Why online distribution will suck

[evilneko]

Don't get me wrong, i absolutely love steam and other distributors. In fact since i started buying games online i haven't bought a physical copy of a game in years. But after watching the most recent Jimquisition, he said that online passes will destroy second hand game sales.

And then i saw my steam account.

I have over 60 games and i quickly realized that those games are mine FOREVER (unless of course you lose your account)
That means i cant sell, swap or even give away these games when i get bored of them or have simply played them through. Which leads us to the point of: If the popularity of online distribution gets so popular that future consoles and PC's will simply download all their games, what happens to the second retailer or buyer?

/ThreadHop

You know, I thought this was gonna be about something else, like not being able to install them (and in a disturbingly increasing number of cases, play them) without a net connection.

I also thought it might be about how, years hence, what if I'm struck by nostalgia for a game and want to play it again? Will it still be available on whatever digital distro service it was on? Will that service still exist? Will I even be able to get it legally at all? Hopefully if the original source for the game went under, some other company would've bought the rights and be distributing the games, but what if they don't?

With a retail disc in hand, I can always install it. Even years after the fact, the disc will still have the game on it. I can even copy the disc and convert it to another medium if I want or need to.

I never really thought about the giving them away part. I gave my copy of D2 to my friend after I realized how shitty the game is. Years later, my friend gave me his copy of Doom 3 after he got bored of it. I played it for a bit, then forgot about it myself until I found out about Classic Doom 3... Doom 3 owners: you MUST try this mod. I've also received copies of both Mechwarrior 2 games, Baldur's Gate 2, and Railroad Tycoon 2 from friends and family who didn't want them anymore.

 

[go-10]

retailers still sell consoles and it's faster than buying one online and waiting for it to ship so I don't think retailers would disappear and they could sell download codes, it might end up being better as they no longer need so much space or employees.
as for services like Steam they could use a trade in service where we can surrender our license and lock our key codes to receive Steam credits, of course how they're going to deal with making copies of the game and downloading a crack and keygen I don't know

I'm all for the future and the digital age so I'm quite excited about it, I just hope SkyNet doesn't take off before FF VII remake comes out

 

[Dastardly]

I disagree. Sellers have the right to sell at the price they dictate as much as the ones they purchased it from have the right to. They choose to sell it at just less then new because it is the most they can while still being competitive. Seems like what is expected to me, no more or less then other objects that take a long time to depreciate (lets say here, a wooden desk). Even though the product is still the same quality, there is something people feel when buying used that requires it be cheaper to counter newer products. still I have been to enough garage sales to know some people will try to sell for as high as possible, just human nature.

Of course it is, and of course they will. And if I can trick some guy into buying magic beans for $1,000, you can bet I'm going to do it. But if you picture this transaction as one between people, rather than between a person and a nameless corporation, you can see a certain kind of unfairness here -- Why does the used seller have any right to 'be competitive' with the other person's product? Why should someone be able to use my own product against me in that way?

Again, not saying secondhand sales are wrong. Just saying that it is suspect for folks to expect that used items should sell at such an inflated price. Again, this isn't about the item itself. It's about the cost relative to overhead. Used sales are about recuperating value. But current used sale practices create value out of thin air, as far as I'm concerned.

You shouldn't be able to re-sell a product at a higher profit margin than the original seller was able to get after accounting for production/distribution/marketing costs. There's just a certain cosmic "wrongness" about it to me. Like scalping tickets, it's not always illegal, but it is distasteful.

By buying the game, they are out money. They have a copy in return, and they may find the trade favorable or not, but they are still at a loss of money. I use the language I did to refer to a buyer of an original product who is no happy with the purchase. The game is seen as a loss of money in that light and reselling is a way to mitigate the lost money, as the use of the product would not be worth it to them compared to the money spent on it. Assuming they enjoyed the game enough, they would be less likely to resell it, so that applies less.

Plenty of people enjoy a game, but still sell it in order to get money for another, newer experience. Used sales should not be used as any measure of how much people "enjoyed" a game, and it's little more than disingenuous justification techniques when people make the claim that a game must not be very good if someone is trading it in. Not saying that's what you're doing, just that the "good/bad" of a game has no bearing on this topic.

If you buy a game, you aren't "out money." You traded money for a game. And that's the end of the entire transaction. If you decide, later on, to try to recover some of the remaining value of an item (or just to try to make a few bucks off of it), that is a wholly separate transaction. And it is in no way guaranteed to you. The original seller is under no obligation to do anything that improves the resale value of the item you are buying, as they are not a part of that potential transaction. In fact, since that transaction could be in competition with their own product, they'd be silly to actually help empower it.

I disagree however with your line of reasoning. If developers wish to do it, that is there prerogative, however they then have to realize and admit they are only renting games to people.

Nope, doesn't follow. They're selling you Product A. And you are getting 100% of Product A. When you try to sell it, you are selling Product B. It isn't the same product anymore. It goes from "new game with all features" to "used game without all features." The person to which the publisher sold the original game didn't "rent" anything to anyone. They sold that person the game. Any other owner of that game isn't on the radar.

Now, the current "licensing" practice with games more reflects the "you are not the owner" problem, but that's more to say that you don't gain the right to copy and distribute this software through buying it. Buying it entitles you to its proper use. That's a whole separate issue from used sales, though.

I'll agree something in the middle seems best, but I still think that publishers in the gaming industry face the same problems any other producer faces, merely they are handling it differently, and in a way that is wrong in any measure.
As an aside, as much as I dislike gamestop myself, I find they may have touched on a hint of a solution with their exclusive content for pre-orders. Ideas like that guarantee certain new sales and offer the new sales something the used can not obtain, least as easily.

You know what a pre-order bonus is? It is "a single-use code for additional content given only to new purchasers." Pre-order bonuses are currently one of the most visible and accepted examples of exactly what we're talking about here. Now, for the moment those things are largely cosmetic. And I think there's definitely a problem with placing multiplayer behind this sort of gate, but I do think it's okay for something other than purely-cosmetic content to be included in this single-use code strategy.

Maybe the first buyer gets a single-use code that gets them 50% off the first DLC, or even gives it to them for free if it's released soon after the core game. There are a lot of forms this kind of "new-only" content can take that don't ruin secondhand gaming... but they would reward new purchasers. Of course, anything in the new box that isn't in the used box is going to be treated like a "loss" to the more "entitled" gamers among us.

 

[AdmiralMemo]

Digital Used Games sales
i figure that will be something steam might look into, yknow in the future

I believe this will happen and will happen fairly soon. Why? The new Steam trading system. Right now, you can trade Steam games. Sure, it can only be "gift" games that haven't been "opened" yet currently, but the potential is there. Once Steam sees games traded back and forth through the new trading system, they'll probably think "Hey... There's all these games being traded... Maybe if we figure out how to "rebox" games that have been played, we can get people trading those as well." Sure, you're not actually "selling" your game for money, but you're getting the next best thing: a new game to play.

 

[screwvalve]

I prefer physical copies of games too. And I dont like Steam. You don't own anything on steam. You only pay to have the limited privilege to play some games that could be removed from your account at Valve's discretion without explanation. You rely too much on them with Steam. I'm glad there's going to be competition from the likes of origin, which is going to have 3rd party games on it. There is no benefit to you in having Steam, it's only an artificial layer between you and the games you "own", which you do not. No matter what the fat dude tells you, there is not. Steam wasnt made to cater to you. It was made to kill the second hand games market. That's when there's a Steamworks-locked game that i want, i tend to buy it elsewhere, be it retail or the other DD stores, that way Valve doesn't see a dime off that sale, and yet they have to support the game.

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

But I want my shiny box with the disk ;(

 

[Doclector]

I like physical copies. I don't know why, I just do. That and an online account can be hijacked. Along with all your games.

I like to be able to browse a game store when I have some spare cash, something that's difficult on, say, XBLA, as much as I love XBLA games.

Basically, I'd like the choice to go buy a disk, and maybe I'm being a luddite, but I hope the gaming world doesn't move on without me in that respect.

 

[Doclector]

But I want my shiny box with the disk ;(

You just reminded me, the smell! That glorious new game smell. I bought Gears 3 and space marine a couple of days ago, and was dismayed by the fact that HMV's method of packing games had robbed that scent from gears. Then I went back to sniffing space marine like kate moss takes her last line.

 

[targren]

I have over 60 games and i quickly realized that those games are mine FOREVER (unless of course you lose your account)?

That sentence shows one of the two biggest problems with online distribution (yes, including Steam). Your parenthetical comment shows the other.

How frigging naive do you have to be to pay full price (or even sale price) to "buy" a game that you can be told, at any time, for whatever reason (TOS section 13) that you're not allowed to play them anymore, and whether or not they give you access to a standalone download depends on how nice they feel (and how cranky the publisher is about their DRM).

Thanks, but no thanks, Valve. I'll just stick with TF2 and the free Portal.

 

[Iron Mal]

If you buy a car new, you get a new car. Let's just say, hypothetically, that this new car will last you 10 years before things start to break and need replaced out-of-pocket (not unreasonable, with current warranties). That's for a new car.

If you drive it for 5 years and sell it, the buyer is only getting half what you got. They are getting a lower quality version of the new product, because the item degrades over time. We're talking about "depreciation" here.

So, no matter what, the manufacturer has a lead on used car sales. They can say, "If you buy new, you're getting a longer-lasting product." As a result, used cars sell for way, way less than their new counterparts. That allows for both products to fairly compete, because the consumer is choosing between quality and price.

And that would be a valid point to make if the car-game comparison didn't have the slight problem of car manufacturers don't expect most people to buy more than one car over the span of a decade and most video games tend to get priced based on their popularity rather than their performance (how many of us have been grossly dissatisfied with a game we've bought brand new at full price?).

The minute details weren't what the original analogy was about so yourself (and the other fellow who responded) are taking it too literally and missing the point of this arguement, no other industry seems to be so direly threatened by second hand sales that they look into various ways of cutting it out of the loop completely, from cars to books to shoes there is no other industry out there that makes so many public complaints about the evils of second hand sales (with the exception of medicine but that is for health reasons and therefore is actually justified).

This makes it seem somewhat incredulous to some more critical people who depend on used sales as a source of getting games seeing as no-one else seems to be facing this problem and yet here we sometimes get people who go so far as to say that used sales are harmful at the same level as piracy is (and I don't think we need to get into why that's a ridiculous claim, just go watch the most recent Jimquisition video for a few arguements as to why this is).

Software doesn't depreciate. If I buy a used copy of some Mario game, I don't get an older, fatter Mario that can't jump as high. I don't have to replace all of the flagpoles due to rust. It's the same game at the same quality. This means that software publishers are forced to compete with their own products... but the competing sellers don't have to worry about production/distribution/advertising costs. They can sell the product below cost and still make money.

And here is where you're wrong. Games do depreciate.

Discs get scratched, cartiridges cease up and stop working, data gets corrupted, files get deleted, accounts get banned or suspended, servers get shut down and hackers and the elements can and have proven to be a real threat to both software and hardware respectively on many occasions (I'm sure those of us who have been involved in the hobby for a while have encountered at least one of these problems before if not more).

I'm very used to the task of going out and hunting for second hand games but I also know that I have to be savvey enough to inspect each and every single disc I get before I buy it (because for all I know, the thing could look like someone tried to skid across gravel on it) just as people looking for a cheap used car have to make sure they don't buy one with a banged up engine that doesn't start for five minutes and has a flat tire.

Of course, nearly no used game sellers charge that low a price... yet no one stops to ask them, "Why not?" We're too busy yelling at the people who actually have to put money on the line to create this product.

Plenty of used games go for very low prices, the top tier AAA titles don't but that's because they're still big and popular even after years of being out and having sequels (Call of Duty 4 will still set you back about £45 here in England even though we're soon expecting Modern Warfare 3), stalk your way through Amazon or a used game bin in your local store and you'll find hundreds upon thousands of games that are going for (sometimes literally) pennies.

 

[Dastardly]

And that would be a valid point to make if the car-game comparison didn't have the slight problem of car manufacturers don't expect most people to buy more than one car over the span of a decade and most video games tend to get priced based on their popularity rather than their performance (how many of us have been grossly dissatisfied with a game we've bought brand new at full price?).

This has nothing to do with the discussion.

The minute details weren't what the original analogy was about so yourself (and the other fellow who responded) are taking it too literally and missing the point of this arguement, no other industry seems to be so direly threatened by second hand sales that they look into various ways of cutting it out of the loop completely, from cars to books to shoes there is no other industry out there that makes so many public complaints about the evils of second hand sales (with the exception of medicine but that is for health reasons and therefore is actually justified).

Actually, you'll find a lot of publishers that aren't super happy about used book sales. And this move isn't about "trying to cut it out of the loop completely." There are other reasons for digital distribution. One side effect that does, in fact, benefit the publishers is that no--you can't resell a digital copy. The up side, we can begin demanding sharply-lower prices.

Other publishers don't (as you claim) try to "cut out" used sales because there is no way they can. You can bet if they could, they would. Thankfully, new cars will always be in better condition than old cars, so they have the ability to compete on quality where they cannot compete on price... but if they could eliminate it, they would.

It just so happens that software, as ethereal as it is, has the availability of this particular distribution method, and that method has the potential of cutting off resale. It's just the nature of the medium that this is the case. Or do you want to also argue that e-books are evil because it means people can't re-sell them, too?

And here is where you're wrong. Games do depreciate.

And then you list mostly some limited exceptions to a very broad (and true) rule: No, they don't. Mario is Mario is Mario. Disks aren't software. They're the delivery method for the software. And yes, while the disks may depreciate, digital distribution would eliminate that problem. Oops.

 

[Sakash]

How frigging naive do you have to be to pay full price (or even sale price) to "buy" a game that you can be told, at any time, for whatever reason (TOS section 13) that you're not allowed to play them anymore, and whether or not they give you access to a standalone download depends on how nice they feel (and how cranky the publisher is about their DRM).

Thanks, but no thanks, Valve. I'll just stick with TF2 and the free Portal.

While i agree that it sucks that they can just take away all your games if the account is closed, they cannot terminate it just because "they feel like it".
They state that unless you commit fraud, copy their games, cheat online and etc, they cannot ban your account.

Its on par with someone hacking their PS3 or 360 and having that machine banned, which leaves you with a paperweight that cost hundreds.

 

[Iron Mal]

This has nothing to do with the discussion.

Wel I'd say it had a lot to do with the petty squabbling over metaphors and analogies but if ignoring that chunk of the arguement helps you sleep at night then who am I to judge?

Actually, you'll find a lot of publishers that aren't super happy about used book sales. And this move isn't about "trying to cut it out of the loop completely." There are other reasons for digital distribution. One side effect that does, in fact, benefit the publishers is that no--you can't resell a digital copy. The up side, we can begin demanding sharply-lower prices.

While I'm sure no publisher or business is overly happy about second hand sales I think you'll find that in no other case is a) such a large measure being taken to try and reduce the number of second hand sales (you don't see books or movies withholding content unless you either buy it new or pay an extra £10 to the author/studio and if they did try doing this you can guarentee that we'd all all them out on it) and b) no-one cares about whether the publishers are 'happy'.

They're a business, I don't think I should have to treat them with kid gloves just so they'll feel confident and secure in the knowledge that I'm a loyal fan of their games and customer. If they don't like the thought of me selling or even just giving a game away after I've bought it then they shouldn't have fucking sold it to me in the first place then.

If I was so inclined to, I could buy fifty copies of Battlefield 3 and burn then all in a bonfire, would DICE or EA have any right to be horrified or upset? No.

The games they sell you should stop being their's the second that you hand over money for them (like how most customer transactions are supposed to work).

As for your idea of it being a wonderous benefit for customers who can (and I quote) 'begin demanding sharply-lower prices', allow me to burst your bubble here by calling bullshit on that. Games have been grossly overpriced ever since the dawn of the medium (or certainly the part of it I was around for, I was a Megadrive kid myself) and the only mitigating factor avaliable for poorer families like my own was the fact that we could quite literally give the game store the finger and go down to the local video store's used bin to find stuff cheaper or that I could trade games I'd finished with friends for games they'd finished (hell, I still do that today, I'll be damned if I'm gonna pay full price for Fable 3 after how disappointed I was with Fable 2).

Hell, before game stores and used bins in video stores were common we often found ourselves with little other option but to go to places like carboot sales and the stall market (you know, the kind where you get those dodgey pirate/bootleg DVD's and VHS tapes), there simply weren't really any other places you could get games cheap so it was that or no games (and me as a whining six year old was probably enough pester power to make bootleg Sega games not seem like such a bad purchase). So in my case (and I know I'm not the only one) the absence of a used game market leaned us towards and encouraged piracy.

I looked at what is one of the leaders for how the digital distribution system would work (Steam, I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with it) and a lot of the prices either didn't look all that different from what you'd find in a video or game store or were attaced to items that were inherantly low in value anyway (of course a mod or a repackaged Sega Megadrive game is going to be cheap, the former is just a mod and the latter are almost as old as I am).

I can gurantee you that digital distribution won't result in customers being better able to negotiate better prices for games (in fact, it'll achieve the opposite by taking away that all powerful arguement that no sales assistant wants to hear of 'I can get this cheaper elsewhere', I have seriously managed to work wonders in terms of getting discounts by pointing this out to shop owners), being able to stand in front of the branch manager in person and give them a hailstorm of shit and fury over being charged full price for a game that came out years ago and has two direct sequels (I'm looking as you CoD4) will get you results, having a bunch of spineless and content people sitting behind a download screen and trying to write polite e-mails to the publisher for a price lowering will probably get you the simple answer of 'no'.

Other publishers don't (as you claim) try to "cut out" used sales because there is no way they can. You can bet if they could, they would. Thankfully, new cars will always be in better condition than old cars, so they have the ability to compete on quality where they cannot compete on price... but if they could eliminate it, they would.

How about the fact that a game's price has little to do with the actual quality of the game? I'm sure I'm not the only one who's paid a full blown new price (£45 or $60 depending on your country) on a game that is awful or paid next to nothing for a game that is brilliant and wonderful (Condemned: Criminal Origins only set me back about £20, and this was a few years ago back when it was newer and around Christmas), this kind of blows your car comparison out of the water there because I can guarentee you that you wouldn't find car manufacturers getting away with selling a low quality, shoddy car for the same price as the newest, most advanced sports car or a fine, quality luxury convertable.

I'm sorry but I find it hard to defend the idea of getting rid of second hand sales when I can get charged more for FIFA than I can for something like Crackdown, Lost Planet 2 or Diablo II.

It just so happens that software, as ethereal as it is, has the availability of this particular distribution method, and that method has the potential of cutting off resale. It's just the nature of the medium that this is the case. Or do you want to also argue that e-books are evil because it means people can't re-sell them, too?

And the absence of re-sale for a lot of people is a proverbial iron boot in the balls. For a lot of people the ability to trade in or sell games is an important source of income, while this may not mean much to those of you who are fairly well off but trust me when I say that those of us on the lower end of the socio-economic scale are all thinking that people who honestly hold the opinion of 'I'm alright so who cares?' can go fuck themselves in a suitably violent fashion.

Also, as previously stated, once I have bought a game, it is mine to do with whatever I wish. Taking away the ability to actually have any control or choice over what I can do with what is supposed to be my property is a serious problem.

Would you not be upset if I sold you a car (at an inflated price because it's popular) and dictated that not only must you give me future payments for things such as insurance and new tires but that you must also give me your personal details and inform me (and essentially ask my permission) any time you want to drive anywhere as well as demanding that you never even touch the insides of what is supposed to be yours?

Also, you aren't allowed to sell it on or even lend it to anyone else because that would make me unhappy and I wouldn't get any money out of it.

I somehow get the feeling that you'd be none too happy with that deal (and most people probably wouldn't).

And then you list mostly some limited exceptions to a very broad (and true) rule: No, they don't.

Data gets corrupted and files can be deleted, computers age and need to be replaced and what about accounts getting hacked or suspended (or servers being shut down?).

Nothing lasts forever, even immaterial things such as data and software can degrade and suffer in the long run.

Things such as hackers, computer viruses and other digital threats are all things that can very easily ruin your fun in regards to games aquired through the use of digital distribution (and last time I checked, a computer virus can't warp into your room and fuck up your entire PS2 or Xbox 360 collection).

Mario is Mario is Mario. Disks aren't software. They're the delivery method for the software.

And that would be a fine point to make if it wasn't for the fact that games (even in digital form) do degrade over time and that even the delivery method of digital distribution is riddled with issues (it's just that I'm guessing these issues don't affect you, as such, why should you care?).

And yes, while the disks may depreciate, digital distribution would eliminate that problem. Oops.

No, it wouldn't eliminate that issue, we'd still be facing problems with deprication and other consumer concerns (just in a different form) while making whole new problems that will be much harder to solve.

I gurantee you that if there were no downsides to the whole idea of digital distribution then there wouldn't be such a polarised response to it (in other words, we wouldn't be having this discussion).

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I am pretty sure Steam is looking into a way for people to trade in or do something with their games they no longer wish to play.