56% of American Gamers Don't Buy Games

[Ragsnstitches]

And yet people will come here and say that used sales don't cause the publisher any reason to worry...

Not compared to any other industry. Every single industry in the world that sells something that isn't 100% a 'service' has to deal with resales. Why should gaming be any different?

In short: Instead of worrying about it, factor it into your budget (or as Brad Wardell put it: Make games for your CUSTOMERS, not your users, because not all users are customers).

Edit: And just to clarify, I'm an avid PC gamer. The only console i own is an old Xbox (not the 360). All my games are pretty much bought on Steam or some other digital service. I don't purchase pre-owned games, but i respect people that do.

The game industry is much more expensive then the music industry, so can't live off of a few thousand new sales, but needs 10's of thousands of copies to break even and more to make profit.

The game industry does NOT have the luxury of an isolated experience that excels over home use such as film. I'm talking about Theatre/Cinema. DvD sales are usually the icing on the cake in terms of earnings (or a desperate bid to break even) as the majority of earnings come from the box office.

Games simply don't compare and are a completely alien market when compared to music and film. The costs and earnings work differently between each medium.

The game industry is also entirely dependant on individual consumers and retailers to turn a profit. Music has radio stations who will purchase tracks to play on air, from music channels who wish to play their videos, royalties from uses in advertisement and of course Statewide/Nationwide/Global Tours.

Film makes earnings off more then just DvDs. Cinema Screenings rake in the majority of earnings and are counted as a failure if they bomb in the box office, DvDs are then just breaking even. Airlines that play films must purchase them first and I believe pay huge amounts for fixed periods of use.

Again, Games (generally with very few exceptions) are only consumed by individuals and have no fallback to break even. When the game is released it's make or break. They don't have Radio stations lining up to air their hot new singles or Tours that offer a unique experience. They don't have TV stations/International airlines pumping money at you for their demanding customers or Theatres to offer unparalleled sensory delivery.

What games DO have, is DLC (online passes are still in flux, but a lot of vitriolic spite is directed at them, more so then DLC).

These statistics shown are very much so a bad thing. There is no back up for the game industry.

TL/DR:

GAMES ARE NOT THE SAME INDUSTRY AS MUSIC AND FILM. THEY ARE A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BEAST THAT ARE AS DIFFERENT AS NIGHT AND DAY!.

I am so sick of these kneejerk reactions. You ARE killing the industry if you keep defending the current consumers habits with comparisons to industries that might as well be alien.

EDIT: Sorry man... just vented, nothing personal

 

[Baresark]

snip

I personally, always end up buying new since I'm mostly a PC gamer. I'm glad you didn't take offense to my comment, I re-read it and I didn't mean to come off in an accusatory tone. I agree, it's just a matter of trading one luxury for another. While the developer publishers are not the spawn of satan, as I said, you cannot fault people for going where they get a better deal. I'm gonna pre-purchase Skyrim this week, and I'm fighting on whether or not I am just gonna buy it from Steam or get it for cheaper from Direct2Drive. There is a $6 price difference. The only thing preventing me from outright buying it is that I don't want to wait till release to download it.

 

[VanityGirl]

People have been buying preowned games for years. Seriously, I bought a lot of my games on the Genesis used as a kid.

Today, I buy about half of my games new and half used. If there's a game I'm really excited about, not only will I buy it new, but I'll preorder it! But if there's a mild interest, I buy the game preowned.

 

[Jimmy Sylvers]

So... about 7% of gamers consistently buy new?

..............................................

I don't really have words.

There must a mistake here: If I were to get the figure Assassin's Creed II sales for example which has sold 9 million copies.

If these figures were correct that means that out of the copies sold, over 17 million people played the game.

If this is true it is quite shocking.

 

[Irridium]

Hey, publishers, if SO MANY PEOPLE aren't buying new, and one of the big reasons is price, perhaps it'd be a good idea to reduce your fucking prices already. You know, like what any other business would do.

A publisher receives 17$ per a 60$ game sold( PC market excluded), when the price goes down they receive even less. Now mister marketer, how much do you think a game should cost, so that the additional sales compensate the lower price?

Lets go with what Bethesda's own Todd Howard said and say $40. Of course, for retail they'll only then make about $7-$8, but they have avenues to make up for that. Avenues like DLC and digital sales.

They'd have to take a bit of a hit in the short term, yes. But it'll be beneficial in the long term. Thanks to the iPhone/iPad, which lets you get literally hundreds of new and interesting games for free or $1-$5, paying $60 for a game is slowly but surely becoming obsolete.

Hey, publishers, if SO MANY PEOPLE aren't buying new, and one of the big reasons is price, perhaps it'd be a good idea to reduce your fucking prices already. You know, like what any other business would do.

Especially you EA, who said that the $60 price was a problem way back in 200-fucking-7, and still have done NOTHING to remedy this despite now having your own store where you can charge whatever you want.

Publishers are so quick to blame so many things for the loss of money, but I would bet that their own broken-ass business model is the biggest reason.

Yeah.. how dare developers keep charging the same price they've been charging for decades. It's not as if they're spending a whole sh'load more on developing art assets for high definition visuals, or spending more money on getting actual voice actors and orchestrated music instead of 8bit beeping and booping, to say nothing of how it's free to develop multiplayer modes and make sure it's all balanced as well as having a semi-decent single player mode. And we certainly know they don't have to deal with inflation -- after all, movie tickets have continually gone down in price since the 80s. Thank goodness we have super-intelligent folks like you to point out the problem is simply they're charging too much for what we expect in a game.

Oh wait.. the opposite of all that.

I got a fix for that. It's called not doing those things.

Don't waste money on amazing graphics that'll be obsolete a year later, and instead focus on creating a strong art-style. Don't waste money on a huge, orchestral soundtrack that will end up sounding just like every other orchestral soundtrack, and instead focus on small, more atmospheric tunes that come in, set the mood, then leave. Don't waste money on a multiplayer mode because not everything needs multiplayer, and focus on the story. And voice actors won't mean anything if the game's story is crap, so use the money you're saving by not doing the other things and hire some actual writers.

And yes yes, inflation and all that. But large amounts of people aren't willing to buy the games at the current prices, so they need to change so those people can buy the games.

And yeah yeah, game developers work hard. We all have problems. Customers buy from the ones offering the best deal. Right now that's used sales. So start offering better deals. Customers have no obligation to buy from anyone.

 

[lord.jeff]

Personally I follow a 1 hour per dollar rule. If I expect to get 1 hour of enjoyment for every dollar a game costs I will buy it. With me playing very few multiplayer games that means I don't usually buy games new. I'm not spending 60 dollars for a 4 hour campaign.

I take it you don't watch movies then.

 

[Aeonknight]

I don't care if they get paid." Well, these people seem to forget that without developers, there is no game industry anymore.

This is the wrong emphasis. Without customers, there is no game industry anymore. Unless the game designers want to work a regular job instead of a "fun" job, they have to meet the demands of the market. There was no game industry until guys who made games in their bedroom decided they wanted to monetize their game, that's why you have this hobby. For that you need someone who wants to purchase the thing you have made. It's a buyer's market. If they value your game at 20 dollars, then your price needs to be 20 dollars.

The demand for games will not vanish. But the people in the industry who are unable to meet the demand because they thought they were more important than the customer, they will vanish, and good riddance.

It's not really the wrong emphasis if they're both required for this industry to exist. The only one that's unneccesary is the retail side. Yet they're the ones screwing both ends, and it's somehow developer's fault (and to give credit where it's due, they blame us too.)

Hell even off Extra Credits' video here:
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/project-ten-dollar

More of your money is going to game stop's pocket rather than developers. yet the developers are the greedy assholes...?

 

[Baresark]

snip

snip

TL/DR:

GAMES ARE NOT THE SAME INDUSTRY AS MUSIC AND FILM. THEY ARE A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BEAST THAT ARE AS DIFFERENT AS NIGHT AND DAY!.

While they are not exactly the same, what you say is not explicitly true. The pricing structure may not be the same, it is still a luxury entertainment industry. The only other things the other two mentioned industries have over videogames is that they have elements that are considered art. Same thing goes for books.

The costs of production are amorphis in nature. There is no definitive amount of money that must go in any project. It just so happens that the average AAA title cost $18-$28 Million to make. But there are plenty of stories of small developers becoming overnight success stories by selling a product that very little has gone into.

It's misleading to define the videogame industry as vastly different than other entertainment industries. It's simply untrue. You are making an excuse for developers that do not turn out a product that can at least get back what they put into it. And it's not the consumers responsibility to see a company prosper, it's the companies responsibility to produce a product that people want. Likewise, it's also not the consumers responsibility to refrain from buying the product for a better rate if they can get it at a better rate.

Unfortunately, the game industry, while it's not exactly the same as other industries, should not be exempt from the same consumer end sales as other industries. You can't name another industry that has the same problem with resales. And it's not because it's so different, it's simply because car companies, record producers, book publishers, and the movie industry (to name a few) have dealt with it the only way it can be dealt with. They constantly try to turn out a product that people want. The videogame industry is different in one very important way though. Some companies seem to want to turn out crap and make huge profits. But they don't. Why? Because they put out a product that isn't worth the asking price. So, anyone selling it for cheaper is going to get the sale. And if someone buys a product they are unhappy with, they are entitled to try and make the best of it, even if that means selling the product to a neighbor or selling to Gamestop so they can get credit to buy another game they may want.

 

[deathbydeath]

Hey, publishers, if SO MANY PEOPLE aren't buying new, and one of the big reasons is price, perhaps it'd be a good idea to reduce your fucking prices already. You know, like what any other business would do.

Especially you EA, who said that the $60 price was a problem way back in 200-fucking-7, and still have done NOTHING to remedy this despite now having your own store where you can charge whatever you want.

Publishers are so quick to blame so many things for the loss of money, but I would bet that their own broken-ass business model is the biggest reason.

Valve has proven [http://www.geekwire.com/2011/experiments-video-game-economics-valves-gabe-newell] that the less you charge, the more you make. Perhaps you should try that.

The thing that always bugs me is people complaining that they don't make enough new IP's but then won't buy new IP games new, they rent them or buy them used.

Well when the publisher doesn't market them, charges $60, and releases the at the same time as the next big Modern Warfare, Assassin's Creed, Halo, Battlefield, Elder Scrolls, and/or Fallout game, can you really blame them for not wanting to risk their money on it?

Would you risk $60 on a game you've never heard of, when instead of it you can buy the sequel to a series you already know you love?

Mass Effect 3 just defeated your argument, and I do tend to buy new new ip's more often then sequels. I have steam, but still...

 

[Jodah]

Personally I follow a 1 hour per dollar rule. If I expect to get 1 hour of enjoyment for every dollar a game costs I will buy it. With me playing very few multiplayer games that means I don't usually buy games new. I'm not spending 60 dollars for a 4 hour campaign.

I take it you don't watch movies then.

I only buy movies when they are marked down or its one I expect to watch several times. As for going to the theater, I will go with my old man but that's more for the bonding than the actual entertainment of the movie.

 

[Vivace-Vivian]

Maybe they should start releasing games that people actually really care about. When Catherine came out I handed over my money. Why? Not because I was crazy for Catherine, but because I know Atlus is a valuable producer and developer to me and the game would be at least decent. Seeing a big ass hole in a top hat asking for me to add to their multi million dollar pile by threatening me with not being able to play Dead Space 2's multiplayer draws very little sympathy from me.

 

[KarmaKing93]

Every single time someone thinks that their price is bad they should consider other countries. If it was only 60 dollars for a brand new game many more Australians would be happy and buy games more often. Bt the way it is now, the RRP for games such as CoD MW3 and Skyrim is generally $109.95 AUD

 

[esperandote]

I'm on that percentage, of course we couldn't exists if the guys that buy new and trade in didn't exists so thank to them.

 

[Irridium]

Hey, publishers, if SO MANY PEOPLE aren't buying new, and one of the big reasons is price, perhaps it'd be a good idea to reduce your fucking prices already. You know, like what any other business would do.

Especially you EA, who said that the $60 price was a problem way back in 200-fucking-7, and still have done NOTHING to remedy this despite now having your own store where you can charge whatever you want.

Publishers are so quick to blame so many things for the loss of money, but I would bet that their own broken-ass business model is the biggest reason.

Valve has proven [http://www.geekwire.com/2011/experiments-video-game-economics-valves-gabe-newell] that the less you charge, the more you make. Perhaps you should try that.

The thing that always bugs me is people complaining that they don't make enough new IP's but then won't buy new IP games new, they rent them or buy them used.

Well when the publisher doesn't market them, charges $60, and releases the at the same time as the next big Modern Warfare, Assassin's Creed, Halo, Battlefield, Elder Scrolls, and/or Fallout game, can you really blame them for not wanting to risk their money on it?

Would you risk $60 on a game you've never heard of, when instead of it you can buy the sequel to a series you already know you love?

Mass Effect 3 just defeated your argument, and I do tend to buy new new ip's more often then sequels. I have steam, but still...

How did Mass Effect 3 defeat my argument in any way?

It's a sequel to a popular franchise, from a popular developer, being released at a time many games won't be releasing, and will be marketed to hell and back by EA.

The only thing it's doing that I suggest changing is being $60. Which is one point, and does not defeat my argument. Just one point of it. And even then its shaky because EA is doing everything else right and creating a perfect environment to charge $60 for it, even though it'd sell a LOT more if it was $40-$50.

As for you buying more new IP's, well yeah, its because Steam generally has those on sale all the time. Charging less and getting more sales. There's also the matter that apparently new IP's sell better on the PC than consoles, but that's a whole other discussion.

 

[Athinira]

The game industry is much more expensive then the music industry, so can't live off of a few thousand new sales, but needs 10's of thousands of copies to break even and more to make profit.

The game industry does NOT have the luxury of an isolated experience that excels over home use such as film. I'm talking about Theatre/Cinema. DvD sales are usually the icing on the cake in terms of earnings (or a desperate bid to break even) as the majority of earnings come from the box office.

By "other industries", did you honestly think i only meant within the entertainment industry?

I'm talking practically everything. Cars, furniture, electronic devices. You name it. The game industry might need more than the music industry to break even, but there are industries out there that are in an even worse state than the game industry in that regard and who can barely manage, and they still have to deal with it.

Every industry has different things they suffer under, but they all have to deal with resales. Some do it better than others. The music industry, for example, has to live with that many of their users don't buy the music but consider it enough to listen to it on YouTube. They actually have to offer their music almost for free these days in order to sell it.

In addition, this is something the game industry has brought upon themself. They all are willingly going for high AAA titles with million dollars budgets. When all they are giving consumers is a high supply of high-budget titles at high prices, then it's obvious the demand in some . For the second time in this thread i will have to refer to StarDock again. As Brad Wardell explained, instead of doing games with ridiculous budgets, they went for something more conservative on a low budget and still managed to create a great game series that made them a profit (Sins of a Solar Empire). Did it sell as well as other AAA titles? No, but that was planned. They worked out the budget, the expected return and saw profit, even disregarding piracy.

This is akin to the movie industry making B-movies, which happens alot. In the game industry, instead of going for cheaper games on a cheaper budget, most of the game producers themself have decided to make it a race for the AAA titles at high budgets, which they then have to put out at high prices for the consumers. And guess what: Since the consumers have a limited budget to buy games for, they can't afford all the games at the store price. So they have to buy used. The only thing they can hope for is that the games they put out is better/more popular than the competition, netting them the most sales, but nevertheless, no matter how much they blame resales, it's a class example of the simple punishment for completely misunderstanding supply and demand in their primary market. Piracy and resales is always going to exist, so you have to take those things into account BEFORE you make your game. Not just blame them after the fact that the game didn't turn the profit you expected.

If anything, indie games has shown us that there is a market for low budget low price games. Hell, there even exists games in between that are on a medium budget and are sometimes quite quite good and sells quite quite well. But the simple problem is that game companies always wants to grow bigger, not realizing that the consumer base and their disposable income isn't growing at the same rate = Supply is outgrowing demand (at least amongst the expensive AAA titles).

So TL/DR:
THE GAME INDUSTRY IS JUST AS MANY OTHER INDUSTRIES. THEY JUST SUFFER FROM THEIR OWN GREED AND DESIRE TO GROW BIGGER, AND JUST HAVEN'T REALIZED THAT THEIR TROUBLE WITH BREAKING EVEN EXIST BECAUSE THEY ARE OUTGROWING DEMAND.

 

[FoolKiller]

Of course people share them. People also share DVDs, books, and other media without making a second purchase. So what's the big deal?

Thank you. Why is it only this market that seems to vilify sharing, borrowing and buying used.

No one ever seems to listen to this. If people didn't have access to used games then many games (including new ones) would never be played and purchased. A lot of games that are purchased new are done so by trading in old games.

Yes, it's true that if I buy a used game then the publisher does not get any money from me. However, if I don't have anywhere to trade in my used games then I would not be able to afford as many new games. The only reason this would be the case is if the shop where I trade in games ceased to exist because no one buys used games.

This cycle feeds itself. The idea of everyone buying new would only result in fewer new sales overall. If fewer people buy a game, then the publishers need to make more money per copy. This results in more expensive price point where even fewer people could afford them.

In summary, used games are not the damnation of the market. They may, in fact, be the salvation.

 

[JayDig]

I purchase a lot of newly released PC games, both digital and retail, but nearly all 360 games I play are lent to or from friends/family.

And nearly all of the books I read are borrowed from friends/family, and a paperback doesn't cost $60. Thats just what people do with entertainment.

 

[gokenshadow]

Perhaps this game sharing trend is due to the economy. As disposable income gets more and more scarce, the need to be the sole owner of a means of travel, a place to live, or even a video game to play becomes less and less appealing.