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Vanilla are planning an update to the site on April 24th (next Wednesday). It is a major PHP8 update which is expected to boost performance across the site. The site will be down from 7pm and it is expected to take about an hour to complete. We appreciate your patience during the update.
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Go **** yourself THQ
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ShadowHearth wrote: »Holy ****! And that's from halo guys?! Respect.
I had same idea about SP and MP games!
Actually it's a guy from Sabre. They were responsible for Halo Anniversary, but nothing to do with the franchise before that. But still, indeed, commendable words
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Digital Distribution limits your customer base on consoles. Until broadband is widespread worldwide and every console is hooked up to be online then going DD only means you are losing a lot of your customer base. Unlike PC it's just not hit the right level of saturation. Couple that with the monopoly that the platform holders have over their services which means prices are ridiculously high without the sales that PC gamers expect.
I still think that publishers and developers shoudl take into account the second hand market instead of trying to completely blocking it. I'm totally against blocking the second hand market because it benefits absolutely nobody and only a few greedy publishers and money men believe that it will make them more money. As for developers that think they'll make more money if second hand sales are blocked, good luck with that, do they really think that what little profits the publisher recoups from this are going to feedback to the developers, the same ones that from what Gizmo says seem to be getting shafted by publishers already.
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Publishers shouldn't have to cater to the whims of a certain demographic of gamer with entitlement issues. :pac:Retr0gamer wrote: »Digital Distribution limits your customer base on consoles. Until broadband is widespread worldwide and every console is hooked up to be online then going DD only means you are losing a lot of your customer base. Unlike PC it's just not hit the right level of saturation. Couple that with the monopoly that the platform holders have over their services which means prices are ridiculously high without the sales that PC gamers expect.
Well if sales were to hypothetically increase due to some measures being put in place, one of two things could happen depending on the case:Retr0gamer wrote: »I still think that publishers and developers shoudl take into account the second hand market instead of trying to completely blocking it. I'm totally against blocking the second hand market because it benefits absolutely nobody and only a few greedy publishers and money men believe that it will make them more money. As for developers that think they'll make more money if second hand sales are blocked, good luck with that, do they really think that what little profits the publisher recoups from this are going to feedback to the developers, the same ones that from what Gizmo says seem to be getting shafted by publishers already.
a) More games would have a better chance of reaching the sales targets set for them by publishers based on the development costs. This would mean publishers would be more than likely to fund future projects and we'd see less cutbacks and closures across the board.
b) Those games which have already sold enough copies to warrant royalty payments for the developers would generate even more revenue. This money could then be pumped into prototyping for new projects for future pitches, something which generally isn't funded by publishers. Or hey, maybe individual developers could start seeing decent bonuses on project completion to make up for the insane hours most of them work. 0 -
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Publishers shouldn't have to cater to the whims of a certain demographic of gamer with entitlement issues. :pac:
It's nothing to do with entitlement issues. It's just the whole online shopping experience is just so much better for the customer on the PC side of things. You can be assured that a sale will come along if you wait and can get the game you want at a reasonable price. It's still crap for new games since the retail price is always cheaper.
Now take PSN or XBLA for instance. A lot of releases will get one sale and one sale only. Older games will likely stay on the shop at full price with no price reduction. For example I really want Hard Corps Uprising. It's on XBLA for 1200 points. I missed it when it was on sale so it will always be 1200 points from now on, about 15 euros when not in Microsofts pretend money. Whenever I have 15 euros left over on my card to spend I could buy Uprising but I don't because I can get something like Deus Ex brand new for less than the price of a downloadable title that is almost a years old now. This isn't benefiting the customer who has to pay silly prices for a downloadable title or the developer who is missing out on sales. I wouldn't mind paying the money for it on release but I was stone broke at the time but 15 quid for a downloadable title that's a year old? it would be 2.50 on steam. It's a bad system that Sony and MS really need to manage a lot better.Well if sales were to hypothetically increase due to some measures being put in place, one of two things could happen depending on the case:
a) More games would have a better chance of reaching the sales targets set for them by publishers based on the development costs. This would mean publishers would be more than likely to fund future projects and we'd see less cutbacks and closures across the board.
b) Those games which have already sold enough copies to warrant royalty payments for the developers would generate even more revenue. This money could then be pumped into prototyping for new projects for future pitches, something which generally isn't funded by publishers. Or hey, maybe individual developers could start seeing decent bonuses on project completion to make up for the insane hours most of them work.
Which would all be grand if these said publishers didn't hypothetically change sales, royalty and bonus targets. Of course these publishers have shown in the past that they are all benevolent masters that look after the development teams they work with and aren't a business that's trying to squeeze as much money out of their investments as they can and aren't at the whims of a bunch of shareholders that only care about profits :P
The publishers have and always will screw over development houses, they're a business that's how they operate. It's not a new thing either it's just highlighted in the media a lot more.
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Ah, those kinds of sales. I was specifically referring to the likes of the big Steam sales which are by no means a right on any platform. The general pricing structure on the console platforms is fairly mental alright. Whatever about the high prices for the new retail games which are available for download, I cannot understand why MS and Sony don't just have a blanket system in place which reduces older content over time.Retr0gamer wrote: »It's nothing to do with entitlement issues. It's just the whole online shopping experience is just so much better for the customer on the PC side of things. You can be assured that a sale will come along if you wait and can get the game you want at a reasonable price. It's still crap for new games since the retail price is always cheaper.
Now take PSN or XBLA for instance. A lot of releases will get one sale and one sale only. Older games will likely stay on the shop at full price with no price reduction. For example I really want Hard Corps Uprising. It's on XBLA for 1200 points. I missed it when it was on sale so it will always be 1200 points from now on, about 15 euros when not in Microsofts pretend money. Whenever I have 15 euros left over on my card to spend I could buy Uprising but I don't because I can get something like Deus Ex brand new for less than the price of a downloadable title that is almost a years old now. This isn't benefiting the customer who has to pay silly prices for a downloadable title or the developer who is missing out on sales. I wouldn't mind paying the money for it on release but I was stone broke at the time but 15 quid for a downloadable title that's a year old? it would be 2.50 on steam. It's a bad system that Sony and MS really need to manage a lot better.
As a sidenote, you must have missed Uprising twice because it was on sale again recently as part of the Japanese Week thing with Bangai-O et al.
Well there is that too, I did make a point of saying hypthetically.Retr0gamer wrote: »Which would all be grand if these said publishers didn't hypothetically change sales, royalty and bonus targets. Of course these publishers have shown in the past that they are all benevolent masters that look after the development teams they work with and aren't a business that's trying to squeeze as much money out of their investments as they can and aren't at the whims of a bunch of shareholders that only care about profits :P
On a serious note though, I don't think that would happen to a particularly large extent. The budgets wouldn't also be increasing so I'd imagine the publishers would see sales falling to what could be regarded as a more natural level without the interference of second hand sales. Who knows really though, as you said it's not like they've been known to act rationally in the past.
Quite true, things are getting better though. The EA Partners program seems to be going down quite well but as long as you have the likes of Tim Schaffer unable to find a publisher for Psychonauts 2 due to the "risk" it presents then we have a problem. Of course it would be nice if gamers recognised these gems when they were relased *cough* Rayman: Origins *cough* but I can only hope that will change over time too.Retr0gamer wrote: »The publishers have and always will screw over development houses, they're a business that's how they operate. It's not a new thing either it's just highlighted in the media a lot more.0 -
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So you want a PC then?richymcdermott wrote: »To be honest i want all consoles to stop being strict and be more open , take down the barriers nd allow 360,ps3 and wii u players to be able to connect and play with each other .. I would also love to see exclusives (unless companies owned studios) to be gone and all games should be on every console without worrying bout timed exclusive games, timed exclusive demos, exclusive dlc etc.. 0 -
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Is that you?hooradiation wrote: »How fascinating.
Please, tell me more.
I'm sure you've plenty more equally incisive bon mots to share, don't hold back.
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Completely correct. This was already mentioned awhile back though.So a couple of issues have been raised since I made my post a couple of pages back. I'll try to address a few of them. First though, putting aside the debate about publishers, retailers and profits there is a key thing that people don't seem to be getting. IT WON'T WORK!
The vast majority of PC gamers have internet access. It's a requirement these days, just like having the disc in the drive whenever you want to play used to be a requirement (it still is in some cases but most people just use cracks to get around it). Up to half of 360's are never taken online and that's where the speculation about anti-used game initiatives in the Nextbox firmware falls apart.
Any such security measure would require online access to work. A person would need to be online with their Nexbox so that when they start up a game for the first time it can register the game disc's unique ID on the Microsoft servers. If the person sells that game and someone else puts it into their own machine, that Nextbox connects to the servers and the unique ID is already linked to a different console or account, making it unplayable. This means that if you don't go online with your Nextbox, you can play second hand games all you want.
Why is that significant? Because half of sold 360s aren't taken online. The same would likely be true of the Nextbox. If Microsoft sell 100 Million Nextbox's, up to 50 Million won't go online and thus won't be affected by anti-second hand software. That's 50 Million customers who are free to buy second hand games. That's hardly addressing the issue. Microsoft could make the Nextbox online-reliant, requiring you go online to play any game, just like with many PC games, but they'd lose half their customer base. Can you see that happening? I can't. Microsoft aren't going to give up half of their potential consumers and anti-second hand software isn't going to affect those customers one bit, making the whole exercise pointless.
It'd tend to agree here however there has been a polarised response to such a system from gamers even on this very thread, nevermind around the net in general.What we have in this generation of consoles is the "Online Pass" which is required if a person wants to play a game online. Buy the game new, the pass is free, by it used, you pay for the pass. This is the way forward. Publishers (not developers) will be able to profit somewhat from the used game market and retailers like Gamestop will be forced to lower their prices. After all there's not much point in buying a game second hand if the price of the online pass brings the total cost near to the price of a new game.
What would be interesting to see would be a blanket implementation of this across the board, not just for online games but for all single player ones too. Basically, the CD Key system that PC gamers have been dealing with for years. The downside of this is that it would require the game to connect to the internet at least once which, as has been pointed out, isn't always possible for some gamers.
And here we disagree. Quite simply, I do think they have a claim to the second hand sale, at least when it comes to the retail sector. Now, I'm not saying they should have a claim to all of it but I certainly believe that a deal should have been struck whereby a chunk of the revenue from the second hand sale goes back to the publisher.That brings me back to something else. Much of the debate has centered on how much money Gamestop are making from used games. That is a completely separate debate. It has nothing to do with publishers or developers no matter how much people would like it to be. The simple fact is, once the initial sale is made, publishers have no claims over second hand sales. They can make money on used games via DLC and Online Passes. They have no right to stop me from selling my game disc. Car manufacturers can make money by selling car parts to second-hand car owners. There is no difference. None. If Gamestop wants to charge €100 for a used copy of MW3, that's their right. You'd have to be an idiot to pay that of course but with Online Passes becoming more common, used game prices are going to have to come down significantly. If that happens, more used games will be sold, more online passes will be sold and ultimately the consumer will benefit.
One of the primary reasons for this is that unlike other physical objects which are often resold, video games don't particularly depreciate in quality over time. Sure their physical packaging/storage may somewhat but in terms of the problem areas here, i.e. the new games that hit the second market shortly after launch thus directly eating into the important initial sales for a game, the experience the original player gets will be exactly the same as the next person get. This makes them an exception in my eyes.
You're both mistaken and patently incorrect here.Gamestop aren't the only ones fleecing the consumer at times. Don't forget that many publishers and developers will put "extra" content on a game disc and then charge you to get it unlocked. In many ways that's worse than Gamestop overcharging because it's essentially the publisher charging you more for content you already own. Apparently it's entirely legal as well. Incidentally, if you find a way to unlock the extra content on a game disc yourself, that's also entirely legal...why? Because you own it.
Firstly, with regard to content on the disc, see this post for how that often happens. There are, of course, occasional exceptions to this but that is how it works in the vast majority of cases and as such, there's nothing wrong with it.
This also relates to the part where you are incorrect. You do not own the content on the disc in any way, shape or form, nor should you. You own a licence to play the game as it is. Just because there is content on there that is locked doesn't mean you have the right to use it. The closest analogy I can think of to this is a Sky sub. When you get one you pay for a set number of channels. Other channels exist on the service but you're not able to unlock them unless you pay for them. You're still getting what you paid for and the package represents the "complete" version of what you expected.0 -
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One of the primary reasons for this is that unlike other physical objects which are often resold, video games don't particularly depreciate in quality over time. Sure their physical packaging/storage may somewhat but in terms of the problem areas here, i.e. the new games that hit the second market shortly after launch thus directly eating into the important initial sales for a game, the experience the original player gets will be exactly the same as the next person get. This makes them an exception in my eyes.
How are videogames an exception? Do books and movies depreciate over time? Also game developers and game publishers have by law absolutely no right to the game once it has been sold to the customer and the customer has every right to sell their copy on. Why in the case of games do these laws have to be broken?
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Well I explained one of the reasons I felt they were an exception in terms of physical items. The others are more of a gray area, for example retailers having enough cop on not to bite the hand that feeds to an extent that it can result in damage to the underlying industry. I'd regard the other two examples as being quite different also, making it hard to really compare like with like. For example with movies, as I said earlier in the thread, the studio will have made the majority of its money in theaters so that when the DVD is released they'd be less sensitive to second hand sales. On top of this, as far as I can see, the sale of second hand movies at retail hasn't reached anywhere near the level of video games either in terms of volume or retailer practices. Books are different again, not only are they infinitely cheaper at retail but they're cheaper to produce initially, and I don't mean the production, I mean the financial cost of the author. On top of that they have a potentially infinite resale value via reprints to the extent that I can't see the second hand market damaging it in a similar manner.Retr0gamer wrote: »How are videogames an exception? Do books and movies depreciate over time? Also game developers and game publishers have by law absolutely no right to the game once it has been sold to the customer and the customer has every right to sell their copy on. Why in the case of games do these laws have to be broken?
As for the legal side of things, well you could argue that because you're only buying a licence to play the game you don't have the legal right to transfer it to a third party. If you did then why isn't there more objections to the inability to sell on Steam games or accounts? The only thing stopping you, apart from the technical side on the games front, is the EULA which is also what controls the transfer of licences for physical copies.
EDIT: With regard to the (non-legal) claim of the publisher to the second hand sale, if one doesn't believe in this then how can one argue in favour of the online pass which allows them to recoup some of the losses from said sale?
Note, I'm playing devil's advocate here, I've already stated people should be free to pass on their games however they wish. 0 -
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Well in fairness this could be one of the most important changes to how we purchase and play our games since a bunch of guys in Belleuve, Washington decided we had to download this other piece of software before we could play Half-Life 2.ShadowHearth wrote: »I cant believe this thread draged do much. .
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