Jimquisition: Online Passes Are Bad For Everybody

[Vyse86]

Ok Jim, I normally like your show, but this time you there were some major flaws in the arguments you made, mainly about how the used games would benefit the games market.

The reason why online passes exist in the first place is this:
When a publisher releases a game, their profit for each unit sold is about 12$ out of the 60$ the game costs. When you buy the game used however they (and the developers) get 0$ for their efforts. Considering that Gamestop sells new games for nearly as much as as they cost new they make more rofit on each used game they sell than the the people who made that game.
This is where the online pass comes in. Games cost more and more to make and with the used games market taking a ton of money from the developers, the money to make another game/sequel might not be there if the first game doesn't sell really well.

Also: People couldn't redeem their online pass while PSN was down and therefor lost time they could play online because of the code? Can you explain to me how they would have played online while PSN was still down?

 

[Sprinal]

I concur 100%

That is all





Also: This does apply to DRM as well right? Right?...

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I buy games i want full price, but others i either rent or buy second hand. If they got rid of second hand sales, then i wouldnt buy them games at all so jim is right in that respect. What i hate is this problem that all companies release games now. Its stupid. You get months of nothing and then in the space of a few months everything is released. Who has the money? For me so far their is:

Forza 4 14th Oct
Batman AC 21st Oct
Skyrim 11th Nov
Assassins creed 15th Nov
Saints Row 3 18th Nov

Its a lot of money. Why cant they just spread them out throughout the year? Surely they would sell more copies if they released them in june or july.

 

[vxicepickxv]

In general, your false points are made even worse by the fact that used games are now being sold within the first week of a game being released. Used games take a serious amount of money from devs, and considering online actually creates an expense, used games are costing money to the people who made them, even before you begin trying to work out whether sales they would have made otherwise are greater than the sales will may potential arise as a result of a sequel down the line.

Quick counterpoint that might have already been covered. Devs don't normally get extra money if a game does well, unless it's part of a contract. Almost, if not all of the money from great games sales goes to publishers. Developers are already paid in full before the game is released, unless they have a special contract.

 

[Vault101]

I like how Mass Effect 2 handled used games. Hate how THQ and EA do

you buy it used then have to pay for the privelege of NOT being an asshole in the game...hmmm

actually as far as I know thats just the PS3 version

 

[gphjr14]

I'm a prime example of an individual who bought used games then turned around and bought the sequel brand new. I only bought Infamous2 and Killzone 3 because I played the previous version used.

People give me this bullshit excuse that games are more expensive now days hence the increase in price, but that holds true for movies that cost 100s of millions of dollars to make. That doesn't mean they can't be shit. Its up to developers to make a game worth buying new not find ways to fuck over people who recognized the flaws and decided their money was better spent elsewhere.

 

[Pandabearparade]

Flatly speaking, and I reiterate, that the used game industry benefits noone save for the store.

Gamestop hasn't got any responsibility to the publisher, and neither do I. If they want me to buy new, make a game worth buying new. Like Skyrim, which I'll be buying at midnight on 11-11-11.

If used sales cause EA (or another whining corporation) to go belly up, they didn't deserve to stay in business in the first place.

 

[octafish]

Two things.
One. I'm a PC gamer so...hmmf...whatever, you can complain when they start tying your games to one console or account, which they will. Until then suck it up and enjoy the fact you can even buy second hand games.

Two. Stop blinding me with Science Thomas fucking Dolby!

 

[00slash00]

i didnt even really know about online passes...because i never play online

i know the who used game argument is an important issue in the gaming community, but im still getting kinda bored of it. id say about 90%-95% of my games are used. that being said, if tomorrow i was no longer able to buy used games, it wouldnt bother me that much. id much rather be supporting the developers than be supporting only gamestop (though im aware ill be supporting gamestop either way). i could deal with not buying every game i wanted and only buying the games i really really wanted. rather than buying every game that peaks my interest, i buy the ones i really want and send a message to the publishers that this is the kind of game id like to see more of. seems to me, thats how it should work. then again, i remember the days when you couldnt buy used games, so returning to that age isnt a huge jump for me

 

[Jmurray21]

Did the exact thing with used copies to brand new squeals. I bought ac because I needed a game. I got it pre-owned. I loved it so much that on AC2 i bought the black edition which cost $200aud. There you go they got full price (in Australia) for both games.

 

[Gunner 51]

The used car market is the closest you can get, and there's no car company throwing a tantrum about how used cars are "stealing money" from them when people don't want to spend the money on a brand new version, which is what one of these publishers said about the used game market, that it's basically stealing from them.

-You make a product
-You sell a product to a customer
-You have no further rights to money no matter what the customer does with it.

This is pretty much accepted by everyone else and a gamng companies need to stop whining about it.

I agree with this completely. Once money changes hands, the product belongs entirely to the buyer. Once the developer sells to the publisher, the game is no longer their product. It's the publisher's.

Skip a few steps to the retailers. When they sell their game onto the public - it becomes the property of the gamer. What was the retailer's property is no Joe Blogg's property. But the developers lost the right to moan the minute they sold the game to the publisher, and the publisher lose the right to moan when they sell to the retailer.

What really gets the developers and the publisher's knickers in a right twist is when the gamers sell back to the retailer. There are two VERY important reasons for this...

1.) Disposable. If a game is worth the asking price, it'll be one worth keeping.
2.) Convenience. A gamer could just sell his game to one of his buddies but no-one seems bothered by this.

So, why the retailer who nickel and dimes the gamer? Because the retailer always buys - and without any fuss. If the nickel and diming were that bad, the gamer would never have sold their game to them in the first place.

But what can be done about this - the publishers screw the developers, the retailers screw the publishers. The answer is simple - remove the publishers and retailers from the equation. So now you get a gamer who buys directly from the developer.

If everything was done via digital distribution, things would change. Firstly, a gamer would have to visit EA.com (for example) and register with them - a pain in the rear, I know. But stick with it...

Gamer pays Dice for a game - but this is where the rub comes in. The gamer is allowed to make a single copy of the game and burn it onto a disc - so in the event of Dice going bust, his game that he paid for doesn't go the way of the dodo as it's developer did.

Or if the gamer doesn't want that game any more, he can sell it back to Dice via the website for some in-store credit.

The gamer gets his product and the developers get their money. Publishers and retailers get cut out completely leaving the developer with more money to develop a half way decent game. And as I said before, if it's worth buying - it'll be worth keeping. Thus taking a bite out of the used industry.

 

[kouriichi]

Perhaps if the CEO's took a smaller pay check, the company they work for wouldnt have to worry about used games....

 

[Treblaine]

You know what hurts the game industry even more than online passes? Cheap people who wait a month after a game comes out just to get a used copy of a game, thus giving all their money to Gamestop, and not the creators or publishers of the game.

"Oh no, I can't play this shitty multiplayer without putting in a code. Oh woe is me."

Ever consider that the reason they wait a month and pay very little is because the game is mediocre? As in not WORTH getting as-soon-as-possible and paying the highest price?

The problem is disc games can ONLY sell for $60, there is no middle ground between that and $15 downloadable titles. PC games do not have this problem, they can be dynamically priced from anywhere between $70 and $1, minecraft being in the $20 sweet spot and others around $30-40.

 

[BrotherRool]

In general, your false points are made even worse by the fact that used games are now being sold within the first week of a game being released. Used games take a serious amount of money from devs, and considering online actually creates an expense, used games are costing money to the people who made them, even before you begin trying to work out whether sales they would have made otherwise are greater than the sales will may potential arise as a result of a sequel down the line.

Quick counterpoint that might have already been covered. Devs don't normally get extra money if a game does well, unless it's part of a contract. Almost, if not all of the money from great games sales goes to publishers. Developers are already paid in full before the game is released, unless they have a special contract.

It's a good counterpoint and politely made for which I'm grateful, however

1. Even if it's the publishers profiting, a publisher uses that profit to invest into developers, so we still benefit.

2.http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.71663-About-developers-and-advances
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/94790-The-Beatles-Rock-Band-Sales-Are-Better-Than-Expected
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_8/50-Death-to-the-Games-Industry-Part-I.4
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.55628-Harmonix-Sues-Settles-with-Activision-Over-Guitar-Hero-Royalties

These articles all suggest that developers get paid royalties, ie a cut of each game sold. What happens though is that the developer gets paid an advance on his royalties, and it's normally high enough advance that the game has to sell very well before it earns more royalties than the developer has already been paid.

All the wikipedia articles I could find also mentioned 20% royalties being the standard, but I couldn't find any citations

 

[umbraticus]

jimquisition is using the format of feed dump: ending the episode with some random game merchendise (instead of hats)