[TerrorFirmer]

Originally Posted by ShadowHearth

Wtf is wrong with online pass lads? Let's be honest - it works. Why reinvent bicycle?
Online pass makes second hand games less attractive, so prices on trade ins and second hand sales droping, not growing. That would explain big high street boys having problems too.

I agree actually, with the online pass system. Recently, I borrowed my friends copy of Space Marine, and to progress past an elemental level online, whilst still having complete access to the SP campaign, I had to buy the pass, which was only 800MSP - about 8 euro. To buy the game new, the cheapest I could find was at least double that, so I was happy to pay the 8 odd euro to get full access, and even, to be honest, contribute a little back to a great game. Went on to buy the Chaos Unleashed DLC too, so that's 16 quid spent on a '2nd hand game', and I'll probably end up getting the Dreadnought expansion as well.

Obviously that only suits games with decent MP capability however, which limits it, does nothing to claw back some revenue from games designed around a single player experience.

[hooradiation]

Originally Posted by Grumpypants

Dear Developers,

I will stop trading in my games if you promise to make games that i want to play for longer than one day.

That is all.

Kind Regards,

Grumpy.

Dear Grumpy,

Seeing as you haven't paid us for these games you complain about, we don't care about what you want.

That is all.

Kind Regards,

Publishers.

[johnny_ultimate]

Games should be as long as they need to be. Some games have provided six hours of play and been worth every cent. Others have provided one hundred repetitive ones and been barely worth a tenner.

Games are more than a product that should be measured as cost vs content.

[Grumpypants]

Originally Posted by hooradiation

Dear Grumpy,

Seeing as you haven't paid us for these games you complain about, we don't care about what you want.

That is all.

Kind Regards,

Publishers.

A simplistic yet completely incorrect response.

I actually did pay for the games as i bought them all new delivering loads of money to the publishers who then give a % to the devs, i then used the facility to sell that old game on to subsidize the cost of even more new games Increasing the number of new games i bought ten fold. Generating even more money for the publishers who then gave even more money to the devs saying build us more games we are selling loads of new games. The dev said yippee with all this money we can hire more people to build even better games, the publisher said wow even better games that's great people like better games we will sell loads of them.

Reducing the number of games i will buy by a factor of 10 really will not help the industry.

[ShadowHearth]

Originally Posted by gizmo

You think DLC is created with a magic wand?


Spare parts are made to replace existing parts and are not an option. DLC is new content and is entirely optional, regardless of the quality. The comparison is therefore invalid.


A few posters have already dealt with this. The reasons (in context) range from car purchases being far larger than a game, to the product being designed to last a lot longer to and most importantly the fact that their existance helps drive the demand for the replacement parts. The markup on which, I can only imagine, is "considerable".


This is total nonsense and again has been refuted in a number of threads. Games have not increased in price yet the development costs have risen astronomically. Therefore the people who are hurting are the publishers/developers as their margins are what is being cut, not the retailers. The larger retailers jumped on the second hand market for one reason and one reason only, massive profits. As has been posted before, Gamestop, one of the biggest culprits in this case, has seen approximately 50% of their profits come from the second hand market. That's two billion dollars. And you want to blame publishers for "pushing" them in this direction?

Well knowing you on boards.ie, I know that you will defend game developers even f they will use baby blood just for ****s and giggles.

Both: retailer and developer are not saint. Bouth of them a bigger piece of ham, so they fight with each other Any way the can. This is world of money, so they will do anything to make more money.

I wont bother the qoute every single sentence, as I cannot be arsed and it's a pain in the hole on phone, but you just completely missing the whole point. Yes it's not 100% similar and have their own way of doing, but in the end they got same outcome. If you want to argue and just prove me I am wrong just for the sale of it, then have fun.

Removing second hand games out of market won't influence me at all, as i almost always buy new and most of my games are for pc. I did not bought dark souls on launch, because it was expencive, but now I bought it new when it came down in price and developer got my money.

Thing is developers are going all so twisted in their pants and going with even more annoying **** for paying customer. I am all for online passes if needed. It works. It gives money to developer from a copy they sold already, it hurts GameStop as they can't sell it for that much anymore and have to drop prices as gamers don't buy second hand of they want play online. I wonder how many second hand copies of bf3 are in gamestops rotting away?

Developers should make really good quality games, so that people would not trade them in. Wtf can they expect if they sell a 4-5 hour game for 50eu, which has no reply value. It is very arguable, but games like mw2 or black ops were very very rare as second hand games. Why? Because they were good and popular so people did not wanted to trade them in, and the fella who wanted to play it had to go for brand new copy and pay full price to developer ( quality of cod games is a subject and sensitive matter lol ), because there were no second hand copies. ( if he was a cheap bastord in first place ).
If developers would have more quality products, that people would hold on to, then second hand market would not be such big problem. You don't see many good games I second hand shelfs. So yeah, bouth did a **** up: developers and retailers. No saints there.

[gizmo]

Originally Posted by ShadowHearth

Well knowing you on boards.ie, I know that you will defend game developers even f they will use baby blood just for ****s and giggles.

Not in the slightest, I'll side with the people who I deem right. In the context of second hand sales, when you have a huge number of studios facing closure due to falling sales and more particular publishers and retailers who are reaping massive profits in th process, I think it's easy to determine who I'd be in favour of.

As johnny_ultimate already said, I'm not in favour of completely abolishing second hand sales but at the same time I cannot, on any level, support the current practices of the larger retailers.

Originally Posted by ShadowHearth

Both: retailer and developer are not saint. Bouth of them a bigger piece of ham, so they fight with each other Any way the can. This is world of money, so they will do anything to make more money.

Publishers and developers are not fighting each other. The vast majority of developers know all too well that they cannot survive without the support of publishers. The reason you see developers getting involved is because they know the effect the second hand sales is having on their livelihoods because of how it affects publishers and how they approach funding titles.

Originally Posted by ShadowHearth

I wont bother the qoute every single sentence, as I cannot be arsed and it's a pain in the hole on phone, but you just completely missing the whole point. Yes it's not 100% similar and have their own way of doing, but in the end they got same outcome. If you want to argue and just prove me I am wrong just for the sale of it, then have fun.

I didn't miss the point, I simply disagreed with yours and you've not offered any real rebuttle outside of ad hominuum replies.

Originally Posted by ShadowHearth

Developers should make really good quality games, so that people would not trade them in. Wtf can they expect if they sell a 4-5 hour game for 50eu, which has no reply value. It is very arguable, but games like mw2 or black ops were very very rare as second hand games. Why? Because they were good and popular so people did not wanted to trade them in, and the fella who wanted to play it had to go for brand new copy and pay full price to developer ( quality of cod games is a subject and sensitive matter lol ), because there were no second hand copies. ( if he was a cheap bastord in first place ).

Developers do make many many quality products and the vast majority of them are still affected by the second hand markets. For instance, in the local Game/Gamestation here there is a slew of second hand copies of Skyrim, Batman Arkham City and Uncharted 3, all fantastic titles. On the other hand, there aren't that many BF3s or MW3s primarily due to the online component of these titles. The single player campaigns only weigh in at 5-6hrs but it is the online part which stops people from trading them in, not because they are deemed better than other titles. This is also why you see so many publishers insisting on multiplayer components being tacked onto games where it really doesn't belong. Dead Space 2 or Mass Effect 3 MP anyone?

[Retr0gamer]

TBH people buying used games are mugs. I only ever buy a used game when the game is genuinely out of print and hard to come by. Go into Game HMV or Gamestop right now and I'll put money on the fact that any used game in there I can find cheaper brand new online. CEX seem a bit better priced. The high street stores are such a rip off. Why would I buy something like Dead Space 2 when I can get it for less than 15 online brand new and sealed?

As far as I can see the only people buying used are young people without access to credit cards, a demographic that can't afford to get all the latest releases as soon as they are released. Perhaps games companies should sort out better pricing structures and be more willng to heavily reduce games once the initial months sales are up.

[gizmo]

Originally Posted by Retr0gamer

TBH people buying used games are mugs. I only ever buy a used game when the game is genuinely out of print and hard to come by. Go into Game HMV or Gamestop right now and I'll put money on the fact that any used game in there I can find cheaper brand new online. CEX seem a bit better priced. The high street stores are such a rip off. Why would I buy something like Dead Space 2 when I can get it for less than 15 online brand new and sealed?

Never mind the amusing occurances where the second hand copy is more expensive than the new version in the same store.

Originally Posted by Retr0gamer

As far as I can see the only people buying used are young people without access to credit cards, a demographic that can't afford to get all the latest releases as soon as they are released. Perhaps games companies should sort out better pricing structures and be more willng to heavily reduce games once the initial months sales are up.

Well there's another demographic, the people who just want to save a few quid. While generally speaking the game will be cheaper online there'll still be plenty of occassions where, soon after release, a new game can be picked up cheaper instore second hand. On these occassions the difference probably won't be much but unless people are aware of where their is money are going or simply don't care, they'll probably pick the cheaper options, especially given the sales pitches by the staff in most of the stores about how they're "basically the same as new".

As for the pricing structure, I've posted about this on several occassions. Games are heavily discounted soon after release, immensely so. So much so in fact that many of my friends often ask me why I bother buying new games on release when they'll be so much cheaper in a couple of weeks. There are a couple of exceptions of course but by and large, their drop is of a free fall nature.

Anyway, on a more important note, is baby's blood different from normal blood? Is it...tastier?

[super_furry]

Originally Posted by gizmo

Anyway, on a more important note, is baby's blood different from normal blood? Is it...tastier?

There's a higher concentration of midichlorians.

[Retr0gamer]

I've moved from bathing in virgins blood to babies blood, seems to keep the ravages of a 500 years curse to stalk the earth as the undead at bay and does wonders for my complexion. Sparkiling vampires really do have it a lot easier, why the hell do they have to be so emo about it. 'Blah, blah, blah.. I'm too strong to have sex with my girlfriend... whinge.' Tell her to get on top you ****ing moron or are you afraid she'll see how small it really is. Eddie can be such a pussie.

[Bambi]

"it won't play used games at all," Durall writes.

At first I read that as "it wont be used to play games at all"

Still nice line from the spanner, that the change is good because "it won't kill" the customer.

[hooradiation]

Originally Posted by Grumpypants

A simplistic yet completely incorrect response.

ohh, you want to play this game, do you? Right, chuckles.

I actually did pay for the games as i bought them all new delivering loads of money to the publishers who then give a % to the devs,

Wrong.
Unless you've managed to find some kind of crazy publisher who don't like having money, the developers are paid on a milestone to milestone basis.
Once the game ships all the money from sales goes to the publisher, the developer sees none of it.
Occasionally there will be a performance related bonus, if the game sells over X copies the developer will get a tiny % on each subsequent copy sold.
This is nowhere near the norm though.

Originally Posted by Grumpypants

I then used the facility to sell that old game on to subsidize the cost of even more new games Increasing the number of new games i bought ten fold.

I can only assume that when you said that "On the other hand i can't remember the last full price game i bought" you meant it in euphemistic sort of sense as opposed to any kind of accurate or realistic statement.
Also, I'd question your maths, but I'm going to assume you're being hyperbolic.

Originally Posted by Grumpypants

Generating even more money for the publishers who then gave even more money to the devs saying build us more games we are selling loads of new games. The dev said yippee with all this money we can hire more people to build even better games, the publisher said wow even better games that's great people like better games we will sell loads of them.

Well, your initial premise is wrong, so all this is nonsense too. But it's refreshing to see how charmingly naive people are when it comes to how the games industry actually works.

I also love the misguided concept that's prevalent among plenty of people on here that developers and publishers are simply not considering that they should make 'better' games.
My god, what genius!
Better games, you are truly a visionary.....

As if there was some kind of universal metric for better and even if there were such a thing that this thought has never crossed a single developers mind. Clearly developers are just incapable of the kind of transcendental thought that leads to stunning breakthroughs

Originally Posted by Grumpypants

Reducing the number of games i will buy by a factor of 10 really will not help the industry.

It's ok, you've solved all the games industries problems, you can reduce your mathematically impossible spending binge all you like.

[ShadowHearth]

Omfg. This separate quoting of section... Is it me or is it the ultimate step at douchiness?

( no personal attacks and not aimed at post above. Have to say it before I will get missunderstood and accused of child abuse )

[Helix]

Originally Posted by ShadowHearth

Omfg. This separate quoting of section... Is it me or is it the ultimate step at douchiness?

its just you

it makes things a lot easier to read that way and it takes no time at all to do

[EnterNow]