Wal-Mart Enters the Used Game Fray 129
eldavojohn writes "It's a simple model — you buy used games for a third of the price of a new one from patrons. Then you turn around and sell the game for two-thirds the normal price to other patrons that have not yet enjoyed the title. Such has been the model for stores like GameStop. The great part about that business is a recession can sometimes help their market, as gamers look to save a few bucks any way possible. Well, today Wal-Mart launched kiosks in 77 of its stores that vend used video games. Looking like a RedBox DVD kiosk, these automated machines are full of bugs, but spell trouble for businesses like GameStop. This should also pique the interest of used-game opponents and provide a bigger target for them to go after if they get the politicians on their side."
Bigger target? (Score:3, Interesting)
This should also pique the interest of used-game opponents and provide a bigger target for them to go after if they get the politicians on their side."
I have the feeling that even the likes of Blizzard or Electronic Arts would think twice about giving Wal-Mart a hard time.
Re:Bigger target? (Score:4, Informative)
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Blizzard, almost exclusively, makes computer games that have CD keys which make them nearly impossible to resell. Once someone registers their game, especially with their new battle.net system, no one else can use that key.
One of many reasons I don't buy into anything Blizzard is selling.
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One of many reasons I don't buy into anything Blizzard is selling.
I hate to break this to you, but almost all PC software has a CD-key or something similar. Your statement makes no sense.
If you say that you don't buy Blizzard because of their CD-keys, then you basically should just admit that you either don't buy PC-games, pirate the games, or only play demos, because there are very few companies that don't use some sort of protection like that.
Sounds like you just hate Blizzard.
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The set of companies that have games to sell is larger than just Blizzard.
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Does walmart know this....most EBGames geeks might...but the regular counter clerk at Walmart is far from a geek.. unless they force someone to review purchases before they happen...they might get stuck with people selling their wow accounts for more then they r worth.
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And as an aside, this isn't text messaging. You can actually spell out "are". Considering you spelled everything else out, I assume you can do that word too.
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Are you telling me you think this business model works at the upper most level?
Who do you think accepts the used games, the President? Seriously, before coming down
on someone who has been gaming for years and is a valued member at EBGames which was for the most part the foremost successful store to purchase used games from people, still had a business model
where the person accepting the used game had to review if there were any scratches or was a cdkey licensed game only.
Being the avid text messaging geek I
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A ~$7-10 billion/yr indust
Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
Excellent. With Walmart now financially committed to reducing the amount of DRM that would interfere in resale, the amount of anti-DRM political lobbying money should increase dramatically.
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Interesting)
Except its only for consoles, which means the DRM wont be an issue. The summary should specify that it is console only, but it doesn't.
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
Except its only for consoles, which means the DRM wont be an issue.
There's been some rumblings from console devs that they're wanting to put DRM on it to prevent used sales. Seems they're convinced that somehow, because they only profit once, that's unfair if the game trades hands again. You know, just like how car manufacturers couldn't survive if people bought used cars.
Re:Excellent (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but that's not the RIAA's problem either. Their lawyers just claim it is.
However, if GM were to cry foul on used car sales, everyone and their mother would jump on them.
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However, if GM were to cry foul on used car sales, everyone and their mother would jump on them.
Where've you been? It's already happened. I just tried to resell my mom's 10 year old Chevy Lumina, and the rubber gaskets in the engine were made out of such cheap materials, the intake manifold gasket is now shot and they tell me the head gasket will be next in short order. It's worthless, even though it has less than 40K miles on it. Was it intentional by GM or incompetence? Either way, the car is more
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There's been some rumblings from console devs that they're wanting to put DRM on it to prevent used sales. Seems they're convinced that somehow, because they only profit once, that's unfair if the game trades hands again. You know, just like how car manufacturers couldn't survive if people bought used cars.
I'm surprised that nobody at GM has yet thought to blame used cars sales for their recent debacle. Or why Freddie and Fannie didn't blame realters for their near-collapse. [sarcasm] Because nothing destroys a business like the selling of used goods! [/sarcasm]
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So you say... but it's pretty hard to deny that using DRM to lock down an engine when the car is resold would be a *very* effective way for the car companies to increase new car sales volume -- or at least service revenue, for the $299 "pre-owned authentication fee" that would be marketed as a way of e
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These days a console is just a PC with pretty DRM.
compromised serials (Score:1, Insightful)
Wow! (Score:1)
Good news for DRM lovers like Electronic Arts! Eat that!
It's our right to do whatever we want with our purchased games, included but not limited to, sell them to others when we finished playing.
Bad News In The Long Run (Score:2)
In this model it's more difficult to resell a game, since game access is provided as a service of your account. Moreover, the companies can restrict reuse by offering access to certain content only via their servers.
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For the big software companies service models are better than DRM since it gets them out of the unwinnable arms race. It creates value for
Thanks, Wal-Mart! (Score:3, Informative)
If you agree that GameStop is bad for gaming, then this isn't really worse. I don't think Wal-Mart doing it is going to increase the overall trade in used games. If you don't agree that GameStop is bad for gaming, then you don't care about this move anyway.
As such, I'm actually quite happy to hear the news simply because I hope they kick GameStop's ass. I don't buy games from them, but I've read enough of the Penny Arcade to completely [penny-arcade.com] loathe [penny-arcade.com] them [penny-arcade.com] . [penny-arcade.com]
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Above all, from a webcomic with no references and no legitimate claim against the group in question.
It isn't a good source for forming opinions, except when we're talking about something as trivial as corporate loyalty (which we are). Also, no legitimate claim? Their criticisms, while not as well referenced as a wikipedia page, are legitimate. Gamestop DOES DO THOSE THINGS. And they are annoying.
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What's annoying about buying and selling second hand games?
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Not that one, I was talking about their policy of "try to punish customers into reserving by not doing a good job of guessing how many copies we need to stock up on and yelling at them in the store." Seriously, gamestop needs to hire a guy to decide how many copies to buy. Games they think will sell great, they buy in extreme excess. Almost every store has dozens of copies of unsold maddens from years past, marked at around $5. On the other hand, games they don't think will be as popular, they get exact
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You apparently also enjoy posting uninformed mini-rants. Do you even read Penny Arcade? If you do, you know that every day they post a news post with lots of links. Over the years, they've posted links to plenty of stories of verifiable shenanigans by GameStop/EBgames. Typically they just show up on PA a few days before the other sites I read.
Wal-Mart is evil, no doubt. But it's kind of a faceless evil. GameStop is evil with the face of a douchebag. So yeah, I'm going to have to root for Wal-Mart on
Re:Thanks, Wal-Mart! (Score:4, Funny)
And I have read enough of your post to loathe them too.
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Game stop is bad for used gaming. I wont buy anything at Gamestop or Eb games. They anally rape everyone on their used game prices.
Every used game I buy is on Amazon.com as I can get it , including shipping for at least 35% less than gamestop is selling it at. Most of the time it's 50% less than gamestop's lowest price.
It's ridiculous, If I bring them a like new game they give me maybe 5 bucks and then they slap a sticker on it and ask $48.90 for it. I sell it for $30.00 on Amazon.com I'll have it sol
Old used games are awesome. (Score:2, Interesting)
Having a place to buy older games like PS1 or SuperNES games is valuable to the gaming community. Places that sell games you can't buy anymore! Our local video store sells these games for $2-$5. Sometimes they are scratched but you don't feel rippe
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Many older games from the 8-bit and 16-bit era are actually quite difficult. Try the first Mega Man on the NES, for example. Or Shinobi for the Sega Master System.
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Except the older games are incredibly easy and you end up feeling stupid for taking two weeks to wrap it the first time.
Do it without save states, and writhe in the eternal fire that is "Nintendo Hard!"
So Wal-Mart's getting a bit long in the tooth? (Score:2)
I guess they had to get in while they still could, but with digital distribution being the future whats the point in conquering a business model that has possibly peaked? Then again it is only costing them kiosk space and electricity, I'm sure RedBox is paying for much of the hardware. Still, it sounds like Wally World is getting a little slow or at least complacent given that they have conquered much of the US.
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I don't see (official) online distribution pushing out hard copies for awhile yet, and that goes double for consoles (which is what this story is about).
The primary item is the available connectivity and the sheer size of modern games. For example, I'll take fallout 3, disc size, 5.52GB. Taking a standard fare 768kbps connection, that's about 16 hours. Compared to 1 hour (or less) for me to drive to town, buy the game, and come home. And don't forget that 5.52GB comes out of the ever so trendy transfer
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I don't see (official) online distribution pushing out hard copies for awhile yet, and that goes double for consoles (which is what this story is about).
I see WiiWare and Xbox Live Arcade. Or are you talking about the respective 40 and 250 MB limits of those offerings?
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Exactly. Neither of those is the main method of getting games, and additionally, they're not trying to be. They're simply a way of getting smaller simpler games, but not the big A-list titles.
variety? (Score:2)
Does this mean wal-mart will start carrying games that aren't hunting simulations? Deer Hunter, Deer Hunter 2, Deer Hunter 3 is about their entire stock of PC games.
I exaggerate, but not by much. What's up with the poor selection?
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The used game market is about to increase! (Score:1)
Ok, just think for a minute people. How convenient is it to go to a GameStop? They're usually in malls, or sometimes in small shopping centers. Those are two places you only go to when you need to buy crap you don't really need.
Now with Walmart, they already have an entire store full of everything you could find at a strip mall but cheaper, plus groceries.
So this means there's a lot of people that go there on a weekly basis. Not just any people, but people that can't afford the rip offs at the mall. Th
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Sorry I'm not too familiar with how it works at gamestop. I've only been in one three times in my life, and I've known about the place since they've been called Funcoland. Two of those times were to buy something but they were out of it, so I just walked across the shopping center to Toys-R-Us and they had it. I was just trying to support a gaming store at the time.
I think the only used game I ever bought from there was Sega GT for the xbox for something like $3. That was an ok deal I think. Only new g
I barely buy used games anymore (Score:2)
I'm always looking to save some bucks, as the money I can spend on games each year is limited due to the lack of a job. However, I don't do it by buying used games. I wait for the price to go down, and for promotions.
Ever since I got a Wii, and am planning to buy a DS Lite, I've been buying lots of games at half the price or even less as older games for those systems I have
Good luck with that. (Score:2)
With Steam infesting every game that comes out nowadays forcing you to tie a game to an account and forcing you to activate online for the sole purpose of killing the second hand market off I'm guessing this'll be a fairly short lived venture for PC games at least.
Still it's not a bad idea for the console market and I guess that's where most money is now in this anyway?
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With Steam infesting every game that comes out nowadays forcing you to tie a game to an account and forcing you to activate online for the sole purpose of killing the second hand market...
Yeah because the $50 Half-Life PC game CDs I bought when it was new has such a high resale value...
http://store.steampowered.com/app/70/ [steampowered.com]
You can always try to get the non-Steam version too if Valve isn't the original publisher. I always check the title-specific forums on steampowered.com and look for people complaining about bad patches or poor 3rd party + Valve support. Some games don't work well Steam, easiest to just stay away from those.
With PC games, the prices fall too fast with many titles
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No problem here. If you plan to resell the game, make another steam account just for this game and go for it. You could even easily sell it on EBay, all you have to do is transfer the account data to the buyer, he can download it from Steam, no need to send the media.
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I guess it depends how many games you have, but having one e-mail address per game is a bit over the top, people really shouldn't have to deal with that.
Also, afaik, as part of the EULA you're not allowed to sell on or allow accounts to change hands, so Valve can also easily get eBay to pull such auctions, it also prevents you selling to places like Walmart etc. because they wont deal with this sort of thing.
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EULAs ain't worth the electrons used to display them, at least where I live. Next case.
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Yes, unfortunately so far eBay would disagree with you, hence why they no longer allow auctions of virtual gold and so forth meaning regardless of what you feel about EULAs, eBay will still pull auctions on request for that sort of thing and Walmart etc. will still refuse to deal with electronic accounts and keeping an e-mail address per game is still a ball ache.
Where's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO game publishers are coming at this from the wrong angle - they should be looking at the second hand market as an opportunity rather than a threat. Over the last year or two there has been a growing trend for games to have paid-for DLC (see Guitar Hero/Rock Band as prime examples). Since this content doesn't get resold when the game does the new owner may well then re-buy the DLC.
So although yes they might miss out on the profit from the original game sale (assuming that the person who bought it second hand would otherwise have bought a new copy) they ARE still making money.
Also don't forget trade ins - many console owners I know (myself included) will trade old games for money off new ones, often allowing us to buy more NEW games then we would have done otherwise. Why not embrace this? Publishers could offer incentives if people trade in one their older games for a sequel, or a direct competitor to their game - say trading in Guitar Hero for Rock Band etc.
When the music market changed under them (i.e. the internet) the industry tried to fight the change rather than embracing it as a new opportunity, that didn't work out too well did it?
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Also don't forget trade ins - many console owners I know (myself included) will trade old games for money off new ones, often allowing us to buy more NEW games then we would have done otherwise. Why not embrace this?
I'm not taking any side here, but I think the way they'd look at it is as follows. Some person goes and spends $40 buying a used game. In exchange, the store skims off $20 and passes the other $20 to you so that you have an additional $20 to invest in the new games market. However, if the used market didn't exist, presumably that person would only buy games 2/3 as often (as he'd have to spend $60 each time instead of $40) but it would be invested in the new games market. Granted you'd also only buy your new
Response to the bug issues and further details (Score:2)
This post [arstechnica.com] has a response to the reported bug issues as well as some further information about how the trade-in process works.
Hmm how about.. (Score:1)
If a game is too easy to complete and only fun on the 1st play through of course I am going to trade it in once I have completed it, there is no incentive to keep it.
Don't release DLC (Downloadable Crap) that I have to pay for instead release expansions.
Another point is don't charge s
Simple solution (Score:1)
What make this used games sound so immoral is the tremendous profit made by the used game resellers.
Their margin isn't related to the added value of their service, but with the value of the game in a new condition.
They are effectively stealing the game industry.
Won't happen in Florida (Score:2)
Due to ludicrous Florida laws, all new used media stores are to be treated as pawn shops. In other words, you have to fill out paperwork and, I believe, give a thumb print to be able to trade in a videogame...
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Don't be so negative. This could be the first step in undoing that idiocy. After all, we know how much Tallahassee just luuuuuurvs WalMart
Two Thirds? Really? (Score:4, Informative)
Two thirds of the price? In what gamestop? If you're lucky, you'll get a whole $10 off of the game is still retailing at release price.
Otherwise, you're getting $5 off retail until the game is so old its out of print and everyone who wants it has it so they're overloaded, when you can get it for $2.99... Yay Jak and Daxter!
Avoid Them All (Score:1)
Walmart is now a Junk Store (Score:2)
Walmart has pushed its suppliers year after year to reduce their prices, and they have done so.
They have done so by making a cheaper and cheaper product. Walmart is now a place where you go buy disposable Chinese junk. They pushed too far.
Thus it's no surprise to me that they are entering the flea-market business.
Another anecdote (Score:2)
Here's another anecdote. I used to buy belts at Walmart for about $10-$15. Unfortunately, the 'pleather' would crack over the buckle and around the tongue in about a week. So now I go to a men's store and spend $30-$50 on one that lasts for years.
I used to buy shirts at Walmart for $15 or so. But they would barely make it a year before becoming threadbare. So now I buy my shirts from L.L. Bean for $30, but they last for years. Moreover, L.L. Bean has what amounts to a lifetime guarantee on their cloth
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3 Days Later (Score:2)
Money for trades is charged back to the trader's credit card up to three days after the transaction.
DarkSaber
Up to 3 days later? The hell with that, if I'm handing over my game in store, the store can damn well give me my credit/money there and then.
DC191
It seems like a perfectly reasonable measure to prevent fraud. The kiosks are completely automated so there is no way to immediately verify what you actually give the machine.
Yeah, it's not like the disks are digital media that can be read electronically and compared against a known digital signature for the title.
(GamePolitics' registration captcha won't display in my browser or I'd be posting my response there. Is it a Flash-based captcha?)
I like the idea (Score:2)
Here's some ways it could be improved, though: the system only takes discs, and tests them when they're fed in. If they don't pass, it spits out the disc and tells you to go fuck yourself. The machines are on the internet, and you can find out in realtime the closest location with the game you want, what games are inside your closest kiosk, et cetera. Finally, put one in my neighborhood. We have no gamestop.
This should be a poll (Score:1)
- I buy used but never trade in my old games
- I trade in my old games but only buy new games.
- I trade in used games and purchase used games
- I never trade in old games and only purchase new games.
- Donde esta la vacca?
Id be curious to see what the final statistics look like.
Re:People still buy used games? (Score:4, Insightful)
Your logic is like a half-baked cake. I suppose printing your own copies of books from the library is ok too, cause you aren't paying anything to look at the book anyways right?
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Well, in this case you might as well send the $45 to The Pirate Bay, rather than Walmart, as the publisher and game developers won't see a cent of it anyway.
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I'm not saying it's ok. I'm just saying I would rather as a book publisher have you save your limited resources to spend on one of my books instead of going to a used book store and spending money there.
75% of the used game price disappears into Gamestop. As far as the game ecosystem is concerned that money is gone. Your customers are expending their limited teen dollars on a product that in no way what so ever brings a profit.
If instead of buying and reselling 2 games these teens pirated those 2 games a
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I'm just saying I would rather as a book publisher have you save your limited resources to spend on one of my books instead of going to a used book store and spending money there.
75% of the used game price disappears into Gamestop. As far as the game ecosystem is concerned that money is gone. Your customers are expending their limited teen dollars on a product that in no way what so ever brings a profit.
If instead of buying and reselling 2 games these teens pirated those 2 games and simply purchased a third new the publisher would make more money than if they threw their money into the big bonfire that is the used game market.
And I would love everyone of you to send me all your money without anything whatsoever in return.
Used games are part of the game ecosystem. The limited teen dollars might not be spent on a 60$ new game without the option to get some of that money back to begin wtih. So you'd end up with 3 pirated games and no sale at all. Sounds much better to me. At least publishers still would have something to bitch about. Oh and it's not their fault ... ever.
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This is actually getting fairly close to just ignoring copyright and seeing it more directly as a matter of rewarding creators for their work. Copyright exists to "promote the progress of science and useful arts", and insofar as the way it works in the current world leads to some of these weird results, one solution is what you propose: ignore the legal rules of copyright, and instead try to honestly think of how to allocate your money to benefit the creators. However, this requires a level of honesty that
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Faulty logic.
The money spent on used games does not vanish as you claim. When an individual sells a game, they receive cash back (or trade in value on something else). This means that the outlay for the original purchase of the game is effectively reduced, making it more affordable. Second, buying used games is a good way to cheaply (and currently legal way) of getting exposure to games. This exposure can and does encourage the purchase of new games in the same genre or publisher or series, assuming the
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Except that the kind of people that sell their games typically turn right around and buy another -- if you consider that the two scenarios begin to balance. Sure there are some people who will turn around and buy another used game, but many people find buying used games at a 20% discount a little hard to swallow when you can typically find the same new games at a 20% discount if your patient enough to shop around.
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Most of his logic is pretty off kilter, but he does have one point. Gamestop tends to sell used games at new game prices. I can't tell you how many times I've bought a game, released at a suggested retail of $50, for $40 (new) at retail store X while Gamestop is *still* selling the used copy for $40. They almost never reduce their prices, at least on modern consoles and your treated like a potential criminal if you dare to ask to see the game before you purchase it. Honestly I'm surprised they've lasted so
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My teenage kids don't pay anything to get to the mall when they come with me and, trust me, getting 1/3 of the buy price back for a game which is no longer the thing would really appeal to them.
I'd guess that the teenage demographic is larger for console games than for PC games.
Don't assume that you're the target demographic
Re:People still buy used games? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't buy used games on principle. (Wait... so I'm paying someone for a game and simultaneously not giving the content creators any money? Why not just pirate it and spend more money on new games if I'm not going to pay the creators?)
But even if I wasn't against the concept of used games I still don't see the financial incentive. Gamestop will pay me less than the parking fee to go in and sell them a game. If I were to drive to a free-parking gamestop it would cost more in gas than they would give me. The used prices of new games tend to be almost the same as new. ~$45-50 for new releases and games on steam tend to be priced as low or lower for older games.
If you aren't going to buy it new you might as well just pirate it and save the money going to Wal-Mart.
By giving money to someone who purchases new games, you are providing them with more resources to purchase more new games, and support new content creators. Or to put it another way, would you buy a car that you knew would have no value on the used car market? Auto companies like good resale value, so that one guy will buy a new car every year.
Also, if you save up a few games, it might just cover your parking. And give you cash for a new game. (Which is the point)
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What principle is that? The principle of irrational consumer? I know lots of people will buy a game new knowing that there will be a used market for it later when they're done.
Re:People still buy used games? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait... so I'm paying someone for a game and simultaneously not giving the content creators any money?
If they make games that are good enough that people don't want to sell them back, this wouldn't be happening to them.
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I don't really agree with this point. It makes sense for multiplayer games, but a lot of single-player games (like films and TV shows) are very enjoyable to play once, but become less enjoyable when you play them again. Given the choice between playing them twice, or playing them once and then playing another similar-quality game once, the second is more fun. Think of them like books and DVDs; lots of people buy these and sell them second-hand because they never watch a film or read a book twice.
Even
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Sure, there will always be some people who sell their old games, but if a game is good enough, few people will sell back their games to where they're actually competing with new sales. Videogames, like movies, make all their money in the first few months. If people grow tired of the games 6 months later and start selling them back, and some people who were interested but not enough to buy it at new prices start buying it, the game has already profited. If there were no used market, the numbers of people
Re:People still buy used games? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sorry, but that's silly. It IS the same thing. I do know many people who (sadly, imo) buy a new car every year and sell the old one. I also know a lot of people who refuse to ever buy new cars because of the high cost and the risk of investing in a untried technology.
The resale value of cars is higher than games because the cost of flipping an item is relatively fixed. You have to pay a kid minimum wage (or more) to spend half an hour per used game receiving and stocking it. The cost of storing it as c
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I wouldn't say all resale markets are identical, but they all function. Just like books and cds and cassette tapes, the game market functions fine.
If anything it encourages the opposite of what you claim - "blockbusters" are games that flood the resale market, with more profits to resellers. By making smaller niche titles, it's harder to find those titles on the resale market, and the publisher can sleep at night knowing that no one else is profiting from the game after he does.
Just like I lie awake every
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Righto, I've just typed a monster of a reply to bsdaemonaut below(#28011267) so I'll direct you to that for the crux of my argument.
I see your point that in a capitalist society asking for hand outs isn't cool. My point is that in a capitalist society you're going to get well and truly screwed up the arse by the game developers, because you're forcing them ALL to adopt unpleasant tactics in order to make a profit.
I think perhaps video games are something new really. They don't suffer from wear and tear like
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That makes zero sense. By your logic then, it would be comparatively hard to find a used car, but it's not. Typically everyone buying a new car brings a trade in. The same is not true for video games. Many car dealers have as many used cars as they do new, many more are purely used car lots. Its precisely why cars are so much more expensive and last so much longer that car manufacturers have to compete with used sales so much more. Rich Guy A is able to buy himself a new car every 2-3 years, but Poor Guy B,
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This logic just doesn't hold up, you can't compare the two that way. Yes, games are cycled through quickly, but the stakes are higher with cars. It doesn't take *nearly* the same amount of resources to create a game. The R&D as well as the manufacturing process, not to mention the maintenance of the manufacturing process, are all so much more when manufacturing a car. That's why they cost so much. Furthermore a game is less likely to be bought used, after it has been out a while no one wants it.. they w
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All a very intersting discussion about the merits and impact on viability of a resale market, but in the end here is my thought: So What! I'm sorry but I don't care if it is harder to make money in the game market because the time cycle is shorter blah blah blah. I bought a game, I should be able to turn around and sell it without being restricted by the content creator. That is all there is to it. The market WILL sort it out and there will be winners and losers based on the QUALITY of the games and not
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Console games don't really use DRM, well.. not at least beyond attempts to stop actual copying of media. They don't require registration, serial numbers, restrict content, and all that jazz. It's one of the reasons there is a used game market for consoles.. so in that respect DRM may be very tempting for publishers to add to their console releases in the future. That's one thing we'd like to avoid. Of course the other reason that PCs don't have a resale market is the ease of pirating. Yet, if the industry s
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I think you'd be surprised at the resources needed to create games these days. Budgets run at tens of millions even for the cheap and cheerful. The really big names run to hundreds of millions. They're by no means a guaranteed cash cow. Most new games, in fact, make a loss, which the publishers try to offset with their blockbuster cash cow titles.
That aside though, I agree it costs a lot more to make a car, and therefore follows that it should cost a lot more to buy one. That's not what I'm arguing. It boil
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That is like saying, since the car manufacturer doesn't get money from buying that car you should steal it?
Used games cost that much? I have on occasion gotten 2 used games for 1/3 the price of one new game. (new games go up to $110 for guitar hero etc, got 2 used games for $25). And the person who sold them got credit to buy new games.
I would much rather pay $45 for a slightly used game, then the $75 for the new one.
Al
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Pending legislation change, that is... don't assume anything that's legal today will remain so, especially when copyright is somehow involved.
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I don't buy used games on principle. (Wait... so I'm paying someone for a game and simultaneously not giving the content creators any money? Why not just pirate it and spend more money on new games if I'm not going to pay the creators?)
Except that when you buy used your money IS going to the creator (or at least his publisher). It goes to the publisher by proxy of the original purchaser who may not have considered the original selling price to be reasonable without the ability to resell it and recoup some of that cost. Similarly for all additional sales on down the line until the game eventually ends up in somebody's trash can.
But even if I wasn't against the concept of used games I still don't see the financial incentive. Gamestop will pay me less than the parking fee to go in and sell them a game.
Even if your characterization of Gamestop's pricing is accurate, they are by no means the only way to buy and s
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Then make a game that I don't want to sell. Simple as that.
Civilisation II, would I sell it? Let's assume for a second I'd still get a buck for it, I wouldn't! I want to play that game again, over and over, from time to time. The replay value is stunning, even though it's essentially the same game again over and over, but still, it's fun to just dig it up and play. There are often months between sessions because, well, its new car smell is off, but it's still fun.
Master of Orion II, same deal. From time to
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No? What other factor is there to take into account?
When a game gives me the thrill of my life for 5 hours but is essentially boring afterwards, it should better not cost more than 5 hours of other entertainment. 2-3 good movies, admission to an amusement park for half a day, an evening on the town. All those things are 'over' after they're consumed, and likewise, that game is 'over' and consumed if I can't enjoy it anymore after 5 hours and I can't sell it either.
If it costs more, it's not worth the money.
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so I'm paying someone for a game and simultaneously not giving the content creators any money?
What makes you think you're paying anyone? Artists who work on video games don't get royalties. To a large extent, this is true of film and music as well. So the artist isn't directly affected. He's indirectly affected because the development studio he works for possibly gets less money from the publisher (because the developer is usually compensated based on volume of sales).
I have little sympathy for the game publishers. The margin on brand new $60 games is less than $2 for GameStop and other retailers. T