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Secondhand Games Stifle Innovation?
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jan 20, 2006 07:31 PM
from the trying-not-to-roll-my-eyes dept.
from the trying-not-to-roll-my-eyes dept.
Via GameSetWatch, an article at the Guardian relaying a message from publishers. They say that, though you may be enjoying those second-hand games, they may be forcing you to choke down the sequels that plague the industry. From the article: "'We recognise the secondhand games market is part of the revenue mix, for retailers at least,' said a spokesman. 'However, if it continues to grow, it could potentially starve us of the funds necessary for research and development, and therefore, developers will be less willing to take a risk on new and genre-diversifying titles. It's this creative diversity that makes the games industry so popular, and without sustained funding from new software sales, this could be at risk.'"
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First Rant! (Score:4, Insightful)
People are buying piles of second hand games.
It's cutting into your profits.
The problem:
You've set your price-point too high for the duration that your games are enjoyable.
The solutions:
Lower your price or
Make games that people will want to retain longer.
Bitching that your retailers are against you because they can't make money selling first-hand games is stupid. Retailers adapt to what makes money. If you lower you prices so they can run thicker margins on the new product, they will push your products accordingly.
This is not rocket science. Open to the pages of your marketing book where they show that setting a jukebox to play a song for a quarter will earn twice the money as one requiring one dollar but playing four songs.
Read, think, repeat until clued.
2nd hand games have no devaluation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:2nd hand games have no devaluation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Another is that a game's quality degrades because:
- it gradually becomes more and more of a hassle to run it (DOS games? floppies? etc.)
- the graphics "degrade" - not really, but old games used to engage us with no problems, and the graphics were still amazing every new generation of games... go back a few generations and the graphics just plain look "bad", even though they haven't actually changed
- gameplay becomes simplistic - yes, it was great at the time, and some games were pioneers and are true classics. Compare the gameplay of Dune II to, say, Starcraft, though... or Wolfenstein to Halflife... plenty of counter-examples, of course, but I'm only comparing equivalent games - "today"'s best games to "yesterday"'s best games in the same genre.
So in a way I agree that the quality never degrades, but (some) new games are such huge leaps forward that the net effect is the same.
I'd agree much more with that point of view if it was about music
Parent
Just like secondhand CDs, secondhand books... (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine thrift shops are preventing the clothing industry from innovating, too?
Re:Just like secondhand CDs, secondhand books... (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, it makes even less sense to me...
Aren't we buying used games in the first place because somebody who owned the game decided it no longer had value for him, and somebody else decided that the value of the game was lower than the cost of buying it new?
Now, assuming a company puts out an all-new game based on an innovative premise and with gameplay we hadn't seen before... wouldn't that a) force those who want that experience to buy it new, and b) provide enough value to otherwise second-hand buyers of valueless games that they would now buy a new one?
In other words, it seems to me that sequelitis is directly responsible for the surge in the used market, and the only way out of it is to produce new and innovative games. It's not the other way around. Developers need to give people a reason why they should buy a new game. Pumping out sequels is just going to do the opposite. (It also has the effect of just dumping a whole bunch of previous series editions into the used marketplace. Why keep Madden 05 when Madden 06 is now out?)
Just look at the Nintendo DS if you need an example of this. The only solution is to make games that are as fun and unique as possible, and that aren't "updated" on a yearly basis.
Parent
Re:Just like secondhand CDs, secondhand books... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Enter the first sale bypass... (Score:4, Insightful)
Here is how we will see the proliferation of "activation servers" and the like systems where purchasing a "used" copy of a game simply buys you a coaster. Copyrighted materials (in the US at least, and from the article the EC) are covered under the doctrine of first sale: once a work in "fixed form" is sold, that fixed form is transferable to anyone else by any method desired. The used book, CD and game industries survive only because of this doctrine.
Activation servers add an additional wrinkle to the mix: you can still legally sell the bits, but the activation code isn't going to work when you take it home. When you complain to the company, they will (correctly) tell you that the code has already been used. Thus, the idea of used games will be a thing of the past. Of course, so will be the idea of tossing an old CD into your machine and expecting it to do anything but say "activation server could not be reached".
All this will be couched in terms of "the benefit of the consumer" while in reality kicking them in the teeth.
Re:Enter the first sale bypass... (Score:4, Insightful)
Here is how we will see the proliferation of "activation servers" and the like systems where purchasing a "used" copy of a game simply buys you a coaster. Copyrighted materials (in the US at least, and from the article the EC) are covered under the doctrine of first sale: once a work in "fixed form" is sold, that fixed form is transferable to anyone else by any method desired. The used book, CD and game industries survive only because of this doctrine.
Activation servers add an additional wrinkle to the mix: you can still legally sell the bits, but the activation code isn't going to work when you take it home. When you complain to the company, they will (correctly) tell you that the code has already been used. Thus, the idea of used games will be a thing of the past. Of course, so will be the idea of tossing an old CD into your machine and expecting it to do anything but say "activation server could not be reached".
All this will be couched in terms of "the benefit of the consumer" while in reality kicking them in the teeth.
That's where we consumers come along. We don't buy the software that requires activation. That's it.
Parent
Re:Enter the first sale bypass... (Score:3, Interesting)
No. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is just an exscuse for greed and lack of effort by developers... Truth be told, I bet uninnovative sequels perpetuate second hand retail industry.
They could always go Hollywood... (Score:4, Insightful)
What bothers me is this:
"However, if it continues to grow, it could potentially starve us of the funds necessary for research and development, and therefore, developers will be less willing to take a risk on new and genre-diversifying titles."
This isn't a chicken-or-egg problem, we know new games came before used games. Therefore, this entire cycle was started with new games that had a high degree of suckage, and these high-suckage games were published before the used game industry took off (because, again, new games came first).
The solution seems obvious: publish good games. The better the game, the less likely the owner will sell it back to the store. And if it's really good, they'll buy the same game two or three times (witness Nintendo's business model on the GBA). But making the "We need to make crap games to pay for good games" argument that Hollywood has been touting for the past 50 years or so is simply going to land them in the same place Hollywood is now.
Call The Waaaaaahmbulance! (Score:5, Insightful)
Note: it's not crappy ass games that are hurting you, it's not mindless sequelitis, it's not buggy games that need 15 patches before they arrive in stores, and it's not the fact that Blizzard is eating all your lunches, no, it's those awful secondhand games.
Suuuuuuuuuuure.
I buy a lot of used games, since I like not spending huge amounts of cash on new titles. And you know what? I can buy 15 copies of trashy games I know I don't want, but it's often a pain in the ass to find a good used copy of something I actually care about playing, because people don't often sell good games. The secondary market is flooded with older versions of sports games, obsoleted by the industry's own revenue model for sports games, and crap. Cry me a river, EA.
(Seriously, now) Cry me a river, boys... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah. Cry me a river. Here are my thoughts:
1. The game industry is making money hand over fist. They may WANT a license to print money, they may feel that all of us gamers should spend all our income on their brand new stuff and never look for a bargain, but tough luck -- the world doesn't work that way. If we all got whatever we wanted, whenever I got lonely or horny I'd clap my hands, yell "Doughnut!" and a gorgeous hottie with an oral fixation would appear. See -- I just clapped. NOTHING! So why should they get whatever fool thing THEY want?
2. Used games COME FROM SOMEWHERE. They don't just suddenly appear, the Used Game Fairy doesn't bring them around in her "naughty nurse" uniform, and they're not gifts from aliens. Every used game was purchased by someone, brand new, at some point. So, the game publishers DID get paid for them! Their problem is, they're not getting paid for them ANY MORE. Again, too fucking bad. That's life. I'd love it if my ex girlfriend had to come over three times a week and do me, but she doesn't (too damn stubborn).
3. A PURCHASE IS A PURCHASE. Once we buy our games fair and square, we can sell them to anybody we want to. We can trade them for cigarettes and beer if we feel like it. We can give them to homeless people to use as ninja stars when fratboys annoy them. We can do whatever we like with them. BECAUSE WE BOUGHT THEM, for much more than they're conceivably worth, by the way. All the pissing and moaning in the world won't convince me that once I buy a game, I shouldn't sell it or trade it in for a new one. It's mine, I'll do whatever I want with it.
4. FINALLY, seriously now, isn't it ridiculous that they're now trying to pretend that it's the used game market that causes game companies to put out derivative dreck? YEAH, I see how that works. It's not that game companies are pushing their developers to exhaustion, outsourcing a lot of their activities, making UNBELIEVABLY shitty movie tie-in games (if you can call them games), and in general, treating the public like they'll buy anything if they put the right face on the package. Oh, no, if sales slow down it must be because all the customers are EVIL! Yeah, we're all just penny-pinching Meanies. I see...
Well, that's my rant for now. I'll leave you with this thought:
Do I buy a lot of used games? Yes, I do.
Do I buy a lot of new games? Well, actually, yes on that one also.
Am I a freeloader? NO. I spend more money on this crap than most people.
Do I feel like anyone appreciates my business? NO.
You know, this stuff isn't that complicated. It's about treating me like a customer, appreciating my business, and giving me good value. If you can't do that, there's nothing you can sell me.
Re:(Seriously, now) Cry me a river, boys... (Score:3, Insightful)
My dentist makes me pay 40$ for missed appointments, and I don't have a problem paying them.
Its that usual music industry line (Score:3, Insightful)
Its sounds to me like exactly the same sort of "I know our products suck at the moment but if you guys gave us more money we'd make better products, honest" line.
Boo f'ing hoo (Score:3, Insightful)
Part of the rise in used sales has to be due to the rising price of new games. I am not willing to spend $50 or more on a game unless I know, ahead of time, that it's one of the best games ever made. And it had also better have more than 10 hours of gameplay in it. Otherwise, I'll wait till the price drops or I see a used copy.
There's a huge difference in terms of impulse spending between $30 and $50. If I have the choice between a $25 used copy and a $30 new copy, I'll buy new. Over $30 and I'll try to find it cheaper somehow. If you think you can't sell your game for $30 and make a profit, then you need to think about what you can offer as a value add, either as something you can't get with the used copy or something that will encourage people to not sell theirs in the first place. If you want to compete and be successful in the marketplace, innovate. Don't bitch at your customers for not giving you enough money. Capitalism is not charity. If your game isn't selling it's because you didn't make something worth buying new.
I'm Sorry (Score:5, Insightful)
Consumers don't owe the industry any favors, especially after years of being treated like:
- criminals via abusive copy protection mechanisms and unfair return policies
- sheep via releasing non-innovative games over and over again, with poor support and quality control
Also, explain this:
- If the innovative games aren't out there, then how the HELL is buying the CRAP that *IS* on the shelves going to help any?
Answer: IT WON'T.
- How will buying the CRAP that IS on the shelves going to encourage publishers to market games that aren't CRAP?
Answer: IT WON'T.
Re:I'm Sorry (Score:3, Insightful)
- If the innovative games aren't out there, then how the HELL is buying the CRAP that *IS* on the shelves going to help any?
Answer: IT WON'T.
Well, it will lower everyone's expectations of what a game that isn't crap is. It will also provide funding to develop new games. (Probably crap)
- How will buying the CRAP that IS on the shelves going to encourage publishers to market games that aren't CRAP?
Answer: IT WON'T.
More importantly, buying crap on shelves will lead them to believe their pr
Quoth the book publishers association: (Score:3, Insightful)
Less money means MORE risk taking (Score:3, Insightful)
R.I.P. (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple on the other hand seems to be actively listening to their customers and gives them what they want, rather than what the aforementioned companies do, which is try to tell us (the consumers) what we should want, and after they have watched another failure, sue us for not liking their products.
/rant off
Easy solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides that, the paltry cost of producing a box, disc, and manual is nothing compared to the $x that they could make from selling another new (reduced-price) copy. Yes, they spent a lot of money on development, and they need to earn it back somehow. So do they choose to not compete with used copies -- and earn $0 in the process -- or instead choose to make money by giving people an incentive to buy a new copy?
Nintendo, Sony, and MS already do this for a lot of their older titles. Any publisher that doesn't is either stupid, stubborn, or both.
--Jeremy
Kill The Secondary Market (Score:3, Interesting)
You have two options. First is requiring activation, thus making the secondary copy useless. Other posters have pointed this out. This is terrible.
Or you could take another route. Nintendo is doing this in some ways. Sell the games to people cheaper than used. Sell electronic copies. Make it in my interest to go buy a game for $30 from you, instead of $25 from the game retailer. Most games, after an initial period, sell next to nothing. So why leave the game on the shelves at $50 and let retails sell 'em used for $25 when you could sell them on-demand for $25. Basically, Live Arcade for more recent (and bigger) games. This is where the future is. We all know it. It is just a question of when we get there.
Buh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Produce something I want to actually buy and then we can argue the economics of me buying it new. The chicken/egg argument isn't appropriate right now until these original games are actually getting killed by the secondhand market.
Basic economics will sort this out (Score:3, Insightful)
But if you combine both arguments, you get a more accurate prediction of the future. If you just play out the game publisher's argument, you will see that they may be right. It does starve them of revenue. And that may, in turn, make them reluctant to spend money on risky titles or innovate. Now add in the "bad games" affect that this could create in the marketplace. What happens? Existing publishers lose money and, if they continue their approach, eventually either stagnate and get by with low growth or even go out of business.
But if you focus on the marketplace instead of on the existing stakeholders, you see that the situation will address itself somehow. Obviously even the "bad" games have some market value if people are willing to buy them at a lower price point. So existing publishers could simply adjust their prices to compete with the second-hand market. Just because they made the same title that is being sold used doesn't mean they have a right to continued revenue on it. They made their revenue when they sold it the first time. However, if they lower their price after a time on a new box of the game then they can also share in the long term market for certain titles. They often do this by repacking titles with extra stuff like levels etc.
What happens to those publishers who don't adapt to the market (as opposed to their current desire to adapt the market to them)? There is some radical that happens! New publishers start up and actually develop business models to exist in the market. They do things like publish titles with higher demand and/or they develop business models to survive the peaks and troughs of publishing high visibility titles. Valve is a classic example of this kind of competing company. You can hate many of their practices, but you at least have to acknowledge that they have found a different way to profit in the market. They focus on revenue from add-ons, they "took back" the margins that the publisher was previously taking, and they developed different licenses for game cafes.
I think it is ridiculous the number of people, including executives at large game publishing companies, that claim they are so pro free market, but they constantly want to adapt the market to what they want instead of vice versa.