Capcom Fights Used Game Sales With Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D Saved Games

[ph0b0s123]

So wait, it's a bad thing to buy games used?

Yeah, because when you buy a used game, the publisher of the game gets no money for it.

In the same way that producers of movies, books and music don't get a share of their used markets. Did the industry not just win a court case saying their medium should not be treated any differently to other mediums. Why should videogames be different here?

 

[Innegativeion]

Next DRM is going to be treating games like the messages Inspector gadget receives. After you complete the game it is locked and can't be replayed.

"Congradu-fucking-lations!

The dragon is defeated, the girl is yours, land is saved and peace will reign forever more!

Please remove game card(or disc) and toss in the nearest blast shelter, this game will explode in 10 seconds

 

[Croesus_Hubris]

Wow. If i put down a game for a while, the first thing I do when I pick it back up is delete my old save. While I kinda-sorta understand doing this for a mini-game with high scores and whatnot, I really hope this doesn't catch on to games with legit campaigns or fighting games like Smash Bros. or Soul Caliber. Unlocking new chars and weapons was most of the fun for me.

 

[rje5]

What makes game developers think that they're owed money if someone else their game after they bought it? Could you imagine if Toyota required used car dealerships to send them a cut of all the Toyota's they sold? We'd think they lost their minds. Everything goes down in value over time, and since you already got the money from when that game was new, why should you get more when it gets sold again?

 

[Manji187]

Next DRM is going to be treating games like the messages Inspector gadget receives. After you complete the game it is locked and can't be replayed.

No...you'd have to purchase "replay codes" online....only 2,99 a pop! What a future that would be...

 

[Koroviev]

Wait.... what? They are serious? That had got to be the most ridiculous DRM-type-thing I have ever seen.

What happens if you want to replay the game from the start after you finish it?

This is exactly what I was thinking. If I enjoy a game, I replay it. Talk about putting a stake in the heart of replay value.

 

[harvz]

i think i like this, dont bite my head off yet.

used games are damaging the industry far more than piracy is and yet most of the blame is on piracy. i have many friends who have large game collections, if i go through them i will mostly find preowned or sale items with the odd exception for games on release day and no pirated games (what a shock for people who game with consoles).

see, the games store around here offers 12 months scratch protection on preowned and 3 months on new at the same price. with the discount of the used game minus the scratch protection, you can usually get at least 1 item of dlc. this is the problem for the industry and a solution to dlc for the consumer so...the industry needs tactics such as this and project $10 to make back even a portion of the lost profits if people bought the game new.

im not saying that abolishing used games would help the industry...actually i am, or at least have a small portion of the used sale profits make it back to the industry instead of all for gamestop/ebgames.

 

[rje5]

i think i like this, dont bite my head off yet.

used games are damaging the industry far more than piracy is and yet most of the blame is on piracy. i have many friends who have large game collections, if i go through them i will mostly find preowned or sale items with the odd exception for games on release day and no pirated games (what a shock for people who game with consoles).

see, the games store around here offers 12 months scratch protection on preowned and 3 months on new at the same price. with the discount of the used game minus the scratch protection, you can usually get at least 1 item of dlc. this is the problem for the industry and a solution to dlc for the consumer so...the industry needs tactics such as this and project $10 to make back even a portion of the lost profits if people bought the game new.

im not saying that abolishing used games would help the industry...actually i am, or at least have a small portion of the used sale profits make it back to the industry instead of all for gamestop/ebgames.

No. If a game is good, it will sell like crazy when it's new. If it's forgettable or old, it will be bought used. There is no reason why this is bad. People don't wait to buy Modern Warfare until it comes down to 30 bucks because the next game already came out. Once someone buys something they can do whatever they want with it. If I sell my car, I'm not going to send a check to the manufacturer.

 

[ph0b0s123]

So wait, it's a bad thing to buy games used?

Yeah, because when you buy a used game, the publisher of the game gets no money for it.

In the same way that producers of movies, books and music don't get a share of their used markets. Did the industry not just win a court case saying their medium should not be treated any differently to other mediums. Why should videogames be different here?

It's just a bunch of penny pinchers who do nothing but read sales charts and treat each used game sale as a lost new game sale. I am not defending it in any way.

And I did not think you were defending it from your comments, but your comment was a good jumping off point for what I wanted to say, about why games should be different to other media when the industry has just been fighting tooth and nails not to be different.

Edit: They can't have it both ways...

 

[ph0b0s123]

Double Post....

 

[DrOswald]

If everyone raging against Capcom in these comments were to send the nearest Capcom office a letter telling them why they are mad and why they wont buy the game, it might actually make a difference.

 

[harvz]

i think i like this, dont bite my head off yet.

used games are damaging the industry far more than piracy is and yet most of the blame is on piracy. i have many friends who have large game collections, if i go through them i will mostly find preowned or sale items with the odd exception for games on release day and no pirated games (what a shock for people who game with consoles).

see, the games store around here offers 12 months scratch protection on preowned and 3 months on new at the same price. with the discount of the used game minus the scratch protection, you can usually get at least 1 item of dlc. this is the problem for the industry and a solution to dlc for the consumer so...the industry needs tactics such as this and project $10 to make back even a portion of the lost profits if people bought the game new.

im not saying that abolishing used games would help the industry...actually i am, or at least have a small portion of the used sale profits make it back to the industry instead of all for gamestop/ebgames.

No. If a game is good, it will sell like crazy when it's new. If it's forgettable or old, it will be bought used. There is no reason why this is bad. People don't wait to buy Modern Warfare until it comes down to 30 bucks because the next game already came out. Once someone buys something they can do whatever they want with it. If I sell my car, I'm not going to send a check to the manufacturer.

uh huh, and yet halo 3 sold "like crazy" despite its campaign being downright boring at the best of times, the multiplayer being horrid at best and unplayable at worst...forge was ok.

games dont need to be good to sell well, they need decent marketing and preferably a fanbase of a previous game, their quality usually (excluding graphics) has very little/nothing to do with initial sales and by the time word of mouth has gotten around, the preowns are in and are a better option for the person buying.

heres a proposal, how about used games dont hit shelves until after 1 month of the release date. it gives the 'word of mouth' people a chance to buy the game new and that means that the 1st month has 0 loss for the iundustry, everyone (except the shop) wins.

 

[The Droog]

i think i like this, dont bite my head off yet.

used games are damaging the industry far more than piracy is and yet most of the blame is on piracy. i have many friends who have large game collections, if i go through them i will mostly find preowned or sale items with the odd exception for games on release day and no pirated games (what a shock for people who game with consoles).

see, the games store around here offers 12 months scratch protection on preowned and 3 months on new at the same price. with the discount of the used game minus the scratch protection, you can usually get at least 1 item of dlc. this is the problem for the industry and a solution to dlc for the consumer so...the industry needs tactics such as this and project $10 to make back even a portion of the lost profits if people bought the game new.

im not saying that abolishing used games would help the industry...actually i am, or at least have a small portion of the used sale profits make it back to the industry instead of all for gamestop/ebgames.

If used games are damaging the industry then the current business model is flawed and needs to change and evolve. Hurting your userbase is not the way to accomplish this. Publishers really ought to look at the root cause of the issue - WHY are people buying used games as opposed to new ones?

If the reason is down to purely costs (seems most likely) compared to used then a simple solution seems apparent as to how to fix this. Unfortunately it seems that publishers would rather be greedy and aim for "high price, high volume" which is becoming increasingly unrealistic instead of settling for "lower price, high volume". (A lot of publishers are seeing mostly "high price, low volume" these days apparently.)

 

[vxicepickxv]

I'd say this sold me on not getting the game, but I was sold on that when it was announced for the 3DS.

 

[rje5]

i think i like this, dont bite my head off yet.

used games are damaging the industry far more than piracy is and yet most of the blame is on piracy. i have many friends who have large game collections, if i go through them i will mostly find preowned or sale items with the odd exception for games on release day and no pirated games (what a shock for people who game with consoles).

see, the games store around here offers 12 months scratch protection on preowned and 3 months on new at the same price. with the discount of the used game minus the scratch protection, you can usually get at least 1 item of dlc. this is the problem for the industry and a solution to dlc for the consumer so...the industry needs tactics such as this and project $10 to make back even a portion of the lost profits if people bought the game new.

im not saying that abolishing used games would help the industry...actually i am, or at least have a small portion of the used sale profits make it back to the industry instead of all for gamestop/ebgames.

No. If a game is good, it will sell like crazy when it's new. If it's forgettable or old, it will be bought used. There is no reason why this is bad. People don't wait to buy Modern Warfare until it comes down to 30 bucks because the next game already came out. Once someone buys something they can do whatever they want with it. If I sell my car, I'm not going to send a check to the manufacturer.

uh huh, and yet halo 3 sold "like crazy" despite its campaign being downright boring at the best of times, the multiplayer being horrid at best and unplayable at worst...forge was ok.

games dont need to be good to sell well, they need decent marketing and preferably a fanbase of a previous game, their quality usually (excluding graphics) has very little/nothing to do with initial sales and by the time word of mouth has gotten around, the preowns are in and are a better option for the person buying.

heres a proposal, how about used games dont hit shelves until after 1 month of the release date. it gives the 'word of mouth' people a chance to buy the game new and that means that the 1st month has 0 loss for the iundustry, everyone (except the shop) wins.

I completely agree that bad games do sell well because of their names. Those developers aren't the ones complaining. It's the developers who are getting pissed because people can wait for their game to come down in price, instead of needing it on launch.

It still takes time for games to come down any reasonable amount to warrant buying them used. One month later the game will still sell for $55 in America, so new and used that shortly after launch is indistinguishable.

Keep in mind that if a game is good, there won't be many used copies available because people are still playing them. If there are a bunch of used copies on the market, that's a sign that people weren't enjoying it and want to get something back. If that's the case I don't have a problem with the developer not getting any more money for a bad game.

 

[LostintheWick]

So wait, it's a bad thing to buy games used?

Yeah, because when you buy a used game, the publisher of the game gets no money for it.

In the same way that producers of movies, books and music don't get a share of their used markets. Did the industry not just win a court case saying their medium should not be treated any differently to other mediums. Why should videogames be different here?

It's just a bunch of penny pinchers who do nothing but read sales charts and treat each used game sale as a lost new game sale. I am not defending it in any way.

And I did not think you were defending it from your comments, but your comment was a good jumping off point for what I wanted to say, about why games should be different to other media when the industry has just been fighting tooth and nails not to be different.

Edit: They can't have it both ways...

Publishers in the game industry probably take too much of the cut. It's the developers that need that hard earned cash. I can't wait until there is a better platform for cutting out the middle man. If we can't do that, I'd accept distributing the profits more appropriately among the talents who actually contributed to a given title. Not just market and distribute...

As for film, there are unions that protect those who work in that medium. I'm pretty sure the game industry lacks that. As for authors, idk. I'm guessing that successful titles get a lot of cash into the hands of the talent.

 

[FoolKiller]

It's okay though. At the end of the day it's only 3DS. I don't see this working on a console as the drive doesn't write to the disc. And it would never be accepted to creating save files on the hard drive that are permanent.

Mass Effect 2 complete game. Cannot be erased I believe. Also they could easily have a code that comes with the game which causes it to not be played without it. Shit thats what computers did didnt they.

Of course it can be erased. Just go into the system's memory management and delete it.

As for the serial key era, it was a broken system that didn't really work and hurt the industry. And as long as you didn't want to play online, you could reuse the serial key infinitely.

Also, we are talking about console gaming and for right now they are different creatures.

What would and would not be accepted is based on what has already been accepted. If it's accepted on the 3DS, then it will be easier for people to accept it on other consoles. I can already hear the argument: "It doesn't matter where the save file is stored, they did it on the 3DS and it worked fine".

A new thing introduced this gen are locked save files, I think all 3 consoles have some games that have locked save files for whatever reason (online play, achievements). The lock can get tighter and once people accept it on the 3DS (and many will in the name of hating Gamestop and pirates), it will. Sure you can hack your console to unlock save files but most people don't because there are consequences.

I fear where the game industry is going.

Actually both of those are incorrect statements. First, the fact that it is 3DS does matter. The point is that the file stays on the cartridge. On the disc-based consoles, the save file is stored on the system's hard drive. It's one thing to say that the game can't be started from the beginning. It's quite another to tell the owner of a console that you have to permanently give up their hard drive space to a game. If that was the case, all the old 20 GB hard drives would have had all their space used up in the first couple of years and you would need to purchase a new hard drive to play more games. That just won't happen. It wouldn't make sense from the console manufacturer's point of view.

As for the second part, the files are locked to the accounts, but not from deletion so it doesn't even figure into the argument. What you are talking about relates to swapping save files between accounts, which again is not the point of the discussion.