Game makers strike back at used game market

[ShiroiHikari]

Actually, the higher used prices at Gamestop makes it seem, at least to me, that they're trying to discourage used sales of very recent games-- perhaps at the behest of the industry?

[Cognitive Gear]

Actually, the higher used prices at Gamestop makes it seem, at least to me, that they're trying to discourage used sales of very recent games-- perhaps at the behest of the industry?

I used to work at gamestop, and I can tell you that this isn't the reason.

The reason for the high prices is that the profit on a new game, after shipping and other costs, is effectively zero. I believe the difference between the amount they pay to buy the new product and the amount they sell it for is, at most, around 5$.

The place that they make their money is all in the used games and trade ins. This is why they charge 55$ for a used game that sells for 60$ new... they need to maximize their profit margin.

(Brick and mortar stores continue to carry games because they bring in customers who will often buy a few other things on an impulse.)

[ShiroiHikari]

So you're saying that if the industry puts a damper on used game sales, it will destroy game stores? Yeah, THAT'S a smart idea.

[mechana2015]

So you're saying that if the industry puts a damper on used game sales, it will destroy game stores? Yeah, THAT'S a smart idea.

With distributors like Best Buy around, they might actually agree with statement (though you meant it as sarcasm). Game stores arn't a place to get new games, so I'm betting the game companies wouldn't care if they went under, so long as Best Buy and Wal Mart and the like were around to distribute new games in boxes and STEAM and other DL systems are around for Digital Distribution.

[Nate]

Except getting rid of GameStop and Best Buy would literally DESTROY a lot of smaller studios. When I went to buy Dragon Quest V on the DS, guess who didn't have it? Wal-Mart or Best Buy. Guess who didn't carry Wild Arms: Alter Code F or Wild Arms V for the PS2? That would be Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

In the case for all three of these games, Gamestop was the ONLY store that carried them where I lived. Wal-Mart and Best Buy have much more limited shelf space than a store specifically for games. Wal-Mart and Best Buy pretty much only carry big name titles, anything that's smaller with a publisher that isn't well-known aren't going to get picked up, or at best they'll get one or two copies which could be gone quickly.

I know publishers don't see this. It's like you said, if GameStop went under, the companies wouldn't care, but a lot of fans would and a lot of small studios would see their profits fall (although in the case of DQV, Square-Enix isn't really a small studio, it's just DQ games are niche titles in America).

[mechana2015]

Except getting rid of GameStop and Best Buy would literally DESTROY a lot of smaller studios. When I went to buy Dragon Quest V on the DS, guess who didn't have it? Wal-Mart or Best Buy. Guess who didn't carry Wild Arms: Alter Code F or Wild Arms V for the PS2? That would be Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

In the case for all three of these games, Gamestop was the ONLY store that carried them where I lived. Wal-Mart and Best Buy have much more limited shelf space than a store specifically for games. Wal-Mart and Best Buy pretty much only carry big name titles, anything that's smaller with a publisher that isn't well-known aren't going to get picked up, or at best they'll get one or two copies which could be gone quickly.

I know publishers don't see this. It's like you said, if GameStop went under, the companies wouldn't care, but a lot of fans would and a lot of small studios would see their profits fall (although in the case of DQV, Square-Enix isn't really a small studio, it's just DQ games are niche titles in America).

What about digital distribution? XBLA, Steam and PSN all have releases on them from small companies, and are much easier distribution systems than disk distribution. There seems to be a lean this way, since production and shipping costs are kind of beating up industries anyhow.

Think Braid.

[Nate]

I am for digital distribution as long as it is not Steam.

[blkmage]

I don't understand what is so objectionable about Steam compared to XBLA or PSN.

[Nate]

With PSN I can play my games offline without having to go to an "Offline Mode." I also don't have to "validate" my PSN games before I play them. I don't have to be forced to patch or update my games if I don't want to (heck I haven't updated my PS3 since like November of last year despite it telling me to every time I turn it on).

I can admit that Steam has a LOT of great stuff. They offer mods for free on some games, they have really great sales, and the cloud thing to allow access to games and saves from other computers is a fantastic feature. Still, any restrictions to how I'm allowed to play my games is something I can't support at all.

[blkmage]

I'll give you automatic/forced updates, but offline mode and validation just seems like something that PSN/XBLA would do silently without your knowledge anyway.

[Nate]

And if they did it, I'd immediately stop supporting them as well. But I'm not going to complain about Sony for something they might maybe do one day in the future possibly we don't know. However I will complain about Steam for something they are doing right now and have been doing for a while.

And if you like Steam that's cool! Steam is honestly a really really good service, it's just I personally choose not to support it because I don't agree with the restrictions they place on consumers. I can admit outside of that one problem, they treat their customers really well and do a lot of cool things. If they'd just let people own the games they download, I'd support them completely.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

Everyon wants to move to this model of what is essentially "prolonged game rental" and that seriously seriously bugs me. The consumer has purchased the product and they own it. That means that they have a right to do with the product as they like so long as it does not infringe upon the rights of the person who owns the intellectual property. A consumer has a computer and it crashed and they need to reinstall... Oh wait, what's that? Only three installs per disk? Sounds like your Vista computer might not have been such a great gaming machine after-all.
A consumer has a computer and they want to distribute lots of copies of a game. THIS infringes on the IP. THIS should be restricted. If they could create some embedded code that would make the game hard/impossible to upload or torrent then I'd be all with it, but so far everything they've come up with just did more to impinge upon the legitimate users than the pirates.

[Nate]

I agree with Etoh. Except

If they could create some embedded code that would make the game hard/impossible to upload or torrent then I'd be all with it

That's the problem. They can't do that. Pirates are just as code-savvy as the developers (sometimes more). Even if the developers created that embedded code, the pirates might miss it at first, but then they'd realize "Hey something's up" and would look through the code to find it. And anything the developers can code, the pirates can re-code.

Unless developers come up with some sort of photon-based cryptography or something, it is literally impossible to create an uncrackable game.

[blkmage]

What you just described is exactly what DRM is.

[Fish and Chips]

If they'd just let people own the games they download, I'd support them completely.

As much as I support Steam thoroughly, this. The Internet access requirement is a minor inconvenience, but I can deal. This though is the one thing I'd change. Heck, I'd even be fine if there was a penalty; you could return your games, but after a certain time period only for half price or something. With a credit card it'd be tricky, but they could have some kind of account credit system going.

I just don't want my copy of The Dig staring at me from my games library for the rest of my life.

[Mithrandir]

The Internet access requirement is a minor inconvenience, but I can deal. This though is the one thing I'd change..

This is the only reason I have not yet acquired Assassins Creed 2. It was also the reason I never picked up Spore. I hope the game makers are listening and will learn from this.

[Nate]

The Internet access requirement is a minor inconvenience

It is certainly not a minor inconvenience.

When my internet goes down because of a storm, and I lose my connection because my internet sucks, and I am COMPLETELY unable to play any of my games on my computer because I can't connect to the internet, this is not a minor inconvenience.

Or when a guy buys a game when he's stationed overseas, doesn't have an internet connection, and therefore can't play his game because he can't connect to the internet, meaning he just wasted his money on a game he literally can't play, this is not a minor inconvenience.

Or, a group of script kiddies decides to DDoS the servers so that their bandwidth is exceeded and people are unable to access them and therefore are prevented from playing a game. This is not a minor inconvenience.

[blkmage]

And if they did it, I'd immediately stop supporting them as well. But I'm not going to complain about Sony for something they might maybe do one day in the future possibly we don't know. However I will complain about Steam for something they are doing right now and have been doing for a while.

And if you like Steam that's cool! Steam is honestly a really really good service, it's just I personally choose not to support it because I don't agree with the restrictions they place on consumers. I can admit outside of that one problem, they treat their customers really well and do a lot of cool things. If they'd just let people own the games they download, I'd support them completely.

My point wasn't that they might do it in the future, but that they might be doing it now without your knowledge. At least, that's what it seemed like with the leap year bug. What I'm trying to get at is that Valve at least has the courtesy to tell you upfront while Sony and Microsoft have historically been far less forthcoming about doing this sort of thing.

It is certainly not a minor inconvenience.

When my internet goes down because of a storm, and I lose my connection because my internet sucks, and I am COMPLETELY unable to play any of my games on my computer because I can't connect to the internet, this is not a minor inconvenience.

Or when a guy buys a game when he's stationed overseas, doesn't have an internet connection, and therefore can't play his game because he can't connect to the internet, meaning he just wasted his money on a game he literally can't play, this is not a minor inconvenience.

Or, a group of script kiddies decides to DDoS the servers so that their bandwidth is exceeded and people are unable to access them and therefore are prevented from playing a game. This is not a minor inconvenience.

Unless there's something I'm missing about offline mode, isn't there that? Otherwise, my impression has been that it's an initial check, but a persistent connection isn't required.

Of course, this exact thing is what's drawing Ubisoft tons of fire and hate, and they don't have anything like an offline mode and actually requires a persistent connection, which, I will add, is dumb.

[Fish and Chips]

It is certainly not a minor inconvenience.

When my internet goes down because of a storm, and I lose my connection because my internet sucks, and I am COMPLETELY unable to play any of my games on my computer because I can't connect to the internet, this is not a minor inconvenience.

Or when a guy buys a game when he's stationed overseas, doesn't have an internet connection, and therefore can't play his game because he can't connect to the internet, meaning he just wasted his money on a game he literally can't play, this is not a minor inconvenience.

Or, a group of script kiddies decides to DDoS the servers so that their bandwidth is exceeded and people are unable to access them and therefore are prevented from playing a game. This is not a minor inconvenience.

Well really I―]The Dig[/QUOTE]Oh. That's right.

[Bobtheduck]

My point wasn't that they might do it in the future, but that they might be doing it now without your knowledge. At least, that's what it seemed like with the leap year bug.

The only way in which the leapyear bug was connected to the internet is that PSN functions check the really internal clock to work, as do your games. When the clock reads as a date before you bought the game, it won't work because it'll think it's pirated or something. It has nothing to do with needing to be online for it to work.

The same thing with the trophies: To make sure that no one cheats to get trophies, they're tied to time, and if the time showed as something before the launch of the PS3, it's gonna say "Something's wrong here" and crash. As you can't turn off trophies in games, your game would always crash when it tried to read or write to your trophy collection.

[Nate]

My point wasn't that they might do it in the future, but that they might be doing it now without your knowledge. At least, that's what it seemed like with the leap year bug.

The leap year bug, as I understand it, was due to bad coding in the early PS3 models. Likely they programmed the PS3 to recognize all even-numbered years as leap years (since the only other even numbered year the PS3 was out, 2008, was indeed a leap year). Since the newer fat PS3s and the slim PS3s were completely unaffected, it can't have been anything implemented by PSN.

And the only reason it threw off people's trophies and save data was because of the incongruity between the system date and the date on PSN. From what I heard people who had old fat PS3s and weren't connected to the internet had no problem with save data or anything.

So no, it wasn't Sony trying to do anything without everyone's knowledge. This seems like pretty standard computer messing up.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Bob, he explained it better than I could.

What I'm trying to get at is that Valve at least has the courtesy to tell you upfront while Sony and Microsoft have historically been far less forthcoming about doing this sort of thing.

If Valve says "Hey, we're going to totally screw you over, just so you know," that doesn't make it okay. I don't care how "courteous" and "forthcoming" they are, maybe they just shouldn't treat their customers like that in the first place.

And like I said before, IF Sony or Microsoft decide to do this, then I won't support them either! But they HAVEN'T. And I won't complain about something they haven't done yet. That's ridiculous to complain about something they haven't done and don't seem like they will do. If they do it, then to use an old cliche, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. But they don't seem like they are, and they aren't, but Steam IS, so it makes complete sense to complain about Steam doing it and no sense at all to complain about Sony and Microsoft doing it.

It's like me saying "HEY you know what if Steam takes Offline Mode away from you! Yeah I know they haven't done it yet but they COULD! Let's say Steam sucks because they might take away Offline Mode sometime!" They haven't made any indication they would and there's no point in getting upset or complaining about them when they haven't.

Unless there's something I'm missing about offline mode, isn't there that? Otherwise, my impression has been that it's an initial check, but a persistent connection isn't required.

You have to connect to the internet first before you can go into offline mode which is ridiculous. You also have to validate a game online before you can play it which is ridiculous.

If they'd just stop that, as well as forcing patches/updates, I would completely support Steam. Right now I can go on my PS3, sit down, and play any of my PSN games or the PS1 games I have downloaded if my internet connection goes down. With Steam, I can't do that. That is an absolute violation of consumer rights and that's why I will never support them until they change that.

[CrimsonRyu17]

I don't have any of the newer game consoles and probably won't any time soon but this talk of having to connect to the internet to play a game sounds a bit.. lame. What if someone who lives in the middle of nowhere, like myself, doesn't have stable enough of an internet to connect it to their console? I've never nor been able to connect my console to the internet and have it work because of my area and available/affordable internet providers.

Either way, on the topic of used games, I love/hate GameStop. I love it when they price used things cheap and have rare games (PS2 Armored Core titles, anyone?) but I hate their fricking STICKERS. They won't put stickers on the case, no, only a few stores do that. They'll put their stickers on the inside artwork coverslip and when you peel it off it ruins it.

And yeah, game makers are whiny.