from this and say "hmm, maybe the average gamer can't afford $60 for our generic crap-of-the-month we're churning out, maybe if it was $30 in the first place, there wouldn't be a need for a Used market"
Capitalism at work... though... I know... unbelievably wishful thinking.

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[Old97]

It's like the old argument against piracy - but even more so.

The "even more so" is that reselling a game and buying used games is perfectly legal and violates the rights of no one. Game developers need to respect the rights of their customers and shut up.

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[muuh-gnu]

>The "even more so" is that reselling a game and buying used games is perfectly legal and
>violates the rights of no one.

Copying games instead of buying them would also be perfectly legal and would not violate anybodys rights if such rights had not been artificially _created_ (in a undemocratic way, by a small minority which commonly calls it "the oil of the 21st century", against the will of a large, really large body of people, who it is also rather fiercely enforced against) just in order to create a market where otherwise would be none (or a much smaller one).

Thanks god we now have the Piratpartiet/Piratenpartei (the first legal representation of the internet itself, and the first generation of the "born digitals") we can vote for (and which we have successfully voted into the European parliament this summer) and reverse this ugly piece of corporate for-profit-censorship. Private, non commercial copying and sharing of culture and information will soon be perfectly legal again. Germany parliament is next, fall 2009.

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[MrMarket]

Not sure how that would change the used market. You'll just have $30 new games selling for $15 used.

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[PopeRatzo]

I've found a great money-saving approach to buying games that doesn't involve "used" games. Unfortunately, with more and more games having significant online components, it's going to be harder and harder to get full value from a used game if the company (EA for one example of a company that doesn't believe you own the thing you have purchased) doesn't want you to.

I no longer jump on a brand new game, and instead wait until the price comes down, which it eventually does, every time. The wait can be from 2 or 3 months to as much as a year, but eventually the game will sell for about 1/4 of its original price. You can buy Bioshock or Fallout 3 or Far Cry 2 for about $19 bucks now, brand new. And when you get the game, you don't enjoy it any less because you didn't have it on day one.

Even if it's a matter of wanting to have the game all your friends are playing, I've found it's easy enough for a group of friends to decide to wait a while to play the new game, unless your friends are dicks who have rich parents who will buy then anything they want at any price. I just today bought Left4Dead with three of my friends who had similarly waited. The four of us saved over $100 off the 0-day price, which'll pay for a nice bag of weed and some beer for the Left4Dead party we will surely have. The other benefit was we didn't have to all run out and upgrade our computers to play Left4Dead, because the normal rate of upgrading has already caught our systems up to the recommended system requirements. The video card I would have had to buy the first day Left4Dead came out probably dropped in price by 70% when I got around to buying it 8 months later.

Realize, you don't have to do what advertisers and marketers tell you to do. It's possible to live a rich and fulfilled life without reacting to hype like a coke addicted monkey pulling a lever.

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[jcnnghm]

So who is going to produce these multi-million dollar games when anyone can copyright and distribute them without restriction? You do realize there have been more than a few games that have cost over $40M to produce. The average PS3 game costs $15M before marketing. Hell, even Pacman cost $100K to develop in the 80s. Which business do you think is going to invest $15M in a product that they can't protect. I guess you could point to all the wonderful F/OSS games that are out there, like... wait.

The only way copyright will be reformed is if considerably more restrictive DRM is developed, so you don't need the law to prevent people from duplicating your product. You'll probably see that anyway with online distribution to hurt the resale market.

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[muuh-gnu]

>So who is going to produce these multi-million dollar games when anyone can copyright and
>distribute them without restriction?

If no one wants to pay for them, no one wants them produced. So if no one wants them to be produced... why should you produce them? (Kinda obvious, isn't it?)

>You do realize there have been more than a few games that have cost over $40M to produce.

They dont have to be produced if theres no market for them. (Kinda obvious, isn't it?)

> so you don't need the law to prevent people from duplicating your product.

How about stopping the production of the product until the people realize (all by themselves, with no censorship and mass punishment laws needed) that they really really really have to pay you to get it?

And by the way, the law absolutely doesnt prevent anybody to "duplicate" your product, it just fuck ups the lives (really badly) of the few poor fellas who happen to get caught. The silent majority just keeps copying because nobody, really nobody outside of the circles directly profiting from copying prohibition considers sharing, copying and passing on of culture even remotely wrong or illegal.

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[JStegmaier]

In other words, they get to charge such high prices because users can sell the game later and recoup some of the loss.

Which completely explains why digitally distributed games are so much cheaper. You can't reseller them, and the publisher doesn't have to pay for packaging, shipping, etc.

No, no wait. Digitally distributed games cost the exact same fucking amount.

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Once that serial number is registered, selling the CD doesn't do any good at all. And game companies are under no obligation to allow you to transfer that serial number to someone else.

I'm not sure about here, but in the EU, where citizens actually count for a damn, they'll probably impose that burden on copyright holders - you know, the idea that you, as the holder of some copyrighted work have the right to resell it to someone else with the expectation that they have the same utility as if they'd bought it new. Allowing companies to effectively legislate themselves new rights by deliberately collaring their products is wrong and should be seen as an abdication of copyright.

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[sammyF70]

Who knows, maybe some people are just cheap and wouldn't get a NEW game even if it was cheaper, as long as they can get it for less (or free) and so it doesn't matter how expensive you sell your games?

I'm writing games which admittedly can not be sold used (for ANDROID), but from my experience, some people just don't see the point in paying for games and either pirate the game ( 3 minutes top from install to refund) or play the game for the 24 hours they have and THEN ask for refunds. We're talking games selling between 0.99c and $2.99 here, so please don't tell me it's because they needed the money (after buying a $400 phone!?).
Unrelated but noteworthy, on the other side of the spectrum, there seem to be people who will buy anything if it's *expensive* (cause we all know that free or cheap stuff can not be good). This showed when I raised the price for one of my games from 0.99c to $1.99 and I suddenly had 5 times as many sales.

so ... selling normal games at $30 instead of $60 won't make any difference for people used to buy used games. They'll just keep on waiting for a ~used~ offer and buy that. It does, of course, increase the probability that the game will sell more earlier, as people who buy new games when they are discounted will hit earlier too. In the end though, you'll lose some benefit from the people who would have actually bought the game for the $60 pricetag.

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[Malkin]

However, selling used games or DVDs or books whether you are a person, a store or a chain is still legal.

This isn't about the legality of the matter. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's not abusive, in some cases. My whole point was that the industry's issue is not with the customers, who are behaving in a perfectly rational manner.

Game developers need to factor that into their business model and get on with it.

The retail stores who are reselling used games need to factor into their business model the very real possibility that the game companies will increasingly take measures to circumvent their secondary sales market (and even, to a degree, the boxes-on-shelves model, entirely), since this is already in the process of taking place.

Consider used book stores (and libraries).

People expect to find used books in a used book store. The last time I checked, Borders doesn't put used books on the shelf next to new books for 10% less, and then confront you at the checkout to ask you if you didn't really want to buy the cheaper used book instead of the new one. That would be pretty trashy, would't it?

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[Malkin]

So why don't the publishers get in on it?

You know, to be perfectly honest with you, I was just pondering that very idea. That is, after all, what the auto industry did. I am occasionally disconcerted by Toyota's efforts to buy back my 9-year-old car. :-D

Contracting

[Hadlock]

There's nothing stopping major game publishers from creating their own chain of used game stores, and contracting (or just buy a majority share in) gamestop to manage them for the publishers. This seems like a pretty easy fix.

They can stop it: Installs locked to hardware.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Sony was going to have each game be locked to a single PS3 thus preventing the resale of the game.

Sony decided against it when the fans made a stink.

Lets not say that its "impossible" to stop the selling of used games. Its quite possible and they will do it when they feel they have to.

Re:They can stop it: Installs locked to hardware.

[Mortiss]

Yeah,
Thus ensuring that many people simply will not buy it because they not only cannot trade it but also cannot even take it to their friends places to play.

That would be a very stupid move indeed.

Re:They can stop it: Installs locked to hardware.

[Sancho]

I think most of us, even if we don't regularly buy things on steam are agreeable to binding a purchase to an account.

I wouldn't mind binding things to an account, as long as I could unbind it and transfer it to another account.

Re:They can stop it: Installs locked to hardware.

[vux984]

That comes across as awfully non-enforceable.

So if gamestop started brokering steam account transfers, would it be 'non-enforceable' then?

Your right, its pretty non-enforceable if a couple people do it individually and privately. But if they can block gamestop from participating, and ebay, and craigslist, etc, etc... its 'enforcebable enough'.

Lower your price!

[darkmeridian]

Game companies should progressively lower prices of their games as time passes. This would eat up the used game market.

Don't get it...

[navygeek]

Honestly, the argument against being able to buy used games is not one I understand. It's no different than buying a used car and as soon as someone suggested there be sanctions against reselling cars, there would be a public outcry. In both instances you can buy the brand new item for full retail price - or wait a while and get it in slightly worse condition and maybe not with all the extras that originally came with the item. In both cases the reseller (we'll say Gamestop and your local car dealership) make a profit over what they bought the used item for. In both cases the customer is paying more than they otherwise would if they bought it directly from the person selling it to the reseller. And in both cases you're dealing with shady, underhanded people.

"sleight of hand"

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Anyone who describes selling used anything this way is clearly so out of touch with reality that their opinion on the subject isn't worth listening to.

The primary reason that game developers (and marketers) should shut up about used games? It's not because it may act as advertising for their future games, although that's a valid economic argument. It's because if you buy something, you own it, and it is yours to do with as you wish. Don't talk about "selling" people games if you're not willing to, you know, sell them. Rent them out, whatever. But when you agree to have your products on store shelves (store, not rental facility) or listed as "for sale" in online catalogs, you are giving up the right to control what people do with the physical media after they buy them. Period. End of story. Game over, man, game over.

Movie studios, music labels, book publishers: you too.

Re:Why would game publishers care?

[Dynedain]

But this is how the game publishers see it:

5 million people are playing my game.
500k people are pirating it.
1 million people are buying it used.

I get $30 for each new copy sold.

Ergo, I am LOSING $15 million to piracy, and I am LOSING $30 million to second-hand sales.

The key is that the publishes don't view the second-hand sales environment as free marketing. That is to say, they don't see the benefits of having a wider audience exposure, which in turn causes overall sales and first-sales to rise. Instead they look at second-hand sales as missed opportunities, assuming that they should have been first-sale purchases, and scream that they are losing revenue. Complete bullshit way of thinking about it, but when all you care about is the bottom line, then your goal is to have the absolute maximum number of people paying you the maximum price.

Of course the used-market game retailers put the price of the used games barely less than the new ones (compare to a pawn shop for example) which only further reinforces the mentality that the retailers are trying to screw the publishers.

Developers need to do the math

[Itchyeyes]

Developers and publishers are under the, mistaken, impression that they're missing out on huge revenue stream through used games. Let's assume that I buy a game for $60. Once I'm done with it, I sell it, either through Gamestop or Amazon for about $20 net. They take a $10 commission and sell it to someone else for $30. In this scenario developers seem to think that they've missed out on a single $60 from the person who bought it at $30 used, but that just isn't the case.

First of all, the person who waited for a used copy at $30 isn't going to spend $60 in the absence of a used copy. They're going to wait until the new copies are about $30 and buy it then. Giving them fewer choices of how to spend their money does not magically give them more money to spend. Also, the person who bought the game at $60, didn't just buy a game. They bought a game that they knew they could sell for ~$20. By stripping out the ability to resell the game you lower the value of the game to the initial buyer as well. So without the used option, the developer doesn't get two $60 sales, they get one $40 sale and one $30 sale. But they have to pay for all the production, shipping, packing, etc... costs for a second copy of the game as well. So at the end of the day the net gain is more or less zero.

You really can't have it both ways

[erroneus]

On one hand, they want to act like "the thing" is the media upon which the games are distributed. This is why they don't want to replace media that has been damaged at any reasonable cost. On the other hand, they want to act like "the thing" is also the software license and not the media itself and so they want to deny the license to resell the media by asserting that users are not allowed to transfer the license to use the software and data within.

You can't have it both ways. If the media is the thing, then they don't need to replace my damaged disks for a reasonable fee but they can't prevent me from selling them either. If the software/data contained is the thing, then they should offer media replacement services at a reasonable cost FOREVER or at least offer a means to back up the data and to play the backup copies. (They should not be allowed to back out of this by saying a game is discontinued and replacement copies are no longer available... they can just print more! And any company that buys the original company and copyrights to the software/data should ALSO be required under the same licensing agreement...) and then they can disallow the right to resell the media.

At the moment, the paradigm appears to be in favor of the media being "the thing" as the behavior of the game publishers and the console makers seem to bear this out. (That is to say, no backup copies are playable and no replacement guarantees are available.) And since the media is the thing, they can't restrict what I do with it and damn the DMCA as it is an unjust law and I will violate it every time it gets in the way of my fair use.

Re:You're doing it wrong.

[CorporateSuit]

So let me get this straight -- you're trying to tell game developers they don't deserve the money they're lawfully entitled to?

They're not lawfully entitled to used-game sales. Once they've received the check for the games they sell to retailers, their deal is done. They got their money. The game DVD is no longer property of $Game_Developer. That property was sold. The developer still has the rights to print the game, and make more copies, but they don't have the right to harvest cash after they've already received full compensation for the property.

Second, if they charged less, the games would suck badly enough that they'd no longer be worth even a slashdot post lamenting the lack of availability.

How much mercury did you drink before you started believing this? Until developers have access to time machines, retail price of a game will NOT affect the development process. NBA Jam for the Genesis sold for $100 retail. Shenmue had a budget of $70M and turned out mediocre. Too Human had a budget of about $100M, and was received even worse. You said yourself that price is not indicative of value, but it's an indication of what the game developer feels they "deserve" for their contributions to a superfluous entertainment industry.

Used games put more money in the studios hands.

[harl]

Alice has $90.
Bob has $30.

No used:
Alice buys Gears of War.
Money given to studios - $60

With used:
Alice buys Gears of War.
Alice sells GoW to Bob.
Alice buys GoW2
Money given to studios - $120

Used stores allow people who don't have enough to buy games new or don't want to buy games new to funnel their money to those who do.

Additionally it exposes more people to games sowing the seeds for future full price purchases when their spending habits and/or income changes.

Early online play is key

[Langfat]

The only problem I see here is that me and my friends will whoop your ass at L4D because you don't know the maps the way we do since we've been playing from November. Sure you'll be fine against a group of no-mics, but me and my 3 friends will beat you and your 3 friends, hands down, every time, for the next few months... It's the same reason I wouldn't get into WoW now...I don't know what any of the shit does or how to effectively use it...

digital "property"

[Ephemeriis]

I like computers... I make my living fixing them... I thoroughly enjoy video games... But I really hate what digital media has done to the concepts of property and ownership.

Used to be that I'd buy a book, or a record, or a board game, or a deck of cards - and nobody would question for a moment that I owned those things. They were my property. I could do with them whatever I wanted. After I finished reading the book I could donate it to the local library, or hand it off to a friend, or sell it to a used bookstore. If the original author of that book showed up at my garage sale and complained that I was selling his book he would have been laughed at.

These days, however, we don't actually own anything. We've just been given a temporary license to use the thing. And when I'm done playing my video game, or done reading my ebook, or done listening to my MP3, I'm not really able to do much with it. Sure, I can sell a video game to someone else... But the DRM involved is making it hard just to re-install the game on your own computer, much less transfer ownership to someone else.

The worst part isn't that this is happening... Of course a company is going to do everything they can to make money - that's what businesses do. So I don't blame EA or Microsoft or whoever for trying to prevent the selling of used video games. The worst part is that it is being allowed to happen. Nobody is laughing at these guys. Their arguments aren't being rebuffed. They aren't being thrown out of court. These folks are claiming that the $60 I paid for a video game didn't actually buy me a video game, and everyone just kind of shrugs and nods and goes along with it.

time out

[TiggertheMad]

Developers aren't the problem. People keep saying 'developers' in this thread when they mean 'publishers'. Developers write code and debug physics engines, they don't set prices or worry about second tier markets.

You are thinking of CEOs, who are whiny bitches regardless of the industry they are in...