THQ: Buying used games is "cheating".

[heathen]

Instead of the doom and gloom, let's look at this from another angle:

 

Suddenly you can't get the online component if you buy used. There's been talk of publishers selling rights to online stuff for used games for a small fee. This would mean the value of a used game as such would be less, thus probably lowering it's price on Gamestop / Ebay / whatever. The seller gets less profit from a game that's already been in use, the publishers get their cut from the used market and the customer (hopefully) won't have to pay any more than they used to.

 

A lot of people in this thread seem to forget that online games have upkeep costs that can be quite high. As we live in a capitalist world, there is no free lunch.

 

I don't see anything wrong with the publisher wanting a cut from the profits Gamestop and similar chains are making on used games since the games still use services provided by the publishers. This was different in the Nintendo era when the publisher involvement ended when the game shipped to the stores.

 

If in the end we, the customers don't have to pay more for the used games I'm all for this.

Edited August 26, 2010 by heathen

[Nepenthe]

There's been talk of publishers selling rights to online stuff for used games for a small fee.

 

EA's essentially doing this already. And not just in the multiplayer games, also DAO and ME2.

 

Frankly, I don't mind, or really care. I'd never buy a game with somebody else's germs on it, but I guess I'm just special that way.

[Tale]

If used retailers respond to it by lowering used prices to reflect the new devaluation, I might start buying more used. What use do I have for multiplayer in half the games I play, anyway?

[ginji]

If used retailers respond to it by lowering used prices to reflect the new devaluation, I might start buying more used. What use do I have for multiplayer in half the games I play, anyway?

 

Agreed. But the thing is that they won't stop here. If this "no used-online" thing goes and becomes accepted by the majority of gamers, it will become the "standard" and they will go worse and worse.

Like they're already doing with DRM on PC, where you have to be online for activating, can't play on many computers, have to stay online all the time and so on, depending on the game/publisher. They take it one step at a time, so this is a very worrying trend.

Edited August 26, 2010 by ginji

[heathen]

If used retailers respond to it by lowering used prices to reflect the new devaluation, I might start buying more used. What use do I have for multiplayer in half the games I play, anyway?

 

Agreed. But the thing is that they won't stop here. If this "no used-online" thing goes and becomes accepted by the majority of gamers, it will become the "standard" and they will go worse and worse.

Why would this happen, exactly? The publisher asking for a small fee for online content for used games is a pretty straight forward and sensible idea. How would it actually go worse? Publishers first selling you a game and then charging extra for the online part? In my opinion this would only work if they lowered the price for the offline game, making online gaming basically DLC. I have nothing against this.

 

Like they're already doing with DRM on PC, where you have to be online for activating, can't play on many computers, have to stay online all the time and so on, depending on the game/publisher. They take it one step at a time, so this is a very worrying trend.

 

We already have DRM, so this wouldn't change that. This is just publishers wanting a cut from the used games market, and rightfully so since Gamestop et al are reaping profits by selling games twice while the publisher has to maintain the online content for those gamers who've bought their games used. I think you're barking at the wrong tree here. Gamestop & similar chains are the ones to blame since they're profiting from content the publisher has to pay the upkeep for. As already stated, this wouldn't affect games without online content (for the time being at least). It's a legitimate concern that it might, but at the time being there's nothing to imply it would.

 

Other than the general dislike the posters here seem to have against all publishers that is

 

If used retailers respond to it by lowering used prices to reflect the new devaluation, I might start buying more used. What use do I have for multiplayer in half the games I play, anyway?

 

Well common sense says they would. The product they're selling would be of much lesser value and they'd have to lower the price to reflect this.

Edited August 26, 2010 by heathen

[ginji]

If used retailers respond to it by lowering used prices to reflect the new devaluation, I might start buying more used. What use do I have for multiplayer in half the games I play, anyway?

 

Agreed. But the thing is that they won't stop here. If this "no used-online" thing goes and becomes accepted by the majority of gamers, it will become the "standard" and they will go worse and worse.

Why would this happen, exactly? The publisher asking for a small fee for online content for used games is a pretty straight forward and sensible idea. How would it actually go worse? Publishers first selling you a game and then charging extra for the online part? In my opinion this would only work if they lowered the price for the offline game, making online gaming basically DLC. I have nothing against this.

 

Like they're already doing with DRM on PC, where you have to be online for activating, can't play on many computers, have to stay online all the time and so on, depending on the game/publisher. They take it one step at a time, so this is a very worrying trend.

 

We already have DRM, so this wouldn't change that. This is just publishers wanting a cut from the used games market, and rightfully so since Gamestop et al are reaping profits by selling games twice while the publisher has to maintain the online content for those gamers who've bought their games used. I think you're barking at the wrong tree here. Gamestop & similar chains are the ones to blame since they're profiting from content the publisher has to pay the upkeep for. As already stated, this wouldn't affect games without online content (for the time being at least). It's a legitimate concern that it might, but at the time being there's nothing to imply it would.

 

Other than the general dislike the posters here seem to have against all publishers that is

 

Oh, but i blame&hate Gamestop already that's why i said I almost only buy new, but from online stores and for 1/3 of what they ask for.

 

What I'm saying is that they want to cut used gamers, and this is the first step. DRMs have the same purpose (between online activation and all, not to mention Ubisoft games that.... heh...) and so is Digital Delivery.

It's not only the online content, i would be happy with that since I play offline only (and maybe I could get the game for a lower price without having to wait 6 months).

 

The fact is they want to cut every other choice you have, by forcing you to buy the game for the price they say or nothing. That's what Digital Delivery is here for, to cut the market and to give games at one and only one price, and to prevent you to do any of the other horrible, horrible things with what you buy (like borrowing or reselling it).

 

 

Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but the videogames market is the only one that doesn't favor the customer, but keeps on including more and more restrictive things to what you pay for.

 

 

 

Again, the point is this: if someone buys used it's because he can't afford 60 bucks for every game. In this cases, normally, you should cut down prices, not features.

Edited August 26, 2010 by ginji

[Monte Carlo]

A page is turning, every game store I go into these days has one small shelf of PC games and rows and rows and rows of massive displays for console.

[Thorton_AP]

It seems that this was the approach that had been used in the past, updating Madden or Smackdown vs Raw every year, but now for some reason that's not enough for the game publishers.

 

The thing about textbooks is that the content is largely the same. Occasionally chapters are rearranged, but the only thing that differs is the questions in the book (though they're often very similar).

 

And when I say the content is largely the same, I mean completely unchanged paragraphs. Take Math and Physics textbooks and get a different edition, and the actually content is the same. The questions have changed so used copies will no longer have relevant questions. Many professors advise students of this and/or (probably illegally) post the entire question in the assignments.

[Calax]

Just gonna point out, the trade in system and used games are SOOOO profitable that both BestBuy and Target are starting up systems to provide that service within their stores.

[Hassat Hunter]

The problem is that GameStop sees a 500% in increase in yearly revenue, while due to the economic situation of the world most producers see it decrease. And you're supprised they jump on the warwagon?

 

There actually IS a DD service that allows you to re-sell your games, although the name slipped me now. Difference from GameStop is that in this case the devs do get a slice of the cut, and as such, several producers offer their products there (if only I could recall the name... ugh).

 

The problem isn't at all you selling your copy to a friend. Small time. And if you want to remain doing that you better hope, just like me, some way GameStop gets forced to pay a cut to the producers from their profits. Because none of us profit from the measures producers take to put this trafficking of Gamestop to an end. And as feared, it could indeed get much, MUCH worse than it is already. So it would be better if GameStop would cough up, and save us gamers a lot of potential future sorrow.

But I doubt that'll happen and thus we can indeed, fear the worst...

[Thorton_AP]

What I find funny is that the developers/publishers feel this is an issue, so they start providing incentives for people to buy new games instead of used games, yet people here claim that game developers/publishers feel as though they are "above the free market."

 

Sounds to me like they are just taking advantage of the free market.

[Calax]

What I find funny is that the developers/publishers feel this is an issue, so they start providing incentives for people to buy new games instead of used games, yet people here claim that game developers/publishers feel as though they are "above the free market."

 

Sounds to me like they are just taking advantage of the free market.

Don't you know? the free market is, like, only what each person looking at it wants it to be!

[Maria Caliban]

A page is turning, every game store I go into these days has one small shelf of PC games and rows and rows and rows of massive displays for console.

 

Has PC gaming ever been as large as consoles? I think there might have been a boom of PC exclusives in the 90s when home PCs dropped dramatically in price, but even then I recall consoles were more numerous. Even in 2010, more people have TVs than PCs and a new PS3 is less expensive than a (gaming) computer.

[Amentep]

What I find funny is that the developers/publishers feel this is an issue, so they start providing incentives for people to buy new games instead of used games, yet people here claim that game developers/publishers feel as though they are "above the free market."

 

Sounds to me like they are just taking advantage of the free market.

 

I think the issue for some is that locking out content that (and perhaps I'm mistaken) was free for people previously doesn't seem like an incentive so much as a money grab.

 

A page is turning, every game store I go into these days has one small shelf of PC games and rows and rows and rows of massive displays for console.

 

Has PC gaming ever been as large as consoles? I think there might have been a boom of PC exclusives in the 90s when home PCs dropped dramatically in price, but even then I recall consoles were more numerous. Even in 2010, more people have TVs than PCs and a new PS3 is less expensive than a (gaming) computer.

 

Back in the C64, Apple IIe days it certainly seemed like it was. The games sections were just as large for the C64 as they were for the Atari 2600 a few years earlier.

 

But back then buying a gaming computer was just as easy as buying a console.

[Nightshape]

The problem for me personally is that retailers are the ones profiting from selling second hand products. In the local game store in guildford they have more shelf space dedicated to used games than new games.

 

While I would never say that piracy is a good thing, the very act of BUYING a used game is in effect the same for the developers and publishers as pirating it. I would personally prefer it if such people kept there money and stole it, atleast then there is no confusing situation.

 

Anyways, I'm all for digital distribution and the deal of retailers as we know it.

[Amentep]

While I would never say that piracy is a good thing, the very act of BUYING a used game is in effect the same for the developers and publishers as pirating it. I would personally prefer it if such people kept there money and stole it, atleast then there is no confusing situation.

 

I don't see why there is "confusion". Buying an item that has been previously owned is from its current owner is not stealing.

 

Unless I'm terribly mistaken, even when you buy a new game from a game store you're not buying it from the publisher - that's already been done by the store. Whether you buy used or new the money goes to the store (just more of it goes to the store if you buy used).

 

Publisher sells to retailer, retailer sells to public. Publisher already has the money for the games sold to retail (I'm a bit hazy about the returnability of unsold games since most game stores seem to dump overstock into sale bins; if there is returnability on unsold games it seems to be something that isn't a total return policy).

 

So as I understand it, if the local game store buys ten copies of a publisher's GAME X and they sell 7 copies the publisher is paid for 10 copies. If the retailer buys back 5 of those games and then resells them, it doesn't take away from the publishers bottom line because they already sold the 10 copies that store was going to buy. What the store does with their inventory isn't the business of the publisher, IMO.

 

The game publishers though seem to be thinking "Hey we sold 10 games to the game store, but they've bought back 5 of those and sold them again...if we can kill used game sales the store will have to buy 13 games from us to accommodate demand." My position is that the 5 people who bought the game used wouldn't have bought it at the new price, so the increase in new game sales isn't going to happen.

 

So to get around that, the game publishers are locking content away from users (online only content for now; I guess this is fair enough if its server related since the used sales aren't going to support the servers) to encourage them to buy new. My alarmist worry is that they'll start locking away all game content to encourage people to buy new and thus force the retail store into buying more copies of the game from them and the end user is left with an expensive coaster if they buy a game they ultimately don't like.

Edited August 27, 2010 by Amentep

[Hassat Hunter]

The problem with your theory is that you go out from a 5 new - 3 used basis.

 

IRL it's more like 2 new - 10 used.

So even if 7 of them wouldn't buy the full price, just getting the other 3 in already means a 150% increase in profit.

[Amentep]

The problem with your theory is that you go out from a 5 new - 3 used basis.

 

IRL it's more like 2 new - 10 used.

So even if 7 of them wouldn't buy the full price, just getting the other 3 in already means a 150% increase in profit.

 

You can't have more used games than you sell new; If retail stores buy 30,000 copies of a game across the country, the most used games that could exist is 30,000 (ie every game sold and is now in the position to be bought back)

 

Even in your example, the "other 8" they buy back/sell used had to have been bought previously somewhere (and thus the publisher was paid for them already).

Edited August 27, 2010 by Amentep

[Maria Caliban]

Indeed. Buying a game used isn't like piracy because it's not stealing. Legally and ethically they show no similarities. Yes, used games might lower the number of total units sold, but we could also say that a similar game released at the same time also might lower the number of units sold. I could understand how buying a used game might be like pirating if there was a (legit) way of selling your game and still playing it, but as-is, the publisher gets paid for every game someone owns. It doesn't matter if it's passed through one hand (the retailer) or five, they've gotten their money.

[Calax]

The problem with your theory is that you go out from a 5 new - 3 used basis.

 

IRL it's more like 2 new - 10 used.

So even if 7 of them wouldn't buy the full price, just getting the other 3 in already means a 150% increase in profit.

 

You can't have more used games than you sell new; If retail stores buy 30,000 copies of a game across the country, the most used games that could exist is 30,000 (ie every game sold and is now in the position to be bought back)

 

Even in your example, the "other 8" they buy back/sell used had to have been bought previously somewhere (and thus the publisher was paid for them already).

True, if there is only 30k copies across the US there can't be more than that, but you can resell that item via gamestop 20 times, compared to the publishers solitary sale. So one game could be owned by many people earning Gamestop (or other retailers) a huge amount of money compared to what they paid for it.

[Hassat Hunter]

As Calax said too, there can be more used than sold for a single retailer, by forwarding copies sold at another retailer.

 

Which pretty much IS GameStop's little goldmine, of which producers want a cut, because they (GS) get enriched over their (prod) backs.

[Thorton_AP]

I think the issue for some is that locking out content that (and perhaps I'm mistaken) was free for people previously doesn't seem like an incentive so much as a money grab.

 

The content wasn't free and now locked out. New copies sold of the game have a code bundled with you that purchasers can redeem to get the content. The entire process is the same as if you were buying the content, except instead of entering your credit card info, you're effectively clicking the "redeem code" button.

 

It most definitely is an incentive for people to buy the game new. It is "Thank you for buying a copy of the game and directly supporting us. To show our gratitude we have granted you a key to enable you to acquire some paid downloadable content."

 

Unless you're suggesting that the better idea, (and I suppose it'd be "fair") is for the publishers to just outright charge everyone for the content. I don't know why you'd want those that get new copies of the game to lose this incentive though simply because you don't think it's fair for used game buyers.

[Hurlshort]

I'm surprised to hear Best Buy is trying to get into the used games business. I remember they had a program for it years ago and then they cut it.

[Amentep]

The problem with your theory is that you go out from a 5 new - 3 used basis.

 

IRL it's more like 2 new - 10 used.

So even if 7 of them wouldn't buy the full price, just getting the other 3 in already means a 150% increase in profit.

 

You can't have more used games than you sell new; If retail stores buy 30,000 copies of a game across the country, the most used games that could exist is 30,000 (ie every game sold and is now in the position to be bought back)

 

Even in your example, the "other 8" they buy back/sell used had to have been bought previously somewhere (and thus the publisher was paid for them already).

True, if there is only 30k copies across the US there can't be more than that, but you can resell that item via gamestop 20 times, compared to the publishers solitary sale. So one game could be owned by many people earning Gamestop (or other retailers) a huge amount of money compared to what they paid for it.

 

Right, but the publisher has still been paid for the copies bought. It doesn't matter if the copy is in the hands of 20 different people (one at a time), the publisher has already been paid (when the retail store it was bought at ordered it from the publisher) and someone has already paid that retailer for that copy.

 

I don't believe if the 20 people who bought it used did not have the option to buy it used it would magically become +20 orders from the retailer to the publisher for the item new.

 

Sure it *might* lead to an increase in orders. It might not as well.

 

I think the issue for some is that locking out content that (and perhaps I'm mistaken) was free for people previously doesn't seem like an incentive so much as a money grab.

 

The content wasn't free and now locked out. New copies sold of the game have a code bundled with you that purchasers can redeem to get the content. The entire process is the same as if you were buying the content, except instead of entering your credit card info, you're effectively clicking the "redeem code" button.

 

It most definitely is an incentive for people to buy the game new. It is "Thank you for buying a copy of the game and directly supporting us. To show our gratitude we have granted you a key to enable you to acquire some paid downloadable content."

 

Unless you're suggesting that the better idea, (and I suppose it'd be "fair") is for the publishers to just outright charge everyone for the content. I don't know why you'd want those that get new copies of the game to lose this incentive though simply because you don't think it's fair for used game buyers.

 

My thought is that prior iterations of these games did not have the code system; that the code system was created as a way to cut out the used game market now. Also if you weren't being charged extra for it (ie if the cost of Madden XX without the code was the same as Madded XXI with the code), it was free. But again, I said that I could be mistaken (I personally don't pay attention to online content as I have no way to access it so I'm not sure what is the case; any clarity that can be offered is appreciated).

[Orogun01]

This is an issue between publisher and distributer, if they aren't making any money they should renegotiate or find alternate venues. Not rant against the consumer which is dumb since the consumer is always right.