No refunds or trade ins on PC games?!
polycounter lvl 17
Seriously when did this happen!? I can't return my PC copy of MW2 to the store I purchased it from (Fred Meyers) nor can I trade it in @ stores that accept trade-ins!!! WTF?!?
Replies
I was about to say, this happened a hellvua long time ago. Mainly anything with a CD key/Steam integration makes it automatically no go on the trade-in. Still find some places that will take it, right next to all the copies of Half-Life 2 that got traded in and once someone else picks it up it wont work.
When I was selling my copy of Bioshock on eBay, somebody sent me a message, saying how they'd bought a copy without a manual and therefore couldn't play it, so could they have my authorization code for free? :poly127:
Anyways, now that you have to take the shipping charges on the chin as a condition of listing and selling games & DVD's, it's barely worth it. I considered selling my copy of RE5 on eBay, until I saw brand-new, unopened copies going for £10. I don't need rid of it that badly.
Unless you are going to go and say no trades for cds and such, you have no platform to stand on making our industry any different than theirs.
Now, if you had argued about direct download games, where there is no physical media.. that would be different.
There are benefits and losses to every system, but pre-owned games cause developers to lose out big time.
Id like o see you go to a used book store and pick up a new release book...
Happens all the time. Books also have a longer shelf life at a set price than a game. I still believe your making an assumption about the amount of trade ins. Now, joe shmo coming in and wanting to play a game, but cant afford the full price sees the used. He wouldn't have been able to buy the new.
The only way your argument works, is when there would be a 1:1 of new and used copies readily available. Unless the game was such a POS that people returned them by the bucket load, this is HIGHLY unlikely.
Developers loose out more bigtime in rentals than secondary sales. Luckily PC development has no rental market.
hehe funny you mention that because the last book i bought was from a used book store, and the book had never been read/brand new...
lol now thats called using your noggin!
Why Yep, been this way almost a decade...which is why I make sure that I want the game if I'm buying on PC. Why would you want to return MW2?
"But the clerk said due to anti-piracy laws we would both go to jail if he gave me a refund"
"I see. You talked to Eddie, at frys, in Hoboken?"
"yea how did you know?"
Their policies got worse and worse as time went (store and company) on and eventually ended up being: "have the customer send in the disc for testing, send it back saying it wasn't defective but they had damaged it in some way" Which actually was the case with most of the children software titles. "Are you aware that the disc was encased in peanut butter when we got it?"
At first they would exchange or replace even refund, but toward the end it was all asshole all the time.
Yea, tried that, but the store clerk OPENED THE SHRINK WRAP IN FRONT OF ME. Just to check if i had returned all of it, he checked mine versus the one he was giving me.
IMHO this is bullshit, making a store return policy where the customer is not allowed to return a product because he or she MIGHT have pirated it is ridiculous. I was surprised because last year I had purchased a copy of Windows Vista and was able to return it after it had been opened just fine to Office Max!
The only game I ever traded in was Quake 4 three months after I bought it. Best 3 pounds I ever pocketed, the multiplayer sucked some serious ass.
I wonder how much of a dent that is, to the PC piracy industry, most PC game pirates are tech savvy enough to torrent the game and get a serial number, no two trips to the store required.
Or is the a game that doesn't get registered to Steam like that?
explain:
(first week of game being on sale)
customer1 pays 60 dollars new game
store rev=60
brings back after beating it gets 25 dollars (or less)
store rev=35
customer2 pays 55 dollars for used game
store rev=90
brings back after beating it gets 20 (assuming next week or period for trade-in price drop)
store rev=70
customer3 pays 55 dollars for used game
store rev=125
(notice, used price doesn't necessarily adjust proportionately with trade-in value, this is key)
-Now, according to a small, privately owned retail game store i visit on occasion, they purchase new games at around 50 dollars, thats cost.
So we might assume that since gamestop buys in massive massive bulk these cost 30-40 dollars, maybe less.
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This is mainly from my experience at gamestop, so i cant vouch for other companies. But, if this wasn't profitable, they wouldn't be doing it.
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Thus my peers, I conclude that not only do trade-ins help the industry, but not being able to trade in pc games does indeed hurt the industry.
Although there isnt a good remedy for not being able to trade in pc games as there is no copy protection within the disc drive (everyone has a different drive/hardware, or that at least is assumed) making the copying of a disc and managing to play it without it quite a bit easier than with a console (which typically requires far more investment: mod chips, swap discs, bios flashing)
Trade-ins help Gamestop, not developers. Guess who cares more about the developer's revenue than Gamestop's revenue?
At many stores, people cannot play, beat, and return games after breaking the seal on packaging. These people that plan to do this, (many people) may be discouraged to buy from places such as walmart, fred meyer etc because they cannot return the item (unless it is broken) for all their money, or even a portion. Although these people could resell the item on craigslist independant of where they bought the item, but it can be inconvenient and even dangerous. And Gamestop will give you 15-20 dollars for a new game trade in, where a pawn shop will give you 3 dollars (actual amount about 4 weeks after halo 3 was released)
Gamestop exists=helps the industry
Gamestop thrives=helps the industry
[RANT] I've been hearing a lot about how used game sales hurt the game industry lately, and I think it's just plain stupid. Besides the numbers that have already been given in this thread, the game industry made more than movies AND music last year, and that trend continues today. On the other hand, I have made very little money, and so have a crapton of others in this economy. So I can either not buy a game at all, or buy it at used game store.
I'm sick of some dev's and ignorant people trying to make people like me who don't make much at all, and can only afford the occasional used game, or even rarer new game, feel like shit for it. Trust me, if I could earn more money, I would. If I could afford new games, I'd buy them new. But I can't so I'm not gonna be made to feel like shit over it. [/RANT]
Every time you trade a PC game in, a game developer dies.
Think about that.
If I made an awesome game and I met somebody that bought it second hand it would go a little like this:
Me - "Oh you bought my game, what did you think of it?"
Them - "It was great, I loved it, I'll totally buy the next one!"
Me - "You bought it second hand though, why did you do that?"
Them - "Because it was cheaper..."
Then I'd smack myself in the head and go "OH that's right, games are so expensive these days!"
On topic though, the whole no returns pc game thing has been that way for a long time and makes sense. It is just too easy to pirate and return. The retailer will want to re-sell the game you returned if the disc itself wasn't faulty and it will do no good to the next customer if their key was already taken.
Yes you register the game to your steam account, if someone else tries to use the key it will get already registered and cancel the install (I tried to install on second pc for co-op play with the missus :P), wasn't surprised it didn't work but I had to try it.
If you think about it with digital distribution you get no DVD, manual, case and if theres no DRM you are free to sell them on ebay or something similar, yet with digital distribution you nearly always pay more, you get no hardcopy, you have to download very large files that take alot of your monthly download limit and you can't sell the games because there most likly linked to your account.
I though digital distribution would make games cheaper?
DD is pretty much hamstrung by agreements to sell at MSRP so that brick and mortar stores can compete.
I do give my hats off to Steam, I check the weekend deals every weekend because they have some insane deals, awhile back they had a L4D for $25, and more recently I purchased FEAR2 for $25, and Crysis Warhead for $15!
got punched in the face and dragged behind a car for two blocks- True story.
All i'm saying is.. if your gonna attempt to return pc games.. bring a hockey mask and a tire iron.
Anvils and maces work too
ah but you can sell them to a second hand dealer (if the storefront has no trade schemes like gamestop for games.)