More game developers whining about used games... - by lost_soul
demagogue on 18/5/2011 at 22:57
They talk about it almost as if it's a new issue. Reselling is as old as time, long before piracy. The only difference now is the development costs of games are so high, the difference in price between a new game and resale is crazy. One more reason to go the modest, casual game route I guess.
CCCToad on 18/5/2011 at 23:12
The other difference is that game retailers are heavily pushing used games because they get a much higher pittance. Why sell a new game when you can get some stupid sap to sell his used copy of a hit title for ten bucks, then sell it for only five bucks less than the new copy?
While I"m on the topic, you should NEVER sell your used games to Gamestop, gametrade, best buy, or any other retailer. You can usually get two or three times what they'll pay you by just selling it yourself on Ebay. And thats after Ebay and Paypal fees.
Renzatic on 18/5/2011 at 23:36
I wish I could correlate sales numbers like that for my own personal gain.
Wait. Maybe I can.
Okay. Each person on earth (and this includes all of you here) is potentially one person who could give me one dollar. I expect this one dollar payment due to the service rendered of me being me. I'm a one-of-a-kind unique damn snowflake, and it's all for sale for just $1.
Thus far, no has given me that one dollar. If this lack of dollar payments continues til the end of the year, I could claim a net loss of $6 billion due to everyone being a bunch of stingy fuckers.
Stingy fuckers have cost me $6 billion. Excuse me while I go bitch about it.
Jason Moyer on 18/5/2011 at 23:38
I dunno, I find it weird everyone points fingers at developers/publishers when it comes to piracy and used game sales. In the first case, you have people using a product that someone spent time/money to create without paying for it. In the second case you have people who are actually stupid enough to sell their games to Gamestop for $10, knowing someone else is going to walk in a few hours later and pay $55 for it.
lost_soul on 18/5/2011 at 23:54
If you want to reduce resales, you could try keeping your fans happier. I will never sell my copies of Deus Ex 1, Thief, Doom, or Unreal. Release editing tools for your games. Provide multiple patches to fix major issues like getting stuck in level geometry and the like. Keep multiplayer servers up, or let the fans run them for themselves.
On the other hand, I've got an old closet full of XBOX games. The only reason I haven't sold these to the local used game shop is because of my own lazyness.
Nameless Voice on 19/5/2011 at 00:07
Ah, is it time for another one of these threads already?
What they say in the article is true. In a way, buying second-hand games is worse than piracy, because the buyer gets that feel-good glow of buying something legally, despite not actually giving any benefit to the people who actually made the game.
Personally, I don't really have a huge deal against software piracy - as far as I'm concerned, since no one actually loses anything from it (except maybe a potential sale that probably wouldn't have happened either way), it makes no difference if someone pirates something they weren't going to buy anyway. I buy games not because I feel it's the lawful thing to do, but rather because I want to support the developers to make more games of the type I like, either directly through income, or indirectly by having the game sell and making publishers realise there's a demand for that type of game. Buying used games fulfils neither of these goals - the developers don't get any money from them, and they don't register as additional sales to the publishers.
negativeliberty on 19/5/2011 at 01:58
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
I dunno, I find it weird everyone points fingers at developers/publishers when it comes to piracy and used game sales. In the first case, you have people using a product that someone spent time/money to create without paying for it.
It's funny how our perceptions have changed to be entirely based on capital, isn't it? I'm not just talking about the financial crises, I mean it's been decades since (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByNVz7MTSho&t=2m42s&feature=channel_video_title) politicians have been able to think outside of the scope of finance and money, which is bad enough without the rest of us turning into walking talking accounting software. I know eons have passed since the days of games as hobby culture, but I seriously think today's games have now turned into "products" so utterly and completely that it's severely limiting the creative process (not really a controversial claim, but there it is). We can go into how every pirated game is not actually a "lost sale" but what I'm actually referring to is the prevalent general attitude of publishers (and by their dictate, developers) that the highest attainable goal is making mountains of cash, sacrificing the quality and squandering potential at the altar of capitalism. You can spare me the 'shareholder obligation' and 'endless growth' explanations too, because I'll just go blank and stare into the space between the pixels on my screen for any number of seconds and ponder how to bridge the wide gap between our perspectives.
The cold/hard/ironic/funny/sad reality is this: piracy is an unsolvable issue. There will always be pirates, and on a related note, everybody does it (if you pay for
all of your software that's commendable, but honestly I can only afford about ~60% of the non-free software I've used, probably a little more when it comes to games because, well, for one, they don't cost obscene amounts of money like say Adobe Photoshop at 1000€ and I'm willing to pay for quality and to support the developers careers). So when faced with a "problem" like this, it's best to adjust your thinking to be in line with reality, rather than wishful thinking (such as that it's possible to "fight piracy", or that if piracy were "solved" then games would be better and everybody would have a yacht).
So putting aside unattainable goals, why don't publishers instead focus on what's left of their task in the creative process in this digital age and just try to keep their boardroom bullshit out of it so us decent, hard-playing gaming folk don't have to froth at the mouth every damn time some douchy CEO opens his mouth in front of a recording device.
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
In the second case you have people who are actually stupid enough to sell their games to Gamestop for $10, knowing someone else is going to walk in a few hours later and pay $55 for it.
Now you're lost me completely. Is that fishy anecdote meant to say something significant about or against the second-hand trade in general, or videogames specifically? What's next, close the libraries? :weird:
Jason Moyer on 19/5/2011 at 02:17
Point a.) Piracy doesn't have to be about capitalism. It can be about the fundamental right of an author of a work to control the methods and to whom that work is distributed. In my opinion that's a far more important consideration than money changing hands, since it involves human beings actually demonstrating some goddamn respect for each other.
Point b.) I'm simply saying that most consumers of videogames (or consumers in general) are idiots. For some reason people are actually stupid enough to spend $60 on a game and sell it for $10 a few weeks later, after which some other idiot is going to come in and pay $55 for it. I don't think there's another second-hand market in the world that is so obviously fucked. I'm not really sure how that relates to libraries, unless you equate contributing something to society by donating books to be the same as contributing $45 to the pockets of a company that has done more to turn gaming into a mindless medium of mass-consumption than any other.
CCCToad on 19/5/2011 at 02:40
Hey now. I will admit to having pirated a few titles, but in every instance it was to replace games where the disc had gone bad. Publishers may frown on it, but I feel that I have fulfilled my ethical obligation by paying for it the first time.
