Sony, Pre-owned games and DRM

[Savagezion]

First, Gamestop does NOT have a monopoly. People need to quit saying that. There are tons of used games outlets in the US.

They have the biggest slice of the pie, and have proven themselves adept at enveloping and consuming smaller retailers. The statement is not without merit.

Yeah, it is. That isn't what a monopoly is. SOmeone could "pull a gamestop and offer games for $10 cheaper than new games and put Gamestop under.

Second, Comparing used games to movies and books is perfectly acceptable. The way the creators are paid is similar, distribution is similar, and risks are similar. Libraries alone should be putting authors and publishers out of business as you don't even have to buy the book by this logic. Additionally, almost all book stores have a "used books" section. Movies cost twice as much as games to make and only have a few months before it goes to $1 theaters and DvDs to recoup that cost.

No. Developers are given a budget, not advances. Even then they still have to see the game turn a profit before they see returns. Your taxes cover the licensing fees relating to library books. Books are limited quantity items. And the fact that movies even have the capacity to recoup their investment at the box office puts them far and away in front of the games industry, who are soley reliant upon that store price point.

Developers are owned by publishers on projects. The "even then they still have to turn a profit" part, at that point - the pay is the same. And once again the budget has always stayed below 50 million meaning 1 million sells takes care of it for most games. 2 million sales covers the big AAA games. It has to sell this many in the first month or two for it to be considered "profitable". Books are only limited quantity based on the demand on the market. You can print more. Remember the E.T. games buried in the desert? The shortages of Wiis recently? Games are limited number too then. You can make too many and you can make too little. Also, Ipad. (There have been digital books for years before the iPad though.) As for movies, recouping 120 million at the box office at 10 bucks a pop is easier because more people can afford that and some might even have the money to go twice. But most go once. With most going once, that is $10 bucks per person. Games are charging $60 and only having to recoup less than half of that. So for every 6 person that would be interested in playing it, only 1 has to buy. Dude, it is a legitimate argument and if the industry was doing as bad as they spout - they would just shut it down or make readjustments. This would not be by layoffs. Ghostbusters was a highly wanted sequel by the gaming community and Activision axed it because they "saw no potential for profiting on sequels". That isn't the sign of an industry hard up for money. That is being picky and a starving man ain't picky.

What? The movie industry is booming right now and setting records - just like the gaming industry.

Which is why EA, one of the Juggernauts of the industry, is only JUST starting to turn its sales figures around? New sales are way, WAY down against outlay.

Really? EA publishes a shitload of crappy titles, so good sales have to make up for it. I am not saying they are good business men I am saying that it is easy to make money if you make quality games. I say make less shitty games that cost $2 million to make, and it shows, and instead pool that money together and dump it into a project you actually believe in. ALl those little nothing companies wanting to make a $4 million Jurassic Park game can fuck off, there is no money in that. Smaller risks lead to smaller gains. If you have the power EA does, utilize it, and quit acting timid. I like how Blizzard put it, "Why bother making a game that is a 50-70 on metacritic, why not make sure it is a 90+ before you release?" EA don't believe in their products, they believe in marketing.

The top 10 grossing movies of all time consist of quite a bit that were released in the last few years, including Avatar which cost 300 million to make. A "triple A" movie with a "low budget" is between $60-80 million. The most expensive game production cost to date was 50 million. Yet Avatar's ticket sale $10 and the DvD sold for $20. ($15 on release week.) So why exactly are games $60? Because they know we will pay it.

Why are porn films $90-$120 a copy? Because the market is much, MUCH smaller than the mainstream movie industry. They have to charge that much because their target audience is that much smaller. Now I've said in the past that distributors are taking the games industry for a bit of a ride as far as the price point goes, and believe me, as an Australian paying $120 for a new release, I am the FIRST to call a publisher on wanton profiteering (And have done so in the past). But we come back to the normative appeal. The games industry has ONE source of income. New sales over the counter, wether that be digital or physical. Any attack on that point is going to result in pricing pain for the consumer.

Porno is the same cost as a regular DvD here in the States. Must be an Aussie thing. The average age of the gaming audience just crested 30. As well, the amount of "gamers" in the states has crested 50%. I think you forget how young games are. If you look back at the VCR and VHS tapes, used VHS tapes were HUGE. Entire stores dedicated to selling mostly used tapes. My whole family is movie enthusiasts and I am the black sheep who prefers the gaming industry. I experienced VHS to its fullest, believe me. But the reason that is important is that as the medium moves forward, used isn't going to mean crap because the audience gets bigger every year. If 90% of the world started gaming tomorrow do you think that they would make games only cost 30 bucks? Fuck no. People would be paying the sixty so why bother lowering the price? Make them work for their money and the market level out naturally. The bottom line is, you can make money producing and selling video games. The consumers are not liable for YOUR risks and that is why EAs numbers were in the toilet, their risks weren't paying off and the ones that were were having to fill the gaps. Not used games. But the fact is we dont know why the numbers ARE failing. We just know what EA ARE saying. And as I said scapegoating is very important in sales. If you blame Gamestop's used games system, you don't look like an incompetent company. If you say "we spent to much on shitty titles" you may raise attention of gamers but your stockholders are going to panic. Scapegoating, and Gamestop is the whipping boy of every publisher right now and fans are eating it up.

One thing that has bugged me about the gaming industry is how much is held behind a curtain. You want to know cost vs. revenue of a movie? Easily accessible for anyone. The studios ain't shy about it. This is smart because then the audience knows where the movie stands. Want to know the same information about a game? Bookmark google and learn how to use it well. Because you are going to have to hunt down a source for every statistic and then cross reference to verify. Why would someone hide this information without motive of trying to hide something?

 

[fix-the-spade]

I did not say it was. Only that if the impetus for fighting piracy is the minimization of loss to the lawful owner of the IP,

Side note this, a lot of the DRM systems being introduced into games now (and in the last three-ish years) have more to do with introducing infinite payment models than they do combating piracy.

The success of MMOs has led to publishers trying to apply elements of that business model to all genres, except that the nature of othre genres leads to this method seeming more obnoxious than it does in MMOs. As well as online passes, map packs and microtransactions have become prevalents, often for content that is either on the disc at release or could be knocked out by a modding team ina week or so.

Halo 2 was the first to do it with any kind of success, before then if you'd told the average publisher that a player would pay $15 every three months for three multiplayer maps you'd probably have been laughed at. Yet here we are.

I find it quite insidious and also dishonest that as the amounts of money publishers make steadily increases they are turning to more and more methods of squeezing money by witholding content, whilst at the same time claiming phantom losses from unverifiable sources. If the film industry sold BluRays that wanted another twenty bucks to see the end of the movie they'd be in court by now.