Slashdot Mirror
If You Resell Your Used Games, the Terrorists Win
MojoKid writes "Game designer Richard Browne has come out swinging in favor of the rumored antipiracy features in the next-gen PlayStation Orbis and Xbox Durango. 'The real cost of used games is the damage that is being wrought on the creativity and variety of games available to the consumer,' Browne writes. Browne's comments echo those of influential programmer and Raspberry Pi developer David Braben, who wrote last month that '...pre-owned has really killed core games. It's killing single player games in particular, because they will get pre-owned, and it means your day one sales are it, making them super high risk.' Both Browne and Braben conflate hating GameStop (a thoroughly reasonable life choice) with the supposed evils of the used games market. Braben goes so far as to claim that used games are actually responsible for high game prices and that 'prices would have come down long ago if the industry was getting a share of the resells.' Amazingly, no game publishers have stepped forward to publicly pledge themselves to lower game prices in exchange for a cut of used game sales. Publishers are hammering Gamestop (and recruiting developers to do the same) because it's easier than admitting that the current system is fundamentally broken."
I buy ONLY used games for my XBox 360.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
How is a broken retail model related to terrorism? I don't see the connection. And I have RTFA.... still says nothing.
-- (this is a sig) My Computer Programming Forumhttp://www.programers.co.nr/
If you can re-sell games then they may cost more initially.
But people are more likely to buy them because they know they can re-sell them.
See also Apple.
And Apple are doing rather well, aren't they?
"no game publishers have stepped forward to publicly pledge themselves to lower game prices in exchange for a cut of used game sales"
Nuff said.
I'm sure the black helicopters will be after me soon.
The real secret for cutting down on reselling used games (can't eliminate it entirely) is to provide an incentive for the customer to retain it. New content, re-playability, tie in with future products that open new avenues of gameplay, rewards for brand loyalty, etc. You make a nice single player franchise, have there be some sort of in-game reward for owning other products, having played them, or even still having the original disc and manual.
Oh, and don't shit in your own sandbox when you go werewolf on the series - destroying everything and everyone just because you want it to be 'though provoking' when it all comes crashing down (looking at you Bioware / EA...).
You continue to make another Call of Duty / Battlefield clone with a crappy five hours of single player action to make a quick buck - your game will get resold to Gamestop, that's just a fact. Multiplayer 'passes' prevent resell of a multiplayer game, but it won't do donkey dick to prevent those who are tired of owning your product from selling it off. Just accept that this will happen if you make shitty games.
If Mr. Browne has ever purchased a used car, borrowed a book, DVD, or CD, then he is a hypocritical schmuck.
If you own a game console - Pledge to only by pre-owned games (Preferably not from the goons at Gamestop, they've got their own issues)
Your broken business model does not supersede the right of firs sale doctrine.
The first sale doctrine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine [wikipedia.org]
They're lower than ever! In the 90's you would spend the same amount of money on a game, $50-$60, that you spend now. Video games are one of the few things that inflation has barely touched, which is probably why the industries crying over not being able to stuff their coffers. Even consoles were selling for close to what they cost now, what with the SNES and Genesis costing around $200, the Playstation around $300, and the Saturn around $400. It's not used games that are killing the market, if anything it's a market that hasn't changed in almost 20 years that's killing it.
If that is true why isn't MW3 cheaper in Steam?
Braben goes so far as to claim that used BOOKS are actually responsible for high BOOK prices and that 'prices would have come down long ago if the PUBLISHERS were getting a share of the USED BOOKSTORE REVENUE.'
"For every 5 used-game sales, one 8 year old girl is sexually abused! Stop used game sales to stop child abuse!"
'prices would have come down long ago if the industry was getting a share of the resells
Did anyone else?
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
prices would have come down long ago if the industry was getting a share of the resells.
It's called extortion.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
'...pre-owned has really killed core games.
Yeah, in the same way used CDs killed the music industry, used cars killed the automotive industry, giving food past its due date to food shelves led to the collapse of agriculture, and used computers destroyed the technology industry.
Bitch please.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
You can usually buy a game on Steam for less than the cost of the console version's used game if you wait a few months.
Instead of paying Gamestop (which is a very sleazy company), you pay the developers directly.
I like that business model much more than these used game shenanigans big chain stores like to exploit.
A used game usually only even saves you $5. And for what?
So the profit can go to the sleazy retailer instead of the developers who wrote the game? Count me out.
Games have been sold with just an offline serial check and were resellable for quite a few years
Did the industry see a significant increase in income after complicatiog these parts?
Other software uses node locked licenses. Thats all that game developers have to do. Sell the media at cost. Let the reseller market do it's thing, They still have to come for the node license.
The game developers calling for a share of used market profits are advocating the death of First Sale doctrine in the name of perpetuating a doomed business model.
Maybe I should RTFA more often.
The used market has flourished since time immemorial, probably more so in the past than now. It isn't responsible for the lack of creativity in games. Blame the state of the industry, dominated by risk-adverse mega-corporations like EA that take over or muscle out the plucky independent game studios that used to characterize the industry.
What I really loath about the special pleading of the 'content industries' is not so much its frequent-though-not-total dishonesty; but it's sheer lack of perspective.
Is it, quite possibly, the case that used game sales are bad for aspects of the game creation business. However, the right of first sale is a fairly fundamental aspect of people actually being able to 'own' things. Guess what, guys: Even if your direst predictions are true, this is a case of video games vs. meaningful property rights. A sense of scale would be in order.
The same thing goes for assorted other 'IP' issues. Is piracy hurtful to the music and video industries? Quite possibly(though history suggests that their estimates of how much so should be taken with a grain of salt that would stun an ox...); but can that possibly matter more than such minor quibbles as 'due process' and 'innocence until proven guilty', which are trampled on by most of today's more enthusiastic anti-piracy schemes? Even if it were true that the whole damn industry would burn without such legislation, what of it?
That is what really gets to me. Yes, it is also true that these industries have a history of mendacity about the real damage inflicted by various things that they don't like; but that is a petty footnote: When it comes right down to it, the thing that they don't like(used game sales) is derived directly from a right more important than the entire video game industry. GameStop can rot in hell, they are a thoroughly parasitic and inefficient middleman; but meaningful ownership of property is far more important than video games, even if the direst predictions of their self-interested proponents are taken at face value.
He produced the Frontier games, didn't he? My experience of those was:
Frontier: copy protection so bad that you had about a 25% chance of being able to start the game until you removed it.
First Encouters: required a patch to run at all, then crashed. I think I played about an hour before I gave up.
So I doubt he has to worry about anyone wanting to buy a used copy of either.
There are people out there willing to pay millions of dollars in aggregate for single player games that don't even exist yet, and pre-owned games are killing the market for single player?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
And create games that are so good that no one bothers to trade them in. Also, we have a right to resell our property. Deal with it.
Used homes are killing the construction industry. Please stop now!
How about game sellers meet buyers halfway? Buyers stop reselling used games, and sellers charge the price a used game would fetch? That way there is no reason to sell used games and so nobody does it.
Wouldn't driving the initial cost down help kill the secondary market. If the price of a new game is low enough I'm not going to buy it used.
The used market softens the ridiculous price of games when they come out. If Joe buys a game for $60, and resells it for $10, , he can use those $10 to buy another game. If reselling used games becomes impossible, then Joe might be short $10 the next time he tries to buy a new game, and will not be able to afford it. He could just wait until it's on sale.
The one place where the game industry loses is because of the friction of the used market: The cut that the intermediaries take. If they want to make that friction go away, why not allow reselling of games, right within their platforms? Why not lower prices to spur sales at full price. I sure have not bought a game for $60 in many years.
And then there's also the model followed by this guy called Gabe Newell. The best ROI his company ever got did not come from extremely expensive games that people can't resell. It came from making a game free to play, and instead of making people pay to get advantages in game, he just got his Australian sidekick to sell digital hats. Since people loved the game, they also bought the hats for Gabe's free game.
But it's easier to blame piracy, or used games, or the Wicked Witch of the West than it is to build a very solid product first and figure out how to get paid later.
Yes, someone needs to open the eyes and those are the ones in the game industry!
Persons that buy 2nd hand games don't have money to pay from € 50 to € 60 per each game. If they kill this 2nd hand
market, they will only get less gamers in the world, and no increase in their profit.
Also the game industry don't care about the programmers or their creativity. They only care in make clones of the genre that
it's becoming the standard for a game: The first person shooter!
Indie games is where the creativity exist, period!
I'm sure that Mr. Browne has never sold a used car that he was tired of driving in order to subsidize the purchase of a new car (or better yet, a beautifully maintained, low mileage used car). I mean, "...pre-owned has really killed [strike]core games[/strike] new car sales. It's killing [strike]single player games[/strike] sports car sales in particular, because they will get pre-owned, and it means your day one sales are it, making them super high risk."
Are you selling us an object that we own, or are you asking us to pay you for convenient access to a system that you own?
You can't have it both ways.
If new games suddenly stop competing with used games, prices will go down? Huh?
But it is a cold, hard fact: The 2nd hand market in ANY industries damage them to various extents.
Yes, they do, your opinion isn't a fact.
Piracy doesn't even dent the 2nd hand market losses in most industries.
In the case of the game industry, the main problem stems from stores not buying new stock from their initial purchases because they resell the same games over and over again at a much lower price.
This in turn led to an increase in prices of games, which forced more and more people to buy 2nd hand.
It is a continual spiral of losses and is going to end up crashing hard if something doesn't happen soon.
And here, this is what happens, this happens. They might be rumors and never come to fruition, but it will happen eventually unless the industry crashes again.
The games industry is MUCH more fragile than the car, music or movies industry, before some smartass comes in with his "used cars never killed the industry", perhaps you should also look again at the MASSIVE bailout of a car company that happened in the not too distant past.
A single failed game can kill most game smaller companies. Most companies in the car industry are already "EA-levels" of rich (wrt game industry) and are "too big to fail".
It is about damn time people wake up and smell that foul smell that has been stinking out the place.
Solutions:
Lower prices would allow far more people to buy games who'd have normally went for 2nd hand games after a couple weeks.
Lower prices also mean more games in general.
If it is at a certain key price point, the losses from the higher price point will be made up simply due to the larger sales overall.
Let the stores deal with the problem. They made it.
before gamestop the pawn stores resold games some times at high prices as well.
ok, then fuck off.
ill go buy used games from kickstarter.com
them tricky terrorist found a way to get money out of gamestop. so, i cant sell a game i have in order to stop a suicide bomber. that means that gamestop supports suicide bombers. and suicide bombers need used games. as posted earlier, they need to stop selling crappy games with no ability to play over and over. they also need to make it so you dot need a broandband connection to play a single player game. i really liked fallout. but i couldn't play fallout vegas, it used STEAM. i had to wait for the cracked version before i could play it. thanks ripping groups! if that game was made so anyone could play it, they would have made another 65 bucks from me. same with civ5, and many others. i cant buy games anymore, all of em use Steam. or, i could buy them, buy couldn't use them, and now i cant sell them cause that would support a suicide bomber, somehow. how come every chance people have to make a lil bit of money, someone there is ready to shout out for the companies. i mean, are there really people out there so shallow and separated from the world that they actually think what their doing is right?
Fuck the videogames industry. Seriously fuck the developers, artists the whole enchilada. I have never known a bunch of more self obssesed dorks as these guys. All in all they are worse than the MPAA and RIAA put together.
All the problems they have are a consequence from the Hollywood style type of financing. Spending tens of millions of $ for a single game and then hope it does well enough to finance lesser known projects. The system is not sustainable. The pricing structure is too rigid, you can't seriously sell top of line games at 60 $ and then shit games at 60 $ either. They have embraced 100% closed systems that don't offer the versatility of the pc. What did they think would happen ? Screw over your customers and sooner or later you'll have your upcommance.
As for price reduction, what bullshit. Am I the only one to remember when years ago the publishers and developers were screaming from the top of their lungs that doing away with manuals and other goodies would bring down the price of videogames ? Of course it never happened.
What happened was shit boxes (same quality as your run of the mill pirate dvd box) with a single black and white sheet and a dvd started appearing. All for full price. Later on we would be sold what they termed "extreme editions" that were basically normal editions (old style) for an even greater price. And should I mention the crusade for dlc and nickel and diming everything. You buy a full price videogame and you have to spend even more for content that's already on the disk.
Seriously fuck them. I don't have sympathy for those dorks anymore.
I have no problem with this, as long as they make it clear what they're doing. If you don't like the idea, don't buy them. If nobody buys such game, they won't be sold any more.
Dude is right. Video games are a competitive marketplace. If more people bought the games new (because less people bought used), there'd be more games published, there'd be more pressure to lower game prices, etc. Games aren't made as charity or on a government quota, they're made with the hope of financial returns.
All the "I am a Slashdot nerd, and my armchair financial analysis is more valid than people who are trained and well-studied and have full financial data" posts are such nonsense. It's a little self-serving that the best financial plan (according to Slashdot) happen to be "allow unlimited torrents and cheap used games and and Kickstarter re-makes of 80s games and 20 hours of gameplay for $20!!!"
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Steambox is going to wipe their ass with the current console market because of this sort of backasswards thinking. Like the iPhone did to the cell phone market.
Now where's my popcorn...
This means that it's about time for another video game industry crash.
customers were treated about as bad now as they were before the last one. it took the crash at least for a short while to treat their customer base well. i think they need to relearn that lesson.
I guess me and Amazon are killling the games industry together by paying 15GBP for a game after 6 months to a year instead of 40GBP right away. PS to game developers (looking hard at Bethesda) don't release very buggy software if you want repeat customers.
Games should be a good, not a service.
Unfortunately the way of the future is this cloud-stored DRM garbage, because of the same people who feel that 1000 $100 games being torented is exactly the same as a $100000 loss in profits. If people don't want to buy your 'good' anymore for whatever reason it's up to the business to adapt it's product or die. A single player game is not unsellable if you, for instance, provide access to a significant amount of of DLC and goodies for it. Also, if the game is quality then it will sell; Dead Space managed to do quite well...
Complete Bullshit. We still pay full price for good, new games.
The availability of old games I had to pass up because I couldn't afford them on my allowance at the time doesn't change that.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Look at all those used cars that get sold. Taking money away from our American Automobile industry. That is just as bad, and should be outlawed. No one should be allowed to buy used cars, they should have to support the industry that created the cars by buying new cars. I'm sure that is just as likely to bring down car costs and improve quality as banning or preventing used game sales will clean up the game industry.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Buying a new program is aiding terrorists, so don't buy it in the first place. Oh no, not getting it somehow, just ignore them. There are plenty around, who don't threaten you for buying their products.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Sure. Why not? Honestly, I have absolutely zero faith in the average gamer. Despite DRM, locked down consoles, and attacks on their property rights, they keep buying this shit right up. Some of them even support such decisions saying, "It's all the fault of the evil pirates, and not at all the fault of the people who fucking implemented the DRM in the first place! We can't have any evil hackers, so harm everyone by locking the console down! If you buy used, you're not supporting the game developers! You're as bad as a pirate!"
What's especially sad is that it's very, very simple not to buy a game. Absolutely pathetic. Are these people brain dead?
If they really only rent me the game, then why Nintendo, Sony and other won't exchange my broken/scratched disk? I'll pay for the replacement, but not full price.
Also, always-on is just plain stupid, unpractical, and sometimes not possible.
They all believe that they can get away with everything, but I have more than 50 games for my PC, and only 3 discs for my Wii. Guess why? Price, price, price, and the fact that kids scratched one Wii game disc.
I still have about 20 tapes for ZX Spectrum, and several floppies for Commodore 64.
I will never-ever buy another console. ...or EA game. Mark my words.
Bullshit. If there is so much profit in it, the game companies would get together and create their own brick-and-morter store and undercut Gamespot. Brick-and-morter stores cost to much to maintain? Then Gamespot and the used game market must not be very damaging.
Maybe they should work on cutting their development costs (less graphics, higher quality code [cheaper to maintain, faster testing] , etc...) instead of spending more (buying DRM) and annoying their customers (bugs, patches, DRM issues). 'Studies' have shown good games generate more profit when priced lower (see all those set your own price and free-to-play examples). If you don't adapt you die. The main gaming companies seem to think they're above all that and refuse to adapt. They don't take risks (sadly most customers don't too).
Buying used games has been rather commonplace, especially prior to digital downloads being the big thing and you often went to rent or buy used games at a rental shop or local gaming joint. Yet somehow the whole 'used game' thing is suddenly an ugly threat to the pockets of big publishers. What happened?
If it's about the whole DLC and microtransaction craze of the industry these days, then I don't get it. Aren't DLCs attached to accounts and not to specific item purchases? What benefit would a used game buyer have in buying a game with DLC the original owner purchased, they don't get it as well, do they?
I think it's evident - as others have witnessed - that there's a bubble that's about to pop and a market that's about to crash when companies who originally handled this rather well in the past are now gnashing teeth.
Let's face it, this is nothing more than a lame argument to secure the idea of a new, much more oppressive distribution and consumption model, and has nothing to do w/ losing money, and everything to do w/ losing customers.
If the game that you developed *sucks*, and people only buy a used copy, and/or the majority of people resell their $60 copy for $10-$15, who is really losing money here? *The consumer!*
You can't blame the consumer for your game sucking, and you can't blame the consumer for not wanting to spend $60 on a new copy, if they know the majority of people think it sucks.
There are, of course, the cheapskates who would far rather spend their money on a used copy 3 months after the release. News flash: They aren't going to submit to being forced into buying $60 games due to DRM. These are the types who will instead ditch their console and just download cracked PC versions. Either way, you'd never see their money to begin with.
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
Not this again, you don't get Ford trying to ban second hand car dealers, or trying to say if you want to take this car on the Freeway/Motorway/Autobahn you have to pay directly to Ford even if bought preowned/2nd hand.
So this is what Braben's been up to instead of cracking on with Elite IV...
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
In what way is the current system "fundamentally broken" ? They sold 609 million units last year just in games for the Wii, PS3, Xbox360, DS and 3DS. That's a lot of money for the industry. At the same time, I have tremendous choice as a consumer. Even just on the 360 there are a lot more good games than I have time to play. Add to that everything available for phones, pads, and the PC both in retail and electronic distribution and it is a great time to be a gamer. If there are developers and publishers that are losing money because they spent a bunch of money on a crappy game, that isn't the fault of the used game market. People have been predicting for decades that the tremendous and rising cost of producing and promoting blockbuster movies was too high and that studios would fail and fewer movies would be made, but I see no evidence that there are fewer movies available. If console makers go through with their plan to kill the used market, it might make them more money, or it might convince consumers to spend that $15-30 they would have spent on a used console game on some other platform. Or they may not be as willing to pay the $60 for the new game if they know they can't sell it for $30 when they are done with it, so, again, they may choose to buy a $5 app. that keeps them entertained for a week. It is a huge decision for console makers, with big effects, but let us not pretend they are fixing anything.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
They should just require dongles like some of the really expensive software.
Is the US really the next backward country of the world?
Dear Richard Browne,
Go fuck yourself.
Message Ends.
This space unintentionally left blank.
... if they weren't releasing poorly tested games with half the content on the disc requiring an additional purchase to be unlocked. If I pay $60, I want AN ENTIRE, FULLY FUNCTIONAL GAME.
>> "The real cost of used games is the damage that is being wrought on the creativity and variety of games available to the consumer..."
The real cost of used books is the damage on creativity and variety of books available... clearly, libraries must be abolished.
The real cost of used cars is the damage on creativity and variety of cars available... clearly, CarMax must be outlawed.
The real cost of used clothes is the damage on creativity and variety of clothes available... clearly, Goodwill is communist.
The real cost of used strawmen is the damage on creativity and variety of strawmen available... no, they're alive and well. Clearly.
The only "cost" is the cost to my goddamn patience with this bullshit.
Dumbasses.
Stop distributing them on CD. CDs are so nineties.
Compare these two hypothetical situations
Even their cohorts in Hollywood allow movie theaters to have a second run of movies after they are getting stale with lower ticket prices. The used to be $1 theaters, but now they're probably closer to $3. Basically, in the world of media and media related products. The older something is, the less you can get from it. These really are depreciating assets. If you don't want GameStop to profit by selling a used copy of your game for $5 less than new price, cut the damn new price. Used game prices are a much better reflection of the true market value of these games. The publishers have unrealistic ideas of their games market values.
Car manufacturer Richard Browne has come out swinging in favor of the rumored remote disable features in the next years model PlayStation Orbis and Xbox Durango.
'The real cost of used cars is the damage that is being wrought on the creativity and variety of cars available to the consumer,' Browne writes. Browne's comments echo those of influential engineer and Raspberry Pi designer David Braben, who wrote last month that '...pre-owned has really killed commuter cars. It's killing daily driver cars in particular, because they will get pre-owned, and it means your day one sales are it, making them super high risk.' Both Browne and Braben conflate hating used car dealers (a thoroughly reasonable life choice) with the supposed evils of the used car market. Braben goes so far as to claim that used cars are actually responsible for high car prices and that 'prices would have come down long ago if the industry was getting a share of the resells.' Amazingly, no car manufacturers have stepped forward to publicly pledge themselves to lower car prices in exchange for a cut of used car sales. Car companies are hammering dealers (and recruiting insurance companies to do the same) because it's easier than admitting that the current system is fundamentally broken."
People have been exchanging used media for millennia and I don't think I have heard of anyone other than the video game companies complaining about it.
Used games have existed since the Atari days. All game magazines had HUGE lists of Atari/NES/Sega used games for trade and sale. It's been like this for decades, and the video game industry has survived.
I don't know why now, all of a sudden, the industry is pretending like used games is tantamount to murder. It hasn't been a problem since forever.
What it _really_ is are companies trying to maximize profit by ensuring nobody every buys a used game so they have to pay full value for any product they make, regardless of it sucking or not.
I'm amazed they aren't complaining to the rental industry for "potential lost sales" citing the same reasons.
I'm sure that Mr. Browne has never sold a used car that he was tired of driving in order to subsidize the purchase of a new car (or better yet, a beautifully maintained, low mileage used car). I mean, "...pre-owned has really killed [strike]core games[/strike] new car sales. It's killing [strike]single player games[/strike] sports car sales in particular, because they will get pre-owned, and it means your day one sales are it, making them super high risk."
Be careful. The Fedgov already hurt the used car market with cash for clunkers. Don't think they wouldn't do a used game buyback and destruction program if they believed the terrorism angle.
The reason to upgrade the hardward generally comes down to improving graphics and processing power. The added work for things like high end physics and AI is not an especially big hit in terms of development expense though. What is driving the cost upward is primarily the high res 3d graphics.
Creating high quality 3d art is extraordinarily labour intensive, and the tech to improve the toolset for the artists is not advancing as fast as the ability to push more content to the screen. If you increase the polygon count of your scene from 100 000 to 10 000 000, the labour requirements get difficult. Just watch the credits from a game made in 2001 and compare to a game made in 2012. The size of the art teams have gotten proportionally much larger compared to the size increase for the programmers.
Also, the assumption that the CEO's are getting hookers and blow is not universally true. If you produced one of the top 3 games of the year, sure, people are getting rich. If your outside the top 10 though, the development costs are eating enough of the profit that its a crap shoot on whether or not your broke even.
Used games and piracy have eaten a great deal of the profit margin for games that were good but not great. Lowering the price might actually be a good idea, but if your barely breaking even your going to have a hard time justifying the move to share holders who are seeing only marginal profitability.
In any case, change is coming because the iPhone / iPad is forcing it. All the companies that cannot compete at the $60 a game core market are starting to chase the lower dev costs for the mobile devices, and the bigger companies that see 'easy money' are following them. In any case, the long term move is to cut the retail outlets out of the game distribution entirely. Once that happens, your pretty much F*cked for buying used games anyway.
END COMMUNICATION
I am sick and goddamn tired of designers saying obviously ignorant shit like this. Used game sales have been around since the Atari days, and the game industry is stronger than its ever been. Developers, although we continue to spend insane amounts of money on the same 5 games you've been rebranding, we aren't stupid, so don't try.
Oh, you are right in one regard. I will not be buying any console that blocks used games. If that means this is the last generation of console I buy, so be it. My PC plays games just fine.
prices would have come down long ago if the industry was getting a share of the resells
AH-HAHAHA... yeah! Right! I guess we can chalk Braben up as one of those idiots that are good in one area that think they know what the fuck they are talking about in other areas. What a clueless fuckstick to make a comment like that.
Cause that line worked with CDs and all other media that preceded games and continues to be sold today. Oh wait.. not it hasn't. It has never worked, ever with any industry. The prices will remain high as long as people continue to pay the prices. They will only drop when people stop paying prices. Claiming otherwise is just idiotic. Making that claim and the used game market is utterly laughable and makes my opinion of Draben go straight to the toilet (yeah, like he cares, I know). What a dumb ass.
Considering the cost of games I have no incentive to retain a purchased game unless it is very good.
Not being able to resell a game puts it at the bottom of my list or knocks it off completely.
I would be more inclined to purchase more games if the price was actually reasonable.
Most games released on the market are a waste of money.
If it is not worth keeping then it is probably not worth buying in the first place.
I do not buy MP games generally. I buy SP games and replay them.
I have the whole C&C Series still. They are worth replaying.
I have the original StarCraft still and can play it, but my copy of StarCraft 2 is now unplayable.
I am unable to play it due to activation problems. I have the original box, disc and receipt, but
have been unable to play more that the Demo levels. THANKS Blizzard. *NOT*
Online support was useless and said I need to call in to resolve this case. Wait time was going to
be almost an hour. It is almost cheaper to buy a new copy of the game than spend time trying
to make this copy playable again.
I am not planning to purchase the next episodes of StarCraft 2 because of these type of issues.
I was considering Diablo 3, but expect similar problems when I want to play it again in a couple years.
What happens if I want to play Star Craft 2 in another few years? Will Servers still be available to
allow Campaign mode? Should I only purchase games after there are cracks available for them
so I can actually play a game I have PURCHASED? I don't lease. Sorry. I will just replay my
old games or buy games from Software companies with a clue. (I will buy Torchlight 2 instead of
Diablo 3 for this reason.)
I own about 80 to 100 games between my XBox 360 and Playstation 3. Around 50% of them are new (or 50% are used, depending on your perspective).
NONE OF THEM ARE PIRATED.
And yet I'm made to feel like a bad person for buying a used game, which really, really offends me as a paying customer for many years. I'm not sure I will even buy one of the upcoming consoles.
The Fedgov already hurt the used car market with cash for clunkers
Not really. Most of what got crushed was shitty old gassers nobody can afford to fuel. Lots of BMWs and Mercedes with V8s, lots of 3/4 and 1 ton trucks with V8s around eight liters... No one was going to buy those cars anyway, at least not for any kind of significant money.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Avid Old School Bioware fan here. I have BG1, BG2, KOTOR, NWN(all expansions).
I stopped buying when they started with DLC to devalue used products, or try to force you to buy early, or get locked out of DLC. No coincidence this was after EA purchased Bioware.
I perceive this as attacking the customer. If you attack me, you are never getting another dime from me again.
I haven't purchased DLC/DRMd/Server locked game, and I never will.
I haven't bought a new game since 2005. I expect I won't again, except maybe $1 to $5 apps, since I consider that a free price for a rental.
But I will never pay $50-$60 to a locked down game. If the keys to play are elsewhere, that is a rental, that could be revoked at corporate whim.
I have been buying used games since the 8bit NES. If it was such a problem, ie: something to compare to terrorism, then why didn't they shut down used games in the early 90's? It's been my general observation that people that make apocalyptic claims are generally full of shit. I don't think there's any reason to think these people aren't.
This signature intentionally left blank.
... There's all of the indie game developers putting out quality material nowadays (some like Dungeon Defenders, etc) being BETTER than the "AAA" stuff and showing everyone how much these guys are lying and in for it for nothing but the money.
QQ moar.
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
Get 'em right here.
Oh yeah, there's music there too. Have I said enough to get Slashdot shut down for linking, and armed men in black uniforms sent to my house to terrorize me? No? Well, how about a few more links:
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
I'll keep the game :)
used games help create the money-glutton powerhouse that is today's console game industry. unless the prices drop drastically, i suspect this will not bode well. killing what's left of the rental industry too? nice. real fucking nice. i guess we should be happy we don't have to insert a quarter every time we play..whats that? it's in the works? figures...
...
What a fucking load of horseshit. If they were giving out prizes for the biggest load of horseshit this crap would walk away with the blue fucking ribbon.
+Not really. Most of what got crushed was shitty old gassers nobody can afford to fuel.
Because it totally makes sense to buy a $20,000 car to save $1,000 a year in fuel costs.
I guess the whole rest of the economy has it wrong according to the greedy game developers. Every market with used sales has just gone belly up. Used cars, used clothes, used homes, used books, used furniture, used CDs, used DVDs, used computers, used electronics... Need I go on? I can see how all these other industries completely failed and the consumer suffered because the poor, broke makers of new products just couldn't make decent stuff anymore. What a complete line of bullshit! I swear if these guys keep this up, I'm going to forego gaming altogether. Technology is really cool until people get involved then it just all goes to shit! It's like everybody in the enterainment/tech business are all a bunch of 2 year olds who never learned to share. All of them just keep shouting, "Mine! Mine! Mine!" "It was my idea first!" "He stole my idea!" It's embarrasing as a 46 yo adult to see these other supposed adults whining and suing and bitching all the time. It would be an absolute dream if I could create the perfect movie/game/entertainment venue and just give it away and never make a penny. Unlike these money grubbers, I would just love the creation of the thing and would find complete satisfaction in everyone's enjoyment of it with absolutely no profit motive. Just make a game that's fun to play because that's what you do, doing it for money as the primary reason is wrong and that's why the industry is in the state it's in - NOT because of used games.
So if used game sales are driving up game costs for single-player games, why aren't we seeing the games that are primarily multiplayer selling for cheaper?
I would rather KILL MYSELF than buy a game that cannot be sold on afterwards. Games have no replay value to me, once played I won't want to play them again unless they have exceptional replay value.
Does Dick Brown not remember how much games used to cost? I remember a couple $100 snes games at Babbage's, then factor in 20 years of inflation on top of that. http://www.1up.com/news/90s-game-price-comparison-charticle
Make all games grand theft auto. I will never ever sell it.
The funny thing is, not only are they $60-70, they honestly aren't of the quality that some $20-30 "indy" companies like Nippon Ichi or XSeed put out, to say nothing about true indy games out there.
The interesting thing is that I suspect that if you adjusted the cost of a 1986 NES game for inflation, you would end up at modern game prices. I don't recall hearing people complain too much about the cost of carts back when I was a kid. People who where 14 and wanted the top 10 games just got a paper route and bought them. I agree that the quality of many triple A titles is very much lacking these days, and I think that is the real problem. I have no problem paying $100 for a video game that provides me with 100+ hours of entertainment, and that is the problem with a lot of games. Price is no guarantee of quality, unfortunately.
I have a theory that the 8 and 16 bit games era was the golden age of video game design, because the hardware resources were so limited. They had to design the hell out of games to make them work and fit in the systems of the time, and I will speculate that they spent a lot more time thinking carefully about core mechanics and fun. I can fire up a compiler nowadays and have my computer rendering 60+fps on a 10k poly count model in about an hour. That doesn't mean that the resulting game will be well designed, though.
The light at the end of the tunnel is that the market will find its level, and wherever we end up there will be games. On the way though, there will be some companies that are eaten by a grue.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Wait a minute. Game Designer? Here's the original article Browne wrote. Read his bio at the very bottom. The guy is a friggin' exec. No wonder he's bitching about lost sales to used games, how else is he going to explain his company's lack luster performance?
1802
"Buggy Whip designer Samuel Peckett has come out swinging in favor of the rumored antipiracy features in the next-gen Buggy Whip. 'The real cost of used Buggy Whips is the damage that is being wrought on the creativity and variety of Buggy Whip available to the consumer,' Peckett writes. Peckett's comments echo those of influential designer and tool developer Stephen Archdern, who wrote last month that '...pre-owned has really killed core Buggy Whips. It's killing single user Buggy Whips in particular, because they will get pre-owned, and it means your day one sales are it, making them super high risk.' Both Peckett and Archdern conflate hating Buggy WhipStop (a thoroughly reasonable life choice) with the supposed evils of the used Buggy Whips market. Archdern goes so far as to claim that used Buggy Whips are actually responsible for high Buggy Whip prices and that 'prices would have come down long ago if the industry was getting a share of the resells.' Amazingly, no Buggy Whip manufacturers have stepped forward to publicly pledge themselves to lower Buggy Whip prices in exchange for a cut of used Buggy Whip sales. Buggy Whip Designers are hammering Buggy Whipstop (and recruiting designers to do the same) because it's easier than admitting that the current system is fundamentally broken."
1902
"Horseless Carriage designer Barnard Oldfield has come out swinging in favor of the rumored antipiracy features in the next-gen Horseless Carriage. 'The real cost of used Horseless Carriages is the damage that is being wrought on the creativity and variety of Horseless Carriages available to the consumer,' Oldfield writes. Oldfield's comments echo those of influential designer and engine developer Archbald Vanderhoosin, who wrote last month that '...pre-owned has really killed core Horseless Carriages. It's killing single passenger Horseless Carriages in particular, because they will get pre-owned, and it means your day one sales are it, making them super high risk.' Both Oldfield and Vanderhoosin conflate hating Horseless CarriageStop (a thoroughly reasonable life choice) with the supposed evils of the used Horseless Carriage market. Vanderhoosin goes so far as to claim that used Horseless Carriages are actually responsible for high Horseless Carriage prices and that 'prices would have come down long ago if the industry was getting a share of the resells.' Amazingly, no Horseless Carriage manufacturers have stepped forward to publicly pledge themselves to lower Horseless Carriage prices in exchange for a cut of used Horseless Carriage sales. Horseless Carriage designers are hammering Horseless Carriagestop (and recruiting designers to do the same) because it's easier than admitting that the current system is fundamentally broken."
2022
"Tri-corderfone designer Steven Quat has come out swinging in favor of the rumored antipiracy features in the next-gen Tri-corderfone. 'The real cost of used Tri-corderfones is the damage that is being wrought on the creativity and variety of Tri-corderfones available to the consumer,' Quat writes. Quat's comments echo those of influential programmer and consumer boron reactor developer Gary Chang, who wrote last month that '...pre-owned has really killed core Tri-corderfones. It's killing single user Tri-corderfones in particular, because they will get pre-owned, and it means your day one sales are it, making them super high risk.' Both Quat and Chang conflate hating Tri-corderfoneStop (a thoroughly reasonable life choice) with the supposed evils of the used Tri-corderfone market. Chang goes so far as to claim that used Tri-corderfones are actually responsible for high Tri-corderfone prices and that 'prices would have come down long ago if the industry was getting a share of the resells.' Amazingly, no Tri-corderfone manufacturers have stepped forward to publicly pledge themselves to lower Tri-corderfone prices in exchange for a cut of used Tri-corderfone sales. Publishers are hammering Tri-corderfonestop (and recruiting developers to do the same) because it's easier than admitting that the current system is fundamentally broken."
The fact is, most people want to play through a game once. This means that there's no shortage of used games on the market, which drives prices down, and that most people don't care too much about wear and tear, so long as it makes it through their first (and only) playthrough. There's no reason why the used game market shouldn't be eating heavily into profits. I should also point out now that people who buy and sell used games are doing nothing wrong. They are well within their rights, and I hope nothing I say below will contradict this.
Now, a lot of people here, as to be expected, are going to dismiss this as more industry whinging, but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem. You must remember that every big ticket game is an investment, and that every blow to profits will impact how many are made, and how much effort is put into the ones that are made. Basically, there will always be consequences, whether or not we want there to be, no matter how dearly we hold onto the right to sell used games. This means it's important to actually think about it; to weigh options, rather than to just knee-jerk and automatically take the side against the people you hate.
I myself am undecided. On one hand, I buy my fair share of used games (although I tend to hoard them and play some again rather than resell), and I would be very sorry to see the used game market dry up. On the other hand, a lot of the same logic behind copyright applies (albeit less strongly) to stopping used sales. Like with copyright, in the long term, there is no significant detriment, since the alternative makes the contested product infeasible. What's the point in having the right to copy something that doesn't exist? Similarly, what's the point in having the right to resell something you can't buy in the first place? If certain works become infeasible to produce, then everyone loses. Not just the studios, the developers, and their first sale customers, but also the people (like me) who buy them second hand (and, I guess, even the people who pirate them). The only people who at least break even are those who don't buy them in at all in the first place.
I know that some people will applaud the death of the bloated, overpriced, overproduced, under-creative AAA game, but their personal preference is hardly the point. Not every choice must satisfy every consumer. As usual, if you don't like something, for whatever reason, you do not have to buy it. That doesn't mean that it's a good thing that nobody can buy it. If there is demand for it, then it is something that we don't want to lose. Of course, if we want even more what we're giving up instead (i.e. first sale rights on AAA games), then we'll just have to eat the loss. Either way, we are losing something of value, which is a sad, but as of yet unavoidable state of affairs. Like I said, it would be sensible to consider both sides and make an informed and rational decision about what is more valuable to us.
Please mods, this is not a troll. As always, I am simply trying to invite a healthy debate on the topic, and not turn it into a matter of foolish pride and revenge (which most issues surrounding Big Media seem to be). If you disagree with me, please reply. I would be more than happy to debate with you, to listen to you, and hopefully, be proven very wrong!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Its the same problem as with the music industry: If you annoy your customers, you get what you deserve. There are enough independent small game developers out there who make cool affordable games which are easy to install and use. I give my money to them and ceased purchases from any of the big producers like EA, Sony, Ubisoft etc. simply because of their annoying DRM which prevents me from making backups or use it on a computer which has no DVD drive. Plus their prices are just not right.
*note: enable sarcasm detector to read this post; it's a jest*
Go ahead and hold your tournament, while I hold my own "What Would Idi Amin Do?"[1] Tournament:
Monkey Ninja Pirates versus Katana wielding Richard M. Stallman BattleDroids.
and....
MAFIAA lawyers versus SCO's lawyers, both lawyer teams armed with crotch bats and 'Go Fish' indictments.
Then we can have the winners face off in a sudden death match of Unlikely Proportions(tm) to decide who rules the internet memes!
[1] bumper-stickers to be available at the arena
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Forgive the use of an overused phrase...... :-) ;-)
That was totally awesome, dude!
and...
Thanks, I needed that, and a Good Day to you also.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
The comment about games being cheaper if they were not resold is ridiculous, it's purely about greed with the publishers wanting to sell more copies at over inflated prices. Publishers are greedy, they want to make more money without improving the quality of their products, and they certainly dont want to lower their prices even if it would mean significantly higher sales.
If games were cheaper, there would be less incentive to resell them.. If games were better and had more longevity, there would be less reason to resell them either. As it stands many modern games are expensive and quickly become boring, so people resell them in order to recoup some of the money they spent in the first place. There are also people who rent games from places like blockbuster, many games simply don't provide enough entertainment to justify the full price but are good enough to play for a day or two at the rental price.
The problem is that the big expensive games have huge amounts spent on designing the graphics etc, but often lack playability or longevity. If these games spent less on fancy graphics, and released the game for $1 like many mobile games i'm sure people would be happy to pay that and play until they got bored, and wouldnt bother trying to resell the game.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
You should be a SCO/RIAA/MIAA lawyer or politician; if you are not, you have missed your calling....
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
*note: enable sarcasm detector to read this post; it's a jest*
Sack-up dude. Real men tell the joke and let God sort out the laughs.
The parent comment is the only answer we need., It's just basic economics: the resale value is part of the value of a product. E.g. if I can sell a $60 game for $30 then the game has only cost me $30. Reselling = lower new price = more new sales.
This is of course a simplification, there are issues like cashflow, risk, friction, the signalling effect of high prices, the value of getting the latest game, the risk that somebody will buy another product with the saved money, etc., but these all average out to benefit the developer.
I worry about Slashdot. We can forgive a single developer for being economically illiterate, but why was this answer not in the first ten posts? This is not a story about "doing the right thing" or even about "precedent" - it is a story about developers who do not understand economics 101.
Crawl back underneath your bridge.
Real men don't post as Ac's.
Begone!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Are they selling the games? If so then they are no longer their games. The idea of getting a cut of resale seems to miss this. I have little time for games at the moment but when I do buying from pricks like this will be the last this on my list. Inbred entitlement seems to be becoming more prevalent in the west which is artificially engrained by the forcing of new laws to support and reenforce. But what happens when the the consumer just doesn't like you any more.
are you playing games still? what are you still reading comic books too? grow the fuck up.
This whole argument from games companies really is rubish. Do you see Ford complaining about second hand cars or Sony about older stereos or music players, no. You make it, you sell it, you get your money and after that its not yours SO don't try selling something then telling the customer what to do with it. Just make better product.
Because it totally makes sense to buy a $20,000 car to save $1,000 a year in fuel costs.
Only a small percentage of the total used cars in the USA were crushed. You can get a loan to buy a car, but it's difficult to get a loan to buy fuel as the car is its own collateral but you plan to burn up the fuel. But you're engaging in the logical fallacy of the false dichotomy. The choice is not between a shitty gasser they would not buy anyway, and a new car. The choice was between a car they couldn't afford to operate which they wouldn't buy anyway which has now been crushed, or a used car which gets better mileage. I've *seen* the kinds of shitpiles that were crushed, and the only cars which weren't technically shitpiles were semi-modern German cars which might as well have been much older given their quality. German cars haven't been reliable since the 1980s, so poor people buying used cars can't buy used ones anyway since they will get nickeled and dimed to death. There's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes. Ask me how I know.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The title of this submission and the referrenced article is nothing less than a strawman troll. Richard Browne says nothing about terrorists. He is stating that developers and game producers will stop making off-line single player games if people keep re-selling used games. There have been a few articles in the recent past that had complaints from gamers about single player games requiring an internet connection, having critical content only available through download, etc. This is exactly what Browne is talking about.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
It's sad because games are our history. To stop second hand games is like saying people can't sell old books. It would make a continuous 'year zero' where there would be no advancement or maturing of the genre as no one would ever build on what came previously.
Slashdot, please hire editorial staff. They should be in charge of weeding out or refuting people who are obviously stupid/have an agenda.
And while you're at it can you improve the contrast on the text boxes? Some of us have poor eyesight.
Games are essentially luxury items. But they are luxury physical items in the sense that they fall under the first sale doctrine. Let's compare them to other luxury items that fall undert the first sale doctrine, like say... a rolex. Expensive physical objects, such as rolex watches, being resold don't cause their respective industries to cry foul, but this is because those objects have inherently longer useful lifespans, which justify to some extent their costs. Also those objects decay with age.
Because of their digital nature, games and the media they're on don't decay within the useful lifespan of the first sale. So to solve their 'problem' game producers should make their games more replayable. They also need to rethink their pricing. $60 games are the rolexes of the gaming world, but they don't give you anything comprable to a rolex. A rolex supposedly gives you quality, for a life time. A $60 game gives you nothing more than a $20 game. It can be just as crap. Game producers and distributers need to realise they're not selling luxury items, they're selling commodity items. Choose the price point accordingly.
Richard Browne is a cunt. Because of his comments, I will not buy any game with his name on the credits, period.
Whether it's a house, car, music, or game when we tire of it, or want new, better of different it's just common sense to sell it.
You want to kill the used market make every game release a downloadable version way cheaper after two months. Problem solved! The industry will still get their first day sale in and peoples on a budget will still save money. B&M stores are getting screwed but let face it these guys are going the way of the dodo anyway. Also if you guarantee that whatever device you release later we will still be able to download and play the games that we bought from either PSN or Live in this current generation I think customers will feel a lot safer shelving money and bandwidth for Downloadable.
wow, this is why i just cant take any of those developers and publishers seriously, they come forward and spread lies as it would be some big revelation ... i buy a lot less games this days because of how those companies treat us end users ... you treat me like an idiot, i will pirate your damn game and tell every one to do the same ! just out of spike
I suggest everyone who talks about hardware upgrades take a hard look at the proposed specs for the new systems, and the uses of said specs.
The fact is that the new consoles when they come out will be at best on par with mid-level gaming PCs, Which if you've been tracking the market, a mid-range gaming PC costs $300-$500 these days, and is FAR more useful than a console can ever dream of being locked down as they often are.
What happened to the industry-changing new hardware that the Xbox 360 and PS3 road into the market?
For $10 I can plug a clumsy controller into my system, or hell for $60 I can plug in a PS3 controller, and play my games like they were on a console, so where's the benefit in buying this new set of next-gen consoles?
If you're one of the family-oriented people who have grabbed hold of the Kinect concept of movement in play, then I need to burst your bubble, the Kinect has been PC compatible, with a full driver set, since BEFORE it was ever released to market.
I can only see this kind of thinking beginning a death-knell to the console gaming market as affordable computers, and highly innovative games become the norm of the PC game space exclusively.
And now with companies like Dell (Alienware) making Console sized gaming PCs (They accomplish it the same way consoles do, using a power-brick external to the system chassis), It's going to look like it always has when you have a PC hooked up to your Television, but perhaps you'll be running Steam and Origin for your game libraries, have a $100 2-Terabyte drive for storage, and an alternate boot device loaded with a MAME box (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) allowing you to play all of the old classics you already own from Atari through to XBox360 and PS3.
Good buy consoles, so long, I'd like to say it's been nice knowing you, but I've always preferred my PC anyway.
Fuck you Richard Browne, just like I said fuck David Braben when he said that shit. It's partially on the head of the console manufacturers, they demand a large chunk of money and games have to cost $50-$60 just to make any profit at all, so no wonder why people buy used. Funny how every other form of recorded media (books, music, movies, TV shows, etc) have been perfectly fine out there with people able to sell used. Why is it only game devs that can't handle it?
I understand that game devs need to get paid. However, restricting the rights of people regarding your product is the wrong approach to take.
FC Closer
Another company to avoid purchasing anything from.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
dick, what about the wasted creativity hacking $$$ games? that effort, plus the effort you spend erecting barriers, could be used to improve the product.
I just checked Cragislist for bicycles and saw thousands for sale in my area. Yet, I never hear of the bicycle manufacturers complaining that they are losing sells to second-hand sales! (or any other industry for that matter -- think cars).
All the companies that cannot compete at the $60 a game core market are starting to chase the lower dev costs for the mobile devices
How have developers adapted to the mobile devices' control challenges for each of the various genres? On a device with a flat multitouch screen and no directional pad or dedicated gaming buttons, you can't feel which onscreen button your thumb is over. And poor control means a low average rating for your company's games.
In the days where access to scanners and copiers was limited, if not unavailable, manuals and other printed materials were a fairly effective form of copy protection. Consider Populous, where conventional access to the game was by identifying the pattern on a shield and then entering the code word printed underneath it. (Ok, the game, on a PC at least, was easy to patch using DEBUG), or the countless other games that included a manual/novelette/whatever that required the user to go to page x, paragraph y, word z and enter that word as a codeword.
That copy protection scheme went belly up when flatbed scanners became an inexpensive peripheral and it became easy to create PDF files. And the game "manual" died. Of course, in the present, there's no mileage in expecting users to read and count and even more intrusive forms of DRM are used to lock down a game in the producers favour.
Doesn't technology suck?
People who where 14 and wanted the top 10 games just got a paper route and bought them.
But how many 14-year-olds in the same neighborhood could have a paper route before the local newspaper company found itself overstaffed? And with people getting their newspaper on an e-reader because it's greener, what business should children affected by child labor laws be getting into nowadays?
What ever happened to the basic rules of running a business of "take care of your consumers and they will take care of you"? Why remove the right to sell and trade used games? If not for the purchase of used games that ranged price of 20-30 dollars games that probably would had never interested me to begin with, I would had never had spent 60-70 dollars buying its sequel brand new! On top of that, pay ridiculous prices for DLC's! So after I end up paying an additional 30-50 dollars on DLC's and the game has lost its fun factor I decide to trade the game in for a fraction of what I originally paid.... Whom is getting raped here? The gaming company or me?! So many times have I spent 60 dollars on a new game where game developers and promoters claim that it is going to be the best game of the year and turns out after a few hours of game play I find to be garbage. Damn it... this is America! And in America if you buy Crap you should be able to return it or sell it!!! If game companies and developers can not produce good games, they need to take the blind fold off and realize that they should not be in the business of entertainment and stop raping their consumers pockets. So much politics in gaming that is uneccessary! Entertainment should not be this difficult!
According to the license agreement one game purchase is one license so according to Ubisoft in order for your wife or children to play the game you have to buy a separate copy for them.
That's been the case for the vast majority of multiplayer PC games for years: one PC, monitor, and license key per player, no split-screen, no spawn installation.
All consoles have DRM. So what DRM-free game should I pull out when my friends are over if I don't want to have to buy and maintain four gaming PCs?
Project Gutenberg
What will Project Gutenberg do once all notable books in the English language that were published before 1923 have been transcribed?
I doubt it, since while everyone seems annoyed, no one really cares quite enough yet. But with the advent of buying a game, and then having 15 minute DLCs at 1/4 the price (so eventually a few minor additions cost more than the original game), or with the new fun scheme of first day DLCs (seriously, how do you justify that), when will people just say "Phhhhtttt!"? This is just for single player games; obviously multiplayer games have a better cost/replay value.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
The USA has been slowly implementing European-style copyright laws for some time. In a land of liberty, these laws strangle innovation and suppress creativity. These laws also ignore divine rights endowed by whatever creator one believes (or doesn't believe) in. Chevrolet certainly does not receive a 'portion' of my money when I sell the truck they designed - I bought it ... I own it ... I get the money when I sell it to someone else.
In the game industry, all I purchase is the media the software is written on (CD/DVD ROM or Blu-ray discs, etc.) and the 'right' to play the game. The owner of the copyright retains ownership of the actual code. Imagine GM owning everything in your vehicle, except the right to 'drive' the vehicle. If you go to purchase a used one, you'd be forced to fork out cash to get new rights on a used vehicle - after all, it is their vehicle, not yours, and you only get to drive it, maintain it and fuel it.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 made a billion dollars in 16 days (it did not stop making money after that - it is still making money on new game sales today). I reject any claim that states the purchaser of a used product has any effect on the profit of new sales. Don't give me any crap about the cost of running multiplayer servers or making DLC ... if servers cost too much, then charge for their use, a tactic already implemented by EA and other big-name publishers in the form of required "season pass" and/or "online play pass" purchases for buyers of used games. They make money on every bit of DLC you buy the "right" to use. In addition, all that DLC is just that ... you can't buy it used and you can't sell it after you buy it because it isn't transferable. To me, that is plain old robbery.
Aside from the music and film industries (which are following right behind software industries) few other industries have the rights and privileges enjoyed by these companies. To follow their reasoning, the artist that actually creates the art should retain the rights, and should be paid royalties on every purchase, new OR used.
Modern copyright laws are in direct conflict with freedom and liberty. If these companies are not careful, they will lose a lot more than illegal profits taken on used games.
Is that to say "Used car sales is hurting new car sales", is that to say "Yard sales hurt store sales", how about Selling your house hurts new home sale, so don't sell you house or your car. Just think if we could only buy new stuff, and we had to destroy all old stuff. Hey there's an idea "OBAMA" that's the solution to the jobs problem.When I buy something and there are no restrictions I can do what I want that's freedom. Think about how society got itself into this mess. Problems become new opportunity, if you are smart enough to develop the games develop a solution. :>
Screw em
has everyone forgotten fair use??
Sony vs Beta ?
I would be hard pressed and Stupid to PAY FULL PRICE for anything especially new games !
even if they were 20-30 i wouldnt do it, since i would be able to buy it for 5-10 used
for a GREAT and PROVEN game.
where-as if i were to pay the full price for a game that only has paid commentary saying how awesome it is (when it isn't)
and have it totally suck and not be able to either return it due to anti-piracy software or that its been opened (walmart policy)
-- the gaming industry needs to get over themselves and try to tie into rental companies i.e gamefly and even yes Blockbuster
by arranging some sorta royalty system wherein each game bought or rented earns a few cents on the dollar each time it rents
thus reducing game costs at stores..
and even gamestop they shouldnt blackmail em into but ought to try to negotiate it out or something
If I were to have them bring their laptops, I'd have to buy each of them a copy of the game, but I'll grant that that's easier when Steam sales are going on. But more importantly, I'd first have to buy each of them a gaming laptop, as opposed to a laptop that's designed for homework and Facebook. Consoles are far cheaper than that. And consider the case of someone who left home without a laptop because he didn't foresee in advance getting an itch to play a video game.
It's the case for consoles too [...] One console, one game one user.
Tell that to my copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl: $12.50 per player at launch.
What kind of Pentium 4-era dumpster bait are your friends using?
Their computers are either just that (or perhaps early Pentium M) or something with comparable clock speeds and comparable instructions per clock to a P4 (Atom netbooks). What they already have runs homework and Facebook and emulators of 8- and 16-bit consoles.
Most people with computers have multiple computers: Either you have a desktop and a laptop
Unless the second computer is a laptop with an Atom CPU and an Intel GMA, which I thought we all knew stood for "Graphics My [body part]", or something similarly dumpster-dived or Craigslisted.
An alternative doesn't have to be 100% better at every individual thing in order for it to be better on net.
On net, you get opponents calling you what I'll politely express as "body part" or "British word for cigarette" or "rooster lollipop" or "vaginal cleansing product". That's why I often prefer in person.
All this is due to normal market forces. Gamestop and other companies have seen the market for used games and jumped on it. Its no more their fault than it is yours. When you go into Gamestop you have a choice to make, you can buy the used version of the game you want or you can buy the new version. For a game that's only been out a few weeks the used cost is only $4-5 less than the new price. I usually buy the new one to be sure it isn't scratched all to hell and to get all the inserts and valid codes. But once a game has been out a while then the used cost drops and any consumer in their right mind will be the cheaper used game instead of the new one. Quit trying to shame me into acting like a moron, your company sure as hell doesn't. They do everything to make a buck including pushing houses to release unfinished garbage to supplement their bottom line this quarter. So stop making the consumer feel like the jerk for simply acting in their own best interests and stop trying to get the government to fix your woes, you aren't the auto or banking industry. I've had just about enough of this garbage. I will buy what I want when I want and I will buy the used copies if they're available and more than $10 cheaper because I am not fiscally stupid, and shame on you for trying to make me feel bad about saving money. Fix your own problems and leave us alone.
First it was video games, then it was cars. You're not allowed to buy a used car because it stifles new car sales. Next it was houses. You can't sell your house because it stifles the home building market. Here we are in 2050 with millions of abandoned houses and people living in abandoned cars that act as makeshift shelters because they can't be legally driven as used.