Used Games v. Piracy

[oplinger]

How is it costing them more money?

Time frames. The company projects multiplayer server costs for a specific time. If the game recieves a lot of used sales, but no more revenue, the game shuts down, and the used customer does not get the full experience.

Say I play a game online for over a year, I got my moneys worth because I payed for the game on release. The devs got their slice, and factored that into the time table for the servers. X amount of people for Y amount of time. Now if you buy used, they see no more money from that, and they ether have to eat it, and extend the time frame for the servers (It's happened. if the sales are large enough, or if the game stays popular.) Or they have to find a way to make revenue (Map packs, which are bitched about too.) Either way they're putting more money into a product in which revenue has ceased.

really games need to be cheaper across the board, 60 is too much and makes the used games much more tempting, 40 should be the cost of a new game but if you really want to kill used games sales then make a new game 20 bucks, not many people will trade that in to at best just get 10 back

Ugh, that's a pretty disgusting idea. Imagine having to sell 1.5 MILLION units of a game, and still not break even. Most games don't even break 1 million. Or even 500,000.

 

[Epona]

I still say that trying to make money off of a used game is like trying to sell it twice.

That being said, game devs are barely pulling a profit these days, if they do, so I can't blame them.

Still, they should be awarding players who buy new, not punishing players who buy used. Maybe give players who buy new a small chunk of extra stuff such as the 1st day DLCs? I don't know

On that note: 1st day DLC is good if players who buy new get it free, and its EXTRA content, not content already in the game.

Day 1 DLC that they give away is just content they would have put in the game if DLC didn't exist. So it is really content that should be on the disc but instead requires an internet connection to get. Day 1 DLC that is free for players who buy new is is giving nothing extra to anyone but rather taking away from people who buy used. It's like getting a value meal from McDonalds but having to go around and back through the drive through to get the fries even though they should have included them in the first place.

 

[Staskala]

The key difference, again, is this:
"Also, you kinda forgot about the guy who traded the game in. What will he do with the money/points he got from trading?
Buy a new game obviously, a game he couldn't afford without trading in his old games.
What people do these days is buy a game, play it, trade it in and get a new one, so in the end it all evens out.
There is no fucking disadvantage for publishers here. It's completely different from piracy where the developer doesn't see a single cent."

That only disguises and muddles the issue by "recycling" some of the cash into different timeframes (past, present and future).

The math is simple with regards to money amounts changing hands for games (be it new or used) when ignoring taxes (it gets even worse with taxes) and on a long enough timescale:
Total cash paid by gamers = New purchases + Used purchases - Used refunds
Total cash pocketed by resellers of used games = Used purchases - Used refunds
Total cash received by publishers = Total cash paid by gamers - Total cash pocketed by resellers
which coincidentally simplifies into
Total cash received by publishers = New purchases and nothing else

The math disagrees with you.

Yes, and again, without the existence of the used games market people would buy less new games, thus reducing the "Total cash received by publishers".
Why? How about you finally read a whole post?
"The fact that a game can be traded in is part of its value to the customer. If he couldn't trade them in, he wouldn't buy as many games.
Abolishing the used games market takes away a key "feature" of a game, which in turn would decrease its value (again, to the customer) and reduce demand. Plain and simple. The existence of the used games market is insurance that even if you're not financially stable or if you buy a bad game, there's always a way to get back part of your invested money."

 

[Tibike77]

When a product is purchased from retail, it becomes property. It is the right of an individual to sell their own property, even to another company, where it then become's that company's property, free to be sold again.
When a product is stolen, it becomes stolen goods, and becomes illegal to sell or own.
If video game companies don't like the capitalist model, they shouldn't sell products in a capitalist market.

I will repeat the exact same thing yet again.

We will end up in a place where game companies will no longer "sell" any games at all, but will instead sell subscriptions to their games (and all possible addons), with key parts of the game's logic computed server-side, never actually delivered to the end user, and an "always on" Internet connection will be mandatory to play, because the game will be a mostly dumb terminal.
Basically, all games will work pretty much like a MMO, even single player games.
Then, there will be no more legal disputes at all - you won't be ABLE to "buy used" at all in the first place.

Yes, and again, without the existence of the used games market people would buy less new games, thus reducing the "Total cash received by publishers"
Why? How about you finally read a whole post?
"The fact that a game can be traded in is part of its value to the customer. If he couldn't trade them in, he wouldn't buy as many games.
Abolishing the used games market takes away a key "feature" of a game, which in turn would decrease its value (again, to the customer) and reduce demand. Plain and simple. The existence of the used games market is insurance that even if you're not financially stable or if you buy a bad game, there's always a way to get back part of your invested money."

If the Gamestop-like shops would NOT be making a profit from reselling used games, they would not be doing it. This means that at all times the "cut" from the pie is larger than zero even after taxes, so the same amount of money spent by gamers when also engaging in used games trading translates into a LOWER overall sum allocated to purchasing NEW games.
You seem to believe that the difference in the sum spent on new games due to the existence of used games trading is far smaller than the difference in the sum spent on new games if you could not trade in your old games due to psychological effects that are not backed by fiscal balance reality.

Do YOU buy books, movies, music or even clothes or furniture with the intent to resell it ? Does the fact you can resell it affect your purchase decision AT ALL ? Why exactly would it significantly affect it for games then ?

Or, you know, god forbid, the game publishers would wise up and be forced to adopt a Steam-like pricing model, and look at that, the same end-effect would be achieved.

 

[Epona]

How is it costing them more money?

Time frames. The company projects multiplayer server costs for a specific time. If the game recieves a lot of used sales, but no more revenue, the game shuts down, and the used customer does not get the full experience.

Say I play a game online for over a year, I got my moneys worth because I payed for the game on release. The devs got their slice, and factored that into the time table for the servers. X amount of people for Y amount of time. Now if you buy used, they see no more money from that, and they ether have to eat it, and extend the time frame for the servers (It's happened. if the sales are large enough, or if the game stays popular.) Or they have to find a way to make revenue (Map packs, which are bitched about too.) Either way they're putting more money into a product in which revenue has ceased.

Uh no. They shut down the servers when they want to. No one is forcing them to keep the servers online past a certain point.

 

[Braedan]

I will repeat the exact same thing yet again.

We will end up in a place where game companies will no longer "sell" any games at all, but will instead sell subscriptions to their games (and all possible addons), with key parts of the game's logic computed server-side, never actually delivered to the end user, and an "always on" Internet connection will be mandatory to play, because the game will be a mostly dumb terminal.
Basically, all games will work pretty much like a MMO, even single player games.
Then, there will be no more legal disputes at all - you won't be ABLE to "buy used" at all in the first place.

Right, then I'm sure a number of people will stop buying games, or will suck it up.
Until then, games ARE property, and it remains legal, and fully in your rights to sell your own property.

Therefore I say to you, Feel free to explain the radical similarities you believe exists between buying used and pirating.

 

[oplinger]

How is it costing them more money?

Time frames. The company projects multiplayer server costs for a specific time. If the game recieves a lot of used sales, but no more revenue, the game shuts down, and the used customer does not get the full experience.

Say I play a game online for over a year, I got my moneys worth because I payed for the game on release. The devs got their slice, and factored that into the time table for the servers. X amount of people for Y amount of time. Now if you buy used, they see no more money from that, and they ether have to eat it, and extend the time frame for the servers (It's happened. if the sales are large enough, or if the game stays popular.) Or they have to find a way to make revenue (Map packs, which are bitched about too.) Either way they're putting more money into a product in which revenue has ceased.

Uh no. They shut down the servers when they want to. No one is forcing them to keep the servers online past a certain point.

They shut down servers then they no longer find it financially viable to keep them online for the amount of players they have. Or they just cannot keep the server running. No game company is just going to drop trou and wave their dick in the face of all their customers because they just -feel- like shutting down servers. The only way to keep servers up longer, is to invest money into them, which comes from some revenue stream. Be it profits from other games, or map packs, or a 10 dollar fee used players have to pay. It has to some from somewhere.

On a fun side note, I'm sure you'd be very angry if your favorite game just popped up one day with a message "Fuck off, we're closing the server" ..Now, treating us like criminals may not be well liked. Doing that won't make them buy a game from you ever again.

So let's not dance around with double standards.

 

[Staskala]

Yes, and again, without the existence of the used games market people would buy less new games, thus reducing the "Total cash received by publishers".
Why? How about you finally read a whole post?
"The fact that a game can be traded in is part of its value to the customer. If he couldn't trade them in, he wouldn't buy as many games.
Abolishing the used games market takes away a key "feature" of a game, which in turn would decrease its value (again, to the customer) and reduce demand. Plain and simple. The existence of the used games market is insurance that even if you're not financially stable or if you buy a bad game, there's always a way to get back part of your invested money."

Or, god forbid, the game publishers would wise up and be forced to adopt a Steam-like pricing model, and oh, look at that, the same end-effect would be achieved.

That's 100% correct, congratulations. Or was that supposed to be an argument against my point? Because I don't see how this in any way conflicts the customer behavior I explained.

If you want to change things you simply have to undercut the used games market and go with the customer's expectations.
Simply punishing people who buy used games does not have the same effect, because it decreases the value of the used product, reduces the demand for used games and as a result reduces the value of a new game.
A smarter pricing policy like steam, i.e. incremental price drops is the best solution. It decreases the amount of people who buy on launch day because everyone knows that the game will be much cheaper later on, but in the end more people will buy the game "new" and more money goes to the publisher.

 

[UnmotivatedSlacker]

No one flips their shit when you buy used cars or furniture. Games should be no different.

 

[CodeOrange]

FUN FACTS TIMES

1. The consumer would be more inclined to download a copy of the game as opposed to buying it, due to less restrictions = superior copy (re Spore)
2. If a company is more focused on making profits rather than making their consumers happy by making good games, chances are the game isn't going to be very good. Look elsewhere. (re Spore, EA ect)
3. This is an obvious fact, I know. So game devs have been committing to incorporate multiplayer elements to their game to entice the gamer to actually buying their game. This usually results in games with either pointless multiplayers, or pointless single players, or both for added incompetence, or locked bonuses for not buying a new copy of the game (ie the "middle fingering)" tactic.
4. This of course, causes a stagnation of games, caused by stupid game devs. Consumers would fear the overhyped shovelware and be more inclined to piracy, while completely ignoring games made by lesser known companies and only going for mainstream titles. Of course, the mainstream market tends to falter by making too many sequels which fail to surpass the previous game, and stagnation occurs.
5. Markets will crash, companies will shut down (eg Atlus) and we will be left with shovelware popcap/ea crap, and the Indie companies will dominate with Arcade-style games, resulting in a complete loop in gaming, just with better technology and prettier graphics.

tl;dr not trusting your customers leads to the above points.

 

[MetalDooley]

Ugh, that's a pretty disgusting idea. Imagine having to sell 1.5 MILLION units of a game, and still not break even. Most games don't even break 1 million. Or even 500,000.

Products being cheaper for consumers is a disgusting idea?Must be nice to be rich

 

[CodeOrange]

No one flips their shit when you buy used cars or furniture. Games should be no different.

Actually I just bought a second-hand car and I had to make a deposit because it didn't come with extra seats for co-op mode.

 

[Keava]

Publishers don't seem to realize that the people buying used don't have the means to buy new. Otherwise they'd fucking buy new.

Then buy less games? Don't buy games in first month from release and wait for them to get discounted? Manage your money better? Games are luxury, You are not entitled to playing them. Your life does not depend on having every major release on first day of release in your hands. If you feel like you should buy 10 games a month then maybe first find a job that allows you to live such life.

So instead of, say, reducing prices so people can buy new(by, like $10 since apparently $55 is considered a bargain to used buyers compared to $60, somehow), then the people who couldn't buy new can now buy new.

Let's say they reduce the price. Let's say a console game rather than 60$ average will cost 50$ average and used game will drop to 45$. Are you willing to guarantee that people won't still try to get the 45$ one rather than 50$?
It's like saying that entry price-point is the only reason for piracy, while everyone knows that majority of pirates will download for free no matter how cheap the game is (best proof - Humble Indie Bundle being pirated even tho you could get it for as little as 0.1$).

And what about rentals? Why aren't they attacking those?

In most cases, when it comes to rental, you need a special licence from publisher, hence you share profits with them.

No one flips their shit when you buy used cars or furniture. Games should be no different.

Except the fact that with games you don't buy a game per se but a licence to play it. Game is not a physical good in the same way a car or furniture is.

 

[Epona]

How is it costing them more money?

Time frames. The company projects multiplayer server costs for a specific time. If the game recieves a lot of used sales, but no more revenue, the game shuts down, and the used customer does not get the full experience.

Say I play a game online for over a year, I got my moneys worth because I payed for the game on release. The devs got their slice, and factored that into the time table for the servers. X amount of people for Y amount of time. Now if you buy used, they see no more money from that, and they ether have to eat it, and extend the time frame for the servers (It's happened. if the sales are large enough, or if the game stays popular.) Or they have to find a way to make revenue (Map packs, which are bitched about too.) Either way they're putting more money into a product in which revenue has ceased.

Uh no. They shut down the servers when they want to. No one is forcing them to keep the servers online past a certain point.

They shut down servers then they no longer find it financially viable to keep them online for the amount of players they have. Or they just cannot keep the server running. No game company is just going to drop trou and wave their dick in the face of all their customers because they just -feel- like shutting down servers. The only way to keep servers up longer, is to invest money into them, which comes from some revenue stream. Be it profits from other games, or map packs, or a 10 dollar fee used players have to pay. It has to some from somewhere.

On a fun side note, I'm sure you'd be very angry if your favorite game just popped up one day with a message "Fuck off, we're closing the server" ..Now, treating us liek criminals may not be well liked. Doing that won't make them buy a game from you ever again.

So let's not dance around with double standards.

This makes no sense at all. They can close the servers down whenever they feel like it. There is no law saying they have to keep the servers on for a certain time period. Copy A can still only be used by one person at a time for online play.

This is just a money grab. 1 million copies of the game = 1 million people can play online, doesn't matter if they bought it new or used because every copy was bought new at some point.

 

[Tibike77]

Therefore I say to you, Feel free to explain the radical similarities you believe exists between buying used and pirating.

Both DO NOT directly contribute any cash to the game makers.

Both DO contribute to indirect potential losses of revenue for that game, by having some of the people that would have eventually purchased the game new to adopt this alternative, cheaper version that makes no money for the game makers.

Both also DO contribute to some degree to potential gains in revenue for that game (or at least that game company) through word of mouth advertising.

Not enough similarities for you ?

The only noteworthy differences are that with pirating, used game resellers make no profit from it, while end users get their games essentially at negligible costs, so there's a whole lot more of them around.

A dubious distinction goes to per-used-game-buyer DLC purchases which are allegedly much higher than per-pirate DLC purchases, since there's a chance that overall (as in, the grand total sum), pirates might actually spend more money on DLCs they don't manage to download than the combined mass of second-hand game purchasers - I don't even know if anybody ever tried to collect that sort of data at all.

 

[Epona]

No one flips their shit when you buy used cars or furniture. Games should be no different.

Actually I just bought a second-hand car and I had to make a deposit because it didn't come with extra seats for co-op mode.

Well according to some you should be charged with grand theft auto because buying used is the same as stealing.

 

[oplinger]

Ugh, that's a pretty disgusting idea. Imagine having to sell 1.5 MILLION units of a game, and still not break even. Most games don't even break 1 million. Or even 500,000.

Products being cheaper for consumers is a disgusting idea?Must be nice to be rich

It's not really about being rich. Plus games are not a need.

It's about companies still being around to make games. If they sell a game for half price, and still spend 25 million dollars on the project they have to sell more units. More units for a market that has not increased in size. If they don't make profit, or break even, they go into debt, file for bankruptcy, and cease to exist.

Granted it's mostly for bigger titles, indie games are generally 90% pirated anyway in some cases.

This makes no sense at all. They can close the servers down whenever they feel like it. There is no law saying they have to keep the servers on for a certain time period. Copy A can still only be used by one person at a time for online play.

This is just a money grab. 1 million copies of the game = 1 million people can play online, doesn't matter if they bought it new or used because every copy was bought new at some point.

1 million copies sold does mean 1 million people can play online. For a period which has been planned. It's all about projections. A certain amount of money of the budget goes into maintaining servers and even patching the game for balancing tweaks. Nothing is saying they have to keep the servers up, but it's more about treating your customers equally. If a guy buys the game used, he may fully expect to keep the online mode just as long as the guy who bought it new. After all, he paid money for it right?

The problem is in the influx of new players. If there are a million players even after a projected 3 years, they have to sink more money into keeping that 1 million happy (trust me it's a good idea to do that.) But they recieve no extra money for all the people who bought the game used. Meaning they're sinking in the hole for every extra month they keep the servers up to appease customers. They don't appease customers, they do less sales next time. They tank. We don't have games.

 

[Epona]

Ugh, that's a pretty disgusting idea. Imagine having to sell 1.5 MILLION units of a game, and still not break even. Most games don't even break 1 million. Or even 500,000.

Products being cheaper for consumers is a disgusting idea?Must be nice to be rich

It's not really about being rich. Plus games are not a need.

It's about companies still being around to make games. If they sell a game for half price, and still spend 25 million dollars on the project they have to sell more units. More units for a market that has not increased in size. If they don't make profit, or break even, they go into debt, file for bankruptcy, and cease to exist.

Granted it's mostly for bigger titles, indie games are generally 90% pirated anyway in some cases.

This makes no sense at all. They can close the servers down whenever they feel like it. There is no law saying they have to keep the servers on for a certain time period. Copy A can still only be used by one person at a time for online play.

This is just a money grab. 1 million copies of the game = 1 million people can play online, doesn't matter if they bought it new or used because every copy was bought new at some point.

1 million copies sold does mean 1 million people can play online. For a period which has been planned. It's all about projections. A certain amount of money of the budget goes into maintaining servers and even patching the game for balancing tweaks. Nothing is saying they have to keep the servers up, but it's more about treating your customers equally. If a guy buys the game used, he may fully expect to keep the online mode just as long as the guy who bought it new. After all, he paid money for it right?

The problem is in the influx of new players. If there are a million players even after a projected 3 years, they have to sink more money into keeping that 1 million happy (trust me it's a good idea to do that.) But they recieve no extra money for all the people who bought the game used. Meaning they're sinking in the hole for every extra month they keep the servers up to appease customers. They don't appease customers, they do less sales next time. They tank. We don't have games.

If everyone bought new, would the servers stay up forever? No? Then you entire point is meaningless. I say again, charging multiple times for a single copy of the game is a money grab.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Why are used game buyers equal to pirates in the eyes of game companies?

Equal is probably going a little too far, but from their perspective, the results of both are the same. A player is playing their game, but they don't get any money to show for it. To illustrate:

eg. Store buys game new from publisher at wholesale price: $20 (revenue for publisher)
Store sells game to customer - $30 (store gets $10 profit)
Customer brings game back to trade in - Store pays $15
Store sells game preowned - $20 ($5 profit)

So in this process the results are:
Store spends $35 and makes $50 - $15 net profit
Publisher makes $20
Customer A - Played the game, no longer owns it and is down $15
Customer B - Owns the game, spent $20

If a game is the same used or new, from a player's perspective the only tangible difference is that the used one will cost less. This in its way encourages used sales as the player gets the same thing, legally, for less money. However the publisher makes no money from this sale.

If there were no used sales, excepting for piracy and rentals, the only legal avenue open to a player who wishes to play is to buy the game new. In the absence of a way of forbidding such sales, they use the "carrot and stick" approach instead...either encouraging the player to buy new by giving more (eg. Mass Effect 2 and the "Cerberus Network") or by taking away (eg. Rage, Dead Space 2).

I think it's pathetic really. Films, CDs, board games and books I can buy and sell used without any penalty. But video games, no; the devs do because they can. The best way to deal with it is not buy their games. The only recourse we have to protest against these things is not to encourage it by buying it. Buy games without such measures, do not buy games with such measures. They'll learn when their bottom line is on the...umm....line.