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Having to pay for multiplayer content.... its coming.

hightower1

Game developers are this summer going to start implementing "online passes" system in new games.

What does this mean for you and me?

Well when you buy a new game you will also get a code you need to enter to validate the copy you have for online content like multiplayer.
Its a one time code so if you trade in the game the online is useless unless you pay more (approx 5eur) to activate the online content for yourself.

Basically game developers get around 12eur on every 60eur game sold, when you trade this in to say gamestop when its re sold all the money goes to gamestop.
As far as the developers are concerned this is a big loss as another person who buys the game second hand is someone who DIDNT buy it new and give a cut to them.... enter, online pass system.

THQ are implementing this in the new UFC game and EA will be doing likewise later in the year. I for one will vote with my wallet and wont be buying new games with this "feature". Out and out greed on developers behalf in my opinion. In terms of the UFC game, I WAS going to buy this new as have been interested in getting more into UFC as a sport but this is a slap in the face.

What do you think? Would you pay additional money to play this online bearing in mind we already pay yearly for the network in place to host the content?

Source:
http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/ufc-undisputed-2010/1091592p1.html

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Grumpypants

Ea announced 200 jobs in Galway ........runs off and hides

But seriously its hard to qualify how much it costs the industry. Fair enough you can look at used game sales but how many of those people would have bought it if it wasn't on the cheap used shelf? And then you have to consider that trade ins mean people can buy many more games. This month for example i bought Alan Wake then i traded it for Red dead. If HMV didn't take trade ins i couldn't have afforded Red dead so that would be 1 sale lost for them. How many others are in the same boat?. And im more willing to take a risk on a game I don't know much about, as i can trade it quickly if its not any good. This is a big plus for smaller developers.

NotorietyH

Grumpypants wrote: »

But seriously its hard to qualify how much it costs the industry. Fair enough you can look at used game sales but how many of those people would have bought it if it wasn't on the cheap used shelf? And then you have to consider that trade ins mean people can buy many more games

Well that's what we'll see now, or rather they'll see, when they can compare the sales of their big sports franchises between this year and last. If the sales increase by a considerable margin than it worked, if they don't EA will probably ditch the idea and try something else.

I'm sure they've focus grouped and tested the idea to death already in the planning stage. I doubt they'd be proceeding with the idea without some sort of fairly extensive number-crunching. They've weighed up how many sales they'll gain and lose by implementing a system like this and now they're testing it out. It's up to the market to decide now.

helios12

NotorietyH wrote: »

A company would rather you pay it for its product rather than you pay someone else.

As has already been pointed out, they made a profit on the first sale. I'm currently scratching my head wondering how this kind of thinking would end up in other industries and be swallowed with such eagerness. I buy a second-hand tv but it won't let me use a bluray player until I purchase a code?

NotorietyH wrote: »

That's considered greedy now?

It directly harms the consumer in order to increase their profits so..yes?

NotorietyH wrote: »

I don't understand how you can call the publishers greedy but seem perfectly fine with Gamestop charging 5 euro less for a used copy games.

Now you are just putting words in my mouth, where did I say this? For the record, I'm no great fan of Gamestop or of their pricing structure for second-hand games.

NotorietyH wrote: »

You said yourself it's a failing business model, so should publishers and developers just give up and let their sales be devoured by the used game market or should they you know, change the model and try to do something about it?

They should most definitely change their business model but as a gamer and consumer I'd rather they didn't do it at my expense. Look at pc gamers and how they are getting shafted with the likes of DRM. Does cramming annoying, sometimes game breaking, DRM solve the piracy issue? Nope, in fact it makes it worse.

NotorietyH wrote: »

In regards to the second article. Some companies are hiring yes. the ones that are successful at the moment, like Blizzard etc. Other developers have bitten the dust completely, Free Radical, Grin, Factor 5, Midway*, Pandemic etc. But I'm sure they're fine, there's so many jobs in the game industry at the moment.

Welcome to a free market currently in free fall.

NotorietyH wrote: »

EDIT: And how is referencing the Dead Space article irrelevant? All I was showing was that half of the people who bought Dead Space bought it used. Which is the point I was trying to make. It's got nothing to do with the casual market or how many sales it could have had. All I'm saying is half its sales were of used copies. It doesn't matter if it sold 30 or 3 million copies. Obviously EA were happy with the sales they're making a sequel. It's also why Dead Space 2 will have multiplayer, to try and stop people trading it in.

You cited Dead Space to make a point that the second hand market was solely responible for it's poor initial sales. I was trying to show that making such an assumption came off more than a little half baked. What other 'prestige' titles came out at the same time? Was there adequate marketing? did Dead Space hit the shelves at a competitive price ? And on and on

* Also, lol @ Midway who have been releasing nothing but trash for the last few years, they deserved to go under.

NotorietyH

helios12 wrote: »

As has already been pointed out, they made a profit on the first sale. I'm currently scratching my head wondering how this kind of thinking would end up in other industries and be swallowed with such eagerness. I buy a second-hand tv but it won't let me use a bluray player until I purchase a code?

Yes but why should a company give up the chance of that 2nd sale? Why shouldn't a company do as much as possible to incentivise buying the game new? That's all they're doing, it's just another idea along the lines of 'Project Ten Dollar,'. If they were charging everyone extra to play multiplayer I'd say fair enough, but they're not.

helios12 wrote: »

They should most definitely change their business model but as a gamer and consumer I'd rather they didn't do it at my expense. Look at pc gamers and how they are getting shafted with the likes of DRM. Does cramming annoying, sometimes game breaking, DRM solve the piracy issue? Nope, in fact it makes it worse.

Yes but DRM is nothing like this and dealing with a seperate issue altogether. You can't equate pirates and people who buy used games in the same argument. Although if things keep going the way they are going I can see some sort of DRM like idea being proposed. I imagine consumers would react accordingly though.

Digital Distribution is the only other model available to publishers at the moment, which in a few years I imagine will be the main way of purchasing games. What do you think that would do to used game sales? You have your issues with DRM on the PC, but then you have services with Steam that seem to work well. Not 100% sure as I don't play the PC

helios12 wrote: »

You cited Dead Space to make a point that the second hand market was solely responible for it's poor initial sales. I was trying to show that making such an assumption came off more than a little half baked. What other 'prestige' titles came out at the same time? Was there adequate marketing? did Dead Space hit the shelves at a competitive price ? And on and on

Sorry but again no, I've said this twice now, all I was doing was showing that half of people who bought Dead Space bought it used. As I said it didn't matter how many it sold, that wasn't the point I was making. I didn't say it didn't sell well. 1.5 million copies new is a healthy number for a new IP. I'll say it again for clarity. Half of the people who bought Dead Space bought it used. 1.5 million copies. It doesn't matter what was released against it, what the marketing was like. I'm not making a point about sales figures. I'm talking about the percentage of people who bought the game used.

helios12 wrote: »

Welcome to a free market currently in free fall.

But in your last post you said the game industry is fine? So which is it? Again if the market is in free fall what do you suggest publishers do to protect their sales?

helios12

NotorietyH wrote: »

Yes but why should a company give up the chance of that 2nd sale?

That second sale happens to be nothing to do with them! Also, are you trying to tell me they aren't going to make more money when the next person buys DLC for said game? It's astonishing how you can support this specifically for the games industry but it would be laughed out of any other.

NotorietyH wrote: »

Yes but DRM is nothing like this and dealing with a seperate issue altogether. You can't equate pirates and people who buy used games in the same argument. Although if things keep going the way they are going I can see some sort of DRM like idea being proposed. I imagine consumers would react accordingly though.

DRM is very much like this, the games industry on both PC and Console (sharing many of the same publishers/developers) have lurched from one bad idea to the next and in the process harmed both their customers and profits.

NotorietyH wrote: »

Digital Distribution is the only other model available to publishers at the moment, which in a few years I imagine will be the main way of purchasing games. What do you think that would do to used game sales? You have your issues with DRM on the PC, but then you have services with Steam that seem to work well. Not 100% sure as I don't play the PC

Steam does indeed work quite well but XBL does not come close to the competitive pricing that can be found on Steam nor do I pay a yearly subscription to Steam.

NotorietyH wrote: »

I'm talking about the percentage of people who bought the game used.

So am I

NotorietyH wrote: »

But in your last post you said the game industry is fine? So which is it? Again if the market is in free fall what do you suggest publishers do to protect their sales?

I said the games industry was fine in relation to how bad others have had it. If you are going to debate this then do it without trying to simplify/falsify my points. Secondly, I'm not here to help the games industry pull it's head out of it's ass. I'm here, as a consumer, speaking on behalf of gamers getting shafted.

NotorietyH

helios12 wrote: »

That second sale happens to be nothing to do with them! Also, are you trying to tell me they aren't going to make more money when the next person buys DLC for said game? It's astonishing how you can support this specifically for the games industry but it would be laughed out of any other.

Yes but obviously any company would rather that instead of those second sales that people would buy the game new. This is solely a problem in the games industry that's why it hasn't appeared in any other. Other industries don't have even close to the number used versions of their products being sold. Especially not alongside the new versions, and certainly not having the used version being pushed in favour of the new. You don't walk into HMV to buy a DVD and have the teller say "We have a used copy here for a few euro less," If any other industry was faced with that they'd enact similar measures to try and counteract it. I remember years ago buying a music CD that wouldn't play in computers. A measure that music publishers used to try and counteract the threat of music piracy. That failed miserably and maybe the same thing will happen here.

The fact of the matter is Ubisoft posted a loss in the last fiscal year, so did EA and several other companies. Activision Blizzard are possibly the only company that posted a profit and that's due mainly to Warcraft. The NPD in the US just posted a huge decline, one of the largest in the last decade. So the games industry isn't healthy at the moment, and I have no problem with EA trying to recoup what they see as lost sales.

DRM is very much like this, the games industry on both PC and Console (sharing many of the same publishers/developers) have lurched from one bad idea to the next and in the process harmed both their customers and profits.

Yes but I said that DRM is an effort to combat piracy not used game sales. They'll go for digital distribution before they go for a PC-like DRM solution.

Steam does indeed work quite well but XBL does not come close to the competitive pricing that can be found on Steam nor do I pay a yearly subscription to Steam.

I didn't mention XBL. I said Digital Distribution. I didn't mean the Xbox Games on Demand service. I meant something similar to Steam. The system will change dramatically if it becomes the consumers primary method of purchasing games.

So am I

The going back to your original point, what the hell does the casual market have to do with someone picking up Dead Space used instead of new?

I said the games industry was fine in relation to how bad others have had it. If you are going to debate this then do it without trying to simplify/falsify my points.

Then maybe try to simplify your points yourself, because I'm struggling to understand what you mean by some of them. Either the game industry is fine and they should be happy with what the money they make, or it too is suffering because of the falling free market.

Secondly, I'm not here to help the games industry pull it's head out of it's ass. I'm here, as a consumer, speaking on behalf of gamers getting shafted.

Yes but you're lambasting the games industry for wanting to make more money, which as a gamer I'd rather. The same reason I don't mind movies like Transformers making a fortune because it means the studios don't mind taking a hit on smaller, riskier projects. You're not speaking on behalf of me.

At the end of the day I think this is going to only apply to sports games and EA will continue with the 'Project Ten Dollar' free DLC model they used for Mass Effect 2, Dragon's Age and Bad Company 2. Sports games generally don't have the potential for DLC, so EA had to come up with the equivalent for sports games, and this is it. I for one, don't particularily like it, but I don't see anything wrong with it.

gizmo

hightower1 wrote: »

Basically game developers get around 12eur on every 60eur game sold, when you trade this in to say gamestop when its re sold all the money goes to gamestop.

While most of the content in this thread has been covered before, I do find this line amusing. Where did you get this little tidbit of info from?

Slugs wrote: »

2) Developers make their money back through DLC, or should in any case. I can see your point guys, but at the end of the day, the only person who is really suffering here is the publisher, the developers get their sum, it's the publishers who make the most from the game.

Pure ignorance/misinformation. People seem to forget that DLC actually takes time and money to make, the price charged doesn't always reflect this of course, however, to say they "make their money back" from it is just ludicrous.

Secondly, the only person suffering is the publisher? Wrong again. If the games retail sales are below expectation, which is what will happen due to large second hand sales, then that reflects negatively on the developer and can often lead to no follow up contracts or studio downsizing.

helios12 wrote: »

It has to be pointed out also that the games industry has stayed very healthy throughout all the current economic turmoil. It seems the softly softly approach to shanking consoles gamers has lulled a good amount of you into taking it on the chin and not complaining.

Actually while it remained pretty resilient at the beginning of the downturn, it has begun to take it's toll with overall sales being down and many studios either closing or downsizing.

Grumpypants wrote: »

But seriously its hard to qualify how much it costs the industry. Fair enough you can look at used game sales but how many of those people would have bought it if it wasn't on the cheap used shelf?

I highly doubt people would refrain from buying a new game if there wasn't a second hand one available for a couple of quid less.

Grumpypants wrote: »

And then you have to consider that trade ins mean people can buy many more games. This month for example i bought Alan Wake then i traded it for Red dead. If HMV didn't take trade ins i couldn't have afforded Red dead so that would be 1 sale lost for them. How many others are in the same boat?.

Or you could wait a couple of weeks for the game to drop in price and then pick it up new.

helios12 wrote: »

They should most definitely change their business model but as a gamer and consumer I'd rather they didn't do it at my expense. Look at pc gamers and how they are getting shafted with the likes of DRM. Does cramming annoying, sometimes game breaking, DRM solve the piracy issue? Nope, in fact it makes it worse.

Look at publishers and developers and how they are getting shafted by PC-based piracy. :rolleyes:

Anyway, while all of this rage directed at publishers and developers is amusing, I'm quite surprised people aren't looking at GameStop et al, you know, the actual cause of this problem? For instance, if said retailers dropped the price of their used games to reflect this then it would be fine, customers wouldn't technically be paying anything more. But will they do this? Hell no they won't. I've linked this in another thread before and it's relevant yet again - Lawsuit Targets GameStop over “Free” DLC. One wonders if they'll attach appropriate stickers to the THQ and EA games which will require the passes from now on? My guess is no...

Slugs

gizmo wrote:

Pure ignorance/misinformation. People seem to forget that DLC actually takes time and money to make, the price charged doesn't always reflect this of course, however, to say they "make their money back" from it is just ludicrous.

How don't they, people seem to forget that regarding DLC, developers actually benefit from game trading. After all if someone buys COD:WAW new, finishes the game, buys all the DLC and trades it in, then another person buys it, buys all the DLC and so on. Just like the number for game servers, it isn't dependant on initial games sales, which is why it's a lucrative market. And let's think, what costs more to develop, a game, or DLC for a game you just finished developing.... Hmm......

As well as this guys, the only people who will suffer from this implementation are the casual buyers of games. If you really want to buy a game, you'll get it within the initial months, everything else you'll just be browsing, or would have no interest in. ATM I don't have MW2 or BFBC2, and the only reason I'll be buying the two is for competing. If I had to pay extra for online features, I wouldn't go near the games, which will destroy any hope IW had of profiting from DLC on me.

Grumpypants

gizmo wrote: »

I highly doubt people would refrain from buying a new game if there wasn't a second hand one available for a couple of quid less.

Or you could wait a couple of weeks for the game to drop in price and then pick it up new.

Look at publishers and developers and how they are getting shafted by PC-based piracy. :rolleyes:

Anyway, while all of this rage directed at publishers and developers is amusing, I'm quite surprised people aren't looking at GameStop et al, you know, the actual cause of this problem? For instance, if said retailers dropped the price of their used games to reflect this then it would be fine, customers wouldn't technically be paying anything more. But will they do this? Hell no they won't. I've linked this in another thread before and it's relevant yet again - Lawsuit Targets GameStop over “Free” DLC. One wonders if they'll attach appropriate stickers to the THQ and EA games which will require the passes from now on? My guess is no...

See you didnt actually respond to what i said. A lot of the used sales are from people bargin hunting. If a game is 15 euro you are more likely to take a risk on it than one for 55.

If new games came down in price in a resonable time frame then id say fair enough. But they dont. The ones that drop quickly are the rubbish games like Dark Void. Take a trip into town and see how much Uncharted 2 is i bet its not under 40 euro new 7 months after release thats not waiting a few weeks.

Not getting into the piracy arguement as it has nothing to do with this thread and has been done to death.

Im not here nor is anyone else supporting Gamestop i never use them.

Its like this, give 2 people 100 euro and tell them buy as many games as they can.

Person 1 : buys 1 game for 45 then buys a 2nd game for 45 and thats it 90 euro spent. 2 games bought

Person 2 : buys the same game new for 45, Trades it and gets a new game for 12 euro more (57), trades that for 12 euro more(69), trades that for 12 euro more(81), trades that for 12 euro more (93).

Thats 5 new game sales versus 2 new game sales thanks to trade ins. This is the point publishers are missing. That could be 50-60% of new game sales that are linked to trade ins.

Shops sell used games at almost cost price as they make there money on used game sales this they also ignore. They look at shops making millions from used game sales but ignore that the shops make very little from selling their games new. If the profits from used games drop they will need to make it from new games pushing up the price of new games and again affecting new game sales.

This move is just not seeing the bigger picture. All they are looking at is the used game profits as lost sales.

Look at the Ryanair model reduce prices and you sell more and in turn make more money. Im sure game sales have gone up since the likes of Tesco and HN started selling at under 40 euro.

NotorietyH

They're interesting points and we'll see how this will pan out. I'm not saying that this idea will work, but I don't see a problem with EA doing it. That seems to be the contentious issue with this.

Uncharated 2 and games that massive are rare. I picked up Battlefield Bad Company 2 for a buddy for €35 in HMV last week, and there are plenty of good deals there. A used game sale a couple of months after release isn't the sales that they're after. They're after the used games sales a few weeks after release. I heard I think it was a THQ exec saying that you make all your money from a game in the first few months, after that it's done. When games are reduced so much they're barely making a profit if any on it. That's why they started giving away free copies of Red Factio Guerilla with Darksiders etc.

Also publishers don't care if you're trading in a game against a new purchase as they believe that they can make you make sure that you buy their game first. Release windows, marketing etc. are something they feel they can control. They're probably confident that if you have a choice between their game and another companies that you'll pick their game. If not, they'll just move the release date so they're not up against a MW2 for example.

As I said already, I'm pretty sure they've done plenty of focus-testing, market research and analysis. I imagine they have a much better idea of how much used game sales are costing them than we do.

gizmo

Grumpypants wrote: »

If new games came down in price in a resonable time frame then id say fair enough. But they dont. The ones that drop quickly are the rubbish games like Dark Void. Take a trip into town and see how much Uncharted 2 is i bet its not under 40 euro new 7 months after release thats not waiting a few weeks.

Actually, Uncharted 2 is going to be on the Platinum label in a couple of weeks. At the moment it can be had from Game at the reduced price of £30. Alan Wake, another major AAA game, has already been dropped to this price. Bayonetta, an utterly fantastic game is down to £12-15. Even Bad Company 2 with it's strong MP can be picked up for around £25 online now.

Dark Void is a different breed however, as it's already down to sub-£10 level, just like another commerical flop like Nier will be soon.

Grumpypants wrote: »

Not getting into the piracy arguement as it has nothing to do with this thread and has been done to death.

Well I didn't really mean to be, it was just a reaction to the silly line I quoted.

Grumpypants wrote: »

Im not here nor is anyone else supporting Gamestop i never use them.

I'm not saying anyone supports them, I'm merely pointing out that it is via their actions over the last while that these kinds of measures are being implemented and as such, it is unfair that they escape the majority of the blame. At the end of the day, if they were willing to pay a percentage of the value of used games sales back then we wouldn't be in this situation but the stores have made it perfectly clear they don't want to do that so publishers have been reduced to tactics like this. As I said, this wouldn't be an issue if GameStop lowered their prices but instead they'll just start offering less for trade-ins without dropping their second hand prices.

Grumpypants wrote: »

Shops sell used games at almost cost price as they make there money on used game sales this they also ignore. They look at shops making millions from used game sales but ignore that the shops make very little from selling their games new. If the profits from used games drop they will need to make it from new games pushing up the price of new games and again affecting new game sales.

The first part of that has been proved wrong by the retailers own financials. Secondly, stores were doing extremely well for years before they started pushing the second hand market, if anyone should be accused of greed then it's them. And the last part is pure conjecture and most likely wouldn't take place as if second hand sales drop then they won't be able to afford to jack up the new sale prices as people will just buy less.

Grumpypants wrote: »

This move is just not seeing the bigger picture. All they are looking at is the used game profits as lost sales.

Which is what they are and, outside of the fact that trade-ins fuel some new game purchases, people are ignoring the fact that the most hardcore second hand buyers will more than likely use these funds to purchase further second hand titles which renders that argument invalid as now none of that money is funneling it's way back to publishers/developers.

NotorietyH

Grumpypants wrote: »

Person 1 : buys 1 game for 45 then buys a 2nd game for 45 and thats it 90 euro spent. 2 games bought

Person 2 : buys the same game new for 45, Trades it and gets a new game for 12 euro more (57), trades that for 12 euro more(69), trades that for 12 euro more(81), trades that for 12 euro more (93).

Thats 5 new game sales versus 2 new game sales thanks to trade ins. This is the point publishers are missing. That could be 50-60% of new game sales that are linked to trade ins.

There's a problem with this example too. You can look at every game that Person 2 trades in as a 'lost sale' so it makes the argument invalid. Yes they've bought 5 new games, but they've traded in 4, so that's 4 potential 'new' game sales gone. So on balance Person 1 has bought 2 new games. Person 2 has bought 5 new games, but lost the sale of 4 new games giving him a balance of having contributed to the sale of one 'new' game. That's taking a very very general look at it, but Person 2 is actually hurting new games sales more than Person 1.

Also of all the publishers it very rare that they'd have more than two big releases in any given month, never mind 5. So the fact that someone can buy 4 or 5 games in any given month or so doesn't matter to them, as they don't care if you buy their competitors product or not. They only care if you buy their's.

Grumpypants

but that does assume that all the games traded in are in turn sold on again.

A lot of assuming the only way i guess we will find out is this time next year if sales have dropped or risen.

I think we can all agree that if developers made games that we didnt want to trade in at all we would all be much happier. Ill never trade in Orange box, fallout 3, COD4, MAG, Dead space etc etc as i love playing them over and over again.

Developers making a below average game that is 7-8 hours long have no right to moan about loosing money.

NotorietyH

Grumpypants wrote: »

but that does assume that all the games traded in are in turn sold on again.

A lot of assuming the only way i guess we will find out is this time next year if sales have dropped or risen.

Well yes but you're assuming Person 2 is only buying new copies of games when he/she could easily be buying them used too. I've traded in games in the past, but I generally prefer to hold on to them, just because there are quite a few games I really love. It's all part of the reason why so many games have multiplayer tacked on now, to try and make you hold onto it longer. Bioshock 2 being one example, and Dead Space 2 is going to have multiplayer. Bioshock 2 was one of the few games I traded in. The multiplayer did nothing to make me keep it yet I still have my copy of Bioshock.

helios12

gizmo wrote: »

Pure ignorance/misinformation. People seem to forget that DLC actually takes time and money to make, the price charged doesn't always reflect this of course

Yeah, I'd argue that it is more often the case that the content does not do the price justice. Plus, I'm sure you are aware of more than one controversy over DLC being simply a part of the original tital being withheld to make more money. Resident Evil multipayer springs to mind.

gizmo wrote: »

If the games retail sales are below expectation, which is what will happen due to large second hand sales, then that reflects negatively on the developer and can often lead to no follow up contracts or studio downsizing.

OR, they made a bad/uninteresting game and it did not sell well...

gizmo wrote: »

Actually while it remained pretty resilient at the beginning of the downturn, it has begun to take it's toll with overall sales being down and many studios either closing or downsizing.

I'll grant you that after a little more research on my part but singling out the games industry as some poor little thing that gamers need to treat differently above others is laughable.

gizmo wrote: »

Look at publishers and developers and how they are getting shafted by PC-based piracy. :rolleyes:

Not denying that piracy has obviously harmed publishers/developers but that is an argument that applies to any medium one can fit on a HDD. The implementation of DRM/ Coupns for mulitplayer is definitely not the correct reaction to it. If you beleive it is then I doubt you have read much or thought much on the matter. If you attack and alienate the section of people who actually buy your product by limiting their enjoyment of it what is going to happen? Well you are going to make even more apathetic/ pissed off gamers turn to piracy.

gizmo wrote: »

For instance, if said retailers dropped the price of their used games to reflect this then it would be fine, customers wouldn't technically be paying anything more.

Wait wait, I happen to agree with this but fail to see how it fits your argument. Are you saying that gamers and their wallets should be acceptable casualties in the publishers/retailer war? lol

NotorietyH

helios12 wrote: »

I'll grant you that after a little more research on my part but singling out the games industry as some poor little thing that gamers need to treat differently above others is laughable.

Treated differently to what exactly? I've yet to see anyone make a valid point on this. How exactly are we treating it differently? The main culprit in treating it differently is the retailers. As I said earlier it's the only product I can think of where you have used and new versions sitting side by side and are actively encouraged by the retailer to buy the used version.

Maybe you should make clearer points rather than 'laughing' at everyone else's opinion.

molloyjh

mayordenis wrote: »

The economics are not even similar.

A new book costs €10-20 euro, A new game costs €40-60 euro.

So that means that a book costs somewhere between a sixth and half of the cost of a Video Game - the production costs are nowhere near that scale. With Blockbuster games approaching the 100 Million mark and maybe a absolutely once a decade book like the Harry Potter ****e costing at a guess a couple of hundred thousand.

The economics are radically different I'm not sure why I'm even making this point there is no similarity in the economics of selling a Book and selling a Video Game. none. zero.

What!? Of course they are similar. It's basic retailing. You identify the costs in getting a single unit to market and the price it needs to be sold at to be profitable. Then you find a price that will give you as much profit as possible while still being appealing to your customer. It doesn't matter if it's games, books, jeans or drum kits. Retail economics is the same for all. The amounts you're talking about and the volume of sales are different, but the actual model is the same.

helios12

NotorietyH wrote: »

Treated differently to what exactly? I've yet to see anyone make a valid point on this. How exactly are we treating it differently? The main culprit in treating it differently is the retailers. As I said earlier it's the only product I can think of where you have used and new versions sitting side by side and are actively encouraged by the retailer to buy the used version.

Maybe you should make clearer points rather than 'laughing' at everyone else's opinion.

You are actively asking anyone reading your points to disregard how the secondhand market works outside of games! Like I have said a few times already, why should it be different whether I buy a game or television?

Also, there is finding a point 'laughable' and 'laughing' at someone's opinion, I did one and you assumed the other.;)

NotorietyH

helios12 wrote: »

You are actively asking anyone reading your points to disregard how the secondhand market works outside of games! Like I have said a few times already, why should it be different whether I buy a game or television?

Also, there is finding a point 'laughable' and 'laughing' at someone's opinion, I did one and you assumed the other.;)

No I'm not. What you're refusing to acknowledge is that the second hand market works differently for games. So I'm going to say it one more time, then I'm done with the thread, because all you're doing is completely ignoring valid points that don't suit your argument. Comparing it to the market for second hand televisions, now that is laughable. How often do you buy a TV? When you go into Maddens or Argos and go to buy a Samsung TV for €1000 do they then say to you, but wait we have the same TV for €950 over here, it's just that it's used. No they don't. Comparing video games to other mediums in terms of used sales just doesn't work.

So I'm treating the second market for games differently because it is treated differently, by retailers like Gamestop and GAME. I'm sick of saying the same thing over and over again. At the end of the day it is perfectly reasonable for a publisher or developer to try and protect the sales of their games new by offering customers an incentive or reason to buy it new, just as it is perfectly reasonable for a retailer like Gamestop or GAME to offer to purchase and resell used games. They spotted a potential market and exploited it, now publishers are trying to gain ground back. If the market won't support it and it ends up with publishers losing sales, they'll drop it.

It's you who's expecting the game industry to be treated differently if you're expecting games publishers not to act like a normal business and you know, try to make money. They're not charging any more to the consumer to buy the game new. It's up to game retailers to change their pricing structure.

That wasn't the only 'laughable' comment you made either by the way, seems like almost every paragraph you wrote ended with a 'lol'.

Lol @ thinking that's an effective way of getting your point across.

Gamesnash.ie: Pat

Going to quote a post I made in a thread in the games forum about the online pass EA announced.

Gamesnash.ie (Pat) wrote: »

From a retailers point of view ..

This is a very complicated area with a few variables to consider.

Trade ins fuel new game sales. A huge portion of new game sales are paid for in part exchange in the form of pre owned titles being traded in. Most publishers are aware and accept this. Publishers don't have a problem with pre owned titles being used to pay for new titles but the grey area is where the pre owned title is then sold / traded in against another pre owned title which has no benefit to them.

However this drove up the cost price of new games as publishers sought to increase revenue. This is in both the form of cost price to retailers and the RRP's that go with them. In most cases and particularly in the last couple of years the retailers are selling the games at well below the RRP and in some cases selling at a loss. This is so they can get the loyalty of the customer and more importantly get the trade ins for them. It's no secret that the pre owned margins are a lot higher than new. New games could be anything from -5% to 10% margin with pre owned games at 40% (I'm going to defend ourselves here by pointing out that we don't operate on these pre owned margins ourselves but the major high street chains do) The industry is in a situation where the trade in market is actually keeping new game prices lower than the publishers themselves recommend and its the revenue from the trade in sales that is paying the bills / wages.

Initiatives such as this or project $10 etc are going to change the dynamic of the market - this is inevitable. What is happening is that the €10 - €15 you would pay on top of your pre owned titles cost to access the features present in a new game will mean your pre owned games retail value will drop. This of course means what is b eing offered for trade in credit will also drop.

What remains to be seen though is how this will change the market. My personal opinion is that if the pre owned trade in prices fall / the product becomes less attractive to the end user gamer then demand for new games will fall. Also if the pre owned trade is stifled as such I can't see retailers like Game / Gamestop etc being in a position to continue loss leading and price slashing the RRPs which will lead to higher retail prices for new games. That's a double whammy for publishers, less demand because of less cash in the market and a higher retail price too. I think ultimately publishers will have to react to the supply and demand economics of this and cut new game prices but whether or not retailers will be in a position to pass these cuts on will be another question.

It makes for a changed landscape in the gaming industry and how it actually settles is anyones guess but we are going to see significant moving of the pricing goal posts as such.

This has already started. UFC2010 is out now and contains a unique one time only code for online play. If you don't have the code it's 400 points to get one through the Xbox Live marketplace which rounds out to around €5.00. It's simple economics now to say that for most users of this game pre owned the value has now dropped by €5.00 - the effects of this on the overall market are yet to be seen, especially as what I personally feel is inevitable the price rises to €10 with more content being restricted. Interesting times.