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The End Is Near for GameStop
kube00 writes "The rumor mill is saying the next generation of consoles might not play used games. What does this mean for retailers such as Amazon, GameStop, and Best Buy? Will gamers flock to the one console that can still play used games? GoozerNation speculates if the Mayan apocalypse draws near for used game sales."
I'm not an insider or anything, but they seem to be pretty quick on their feet to adjust to the market. They're still going to sell new games and used games for PS3/360 for quite a while even after PS4/720 come out. They're also selling cards for your steam wallet and MS points etc. Probably still in the used system market as well, not to mention the nice margin on off brand controllers. If the end is coming, it'll still be a while yet.
So the article speculates that the prices of new games will come down if second hand sales become a thing of the past.
Yeah. Right. If you believe that, I have a special deal, just for you, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, you could be the proud owner of the Brooklyn Bridge for the low low price of $1000!
Publishers will sell the games for as much as they think the public will pay. They're not going to oh-so-generously drop the price of their product just because you can't resell it down the road. I guarantee you, prices will stay the same, or go up.
The rumor mill is saying that something might happen, and the question is about the possible consequences of this thing that may or may not occur.
This is too many layers of speculation to be useful for anything.
Please call me when someone knows something about anything. Thanks.
Kid-proof tablet..
> "If none of the consoles can play used games I could see the price of games coming down. AAA titles may come out at $45 or $50 instead of $60."
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
What happens if they succeed in killing preowned sales. Gamestop/EBGames don't make a lot of margin off selling new games and almost nothing selling the consoles themselves. I have seen the precession of independent game stores fold in my town it's not small but not big enough to support that sort of thing, this was before gaming was more mainstream. You kill their revenue you kill the store they start to close the less profitable ones and you get a run on till only the big city stores survive. Then you don't have anyone to sell your stuff.
Sure the big chain stores will carry Gears of Halo: Black XV on launch day but what about the niche stuff and they certainly wont hold a back catalog. I would miss being able to walk in to my local and talk to the people I know there and get my game on the day it launches rather than getting it from some online retailer. Maybe they need to switch to a system where the publisher gets a cut every time their SKU is sold new or old, Gamestop would hate that so they would need to offer something in return. The publisher could sell their new game to the distributor for less. This would give less initial profit and more long term sales. Gamestop would pay less upfront for more initial profit but would lose some traded game revenue.
That was sooo last Baktun.
I'm sure it's too much to hope that people would just not buy the new consoles...
Developers/publishers *need* to fight back against pre-owned, as game retailers really started to take the piss, and it's really been hurting the people who make the games. This isn't about stopping friends sharing games or selling them privately on eBay, although sadly these users will suffer too.
This is to stop retailers going to great lengths to sell pre-owned *instead* of new copies. Mixing new and preowned stock on the same shelf was ridiculous enough, but Iit's got to the point where you try to buy a new copy of a game, and they're actively pushing pre-owned even at the checkout: 'Are you sure you want a new copy? This pre-owned one is $2 less!'
This directly hurts publishers and developers, who need the new sales and make no revenue from pre-owned. Publishers have been way to slow and scared to respond, they should have clamped down much earlier. After all, it's never happened to this extent with music or DVDs, and I expect that the music/movie industry would be very quick to stamp these sort of practices out if pre-owned sales were being pushed in the same way.
Hopefully a resurgence in PC gaming, although, more likely an even bigger surge in mobile app gaming. Yuck.
In the EU and especially in Germany it is allowed to resell used copies of licenses of software and games.
You are explicitly allowed to buy high volume licenses and resell them individually (e.g., oracle and windows licenses).
It's like MS bundling IE and Media Player with Windows in the EU. Either they pay high fines (900 millions or more) or they
comply with the law in the EU.
While the wording is pretty excessive, I do not think this post deserves a flamebait mod. Only that it's not limited to gamers.
And I even count myself as one of those idiots... I'm still buying Assassin's Creed games on PS3 even though I've been burned by Ubisoft repeatedly AND there hasn't been an AC game I've truly enjoyed since AC2.
So yeah, I'm pretty dumb. I acknowledge that fact.
What I'm going to do about it, though, is hack that damn console and pirate each and every game. I'm done paying before I can evaluate the quality.
in the courtroom challenging first sale rights, click/shrink wrap licenses, etc. perhaps also format/device shifting, drm and circumvention of it to preserve customer rights... heck, even privacy and user tracking could be a part of it (that is one reason why the push to online-everything.. it's easier to track and report)
but the case will drag on for so long, that most of the readers here will be so old and arthritic they won't be able to play video games anymore anyway other than things like freecell.
when the supreme court does finally hand down a ruling, though, it _will_ be monumental (for the better, or the worse) and completely change how not only video games are sold, but also other software, digital goods (software, music, movies, books, etc) that are fast replacing physical ones, and the used/lending/rental markets for all of those (including ordinary public libraries and person-to-person lending).
You can resell it all you want, that doesn't mean the console will play it. New games will be activated and tied to only 1 console.
http://interserver.net/
Hopefully this leads to people (re)discovering the PC as a gaming platform, so PC gamers can stop being held back by these stupid console ports that are written for hardware that was commodity level 6 years ago.
Maybe if enough people switch back to the PC for all their gaming needs, we can finally get Valve to release HL2 Episode 3.
The last time I was in a GameStop (on Market St. in San Francisco) I was surprised at the near complete transition that had been made. Sure, they sold games. But right in front of the store were a ton of used iPhones, iPads, iPods, Galaxy tabs... And I got the impression they were driving more interest than anything else in the store.
No one would be blocking the sale; they would just be taking all the value out.
Here, have a few )))).
... idiots. I've watched them give money hand over fist to companies that are screwing them blind. When games went mainstream shit went downhill, the fact that gamers put up with such onerous bullshit because they are so addicted and stupid is why we can't have nice things.
I can say the exact same thing about people who pay thousands of dollars for metal sticks and special shoes to hit a little ball around a grassy field. Or people who pay hundreds of dollars for the privilege to slide down a snow-capped mountain with two expensive sticks strapped to their feet for a day. Seems all those sports assholes have ruined a free ride for the rest of us.
Entertainment is entertainment. If people want to waste money on something, they're going to, so stop trying to target gamers who give money "hand over fist". They sure as hell aren't the only ones, and are likely on the low end of the scale when it comes to frivolous waste.
so if your console breaks you also lose all your games? sweet!
``If a program can't rewrite its own code, what good is it?'' - Mel
I completely concur. Addicted gamers, unsurprisingly, lack self-discipline enough to make thoughtful decisions even about that which affects them the most.
If someone were to make that part of their legal argument, it could do a lot to convince a jury that all of this game DRM is simply anti-consumer. After all, addicts of various sorts are both exploited and assisted. In many states, a gambling addiction hotline is announced with every lottery ad. We have banned cigarette ads in almost every medium and alcohol ads in almost as many.
People should be 100% entitled to keep the data/media they pay for. This should be required by law. They should be able to save it and hand it down to their kids or donate it to a library or a museum. Our culture and human history is being erased in the future so that people at present can theoretically make a few extra dollars.
That is what the title should be.
I do not play any games on consoles anymore. We have 2 XBox 360s but I wont play them. We also have had Wii's, N64s (a fav of mine) as well as other consoles.
I play all of my games on my PC. It has a better selection of games. The games are easier to deal with. Plus I refuse to use controllers when I have a mouse and keyboard that work so much better.
Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot here. They are trying to get the XBox series to be their gateway into your living-room. Imagine the advantage they would have had if the XBox 720 (or whatever its going to be called) was the only console that did not have these stupid anti-consumer restrictions built into it.
Even the Ouya game system is dropping the ball. Sure it doesn't have all of the restriction the big boys have but I have to wonder, since it is powered by Android, why not include the Google store and all of its apps. If it had that I would buy it in a heartbeat. Then all I would need is a way to use Android apps on my Windows desktop.
While there's a lot of games out there that I admit are a bunch of recycled crap (usually the next cycle of FPS games), there's still quite a few metaphorical diamonds in the rough.
For the money, gaming provides some of the least expensive entertainment around. Sure, paying $60 for the latest Call of Duty title with a 6-hour singleplayer campaign ends up being not terribly worthwhile from a cost-value perspective, but paying $25 for Portal 1 and 2? Well worth it. I find games like the Half-Life, Fallout, and Mass Effect series (to name but a few) to be enjoyable, replayable, and quite cost-effective entertainment.
Am I an addict? Not at all. I just enjoy the more interactive entertainment that gaming provides than a more passive form of entertainment like watching a movie.
However online app stores tend to sell/rent/license new games at a cheaper rate.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
That would be a clear and definite restriction on the right to resell (Specifically, the deliberate crippling of products to disrupt the standard commercial rights of the purchasers) which would near certainly be a case rapidly lost by the crippling companies in the EU.
American courts, somewhat trickier to call. Precedent, law and logic all say this is unacceptable behaviour, but it's unacceptable behaviour by a rich corporation, so...
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
> I completely concur. Addicted gamers, unsurprisingly, lack self-discipline enough to make thoughtful decisions even about that which affects them the most.
Because by the time we start gaming, we have already done our duties and we don't want to continue being responsible when enjoying ourselves, for such trivialities. It does hurt us back, but we'd sooner stop gaming whatsoever than taking responsibility of it.
> People should be 100% entitled to keep the data/media they pay for. This should be required by law. They should be able to save it and hand it down to their kids or donate it to a library or a museum. Our culture and human history is being erased in the future so that people at present can theoretically make a few extra dollars.
Non-games are not different, and when we have indeed bought our music, we aren't allowed to sell it or give it second-hand. Admittedly, the same is not happening with movies: what's rowing instead is we pay every time we want to watch it... When we pay at all, that is.
What I'm going to do about it, though, is hack that damn console and pirate each and every game
Unless your name is GeoHot, no you're not.
And if your name is GeoHot, no you're not, until it's been out already for five years.
I'm done paying before I can evaluate the quality.
No, sorry, that's not how it works. You haven't "truly enjoyed" an AC game since AC2? So you're looking for some deep fulfillment from these games that they are no longer providing? And you think the problem is the games?
If I can't buy 2nd hand on the xbox I may seriously consider stumping up for a PS4
Dead Space 1 - Awesome
Dead Space 2 - Urgh, really?
Dead Space 3 - Gears Of War with buckets on their heads.
But I'll still buy it because sucker.
Except - SECOND HAND!!! WOO!
Is it so bad where you live?
Here, that *is* required by law (would be translated Right of first Sale of something).
>when we have indeed bought our music, we aren't allowed to sell it or give it second-hand.
We are.
You can buy the sticks, shoes and even pieces of wood on the used market for a lot cheaper. ,but the price there arises from manufacture - the sticks costing thousands of dollars tend to be made from light, hard alloys with mechanical properties to fit the job.
And, sure, there's a markup to make it rentable
Really? I think their main idea is to somehow get a cut from used games, let's say 20% for each game sold by consumers. They would have to be REALLY dumb loose this opportunity (not that I agree with, they have no entitlement stuff I buy).
Human Written Article (Summation on last line): "Personally, I think GameStop will still be around for years to come no matter what happens to console gaming."
Resultant hypetard Slashdot headline: "The End Is Near for GameStop"
Yep, bout right.
... they are addicts
Gamers act pretty much the same way drug addicts do ...
No matter how many times they were screwed by the dealers, them addict will always go back to the dealers and buy more drugs
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Dear Console Makers,
Let me be crystal clear. I will NEVER buy a console that is incapable of playing used games, PERIOD.
If I am capable of buying physical media for my console, I should have the right to lend / sell / trade that media with others including companies who may resell it.
If I am capable of downloading games for my console, I should have the right to save those games to external media and play them on other consoles. Not copy them to the other console, but merely play them.
I am fundamentally opposed to the DLC model because it encourages companies to sell games that are incomplete or to sell advantage to those willing to pay for it.
That's my $.03. when it comes to Consoles.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
... idiots. I've watched them give money hand over fist to companies that are screwing them blind. When games went mainstream shit went downhill, the fact that gamers put up with such onerous bullshit because they are so addicted and stupid is why we can't have nice things.
How is paying for entertainment being an idiot? People pay $50-$100 a month to have TV shows to watch. People pay up to $50 for two to go see a movie ONCE. Its not like a smoker who spends $50 a week to kill themselves, or some drinker who spends $50 a week drinking their intelligence away.
Hold out for a price drop or three. Few things depreciate like last year's games.
That's redundant, what else is on Slashdot these days? :)
none
You all have a short memory. Its not the new gamers or even the new hardcore games that have a problem. There were exactly two industries that signaled the public at large was willing to accept degraded use rights to products in the name on content protection. Games and home video.
This goes back to the 80's, when games came with silly little start up questions like "what is the third word on page 20 of the manual." Games usually had substantial dead tree manuals at the time. Then the started coming with little card board decoder rings and such. After that clever ideas like key disk showed up, were the disk they sent had specific problems on some sectors, or perhaps the FAT had been molested in some unique way; so that in theory if you copied it the problems would not be there. So you had to insert this special broken disk every time you wanted to play; even if you had allocated some of your precious 40meg hard disk to it.
Then everyone mindless bought VHS tapes with macro-vision on them that were difficult to duplicate and had an inferior quality as well; without complaint.
The sad fact is most people don't think about this stuff or care. I am not sure what is to be done about it, but considering all the folks clamoring to get hold of the next walled garden device, be it a phone, game console, whatever and at the same time letting facebook be their personal information manager I think the ship has perhaps sailed a long time ago.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
When I walk or drive past a gamestop, I seldom see people browsing, even when they are doing a big sale on used games. However they frequently have big banners up telling people to pre-order Halo 17, Half-life 12, or Fifa soccer 2020. It appears that they make more money from the new stuff than the old, from what I have seen from walking or driving past any number of gamestop locations in my area.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
As someone that has loaned friends optical discs and gotten them back scratched, I can see a silver lining...
"Sorry, I'd love to loan you this game, but it only plays in my console!"
That being said, I do think making used games unplayable is a greedy money grab.
Depending on how they implement the "no used games" feature, it may be contrary to European law. There was a ruling against Oracle last year saying it is perfectly fine to resell second-hand software:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-16/second-hand-software-sales-set-to-soar-on-oracle-ruling
What I'm going to do about it, though, is hack that damn console and pirate each and every game. I'm done paying before I can evaluate the quality.
No need to hack things to try before you commit to purchase. There's rental services like Gamefly. Additionally, there is some controversy over whether or not game demos hurt game sales. In my experience: They do. My own anecdotal experience: Same product in different distribution markets, the one without a demo = more sales; I tried again with a different product and switched the markets where the game demo was available... Less sales again in the one with the trial version, so it's probably not just the market; This even holds true for software other than games.
The problem is that we're done with demos. Demos are obsolete. It's hard to make a demo that leaves you unsatisfied enough to buy the game, but not unsatisfied enough to think the game is crap. So, the answer is simple: Refunds. On the mobile software markets like Android If you buy a game and don't like it you can just return it. This is better because it retains more impulse buy sales, takes less time to develop (no need to make a demo version), and is just as risk free as "try before you buy". I guess folks that don't have the money won't be able to play it, but they're not going to buy it anyway, see also your "hack the planet" idea as an alternative for these folks...
The problem is that Console makers don't want to embrace the concept full refunds if you don't like the game. Even on the upcoming OUYA console (if it ever ships) they mandate that all games must at least have a demo (or be free to play) -- The full game can not be purchased from the store, it must be unlocked by in app purchases. Unfortunately their whole market revolves around free to play, so it's basically a hack to make a regular game actually have a demo version and a full version. I haven't heard whether they'll allow full refunds or not, but since they mandate game have a "free" version I don't think you'll be getting the option to refund a purchase if the game doesn't live up to the expectations set by the demo.
Not even Steam allows refunds; Apple's App Store and Canonical's Software Center do have refunds, but you have to contact them and the refunds aren't guaranteed. I wish everyone just used the model Google Play does: Full refund if requested within $INTERVAL minutes. Currently Google has that set to 15, but I wish it were at least 30, or 45 -- IMO, that's the best option.
I feel your pain, and wish there was something us game devs could do. I buy Indie games and do so directly from the game devs' websites. Most indie devs I've dealt with will refund your purchase without question if it's possible for them to do so. Even had one pay me back via Paypal transfer rather than charge back (they were incapable). They typically have demos or alphas and are much cheaper than store-bought AAA games. Full disclosure, I'm an independent software and game developer.
As in "a lifting of the veil", not "the end of the world."
Oh, it may be the end of the world for Gamestop: a chain built on used contemporary games that caters to the contemporary gamer. But the few used-game stores not bought up by Gamestop during its boom survived without even having to pivot all that much: now they work with retro games -the stuff Gamestop doesn't carry- and modern merchandise. You can't build a mega-chain on that (yet, though we'll see what the death of used games does to that), but you can survive, and these places are pretty much already where they need to be when all used games are retro by definition.
You're only pirating a console now that it has reached the end of its life?
That's a bit silly indeed. You should have done that years ago.
Granted, it's always been easier for the Xbox360 than for the PS3, but AC3, like many other games, is available on both platforms.
They only games that are PS3-exclusive are pretty good and might actually deserve your money.
If the Wii has taught us anything its that the casual gamer market is very powerful, second hand games and rentals are a good way to introduce people to your game. The game producers don't care what the hardcore gamer thinks, they are going to get them to buy no matter how bad they treat them, it's the casual gamer that will choose to buy a game or not that makes it a success. If you want to influence the game makers you need to influence the buyer that does not have to have the game.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
"When games went mainstream".
That is the most hilarious statement I've heard all week.
I for one will not be buying a new game system specifically because of this. Games don't have to be 'new' to be 'new to me'. This is just a ploy to make people pay more for media then they would typically have to. I say drive them out of business.
I start pirating Console games. If it hurts them then I am happy.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It sure hasn't taken us very long to go from "the customer is always right" to "screw the customer."
In most industries, screw the customer over is now the norm. I think it's directly related to companies going from a belief in making good products to a belief in increasing shareholder value.
What I'm going to do about it, though, is hack that damn console and pirate each and every game. I'm done paying before I can evaluate the quality.
You could always just wait. After a year or so the prices come down, the bugs are as fixed as they're gonna get, and word of mouth will tell you whether the game is worth the time. There's nothing that says you *have* to play the latest and greatest games the moment they come out.
Visit the
Additionally, there is some controversy over whether or not game demos hurt game sales.
That depends largely on the quality of the game.
For a crap game you better give no demo out, for a good one you should.
As far as Gamestop goes, and the used market. It's about dang time it gets a shakedown. sure it sucks that publishers are sucking the lifeblood from us by eliminating used game sales. Imagine if car manufacturers did the same for used cars... But... Have any of you gone to a gamestop in the past 2-3 years?
It sucks. It's a shop of despair and crushed spirits. You go in and there's a line a mile long for people trying to sell their used games at $10 or so a pop. The wait for a clerk, so you can buy a game, you know, "give them money", is eternal. Service is slow, it sucks and now with Amazon and Best Buy and all these other places selling games there is no need to go there any more. Gamestop is nothing more than a Pawn shop disguised as a retail outlet. They charge $50 for a used game, that may or may not even have a manual and $60 for the new game that is complete. I prefer to pay the extra money. Sure for some of the older, hard to find games like the "Persona" series, gamestop may be a gem, but those situations are so far and few to mean anything.
In the end I do pray Gamestop changes it's business model, provides marginally better service, or priority over those who want to make a purchase. I've many times dropped my items right where I stood and left the store. I don't need launch day games. I can wait another week or two. Most games are just not fun anymore. they provide no challenge, then there's Capcom, the only game maker that doesn't appear to cater to the mentally numb. Dragon's Dogma, is a gem on the line of the Dark/Demon Souls line. and the original god of war. These gems are too rare.
p>People should be 100% entitled to keep the data/media they pay for. This should be required by law. They should be able to save it and hand it down to their kids or donate it to a library or a museum. Our culture and human history is being erased in the future so that people at present can theoretically make a few extra dollars.
There is nothing "theoretical" about it. Profits are maximized when a company successfully engages in rent-seeking behavior, something that Adam Smith himself acknowledged, but then deplored in almost the same breath, using almost the same terms you do. (Dude is seriously conflicted on this point, and it weakens much of his case for capitalism.) Capitalism is all about squeezing out those few extra dollars of profit, and you make more of those profit dollars when you just rent out or lease the property you own, over and over again. If you were to sell it, (ie, transfer ownership to the buyer) your buyer becomes a potential competitor (via resale of the product you created) and you have to go to the expense of finding a way to compete with your own product, one that you spent good money to create. You don't have to be a business guru to see how that is a fail business model. Denying resale to protect your business model and preserve your profits is a rational choice, *especially* if making copies of your product is trivial, which is the case with software-based products, like video games.
Why is this still coming up. NEVER going to happen. Trust me. Better yet don't. What I'm saying is if you think this through and put a little logic behind it, M$ would never shoot themselves in the foot this bad. To me this seems like one very good troll.
I don't buy many games anymore, only 3 in the last years, but 90% of my purchase for this generation consoles have been used games. Be it through ebay/local ads website, or the local videostore getting rid of multiples copies of older games. So maybe it's less a sacrifice for me then others, but I will never buy a console that tries to remove my right of first sale, especially when new games clocks at 60$ and more for 10 hours of gameplay. It seems I'm one of the few left remembering games like Phantasy, Star Control 2, The Magic Candle, all the "X Quest" and SSI Gold boxes providing a solid 70 hours of gameplay or thinking for 25-30$. Those are the games that still come to mind when someone ask me about "fun" games. Anyway, boardgames and kickstarter projects that provide a DRM free game will continue to get my money in the coming years.
They didn't make Battletoads available for preorder. What a stupid mistake!
I think the truth is actually buried in the muddle of your post. The correct statement would be, "now that gaming has gone mainstream; a significant percentage of gamers are idiots."
This signature is false.
Amazon sells everything from zippo lighters to ass lube - I think they'll be okay. Best Buy sells refurbished, used and returned electronics through their stores and Cowboom site, but I'm pretty sure they don't even sell used games.
GameStop, well, if used games comprise a large portion of their business - sucks to be them. People don't seem to be much interested nowadays in going to a store to buy/rent something that can be delivered electronically. Seems like their fate was sealed sooner or later regardless of their ability to sell used games. I don't have a Blockbuster nearby anymore, either.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Why include Amazon, Gamestop and Best Buy? Best Buy is and has been dieing for awhile now b/c of online retailers like Amazon. Gamestop pretty much only sells videogames. Amazon sells pretty much everything. I think videogames could go away completely and Amazon would be just fine.
I disagree that the games went downhill. The idiot part comes in that gamers were doing so much business with gamestop in the first place. Used games make sense in theory. When enough gamers though are willing to throw away their old games and then buy used ones at nearly full price though, that screws the rest of us over though. Gamestop found a way to leech off of the game industry through a specific subset of consumers. The rest of us couldn't demand a fair balance as gamestop was making money hand over fist with the idiot segment. The industry got jealous of gamestop's profits and screwed everyone over.
I dunno, go outside and have fun in the real world for a change?
How much of the current tendency against outdoor recreation is due to "stranger danger" hysteria among parents? And how much is because the gift-giving season is in a part of the year when temperatures are too cold for vigorous outdoor recreation throughout much of the developed world?
After a year or so the prices come down, the bugs are as fixed as they're gonna get, and word of mouth will tell you whether the game is worth the time. There's nothing that says you *have* to play the latest and greatest games the moment they come out.
While following that strategy on a Sony console, I've never been able to get online play to work. All I've been able to get is an error message stating that "this software title is not in service."
Tambo was talking about Master Chef for DS.
Make games so good that people want to keep them
This worked for, say, the Super Smash Bros. series. But I guess publishers assume that people who are still happy with playing the previous game are people who aren't buying the same publisher's newer games. Solution: turn off older games' online play.
Game publishers need to get realistic about the price of games. Take this week's release of "Metal Gear: Revengance". It's a mediocre game for $60 (+tax). And it's four hours long. I can't think of a lot of entertainment that occurs in your own home, on a couch for as much as $16/hr.
(Oh, even at $0.99, games bitch and moan about games being too expensive, too... the fun of being a mobile developer...)
How much of that is due to Android phone manufacturers having launched their phones in countries where Google didn't yet have a payment infrastructure? That's what happened with Android Market in the early days of Android: ad-supported became the norm because so many countries were shut out of paid applications entirely.
But right in front of the store were a ton of used iPhones, iPads, iPods, Galaxy tabs
None of which can play used games.
Smith is conflicted because he knows that rent-seeking, like usury, is the most profitable but is also immoral. That doesn't mean that capitalism is invalid and the market must be heavily regulated, because absolutely moral behavior cannot be enforced. Immoral behavior must be punished in the market: by competitors who take advantage of the greedy, and consumers who avoid immoral businesses.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
You must have a similarly short memory. Leisure Suit Larry had those questions to prove you were an adult playing the game, not a child (due to the explicit themes in the game.)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Why are you talking about piracy protections when the subject is used game resale?
The "what's 3rd word on page 20", decoder rings, key disk, or macrovision of the 80's didn't prevent you to resale your media, it was there to prevent their copy.
If you sold a used game along with it's manual, the new owner colud still play it.
The issue in this thread is that you won't be able to resell your own game at all.
Just about every video card from the last decade is able to utilize OpenGL no matter the OS.
Which doesn't help if your game is targeted at a newer version of OpenGL than the user's video card's driver supports, or if a necessary extension turns up missing. Should a PC game be prepared to drop to Dreamcast-class class graphics if that's all the video card supports?
They have the same capabilities for development on pc's as they do on consoles. They just don't use it.
If one console supports a particular texture format, they all support that texture format. What texture compression method is guaranteed to be supported on all PC video cards that support OpenGL?
I can say the exact same thing about people who pay thousands of dollars for metal sticks and special shoes to hit a little ball around a grassy field. Or people who pay hundreds of dollars for the privilege to slide down a snow-capped mountain with two expensive sticks strapped to their feet for a day.
I'm sure you could say something similar, and I'd even agree with you.
Entertainment is entertainment.
And sometimes the entertainers want to strip away your ownership and ability to do various things with the product. Continuing to give money to them is what I call insane.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
But there is still a core functionality that every PC will have (as long as it's at least semi-current), about equal to a console.
A console will typically be connected to a much larger screen, and the player will typically be sitting farther away.
So why do game makers then complain about it being hard to make use of all the extra bells and whistles on the PC, when those things don't even exist on consoles.
In order not to generate a disproportionate tech support burden, PC games have to be able to scale down to an Intel GMA while still looking good on the latest piece of AMD or NVIDIA kit. It's like having to include the Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3 versions of a game in one box. And a PC game can't just store pre-compressed textures (due to patents) or pre-compiled shaders (due to architecture differences among Intel, NV, and AMD).
Nonsense--you can't drink your intelligence away on only $50 a week!
Bottles.
That's something interesting that I never thought about... When I lived in Kentucky, most of the hardcore gamers I knew were also drug addicts. Elsewhere, most hardcore gamers I know are legally addicted (on an addictive prescription that they can't do without; usually some anti-depression medication) to something or other.
I'd already noticed and thought about the tendency for hardcore gamers to have the addict personality/gene (and I know for sure that I myself have it) but never thought about/noticed the tendency for this to manifest itself in illegal drugs in Kentucky especially...
The problem here is one of philosophy.
When you buy something and pay for it, should it be *yours*.
Shouldn't any valuable asset be just that, a valuable asset?
This is going on all over, some companies want you to buy their new products, sometimes for thousands of dollars and if you later on decide you don't want/need it you should destroy it rather than put it on ebay and sell it to someone who does. Barracuda products come to mind.
I for one don't believe in buying anything that has *no resale value*. I insist things I buy have value. I don't buy from any company that tries to interfere with that inherent value.
Every asset should have value. If a company through their policies or through technological means tries to interfere with that inherent value you should avoid buying their worthless stuff. They want you to buy it from them but they later on try to take the value away from you, the solution is to not buy from them!
It's no different in the game industry. If you can't sell it if you don't want it, you should just not buy it in the first place.
The company would then have to change their business policies or go out of business.
If the Xbox 720 is going to prevent your assets from having value, just don't buy it. Maybe rent it, like World of Warcraft.
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If both Sony and Microsoft both implement this sort of destructive always-on DRM simultaneously, doesn't that sort of reek of collusion? I mean, if only one of them implemented this sort of thing, everybody can just switch to the competitor. It only really works if they both implement it simultaneously. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I keep thinking that neither company are planning to implement this awful DRM. Maybe Sony keeps bringing it up to try and get Microsoft to go for it - and thus destroy themselves.
Exactly, the systems will be broken, and when they are I foresee two or three times the number of modded consoles on the horizon. This will only drive to more hacking and piracy.
I've been waiting for the video game industry to collapse for a while now.
When companies introduce anti-consumer, anti-capitalist policies (such as you dont own the game you just bought) then I welcome their bankruptcy with arms wide open.
Besides, I am all grown up now, and I stare at a glowing rectangle for 8 hours a day. Last thing I want to do when i get home is play video games. And I say that being raised by the Nintendo Entertainment System when I was a kid...
Now, my gaming habit has evolved into board games. There is a wealth of really cool board games out there, you OWN the games you buy, you can RESELL them if you desire, and (to me) they are just as fun as video games.
Nah, I never bought a PS3 because they removed the Other OS option. My most recent gaming console is a PS2. I put my money where my mouth was.
Now if only a few ten million other people would do the same.
Plenty of games had places where you would be required to look up something in the manual to prevent game copying. Some were more blatant, like the "What is the 3rd word on page 20?" mentioned above. (I remember encountering this in one of the Carmen Sandiego games.) Others somehow tied it it to the actual gameplay. I remember the Star Trek adventure game; every time you were directed to warp to a specific system, you were shown an incredibly complex "star map" and you'd have to click on the target system, but none of the systems were labeled on screen. You'd have to consult the star map in that manual, where the systems were actually labeled.
Since you mention Leisure Suit Larry, I'll mention another game by the same team, Freddy Farkas, Frontier Pharmacist. At several stages of the game, you'd have to consult the "Pharmacy Handbook" that was bundled with the game in order to solve a puzzle. It might be looking up the exact sequence to mix up a specific medicine, or comparing the results of a gas chromagraph with several pictured in the handbook to determine why all the horses in town had gas.
Redundancy is good And also good.
We read books. And books work just as well today as they did then. Even better, with the web you get reviews and instant delivery.
I think it is hard to call a group of people "Idiots" when they encompass so many demographics. I consider myself a gamer (not console, just PC). However, I may spend a little money on my games, maybe purchasing one or two a year, and I have been screwed by a couple of companies, but to me it is no different than taking my wife to a movie that "looks great" in the previews, but then the previews were the best part of the movie... or worse, getting dragged to some romantic comedy or such crap to endure.
But then again, some people may enjoy their 'passive' entertainment. I enjoy a good movie or a great book, but I still spend money and the producer or publisher may screw me over, but that's just life.
Yeah, Game Stop and their ilk will probably go the way of other industries that specialize in commodities that come and go, but that is part of the business cycle.
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." General James Mattis
Nintendo prevents reselling of used games by making the games so good that few copies make it to GameStop. Often times a used Nintendo game sells for more at GameStop than a new copy anywhere else. Why? Little supply. As the saying goes, Nintendoes what Sony and Microsoft don't.
Your fact for the day.
... which is "rule by capital", and has nothing to do with a free market.
Like most (or all) other isms and capitalism is there to benefit the rulers. Period.
And yes, democracy is also an ism -- proletarianism. So are -- for you few Limbough purists out there -- a democratic republic.
Having said that, I'm going to blow everyone out of the water with my next statement. I actually prefer rule by Christ, because he benefitted the least of those around him, instead of himself. Moreover, he did this more in his days of strength than in his days of weakness. Thus, in my book He is worthy to rule. All other rulers are worthless, or worse.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
So, basically, you are saying that your sales figures, and thus your job, are heavily dependent upon hype-based purchased, created through media and product placement, rather than on actual entertainment value of the product you produce?
I understand that you were trying to spin it another way; that it is too hard to make a demo that sinks the hook.
The logic table of the statements though, show that demos are always bad. If demos are always bad, and not just "sometimes bad", then it means that allowing the player to actually see and use the product correlates with lower than expected sales, 100% of the time. That means your industry has become dependent upon fooling the consumer through advertising, and that giving them the opportunity to see and use a sample of the actual product, leaves them underwhelmed 100% of the time, and less willing to buy.
To cement this counter conjecture, (or to bury it 6ft under), how do your company's sales figures become impacted by leaving a full version demo on locked console demo units in stores? That would cut to the very core of the issue, regardless of the direction of the spin, and I am interested in knowing.
I have noticed that very few games other than "console leader titles" are given such "full demo in the kiosk" treatment. I find that displeasing, and would rather see modern console demo units be loaded with Games on Demand packages on the internal storage, with all major titles at the store. That way I can demo games I am considering purchasing, and truely interact with the demo console in a useful fashion. I can't take the demo console home with me, and staying at the store to play the demo clear through is loitering and illegal.
Other than the issue of it (possibly) exposing the artificially inflated sales figures through the petty hype machine, and getting all the lawyers to agree, what are the major detractors from doing such a simple thing?
Tablets are great for video games that intrinsically involve pointing. This could be pointing at objects on the screen (e.g. Duck Hunt or Bejeweled) or pointing at locations on the screen where an object will be placed (e.g. Missile Command). They're not so great for video games whose input consists of a direction and trigger commands. How would one play, say, Mega Man on a tablet?
so if your console breaks you also lose all your games?
If your console breaks, you send it back and get another console with the same serial number so that your games will work. At least that's how it works with Wii Shop games: the Wii console you get back is authorized for downloads of already purchased games without charge on Wii Shop.
You have the ratio backwards. There are 10 suckers to every non-sucker.
Geohot didn't need to crack it for several years because it was unlocked when it came out in 2006 and was only locked after Sony locked it via firmware update in 2010 for the original ps3 but had removed the ability in 09 for ps3-slim before release. So saying it took him five years is disingenuous at best. Geohot only started toward the end of 09 according to the all knowing wikipedia and had it successfully hacked by the end of march 2010 meaning it only took him a few months effort.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
It's only a matter of time before what is being sold is access to a server, and not a game.
I sell you a game. As part of that game, you log into my servers and establish an account/character/etc. The game then logs into this account every time you play. You get tired, and later sell the game (box, DVD, packaging).
When the next person installs the game they will see a login screen, and an option to 'buy' an account if they don't have a login. I'm not sure that EU law requires server access to be transferrable, I'm not even sure if I would want to to be transferrable even though I find the idea of permanently binding games to individuals to be an evil business practice.
What if on the box it listed a 1 year membership to XYZ gaming-club, and that gaming-club membership was required for the software to operate. I don't LIKE it, but I don't see how that's against the law.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Your rebuttal is weak. Listing alternative ways people blow through $50-$100 a month does not make any of those alternatives (or the original idea of playing video games) not idiotic.
I used to be a heavy gamer, but now I just don't have the time. The games I DO play now are usually games I can pick up and play for about 5 or 10 minutes at a time. My PS3 has become a media server, and I just turned on my XBox for the first time in about a year.
Strangely, I still pick up games from time to time. Gamestop is my friend - I rarely pay more than $10 for a game. I play games so rarely, in fact, that usually a demo of a game is fine for me (I still play the DBZ demos on PS3).
If a system is going to restrict me from playing used games, then I simply won't buy the new system. I don't play enough anymore to justify paying $60 for a new game - the only games I bought new in the past 10 years were Duke Nukem Forever and Alice Madness Returns (strangely, they had the same release date) and those were for the PC (because those games need keyboard and mouse).
I just found Fable 3 the other day at Gamestop for $8 so I will probably go back and pick it up - I like the Fable games.
So yeah, with about how often I play, I am usually picking up games that are 2-3 years old at least.
Now, if you want to offer me a dowloadable copy or a "Greatest Hits" package for under $10, then I might consider buying a game new (I have actually bought a couple of classic games on the PS3 and my Wii before it was stollen that were under $10).
Let's just say that if you are going to lock out used games, you are going to drive away casual gamers like myself.
Unlikely unless that feature is reinstated with some kind of formal statement saying they are encouraging the use of said feature.
What I'm going to do about it, though, is hack that damn console and pirate each and every game
Unless your name is GeoHot, no you're not.
And if your name is GeoHot, no you're not, until it's been out already for five years.
I'm done paying before I can evaluate the quality.
No, sorry, that's not how it works. You haven't "truly enjoyed" an AC game since AC2? So you're looking for some deep fulfillment from these games that they are no longer providing? And you think the problem is the games?
A good point. If you are not having fun playing games, learn to play.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
perhaps you should have went with a prebuilt system from one of the major manufacturers.
Do they advertise affordable machines in cases that aren't the typical 8-inch-wide tower that sticks out like a sore thumb next to a TV?
And, you know, game makers, since a more stable and known platform to make things for makes for less development headaches for supporting whatever bizarre way people could have their PC set up for.
For smaller game makers, navigating PC hardware diversity has often proven easier than navigating the console makers' developer and game approval bureaucracy.
I have a 55" HD LCD in my living room connected to a surround sound amp, and I can game from my recliner.
Any PC will support that setup as well. All PCs have VGA out, and newer PCs have DVI or HDMI out. All LCD HDTVs have HDMI in, which is compatible with DVI signals, and most LCD HDTVs have VGA in. So except for a few edge cases with a VGA-only PC and an HDMI-only TV, you can still game from your recliner with a PC, a gamepad, and a TV. And I'd bet there are more games for PC that aren't on Xbox 360 than there are games for Xbox 360 that aren't on PC.
here's still quite a few metaphorical diamonds in the rough.
The expression means unpolished, not that there are gems amid trash.
Of course demos decrease the number of copies sold. It a kind of consumer choice protection. I mean, I bet stores would sell more shoes if they didn't allow you to try them on first, didn't allow you to resell them and didn't give you a refund. Most times they would not fit and you would quickly have to try again. And several times you would find that what the seller told you is not close to reality.
The fact that gamers put up with all these market conditions, when they would probably NEVER do so for other kinds of goods, definitely tells us something. Me, I only risk to buy a game I have not tried (demo, beta, pirate version, a friends house, etc) if the price is $8 or less and I feel like gambling.
When games went mainstream shit went downhill, the fact that gamers put up with such onerous bullshit because they are so addicted and stupid is why we can't have nice things.
That statement implies, that at one time the shit was uphill. I don't think that was the case. Video Gamers have always been putting up with bullshit.
As far as having nice things... Don't we already have nice things?
"There's nothing that says you *have* to play the latest and greatest games the moment they come out."
What about all of the time-sensitive achievements and/or vanity items and/or swag and/or super-OP multiplayer spiffs? Peer pressure? Consumerist programming? You really ought to get back in line and conform, all the cool kids are doing it and it will get you so laid.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
People have this overly entitled delusion that everything made must be something they want and that everything that isn't made specifically for them is a personal affront. They're all idiots.
The fact is, there's millions of people who only buy games new and like the idea of never again having to drive to Gamestop or Best Buy to buy a game and couldn't care less if they can buy or sell them used. If you aren't one of those people that doesn't make those who are idiots. Nor does it make companies who choose to make and market their goods and services to those people crooks.
Netcraft confirms it.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Ugh, when will this ever end. People, really? Trust me, it's not going to happen. End of discussion!
The funny thing is that people that makes comments like yours DON'T have children
You are correct that I have no children of my own, but I have babysat my aunt's children.
I have 3 registered sex offenders that live within 2 miles of my house
Did these people become registered sex offenders for unwanted sexual contact with another person or just for urinating in public? And is there a reason parents can't just teach their children to stay away from sex offenders' residences rather than just playing indoors all the time?
I think that it will actually boost short-term revenues. New consoles will bring new games, new interest and perhaps even new market share (more casual gamers). Used games can still be big. Even without revers compatibility people will still buy new games, finish them and want to exchange them.
it will likely leave a vacuum for indie developers to come in and not have to compete with the large development shops that are currently entrenched there.
But will it leave enough of a vacuum that people will become willing to buy a PC and hook it up to the TV? Until people are willing to do that, or unless Ouya happens to catch on in the way that things like GP2X didn't, only the entrenched large development shops will be able to release games in genres traditionally played with multiple gamepads on a big-screen TV.
here's still quite a few metaphorical diamonds in the rough.
The expression means unpolished, not that there are gems amid trash.
I stand corrected. Thanks.
You're welcome, and kudos for acknowledgment.