More game developers whining about used games... - by lost_soul
dj_ivocha on 23/5/2011 at 00:35
Quote Posted by Papy
OK. I'll explain it in a simplistic way...
Suppose two persons have each a $500 budget a year for video games.
Scenario 1 : Both those persons buy ten $50 games.
Scenario 2 : Person A buy 10 games at $50, resell them at $10, so he can buy two more (total 12). Person B buy those 10 used games at $25 (but those sell doesn't count since the money is just for a middleman) and then buy 5 games with the $250 left.
With scenario 1 (no used games), the developer sold 20 games. With scenario 2, the developer sold 17 games.
Suppose person B only has $100 budget a year and simply doesn't want to only be able to play 2 games per year so he either buys them used, or not at all. Now the developer could either get person A's $500 and sell 10 games, or get person B's $100 too, indirectly, through A's 2 extra games he gets after selling 4 of his old ones to B. Now what?
You could say that B could just wait until the games get tossed in the bargain bin and buy them then, new, but the developer would still get $600 in this case, only he'd have to wait longer for the last 100.
Nameless Voice on 23/5/2011 at 00:41
He'd rather play 0 games than 2?
dj_ivocha on 23/5/2011 at 01:39
No but maybe he'd rather go see 10 movies instead or do something else.
I'd rather like to get into RC planes/helis/etc. a bit but I don't, because it'd be too expensive. So instead I go to the movies and buy some more games. Is the reverse so implausible?
But ok, let's say he only has $25 to spend on games. NOW what? :cheeky:
Nameless Voice on 23/5/2011 at 01:44
Eh, the main argument in either case was "If you want to support game developers and encourage them to make more games, don't buy them second-hand."
Zooey on 23/5/2011 at 06:31
There's a specious argument being repeated here on behalf of game creators & publishers that second hand games hurt their business.
Dear creators & publishers, if you simply released your own old games cheaply or for free, this second hand gaming market wouldn't exist. Instead those old games would help promote your new ones and everyone would think you were really swell guys.
Yakoob on 23/5/2011 at 06:48
A game sold for $40 bucks at gamestop a week after release is hardly "old."
They're not talking about people finding a 2 year old game for 5 bucks at a yard sale somewhere in Kentucky, their profit projections usually dont even look that far. They are talking about the used games market within the first few weeks/months of release.
Eldron on 23/5/2011 at 09:45
Quote Posted by Yakoob
A game sold for $40 bucks at gamestop a week after release is hardly "old."
They're not talking about people finding a 2 year old game for 5 bucks at a yard sale somewhere in Kentucky, their profit projections usually dont even look that far. They are talking about the used games market within the first few weeks/months of release.
Exactly, here in stockholm I've seen most of those kind of used games places shut down or get bought by gamestop in the name of the modern used-games market.
Places like the tradition chain of stores, that sold roleplaying games, board games, figure games etc, that got bought up by eb-games, and then eb-games by gamestop, and in the end they've now turned into clones.
They've grown massive from funneling revenue that should have gone to game-developers over the years.
lost_soul on 23/5/2011 at 23:47
For me, it boils down to this. I buy games from developers who give me what I want: a hassle free product that provides a good number of hours of entertainment for the price. The issue is finding games that meet the criteria.
As for EULAs, I have less respect for them than what I released yesterday after eating a whole pizza. The game developers sure didn't show me the "terms" before they took my money, and the store was happy to use words like "buy" and "on sale" to misleed me. The publishers need to start printing the EULAs on the box and yes, I know it would cover the WHOLE box (that's my point!). They also need to have the retailer ensure that you did in fact read it before the transaction is final. Then we'll see how many games people are willing to buy.
I purchased a copy of SS2 used a wile ago with the hopes of playing it on my netbook. Because of the malicious features that require the disk in the drive, I couldn't even do that. That was forty bucks that should have gone to pizza instead and a reminder to me never to purchase any EA product.
june gloom on 24/5/2011 at 01:53
God just get a no-CD crack already and stop whining about disc checks.
heywood on 24/5/2011 at 06:39
Quote Posted by Papy
The biggest mistake the industry made with music, movies, books and video games is that they didn't separate the right to have access to a product and the physical support for that product. Because of that, people like you think that they pay $50 for a box, a manual and a piece of plastic (which are worth no more than a few dollars at most).
I think they should create "certificates" to attest that you have rights to a particular intellectual property and they should sell those "certificates" and the physical items separately. That way, people like you would not be as confused.
I don't think there's any confusion. Nobody thinks their money is paying for the box, manual, and disc. When we buy a game, we all know that we're buying a license to play. It's the copyrighted work that has the value, not the delivery/storage medium. Same as for CDs and DVDs. If games came with license certificates, they would just be resold along with the disc.
When you buy a conventionally licensed game, DVD, or CD you are buying the right to play it as many times as you want for as long as you want. And sometimes after we get bored with it, we transfer that right to someone else. If the copyright holders and distributors don't like that model, they are free to offer their product in a "pay for play" or similar model. Those alternate models haven't exactly succeeded in the market.
Alternatively, they can sell more copies of the game by decreasing the new price over time to follow the used market value. The used market is just a reflection of falling marginal utility. It's not like the point of maximum revenue (equilibrium price) is going to stay at $50 for long anyway.
Quote:
This would be true only if the people who were buying used games instead of new ones wouldn't buy the game otherwise. As I don't think that's the case (the difference in price is not high enough), the result is really less sales.
OK. I'll explain it in a simplistic way...
Suppose two persons have each a $500 budget a year for video games.
Scenario 1 : Both those persons buy ten $50 games.
Scenario 2 : Person A buy 10 games at $50, resell them at $10, so he can buy two more (total 12). Person B buy those 10 used games at $25 (but those sell doesn't count since the money is just for a middleman) and then buy 5 games with the $250 left.
With scenario 1 (no used games), the developer sold 20 games. With scenario 2, the developer sold 17 games.
Of course, in reality money is not the only thing which limits how many video games people buy. Time is an important factor. This means that person B will probably have enough with his 10 used games and will instead spend is $250 left for something else and the total number of game sold will be 12, not 20.
Well, that's one of many hypothetical examples. You had to assume person B would buy the games at $50 if the $25 used games weren't available, and person A would be willing to pay the same $50 if he couldn't recoup the $10, and that both persons had allocated the same fixed budget for games regardless of the pricing. I think that all 3 assumptions may be questionable. No simple example is going to capture the dynamics of the interacting new and used markets, with marginal utilities and prices varying with time and distribution method. Even if we had a market simulation with complex, calibrated behavioral models, we might still be guessing at the conclusion.
