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Comments: 209 +- Games: Game Designer Makes Case For Used Games on Tuesday November 18 2008, @04:11AM
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We've recently had a couple of discussions about the plans of various game developers to fight used game sales — in particular, the idea of a free, one-time download that may be bonus content or may be a vital part of the game. Now, Soren Johnson, a game designer who has worked on Civilization 3, Civilization 4 and Spore, has written an article defending certain aspects of the used game market. Quoting:
"By opening up retail sales to a larger segment of the market, used game sales mean that more people are playing our games than would be in a world without them. Beyond the obvious advantages of bigger community sizes and word-of-mouth sales, a larger player base can benefit game developers who are ready to earn secondary income from their games. In-game ads are one source of this additional revenue, but the best scenario is downloadable content. A used copy of Rock Band may go through several owners, but each one of them may give Harmonix money for their own personal rights to 'Baba O'Riley' or 'I Fought the Law.'"
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Teenagers, poor people and used games. (Score:2, Interesting)
Personally I have never bought a computer game in my life (I've only ever copied, without paying the asked for fee, about 4 times). So this isn't coming from my experience. (I have had games bought for me, and I have downloaded and played freeware games.)
Anyway, why is the used market so good? For people who don't have any money, the used market allows them to get good games cheaply. (I've never had much money either for that matter, but the main reason I don't buy games now is that I don't run MS Windows.)
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Anyway, why is the used market so good? For people who don't have any money, the used market allows them to get good games cheaply. (I've never had much money either for that matter, but the main reason I don't buy games now is that I don't run MS Windows.)
Used games are not only good for people who don't have money, but also for the ones who buy a lot of games (usually on the release date), play through them, and then never touch them again. This is of course highly dependent on the game. Some games just l
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Thus selling them on is the way to go I feel.
Non-replayability is amazing (Score:4, Insightful)
In the old days, many games had replayability because that was all they had space for. Early Atari, NES titles were almost universally replayable because they were designed that way.
These days, game companies seem to think that "replayability" is a buzzword, just like they think that padding "Hours of gameplay" with pointless and boring stuff (think the stupid "sail the world and haul shit up from the ocean for 100 hours" bit before you get to the end of Celda:The Wind Breaker, thank god nintendo finally learned their lesson for Twilight Princess). Or, they make a game that's short, and only kind of fun, but with a number of "unlockable" characters to play through each of which has more absurd unlock requirements tied to the previous (Viewtiful Joe, Devil May Cry, I'm looking at you).
After finishing these games once, I'm done. I see no reason to "replay" them, and so I sell them off and get new games. If they had been made to be more fun and less aggravating, that wouldn't be the case.
Here's a hint: if you feel the need to pad your "gameplay hours" or stick extra nonsense-characters in for "replayability", you're doing something wrong and need to fix your game instead.
Parent
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Re:Non-replayability is amazing (Score:4, Insightful)
The old games weren't any more replayable as new games, it's just that gamers attitudes and preferences have evolved with time.
Gamers today would find it hard to understand how you could pay 60 dollars for Nintendo Tennis on the NES, and wouldn't be able to entertain themselves with it for longer than 5 minutes, never mind 20+ hours.
By giving the games unlockables and slowly advancing to a climax, the games become more interesting.
Gamers would be pretty angry if the developers were to go back to only making sports games, racing games, and short-lived games of skill.
Parent
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Those were just the three examples that came to mind most readily, but there are plenty of others industry-wide.
Squaresoft and Nintendo alike are both big on "padding the gameplay hours" with meaningless/annoying crap. Activision's put out their fair share of "unlock, unlock, unlock" titles.
It's an odd industry. We are burdened at once with the following problems:
- Shovelware (crap games or, worse, crap games based on movie/tv licenses).
- Endless reiterations of sports titles (Madden 2015, just an updated r
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Since you know you can sell your old games, you don't mind paying a few bucks more with the knowledge you'll get some money back. Since you'll pay a few bucks more, the publisher can get a few extra bucks, indirectly, from the used game buyer.
You know, this is sounding like market segmentation. Marketing companies pay millions to figure out how to sell the same product at different price points to different people, extracting the max cash each segment is willing to pay. And here the used game market is d
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That is their problem with used game sales. If the publishers had their own channel to sell the games used, where they got the profit from the used sale, I'm sure they would be exploiting it directly.
It's Absurd! (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe the used game markey exists because a lot of older games are still fun, despite being old? Age has nothing to do with enjoyability -- just because it doesn't look like a nature park and cost three hundred dollars doesn't mean it can't do that.
"Bookstores ban used books to encourage new-book sales and interest"
"Toyota combats used car market to promote new 2009 line of vehicles"
"Microsoft restricts sale of XP to encourage Vista sales"
Well, okay, you can't win 'em all.
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By what methods are they trying to fight used sales? Whatever happened to the doctrine of first sale?
It's not a product, it's a license. That is, until you need to take advantage of one of the legal benefits of being a licensee... then it's product.
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Show me where it's written on the side of the game box that I'm buying a non-transferrsble license, not a copy of the game.
IANAL but I'd bet good money that I can't be held to the terms of a license that wasn't even mentioned to me until after I'd handed over my cash.
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They can claim that (and idiots might believe them), but that doesn't make it true!
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It's a product with certain additional legal protections. Why do people on Slashdot insist on pidgeonholing the issue into "must be A or B"? The world is more complicated than that and I think that's something we should be intelligent enough to understand.
I take offense to that. Products and licenses are two different things. You cannot sell something which is both, without selling two things. It is not right, fair, or reasonable for companies which sell games to take the best qualities of both for themselves, and leave their customers in the lurch. Furthermore, it is perfectly reasonable to ask whether what you are purchasing is one, or the other.
You yourself go on to define games software as one of these things, rather than the other, assuming a selecti
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The trick to Steam as near as I can tell is to simply purchase each game on its own account.
With each game in its own account, you give away or sell a title you don't want. Simply hand over the account information for the account for that game.
Plus if you get married or have kids you and your wife and/or kids can simultaneously play the different games that you own online. (With all your games on one steam account, only one person can play any of them online at a time.)
What if any, are the advantages of hav
Re:It's Absurd! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's definitely absurd, it's absurd that they don't feel absolutely disgusted with themselves for trying to fight people's right to re-sell content.
And FUCK YOU with your downloadable content. If I've bought that then I should have the right to sell it alongside the game, no?
Downloadable content and in box "bonuses" are a horrible way to squeeze customers ever more. The bonus should just be part of the game, not a one-time thing. And so should most downloadable content. A hell of a lot of it is just a trasnparent attempt to part people from even more cash to get the game they wanted.
As for in-game advertising being a continuing source of revenue from the used game market.... so... angry... hard... to... speak... must... kill...
It's my RIGHT to buy and sell used games. It's not your right to continue to make a profit for a single copy of a game, or a single license or whatever the hell it is after you've already sold it to me.
Die in a fire.
Parent
Re:It's Absurd! (Score:4, Interesting)
"When did it become the gamestore's right to profit more than the developer?"
Where does the gamestore come into this? I'm talking about my rights as an individual to resell what I have bought.
"If used is virtually equal in value to new, and used is slightly cheaper - then many people will choose used"
Absolutely they will, like people do with all sorts of other things in life.
"The problem is that of the £50, probably most of that goes back to the game industry that creates these games.
Of the £45, probably £10-15 goes to the game store, and £30 or so goes back to the consumer (and often a lot more unfair ratio than that) but £0 goes to the game industry."
So fucking what? The games industry does not have a right to profit. I have a right to resell things I have paid for. End of story.
If you want to talk about lacklustre video or GAME or anyone else gouging kids on the used market and making obscene markups then I'm with you all the way.
"So the industry gets fucked"
No, it doesn't. It gets to sell games, people buy them, sell them, rent them, whatever. Just like every other type of product out there. The industry makes massive profits and is supposed to overtake Hollywood in terms of revenue pretty soon. That's not "fucked".
"the industry has to make up for it by making no-risk factory produced crap."
That's what sells. You can't blame the second hand market for the industry producing endless repeats of lowest common denominator bullcrap. What, you think if they got a new sale for each of the used ones they'd roll over and say "We've made enough money this year, lets not put out FIFA 2025:Drunk Edition after all". LOL.
No, they put out that crap because it's profitable. And they won't stop. And if they can squeeze more profit out by selling crippled games with "downloadable extras" or in-game advertising for perpetual revenue, they will, regardless of second hand sales.
Repeat after me - the games industry's interest in profit does not trump my right to resell what I own. And that includes downloadable extras in my opinion.
If you want to do poor wittle old EA a favour and not buy used or resell yours to protect their profits, then go ahead. I'll be sat over here in consumer rights corner.
Parent
Re:It's Absurd! (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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I agree that once a game (or music, or video) leaves it's initial purchasing channel there should not be a required tax or fee that goes back to the originating party.
I don't agree that extras companies invest in providing (e.g., downloadable content) should transfer as well. It seems a fair balance, and don't feel my "rights" are being violated. I have a choice:
1. Buy new, pay retail, and get additional content
2. Buy used, pay less, receive no frills.
The compan
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I buy new video games. I do not like used because I have had a few problems with gamestop and their return policy (I don't always play the games I buy within a month or two and they wont take a return on a used game a few months later.)
When I am done with the game I sell it and then use that money to help offset the cost of my new game. If you kill the used gaming market I will buy less games because I simply will not put out that much money as frequently.
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"When did it become the car lot's right to profit more than the manufacturer?"
"If used is virtually equal in value to new, and used is slightly cheaper - then many people will choose used - particularly if it is pushed strongly by the seller right alongside the new product"
My car and my house are both second-hand. I don't feel the least bit of remorse for either's builders who failed to earn a penny on the second transaction. They made their profit on the first sale, so why should they continue to get mon
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No it's not! Software is exactly like every other form of artistic work sold in a fixed medium! Books are subject to the first sale doctrine. Music is subject to the first sale doctrine. Movies are subject to the first sale doctrine. Software is no different!
Mistaken reasoning. (Score:2)
He's talking about getting benefits from more people having the base game and relates that to second hand market.
However, in that marketing structure, second hand market is worse than simply free distribution of the base game. The money for the extra copies isn't going to the creators and the distribution is much lower.
It's sad to see someone watching so intently at the future and yet not seeing it.
Authors Make Case for Used Books (Score:5, Insightful)
As gamers age, they begin to seek out copies of games they played as kids. I know I have and I promise I'm not alone.
If you want to make more money, fighting the used game market isn't the way to go. Release a system for $100, make the games $10, and then we'll talk.
Maybe paying $50-$100 for a single game tends to turn some people off.
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It's worse than that. Parents are under so much pressure from their kids to get them these games constantly. Either the parents finally cave and find a "friend of a friend" that can hook them with a modded XBOX preloaded with a 1TB HD full of games, or the kids themselves are forced to find out how to do it themselves and start torrenting the games directly. To parents that are already under enormous stresses these days, a quiet and hap
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As gamers age, they begin to seek out copies of games they played as kids. I know I have and I promise I'm not alone.
Amen, brother! My first computer game was Spacewar [wikipedia.org], a video game for the DEC PDP-1. PDP-1s are hard to find today, so I taught myself Java, bought a couple of joysticks, and coded my own implementation [systemeyes...rstore.com].
Who cares about the customer? (Score:5, Interesting)
They are welcome to do as they please, just as we are welcome to play other games. There's a chance it will work exactly like they want it to, I guess. Time will tell. One thing is for sure: It adds no value to the customer, and in fact *removes* value since they no longer have the option to sell or trade their own stuff.
I'd like to see a car company try something like this.
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And offer a discount on upcoming titles, entry into beta testing rounds or early access to the full game. It's a business no-brainer but is hamstrung by the industry habit splitting production from distribution.
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Close. The publishing companies are pissed at how Gamestop prioritizes new vs. second hand games in the stores. More shelf space is devoted to second hand games, rather than new games. Additionally sales assistants are trained to offer up the second-hand version if the consumer takes a new version to the counter, as there is more mark-up for Gamestop on the second-hand title.
I'm not going to comment on who is right or wro
Re:Who cares about the customer? (Score:5, Informative)
OK, as an actual employee of Gamestop I feel like I've got to say something on this whole subject.
I'm not the hugest fan of my company, and we do a LOT of stupid things. However, there's a reason for the high margins, and that's the customers.
1, Those used games are warrantied for 30 days by default. If a customer buys a used copy of, say, Fallout 3, takes it home, and decides that shaking the 360 like an etch-a-sketch while the game's still running will make the graphics better, they can come back with their irreparably damaged game and give it to us for a replacement. And then rinse and repeat.
2. Those used games are also warrantied for a full refund within 7 days. So, if someone can beat the game in under a week, they can simply return it without having paid a penny, making us a sort of rental station with a higher initial investment, but ultimately free. Also, if they manage to damage the game, we still have to completely refund within said 7 days. This goes for used consoles as well.
3. We HAVE to buy your used games if they're in good enough condition and for a console we still sell. It's just that simple. This isn't e-bay, or a garage sale, or a swap meet, you're guaranteed a sale of every game you bring in. Hell, if it's a good enough or simply recent enough game, we'll take it back if the bottom's completely scratched. So we also pay for the shipping and repairs of consoles and games.
Also, of course we dedicate more shelf space to used games. There are more used games! Believe it or not, EA doesn't keep producing copies of Madden 05, but we still have to take them in as trades. Almost every game stops production after a while, but there are still millions of copies in circulation. And with each subsequent release in a sports-based franchise, the previous iteration becomes instantly worthless to the customer and is thus sold to us, resulting in an ever-expanding spot in the racks occupied by the creatively titled (Sports Franchise) 03. Following that, few people buy those copies but rather wait for the new copies of the newest version to be traded in.
Also, we actually offer a year warranty for our games. I don't know about you, but until I started working at Gamestop, I'd never heard of extended warranties for games. Given the average lifespan of the average used game in the hands of the average used game customer, those are fairly often returned. And should it be something like Electroplankton or Marvel vs Capcom 2, and we simply cannot secure another copy in the district, we pretty much have little recourse beyond a refund.
Yeah, there's a large margin between sale price and buying price. It's a company, it has to make a profit. However, given the sheer volume of theft, incompetence, and simple loudness(it's amazing how often a customer will win not by being right, but by complaining to customer service until they get their way) from Gamestop's customers, there also has to be a buffer zone for all the things that will inevitably go wrong with sales.
Parent
What right do they have to prohibit this? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the question that comes to me ... I mean, they sell me a copy of the game, right? Since when do they have a legal right to prohibit me from reselling it? I can't think of another type of product where this can be done legally ...
Liquidity (Score:2)
I know in the UK parents would make their kid sell games they are no longer playing in order pay for the latest must have game (The parents then pay for any shortfall).
I would say this whole anti-secondary sale issue is another example of the blind greed that is currently taring down the banks.
Re:Liquidity (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say this whole anti-secondary sale issue is another example of the blind greed that is currently taring down the banks.
The gaming industry is starting to eat itself.
It's something else to watch these gigantic corporate entities try to turn sharing, borrowing, and reselling into the next big evil. You'd think they'd stand no chance of getting the popular vote on this, but everywhere now you start to see ordinary regular people asking the question: What can be done about the second hand market?
The more pertinent question is: What the fuck? followed by You are kidding, right?
No other industry enjoys this priviledge. Not even the RIAA is seriously trying to argue that you can't sell a used CD, and they've argued that ripping to MP3s is stealing, and that you need to buy a new copy every time you listen on a new device.
The part I find the most ignorant and self-serving is the part where people talk about the damage it is doing to the industry. The industry is not an end in itself. It adapts to market pressures, or it doesn't. As an ordinary, rational consumer there's nothing that I need or want to do for the industry. They produce games at affordable prices, and just suck up the fact that I am not going to buy all of them as first sales, or they don't.
Something everybody seems to forget in the talk about the evil of second hand sales, is that every one of them, no matter how dilute from reselling, must have been a first sale at some point.
And for crying out loud - what happened to just being thrilled that someone wanted to play your shitty game at all?
Parent
Surely it's as simple as... (Score:2)
If I sell my games, I have money to buy more games!
I can't buy games with money I don't have.
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ah, but eventually I will have played all possible second-hand games and will have to buy a new game ;-)
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Well, if they want my game $$'s, they have to price it appropriately. I'm a 2nd wave gamer. Most games that I buy new, I wait until the initial price drop before I buy it if I really *must* have it ($50 --> $40). Some games, I can be a little more patient with and wait for the second price drop ($40 --> $30). Others, I wait until it's a bargain ($20).
There have been times when games took too long to make their price drop that they became irrelevant. For example, I've never played Myst. I wanted
abandonia.com & gog.com (Score:2)
Ads? (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone needs to kill these stupid fuckers like *right now*. I'm Serious.
Advertising ruins everything. I don't want to immerse myself in a game and have to put up with some bullshit about what drink is better, and that I need to buy this widget cuz the cool kids got it.
There is a cold war going on right now with advertisers and consumers and advertisers love using stupid bullshit arguments with ignorant judges like, "Not watching commercials is just like stealing content". That's why TIVO is going to cave soon under enormous pressure to thwart people from bypassing advertising and why the old company that made that DVR with the automatic commercial skip got sued into oblivion. They resurrected themselves as ReplayTV, but sans commercial skip.
We fight it everywhere in our lives right now. From blocking pop-ups, pixels, Ad Block Plus, the 30-second skip button on the DVR, etc.
How the fuck can you advertise a contemporary product for today's culture in a game like NeverWinter nights anyways? I would love to go down the local tavern to find my +5 Broadsword only to be faced with a "Do the Dew" logo on the front of it. Sheesh.
We all have to put our foot down now and REFUSE to participate in this else the games will be ruined. If you think I'm going overboard here, then present me a situation in which an advertisement actually adds real entertainment value?
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I have no problem with the subtle little brain washing things like product placement done well.
As long as it blends in I'd be perfectly happy with billboards in GTA advertising real products.
Seeing junked coke machines in a post apocalyptic setting would be only fitting.
But advertisers don't like subtle. That billboard can't be a washed out piece of the background, no it would have to be primary colours jumping out of the screen at me.
They could put ads on the loading screen but then the pressure is on the
Re:Ads? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the loading screens. As for which products, know your target market. Source books, dice, miniatures, XXXL T-shirts, pizza delivery, and fizzy drinks. And expansion modules for the game itself, of course.
Parent
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Oh shoot.
This reminds me that, when I was teen, I made a VB program with a splash screen + progress bar and sleep the thread for a few seconds because I thought progress bar was cool!
Cheating the Game (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's my case for used game sales.
By making it so I can't resell the entirety of my game by giving me a nontransferable license for a portion of the game's content, the publisher is stealing from me. Specifically, they're taking away the resale value of the goods I purchased from them by attempting to treat them as a privileged service instead. This emerging trend of nontransferable content licensing as rights management represents a profoundly backward view of commerce that attempts to justify undermin
How About Something Stupidly Obvoius? (Score:3, Interesting)
Used Game Market Helps Keep Landfills From Filling Up With Plastic
I have a game I don't play anymore, what sounds better? "Trade it to a store for $10" or "Toss it into the garbage where it will break down in 1000 years"?
I only buy used... (Score:2, Insightful)
A better trick is to ditch retailers entirely. (Score:2)
In the future many games will be distributed electronically on a pay-to-play service model requiring a unique serial number, verified online, that is valid for a limited period of time. Even if you make a copy, it'll be worthless after the serial number expires.
There won't be such a thing as a "used game." Or indeed a game that you "buy" at all.
Bringing in new people (Score:3, Interesting)
If it weren't for the used game business, my aunt and uncle, both retired, probably wouldn't play video games.
As it is, they now have 3 PS2s (2 for home, 1 for when they head to Florida for the winter) and 1 Gamecube (which I gave to them when I purchased a Wii).
They buy a lot of used games. My cousins buy them new games for various holidays and birthdays, but whenever they buy games for themselves, it's always used.
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Platinum is not that cheap. Used games are usually overpriced. For instance, most of the places in the UK will buy your game from you for less than £10 and then try to sell it to the public at just a couple of pounds less than the new price - £30-40. That's not only a massive profiteering exercise by the company, but both seller and buyer feel ripped off.
What Platinum should be doing is setting the price cap for used games. If you're gonna pay the seller peanuts and charge the buyer a huge margi
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I for one would much rather buy a brand new copy of a game on Sony platinum or Xbox360 classics for £15 instead of paying a comparable price for a used copy. The risk of problems with scratched discs and missing manuals is not worth the hassle in my opinion. Even if you visually inspect the discs before leaving the shop there is no guarantee that they will work flawlessly.
This is especially important for games that require a large time investme