gunsmithx Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123249378212700025.html The article talks about gamestops earnings. A huge chunk of that comes from used game sales and I'm curious to see if people think that publishers and developers should get a cut of that? personally i don't think so myself as I'm pretty sure that I've never heard of any sector where that happens(though I'm sure someone will now pull one up) but I can understand why they think it takes from new game sales though I havn't seen a study done yet plus how many people would still purchase some of these games if they had to pay the normal price. Some of the way they are trying to get around it though are intriguing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireDownBelow Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 That's a toughie. As an author, I would prefer people buy my book new as I don't get paid when they buy a used copy from someone else. Or if you lend it. However, the fact that you can resale a book or CD or DVD makes absolutely no sense considering that you can't make a copy. What's the difference? I'm still making a potential profit off something that doesn't belong to me. I dunno. I like to think that games, movies, and books should assign some of the resale profit to developers and musicians. Then I think about selling my car. Kia already made a tidy sum from me, do I really want to have to give them more if I sell it? One would think that's because it's your property you could do what you want with it. It becomes tricky when you take intellectual property into account. I mean, that was one of the issues that caused the writer's strike, wasn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunsmithx Posted January 23, 2009 Author Share Posted January 23, 2009 yeah it always looks different when you look as the producer or as a consumer. Personally I don't think gamestop or any store will ever give back money on used sales but you never know, I also wonder if best buy at some point won't try it's hand at the used market due to how much money is there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The NZA Posted January 24, 2009 Share Posted January 24, 2009 this topic drives me crazy. its huge on kotaku. its true, the auo, book, dvd etc market dont make as huge a fuss, granted they're very different markets - games these days take tons of money, tons of time, and some of you know the rule that less than 20% eat more than 80% or so of the annual profit - basically, everything non-Halo, MGS, GTA, guitar hero, COD etc fights for the scraps. its an unforgiving market for artistic and undermarketed games these days. that said, those crying for digital distribution only are suckers, and have no understanding of the law. im drinking here so i forget the name, might be first purchase one? but the point is, you buy something, your relationship with the manufacturer ends there, you can do what you like with it, so long as youre not copying its contents and selling them at your own profit. meaning, i can sell the medium i purchased anywhere i like, for whatever i like. its free market shit, and moreso than that, as maldron has mentioned, the opposite only invites buyer remorse - sure, gamestop rips you if youre too lazy for ebay/half/etc, but at least its something. now, you buy a shit game, you're stuck with it. no more sharing/borrowing games, none of that. im sure most devs would adore this, but its a horrible idea to me, and frankly, if your market cant hold up to used game sales, you should consider why. I myself like to support the original IPs and series i adore, especially from smaller studios, but frankly, its hard to justify $60 with tax for many of the short single player games im interested in. i dont want a tacked-on multiplayer; i want someone - gamefly, gamestop, whoever - to offer me the same game for around $30. yeah, i paid $90 for a new cartridge in the past, but i also bought a lot more PS1 games at $40 a piece, too. if your market cant compete in harsher economic times, i dont think blaming the success of the swap shops is the way to address that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newtype Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 My problem isn't with used games but the asking price for a used game. Telling me I'm saving $5-6 buy used over a new game is NOT a deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jables Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 I'm suprised it's only becoming an issue there now. EB Games' aggressive trade policy means they make more money off secondhand/used stuff than new. I agree with Newt that shaving $10 off the price of a new game to sell it used is by no stretch a bargain, but 1) sometimes second hand is the only way to pick up a CE if you missed out on preorder(how I got Assassin's Creed), 2) someof those games get crazy cheap, so there's no fucking way I'm shelling out for new when I can just get used at a 3rd of the price(sometimes newer stuff too) and 3) EB has what's called an Edge card, which gives me an extra 10% on anything I'm trading in, and 10% off anything preowned I buy, so those overpriced newer games, I can end up saving $20 which for me, makes all the difference. I don't trade in as much as I used to because I have way more money than I did back then, but it comes in handy when something like Fable 2 is released, I bought it at EB & made 'em pricematch a competitor so I only paid $80, and when I returned it(because it fucking sucked), because they retailed it for like, $110 and offered trade-within-7-days value of $80, toss in my 10% and I actually made money off that POS game. I never thought about publishers & their wallets when dealing in the second hand market. Food for thought though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maldron Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 The EDGE Card is made to look like it's saving you money, but you have to buy $150 worth of games to even cover the cost of the card ((In America, anyway)). You could trade your shit in to them, but if you stopped being a lazy fuck you could sell it on e-bay and make even more than what they'd give you. It's not actually a good deal. Used games fuel Gamestop. They make them a shitload of money, due to how lazy people are in taking an active look at buying and selling. They're not always the best place to look, they're not always the worst, and they're definitely not the only. Also, their magazine sucks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The NZA Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 ease up, maldron. maths are skeet's natural weakness. and bullets. also, skeet: its coming up more now cause recently, even successful gaming developers have had to lay people off, while gamestop is enjoying record highs. the industry sees itself losing too big a piece of the pie, and isnt yet embracing greatest-hits level pricing like they might have to down the road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jables Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 The EDGE Card is made to look like it's saving you money, but you have to buy $150 worth of games to even cover the cost of the card ((In America, anyway)). You could trade your shit in to them, but if you stopped being a lazy fuck you could sell it on e-bay and make even more than what they'd give you. It's not actually a good deal. Used games fuel Gamestop. They make them a shitload of money, due to how lazy people are in taking an active look at buying and selling. They're not always the best place to look, they're not always the worst, and they're definitely not the only. Also, their magazine sucks. Here it's $5, and that pays for itself in one trade or purchase, so when you don't have one or it's time to renew, it's more of an afterthought for next time. If my laziness is costing your bastard fucking children food, I'll apologise and as previously stated, think more about developers in future. Otherwise, kindly file your opinions on my laziness up your rancid crack alongside a large african cock. It's my prerogative how I spell that word and how I choose to shore game purchases and/or cull my collection. I ain't got time for Ebay or the inclination to be posting shit. SO in either situation, calm your arse down because mostly you run around this place all 'fuck this' and 'fuck that' when frankly, you ain't earnt the right. You step to me in FC before you get to talk to me like that. It's that simple. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jables Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 God you're a weak little bitch Maldron. Minute anyone calls you on shit you throw your fuckin' hands in the air. Laziness is a large part of our economy you silly little twist. If people weren't lazy we'd be communist or self-governed on farms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spiffytee Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 i disagree. games etc shouldn't be that far off from other media like books, cd's or dvds. yes, first purchase is what makes money. but with the recent developments with technology, there shouldn't be an excuse to be farked with a crappy game. you got online free demos, then you got online rentals, rental stores... are you gonna bitch if you bought a crappy game? gamestop is not to blame. it's like blockbuster, but no one complains to them. it's the consumer to blame. and i know the feeling. sometimes you just gotta have that cash in your hand or that new game that just came out. we're a society of impatience. people are willing to take the hit on their games to get the new stuff. it's worse than crack. if the developers wanna make more, charge more. then we'll see if you sell that $75 game for $20 or $25. gamestop and blockbuster are simply riding the wave of our society's consumerism. you consumer whores! go communism! haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jables Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 See, Gran Turismo really had the right idea with putting out a barebones game that relied heavily on DLC. Maybe that's the key here. Sell skeleton games for fuck-all, so the resale market isn't overly affected, make all the money on the non-refundable DLC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reverend Jax Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 See, Gran Turismo really had the right idea with putting out a barebones game that relied heavily on DLC. Maybe that's the key here. Sell skeleton games for fuck-all, so the resale market isn't overly affected, make all the money on the non-refundable DLC. It won't be long before all games will be downloadable. You will be able to get Madden 2K12 on a disc for $60 or as a download for $35. Alot of people will be happy to save the $25, but won't be able to resell. Eventually, as downloading becomes more and more popular for games that are available in both disc and download, the disc market will disappear. I would not be surprised if in two console generations (the ninth generation) games are sold by DL only. It might have a disc drive for backwards compatible gaming, but the games released for it will be DL only. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maldron Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 Pfft. Calling me a weak little bitch, when I just forgot I posted here. Don't get why people think my statements are personal attacks, either. Lazy is lazy. If you'd rather that somebody else made money, that's your business, but don't start praising Gamestop as if they're out doing you a favor. All they're doing is playing the middleman, and they're out to exploit both sides of the trade. Anybody who uses Gamestop for their trade-ins is getting screwed out of their money, plain and simple. There are rare opportunities when the stars align and the right number of deals exist that make them the more lucrative choice, but they're few and far between, and they have to be worked for about as much as selling it yourself. Calling the desire to sell your shit for the highest price communism? Somebody doesn't understand what the word even means. And THAT last comment was a personal attack. If it's only five dollars for the card, then it's definitely a better deal wherever you are. Still, it's not as beneficial as selling the shit yourself. In the meantime JZA ((And you too, NZA)), stop pretending that the plural "you" doesn't exist. If I knew you were going to take that comment personally, I would've sent you some lube to avoid the ass hurt, JZA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spiffytee Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 paying for a game that is fully downloaded is a ripoff i think. i want to be able to bring that game anywhere i want... lugging around a hard drive doesn't count... and what if i have a system that has the hard drive that's internal? until they solve that problem, then it won't fly. plus, no one can go to their local rental shop and rent the game. at first i hated rental places, but i realize that it's a pretty good deal to rent or buy.... and they have good sales sometimes. hell, sometimes gamestops have good used game sales, buy 1 get 1 half or buy 2 and get one free (not sure on the specifics) but you can really get a good deal if you find what you want. and i dont believe in communism. people perpetuate the notion to have things now... a marketing tool promoting capitalism. the end result is gamestop selling used games for -5 of a new game. at least that's what i think the root of it all is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The NZA Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 It won't be long before all games will be downloadable. You will be able to get Madden 2K12 on a disc for $60 or as a download for $35. Alot of people will be happy to save the $25, but won't be able to resell. Eventually, as downloading becomes more and more popular for games that are available in both disc and download, the disc market will disappear. I would not be surprised if in two console generations (the ninth generation) games are sold by DL only. It might have a disc drive for backwards compatible gaming, but the games released for it will be DL only. people've been yammering on about this, but theyre missing out on the fact that games are only getting bigger - dual-layer blu-rays go upwards of 40 gigs. we'd need a huge change in bandwith/ISP providers, and that's not gonna happen very quickly. lotta people think were only 2-3 years outside the "next gen" at this point (i think it could be longer, economy-wise), so yeah, while i see the industry wanting to go in that direction, you might be jumping the gun. also, mal: was clowning on skeet's weakness for gamestop more than anything. having seen it though, his gamestop's not like ours: they take back/sell everything this side of 8-bit, not sure how fair their buying policy is but i dont know they get boned as bad as we can here. like spiffy, im reluctant to buy full games via digital. you're stuck with that medium, for one, so if the next one's not backwards compatible (or doesnt happen), good luck. DRM is always an issue, even with sony's very forgiving "share this with 4 of your friends" policy, cause ive done just that so if my shit dies, i lose access to a lotta shit i bought. spiffy's also on the money about not being able to take it to a friend's place for co-op and such. i mean, sony ran something like this with Siren on PS3, released it in episodes that were fairly priced. i personally held out for a disc release, but the bitch of it is, itd take up like more than half of my hard drive if idve bought it all. i hear you can delete/re-download it, but that's not efficient either. anyway, i think the industry's gonna have to move slowly into this territory, theyre still trying their hand with DLC as we speak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reverend Jax Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Forgive me, Nick, but all I heard there was "the Internet? Bah!" Technology progresses exponentially, and hard drive technology as well as bandwidth technology will make your head spin in ten years. Remember, 56kbs dial up was the standard 10 years ago, broadband was only in universities and government buildings. I still remember when hard drives were advertised in MB and RAM was advertised in kB, and that was about 2 console generations ago (mid to late 90's, ps1 and n64). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunsmithx Posted February 9, 2009 Author Share Posted February 9, 2009 the other problem is the fact the alot of people still like to receive a physical copy of things or things like collectors editions. Yes there are alot of digital downloads but no where near what you get in retail. for a good look at the right way to do it, mostly, look at steam. but still people have been crying the death of physical products for over a decade now in various things, I'll believe it when I see it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jables Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 The same argument was used for MP3's Vs CDs(less valid arguement since MP3s are free) and it was said folks'd still want a physical copy, but if that were the case Itunes prolly wouldn't own Europe now. Mal- you stupid fucking twist. TO be continued. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunsmithx Posted February 9, 2009 Author Share Posted February 9, 2009 I'd argue that you have a touch different thing here as you spend alot more on a game then on a cd plus the fact that special editions are pretty rampant, i'm not giving up my art book! but we need to see one of these guys put a AAA title up for download at the same time it hits retails and see how it goes(I"m talking about console btw) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The NZA Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 Forgive me, Nick, but all I heard there was "the Internet? Bah!" Technology progresses exponentially, and hard drive technology as well as bandwidth technology will make your head spin in ten years. Remember, 56kbs dial up was the standard 10 years ago, broadband was only in universities and government buildings. I still remember when hard drives were advertised in MB and RAM was advertised in kB, and that was about 2 console generations ago (mid to late 90's, ps1 and n64). you're oversimplifying, non-gamer. PS2 sold 150 mil+. we're nowhere near that with our current #'s. of the current gen systems, there's a vastly large # that arent even online. yeah, we could likely have the tech to download gigs of info at a fair speed in the coming years (you're pushing the #s to 10 to suit your shpeel), but what kind of access/permeation? how long till other countries can catch up, even 1st world euro ones? your statement was "all games". the transition isnt going to smoothly iron itself out in that small a timeframe; no doubt we'll see more and more full digital downloads each gen (ps3 offers a few so far), but what you're pressuposing ignores current trends as well as gunsmith's very valid point. the industry wants it bad enough to have it done by then, im saying i dont know itll be nearly 100% at that point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HypnotizinChikns Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 Anyone else notice that they can't play downloaded Rock Band songs if they aren't online? Yeah...that pisses me off. We brought the xbox to a friends to play and were very disapointed when we couldn't play our downloaded content, even when signed on to the correct account. we did get it online, later, so that we could play them. /end rant Anyways, that's all I really have to say on the subject. I trade games all the time, wether I'm selling them cheap to friends or taking them to gamestop and I really don't have a problem with it. The majority of games I try to wait until they go on sale (beautiful katamari-2.00 at blockbuster FTW!), a few I do have to buy right away if I feel they are worth it (fallout 3). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The NZA Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 ..really? that's some bullshit DRM. did you have to replace your xbox, or is that the same one you purchased the songs on? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HypnotizinChikns Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 ..really? that's some bullshit DRM. did you have to replace your xbox, or is that the same one you purchased the songs on? http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg/php/e...p;p_faqid=19169 Note: This means that if you take your hard drive to a friends house and download on their Xbox you will only be able to access the downloaded content if you have a live connection to the Gamertag you downloaded the songs with. even if it's on your x box. the fuckers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunsmithx Posted February 11, 2009 Author Share Posted February 11, 2009 BTW as to your point of other countries catching up the US doesn't really lead the world in boardband. I beleive that mantle goes to south korea with like a 90+ rate but they mostly play in cyber cafe's. I'll see if I can look up the number but I'm not sure how far up the charts we are and we really need deeper fiber penatration for the really fast stuff. Most of the fiber now a days is only fiber to the box and then copper to the line, very few houses have a direct fiber connection but hot damn I wish I did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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