More game developers whining about used games... - by lost_soul
Papy on 24/5/2011 at 09:12
Quote Posted by heywood
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.
Knowing it is one thing, acknowledging it and not using dubious arguments about "rights" is another. A lot of people make an analogy between buying a game and buying a regular object, but that analogy is wrong and there is obviously a severe discrepancy between what consumers mean with buying a game and what developers mean with selling a game.
The basic question is : should a right to play with a game be transferable once we already played it? Once we're done with the game, should we be allowed to get some (if not most) of our money back by allowing someone else to play the same game with the same license? Some people consider this as an obvious right, but they fail to realize or refuse to acknowledge that there are important consequences with this right when it is applied to intellectual property. If only a limited number of people transfer their rights, as it was the case up to now, than the issue can simply be ignored. But stores now promote strongly the commerce of used games and the issue cannot be ignored anymore, particularly because a lot of games are meant to be played only once. If we do, either the current business model for creating video games could fall apart, we could have another crash, or prices for new games will have to be significantly higher.
I'm not necessarily saying that a right to play a game should not be transferable, I'm just saying we have to stop ignoring the situation and, as a society, take a decision and accept the consequences of that decision. If we decide that rights to play a game should be transferable and, as a consequence, we end up with no more games like Portal because they are not profitable anymore, so be it! But if we want to keep those games, then we have to find ways to make them profitable for developers and publishers. Unfortunately, most people just don't care and only want to get the most they can while paying the least they can. They are perfectly happy with the idea of some other people paying or companies going bankrupt and see no problem with being greedy.
So what is the solution? Is it to keep the status quo, eliminate physical disks and only sell games through something like Steam where it is impossible to transfer rights? I guess this is probably what will happen as for some reasons people seem to accept this. But isn't this being hypocritical for publishers and illogical for buyers?
Quote Posted by heywood
Alternatively, they can sell more copies of the game by decreasing the new price over time to follow the used market value.
This is already the case right now. But falling price over time is not the problem as long as the technology gets better. The problem is the perception of what a new game should cost. As I said, in the 80's, new games were twice as much as they are now. People had the perception that paying the equivalent $100 was a reasonable price. If because of the used market people change their perception and came to believe that $30 is the new reasonable price for a game, what will happen?
What will happen when graphics just don't get really better and people don't see a difference between a 5 or 10 years old game and a new one? If the used market is limited than this is not a problem and the issue can be ignored. But if the market is omnipresent and we all have an easy access to a lot of 20$ used game as good as a new one, then what will happen to the new $50 games? Will this mean that publishers will have to sell new games to 30$? Will they be able to make a profit at that price?
Quote Posted by heywood
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 said this was a simplistic example. My point was the idea that the used market is actually profitable for developers is just silly.
Matthew on 24/5/2011 at 09:51
It's a bit unfair to be criticising a 13-year-old game for requiring a disc check, given that in 1999 I'm pretty sure every laptop capable of running the game would have had a CD drive too.
Jason Moyer on 24/5/2011 at 11:50
Quote Posted by dethtoll
God just get a no-CD crack already and
stop whining about disc checks.
Link me to one for Bioshock 2 please. I'd like to play it again without digging the DVD out.
heywood on 24/5/2011 at 12:20
Quote Posted by Papy
The basic question is : should a right to play with a game be transferable once we already played it? Once we're done with the game, should we be allowed to get some (if not most) of our money back by allowing someone else to play the same game with the same license? Some people consider this as an obvious right, but they fail to realize or refuse to acknowledge that there are important consequences with this right when it is applied to intellectual property. If only a limited number of people transfer their rights, as it was the case up to now, than the issue can simply be ignored. But stores now promote strongly the commerce of used games and the issue cannot be ignored anymore, particularly because a lot of games are meant to be played only once. If we do, either the current business model for creating video games could fall apart, we could have another crash, or prices for new games will have to be significantly higher.
I'm not necessarily saying that a right to play a game should not be transferable, I'm just saying we have to stop ignoring the situation and, as a society, take a decision and accept the consequences of that decision. If we decide that rights to play a game should be transferable and, as a consequence, we end up with no more games like Portal because they are not profitable anymore, so be it!
I think people expect to be able to sell games because they've always been able to sell games, just like they've always been able to sell books, music, movies, etc. We're used to the traditional business model and comfortable with it. That doesn't mean the model can't change, only that the market has to decide. For example, DIVX (not to be confused with DivX) was strongly rejected but Steam is fairly popular.
And I don't think it's a decision that needs to be made as a society. It will work itself out collectively through lots of individual buying decisions. The games industry will continue trying to change the licensing and distribution model to prevent resale, and we'll see how it affects sales volume and prices. Despite their bitching and moaning, in the long run they will adopt distribution models that maximize their revenue. For example, if the non-transferable, internet-only distribution model is more lucrative for creators & publishers, they will all move to Steam or Steam-like delivery methods. And if they stick to the current distribution model, it will be because they make more money that way.
Regarding Portal, let me ask this: do you think replay value translates into monetary value? I think it should. Portal was really neat, but it was a "play once" game, and therefore it was worth less to me than RPGs, multiplayer games, sports games, arcade games, etc. Valve recognized this, which is why they bundled it as a bonus game in the Orange Box instead of first offering it as a standalone title. The situation is similar with movies. I'm OK with paying $20-30 to own a Blu-Ray of a classic film that I'll watch multiple times and want to have on hand to watch whenever the inspiration strikes. But for "view once" films, we have Netflix.
Quote:
This is already the case right now. But falling price over time is not the problem as long as the technology gets better. The problem is the perception of what a new game should cost. As I said, in the 80's, new games were twice as much as they are now. People had the perception that paying the equivalent $100 was a reasonable price. If because of the used market people change their perception and came to believe that $30 is the new reasonable price for a game, what will happen?
What will happen when graphics just don't get really better and people don't see a difference between a 5 or 10 years old game and a new one? If the used market is limited than this is not a problem and the issue can be ignored. But if the market is omnipresent and we all have an easy access to a lot of 20$ used game as good as a new one, then what will happen to the new $50 games? Will this mean that publishers will have to sell new games to 30$? Will they be able to make a profit at that price?
If a game is worth $30 to a typical buyer, it's worth $30. It doesn't matter how much it cost to make. In the last 10 years, I feel that the industry has spent most of their money rehashing old ideas in prettier packages. They're spending bigger and bigger budgets on games that are becoming more and more disposable. It's not a sustainable trend. We're getting to the point where the cost of improved graphics exceeds the value to players. If that means a lot of big budget developers will go out of business, so what? If they're not offering enough value to be sustained by their sales, they deserve to go away.
I agree that games were more expensive in the 80s. Some of that was novelty, since the industry was new. But they were also more unique, original, and repayable. I got way, way more hours of enjoyment from playing Pacman, Pitfall, etc. on my friend's 2600 when I was a kid than any game released in the last 10 years. And I don't think it's just rosy childhood memories talking. I still fire up my old C64 a couple times a year to play Project: Space Station for a strategy challenge or Summer/Winter/World Games, One or One, etc. for that old multiplayer arcade fix.
Not to mention, the most successful game of the last 10 years (and the best selling of all time) is Wii Sports. What does that tell you?
Nameless Voice on 24/5/2011 at 12:52
Quote Posted by lost_soul
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.
So you purchased a copy of a used game that is no longer for sale, entirely for the feel-good factor (or possibly because you liked the box), since it gives nothing to the developers or even the publishers. You then complain that it has a "malicious" disc check despite the fact that
the unofficial patch - which is needed anyway to run the game on modern hardware - removes this disc check along with a heap of other fixes?
PigLick on 24/5/2011 at 12:52
in before koki
seriously, best gaming discussion for ages
Nameless Voice on 24/5/2011 at 12:58
Also, I agree to some extent with what people are saying here: if developers made games so good that no one is willing to part with them, then the whole thing wouldn't be a problem. I'd never part with my Thief or Elder Scrolls games, for example, because they're precious and I might want to replay them.
Um, I actually wouldn't want to part with any of my games, but the point is that the ones which are really good, you'll replay over and over again and won't even consider selling on.
People who make "play once" games have kind of... failed to some extent. People cite Portal, but I've replayed Portal and probably will again some day, so it's a bad example (at least for me).
lost_soul on 24/5/2011 at 13:38
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
So you purchased a copy of a used game that is no longer for sale, entirely for the feel-good factor (or possibly because you liked the box), since it gives nothing to the developers or even the publishers. You then complain that it has a "malicious" disc check despite the fact that
the unofficial patch - which is needed anyway to run the game on modern hardware - removes this disc check along with a heap of other fixes?
No, I purchased a used copy because it was the "right thing" to do. Unfortunately, I live in a society which goes out of its way to ensure EVERYONE is guilty of something, whether that be downloading an old game that isn't made available any more, or simply using "cracks" to get it running on a modern machine.
june gloom on 24/5/2011 at 18:40
lost_soul, your posts are going to give me a brain tumor some day. Just get the unofficial patch already and for the love of god shut the hell up already. Nobody cares, and if they did, they don't anymore.
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
Link me to one for Bioshock 2 please. I'd like to play it again without digging the DVD out.
(
http://store.steampowered.com/app/8850/)
Jason Moyer on 24/5/2011 at 21:40
Yeah, that's the solution I'm going for. I just don't want to pay for the game again until it's super cheap on sale, probably this xmas. :)
Edit: And no, I really don't have any desire to install a third-party application to bypass the copy protection, otherwise I'd just use Gamejackal.
