bungie: 'Secondhand sales are evil'
mod
http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/09/26/pre-owned-market-had-big-effect-on-halo-says-bungie-man/
So what do you guys think about this? It's becoming a hotter topic as more developers talk about it, but is it really such a big issue?
Yeah, isn't it though?Complaining about sales when you have a multi-million seller is somewhat difficult to justify,
but it seems to me that the folks who create and publish a game shouldnt stop receiving income from further sales
So what do you guys think about this? It's becoming a hotter topic as more developers talk about it, but is it really such a big issue?
Replies
But all this bitching over anything that isn't first-hand brand new sales is just ridiculous.
2nd-hand sales have been around since the birth of the industry itself and applies to every other sector of the entertainment industry also.
Is it me or is it fashionable in this industry to be a load of whiners?
When it's justifyable, fine. This however, is not.
Completely agree. I haven't traded in a game in 10 years because I hate the idea that I get $10 for it and they turn around and sell it for $35-40.
I also don't buy used games unless they are a couple of years old because they are only a few bucks cheaper than the new copy. I tend to be a person who will pay a little more if it is directly to someone I know that I will love their product (versus buying a cheaper knockoff or used version.) Used copies are also questionable in quality sometimes....
I don't know how many game stores I've been in where they've re-arranged the store to pimp out their used games. It makes the store ugly and feel more like a pound/morgue than a game store.
Bungie wanting a cut.... well makes sense from a business perspective. I think that if these stores were not selling the games at nearly FULL RETAIL PRICE then it wouldn't be a bit issue. Selling the same copy of Halo 3 for $45 three or four times really starts to add up.
I agree about the high-street shops' policies on 2nd hand games... they buy ridiculously low and sell outrageously high, isn't there anything that can be done about that?
Your copy of Halo 7 requires a DNA sample to ensure that you arethe only person that uses it
exactly. is there anything that works that way?
The problem I, and I think many people have, is not the idea of trading/selling, it is the ridiculous profit stores like GameStop make on them. The idea of selling a game and buying a used game at a fair price I don't have any objection to. I do have an objection to selling a game for $20 or $30 and then it being sold for $55.
I think much of this has to do with consumer awareness.... I have bought a couple used games marked down a couple bucks from new, when I was in school, before I knew how it was ripping off developers.
I don't think O'Donnell's comments were targeted at any selling of used games- he refers to 'middleman', 'retailers', 'market', 'sales'- while it can be construed to mean any second-hand sale, such as through Craigslist, I really believe it was only targeted at the practices of used game retailers.
everyone wins
or why should something be done about it? people arent forced to sell their games at cheap prices, if you really wanted to you can auction them and see what the real value is.
I don't like the idea my purchase is actually a license to use software that can't be resold.
On many occasions in Game I've seen secondhand games with several different prices on them, and I've seen them pricing secondhand copies at a high cost than new (where I suspect a game came out at £40, they sell the returns at £35, and then price drop the new one to £30 but don't change their secondhand prices).
yes -- selling games seccond hand is fine. if i have something i should be able to sell it to you. *fuck you, it's mine.*
yes -- these game re-selling companies are bullshit. they are probably hurting the industry with their ridiculous practices.
As it stands with software they're left out of the loop completely and have no chance to make any kind of profit from the sale of used software.
Offer a flexible pricing scheme for game sales, and or multiple release types on a direct download service ala steam. (IE look at what Trent Reznor is doing with his music and copy)
Trial game = free
Full game basic - digital copy - $20-40
Full Game With extras - Digital copy - $30-50
Full Game Extras - Hard Copy (possible bonus swag) - $35-60
Full Game - Limited edition Hard copy and digital copy now - $60+
I would buy halo 4 the day of release if I could get it for $20. Hell I don't even want multiplayer, I just want to play all 3.75 hrs of the pretty single player story, then never touch it again. TO me that isn't worth 60$ and I'm kinda torn at more than $30. To me its just-another-scifi-shooter and Its not as moddable as my favorite. (this is why I buy every ut special edition so far within a week of its release) So for me Halo, and a large number of games, are a one off thing.
Hell if you could come up with a pay-per-playthru model I might even buy that if the price was right.
This is actually an important point. It's true that without stores like GameStop, secondhand sales would naturally continue. The difference is that those sales wouldn't be formalized through a middle man that takes a significant cut. And ultimately, is that really a bad thing? Anyone wanting to get in on the second-hand market will have to go to more trouble, but will likely get considerably better prices for their games, and a higher return on investment.
And of course, GameStop doesn't allow for direct trades or bartering. A more peer-to-peer used game market would make this possible. Instead of bringing a used copy of a new-to-market game in and selling it for a significant decrease in price, and getting paid in store credit, you could just directly swap your copy of a used game for another copy of another used game.
The only real advantage to GameStop was that it offered structure and convenience. And even those advantages have decreased, as GameStop's management has cut back on everything they can to improve the customer's experience. With the expansion and popularity of systems like Craigslist, the need for commercial chains like GameStop is rapidly dwindling.
Sooner or later, someone is going to create an on-line system for formalizing and regulating used game exchanges / payments. And they will realize exactly how much money they could earn off of such a system from ad-generated revenue alone. There is always going to be a market for used games, even if it is composed mainly of collectors. Digital distribution is the most certain way of eliminating GameStop. But the real beginning of the end will come when someone else provides an appealing alternative, ideally one that will outlast digital distribution.
Yes, but how often do stores like GameStop have "bargain" prices? From the fact that you used the pound symbol, I assume you hail from Great Britain. Do they have GameStop in Great Britain? GameStop is pretty much monopolizing the used game industry in the U.S. and they are being absolute bastards with their new-found dominance. They are raising prices across the board on used games, while lowering the standards of their customer service, store maintenance, and employee training. They no longer have "bargains." I find better bargains on brand-new copies of games in retailers like Best Buy, Target, and Wal-Mart than I do on used titles at GameStop. It's gotten that bad.
Once you play a game you've absorbed that experience and will carry it with you till you die. Most people don't replay that game ever again, which is why reselling is so prevalent. The physical disks you installed it with should lose all value at this point, but because games are still subjected to this physical medium loophole, people think it's not hurting anyone to pass it on to someone else.
If you buy a game for 60 bucks, play it and then sell it to your buddy for 20, you basically end up only having paid 40 for the game which is great for you, but your buddy just got that game for free if you look at it from a developer's perspective. That's 2 people who played it and they only see profit from one. When they are only seeing maybe 10 - 25 % profit from every game sold as it is, this reselling stuff becomes a real punch in the balls. It's even worse with retail stores.
If EB resells a game 10 times they make more money than the developer - not only do they cash in on the developer's efforts and keep ALL the profit, they deny 10 sales outright to them. That's just not right.
That 'fuck you it's mine' attitude shows either real ignorance as to how this whole system works or outright disregard to the development process, which is a bit funny when you see it coming from developers. It's easy enough to separate the shiny shrink wrapped dvd cases on store shelves with the millions of manhours and cost that went into getting them there. Sure, you bought some shiny disks in a shrink wrapped case and sure, you paid for those and should be able to sell them - for the 50 cents they are probably worth. Those things on their own should be resellable. They are physical items. But it's not about that. It's what's embedded on those disks that has value and that is where the developers are losing out.
This is a big reason why I love steam. developers are guaranteed to see money from every sale because there's no bullshit trade-in policy or reselling of any kind allowed. If I ever make my own games I'll only ever release them through such a system. Distribution using physical media only guarantees you will lose sales in a system that is outdated and mostly being used to take advantage of your hard work as a developer. It's bad enough we have to put up with publishers who rape us during development with shitty deals that are designed to exploit us and net them the most profit, and then we have to deal with the likes of EB and general customer ignorance and apathy? What a shitty system. Content should be fucking king. Call me crazy, but we should be paying for that.
And yeah, Steam does a great job for everyone really, I think.
... And I would never buy your game over such a system..
looks like 0$ from me for you
and btw.. what´s about movies? and books and all medias where medium and information is not the same?
no sorry I´m absolutely not your opinion.
I don´t say the current system is perfect.. maybe something like cinema-online-one-buy-one-play and a few month later you can buy the game like a movie-dvd...
but IF I buy the game I can do with it whatever I want as long as I don´t make copys of it for other people.
imo
but loaning it to them or selling it to them is okay?
Making a copy is the same financial hit to the developer and more convenient, man, i'd just burn the disk.
ohh the poor poor developer .. i´m realy sooo sad for them.. we should realy give them all our money so that they can be happy again... *sniffsniff*
i can make 1 million copys over the web without any real big problem .. but i can only buy the game once.. and lend it to my few friends and therewhile I don´t have it .. (just think about multilplayer titles this time - this means you don´t have it AND can´t play it)
and YOU want to tell me that SNES or Playstation 1 Games don´t make any profit bc they could be selled and borrowed, do you?
btw: i think valve makes it not that bad except, that i don´t have the choise
but - as a developter - to be able to sell your game directly to the customers is a good way to get more money from what the customer pays
and btw2 .. i can always sell a steam account.. even if I´m official not allowed to.. but who cares ? therefore it doesn´t solve the "problem"
More money going to developers, less to the retail space who then resells them for huge profits.
Entice your customers into this option by reducing the price of the downloaded version significantly, and offering small extras, thus securing your future revenue stream on the game.
I believe digital distribution is a good bet but on the other side I really don't feel like I own the game if I don't have a physical copy of it. It's just like I rented it for life or something. Having to connect to the internet to play offline singleplayer games is something I absolutely loathe, though.
The difference is the price as far as I can see? is that a legitimate reason to cite problems when the principle is the same (imo)
Also, if I sell a game to my mate for half the original price it's a big assumption to say you've lost money. The people who wanted to pay full price for the game bought it and the rest didn't. It's quite possible the only reason it's getting bought is because it's a cheap second hand item; so given the choice between paying full price and not having the game, they would choose to go without.
its the same with music, i buy shit loads more music when ive heard more of it, and i hear more when i borrow music from friends
I never criticised your morality, i just pointed out the nonsense in your distinction between trading and copying games.
I copy games for friends (i would lend them anyway, so no more harm than that) and emulate or torrent games where the publisher will no longer make a profit (why track down a snes game at a pawn shop instead of just grabbing a rom?)
If i didn't do these things but still denied the devs and publishers just as much money, and acted morally superior, as you are, i would be pretty ridiculous.
Also, Gwot: I don't find myself agreeing with you there. You put forward some good points, but ultimately I don't think games are this use-once experience like food. You don't consume it once and move on. You might, as you might with books and films, but in that case why not sell it to someone?
Ultimately I'd like to see the middle-men taking out though, and in that I agree with Bungie. It's just that I can't stand to hear the 2nd-hand market condemned quite so widely, as I think it's a good thing.
edit: I also agree that digital distribution's a different thing altogether. I don't expect to be able to sell a title I bought on steam on to another person, for instance. Although I'm not sure how I feel about it if you bought -for instance- the Orange Box in physical form, as you're not able to sell it then either.
So the retail system that has been perpetuated through to the current console generation is behind the times. It is an antique, and the industry needs to seriously begin rethinking it. If I was a major game publisher, I would start calling around to all the other game publishers and arrange a little get-together to discuss these issues. A standardized system for industry-wide digital distribution would be better than every developer or publisher working on their own solutions. And an industry-sanctioned and maintained system for selling and purchasing used titles would possibly provide a way for developers to get a little back from used-game sales.
I think Rickard Kain's idea of an industry sanctioned system is good idea.
I think the closest analogy I can come to 2nd hand games is 2nd hand books. Both are an experience and both suffer these same problems. In fact alot of us get to enjoy many literary experiences free through librarys...do authors get pissed off at librarys? will we ever have free Video Game librarys? that might really annoy developers. =/
It all comes down to this: once you've had the experience that's it, you've received your money's worth. Selling that book or movie after you've seen it or read it is the exact same thing as with games - it affects the creator's income and that is a bad thing. It doesn't really matter if anyone agrees with my opinion or not that's the simple truth of it to be ignored or debated as you prefer. I definitely see a day coming when you will not be able to resell any experience-based products though - whether you or I or anyone agrees with this is irrelevant. This is simply a logical business direction.
Rollin: why would I even want to sell you my game when you're exactly the type of person that directly contributes to my lost income. If selling you a single game of mine causes me to lose 10 other sales, I really wouldn't want your business. I'd rather sell fewer games to people who actually pay for them than deal with massive amounts of resales, which is really just legalized piracy. I don't care about having the biggest possible audience. I care about making games for people who enjoy them enough to see their value and accept that this is worth paying for. This is what keeps developers in business, which in turn provides those people with good gaming experiences. It's a very nice simple dependency cycle that gets shit on by piracy and resales among other things.
Being a developer is a real risk because it's not just about making good games that people want to buy. The resale system exists because people either don't know or worse, just don't care that the developer/author is getting cut out of the deal. Most are thinking in terms of what they can afford or just wanting to save 20 bucks to spend elsewhere. It's pretty hard to beat that mentality as a developer when you are locked into a pricing scheme you have no control over. This is where digital distribution can help. It not only cuts out the middle men like publishers and resellers, it gives you the control over your product to charge what it is worth and reach the audience you want it to reach... namely those who are more interested in paying for your product. It's not a perfect solution, but it's a damn good start towards fixing the current problem.
I think all content should be a lot cheaper than it is currently. In a world without piracy or resales I think it very well could be. I don't mind paying .99 for a song I buy online. I think that is a good, fair price to pay for someone else's hard work, knowing that millions of others will probably do the same thing, I can live with. The author wins and so do I. I personally don't feel a need to be a multi-millionaire by charging outrageous prices for my work.
I'd like to someday see a distribution system that is not only fair to me as a developer but fair to the customer as well. Preventing resales and piracy can only really succeed when you stop over charging for products - especially mediocre ones that are over marketed to be something special when they are really not. We need to remove the 'justification' factor that a lot of people use to excuse their motivations for piracy. If content really were dirt cheap there'd be no more argument for piracy from a cost perspective. Using that argument wouldn't hold any water. You'd just be an asshole for using it.
There needs to be an incentive to pay these sums for something, and as mentioned before, there are a few initiatives that try to inject some value into what you'd call the strictly content-based media. Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead have done a good job with it, I think. They get the fact that 'true fans' are willing to pay extra to get an object of added value, something unique.
If you're convinced more sales would somehow lower prices on media though, you're starting to sound slightly deluded. I know you're not, but I'm just saying... you could be making a less naive case for it. I realise you're talking about what you'd like to see, but that's suddenly a big step away from the reality of this discussion.
People (indies/budget) may choose to underprice the big guys, but an EA or Ubisoft won't lower prices because people suddenly bought more of their product. In an ideal world, perhaps. In the real world? Not so much.
Why shouldn't I be able to swap it or get some of that money back that I just got suckered into spending?
Yeah i too would love to get my hands on the resale money, but its not ours to have.
a number of months before its available to buy on dvd, sometimes then there is
a delay before you can rent, or pay per view tv, or pay per view streamining on the net.
Thanks to this system, films that we might not otherwise get to see, make money and
allow the movie makers to stand a chance of making another movie we might like.
Consider how many movies like Shawshank Redemption that bombed at the box office
due to the nature of the content being problematic to market and sell to the public
in a way that captures their interests, that then go on to become the biggest selling
dvd in recent history and thus ensuring many more people get the 2nd chance to actually
watch what is an amazingly uplifting movie.
Games & game companies get one shot and if they come out at a bad time or there is no
marketting support, people don't buy it, the game bombs because of lack of awareness
rather than lack of quality and the company folds, the team splits up across a number
of other companies.
Good games, like good movies often come about from an experienced team of the same
people who are practised and nuanced in their awareness of each others strengths
and weaknessess.
This 1 shot for success business model has been very detrimental to the industry from the
early days onwards, but now in a time where budgets and team sizes are huge its
much more profound a weakness. It's because of this that less people are willing to pay
for indie startups, who traditionally in the movie industry and also in the game industry
are the places where the real innovation comes from and is then dissasembled by the larger
companies and uplifts the medium of games as a whole.
How many times have you indignant folks in here lamented the lack of innovation in games?
It might be worth it for some of you to take a moment to think things through rather than
jumping to an opinion you instinctually feel is right enough that it merits bellicose posturing
toward 'the man', whatever the latest issue that appears to be in the way of your good time
happens to be that week.
I personally don't want to miss out on the Shawshank Redemption's of the games industry so
I vote for the company that made the game or movie I liked, with my wallet, in the hope
that others are doing likewise and I will get to see more games or movies like that made.
So I'm all for legislation that changes how games are sold and how the product's usage is
legally defined to ensure that as much money that is traded on the sale of it goes to the
people who made the game. So I'm a supporter of steam too and anything else like that.
And for me, this isn't so much about my own pocket because Epic is managing to do ok without
these laws atm, but a lot of companies out there trying more oddball and pioneering risky
style games are not and I'm very interested in those places continuing.
Rooster: There's a difference between getting your money back for a product you found defective and selling it second hand. And as for not doing your own research on a product you purchase, well, in that case it really is your own fault. Just because there are many people who don't read reviews or try demos before buying doesn't legitimize their lack of effort in any way. As with all things, buyer beware. I have no sympathy for them, but I also don't condone shitty developers making shitty games and tricking the public into purchasing a bad product through marketing. Devs and publishers both are guilty in this regard and should be punished with shitty returns on their shitty product. An informed market generally takes care of this on its own though so the real issue here is in making it easier for customers to make informed decisions.
With digital distribution at reasonable prices though I think this would be less of an issue than it is today. You could also do away with the possibility of some asshole finishing a game and then bringing it back to the store the next day and asking for a full refund. Having a rating system attached to the digital copy online is easily doable too. I know when I download a movie or album off iTunes I can read reviews and try the songs before I do so. This should be no different for any other content.
Pea: Offering value added physical items to a product is really up to those who sell the product. It still amounts to them using the same antiquated distribution system and having to deal with the issues we've been discussing. I like art books and stuff too. I don't feel a need to get them with my game purchase though. With a digital system you could just as easily place an order for such physical items along with your purchase of the game. Download the game immediately and have the option to download the extra content or have it delivered to you in the case of silly keychains or other schwag or even choosing a physical artbook over a digital. It's all still possible. Personally I'd rather be able to buy extra schwag online at the company's store. That way if I don't like the stupid keychain I don't have to buy it. Maybe I want a shirt instead or a digital copy and a physical copy of an artbook. One for reference and the other for my coffee table.
An online store is far more useful for value added purchases related to a company's product than an over-priced box filled with crap plus my game. This is all part of the old world pre-internet distribution system. I'm saying you can keep that but still go digital and have the best of both.
I think you misunderstood me as far as your mention of more sales = lower prices though. Publishers have never worked that way and probably never intend to despite the fact that they use it as an argument to inflate their anti-piracy agenda (or why we need to keep our prices high).
Digital distribution has the potential to cut the publishers right out of the picture as far as controlling prices - not because of increased sales, but because developers would simply have the freedom to put their own price on their product. Selling a game through digital distribution for 70 bucks even though there is no packaging or shipping or shelving costs involved is fucking robbery. Selling it for 20 bucks would yield a higher return for most developers if no middle men were involved and might even generate more sales for being cheaper. Regardless, developers stand a much greater chance of maintaining independence and creativity by taking control of how their products are distributed if they aren't beholden to publishers or resellers cutting the rug out from under them. This is what's really important, as Kevin so eloquently stated above.
I just wish there was a system (as far as i know there isn't anything that fits this) to ensure that I and only I can play that copy. Something where you sign in and it lists all the games you own/can play and can redownload. Where ever you play the game it just sends out a ping to make sure you own that game. If you don't it asks you if you would like to play the demo or buy the game. If i want a friend to try out the game you can lend your "ownership" of a game to them for X number of days with a max of like a week.
The 360 kinda has some of this. I just hope that the "720" lets us from the start buy all our games digitally. It will take a lot of work to pull game company's out from under the publishers grasp.
UR LOVE IS LIKE A BREATH OF FRESH AIR, I AM BUT A FLOWER FLOATING IN THE WIND.
But that won't work on home consoles, because home consoles are physical portals already, and are by nature divisive. The console owners control their own platforms, and by extension their own digital distribution. There's no way there are going to be willing to share. So for the console market, the division between the platform holders and the publishers will perpetuate the current system of selling and re-selling games.
This is where the whole one-console future idea becomes considerably more relevant. With an industry-standardized platform, the possibility of a universal digital distribution system would be feasible, even expected. Without a divided userbase, developers could distribute titles with less fear of not making their money back. Competition would ideally be based on the quality of content.
I see video game shops going out of business everywhere here. there are none left in my city, I have to travel into central wellington now. From what I can tell they get a tiny cut, and a lot of their survival depends on resales. It seems now that developers don't want retailers to make any money from their games.
IMO Im buying a disk with info on it, not an experiance. I can do whatever the fuck i like with it besides making another copy. If I throw it out, do I have to pay them because they could have made a resale? this is madness.
You don't see DVD shops selling second hand DVDs next to new ones.
You shouldn't see game stores selling second hand games next to new ones.
Especially when they run ads that promote buying second hand games over new ones.
It's not about second hand. It's about where the second hand games are sold.
Asmuel. If you aren't buying a game disk for the game that's on it to actually play the game (could also be read as EXPERIENCE) then wtf do you even buy games for? Save your money and buy blank disks. They're cheaper and you can put whatever you want on them. Also what does throwing out a game have anything to do with the discussion at hand? You're free to do that (for free even), have always been free to do so and will probably continue to be free to do so until we figure out how to penetrate the ass-backwards dimension. You aren't making sense.
O’Donnell said.
“Complaining about sales when you have a multi-million seller is somewhat difficult to justify, but it seems to me that the folks who create and publish a game shouldn’t stop receiving income from further sales.”
My comment makes perfect sense. He feel's they somehow still have ownership of the data on that specific disk after I am done with it. this is not the case. they didnt rent it to me. That specific disk is my property. as much as a car that I bought is mine, the designers have no claim to further sales.
Your comment about blank disks makes no sense. I said clearly "IMO Im buying a disk with info on it, not an experiance." Nobody is talking about buying disks not to play them you fucking knob.
Developers really need to work more to motivate people to keep their games. Bungie has done a decent job, occasionally releasing map packs and now that teaser trailer.
It actually has come to my attention recently, as I just hadn't thought about it before and was a clueless consumer, that I really am not supporting developers by buying used games. As such, I will try to buy mostly new games now, especially of games from developers I want to support. However, when it comes to older games that are hard to find, and I can find them only used and cheaper, I'll still pick them up from time to time. Whether this is justifiable or not, I'll still do it.
I don't want to get too techincal and deep into this discussion, as many people already have and more eloquently than I would, but just one more point I'd like to make.
Honestly, it pains me to see so many people who either work on games, or hope to, not caring about as much money as possible going to developers. Isn't this a bit of 'biting the hand that feeds you', or am I misinterpreting? But not supporting your own industry, the one that you hope will pay your bills and keep job positions open for you, seems a bit harsh. If even the people making games won't spend money that will go to the developers, who will?
Also, the more I hear about GameStop, the more evil they seem. But there's not much to be done about that. They've grown too powerful, and too many people will always remain ignorant and see a few bucks off and support the trade-in and resell market GameStop is dominating. Unless, I suppose, digital distribution becomes the new norm for getting games. But I don't think this will happen until the next generation becomes adults. Too many clueless parents now need to be able to buy the physical product for their precious ones.