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Anger With Game Content Lock Spurs Reaction From Studio Head Curt Shilling
MojoKid writes "Studios and publishers are fighting back hard against the used game market, with the upcoming title Kingdoms of Amular the latest to declare it will use a content lock. In this case, KoA ups the ante by locking out part of the game that's normally available in single-player mode. Gamers exploded, with many angry that game content that had shipped on the physical disc was locked away and missing, as well as being angry at the fact that content was withheld from used game players. One forum thread asking if the studio fought back against allowing EA to lock the content went on for 49 pages before Curt Shilling, the head of 38 Studios, took to the forums himself. His commentary on the situation is blunt and to the point. 'This is not 38 trying to take more of your money, or EA in this case, this is us rewarding people for helping us! If you disagree due to methodology, ok, but that is our intent... companies are still trying to figure out how to receive dollars spent on games they make, when they are bought. Is that wrong? if so please tell me how.'"
From what Curt Shilling has said, the content is not on the game disc and was intended to be released as (day-one) DLC, but instead, those who buy the game get it for free. I really don't see the problem, myself.
I had a sig once. It was lost in the great storm of '09.
Is that wrong? if so please tell me how
There's nothing wrong with wanting to make a profit. There's everything wrong about withholding product and lying about it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Well, the way to get back at the game company is to simply DON'T buy the game.
First sale doctrine. QED.
They are preventing someone from having anything of value to sell after they are done with it. Perhaps if the game didn't cost so much in the first place it would have less value used and more would buy it new - what a concept. I don't buy too many games these days but I play many older ones and some online games. It's stunts like this that would prevent me from buying this game new OR used. $50 and $60 dollars per game is crazy and has greatly curtailed my desire to buy. Between crappy DRM that makes my life hell and is now starting to limit even hardware changes to publishers pulling crap like this to ensure I cannot resell any game I buy I simply have no stomach to purchase their crap. Let them go bankrupt and someone who values their customers more take their place so far as I'm concerned....
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companies are still trying to figure out how to receive dollars spent on games they make, when they are bought. Is that wrong? if so please tell me how.
In my case they need to figure out a better way to receive my dollars. There's absolutely nothing wrong with what they are doing. It simply means that I will refuse to support their business by purchasing their products. If enough people feel the same way, then they will either find a way to stop treating people like shit and make money or go out of business.
Make games I don't want to sell 2 weeks after I buy them?
I still got my original copies of Chrono Cross & Star Ocean 2 from launch day. Just sayin'...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
... this is us rewarding people for helping us!
Where did this jackass study economics? This ain't the way it works: I give you money, you give me something of equal value in return, period. His former dean and professors should fail him retroactively.
What a spin doctor.
Game with resale value > Game without resale value. If you make a game that's as good as another game, and I can sell that other game for more, I am more likely to buy that if I have any interest in possibly selling or even giving away that other game.
By blocking content to secondary users, you have lowered the value of your game. If you don't lower the price in a corresponding fashion, you will have fewer sales.
So I buy a used ford and I no longer get to use the radio without paying an activation fee? Same concept, a stupid, naive, greedy one. I have only bought a few games at gamestop as I know their markup practices, but I don't disagree with a used game market. I use Steam almost exclusively as I can get most games at incredible savings, then I don't feel the need to sell them to recoup on a crappy game. If game makers are so concerned about this, maybe they should actually make games worth playing for any length of time. Like Skyrim. Then this wouldn't be an issue to the degree it seems to be to the publishers. People play their copy longer, won't put it on the used market for a while, probably sometime after the initial profitable margin of the games release, then used games are available for those that can't afford the ridiculous price of todays games. Seems pretty simple to me.
When I buy your game, you get money and I get the game for the remainder of my life and the remainder of its life (whichever is shorter). When I decide I don't want the game for the rest of my life, I can sell the rest of the games life to someone else. This is how it has always been, and how it always should be. This is a perfect example of destroying customer value, for no gain to the customer, in an effort to make more money for yourself. Imagine if real estate developers did this, and forced one room of your apartment to close each time a new owner purchased it.
I hope EA's sales plummet and a rival company who RESPECTS and VALUES their customer take EA's market share. I for one will not be purchasing any more games from EA whilst such practices are in place.
"We're not trying to take more of your money, we're rewarding you! By generously allowing you to access content that you've already bought from us and that already belongs to you. But we don't allow you to resell that content that you bought, even though you're legally entitled to. We don't want to reward you as much as that."
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
[rant]Game companies are already forking us over on DLC. When you buy a game, figure on 2x the list price in order to get a *complete* game.[/rant]
I never buy new games anymore. I wait until you can buy the game, all the expansions, and all the DLC on Steam for $20 before I buy it.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
How clueless can you get. This guy clearly didn't bother to read any of the comments or he wouldn't have made such an ignorant statement that completely ignores his customers. How's that shoe leather tasting, Mr Shilling?
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Game companies, like more and more content and service providers, seem to be contesting the concept of ownership. They want to charge just as much (or more) for their products as they've done in the past but with fewer associated rights. Or they want you to pay perpetual subscription and licensing fees. Secondary markets for games (and books, music, clothes, cars, etc.) aren't some new phenomenon created by interweb hackers and sexting teenagers. Its been a fact of life for commerce for quite a long time. Why suddenly begin treating it like a threat to your business now?
I've bought more legitimate games for my PS3 than any other system. Want to know the secret? I pay $25.00-$50 per game. They ship from the UK, from OZGameShop.com There's no DRM, there's no bullshit. I put them in my PS3, they install, and they play. I don't have to be online to use them. I own 26 Playstation 3 games, I even preordered 2 of them and paid full price $70-100. That's more than every other console I own combined. If you try to force me to pay $60-120/game. I will stop buying games again. You will have priced me out of the market. I will prefer to spend my $500 on PC hardware, and crack your software. Because I can't justify YOUR prices. There's a point where buying a game is a good honest deal and I will buy many games. But then there's the point where you're ripping me off blind, and I will stop buying your products. It's your choice really. I pay well above average for the humble bundles as well. My first payment was $35 because I saw the value of what they wanted to sell. I wouldn't own any PS3 games or even a PS3 if I couldn't get the games I want for $25 each. You wouldn't have 29 sales of games, hardware, and controllers without that available. That's about $1200 Sony and it's publishers would be missing. Don't screw over gamers, and we won't screw you over. Stop acting like entitled children. You don't own our money and we don't owe you anything.
The 'content' creation industries need a major bitchslap.
So, people can sell cars and other people can reuse them. Cars - stuff that are MUCH more harder to make. even making a new model of an existing model that is out in the market, requires immense design, engineering, planning, logistics and after that, standards verification and permission-acquisition. after that, there is distribution, sales, after-sale care, maintenance and many more.
So, car industry cannot ban used car sales, but, 'content industries' can ? and that is .......... just because they can ?
Fuck off. you dont have a right to produce one-two singular products and make money over them over and over and over again throughout your life at ease - especially not by restricting the freedoms of the customers to whom you SELL your product.
the keyword, is SALE. and no - you can not 'redefine' sale to fit your own purposes. once you sell something, you GIVE IT AWAY.
such bastards really deserve piracy.
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There was an article here a while back about a Nintendo DS(?) game that wouldnt allow a complete restart after the first playthrough. Things like THAT impede second hand sales and replay value. Bonus DLC content, on the other hand, is fair prize for first-sale consumers. I believe developers should have the right to hold it back. An extra character skin or a special item doesnt impact gameplay all that much.
I've bought more legitimate games for my PS3 than any other system. Want to know the secret? I pay $25.00-$50 per game. They ship from the UK, from OZGameShop.com There's no DRM, there's no bullshit. I put them in my PS3, they install, and they play. I don't have to be online to use them. I own 26 Playstation 3 games, I even preordered 2 of them and paid full price $70-100. That's more than every other console I own combined. If you try to force me to pay $60-120/game. I will stop buying games again. You will have priced me out of the market. I will prefer to spend my $500 on PC hardware, and crack your software. Because I can't justify YOUR prices. There's a point where buying a game is a good honest deal and I will buy many games. But then there's the point where you're ripping me off blind, and I will stop buying your products. It's your choice really. I pay well above average for the humble bundles as well. My first payment was $35 because I saw the value of what they wanted to sell. I wouldn't own any PS3 games or even a PS3 if I couldn't get the games I want for $25 each. You wouldn't have 29 sales of games, hardware, and controllers without that available. That's about $1200 Sony and it's publishers would be missing. Don't screw over gamers, and we won't screw you over. Stop acting like entitled children. You don't own our money and we don't owe you anything.
As with music and everything else, the big USED product market didn't prevent various massive industries from being born... which are now using their power to warp reality and politics.
Infinite stock price growth is what fuels this war with their customers. Share holders are all that matters today nobody thinks of customers. The past is not enough, they must wring every cent from you in every way conceivable or the board picks a new CEO. Many newspapers that died were still profitable but not as high as desired (or they were just less profitable but still profitable) so they were gutted and the owners made away on the entrails.
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"Does ANYONE on Slashdot know that this guy is an ex-pro baseball player?"
Yeah, I do.
What does that have to do with this?
Curt
I can see that you might struggle to understand why you shouldn't get a cut every time something you once produced is re-sold. After all, when you buy a used book you send some money to the original publisher right?. And every time you sell your used car, you are happy to make sure a percentage makes its way to the original manufacturer don't you?.
Just think, that beautiful antique Ming vase you brought, the original effort and creativity that went into the painting. It's unique, some Chinese artisan spent months, or even years, of their life making it. They would never do that if they didn't know that hundreds of years later when you bought it at an auction in New York, they were not going to get a cut of that.
Yes, I see your problem. Your problem is that an item's value consists of it's useful value (the value of actually using it), plus the residual value. The residual value is the amount the owner can get by selling the item once they have no further use for it. You are attempting to reduce the residual value artificially. Your problem is that reduces the actual value of the game over all. So guess what? people won't pay you as much for it.
Your other problem is that you really don't understand the above.
It seems developers can't win with day-1 DLC. If they release it normally, it's content that should've been released on the disc (even if it was gold or content locked before the DLC was finished). In this case, they're including a one-time-use code to get the DLC for free; isn't that better than asking ALL players to buy the DLC?
I don't see how this is worse than the other "project 10-dollar" schemes of having players of used games pay for a DLC that unlocks multiplayer or something, especially if the content isn't already on the disc (as the game developers claim).
Perhaps if they provided an online code generator that anyone could use to redeem for a free copy of the DLC, that'd suffice? It's worth noting that the PC version comes with this DLC already included, no code required, although there isn't much market for used PC games.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
I got really excited for a very cool-looking game called Spore that came out a few years ago. But then I read about it's DRM policy, which only let you install it a limited number of times before the key became invalid.
So I didn't buy it. And I've never played it.
They are doing their best in a very tough industry.
It's very easy to work really hard, put your heart into a project, and then have it die with NOTHING to show for it.
Even the guy flipping burgers knows he's going to get paid even though not very much. These game devs will sometimes work on projects for years spending profits from old projects or savings on the hope that the new project will be worth the effort.
Great game studios go out of business all the time for lack of sales, poor marketing, or just bad luck.
I'm not commenting on this specific technology they're trying here... I'm just saying... give them a break. They're trying really hard to stay in a business they love and we the gamers enjoy.
One thing which I wish the game companies would try more of is serialized game development. There have been some experiments with this but I really feel this is the solution to a lot of problems. Rather then making the game all in one shot, focus on sorting out the engine, netcode, etc out and then release the game in little packets good for an hour or so of gameplay.
Then the investment isn't as large. If people aren't buying the game then stop development after a couple episodes rather then completing a full season which should be roughly equivalent to a large full release game.
Further, if the game is a success and sales are good you can just keep releasing episodes ultimately making a much larger game then you'd otherwise release. And the game dev gets rewarded for making larger games.
Right now in the current game market you can charge maybe 50-60 dollars for a AAA game title. If you release a game that is twice as big as most games on the market you can't charge 120 dollars even if its' well worth it. Gamers just won't pay it.
However, if you packaged the game into episodes then you could charge 2-5 dollars per episode, release a new episode every month or so, and then keep making them for as long as people bought them.
That gives you all the long lasting profits of an MMO with all the great single player goodness we've been missing from MMO titles.
My only experience with this model so far has been the games from TellTale Games. I preordered the whole Monkey's Island series and was very happy with the process. I think I paid 40 dollars or something for the whole series and they released a new title every two months over the course of a year. I can't speak for everyone but I was very happy with the arrangement and if anything would have been very happy to buy a second season.
In any case... that's my suggestion. Break the games up into bits small enough that you can afford to fail and expandable enough that if you have a hit you can milk it for all it's worth. That's why some TV shows only have two episodes and others go on for 10 years. If it's a flop you're out the cost of a pilot. If people like it you can just keep making them until people get tired of them or you decide to retire you private island.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Under the old model I could buy the game for $59 and sell it for $19. Net cost is $40. Also, I could share the game on all the consoles or PC's in my household (Family plan). Now the game is $59 and the family plan is over $118 or higher. Now add the inconvenience of the DRM and the effective playability (i.e. value has been decreased). Take all this together and ask: Is this game still worth buying? Some people will still buy at this "higher price" some won't. If they made the right choice they will have higher profits, if the didn't the result will be lower profits. Getting all upset because they "screwed up" the product is like getting all pissed off because the new Ford Mustang only has a 100HP engine and they are charging the same price for it. You probably won't like it, won't buy it, and Ford will have lower earnings.
Should I care? Why would I? His whining is crap no matter what his previous career might have been and lends no substance to his views.
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Car companies should limit features in their cars when sold as used. Say GM can disable the GPS or in-dash entertainment when their car is on-sold to someone else and then offers an upgrade to the new owner, all because the new owner isn't rewarding the thousands of engineers and designers who put so much work into that car.
No, bullshit and that reasoning would not be accepted by consumers in any other industry. So why do publishers constantly treat their customers like a piece of shit and why does the average consumer accept it?
I see their point however the methods are still misplaced. If I buy a used car, It's not like I can't use Gears 4 and up.
Maybe you can't if you don't renew your OnStar service. Did you read your contract?
Several ex-SOE execs/developers on staff and you're surprised it turned out this way? Not only that but the game is just shit. Don't give them your money, then you have nothing to complain about.
Right, so lowering the resale value of the disk is "rewarding people for helping us!" Does that make sense to anyone?
Game companies do get paid when the company sells the game. Now that copy belongs to someone else. That's what 'sell' means. No company deserves to be paid when someone else's property is sold. But that's what they want. They want to be paid for selling it once, and then get paid again when the original purchaser sells his own property. It ain't your property any more after you sold it. What's hard to understand about that?
There are other business models that would keep money flowing to the game company. They could lease or rent games. They could sell under a contract that governs resale. But if they want to make a simple retail sale under state laws following the Uniform Commercial Code, then the terms are simple: once you accept value in exchange, what you sold no longer belongs to you and you have no say in its resale.
Game companies, if you don't like the terms and conditions of retail sales under the UCC, then don't sell your games that way. If you like the simplicity of sales under the UCC, then suck it up accept that purchasers have the right to resell when they no longer want your game. Maybe you should figure out why purchasers don't want to keep your games. Maybe you should stop worrying that someone else made money from reselling something that you already got paid for once.
Making used copies worth less just proves that you're control-freak assholes. Sales of used copies does NOT lower the initial sales; people will pay more when they know they have the option to sell their copy later. Anything you can do to reduce the value of a used copy reduces the value of the first sale. Car companies advertise the high resale value of their brands as a good reason to buy. Why do you guys have this backwards?
Curt Schilling, the CEO, is an ex-Major League Baseball pitcher who is likely headed for the Hall of Fame (he lead three different teams to 4 World Series). He turned his video game hobby, marketable name and tens of millions in the bank into a post-baseball career as game studio head. In parallel, he has flirted with the idea of entering politics as a conservative Tea Party-type candidate, and wrote occasional political as well as baseball commentary on his 38 pitches blog.
To nobody's surprise, 38 Studios (38 was Schilling's uniform number with the Red Sox) soon fell well behind schedule on their AAA game, and was hemorrhaging cash. They tried to get Massachusetts (their original home base) to guarantee a loan, but Mass said no. However, a business development board for Rhode Island (a notoriously poorly run state with a longtime corruption problem) agreed to co-sign a $75 million (!) loan, on the conditions that 1) 38 Studios relocate to RI; 2) RI gets a substantial equity stake in the company; and 3) 38 Studios agrees to meet an aggressive schedule of hiring hundreds of RI citizens to good-paying staff positions. The board is hoping that Schilling's company will help spark the emergence of a tech industry in RI. That's a big reason why they have so many employees, and why they have little or no wiggle room in cutting consumers a break. They need the revenues, now!
You may have noticed that they missed the 2011 Christmas season (as well as 2010, etc). Lots of Democrats pointed out that by accepting the government-guaranteed loan, Schilling violated all the "small government, free market" principles he'd been espousing in his blog. I've noticed that since the move, Schilling hasn't blogged about politics, and was amusingly silent when Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas refused to join his teammates for the Stanley Cup victory dinner at Obama's White House (just the kind of news item Schilling used to delight in blogging about).
Good luck, Curt.
This has got to be one of the most convoluted story titles ever. I had to read it 3 times before it started making sense.
"companies are still trying to figure out how to receive dollars spent on games they make, when they are bought. Is that wrong? if so please tell me how"
Because whenever I buy any other product on the freaking planet, I can do whatever the hell I want with it and resell it to anyone. Autodesk (the autocad people) and gucci (the fancy purse and whatever else people) already lost lawsuits trying to control secondary sales of their products. Get ready for a lawsuit, greedy assholes!
They made loads of money with a game that didn't even require some kind of per-copy authentication code. You technically only need the jar file to play it. Even the initial log in is completely unnecessary for single player, and even occasionally for multiplayer. And yet, they somehow can continue to release updates and new content, and make tons while doing so.
MBAs like to talk about maximizing profit, but what they don't realize is that maximizing profit simultaneously means minimizing customers. Nowadays, people can smell this kind of stuff; they know when they're being treated like crap. And I'm pretty sure they've just about had enough of it.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Since when is this news people? The last few years the games industry is looking up to the motion picture industry for lessons in how to screw your customer, sorry, how to optimize your revenue model. Next up, a law prohibiting the resale of any used software product.
When this thing starts to fly in software and content, do you think that the other industries will just let it slip to have ONLY those industries have their way ?
within a year you would start to see all cars becoming sold per 'license basis' with endless number of conditions attached. actually everything else.
the proposition here is whether someone who sells you something can have right to control you after the sale.
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Every other product you buy, you can resell. This is as old a concept as trade. What is it about video games, or game developers, that makes them special and out of bounds for resell? Nothing. They're just greedy fucks.
This isn't about games being picked out of bargain bin for $5 two or three years after release.
It's about the practice of game stores selling new $60 games, then a couple weeks later buying them back for $8 (or more typically store credit) and re-selling them for $55. It's a practice that sees almost as much money leave consumer pockets but half as much reach the people who actually made the games and is very wide spread. The stores deliberately under-stock new games in order to push people towards the used copies. It's typical to go in a week after release and be told they don't have any new copies, but there are a half dozen used for a couple dollars off.
It's a practice that's bad for the developers, the publishers and fairly bad for the consumers as a whole. Basically bad for everyone but the pawn shops in the middle. It siphons enormous amounts of money out of the industry and is one of the reasons that basically every studio smaller than EA or Ubisoft is forced to sell out or close, regardless of how well liked their games are.
Yes, measures taken to combat this have some nasty collateral damage. No such thing as perfect system in real life.
American copyright law clearly grants the purchaser the right to resell. They are violating American copyright by withholding the right to resell a used game.
Capitalism says "charge what the market will bear." Clearly the market will not bear non-resell-able games.
No, I will not work for your startup
Ok, everyone take a deep breath. 48 pages, damn. -- Curt Shilling
right now it's up to 122 pages. you sure pissed people off this time, Curt.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
That's a "Use" tax or in some cases a property tax, not a sales tax, different thing. It may be based off the value of the vehicle however. Wait, no that logic still fails, yup you still get ripped off, hum. So many similarities..... Sorry thinking about the registration fee's, not the re-taxed sales tax from the dealer. With crap this complicated, it's a wonder anyone buys anything.
If you bought a second hand car and the manufacture disabled 4th and 5th gear because they wanted to sell more first hand cars you would be pretty pissed; and the comment "we are just rewarding new car drivers with more gears because they are helping us", is a poor excuse.
Rocket Surgeon.
companies are still trying to figure out how to receive dollars spent on games they make, when they are bought. Is that wrong? if so please tell me how.'"
"Figuring out how to receive dollars" is wrong by default. It ceases to be wrong when you are DOING SOMETHING USEFUL FOR OTHERS so you are getting paid for it. What asshole companies are definitely not doing by breaking used games.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
At a time when all of the content producers are crying foul about piracy, they are plundering the pocketbooks of their customers! They want to have their cake and eat it too, eliminate piracy and prevent their customers from seeking value from a disused game.
The used game market allows people who are bored with a game to see value and allow people who want to sample a game they aren't familiar with. This completely ignores the people who are took friggin' poor to pay $60 for a first release title and instead pickup 3 games for the price of 2 at a GameStop sale -- not to mention that the 3rd game they got for 'free' was a turd!
What a great way to encourage repeat customers or to gain a first person sale, knife them in the back!
EA had it right with the "Veteran" guns in Battlefield, but wrong when they required a VIP code to get 6 of the 10 maps (or whatever)! Like I want to pay $18 for a demo of a game and get nickled and dimed to death for the full game!
If they want to sustain this business model, then everyone has to be on a level playing field. The game disc is $5 and is a boostrap playable demo, then you pay $15 to get the full game. Give the disc to another, they pay $15 to get the full game. You can't have your cake and eat it too!
First why is a base Ball pitcher commenting on the game market? Second, How is Steam any different then this? You for sure can't resale you steam games.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
I'm fairly certain this would breach parts of the Competition and Consumer Act in Australia. It dictates that a consumer is entitled to "quiet enjoyment" of any goods they buy. It seems to me that a third party disabling content and demanding money to re-enable that content would breach that provision. Any Aussie lawyers know more?
Does the USA have similar state or federal provisions?
Instead of bitching about how the makers of the game are screwing the user over, why not opt to NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM SAID COMPANY AT ALL . The only way they'll listen is if they either lose money, or barely break even instead of making a profit. It's that goddamn simple. Crying to them about "fairness" accomplishes nothing. Hitting them with lack of funds to develop the game says a lot more.
Everything looks shitty compared to having the same thing for free.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Curt Shilling I think you have a poor business model or your being greedy If you need to be paid every time your product changes hands. Yes I know Bill Gates used to have fits because it felt that people were stealing his basic code but that was then now is now. Dare I say it but when you sell your product its is out their in the market place and I have the physical product that I have paid money for why cant I trade it in so I can get another game? The only reason there is such a large used games market is that the games are too expensive and the only way I can get new games is to trade the old ones in.
I really don't have a problem not playing any given game. It's not like my life will really be diminished in any way if I don't experience that. I'm not going to go out and pirate something because I don't agree with the politics of the publisher. I'll just ignore them.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
by NOT buy'n their games. These people understand money, and when sales dip due to their customer's distaste for DRM they'll finally understand that its a demand driven market.
If you need to play a game with crazy amounts of DRM just run pirated versions. Yea, I know... I take exception to it myself. Just make sure to network isolate the computer. Pirated software is prone to backdoors and such. My greatest arguement against piracy is the risk associated with using pirated software, but I'm sick of DRM crippleware. Particularly the requirement of being internet connected. You can always run cracks against the DRM, but again you risk infection. I know network isolation kills multiplayer for the most part, but something must be done to encourage developers to not utilize heavy handed DRM.
To developers I suggest just using keys. Look, pirates will continue to pirate. Don't force users to be online, entice them. Use keys to prevent pirated online PvP play. Make sure you retain issued keys in a DB, and break them if there is use by two systems at the same time. Investigate the attempts to do so, and when the purchaser calls in work with them to resolve the issue to your satisfaction. Have a secondary key on the box that you can use to authenticate the owner. Yes, someone will crack it. Yup, people will pirate it. Do what you can to encourage pirates to purchase the game, but don't let your efforts make things horrible on those who support your efforts.
When and if the developer companies ever finally "get it", buy the damn game if it is worth play. Developers, make sure your game is worth the money I'm paying for it.
Wow, I thought back in the 1990's that things were bad, then I read stuff like this lately and realize that we had it good.
This is all complete and utter bullshit. It's a goddamned game, not some cutting-edge industrial software that you use to make millions of dollars for your company by producing something for sale. You buy it, it is yours, you should be able to do whatever the hell you want with it when you're tired of it.
Stop buying and playing games. When they're all crying because nobody is buying their overpriced and locked-down "products" then they'll have to change their tune or go bankrupt. You all need to put this in perspective: It's a friggin' video game! You can live without it!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
This effects gamers trying to sell their old games to other gamers - not sure why that part was left out of the storyline.
Too damn bad. If a used car dealer buys three month old Honda's for cheap and resells them for 95% of the original asking price, it's really none of Honda's business.
When a company sells you a game, there has to be some sort of means of guaranteeing that you can continue to play it in the future. I buy PC games because of two main reasons. PCs never become obsolete, you can always get a new an better PC. It's not like a console where you find yourself screwed into buying a new obsolete console when your old one dies to play old games. I recently played Falcon 2.0 from Spectrum Holobyte for a retro feel... I admit, I didn't have a 5.25" floppy drive anymore, but I did have the 5.25" diskette itself. So I downloaded a pirated copy of the game to play it. But I could play it after all this time. So my second reason is, I want to know, even if the company who makes the game goes out of business, I can still play it.
So, this type of DRM is a great reason not to buy the game since I won't be able to play it later. It has a limited life span.
I buy games. After awhile they get boring, so I sell them. They have more value to someone else at that point than they do to me.
I don't care if I'm selling media and CD-key or an online DRM'ed license; I should always be able to sell my license to someone else, without interference from the game publisher. I bought the right to play the game; why shouldn't I be able to sell it when I no longer want it? It's not like the publisher suddenly has the burden of supporting a user that they didn't before.
If the publisher can't compete with used copies, their product is overpriced.
First problem: The games suck as games. The player works through a few levels and then sells the game cause there's no more challenge. Anyone want to buy my used Sudoku?
Second problem: The "gamers" are dumb enough to buy them at high prices. If the games are so disposable, why are you wasting your money?
Third problem: The two previous problems feed on each other. Playing sucky games creates morons. People pay less for a good chess set, deck of cards, or goban and stones and actually get smarter by playing.
Fourth problem: These sucky games could be cloned mechanically with computer-generated artwork and nobody would be the wiser. Thin plots, limited reality, juvenile moral values; yet many semi-intelligent time-wasters go out and buy them rather than make their own. Proof that the Public School System rots your brain.
Fifth problem: CEO's who don't get that you make money by providing what the consumers want, rather than what you can stick the consumer with. (Pun intended.)
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Dear Curt Shilling,
Nothing wrong with companies trying to make money.
I'd just rather you compete for my money by making the best product at the best price, rather than focusing your resources on making the best scheme to extract money from people who have already paid for the product.
Kind regards,
One Potential Customer
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
2nd hand games arrive on the market within days of the release... do you sell your car on within days or is that measured in years?
I bought 2nd hand cars for a long time when younger and yes they were cheaper then new cars but you were also a decade behind in tech and obtained a car that needed a hell of a lot more maintenance.
2nd hand cars also don't bought up for 5 bucks and sell for 45. Margins such as that are only found in the antique and art trade.
2nd hand games arrive on the market to fast with no loss in quality as other 2nd hand products do. It is foolish to compare them.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Farmers get screwed all the time, the super markets set the price and the price always has to be lower and lower regardless on what the costs happen to be for say a liter of milk.
I agree that content producers get the shaft but who started out? Do you remember the horse armor Bethseda tried to sell? Or how about Turbine that went F2P but charged in points for their next digital expansion twice as much as the previous expansion cost in the stores?
Further down I have written a lengthy piece of why the 2nd hand game industry is such a bad thing, so I agree with you somewhat but the content industry hasn't exactly been blameless in getting a reputation as the enemy. I remember the days of Papyrus and Grand Prix Legends which got massive updates years after launch, they clearly loved their game and their customers. Nowadays games launch hopelessly broken and with patches that are just designed to screw the paying customer. Take Rage, broken on ATI cards and the first patch removes cheats from single player because paying customers suck.
The problem with gaming is that has become part of the internet and on the internet, feedback sucks. If your local store tried to pull crap, they would get told about it in their face from angry customers, so they don't. An issue a while back was dead sub-pixels. In Holland we got stricter laws then on the rest of the planet. The PSP had a lot of them but tried to claim that they weren't bad enough. Fuck that, went to the store with a draft letter from a dutch consumer show (KASSA) and got it replaced. Holland was the only country Sony did this. But that was because they got a shit storm over them.
How many consumer shows (real ones) do you know even deal with the game industry? Why are games like Rage not suited in court for being a broken product? Why can't I return a game if it doesn't work? I had my oven repaired recently, patched if you like, if they had removed the microwave function (a cheat for cooking) I would have.... wait a minute, that would NEVER happen. But Id removed the cheats from the game, want our fix, agree to removal of functionality.
And people have NOWHERE to go with their rage. Not buying doesn't help because there is always a new line of suckers. There are no legal options and forums are filtered of any negative content.
So the rage builds up and explodes on subjects like this. And the game industry better take note because when the music industry needed the support of its fans to deal with the difficult transition from analog to digital it found that it had none, years of screwing around had used up all goodwill (once people really were fans of a label) and so far, it has not succeeded in restoring it.
I am still pissed off about the fucking horse armor and Betsheda has so far has shown less then zero effort to win me back. They know they screwed up, took the money and expect us to bend over for the next load.
I agree the 2nd hand game market is bad for the industry and therefor bad for customers. But the bitter hatred you find in many of the posts on this subject shows just how badly the game industry has been at creating loyal customers. It wasn't always like this. But ever since expansions have made way for DLC... game companies have come to treat customers as an open wallet.
It is like the TV industry, once people actually bought products to support their shows. Then ads got shoved in anywhere they could and people started to HATE their TV station.
Want another example? I love anime, I don't buy any however because the sub titling tends to be horrendous and the dubbing is an insult. I do buy merchandise but am starting to get really pissed off with a lot of Japanese companies who seem to hate earning money. Can't use debit credit cards, can't ship, you can buy something for download but then it has to be downloaded through a proxy. Why hate a customer so much? It creates a situation where I like a product but hate the company making it and that is not something you can just let build up and never expect a back lash.
The game industry should organize itself, get a body to monitor conduct so that the antics of a few don't hurt the perception of an entire industry.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
No. Cricket and baseball share a common ancestor. Both evolved from older bat and ball games which were played throughout Europe, even Asia and Africa. Some people say baseball developed out of a regional variant of Rounders and was imported to America by immigrants, but simultaneously, there were eastern European immigrants playing the Russian games Lapta and Oina, and there are many who say modern baseball came from those, especially Oina. Cricket is a sister sport, not a parent.
Straw that broke the camel's back, I guess.
I don't play games and don't have a game console, so I will try to relate this to an industry I do understand, videos and music.I own very few videos. The ones I do own, Disney princess movies, get a lot of use. I paid a fair price for them, and when my daughter finally outgrows them, I will pass them on to a relative or neighbor. The movies that I don't own, I watch on Netflix or Amazon. $1.99 for 48 hours of viewing is a very good price for Toy Story or Shrek that my daughter will watch once and lose interest. $15 - $20 for a view at a movie theater just doesn't cut it. To me, no movie is worth that price.
If Disney decided that I couldn't resell the movies, I would probably still pay $14.99 for a DVD. It wouldn't take many $1.99 plays to reach the $14.99. If Disney started charging $70 for the DVD then I would look for movies from another vendor.
Now if Disney and Universal and Fox got together and all adopted the $70 price and forced other studios to do the same, well then I would hope that people would get together and file an anti trust case for collusion against the studios.
This is the problem I have with DRM. It isn't the protection of the media. It is the collusive price practices that go along with it. If the game industry got together and set standards that forced up the price of the game, then I would find it anti competitive. If one or two companies did that and it opened the industry to other companies who offered fairer prices, then I would go with the lower cost alternatives.
Boycott is a strong concept and hard to implement. Not buying a product because the perceived value is not worth the price would be self regulating and more realistic.
So I ask, why is the movie industry failing? Why are fewer and fewer people attending movies at theaters? Is it the pirate market for DVD? I think it is that the perceived value for Movies does not match the theater price. The same is true for CDs and DVDs. For me, the perceived value of today's movies is $1.99 for most movies. That is why I subscribe to NetFlix and Amazon. I get what I pay for.
If Schilling believes people will buy his products at inflated prices and not get residual value for its sale, or reduced value for the price then only time will tell.
Everything looks shitty compared to having the same thing for free.
If that were true the video game market would already be in ruins. Ponder on that thought for a bit before you drudge up the 'you cant compete with free!' nonsense again.
In the mean time, pirated games don't require you to call a phone number to get permission to install them, which is what the original poster was talking about.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, that's not entirely true. Pirating games looks shitty compared to Steam in my opinion.
* No need to find new crack every time the game updates (or even check for new version.. it auto-updates)
* In-game chat system, with one-click multiplayer join function (for those games that support it)
* Savegames are stored on Steam's servers and synced between machines (for those games that support it)
* Consistent screenshot / gallery system across games, with upload support to Steam servers.
* Game statistics and achievements, displayed online on your profile.
* Direct access to high-speed download of games, no virus risk, minimal game install process.
* No need to search around, try different downloads, find one that downloads fast, then find out if it has virus, then find out if it works... Just click-click-click-click-click, and it downloads, full speed.
Yes.. Steam can fail (server down, can not start single player game), and it's offline modus can really do with some improvement (you have to be online to play offline? What?), but overall it does give some value over pirating games.
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
Actually, not. Compare pirated games
* need to have the crack, if game is updated you always need to wait for the newest crack for the new update before updating.
* Looking for cracks can (and probably will) lead you to viruses and malware
* After cracking, most games STILL only allow you to play offline only, no multiplayer functionality (or sometimes local-mp only, but that's rare).
* Sometimes cracks do not work, or work only partially, so need to search for another, working crack (see point two).
* you need to keep the installer around in case you re-install windows. Also remember that the crack sometimes doesn't work with the new system (32bit vs 64bit, for example.)
to, for example, Steam games, particularly the ones on sale
* no need for any cracks, game always stays updated
* everything perfectly legal
* full experience: multiplayer, local and internet, singleplayer, everything.
* Even if you reinstall, just log in to your Steam account and hit "install", wait and hit "play".
Now, if you ask me, 5 to 20 euros for that simplicity, reliability and easiness isn't that bad. I'd much rather just shell out a few bucks than spend my evening searching for and trying different cracks and installing/re-installing the game in question and afterwards waiting for that new crack for the upcoming patch...
I would not be surprised if used game sales are more profitable to stores than brand new games. They can stiff sellers by buying games for less than wholesale and in some countries second hand goods are exempt from VAT so if they markup within 20% of the retail price, they get more money from that end too.
So the industry is packing codes so the second hand games are gimped. People are less inclined to sell because the resale value is less and if they do then the likes of Gamestop can't mark the title up so close to retail because it's gimped. Doesn't stop people buying the game but they'll have to fork out for a refresh code. In theory if the refresh code were $10 and the second hand copy were $10 less then it all balances out to the customer, except that $10 goes to the producer not the retailer. This is entirely reasonable IMO but it has to be done in a manner which does not screw over a user who owns a few consoles or PCs and might need to reinstall a game at some future point.
I think it would also be in the industry's interests to get stores on board with this. Yes they're being screwed over, but at the end of the day they are still major distributors for games. Seeing them go under is not going to help the industry. So if refresh codes are required for a game then it should be possible for the store to sell them from its point of sale and claw back some of that money for facilitating the transaction.
You buy a used car and you still get all the wheels.
"many angry that game content that had shipped on the physical disc was locked away"
Isn't Windows like that too? The various versions are all there, but locked out except for the one you bought.
Is it bad that I keep misreading his name?
You just got with your comment at least 2 sales less (mines) plus a lot of negative PR each time this game will come up in conversation.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
That's true so long as you have a decent internet connection with the exception of, for some reason, Portal 2. The DRM for that was hugely broken on release to the point that many users couldn't play it, and I still have to disable my anti-virus software or it'll exit to the desktop with one of a number of cryptic DRM-related errors.
Sure their business will be going away in the next few years, but they don't retailers don't have to help with this deception. If I were Gamestation or GAME, I'd print up some "Resale warning!" stickers, then put them on the relevant boxes on the shelves. You could use amber ones for when the multiplayer isn't transferable, and red ones for single-player content, along with the price of re-purchasing that bit of the game. Print up some posters by the till that explain what the stickers are. That way the game's true value is shown where it should be - stuck on the box along with the purchase price.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
See, that's not true, Steam is a perfect example of why it isn't.
Valve has managed to create a DRM system that actually adds value to the game for the majority of users. Every single Valve game is just as easy to pirate as games from other publishers, yet they lose very little sales to piracy. Why do you think that is? It is because Valve makes buying from steam more attractive than piracy.
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
Long comment. Wish I had time to read it. Maybe I will later. But the first few lines are what I am going to respond to.
I agree that it is tragic people trade their games in within days and a lot of people buy them used. Perhaps they should try something different.
Perhaps they should release, initially, as downloadable only for the first say... two months of the game's release and then ship the media to the buyer later (if they pay for it). Also, if they really feel the need to do this game locking, how about "unlocking" when it has decidely become an "old game."? We know from our experience with the movie and music publishers, their definition of "old" is 100 years after the death of the author.
In the end, they will NEVER offer something the players/users are willing to accept. And it's not because the public is unreasonable. The public is more than reasonable. They buy crap they don't need all day long. So that's not the problem.
The problem with these type of content locks are that once activated they are tied to the profile of whoever activated it. In my case I have two sons that play games along with myself. We just went through this with Batman Arkham City. Once one had activated the extra Catwoman content, then the rest of us couldn't play the same content on our profiles without having to buy it again. We could play Catwoman under the profile that activated it, but then any achievements would be earned under that profile only.
A number of people have declared this to be simple greed, but the situation isn't that simple. Consider this: When you buy a game from Gamestop, the studio gets nothing. Buying a used game and pirating the game outright are identical as far as their impact on the studio's revenue. That's inherently frustrating for developers, and the problem is made substantially worse by Gamestop itself.
Equating piracy with a lost sale due to buying used is incorrect, since the publisher already got their cut from the first sale. The used buyer is not in the market for a $60 game, so there was no lost sale. It's simple supply and demand. If the publisher wanted to get that sale, cut prices dramatically after the initial release. Of course, some people who would buy new will start to wait, but you will dramatically reduce the used market values since GS et al will have to factor in the impact of a large price cut on what they will pay for a used game to avoid taking a loss on their used stock. In the end, the publishers have to decide is X Sales at $60 > (X-n) sales at $60 plus Y sales at some lower price (where n is the lost sales due to people waiting for a price cut, and Y - n + buyers that buy new instead of used at the new price).I don't think the price cut needs to be that drastic - looking at GS used game prices they generally are relatively close to new on popular titles for a while after the initial release.
Frustrating? Yes, because they want X at $60 plus some cut of Y and are trying to figure out how to do it. My guess is they think they can significantly reduce the used game market by a)making the resale value so low that sellers won't bother to trade in a game for the $5* or so they'd get; and b)using the psychological impact of "buying me" to make new seem a better deal to buyers
* - why about $5? Lets assume its a $60 game with a $30 DLC fee - so at best a used game can sell for $30 on average. I'd guess it'd be more like $20 and given the margins on used games (games often sell for 3-4x trade in per a friend in the business - although that was a few years ago) that means the trade in value will be real low.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
As said, I am a customer but divided on this. The point is simple, if I buy a game first hand and you buy it second hand from someone else, I am subsidizing your gameplay. That does not seem like a good deal to me.
Then don't take it. Buy used, if you think it's the better option. Of course, if enough people follow such route, there won't be enough games to go around and you will eventually have a far easier time buying new. Then you could say "well, but if everyone waits to buy used, then the game won't sell at all". That isn't true. Steam allows trading games, now, and it hasn't negatively impacted their sales. You can see how it would: I buy a game, you buy another one and, when we're done playing them, we trade. They just lost two sales, right? Doesn't happen often, though, because if you enjoy a game, odds are you'll want to keep it. And as Steam offers discounts pretty frequently, you simply wait for a sale and hoard titles like a pig. Seriously, Steam has its issues, but it's been booming continuously forever, now, while most publishers and developers whine and apply crazier and crazier DRM schemes. People should take notes on what Gabe Newell is doing right (he has explained it again and again) instead of keeping this atmosphere of denial.
As for the used game retailers, their margins are way too high, agreed. Frankly, I'd much rather find a person who owns the game and buy from them. Buying/selling from/to people is so economically advantageous that I'm often surprised as how little it's done. Then again, saving/earning a few extra bucks isn't all there is to a transaction, and that's why people wouldn't stop buying new.
Maybe publishers should start paying gamers royalties for second hand sales? Every time a gamer manages to sell a second hand copy of a game with one-use DLC, that's a sale that the publisher hasn't had to spend money marketing. The friend he sold to will buy the DLC, so the original owner should get a cut of the marketing money saved.
That's on top of a discount for single-use games, obviously - and the right to compensation for time wasted when buyers find out their game has single-use content and return it for a refund.
I don't really think freedom of contract is sufficient to justify what the publishers are doing in this instance - for general societal well-being, there is law in place that governs contracts in ways that minimise what you might call consumer "surprise". So there are some things you can't put in contracts, a general principle that the party has to know they're signing up for it, etc. Enforcing these helps us in ways including having a freer market because companies can't use the legal system as an alternative to in-market competition. As this practice becomes widespread I think it's certainly inviting heavier government regulation - and I hope lawmakers will make steps towards intervention if it carries on, at least so that the industry makes a more serious choice about what's best.
Dear Curt,
There is not a damn thing wrong with making money. There is something wrong with the way you intend to make it though.
I know coding is long hard work and bringing a game to fruition must be like having a cow.
However, you may've noticed that I.P. is a hot topic nowadays. Turns out that sitting on ideas and intangibles for years and years is an unworkable bad thing that threatens worldwide prosperity and innovation. That brings us to you.
See if I sold you a car, and you used it till you decided to sell it and upon selling the buyer discovered that the car wouldn't go into 5th gear or reverse, you'd have the damn thing back in your driveway unable to sell. The world is full of enough plastic crap that doesn't work and further when I buy something to take home, it is mine Mine MINE to do with as I please. If you license (rent) something to me, I know it isn't mine and I will return it in close the the same shape I got it in and pay the diff on repairs. This is the way the world works, sell it to me, it's mine so you just forget about what I do with it, rent it to me, then you have a say. There is NOTHING IN BETWEEN! Just because someone decides to have an ass backward business model that says" you buy it, we own it", doesn't mean the world will EVER have any intention of honoring it. It goes against hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution and development.
So you and the RIAA, MPAA, Apple, AT&T, the U.S. Senate and Congress and all the other silly corporations who think they can have riches in exchange for a handful of dust can just get with the program or eat feces. We're not gonna take it.
So you see, Curt, if you wanted to make a bunch of money you would work an MLM real hard. If you want to have a good time and do something rewarding
keep making games. If you want to be successful at it, remember when my money hits the counter, I OWN IT. If you want more for it, charge for it, but it's mine now and if I sell it, well you already got your money and I'm making some back, fuck off. Same goes for music, movies, software,computers,phones,cars and dog chow. If you don't like the business model, go somewhere else and do something else, reality doesn't change everytime someone has an idea. Some ideas are just bad, I bet you got some experience to resonate with that statement. Everyone does.
Just relax and take a reality pill. Sell games. Expect they are gonna get resold. Well... What have you done for us today? Got a new game, sell it, make money, repeat. Forget the old game. That was yesterday. Not enough money? Sorry man, you gotta choose between something you like and something that pays. Just because you think you need more money, doesn't entitle you to it. It's a hard lesson you and the rest of those fighting over UNWORKABLE IP MODELS will have to learn. Go ahead, you'll quit hitting your head on the wall when you're smart enough to figure out it hurts.
Love
Fly N. Eye
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
The point is simple, if I buy a game first hand and you buy it second hand from someone else, I am subsidizing your gameplay. That does not seem like a good deal to me.
Actually, you're not. I would not buy it at the release price, and if it stays there new or used I simply won't buy it. You decide it has value at the $60 price, or at $6 less the release value. If you resell it , the used buyer is lowering your price for the game experience you want.
Game companies survive on first sales, and 2nd hand sales hurt this. Saying game companies should just deal with not getting paid for the games they make is not a long term solution. It is not as if games have a very long shelf life like music or movies, games have to earn their development costs in the first month of release before they end up in the bargain bin.
They should deal with it - it's called a free market. They can deal with it several ways - dlc that needs to be purchased by used game buyers, pricing strategies to try to capture more new game sales, etc. If they spend more to make a game then they recover in sales then it's their own bad business decision. The market does not owe them a profit. The problem is they need Gamestop, despite all their whining. Some percentage of new game buyers buy it on day 1 because they know they can play it and then sell it to GS - so their purchasing decision is based on their view they are "paying" less than the release price. Take that away and some games won't sell as well on release, costing publishers money; of course, many see each used game sale as a lost new game sale when simple economics says it is not.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
This is a silly argument. It'll all be moot in 5 years time when we are forced to download our games (a la Steam or PSP Go) ...It is the inevitable future, perhaps we should just suck it up and not get our panties in a twist?!
On the other hand pirate games don't automatically download broken patches, save games don't randomly disappear and they sometimes get patched sooner and better then the 'official' versions.
I wish I had mod points to give you.
Most of the time I would rarely sell games because they would get me next to nothing back by time I was done with them, but I'd buy used. Steam often has sales and ensures I can never lose the game like I can with a disk.
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
Who cares what the head of a soon to be bankrupt company has to say? Although professional and corporate suicides are sometimes entertaining, this one is not even that.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Used media has always been a legitimate business as has used software. If there is really only one user with one installed copy, the gaming companies need to have a big mug of STFU. Games are crazy expensive anyway. It's a wonder that they sell any copies at the original MSRP.
Here's link to Garth Brooks and his anti-used CD crusade:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/304702/GARTH-BROOKS-HASNT-THROWN-IN-THE-HAT-ON-USED-CD-CONTROVERSY.html
Okay, I've read more of it.
Here's the thing. The game publishers do not support and sell in an unlimited fashion. They simply don't. Let's say you got your all time favorite game 5 years ago under this type of situation. You have long since replaced your original console -- it didn't last 5 years, but somehow the game media did. Your new console no longer has access to the full game because the game publisher has stopped supporting it for whatever reason... the reason doesn't matter... could be technical, could be out of business, could be 'end of life cycle.' The point is, once the support cycle has ended, that leaves the user with a LOT less than he paid for.
This is the most major failing point of the whole copyright game. Presently, copyright exceeds the life of the medium by a wide margin which leaves the consumer, collector and the public without the public domain option in the future which is supposed to be the payoff for respecting a publisher's copyright. But in the case of game publishers, they get the benefit of enduring copyright and the ability to limit access to the material which was paid for by the user. Protected for 70+ years but supported for 5, 3 or even just 2 years?
"It costs money to develop a game." Sure it can. But they expect to make money on the endeavor. If they fail, that's business... they didn't do it right. Doing it right shouldn't include enraging your customers. What we are seeing are a bunch of MBAs perceiving second-hand sales as a loss of first-hand sales. There's a problem with their perception. Game prices are a LOT higher than other forms of entertainment. People have endured that so far BECAUSE of the second hand market. When they take that second hand market away, they will find people will be a lot less willing to shell out even $40 for a game let alone $60+ at times.
Lately, it seems business has become ever more aggressive and hostile to customers. This is a strange trend even after years of seeing it develop. I have no illusions about it -- the reason it keeps going is that most people are idiots and they keep buying anyway. But that doesn't make it "good" or even "okay."
It's completely dysphoric that companies are complaining about "used games" as an obstacle to their business model. Forgetting about all the totally correct and useful comparisons to cars, houses, boats, and clothes, how about we look at EXTREMELY SIMILAR PRODUCTS:
-Movies
-Music
The guys who run these industries aren't famed for their social kindness, and we hear constantly about how music and movie piracy is supposedly crippling their industry- and yet THESE guys aren't complaining that used DVDs and CDs are destroying their business model, even though the complaint would be exactly as legitimate.
Even the Penny Arcade guys occasionally scold used gamers (indirectly), as if every person who plays a game should absolutely definitely have purchased a studio copy. This is a head scratchingly bizarre stance, and this is an issue in NO OTHER INDUSTRY IN THE WORLD. No other industry rails about the fact that they have made a product that maintains value- hell, "I can sell the game back later" is a feature that gamers know about WHEN THEY BUY GAMES, just like everyone else in every product in the whole world for ever and ever amen.
Next thing you know, we'll be hearing about how "disinterested customer base" is a real problem, and they need a law to force you to buy stuff...
This is not 38 trying to take more of your money, or EA in this case, this is us rewarding people for helping us! If you disagree due to methodology, ok, but that is our intent... companies are still trying to figure out how to receive dollars spent on games they make, when they are bought. Is that wrong?
Since when, you idiot, is a game publisher a tax collector? Because what you intend to do is tax each and every sale of the game on the secondary market. It's not yours to figure out how to "receive" in the first place. You sell it once, get your money, and that's it.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
When a car company sells you a car, they don't demand that every time you sell that car, they get a portion of the sale.
If the consumer allows this model to spread, it will only be a matter of time before it WILL spread to the auto industry and beyond. Imagine this:
Car comes with OnStar/Navigation/etc., but only if you buy it new (or used at an authorized dealership).
If you're not the registered original purchaser, no dealership will service it, recognize any warranty, or allow you to participate in any recalls.
No authorized dealership will be allowed to purchase any car used made by a brand that it's not authorized to sell new.
etc.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I was about to say there is another company I won't be supporting. But then I saw they are with EA. I literally have not bought a single game related to EA in over a year because of the crap they are pulling. And I make sure the people at Gamestop know it.
As in most religions, it's the followers that turn people off to the religion. And Mac users are the worst.
Not necessarily. It's nice to get official support and to be able to install patches and updates that might not work with a pirate edition (it's also nice to know that there's less chance of malicious code being bundled with the game - although DRM rules out that argument). There are plenty of ways game studios can compete with free - devaluing their products (because who will want to pay full price for these games when it becomes clear you can't sell them on) is a stupid, short sighted move and we can only hope it comes back to bite them. Interestingly, even though pretty much all content is already out there for free, the entertainment industries still make billions annually. This is a clear indication that people do want to buy their products, they should focus more on finding the sweet spot that represents value for money and less time coming up with schemes to penny pinch their paying customers.
This reminds me of the recent SNL sketch with Charles Barkley, "White People Problems". That is, problems which, in the bigger scheme of things, are pretty trivial.
Can we save some of our outrage for more pressing problems?
Guys, guys, I mean, obviously if this guy is the head of 38 Studios, he's overworked and just sleep deprived. That's way too many studios for one person to run. Cut him some slack!
There is a very simple fix for all of this DRM crap. Require sellers to label all DRM protected media. The Labels would have to designate what level of DRM is applied. DRMX - Locked to single user by hardware keying, DRME - Extended material access requires on line activation etc. This is just a fair labeling issue. If you know before you buy then the market will force providers to respond to the desires of their customers. If they get too restrictive market share will drop and they will change their ways. If you are a buyer you would have no reason to complain if you buy knowing full well you cannot sell or trade your game to someone else. DRM is not wrong what is wrong is not telling people upfront they are buying a crippled product. Call your congressman demand action. Use government power against the Game industry like they are trying to use it against use.
GoG vs. TPB? GoG looks better IMO.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
"...companies are still trying to figure out how to receive dollars spent on games they make, when they are bought. Is that wrong? if so please tell me how."
Tell you how, Curt? Sure. Ever hear of used book stores? Music stores? Used DVDs? Pawn shops? Amazon.com? All of these sell used books, CDs, and DVDs/Blurays, and none of them turn a penny of that profit over to the original creators. Now do me a favor, Curt, and tell me why the game industry (not even the software industry as a whole) is special? Why should a consumer not feel like you're using DRM to squeeze as much profit out of your customers as possible, rather than to protect yourself from unethical behavior?
I own a PC, so, unfortunately, most of this argument is academic for me, now that digital distribution is the predominant model, and there's no drive on the part of distributors (Green Man Gaming notwithstanding) to develop a reselling mechanism. But for console owners, the whole "Gamestop and private resales are decimating the gaming industry" is the biggest pile I've ever heard.
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
The problem is greater than they imagine and you will start to see it every where.
Just google the word plutonomy for the big picture.
The dilemma has always been to provide a customer with a product for a price that works for all. The problem is the price no longer works for the producer so they want to jack it. The blow-back is that customers, who do not think themselves thieves, but savvy consumers are being told they are no longer viable and not wanted.
As the majority of Americans continue to make less while a small part of them continue to make more you will see more and more "big companies" have this same fight. They don't see that the problem isn't that fact that as time goes on only fewer folks will have the ability to afford their goods, they will instead see that they need to lash out against the "unworthy" customers who just don't want to shell out the cash they know in their hearts their product is worth.
One should remember that Price is one of the 4 P's of marketing. We tend to think that it means that charging 5 to 10 times the true value of Chanel No. 5 is all that it is about but it also works on the lower spectrum. If your target market is spending 0.025% of their monthly income to purchase your product you need to remember that has to scale. I don't buy my DVDs at best buy. I buy them low cost from the WalMart bin or secondhand in pawn shops. It's not that I don't want to buy DVDs but that source meets my budget.
By continuing to start a war of words and technologies against folks who perceive they are your customer to you are basically telling me I am not your customer. I am not worthy of your product. Fair enough. If they keep this up their customers will find new products to fill that same niche in their income bracket, as they should.
I don't dream of Lamborghini's or Chanel No. 5. My heart no longer goes pitter pat to see the latest Spielberg flick on the big screen at today's movie prices. Although game design studio's may think their products are gold, and they may very well be, they will find by shrinking their own market, rather than finding ways to price appropriately that they also will have no market.
Looks like they want to get to their destination fast rather than slow. Screw 'em. I like board and card games better. If I need story I will pick a good pick up a god book or short story they may or may not have paid the rights to themselves (actually I will lend it from the library cuzz I can't afford to buy it.)
This lesson was learned by me again just the other day. The local coffee roaster that I have loved for years and seen them grow decided that a free cup of coffee could no longer be given if you bought a half pound of whole bean coffee instead of a full pound. The owner actually got the employees together to "discuss this" and then expounded on his personal view that it was too expensive. They never thought to offer a cup of coffee for 50-75 cents with the purchase of the half pound, instead the owner basically made the moral judgement that folks who can only afford half a pound of coffee (6 bucks by the way) are no longer their customer. So I am no longer their customer.
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
I don't understand the outrage. If you don't like this practice, don't buy the damn game. A bunch of pissing and moaning on a forum is not going to make any difference if everyone still went out and bought the game. Not buying the game will send the strongest possible message.
You don't need this game to survive. This game wont make your life complete. In the never-ending deluge of entertainment it's just a blip.
If everyone did this these publishers would stop this practice almost immediately. Games might possibly get more expensive, but you wouldn't have to deal with these gimmicks. And this means NO PIRACY. The only message piracy sends is that demand for the game is obviously there, it's just that DRM is not draconian enough. These guys don't think the way you do.
Mind you that this doesn't necessarily apply to DLC. I don't have any problem with DLC or even subscription based games. But these little gimmicks developers play are annoying. That's one of the many reasons I've generally stopped buying games, especially from publishers like EA. The problem is that most gamers don't seem to have much in the way of principles. They complain, but they're right back there at the feeding trough devouring whatever crap EA feeds them.
There's no elegant way to put it: stop being consumer whores and companies will change their ways or go out of business.
I refuse to participate in this. I usually buy new games due to games pretty much being about 89% garbage - only the best games that I know I'm going to love get the day 1 treatment (Skyrim and Saints Row 3 being the last ones I bought new). Even the almighty Skyrim, which I am truly in love with, is a complete buggy mess with uncompletable quests, backwards-flying dragon, etc.
I'll stick to my 360 and PS3 rather than purchase a next gen console if this trend continues. And for someone who wants it bad enough, pirates will figure it out.
I'm just going to skip all of these angry comments and suggest a model I'd be happy with:
It'd be a combination of what steam and blizzard have already done. Have a decent single player game experience. That gameplay will be attached to the physical disc. If I want to give that disc to a friend they're able to play the single player campaign of SC2.
Multiplayer, however, should require some sort of a code at a low price ($5-10) - understandably there should be some income for new players as running servers isn't free as we all know here. Traditional used sales don't support the cost of those servers.
The other part - and something that would encourage me to pay full price: make the game entirely downloadable to those who a) bought physical copies or b) paid for the full download online. Xbox 360 is damned close to this model but missed it where it mattered - I don't want to be bound to a physical disc all the friggin time. Wtf was the point of getting that model with the massive harddrive just to still be tethered to physical media? And then not only that they don't have all games available for purchase/download online and as far as I know if my harddrive dies I lose download rights to that software; whereas with Steam/Blizzard I can download indefinitely as it's attached to my account, not device.
It's a shame. It's a decent action RPG, the devs (especially the ones in charge of art direction) obviously put a ton of work in. But fuck if they're getting any of my money. I was already boycotting EA because of Origin, and I'm damn well not going to change that with this sort of stunt.
Hi all,
Normally I dont participate in online discussions as the flames and trolling are too much of a hassle to dwal with. But this topic is something that means a lot to me and so I would like to post something in the hope that it brings some idea as to why this particular topic of new vs used creates such heat.
To start off I would like to say to the Developers that "I get it!" and really, I do. You take a big risk making a game and it takes a hudge amount of time, effort and love to get it out into the world. You do it for the love of it and also, in the end, to get paid. This is what you do and you deserve to be paid for doing it. I understand this because I too work for a living and want to be fairly compensated for what it is I do. I want people to buy my product because, the more people that buy it, the more profit I make and the higher my reward. So I get it.
Now lets look at it from the consumer / customer side. You make something and want to sell it to me. I want what you are selling and so, taking my hard earned cash from my job, I pay you your asking price and you sell me your product. What I do with it from that point on is my business. Provided I dont attempt to pass it off as my own or do something illegal with it (such as pirate it for profit or otherwise or pass ) I am free to do with it what I wish, including doing something with the product the producer never intended. Simple so far.
Here is where the problem starts. I, as a consumer, am now finished with using your product and wish to recoup at least some of my costs, by selling the game onwards to someone else, as is my right. You, as a producer, seem to see this as a 'lost sale' in that you dont see any profit from that transaction despite the fact that it is a legitimate option on the part of your customer.
Maybe I, as a customer, sell my game back to the retail outlet that sold it to me who in turn sell it on at close to the price of a full game. That really doesent seem fair but it is. I am selling my ownership and rights back to the retailer who, as the new owner, is free to do with it what they wish, including doing something with the product the producer never intended. In this case, selling it on for thier exclusive profit.
You, the producer, dont like this. When a used copy is placed on a rack next to a new one and the price is lower consumers will, naturally, go for the lower cost. Especially as, aside from packaging, there is no discernable difference between the new and used ones. So how do you propose to combat this? You decide to offer purchasers of new product a "freebie" that purchasers of used content have to pay for. By doing this you incentivise potential purchasers looking at the new vs. used rack to buy "new" but what you have also done, perhaps unintentionally, is devalue the used copy at the expense of your customer. The retailer, realising they can no longer sell the used copy for as much, dratically lowers the price they will sell a used copy for thereby resucing the price they will pay for any used copy. They may not even buy the used copy back at all as they now realise nobody wants it as it is missing the "free" content that is only availiable as new.
I, as your customer, feel like you have not played fair with me. You have my money, you made your profit off me, and now you want to deprive me of the ability to sell on my paid for property at a reasonable price. The retailer doesent care. They continue to make a profit wether someone buys new or used. The margins on used may have been higher but no so much as they would really care too much. The only person who truly loses out on the deal is I, your customer.
There are other options availiable to you that you may want to consider. Perhaps some sort of agreement with your distributers for a slice of the used market if they wish to sell your product new, or something that allows individuals to sell the product on to other individuals via an online marketplace where you could perhaps take a small percentage of the trade?
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
it is creeping down. and it will creep down as long as we let it creep down.
Read radical news here
I think the problem that most people are having is this.
There are existing laws, and therefore existing expectations that customers have , about what it means to 'buy' something.
You cant just go and change that agreement without making it clear to people what you are doing. Otherwise they have a right to be upset.
It is as simple as this:
If I knowingly create a situation , in which you are deceived into thinking you are buying something you are not, they I have lied to you and undermined our , previous, relationship. That is wrong.
I have to question if this use is even legal, ( I'm sure their are corporate lawyers all over this , but there is some grey area here).
The reality is the contracts cannot contravene consumer law.
For instance, it makes no difference what kind of contract you agree too. If you employer pays you less then minimum wage , even if you agreed to it in writing. You can turn around and sue you employer for the rest of your wages.
So, i understand why people are upset.
As far as , making money goes. If the game companies need more money for what they sell, they should
a) charge it.
b) make it easy to know and explicit what they expected to be paid and when.
Anything else is just fraud and there is no reason the consumer should tolerate it.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
No, it's an (admittedly failed) attempt to make cricket something that a sane person would want to watch.
Does it matter? What does his previous job, which had nothing to do with the video game industry, have to do with a discussion of his ideas about used game sales.
So, if you buy the game new, you get content. If you buy the game used, you don't get that content but are still able to play the game.
So is it "bonus" content that rewards the people who paid full price for the game? Sounds like it.
I like buying used cars but I don't complain if the "new car smell" is gone. I didn't want it nor want to pay for it so....
Just fail to see what all the "outrage" is about...
So what happens when Ford is "sick" of the used car industry? Will they put a retinal scan in their vehicles that only allow that person full functionality of the vehicle, but if they sell it to someone else they cannot drive above 25 miles per hour? Where does this end? It is ridiculous. The used games industry is a good thing. I for one, would never have bought the sequels to MOST of the games I have played if I hadn't bought a used copy of their previous game first. And how about those people that trade in their old games so that they can buy brand new ones? Does this not increase sales of the gaming company's most current game?
On steam, there's the knowledge and expectation that your game is tied to your account. In most cases you don't buy a physical disk, you buy a license for *your* account.
(except the copy of HL2 I bought way back when, that had a disk and needed steam... lame).
When I buy a physical disk in the store, I expect that everything that came with that disk originally should be available for future installs, or a used sale, whatever. Unfortunately, physical disks are often worse than online sales these days, because you end up not only with a incomplete-for-resale game (for a greater price), but also some horrible nasty DRM scheme that may eat your DVD drive etc.
And then there are things like Origin, which does stuff like scanning your *entire* HD so that EA can advertise to you (or possibly sue you if they find Warez or whatever on your HDD)
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.308724-EAs-Origin-is-creepy-and-watches-you-sleep
Rights are rapidly going downhill, and the "entertainment" industry wonders why people don't want their crap.
Why is Game Content a special class of merchandise that is seeking to be exempt from long standing practices of ownership and resale? Ever other form of property in the world allows purchase and resale by the purchaser with the exception of controlled or dangerous materials such as drugs or weaponry. Both EA and Shilling seem unreasonable on this issue.
Think back to when you had an NES. How many used games did you own? How many games did you buy new?
I didn't have very many games for my NES (wasn't allowed to play very much), but I had friends who did, and they loved used games. The same practices applied then as now; people bought games, played through them, and passed them to another player or sold them, or even more often, traded them. The games that weren't resold or passed around were ones with high re-playability value, or ones with good multiplayer options (e.g., you could sit down with a buddy and run through "Contra" whenever - it never got old).
There was also a very big game rental market: the video rental places in my town had a Nintendo section and a Sega section, and you could rent the latest game cartridge the same way you rented movie cartridges (aka VHS tapes). You would rent the cartridge, take it home and play it for the weekend, then bring it back. Again, this wasn't something I did much, but I had friends who did. The rental game market also doesn't work very well if content is hard-locked to the first purchaser.
I say if they want to play these kinds of games with us, then why don't we start charging them property taxes for their IP? Sell it as a deficit reduction mechanism.
As a bonus, whenever a product would reach the point where it would be abandoned by the IP owner, they could relieve themselves of the IP tax by releasing their IP into the public domain.
:(){
That's a sensible solution everyone could definitely live with, it would probably increase sales (since people would probably more easily spend their trade-in credits than hard cash), it would give them a place to sell their games for a reliably predictable sum and the game makers would actually take the second hand market into their hands.
But it's so sensible and doable that it has no chance to fly with the game studios. Plus, it doesn't screw over their customer, so... probably not a chance.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I have to admit, I don't see the problem with a company wanting to reward consumers for buying their product via a delivery method where they make money. It's not like the game doesn't work if you buy it used. You can still do that if you need to save that $10 or whatever. Seems like much ado about nothing here to me.
It is? Well, let's look at it from the customer's point of view. Because, allow me to be so blunt, this IS my point of view. Yes, I know that the seller has a different one. But pardon me if my sympathy takes a rear seat to my egoism. It seems it's mutual.
Here I have 100 bucks. That's my game budget for this month. There's a few titles I like and I want, way more than my money will allow me to buy, so I have to make a selection. I choose a title and buy it, for 60 bucks. I play it, and when I'm done, it goes back to the market and I get maybe 30-40 bucks for it. With those 70-80 bucks, I buy another game. And with a hint of luck, I can repeat that process. Of course, always provided I didn't buy a dud and don't find someone buying the game from me, that's the risk I have to take.
In the new system, I can't really hope to see 30-40 bucks for the game. I could hope for maybe 20, if that. Depending on what the "bonus content" will cost to make it whole again. For 20 bucks, chances are that I won't want to sell the game because I might find it interesting in a few months again to play it through again. So, all I buy this month is one game.
That's one to two games fewer sold. Whether someone who relies on the second hand market will pick up the slack is not really a given, because if they HAD the budget in the first place, they wouldn't wait until someone sold his copy.
I'm not so sure if that's in the best interest of the game makers either.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It seems that the game industry wants their product to be like the OS industry - or many other BIG software people. Think Cisco (the guys I deal with). You can buy a switch or router and resell the hardware, but the software it runs is licensed and non-transferable.
I bet the software that runs all kinds of important hardware is on a non-transferable license.
Does the same not apply (From what I hear, not a MS user - hope I'm TROLL levels of wrong) to Microsoft licensing? Agreed, that is the messiest licensing in the world... But I don't think you can transfer your licenses, for at least some flavors of Windows (enterprise or volume licensing, server vs user, chocolate ultimate vs basic with sprinkles?).
How much work could a network work if a network could net work?
They want to end-around first sale doctrine, that's fine. I'll just forego their products.
This is about First Sale Doctrine, not whether or not I'll resell my stuff. I use Steam so it's moot anyhow.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
If games were cars and Shilling were a car company CEO, buyers of used cars would find that the factory stereo, nav system, and rear entertainment system would no longer function because they only worked for the original purchaser of the vehicle. Maybe a couple of cylinders would be disabled on the engine, too. And forget about overdrive gears; you'll have a 1:1 top gear, like in the old days.
Except you don't get the same thing. Many games come with things like maps, manuals, etc. Pirates don't get those. Actual buyers are not subject to lawsuits or criminal charges. Pirates are. Owning a legitimate copy of a game often gives an inherent sense of righteousness that non-sociopaths tend to find appealling. Pirated copies do not. Legally purchased software doesn't (usually) come with malware or otherwise compromise the system on which it runs. Pirated software is notorious for doing just that.
The simple fact that game sales happen in a world where piracy is trivial even for technologically unsophisticated users is pretty good proof that there is more than a simple comparison of initial purchase price at play. To the extent that legitimate purchases become *harder* to use and make than piracy, and as they become *more likely* to cause virus and other malware infections, and as the benefits such as they are are further eroded and mitigated by the publishers themselves, then legal purchases become even less appealing compared to piracy.
Basically, they're taking everything about buying a game that isn't shit compared to piracy, and fixing that small oversight by making sure it really is. It's not just cutting off the nose to spite the face, it's blowing the face off with a shotgun because another face resembles it.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Maybe that his brain could be fried from steroids, and that explains his outbursts? :)
Make the game available through digital download only. Never make a physical copy that can be resold. Sell it on Steam or XBLA or PSN. Profit. Done.
This is quite simply about monopolization. Free market economic systems are purported to offer the lowest prices on goods and services, but the major flaw in free market economies is that they tend to form monopolies. When a monopoly forms, then the price is no longer "fair" because it can be raised and people will still buy it because there is nowhere else to get it.
This key concept of "you can't get this anywhere else" is what makes intellectual property tick. For example, if I sell a book and other publishers produce copies of that book, the price of the book will be very low on the street because competition between publishers will force it to be near the cost of production (which, for a book, is very little). Copyright comes along and says, hey, only one publisher is allowed to print this book; now that publisher can jack up the price because competition is eliminated, making the publishing business much more profitable. The free market comes up with all kinds of loopholes to resist this; for example people buy the book, read it, then sell it to someone else to try to regain some of the cost; people buy the book used and save some of the expense. Libraries buy books and lend them to people willing to wait. This effectively reduces demand for the production of the book and very (smartly) economically ensures the best use of the product with the fewest wasted resources.
Publishers, like in this case, are eyeing the used market covetously, because they only see "sales" out of context and think, "those sales must be mine." It's greed, pure and simple, and it hurts the economy/society, frankly. They want to make it so "you only buy this from me" so they can squeeze more money out of the economy. Granted, video games are not that important to society to worry if the market is being monopolized or not, but imagine if this happened with more important products? School textbook publishers try to accomplish this by frequently revising their texts and bribing schools/teachers to keep changing to the newest edition so that the older editions (used books) reduce their value or become worthless. You want to know who is worthless? Textbook publishers.
* Direct access to high-speed download of games, no virus risk, minimal game install process.
Haven't seen a virus from any of my downloads in *years* (2005-ish?); most torrents can, and will, max out my 25/25 pipe. Insofar as minimal, running one extra program before you start it up is not a hassle. I guess if you're one of the suckers using public toilets, err, public trackers then it might be an issue.
I'm tired of hearing the gaming industry continuing to whine how much money they are loosing to used games. Do artists (or their estates) get residuals whenever one of their pieces are resold? No! The same thing for musicians, they get nothing for the resale of used CDs. So my advice to the gaming industry is just get over it, suck it up, and let it go!
"How many other industries let you sell something, and then still keep all rights to it?" Well Microsoft for one has made a mountain of money selling windows. Windows is an amazing money maker in that there is no economy of scale. The CD that costs 25 cents to manufacture still gets sold for hundreds of dollars. It often makes me wonder how you can buy an eMachine with Windows on it for a few dollars more than Windows costs. But specifically, Microsoft doesn't believe you own it, or can resell it. And rather than recycle the machine by giving it to a student or something when you buy your next machine, they would rather it went into the landfill, with all the other gallium arsenide. In the old days, you used to be able to contact the software manufacturer and for a small fee, re-register a product when transferred to a new owner.
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