How do you feel about the fight against Used Sales?

[Epona]

If this is a "fight" then the game publishers are winning.
They already won the fight in PC land and now they're winning in console land. That's just it.

Funny isn't it? Gamestop doesn't seem to be putting up any type of fight and do alot of handshaking with publishers. Gamestop gets exclusive games, exclusive accessories and exclusive pre-order bonuses. Maybe we should be wondering why Gamestop isn't helping to preserve the used market?

 

[Snotnarok]

It's stupid, they're trying to get around what every other media format (books/movies/etc) has when they usually make a lot more money than either of them. Used sales have been around for ages and even if a game does horrible, the company still turns a profit.

And when these companies do nothing themselves to make their games worth buying such as not having chunks of the game in dlc/having respectable prices/etc they go after the worst option first.

Look at steam, they do big sales and a lot of games don't automatically get listed at 60USD, there's the hint. Is your game 5 hours long? THen don't sell it for 60 because it's not fucking worth it. Now more people will buy it and not wait for it to go used.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I think it's ridiculous. Esp. considering the problem can essentially be narrowed down to one place: Gamestop/EB Games (they are essentially one and the same). So they should be trying to get rid of Gamestop without hurting their customers.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Overall, I believe that the existence of used games had led me to contribute more towards the gaming industry than i would have otherwise. I originally got my first Halo game, Halo 3, preowned in a sale. Fast-forward to now, and I own Halo 3, ODST, Halo Wars, Halo Reach and Halo 2. All new, except Halo 2. Without Halo 3 being so cheap preowned, I would never have gotten interested in it (probably), and so the industry would have been without my considerable contributions.
Man, how any times did I use the word 'Halo'?

 

[Tjebbe]

I never understood how they manage to get away with the huge margins they get in used sales; If I see a used game that is like ten percent less than the new one, I'll happily pay that for the shiny version. I don't often see them (since older games tend to get their prices slashed anyway), but I don't usually see the value in it unless it's around 25-30% of the new price.

That said, I really don't understand the problems the publishers have with selling used games in the first place; once they have sold something, they have gotten their money. The buyer should be able to do whatever he or she wants with it, including playing it forever, letting it rot, giving it away, or selling it on. If they sell it, they will have more money to buy new games (and given that they bought it in the first place, there is a pretty big chance they spend it on more games). Trying to stop this is bad for the whole market, IMO.

But what I really really don't understand is how the digital distribution companies don't see value in used games, they could allow their users to re-sell their games (the cost for them being to transfer 'ownage' from one account to another, i.e. update 2 rows in a database), let the seller decide the price (with some low minimum), take a 10% cut from that. The seller has more to spend on new games, the buyer may buy something it would not have because the full price is too high, and they get essentially free money in the whole deal.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Uh, nope. You clearly don't know anything about business and economy. Killing used game sales will drive prices UP, not DOWN, because it kills competition. Used games are why games are at the current price, instead of being much more expensive.

There used to be a used game market for PC games. Now, almost everything has DRM or authenticates through Steam. Games have never been cheaper. I do appreciate your authoritarian pronouncement though. It's very compelling.

 

[Lunar Templar]

There will be no poll, because I want to hear opinions, not statistics. How do console gamers feel about the rumors swirling about anti used game policies coming in the next console cycle?

as a PC gamer who was until rather recently a LONG time console gamer.

it offends me, greatly that then are so short sighted. killing used sales will do more over all harm then good, and the console market is already on shakey ground with a pretty good chunk if its big games being on the PC as well. used games are pretty much the only thing about then that stand out, with out them, why bother with a console when its the 'inferior version' pretty much universally.

but that's assuming this rumor is true, and if it is true, all it really says to me is they don't want to be in the console market anymore.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Uh, nope. You clearly don't know anything about business and economy. Killing used game sales will drive prices UP, not DOWN, because it kills competition. Used games are why games are at the current price, instead of being much more expensive.

There used to be a used game market for PC games. Now, almost everything has DRM or authenticates through Steam. Games have never been cheaper. I do appreciate your authoritarian pronouncement though. It's very compelling.

I used to buy used PC games for an average of $5 a piece, and brand new older (but still AAA) releases for $10 each. Even brand new releases topped out at about $40. Today they run from $50-$60 on average, with $20 being the average bottom price for a AAA game, and used games being almost unheard of. And don't give me that crap about inflation; yes, everything has gotten more expensive since prices were that low. But adjusted for inflation, wages haven't increased since the 70's, nor have they even really kept up with inflation. Games are no more cheaper in the aftermath of the death of used PC games than movie tickets are in the wake of 3D movies.

 

[Odbarc]

When I want a game, I prefer it new.

Some games I bought cheap because they were cheap and sometimes I fell in love with the game so much I bought the sequels.
Now, I shall no longer have such an opportunity.
Game developers are pigeon holding themselves new customers and rewarding pirates for their thievery.

With each passing generation, I find myself less and less invested in the new things because of how poorly managed greedy corporations have become. "Games" have become merely interactive media for the purpose of generating money from people.

E.T... there are many companies in the future who will put their names next to your cartridges.

 

[Redryhno]

I support used sales, if the publishers want to get rid of the GameStops of the world, set up your own damn used game shop, give incentives for gamers to sell their games there, like some kind of exclusive DLC code for their next game, or even better exchange rates would get people going there instead of anyplace else in my opinion. It's a part of capitalism, and like it or not, the world is becoming more capitalist.

Another point would have to be that I take new sales over used if I feel a game is worth 60 bucks, if I don't know anything about, there's no demo, and I can't find anything really substantial about it beyond "prettier colors, more engagier gameplay, strongier character development than that piece of shit those guys did", they lose a sale, I much prefer to have an idea of what I'm buying.

On the subject of pirates, I think alot of it comes back to a mixture of devs/pubs/etc./Idontgiveadamns, not putting out some kind of demo for it, laziness, and cheapness. Because of a mindset that alot of people have with "I've already got this free copy here, why should I go out and buy something that limits what I can do?"

 

[emeraldrafael]

I think its a lot of butthurt from someone who was screwed by a used game retailer, by someone who go screwed by a developer on the ten dollar download thing, or by someone who thinks the developers are gods and deserve sales fromthe game every time its sold.

I rather enjoy used items and some of my more playd games were used games. its a nice cheaper option. plus just about every other market has a "used _______" market so i dont see why games are so different and evil.

 

[Korzack]

I feel there is nothing wrong with the idea of Second-hand game sales, or with the current money dispersal model. My problem is in the pig-thick idiotic way that games retailers are using them to bite the hand that feeds in the aggressive fashion that's happened so many times before. And the funny thing, the next generation's console DRM is going to wind up killing used games the way that DRM killed second hand sales on PC so many years ago - for example, the newest second-hand game I own on PC is Medieval II Total War from 2006. And there's partly a problem with publishers demanding more money for subsequent buyings of the same game especially when many publishers use DLC in a shamelessly pathetic attempt to scrounge more money out of fans as it is. We're currently at a bit of am impasse - okay, true, retailers and customers to a lesser degree need to stop taking the piss so much (I personally revile the term "Consumer"), but at the same time, publishers (For they are the ultimate puppeteers here, not the developers) also need to stop treating their customers as retarded criminals.

 

[LordLundar]

Used Game sales have been around almost as long as New Game sales have been. The reason why publishers are bitching and moaning about it now is because those sales are overlapping into their new sales projection times, usually measured in days.

The problem is that they keep looking at other locations as the source of the problem such as used game retailers or consumers directly. What they're not realizing is this: these games are not mystical copies that appear out of nowhere. They are purchased new at some point and the person is burning through the game, finding no re-playability and trading it in within a few hours. This indicates a problem not with the sale market, but with the game quality and longevity itself. Sure publishers try to extend it with DLC and multiplayer, either tacked on or built around. But if a game isn't worth the purchase, tacked on artificial extensions will not prevent the games from being traded in. Then there's the new approach of actively preventing reselling, which is going to do no more than drive customers away.

If publishers really want to cut into used game sales, they need to make games that are worth keeping as opposed to trading in within a few hours of purchase.

 

[Murmillos]

I never had a problem with used sales, until the day I waked into a GameStop 7 years ago, with a new sealed game in hand (back in the day when the didn't mess with new games), and the manager pushed it off the counter top (letting it hit the ground), pulled out a used game in a cheap CD bag (with that clear plastic front) and told me he was going to save me $5.
I spat on the counter, told him to go fuck himself and promptly left (knocking another item on the ground on the way out). I had no reason to go back to that store.
[note: if it was anybody else except the manager, I would have said no thanks and left, but since it was the cock-mangling manager, he got the full fuck-all treatment he rightfully deserved.)

I still buy the occasional game on launch day - but saying no about 20 times to all their deals and offers is tiresome. Their online shipping cost is abysmal; either pay half the game cost to get it on the day after launch day, or $4 bucks to get it maybe sometime in the next week or two -- forcing you to want to come into the store; wankers.

I like amazon.com more, but the fucking DLC stranglehold GameStop has is bull crap. Which I suspect most of their used game money profit goes towards.


Over all, used games are a necessary evil of the industry, which game developers long understood, tolerated and even welcomed. But when GameStop and everybody else followed suit in making it their primary business model that only grows with no end in sight; the I fully support developers to do everything they can to stop the blatant screwing of used games. Hopefully if they blocked used game sales, they drop new game prices, since "used games drive up launch day game prices".

 

[Rawne1980]

I buy used and I couldn't give a toss what the publishers think.

I buy them because they are cheap. If they didn't have used games then there are games I just wouldn't buy.

I only get a few games brand sparkly new a year and those are the ones I look forward to. Then there are those games i'll grab when I see them cheap.

If they take away used games then there are still only a few games i'll buy each year and the rest will just be forgotten about.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I used to buy used PC games for an average of $5 a piece, and brand new older (but still AAA) releases for $10 each. Even brand new releases topped out at about $40. Today they run from $50-$60 on average, with $20 being the average bottom price for a AAA game, and used games being almost unheard of. And don't give me that crap about inflation; yes, everything has gotten more expensive since prices were that low. But adjusted for inflation, wages haven't increased since the 70's, nor have they even really kept up with inflation. Games are no more cheaper in the aftermath of the death of used PC games than movie tickets are in the wake of 3D movies.

Hey cool. My anecdotal experience is completely opposite of yours. I guess...you can go on believing there is no longer a market for inexpensive PC games, and I'll go on enjoying all these inexpensive PC games. It's a win-win!

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I used to buy used PC games for an average of $5 a piece, and brand new older (but still AAA) releases for $10 each. Even brand new releases topped out at about $40. Today they run from $50-$60 on average, with $20 being the average bottom price for a AAA game, and used games being almost unheard of. And don't give me that crap about inflation; yes, everything has gotten more expensive since prices were that low. But adjusted for inflation, wages haven't increased since the 70's, nor have they even really kept up with inflation. Games are no more cheaper in the aftermath of the death of used PC games than movie tickets are in the wake of 3D movies.

Hey cool. My anecdotal experience is completely opposite of yours. I guess...you can go on believing there is no longer a market for inexpensive PC games, and I'll go on enjoying all these inexpensive PC games. It's a win-win!

It's not that there isn't a market for inexpensive PC games (I should know; I did the math on my Steam account recently and found out I'd only paid about a tenth of its current value, and its current value is just shy of $1000), it's that AAA games are only cheap if you buy them during one of the big sales -- big sales that primarily exist because of the competition from retail. The regular, non-sale price has gone up over the years. It's nice that indie games have found a niche that didn't exist on the scale then that it does now, but when you compare like with like, prices really have come up.

 

[Shadow Master]

I'm on the fence, and it's a very uncomfortable fence.

On one hand, I personally never, ever buy anything preowned out of sheer disgust at the idea of using handmedowns. However, that's only for buying preowned. I have nothing against friends sharing games, etc.

On the other hand, I'm not a fan of DRM and various "exclusive" content. I think games should be like they were in the good old days of the NES/SNES/PS1/N64, where the cartridge/disk comprised the entire game and thus could be given or traded or sold at will without any problems.

Complicated matter, this.

Just outlaw preowned SALES, I say, but abolish all the additional content that ships after the release of half finished games. Put everything into one package, for blazes' sake. Stop cutting up the Mona Lisa, like in that one pic floating around online.

 

[LilithSlave]

It's as ridiculous as the fight against piracy.

If you don't like piracy or used games, make some proper competition.