Braben: pre-owned is "damaging" market

By Robert Purchese Published 11 September, 2008

Skewed sales, unrewarded developers.

Frontier Developments boss David Braben reckons the pre-owned games market is causing all sorts of problems for single-player titles or those with less replay value.

"I think it's really damaging to the single-player experience," Braben told GamesIndustry.biz. "Games like BioShock and Assassin's Creed, where they're perfectly valid games, but once you've played them they go into the pre-owned section.

"The sales don't reflect the actual sales of people playing them because someone has gone out and bought, at almost the same price, a pre-owned copy because they couldn't get an original," he said. "It's very frustrating that they don't carry that stock any more."

Braben, who found recent success with acclaimed WiiWare game LostWinds, said retailers should consider replacing pre-owned games with some form of cheap rental service.

"A genuine rental market would be fine," said Braben. "The problem with video rental, as I understand it, was prices were really high. I think that was the issue.

"Maybe there are different ways of participating in that. Maybe it's not a higher price, maybe we get a share of the rental, which actually might be better where the copy is even cheaper, or even free."

Head over to GamesIndustry.biz for the full interview with David Braben, in which he talks about The Outsider, next-gen story development, and games aiming at 18 ratings in order to be cool.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (206) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Velios #1 3 years ago

    tough shit

  • Hunam #2 3 years ago

    Or they could just have a share of the used price from shops?

  • skillian #3 3 years ago

    Or they could just have a share of the used price from shops?

    Why should they? Do VW get a cut when I sell my car?

    Sell the games for a decent price in the first place and the second-hand market wouldn't be so important.

  • Shinji #4 3 years ago

    Most large cities have had entire streets full of second-hand bookshops for over a century. Second-hand record shops have been a feature of our culture for half a century. Hell, auction houses have been selling second-hand art since the renaissance.

    Why should games suddenly be exempt from the right of first sale which characterises every other creative medium? Why should the concepts of copyright and consumer rights suddenly be rewritten for this new medium?

    This isn't to say that ideas like the cheap rental service won't work, but they're certainly not about to replace pre-owned sales.

  • dr_faulk #5 3 years ago

    here's an idea, and lambast me all ye want:

    Game retails have to declare all second-hand game sales which have to go back to the publisher or developer.

    @skillian & shinji

    Yeah, true. Fuck 'em. Don't like it? Get a new job.
    Edited by 2 at 11/09/08 @ 11:09

  • Kill_Crazy #6 3 years ago

    Wouldn't be so bad if the shops gave you a decent price for trading in, from a consumer pov. They give you £15 and then stick a sticker on and sell it for £30. Nice profit, probably more than on the original sale.

  • seasidebaz #7 3 years ago

    Might be damaging the market, but it DEFINATELY isn't damaging my pocket. Case in point: Assassin's Creed. Well worth £13, but would I pay full price for it? Screw that...

    It's why I kind of like digital distribution, I have a couple of PSN games that I bought for £5 each and keep going back to, despite the fact that if I'd bought them on disc they'd probably be in the pre-owned section of Gamestation again by now...

  • dr_faulk #8 3 years ago

    The retails must be making an absolute killing on second hand sales. Why else would they so strongly encourage us to trade in our games.

  • Hunam #9 3 years ago

    It was just a musing!

  • Kill_Crazy #10 3 years ago

    It was just amusing!

    /fixed
    Edited by 1 at 11/09/08 @ 11:12

  • anomagnus #11 3 years ago

    i can understand what he's saying, but the problem is, lets take bioshock as an example, theres absolutely NO reason to play it again when you're done.

    Games need to be designed with:-

    a) replayabilty in mind - for example gears of war - i still have have two years on and still play it
    b) online elements
    c) expandable content in mind

    Otherwise, theres simply NO reason to go back to them

    Trade in WONT go away, so its up to developers to develop games that combat boredom .

  • AtomicBanana #12 3 years ago

    ' . . . in which he talks about The Outsider'

    Or rather the talks about *not* talking about the Outsider :p

  • Bealsy #13 3 years ago

    Ditto. Tough fucking shit. I pay £39.99 for new games as it is, why shouldn't I be able to pick up older, used games for cheap.

  • Lebowski #14 3 years ago

    Stop being so greedy and lower your original RRP prices then. Entice gamers with an attractive price and, if it's enjoyable / good quality - build-up / generate profit through DLC which every other game seems to have these days anyway.

    Also, try releasing your game in the Summer - where months go by without even a half decent title arriving. You'll clean up!

  • TurboBailey #15 3 years ago

    They're never bloody happy are they.

    If its not piracy, its pre-owned games. Greedy fatcats


  • Olemak #16 3 years ago

    Theft is also a factor. Street gangs shoplifting games can easily sell them at second hand stores, making quick and easy money. Also an issue reated to burglary, but to a lesser extent.

    I predict that the problem will diminish as online distribution off all media (except litterature) become more wide-spread.

  • johnnybrn #17 3 years ago

    I think thats why they are pursuing digital distribtion so vigourously. ie no resale potential and no second-hand market.

    Whereas I dont buy new games if possible (ok I got GTA IV for all my sins) and generally wait until they are at £20 mark, but no in hell am I paying £40 for a game that may be completed in a weekend.

  • Hunam #18 3 years ago

    Well, seeing games development first hand it is a pisser when people spend three years working on a game and then all the proceeds are eaten up by a retail chain.

  • Triggerhappytel #19 3 years ago

    I appreciate that the pre-owned market must hurt smaller developers like Frontier, but does he expect the basis of second-hand goods to be rewritten purely for the benefit of games developers?!

    The only solution I can see is that publishers and developers make specific agreements with retailers so the retailers get the new stock in at a cheaper price, but the developers/publishers also get a cut of the second-hand profits. There's no point crying to us gamers; you need to approach the source who are making the profit from pre-owned.

  • Kill_Crazy #20 3 years ago

    I can see a system wherein when you first load a new game on your console it will only allow it to be played on that console unless you pay an unlocking fee to the makers.

  • miiiguel #21 3 years ago

    I like to buy all my games new and I never trade them, I'm the only one, I guess.

  • Pac-man-ate-my-wife #22 3 years ago

    As said already said games are overpriced. The games industry are always banging on about how they make more money than Hollywood, however I can by a new film for less then a £10 on DVD whereas even the cheapest new game costs around £30.

    Cut the prices of new games encouraging gamers to pick up new titles and the second-hand market will lose a lot of it's worth and more cash will flow to developers. Win-win.

  • Farstarbuck #23 3 years ago

    I think it comes down to cost with second hand games. I'm more likely to go for a cheaper second hand copy of the game than I am to pay full price, especially if the lunatic retailers are still charging 40 quid for the game which has been out for months and months. People buy second hand largely due to cost, so perhaps if developers of single player games with not too much replay value were to price their game in perspective to a game that has better longevity then maybe someone like me would pay 30 quid first time instead of waiting for the cheaper second hand alternative.

  • Bealsy #24 3 years ago

    "single-player titles or those with less replay value."

    Spend more time developing the game fully then. He might as well say

    "I can't understand why people are trading in boring and linear titles instead of keeping them"

    How many copies of Mario Kart or CoD4 do you see in the bargain bin? Exactly. Because they developed a fully fledged title that caters to a modern gamers needs. The days of Daytona USA died a long time ago you poor moneyless slave to modern society you.

  • Xerx3s #25 3 years ago

    Developer in "I wants more moneys!!!!"

    Here is some news: I bought it. It's mine. I can do with it whatever I please. I can burn it, play it shit on it and even SELL it. The arrogance that you have to think that it shouldn't be my right to sell my game or purchase a 2nd hand game is absurd.

  • Vordred #26 3 years ago

    i dont really buy second hand games, as my local game usually put the price of second hand stuff at about £5 less than the new price, some times even being the same or higher than a new copy.

    i do trade my game in at times, and it does bug me that they buy for like £15 and put it back out at £30-35. a 100% or higher mark up is a bit much. they should either give more for trade in or drop the price of the second hand stuff to make it even worth buying.

    though the worst mark up i have seen from them was a copy of the darkness they bought in of this guy for £3 and two days later it was in the used section for £17

  • Kill_Crazy #27 3 years ago

    Can we organise game swap shops to be done outside of Game stores. Bet the manager would have a right fit as his £20 profit per game get sold outside the front door.

  • Stoatboy #28 3 years ago

    @shinji - but there are no second hand game shops. There are just game shops that are often trying to persuade people to buy second hand games in preference to new ones because it makes them more profit without returning anything to the developers. Waterstones don't try to sell you second-hand books over new ones. That's a big difference. People go into second hand bookshops and record stores looking for rarities and out-of-print books, and so forth. People go into Waterstones to buy the latest Harry Potter.

  • moggsy #29 3 years ago

    @ skillian

    Why should they? Do VW get a cut when I sell my car?

    No but they perhaps make money from servicing and selling parts for that car. Plus VW own a large part of the second hand trade in their cars anyway i.e. the dealerships. It's a completely different model.

  • rudedudejude #30 3 years ago

    Slap DRM on THEM!

    PROBLEM SOLVED! Wooop!

    It's the future and you know it!!

  • miiiguel #31 3 years ago

    Vordred is right, it's not like devs are greedy and retailers (who nowdays make more money with 2nd hand rather than anything else!) are saints.
    The money they pay for our games are obscenely low. I sold a game once - Oddworld - the guy looked at me and said "oooh, pretty old..., not so good..., er..., ok I'l give you 5 Eur." (like he was doing me a favor), 4 hours later it was on sale for 30.

  • Der_tolle_Emil #32 3 years ago

    Looking at the prices of some games nowadays it's no wonder people go for pre owned copies. I never bought pre owned games until last year. If a new game comes out for 25 or 30 pounds, no problem. It starts to hurt when I have to pay 35 though.

    Another thing, especially appearent with Nintendo games: They simply don't get cheaper. There aren't many but the few GC games still on sale cost the same as they did when they came out years ago.

  • Kill_Crazy #33 3 years ago

    @moggsy

    @ skillian

    Why should they? Do VW get a cut when I sell my car?

    No but they perhaps make money from servicing and selling parts for that car. Plus VW own a large part of the second hand trade in their cars anyway i.e. the dealerships. It's a completely different model.

    Unless you bought a Rover/ MG ;)

  • aldo_14 #34 3 years ago

    No but they perhaps make money from servicing and selling parts for that car. Plus VW own a large part of the second hand trade in their cars anyway i.e. the dealerships. It's a completely different model.

    What, like DLC? Also, what of people who trade-in old games to buy new?

  • Lemming81 #35 3 years ago

    Tough shit.

    Movies, Music, Books, Cars and everything else manage just fine.

  • moggsy #36 3 years ago

    @shinji

    Second hand books are usually grubby and tatty. Second hand games play the same as a new game. That's the difference.

  • JohnnyWashnGo #37 3 years ago

    For me, used games are off limits.

    See, I like to buy games and keep them so that I can replay them at my leisure. I have a rather nice collection of video games from the Atari 2600 onwards which I would not have had if I had handed them in for some spare change.

    However, that being said, the market would struggle a little bit if people could not exchange a couple of old games for a new one. The pricing of games for this generation of games machine is prohibitive to most people and swapping old games for new is one of the easiest ways for them to get the latest game.

  • Kill_Crazy #38 3 years ago

    I would discount music due to the Nazi-tastic Performing Rights Society screwing money out of any business with a radio.

  • Fab4 #39 3 years ago

    This is why they love DRM, it ties the consumer up. You basically buy something and give up all rights as to what you do with it after your purchase.

    This is why you'll see an increase in stripped-down games with increasing DLC. If I ever wanted to give away my CoD3 and the map packs to a friend, it wouldnt be possible, they'd have to buy the extra maps all over again.

  • Kalinin #40 3 years ago

    Considering most games retailers seem to have their entire profit margin resting on pre-owned sales as they're making slim pickings on new sales, I'd say a lot of the specialist retailer presence on the high street at the moment is very heavily pre-owned dependant.

    Any change or preventative measures to curb reselling would probably result in a reduction in the number of large stores like GAME and Gamestop, the knock on of that may not amount to much, but they are one of the primary ways of pushing PR to more casual users who don't subscribe to the gaming press and that in turn might make it harder to get some products the attention they need to sell.

    It's a very tangled web, and sadly given the technology of current consoles I can see a very heavy handed "solution" being put about by publishers like EA - if they're prepared to give you 3 installs on a game you own, I don't think they'd blink at the idea of adding DRM to console games that ties a disk's serial number to your console if they really want to put a stop to preowned sales.

  • optimusprym8 #41 3 years ago

    I only buy new games to reward the developer as much as possible. 2nd-hand games only rewards the retailers and they hike the prices up anyway. Viva la digital revolution!

  • moggsy #42 3 years ago

    @ aldo_14

    You're right , DLC is a good way for devs to make money out of second hand sales. I still think they should get a percentage of the price GAME get for a pre-owned copy too though.

  • hiddenranbir #43 3 years ago

    This is something Braben is going to have to accept.

    "Wah, don't share your games, buy a new copy"

  • SEVQA #44 3 years ago

    "causing all sorts of problems for single-player titles or those with less replay value."

    The fact that the word value was used in this sentence says it all! Make games worth the £40-£50 price with a replay value to match! This is not the consumer’s problem or fault. Its developers and publishers who should be producing games that have VALUE!

  • rob76 #45 3 years ago

    how about adding some replay value then? Problem solved.

    Greedy bastards.

  • jack_klugman #46 3 years ago

    I'm very uncomfortable with the thought of crooks like Game getting developers' money. I'm all for games increasingly relying exclusively on download services like Steam or Stardock to cut out the high street retailers and on top of that integrating MMO-style log ins to tie consumers to their purchases (with value added incentives like auto-patchers for registered consumers). Hand in hand with that I'd expect the cost of games to drop, as they become less dependant on conventional expensive marketing and distribution channels.

  • ccfb #47 3 years ago

    When are EG going to stop writing such stupid paraphrased inflamatory headlines? Taking this article on its own, Braben is actually talking about damage to the single player experience, going onto explain his view on the knock on effect to the sales.

  • moggsy #48 3 years ago

    Another point to add, if devs got a share of the second hand market, the price of new games could come down - everybody wins.

    If GAME continue their current business model I fear in a few years time they will no longer exist as the devs will have moved over to digital distribution instead. It's their choice really.

  • BadBoyBonner #49 3 years ago

    In my Local retailer Halo 3 is £11.99 and Assassins Creed is £8.99 - if I bought them both now it would mean I had actually bought them and owned them for less than I initially paid (having got much more on trade in for either game).

    I can not foresee the retailers changing if they don't have to. Why would they stop trading second hand goods? Probably half of them base their survival upon it.

    Something I am sure that retailers could do with little effort though is release the resale figures - giving a clearer picture of actual sales figures which could help all concerned for future planning.

    Although my guess would be that they are quite happy to withhold those from their distributors .

  • miiiguel #50 3 years ago

    "Console gaming is dead."
    As opposed to PC gaming which corpse is already stinking.

  • Eoin #51 3 years ago

    Second hand books are usually grubby and tatty. Second hand games play the same as a new game. That's the difference.

    No, sorry, there's no difference.

    A second hand book can be in perfect condition - there's nothing preventing that from happening.

    Similarly, you'll find that second hand CDs, DVDs and such will play in exactly the same manner as their new counterpart.

    However, concentrating on the condition of the things being sold is missing the entire point. The entire point is that once you buy something, it's yours - and you can sell it, and the original seller does not in fact maintain any further distribution rights over it. If you sell it, you get the money - not the publisher who has already been paid for that copy.

    As sympathetic as I am to developers and as cynical as the second hand market is, that's the way it works, and that's the way it's meant to work. If the games industry wants an exemption from capitalism, then it's not "oh poor developers" or "boo, evil retailers", it is, as the first comment nicely sums up, "tough shit".

    The doctrine of first sale applies to them as well. If publishers want to cut down on second hand sales, then they have to change something at their end.

  • menage #52 3 years ago

    I would gladly see a good rental system. It would even make me play more kinds of different games. But second hand or budget is the only place I'm ever going to touch a game liek Too Human or Assassins Creed again. 60 Euro's is just way overpriced for something which isn't A grade.

  • knocker #53 3 years ago

    @killcrazy
    "I can see a system wherein when you first load a new game on your console it will only allow it to be played on that console unless you pay an unlocking fee to the makers."

    I was thinking this while reading the command and conquer DRM thread - it would need net access to work I think. But just a matter of time ...

    Surely if publishers were *that* pissed off they could just refuse to supply shops that sold 2nd hand ? Or is the real target ebay ?

    Overall - it seems that "the industry" wants it both ways. Public perception of software as just another product you pick up in Tesco - but a licensing model more appropriate to buying Oracle or similar.

  • Chufty #54 3 years ago

    When you buy a game you don't pay for the code, the engine and the art assets. The cost of the physical disc and case are negligable. What you pay your money for is the license to use the software, the right to use the product on your PC or console.

    From a legal perspective, games publishers could quite easily enforce that the end-user license is non-transferable and lay rest to the entire second-hand games market in one fell swoop. They won't do that, because it's completely draconian and unnecessary.

  • SEVQA #55 3 years ago

    @ccfb

    Well I’m sorry but this guy is defending games that don’t have enough replay value and effectively blaming the second hand market and the choices consumers have made! This is incredibly stupid! I wonder what CEX would have to say about all this!

  • dryden555 #56 3 years ago

    As game content gets smaller and game length gets shorter, it makes less and less sense to buy the game at full price. Consumers want value for their money.

  • moggsy #57 3 years ago

    @ Eoin

    As sympathetic as I am to developers and as cynical as the second hand market is, that's the way it works, and that's the way it's meant to work. If the games industry wants an exemption from capitalism, then it's not "oh poor developers" or "boo, evil retailers", it is, as the first comment nicely sums up, "tough shit".

    It's not 'tough shit' - end of story though. It just means devs will sell their software using electronic distribution instead. Braid is a good example of this - a cracking little game which would sell a storm at £14.99 in GAME. It'll never be on the shop shelf though, which I think is a shame.

    A little bit of compromise from the likes of GAME over this issue would give their current business model more of a future.

  • michaelius #58 3 years ago

    Stop asking 40 pounds for 6-8 hours long games and people will buy them.

  • BadBoyBonner #59 3 years ago

    Here is the perfect solution to the problem described by Mr Braben to avoid most of the second-hand market woes.

    Keep releasing a reason to keep the disc and/or create brilliant multi-player.

    This is the reason why CoD 4 seems to have done so stonkingly well compared to other games - because hardly anyone has ever traded it in!

    The lack of FREE content is one of the things MS have got badly wrong on the 360 - much to the annoyance of EPIC who realise probably more than any other developer the benefit or constantly releasing free content.

    You could then factor it into the business model - man hour cost against second-hand resale prevention.

    As an aside but on the same thread - I wish Rockstar would invest sometime and effort into updating GTA IV multiplayer - as the amount of times both players end up shooting each other (at the same time) really saps the fun/skill out of it.

  • Monsta #60 3 years ago

    i think the biggest issue is retailers keeping new prices artificially high then pricing preowned just slightly lower.

    We all know that these shops make a much larger profit on preowned than on new and they seem to be milking it.

    I buy a lot of second hand books, but mainly from charity shops and noramally for about a 3rd of the new cost.

    I've seen second hand copies of x360 games going for £30+

  • karstux #61 3 years ago

    I can sympathize with Braben on this issue. You can't really compare games with other second-hand media. Movies have another primary source of revenue - the cinema. When the movie hits DVD, it's often already paid for, so the second-hand DVD market isn't hurting it. Same thing with music, they have concerts, merchandising and broadcasting. As for books, I guess most people like them new.

    Modern games on the other hand have huge production budgets. Retail sales are the only source of reclaiming that, and the sales window is rather short. Most games probably only sell in volume for a few months. So of course, second-hand is heavily eating into that, and it is a problem for not-so-wealthy studios/publishers.

    I guess the draconian DRM with 3-install limits that's so popular nowadays is the publisher's answer to that, more than against piracy. Maybe it would be better to change the EULA to forbid resale for a year after purchase. That way, customers could still trade in their games, and producers would better capitalize on the best sales window. The middle man - the stores - would of course suffer. Tough luck for them, I suppose.

  • jack_klugman #62 3 years ago

    SEVQA:

    CEX are parasites. They deny games developers, film makers and hardware manufacturers the money they rightfully deserve. I welcome any means to hamper their trade that don't harm the consumer.

  • SEVQA #63 3 years ago

    And for second hand! Don’t GAME have a habit of removing the plastic wrapping form the game boxes and removing the disc’s only to put it back in the boxes when you purchase them! On a few occasions I recall the plastic being unwrapped in front of me and I protested, much to the amazement of the staff when I explained that item you are now selling me is effectively second hand and I refused to buy it as the game was a gift and didn’t what to look as if it was a second hand purchase!

    Also on another occasion I remember a customer who was in front of me was undecided as to which colour DS they should buy, so the attendant kindly went and got all colour sku’s and opened them all and gave them to the customer to touch! I also informed the sales person that you have effectively rendered all those DS’s that you’ve opened second hand!

    I could be completely wrong with this and not fully understand the law!

  • playgen #64 3 years ago

    boo hoo, I'm sick of hearing devs/publishers moaning that people don't buy their game because of piracy, second hand market, pigeons swooping down and flying off with the disks, bla bla bla. Make a good game people want to play and they will buy it.

    Why is there a second hand market, because people can't afford to buy dozens of games a month at £40 each just to support all the devs out there. Perhaps Mr Braben your games would sell even less if people couldn't trade in old games to buy them.

    And this nonsense about devs not getting money, do you think Jeff the graphics artist gets a shiny new £1 coin every time the game he worked on sells a copy? of course not, he has already been paid his wage, and is already off working on something else. I have no sympathy for rich publishers wanting to be richer, or devs who make crap games crying that nobody buys them.

  • Madafunkola #65 3 years ago

    If GAME / Gamestation / Blockbuster were a bit more transparent/upfront with how much they will give for trade and how much they'll resell (ie an online up-to-date database with cash/trade/resell amounts) it might force them to be a bit more competitive and give a better deal.
    Also - trade-in figures should be sent back to chart companies so that devs can see what gets traded, how long after release, and how often - i'm sure some copies of games go through the trade cycle more than once.

  • karstux #66 3 years ago

    "Stop asking 40 pounds for 6-8 hours long games and people will buy them."

    Stop buying 6-8 hour long games, and people will cease to make them. ;-)

  • jack_klugman #67 3 years ago

    Games are more expensive than other media because, although perhaps cheaper to make than a blockbuster movie, they don't have the broad revenue streams other media do. Films have a potentially unlimited shelf life after leaving the cinema and can easily migrate from format to format (VHS to DVD to download). Music similarly and there are also licensing options there (see advertising). Games age very quickly as the hardware that can support them matures and is replaced. Console games are entirely dependant on the hardware they're made for.

    So don't go moaning about fat cat publishers, who obviously want to sell as much product as they can.

  • miiiguel #68 3 years ago

    "I have no sympathy for rich publishers wanting to be richer, or devs who make crap games crying that nobody buys them."
    Me neither, but I have even less a sympathy for retail owners.

  • BooMMooB #69 3 years ago

    well, to be true I do buy preowned games. But I tend to only buy games preowned that I wouldn't buy at the high pricetag new games have. Harming games market? geeez, get out of here. If anything it streghtens the games market (ofcourse mostly the gameshops), since every game is making more profit than ever, being sold again and again.

    Think again, Braben....

  • moggsy #70 3 years ago

    @ SEVQA

    I purchased a new game in GAME the other week and I too was surprised when they took the box I'd got off the shelf, opened it, put the disk in and then put their own GAME labelled seal on it. I like my brand new games to be sealed by the publisher. Very odd the way they do this.

  • butler` #71 3 years ago

    GAME make a fucking mint out of the second-hand market. I've often brought brand new games off Play.com - or even from other highstreet retailers - for less than a second hand copy at GAME.

  • RustyBullet #72 3 years ago

    I have been taking advantage of the Gamestation 2 for £20 2 for £30 and so on and half the games i bought i would never have bought at full price but at them prices good deal.
    Yea the game shops initialy make a killing but a bit of patience comes good in the end.

  • playgen #73 3 years ago

    "Games are more expensive than other media because, although perhaps cheaper to make than a blockbuster movie, they don't have the broad revenue streams other media do. Films have a potentially unlimited shelf life after leaving the cinema and can easily migrate from format to format (VHS to DVD to download). Music similarly and there are also licensing options there (see advertising). Games age very quickly as the hardware that can support them matures and is replaced. Console games are entirely dependant on the hardware they're made for. "

    Except thats not totally true is it. How much money has Nintendo made from rereleasing old mario games countless times, Sega with sonic etc. Downloads, compilations, handheld remakes, theres plenty of potential to make money from old games. Except they have to be GOOD games for this to happen. As is always the case, the people that moan the most are the ones who have made bad games, or just misjudged the market and released something that people are bored of.

  • SEVQA #74 3 years ago

    @ playgen

    I concur,

    The money from royalty’s are usually wrapped up by a very few people within dev’s and publishers and the artist , producers, quality testers are as Playgen said are paid a wage and move on to something else! Therefore it is financial greedy non creative individuals who are making a lot of money of the backs of hard working and creative people then blaming and bitching about the consumer! And as far as I’m concerned is the real cancer in games industry and why no young game designer winning awards and general innovation within the medium is stagnant!

  • jack_klugman #75 3 years ago

    If you buy second hands games you're actively harming the industry who creates the products you enjoy. Its as simple as that. You're not exclusively the problem, but you're part of it.

  • moggsy #76 3 years ago

    @ SEVQA and Playgen

    And where did the money come from to pay 'Jeff the graphics artist' in the first place. The money tree in the developers car park?

  • jack_klugman #77 3 years ago

    playgen:

    Good point actually. But avenues like Virtual Console on the Wii are fairly new occurances. And for every re-release of a classic title, you've probably got a few people downloading a ROM to play on a free emulator.

  • rhinoxious #78 3 years ago

    "How much money has Nintendo made from rereleasing old mario games countless times, Sega with sonic etc."

    True but only a tiny handful of games get that kind of rerun release.

    Anything that siphons off cash between the producer and the consumer (in this case retail in all its forms) should be seen as a neccessary evil, but an evil still. A direct download situation for all software scares a lot of people, because they think the publishers wil hike prices and take the piss. But at the end of the day, the publishers set the prices under any model, and getting rid of the retailers would be no bad thing I think.

  • Hypercube #79 3 years ago

    If a book is good enough I will keep it so that I can read it again. If a game is good enough I will keep it so I can play it again.

    If he doesn't want a pre-owned market as big as the current one, then put some replayibility into the game. Create some downloadable content to keep it fresh, have some discernible goal to playing through a second or third time. It's his product, so it's up to him to come up with the goods.

  • jack_klugman #80 3 years ago

    moggsy:

    If you're a new developer trying to prove a concept to a big publisher than probably by the studio head taking out another mortgage on his family home.

  • playgen #81 3 years ago

    "@ SEVQA and Playgen

    And where did the money come from to pay 'Jeff the graphics artist' in the first place. The money tree in the developers car park?"

    Presumably from profit from the sales of a good game. A game sold from shops like Game, where second hand games are also sold. The developers wern't moaning then, because the good game sold because it was good.

    There simply aren't enough players with limitless spending ability for every average game to sell well enough for everyone to be happy. This isn't a mystery its the way it has always been. If devs choose to work on a game that isn't great thats their choice, this idea (mainly found on forums) that every game developer deserves to have a well paid job forever, no matter how good or bad they are at that job is just ridiculous.

    For these people bleating on about poor old developers, why not buy just terrible games from now on, none of these 8/10 and higher rated games, those devs are doing well, what about those poor starving devs of utter shit games?, what about them!
    Edited by 3 at 11/09/08 @ 12:29

  • rhinoxious #82 3 years ago

    However much a developer adds extra content to a single player, story-based game, I'm very unlikely to play through it again. The amount of time it takes is just too long when there are so many other decent products out there to play instead from fresh.

    I don't share his worries over the future ofsingle player plot-based games though, as such titles are perfect for episodic download distribution.

  • Rizo #83 3 years ago

    @Arbiter

    You are talking out of your ass!
    Development costs have nothing to do with the price of games!

    Halo 3 costs millions to make.
    Ass creed cost alot less

    Why were they both the same RRP on release?

  • steninja #84 3 years ago

    i don't see the problem. sales figures have never rung true. how many hundreds of thousands of gamers borrow games off their friends etc...? sounds like the industry is just bitter others have cornered a market for themselves. genuine sales exceed far and above figures of titles 10 or 15 years ago. the market is so much bigger than just hardcore gamers now and more than enough consumers will buy titles new. you give an inch, they take a mile. blatant greed.

  • skillian #85 3 years ago

    If you buy second hands games you're actively harming the industry who creates the products you enjoy. Its as simple as that.

    It is not our job to be protecting the games business from potential lost profits. We are consumers, not employees or shareholders.

    If their business model is not working (which is a big stretch - the video game industry is actually very healthy and growing rapidly). then it is up to them to change it, not up to the customer to somehow base their purchasing decisions on pity for publishers.

  • Collymilad #86 3 years ago

    Boo hoo.

    Nobody wants you habing anything at a reasonable price.

  • SEVQA #87 3 years ago

    @moggsy

    No I’m certainly not saying developers don’t have right to make money, or retailers for that matter! It’s just a very cooperate attitude, and even more so in these financially difficult times for a system where monopoly’s are what is the goal and control is the outcome, restricting choice and eventually the rights of the consumer!

    Company’s have a habit of making out as if our consumer choices are damaging the artist and so forth! Yes it is damaging to them because they invariable get a very small cut if anything at all! Hence I return if the creative people who made the game where getting the royalty’s they deserved then maybe those would be the ones with the financial clout to be able to make the financial decisions! This goes for the music and film industry too!

  • menage #88 3 years ago

    @jacl klugman

    bullshit

    I only buy second hand games I wouldn't have bought on full price, because I didn't think they were worth the entry fee from the start. If you buy all your games that way maybe, but buying second hand doesn't mean robbing the game industry by default. It's not fucking charity. I buy what I think is worth 60 bucks, If I don't I will never buy it at that price.

  • Chufty #89 3 years ago

    Not all games can be re-playable. Some games inherently, as someone else pointed out, are short but high-quality experiences. That shouldn't preclude them from making a decent profit.

    One partial solution is to release games on the cheap quicker. There are console games, for example, that I wouldn't pay full price for but I'd be happy to wait 6 months for a platinum release. If there's no platinum release for 2 years though, I'll buy it second hand instead. How many console games are really selling in numbers, at full price, 6 months after their release?

    This happens with PC games; last week I bought Mass Effect, new, for £13. Not exactly a dated game...

  • moggsy #90 3 years ago

    @ SEVQA

    Is your full stop key mapped to your exclamation mark key? ;-)
    Edited by 1 at 11/09/08 @ 12:33

  • SEVQA #91 3 years ago

    Yeah sorry! I love em!

  • wayneh #92 3 years ago

    If developers were to release games on PSN for £30 and at the same time released the same game on disc format for £40 I would buy the one off PSN every time. They would have then saved the cost of the box, disc, manual and distribution plus I then wouldn't be able to trade it in. Trouble is they want digital distribution but don't want to lower the cost. I sure as well by cutting out the retail stores and their high mark-up the developers would make more money per title as well.

  • Malixu #93 3 years ago

    If you cannot make enough profit from selling games at the cost they retail for, make simpler games.

    If simpler games won't sell, find a job in a less screwed up market.

    Any questions?

  • Malixu #94 3 years ago

    @skillian - absolutely agreed. I hate it when people stand around going "My business model isn't working, you fix it!"

    @practically everyone else - Game development is expensive, and INCREDIBLY UNREWARDING. Sure, a few high profile devs get fast cars and all these things out of it, but your average game developer is underpaid and overworked. The only thing holding the entire industry together is people deluding themselves that spending most of their lives chained to a computer writing games is "fun" and worth the low salaries.

    I'm fed up of developers standing around complaining how bad things are, without doing something about it. Guys, there are better paid jobs out there, stand up, tell the market you've had enough, leave. Shake things up a bit, lets see if we can find a business model that works. Standing around complaining but not doing anything CHANGES NOTHING.

  • dsmx #95 3 years ago

    Maybe if companies didn't charge so fucking much for games in the first place people wouldn't buy used games so much.

  • Bru-Man #96 3 years ago

    I've not been in many book or record shops where I've tried to buy a new item and the assistant has offered me a second hand version of the same item for less cash and thus converted a new sale into a second hand one, and ensuring all the money goes to the retailer and none to the dev/publisher.

    This is the main point of this whole second-hand game selling for me. Woolworths and HMV don't have racks of traded in books, DVDs and CDs (or games for that matter) because they are not allowed to. Now I don't know exactly who it is that doesn't allow them - whether it's individual music/dvd companies, or some overarching industry group, or whether there is some general agreement that they won't do it (I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than me can insert info here). So my question is why does nothing like this exist for videogames? Is it a 'specialist store' exemption, or has the games industry just not got its act together on this matter?

    And for those whingeing about "it's mine I can sell it on if you want to" - well, "yes you can"! No-one is stopping you making a private sale to friends, in a car boot sale, in the paper or on eBay. This is specifically about being able to trade-in at a retailer and that retailer being able to then resell the item.
    Edited by 1 at 11/09/08 @ 12:59

  • Aloominum_man #97 3 years ago

    Maybe if companies didn't plow years and piles of cash into blatantly shit, uninspired projects, people wouldn't wait around until they appeared in the second hand pile before committing their money to them. If a game is great, and to my liking, I'll buy it right away. If it's considered below-par, loads will turn up in the second hand bin, and I'll try it out then if it appeals.

  • Bealsy #98 3 years ago

    Braben - Ronaldo ...

    Slaves in their own worlds....
    Edited by 1 at 11/09/08 @ 12:59

  • kangarootoo #99 3 years ago

    @Rizo

    "Development costs have nothing to do with the price of games!"

    What in the name of sweet JESUS are you talking about?

  • SEVQA #100 3 years ago

    @ Malixu

    Indeed!


  • lambtron #101 3 years ago

    Good post Bru-Man

  • kangarootoo #102 3 years ago

    "Maybe if companies didn't charge so fucking much for games in the first place people wouldn't buy used games so much."

    Whatever the cost of a new item, the second hand market for that item will always exist. If new games cost half as much, second hand ones would probably cost half as much as they currently. Its more about relative cosat and getting a bargain that anything else.

  • Slim #103 3 years ago

    Odd that Braben doesn't see downloads as a better solution to fight used game sales, which gives both the developer their correct cut and eliminates all the wastage from pointlessly shipping games.


  • FireMonkey #104 3 years ago

    One of the main problems I see is that on new games the retailers actually take more money from each game sale than the developer gets.
    Most of the cash goes to the publisher, so if the developer is owned by a publisher, there isn't too much of a problem, but if you are an independent developer. It is a little unfair that the shop make more money by selling the game than the dev, then they go and sell it again for almost the same price.
    Don't moan at the dev's for the price of the game, moan at the publishers and the retailers.

  • Malixu #105 3 years ago

    @Rizo:

    Halo 3 cost $30mil to make: [link url=http: //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7151961.stm
    ]http://ne ws.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7151...[/link]
    Assassin's Creed cost $15-20mil to make: [link url=http://www.msnb c.msn.com/id/22247827/
    ]http://www.msnb c.msn.com/id/22247827/
    [/link]

    However, Halo 3 broke all sorts of sales records: [link url=http://www.informationweek.com /news/internet/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202102318
    ]http://ww w.informationweek.com/news/inte...[/link]
    While Assassin's Creed's sale estimates we revised up from 3mil units to 5mil: [link url=http://www.msnb c.msn.com/id/22247827/
    ]http://www.msnb c.msn.com/id/22247827/
    [/link]

    To put this into perspective, on its first day of sales,Halo 3 sold more copies as Assassin's Creed was expected to sell, EVER. So yes, they're priced the same because AC was never expected to sell anything like as many copies.

  • sneetch #106 3 years ago

    Yep, I've thought that myself, one of the two reasons why I don't normally deal in second hand games (unless I can't find a first hand copy, that is) the other being that, for the sake of €5 (which is always the price difference) I'd rather have a new copy.

    The "simple" solution is to introduce a PC-like EULA to your games, a single user, non-transferable licence that pops up when you first use the game and "forbids" the game from being resold (possible legal challenges aside it works for PCs). That would cut the stores out of this loop (you'd still have people swapping games or reselling them on ebay but meh, that's small potatoes compared to the retail chains). I believe that the next gen of consoles will use that model.

    If you were to knock five-ten bucks off the asking retail price then I reckon most people would be quite happy with that change, those that aren't happy, well, that'd be because they buy and sell second hand games anyway so no money or sales lost by the devs/publishers.

  • actionfitz #107 3 years ago

    "Frontier Developments boss David Braben reckons the pre-owned games market is causing all sorts of problems for single-player titles or those with less replay value."

    duh.
    hows about you get with the times and spend more time making better games with more replay value then...
    and less time being a whiney dick about your linear small minded games getting dumped into the pre-owned bins.


    how about setting up your own mail order pre-owned service that bypasses Gamestop etc?
    or work out a deal with a retail partner and offer attractive terms in order to get a slice of the pie?
    Your procrastination isnt going to stop me trading in a bollox game with only 8 hours play with no reason to ever turn it on again after the credits roll...

    But I still play Call of Duty - awesome online replay value. Still play gears of war and halo games - fun split screen co-op with the flat mate on 'beer-fridays' after the pub

    Still play GTA, just because its a big fun sandbox - Crackdown too.

    I love Bioshock, but ill never put it on my console again - sadly its reduced to the status of Shelf ornament (i got the collectors edition with the big daddy model ^^ ).

    so in short.
    wise up or fuck up.
    Edited by 1 at 11/09/08 @ 13:31

  • Lebowski #108 3 years ago

    Would GAME even continue to exist if they didn't have second hand games?

    I haven't bought full-price from those robbing bar-stools for years.

    Support your local indie - better prices (on new and used) , better staff, and they've got balls big enough to break those stupid draconian release dates.

  • MrChuckles #109 3 years ago

    So, you buy a game for £30 and about £10 goes to the developer of the game and £10 to the store.
    Buy a 2nd hand version for £25 and £0 goes to the dev and £15 goes to the store (If they paid £10 for it).

    So, ok, you save £5, awesome...

    However, the dev loses £10 in sales every time a 2nd hand copy is sold which basically means millions of pounds going into retail and not going in to game development.

    So, as long as you would rather have much nicer shops than better games to play, i guess it isn't a problem.

    Just makes me sick that the people that work on a game for 3 years receive nothing, while the people who put the game on a shelf make it all.

    And all those people who compare it to books, movies and music... How many of those kind of shops sell BOTH new and 2nd hand versions? very few...

    And out of those, when you go to buy a new copy how many advise you to buy the 2nd hand copy instead?

    And comparing this to cars or electrical equipment isn't fair as you generally get a warranty with a new car and a LOT more can go wrong.

    I mean, when it comes down to it, i work for a games dev, so every time someone buys one of my games 2nd hand, i lose money. But of course, i buy 2nd hand games, because i'd be stupid not to. The industry as a whole needs to make sure Publishers/Devs get a cut of the money like they do at Blockbusters or ILoveFilm.

    Pah...

    (Yes i'm a hypocrite, but i'd be stupid not to be)

  • ukslim #110 3 years ago

    Something nobody's pointed out (unless I skimmed past) is that without a second hand market, the market for new games suffers.

    What I mean is, if I pay £40 for a new game, part of my thought process is that if/when I get bored of it, I can recoup some of the cost by trading it, or selling it on eBay. Without that prospect, I probably wouldn't spend the £40 in the first place.

  • Agent_Orange #111 3 years ago

    Shut Braben up and make Elite 4!!! :p
    Edited by 1 at 11/09/08 @ 13:36

  • mkreku #112 3 years ago

    So they charge €70 per eight hour game (in Sweden), the games industry has surpassed the movie industry in revenue (being a billion dollar industry), but they're whining about the consumers wanting a second hand market..? Lovely.

  • menage #113 3 years ago

    @ukslim

    Which why they should make all games 30 instead of 40 so you will buy all of them without trading them in? No, you probably would go through the same process because it saves you even more money. Full circle.

    Oh, and sorry for saying this, but I actually prefer these single player one time through experiences. And so do many people.

  • actionfitz #114 3 years ago

    @ MrChuckles


    one simple and easy solution:
    Digital distribution.

    Fuck Game.
    Fuck Gamestop.
    Fuck Hmv etc...

    when's the last time someone traded in a game on Steam?

    small slice of the cake (I know there is no cake but bare with me :p) to Valve, the rest of the cake is yours Mr Developer.

    No Publisher raping your profits, no disk or box manufacture, no smarmy Gamestop manager ripping off everyone involved with pre-owned sales.

  • MGG #115 3 years ago

    Here we go again, a bunch of comments by people who have zero knowledge about how the industry works and seem to expect the right to get entertainment as cheaply as possible. Well bravo, keep on like this and see what games industry we have in 5 years time.

    Heres a hint: there wont be any games on the high street, thats for sure. All games will be made by one of, what, 4 companies? You know, like the record industry is now? And everyone complains all modern music is shit, well lets see what future games will be, shall we?

  • amcd28 #116 3 years ago

    @ practically everyone

    If you compel a person that's purchased a product to lock it to one particular console, then that's a restrictive trading practice as you're denying the end user freedom of choice to do what they like with the product.

    You'd need to get them to agree to a set of terms and conditions at the point of sale, that restricts the freedom of the user. They do that in mobile phone pay monthly contracts, whereby you don't own the handset (supplied as 'free') until you've paid to the end of the minimum term.

    We also need to consider things like replacement units. Does your single unit DRM locked game no longer work if you get/buy a new console? How restrictive is that?

    So. The game becomes your property when you buy it, with a proportion of the money going to the dev/publisher, but if you trade it at a retailer, then the dev/publisher get another cut?

    Mmm, that would therefore mean that all stores selling games would essentially become tools of the devs etcetera as they cannot get permission to sell/resell the games without giving the developer a payment each time it is resold?

  • MGG #117 3 years ago

    @mkreku: do you know the difference between revenue and profit?

  • menage #118 3 years ago

    @MGG

    I don't know what kinda music you listen to but mines certainly not coming from one of the 4 big company's and is also not crap.
    Edited by 1 at 11/09/08 @ 13:52

  • menage #119 3 years ago

    @evilfox

    I'm the same.

    I used to sell them, but stopped doing that since I can afford them on a normal basis.

  • MrChuckles #120 3 years ago

    @actionfitz

    Digital distribution is definitely the way to go, but i can't see Johnny's mum buying him a voucher for an online game for xmas. She wants to go into a shop on her high street and pick up a box.

    Of course, services like Xbox Live helps, but the hard drives on the current crop simply aren't big enough, you really want more like 500gb minimum if you are going to download all your games.

    All these people complaining that they want to buy 2nd hand games because 'they are too expensive' won't have much of a point when Digital Distribution is working properly and the games prices will fall to R.R.Ps of £20-£30 rather than £30-£40.

    Of course, the download services will start wanting premium returns (like shops do now), but it's much easier for a publisher to create their own download service than have a store in every town so it shouldn't be anywhere near as much of a problem.

    Just remember, whenever you buy a new game, about £10 goes to the dev, £10 goes to the publisher (Upfront costs that the dev's can't manage and advertising) and a bit on tax, they are the only values that will (hopefully) exist in the future.

    The other £25 is manufacturing, distribution and retail, and DRM doesn't have those.

    Of course, my fear is that EA and other greedy publishers will realise people are happy to pay £40 for a game, and will make DRM titles cost as much as that so that they can take away £30 for themselves instead of £10.

    Lets hope in the distant future all devs will sell their own games direct without publishers, dropping the price of games ANOTHER £5 to £15, as technically that is really the cost of making a game. (Although there won't be any advertising :(

  • AnthonBerg #121 3 years ago

    Nobody loses money when a game is sold second-hand. However, devs + publisher MAKE 50 quid when a game is sold fresh and boxed.

    Part of the reason WHY a new game sells for 50 pounds is BECAUSE it can be sold, and part of the cost reclaimed.

    Solutions: Either make better games, selll them cheaper or MAKE IT EASIER TO PAY FOR THEM.

    If I could just Paypal some money to David Braben, I'd do it in a heartbeat. However, he forces me to go to $STORE, buy a plastic brick and have a few middle men leech some money in the process.

  • curtlikesmeat #122 3 years ago

    In the end it only hurts game companies that churn out repetitive shite. I have both Bioshock and Assassin's Creed and I'll never trade them in. Years ago I sold my Megadrive, my Nintendo 64 and my Gamecube - I regret it now as sometimes I fancy a quick go on Ocarina of Time etc. and it's just not the same on an emulator.

    I never buy used games but I occasionally trade them in, the main culprits being the Fifa games - what's the point in having Fifa 08 when you have Fifa 09? Those games are iterative in their releases and there's no point owning more than one at once. Others have a certain nostalgic value.

    In summary: release better games, someone mentioned Mario Kart - that is still very playable now (SNES version).

  • MrChuckles #123 3 years ago

    Ok, some people don't seem to get it...

    NEW GAME: £49.99 split into:

    Dev: £10 (covering dev costs)
    Publisher: £10 (Profit covering risk of funding dev costs + advertising)
    Manufacturing: £5
    Distribution: £2
    Tax: £7.50
    Retail: £15

    2ND HAND GAME: £35 split into:

    Retail: £35 (Minus the £10 they bought it for)

    N.B. These are approximations, but from my experiences aren't far off.

  • FireMonkey #124 3 years ago

    @ MrChuckles
    As far as I remember those numbers are about right. Dev does get less per game than retail.
    Glad you put those up there, as I couldn't find the numbers anywhere.

  • MrChuckles #125 3 years ago

    No one is saying stop all trading in pre-owned, just remove it from full price shops, or pay the devs some cash on each sale.

  • FireMonkey #126 3 years ago

    I don't think anyone seriously thinks the 2nd hand market should be stopped, but if you want devs to continue giving you good/original games to buy 2nd hand then they need to be supported. Lots of devs are dying all the time. It's not a good environment for them to survive in.

    People already moan about the un-originality of games nowadays, but when the dev makes such a small cut of the final price, why should they risk the company on doing things that have not been tried before and could fail drastically.

    All that is really needed is for the retailers to cut the massive profit they make from the 2nd hand market, and give a little back to the devs. This way the 2nd hand market survives, the end users price is not raised, and the devs can actually get more money to develop better things for you to buy.

  • IronAvatar #127 3 years ago

    I think people are missing the point here. The games industry isn't against the second hand market, just the method in which retailers abuse it to avoid paying publishers. I don't think anybody in their right mind would demand that the publisher/developer receives money from a re-sale of a game that was released two years ago. That's just nuts.

    But what IS a problem, is that a lot of the re-sale market for most games happens within the first few months of release. This is an important time, as it's when the most sales happen for a game. And when you realise that a retailer only pays for the stock it has actually sold, shipping the "excess" back to the publisher, you might start to see the problem.

    So they encourage people to being back their copy of the game, so they can sell it on as a "new copy" to avoid having to pay the publisher for the copy they would have had in its place. I mean what's worse is that it's not as if the customer is paying any less for it...in fact, in most cases, they're paying the same price as a new copy. Do you guys enjoy being ripped off by your local game retailer?

    It's not the "selling a second hand copy for 9 quid after 9 months" that Braben is complaining about. It's "selling a second hand copy instead of a new one in the first few weeks" is the problem. And quite rightly so too....the gamd retailers are ripping off the publishers, developers and customers.

    Surely you guys don't like being ripped off, do you?

  • davc4 #128 3 years ago

    Sorry but i have to agree with the people that are saying that new games are far too expensive.
    Risking £40 on something that may not be very good with my expendible cash is not something i am willing to do on a regular basis.

    Forget everything else and look at the Movie Market films generally cost a massive amount of money to make but are still sold at around £15 (even with the one shot use of going to the cinema - okay this may be out of date at £7.50 * 2) if games were priced in the £15-£20 range then a lot more units would shift meaning either no loss in profit or even an increase in profit.

    @MrChuckles
    To say that the production of a game costs £5 a unit to manufacture is quite frankly rediculous.
    Also what about the chunk that is paid to the Hardware owner as another significant cost.

  • FireMonkey #129 3 years ago

    @Davc4 - You shouldn't have to pay more for the 2nd hand games. Just cut the retails profits and pass some onto the devs.
    Surely you want to support the devs that make the games you play don't you?

  • MrChuckles #130 3 years ago

    @davc4:

    Forget everything else and look at the Movie Market films generally cost a massive amount of money to make but are still sold at around £15 (even with the one shot use of going to the cinema - okay this may be out of date at £7.50 * 2) if games were priced in the £15-£20 range then a lot more units would shift meaning either no loss in profit or even an increase in profit.

    'the one shot use of going to the cinema'? How many thousands of people go to the cinema every week? A film can make millions at the cinema before it even goes to DVD!

    Then, remember the market for a DVD (every household in the UK) compared to a console game (maybe half?)

    Then consider the fact that some games take 4 years to make compared with films taking a year.

    Then consider that a film is 2 hours entertainment and a game is somewhere between 10->40 hours.

    Maybe compare it to a DVD boxed set of a recent tv series (40-50 quid) which gives you the same entertainment value and probably took as long to make.

  • karstux #131 3 years ago

    "Maybe if companies didn't charge so fucking much for games in the first place people wouldn't buy used games so much. "

    Don't be silly. 2nd-hand games would just be proportionately cheaper. Maybe the volume of sales would go up, but the profits would probably remain the same (or less) all around.

    Anyway, anyone who buys second had might as well save some bucks and PIRATE the game. The effect on the games industry is the same.

  • MrChuckles #132 3 years ago

    @karstux

    'Anyway, anyone who buys second had might as well save some bucks and PIRATE the game. The effect on the games industry is the same.'

    Sadly true.

  • Fodder #133 3 years ago

    "Anyway, anyone who buys second had might as well save some bucks and PIRATE the game. The effect on the games industry is the same."

    That's not really true, though. When I was a student, I bought (new) games because I knew I could trade them in when I was finished. Without the 2nd hand market, I would've bought fewer games, so less money would've gone to the games industry.

  • davc4 #134 3 years ago

    @firemonkey - i agree that paying the same rate for a 2nd hand game to a new game is scandolous but i alos think that £40 a game is also scandolous
    I would have no problem with a dev getting a chunk of 2nd hand sales either.


    @MrChuckles
    "Then consider the fact that some games take 4 years to make compared with films taking a year.

    Then consider that a film is 2 hours entertainment and a game is somewhere between 10->40 hours."

    That is quite frankly irrelevant, length of development compared to actually value of product, Even actual development costs are irrelevant when comparing against rrp. What needs to happen is to look at what price would elicit most profit from the consumer base and £40 a game is quite frankly far to much. Tv Box sets are ireelevant as wel i bought one for my wife a couple of weeks ago for £17 another on preorder for £17.

    If for example Assassins Creed came out at £20 then far more people (myself included) would of purchased it on the off chance i would of enjoyed it rather than only going for mass effect.
    I would purchase more probably more than double the games at £20 than i purchase at £40 as £20 seems to me to be a reasonable value to take a punt on a game. £20 seems far more disposable than £40 quid does. Even though 2nd hand games would still be cheaper with the value of getting something new compared to something 2nd hand is more viable in this case (i almost told a GAME employee where to go when telling me i could get a 2nd hand copy of a game for £2 cheaper than at retail)

  • MrChuckles #135 3 years ago

    @davc4
    'If for example Assassins Creed came out at £20 then far more people (myself included) would of purchased it on the off chance i would of enjoyed it rather than only going for mass effect. '

    At £20, you'd probably get the following split:


    Dev: £3 (covering dev costs)
    Publisher: £3 (Profit covering risk of funding dev costs + advertising)
    Manufacturing: £5
    Distribution: £2
    Tax: £4
    Retail: £3

    When lowering the price of the game, manufacturing and distribution prices won't drop too, so the cut is extra harsh.

    So, for a start, the dev & publisher would have to sell 3 times the copies. Also retail would only make £5, something they'd definately not want at all as there is no profit margin at all. A 3x price drop would almost certainly not get 3x the buyers, the price is balanced by experts more intelligent than me to ensure that the maximum possible profit is reached.

    'Tv Box sets are ireelevant as wel i bought one for my wife a couple of weeks ago for £17 another on preorder for £17.'

    Was this a brand new set, or was it reduced?


  • SEVQA #136 3 years ago

    I think we should stop using the word pirate. At the end of the day these people are criminals, not some dumb character from Peter bloody Pan, I for one buy games 2nd hand and I’m not a thief! The comparison is dumb!

  • davc4 #137 3 years ago

    MrChuckles £5 per unit manufactured is quite frankly a guestimate that is far to high, If so how can Movie companies such as WB offer old discs for £3, it cannot be the case that manufacturing each unit will cost that sort of value.
    I actually understand about the profit margins and cost/demand profit curves but if 2nd hand purchases are such a concern then the industry has to look at the reason for purchasing 2nd hand and that is all purely down to cost.

    I have sympathy for developers and the stake they get in overall scheme of things as a software developer myself (i devlop systems for other companies to use).
    But the upshot is in todays market games are too expensive and although massive profits are made on the biggest games(Halo 3 for example) i am lead to believe that the smaller games tend to make a loss. As with your assumption that 1/2 ing the price will not at least double the sales i find to be a bit of a misconception take the teenager market for example how many teenagers do you know that have a spare £40 etc. .

    There will always be pirates but you cannot compare this to the 2nd hand market as people are leagaly purchasing software at a price that they can afford.


    'Tv Box sets are ireelevant as wel i bought one for my wife a couple of weeks ago for £17 another on preorder for £17.'

    Was this a brand new set, or was it reduced?

    Brand New no reduction except maybe a couple of quid for ordering over the web. via HMV ;)

  • Chufty #138 3 years ago

    See the other news article about the price of Wipeout HD for more food for thought on this topic.

    £12.99 for a game for which many people would have paid full whack. And none of it will go to a retailer. Soon, companies like GAME will see their customer base reducing even though the industry is booming, and it's up to them to make the most of this shifting distribution paradigm.

    Perhaps the whole second hand market is just a stop-gap anyway.

  • davc4 #139 3 years ago

    read over some of the comments and you will see especially why this will work lots of people saying wow impulse buy, what the games industry needs is for this to happen to all games, Digital distribution is the way of the future as long as publishers don't get too greedy and as long as ISP's allow us to download gigs of data every month.

  • karstux #140 3 years ago

    "When I was a student, I bought (new) games because I knew I could trade them in when I was finished. Without the 2nd hand market, I would've bought fewer games, so less money would've gone to the games industry."

    And then they lost the sale to the dude who bought the game you traded in. Had you bought fewer games, without trading them back, the industry would likely have earned more.

    "I think we should stop using the word pirate. At the end of the day these people are criminals, not some dumb character from Peter bloody Pan, I for one buy games 2nd hand and I’m not a thief! The comparison is dumb!"

    I never said used-buyers were pirates. But the effect is the same: they're denying the creator of the value ( = the game) the compensation that is due. They're giving money to a middle man, while the creators of the game lose out.

    For most pirates, at least it could be said that they wouldn't have bought the game anyhow, hence no damage done. Used-buyers however demonstrate that they *are* willing to pay money, so they would have been far more likely to pay full price if the used-buy option weren't there.

  • dingo75 #141 3 years ago

    Apart from the fact that David should stop bitching and start showing some progress on Elite 4 it comes down to this:

    Every gamer knows that most games will hit a bargain bin in a few weeks / months and will also be cheaper 2nd hand.
    Now the question is what is stronger: The urge to have the newest games asap or the will to wait out and grab the games a bit later while saving a lot of money.

    I was no. 1 for a long time but due to a huge baclog of unplayed games I switched to be no. 2.
    I don't buy any game full price these days besides limited Collector's Editions + Blizzard games.
    I save tons of money that way and I don't give a flying f*** if that hurts developers or not.
    It's about free markets stupid!

  • smelly #142 3 years ago

    >It's about free markets stupid!

    Which is why he's suggesting cheap rentals as an alternative.

    >and I don't give a flying f*** if that hurts developers or not.

    You will if games stop getting made as developers go out of business. Or stop making "hardcore" games in favour of shitty mini game collections


    And btw - it's ONE of the causes of games prices being so high. The pre-owned market lowers the shelf life of a product. For example - a movie has many years to recoup it's costs (cinema, rental, dvd owned, tv, etc) and a bigger market than those who play games (everyone watches movies). Thanks to pre-owned - games have a shelf life of a month max to recoup their (high) development costs.

    Still - if your moaning at braben about bringing this topic up.. And fully support pre-owned games and think "developers should stop bitching" - then you have no right to start bitching when developers make their money back by going for the "mainstream" market and making another wii sports clone... Its your own faults....

    "developers should stop bitching" - well maybe gamers should to?

    Edited by 1 at 11/09/08 @ 16:42

  • Fodder #143 3 years ago

    "And then they lost the sale to the dude who bought the game you traded in. Had you bought fewer games, without trading them back, the industry would likely have earned more."

    Not if the guy who buys 2nd hand games just pirated them instead, which is what you were suggesting.

    2nd hand sales may or may not be a loss overall for the industry, but I don't think they're equivalent to piracy.

  • MrChuckles #144 3 years ago

    Jeez, still 50% of comments are written by people who have no understanding of economics....i give up...

    (not pointing at davc4 btw, you have reasoned arguements, just not quite right ;-))

    Lets all make Fifa 09 and remove all choice for the idiots who don't seem to care that developers need money to actually make the games you like.

  • smelly #145 3 years ago

    @Fodder:

    Eh? What are you talking about? Right.. Lets try this simply for your head to understand

    A buys a game new 50 quid (with say 10 quid going to the developer)
    A completes it and sell it back to the store 20 quid
    B buys the 2nd hand game 40 quid
    B completes it and sell it back to the store 20 quid
    C buys the 2nd hand game 40 quid
    C completes it and sell it back to the store 20 quid
    D buys the 2nd hand game 40 quid

    So the store has made 110 quid off the SAME GAME .. But the game developer only saw 10 quid. The game developer DOESNT see ANY money from sales from B, C and D (and in some cases this can be 20 odd re-sells).


    So back to your point:
    "Not if the guy who buys 2nd hand games just pirated them instead, which is what you were suggesting. "

    Either way, buying 2nd hand, pirating - the developer doesnt see any money.

    "2nd hand sales may or may not be a loss overall for the industry"

    There's no "may not" about it..

    Which is why most developers are selling to the casual market now who pirate less and buy more new (not 2nd hand) titles - and the development costs are cheaper so it doesnt matter if the 2nd hand market has caused the shelf life to be 2 months or less.


    (note : When i say "2nd hand market" i'm NOT referring to someone selling their game to a friend or on ebay..)


  • smelly #146 3 years ago

    >Braben is a wanker, isn't that what capitalism is all about?

    Well in that case gamers like you are wankers for not realising it's you who are causing all these "casual" and "cheap to make" games on the market.. but then no doubt bitching about them too.


    "Games get shunted into the pre-owned market due to their price"

    And games are expensive due to costing lots to make and only having a short shelf life BECAUSE of pre-owned sales...

    You make a game, it costs 50 million to make.. But your potential audience only consists of 20 million people.. and you have to recoup your sales in 1 month...

    Its no wonder game devs have started aiming for the $1 million to make casual market..
    Edited by 1 at 11/09/08 @ 17:13

  • smelly #147 3 years ago

    I fucking hate the "im holier than though" atitude some gamers on forums have.

    Rather than listening to someone in the industry who knows MORE about the subject than they do.. They just think they know more about it - they understand the ecconomics of making games and where the money is coming from.. Then result to calling the person who's MAKING the games they love so much names.

    Sometimes I think some gamers are such complete nobs that they deserve all games companies to go out of business so the only thing they have left to play is "barbies riding school"

    - lavalant im looking at you.

  • IronCladChicken #148 3 years ago

    @TurboBailey
    Thats just what I was thinking - Stop stareing into my brain!!!

  • davc4 #149 3 years ago

    MrChuckles
    "(not pointing at davc4 btw, you have reasoned arguements, just not quite right ;-))"

    I think we can agree to disagree on this one,
    I have no problem with 2nd hand money going to developers, i have no porblem with more money going to developers. I believe that prices are way to high for games especially now as food etc. gets more expensive and a price drop would mean greater sales and lead to greater profits.
    I also believe that cheaper prices would lower (not eradicate) the demand for 2nd hand games thus again leading to greater numbers of sales going to the dev teams etc.

    I admit that i may be wrong but if you look at fairplay campaign from 2002 and the actual damage it caused the industry then you may see where i am coming from.

    Oh and i hate it how people say David and make a scandous remark as it makes me feel bad.

    Oh and i think ill stick to Hydrocarbon Counting Systems than making Fifa 09,
    im sure i could possibly be the teaboy for that team ;-)

  • smelly #150 3 years ago

    @lavalant:

    >"I think they used piracy back then as one of their excuses of expensive games, now you're saying it's trade ins? "

    I used to work in the industry back then - Games were pricey back then as the carts were expensive. But piracy/trade-ins.. same difference. Both stop the developer getting any money. In fact i'd say trade ins were worse as the gamer doesnt seem to REALISE that hurts the developers.. Whereas at least with piracy they understand what they're doing. The only difference is the retailer doesnt make a profit.


    >"Games aren't priced correctly, a game like GTA4 = £40"


    Games prices are pretty much fixed by the platform holder. A 40 quid game.. a vast majority of that price goes to sony/microsoft or nintendo.. Ever wondered why pc games are so much cheaper?

    But regardless of which.

    Games have a shelf life of a month - maybe two. BECAUSE of trade ins (why buy it new when i can get it for 5 quid less traded in). Of a game costs $50 million to make. And you need to sell say 1 million to break even. But you only have 20 million 360 owners out there.. So that means you need to sell to 1/20th of your userbase in less than a month.

    .. Whereas the shops are laughing all the way to the bank after they've sold the same physical game four of five times for maximum profit (of which the developer sees none)


    No-one is suggesting that people should stop selling their games second hand.

    But you're suggesting that the developers dont deserve to make their money back on the game they've made? A game which you may love? How do you suggest that developer then can afford to go on and make more games like that? i.e. More games that you'd love to play?

    If you were in business, and you were making top quality AAA titles which didnt make their money back thanks to the pre-owned market.. Would YOU keep developing risky $50 million dollar titles? Or would YOU yourself start making shitty casual games which sell just as well but are MILES cheaper to make? Think about it.. What would YOU do? Go out of business? Or chose to make a profit?

  • smelly #151 3 years ago

    "
    Ok, some people don't seem to get it...

    NEW GAME: £49.99 split into:

    Dev: £10 (covering dev costs)
    Publisher: £10 (Profit covering risk of funding dev costs + advertising)
    Manufacturing: £5
    Distribution: £2
    Tax: £7.50
    Retail: £15 "


    From my experience from years back.. it was more like:

    NEW GAME: £49.99 split into:

    Retail: £25
    Platform Holder: £20
    Dev, Publisher, Manufacturing, Distributing then distribute the rest..

  • BillyBrush #152 3 years ago

    @Smelly

    but do we give a toss?

    Games are expensive, we own them, we can sell them, just like cars..if they can make games that you want to keep owning, good on them, i don't want to get rid of half life 2, that's singleplayer

    £40 is a lot for disposable media, they spend a shitload more on many films (up to £200+ million), and they're £16 or less....they have a cinema run (bring back arcades, devs didn't care when they killed them though did they), and more people see them, more people would buy games if they're cheaper, the industry just want to be skanks, and i'm glad we don't let them...show me a console which prevents second hand trade, and i won't buy it

  • BillyBrush #153 3 years ago

    At some point it will be HDD based consoles where you can't sell on what you've bought...and we'll tell our kids about the good old days when you bought something, then it was actually yours, to do what you like with, and they'll tell us how the subscription to play model is like a tax and how they can't afford to buy a house because they like games so much..

    EA already con £40 off people with marketing, Mercs 2 is not worth £40quid, it feels Ok at the moment because you can make 1/2 back if you get duped into buying some crap that's not lived up to the unrealistic expectations and shrewed selling techinques of video game publishers..

    EDF was priced just right, which is why i still own it, and it's SP only...i've always thought it's good to be able to sample the many joys gaming has to offer, but if they want to try and go niche whilst getting bigger let them, less players and more money is the way games companies will have it, and that will suck

    Braben is pretty much a great person for UK developers, he has their interests at heart, however on this matter he does not have gamers interests at heart and doesn't seem to care about simply having lots of people have an anjoyable time with his games, if he doesn't coin the money off all of them...taking that attitude lends piracy a glamorous and noble image that it shouldn't have, and if my kids buy a HDD loaded with copied games i'll probably understand and let them play it, instead of some gaming tax where you pay your money and have precisely 0 to show for it at the end of the day....i work hard too, to expect that when i spend my money i gain something tangible in terms of value and resale, that's not an unreasnoable expectation

  • smelly #154 3 years ago

    Geesus soo much ill informed fucking nonsense.

    "YES Braben is suggesting we stop selling our games"

    No he isnt


    "he wants DRM in games so it only works on my console and means I cant sell it or lend it to a mate "

    No he doesnt


    "AAA titles will always make huge profits for companies"

    Not always they dont. For every halo 3 there's 100's of pyschonauts and okami's.


    >£40 is a lot for disposable media,

    yes it is

    >they spend a shitload more on many films (up to £200+ million), and they're £16 or less...

    A *whole* 16 quid less? Wow. Nearly everyone watches movies... If i make a 360 game, my potential market is only 20 million people - not all of them will buy it (even something like halo 3 sold to less than 1/4 of the 360 owners.. I can bet 99% of 360 owners have owned a copy at one time or another though).

    And Movies have sales/rentals/movies/tv/etc.. Games have a shelf life of a month.. movies have years.. Lowering the price on a huge budget game will NOT make the money back..

    But yeah.. DVD rentals make a lot of money.. and this is what Braben is suggesting.. PROPER cheap rental units. He isnt telling everyone to stop selling their 2nd hand games like some morons (lavalant) say..


    >bring back arcades, devs didn't care when they killed them though did they

    No, the public killed arcades by stopping going.

    In the same way as the public will probably kill "hard core" gaming then blame it on the devs (or nintendo)
    Edited by 1 at 11/09/08 @ 18:33

  • smelly #155 3 years ago

    "At some point it will be HDD based consoles where you can't sell on what you've bought...and we'll tell our kids about the good old days when you bought something, then it was actually yours,"


    GAAAH!!! You REALLY are a fucking stupid fuckwit arent you?

    NO-ONE is suggesting people shouldn't be allowed to sell their games second hand.

    They're saying shops PROFITING from selling trade-ins and the industry seeing none of it, and the public not seeing much of a drop in price on said trade ins, and the fact you cant buy new games after a month in any shop THANKS to the trade-in system.. is a bad thing for EVERYONE.

  • smelly #156 3 years ago

    "EA already con £40 off people with marketing, Mercs 2 is not worth £40quid, it feels Ok at the moment because you can make 1/2 back if you get duped into buying some crap"


    If you buy a shit game because you didnt read reviews.. that's not the publishers fault.. that's YOUR fault.

    But then gamers never seem to be able to take the blame for anything..

    Not ALL games can be AAA games.. It doesnt work. If every game was worth 9/10.. then they'd have to move the scoring bar on how re rate games.. Because even if they were all ace.. some would STILL be acer than the others.. subsequently the ones which were ace but not as ace as the others would get 3/10.. or whatever.. Either way it'd balance itself out and subsequently it's impossible to have EVERY game be classified as great.

    I know (judging by your posts) that you arent very smart.. so i know this will probably be a hard thing to grasp.. I'll let you think it through though.. dont hurt your head thinking too much about it though..

  • Les #157 3 years ago

    This is such a bullshit argument. The people that trade in their games are very likely to factor that into their buy decision. Without that possibility, fewer game sales, simple.

  • Collymilad #158 3 years ago

    smelly is a smelly fool

  • K-Project #159 3 years ago

    Selling older games is how many people fund their purchases of new ones though. I used to keep all my collections, but hey things change and with money being in short supply I simply have to sell on finished or unplayed ones to buy new. Fuck me, we're not talking about pirates here.

    The games industry will always have a ready reason why games simply have to be £40. If that's always going to be the case, then I'll have to sell my games on. If I can no longer do that, well, fuck it, I won't be buying games at all.

  • m0thr4 #160 3 years ago

    Another week, another whinging software developer. Here's a tip: make single-player campaigns with some replay value - then maybe they won't be so quick to hit the used market.

  • m0thr4 #161 3 years ago

    I have been hanging on for ages to wait for the price of CoD4 to drop to something reasonable, but it's one of the few games that has stayed pretty much at its full retail price, months after its initial release. In fact I only got lucky this week because Morrisons were selling it for £25 as part of their "1/2 price games for one week only" offer. This is clearly because people aren't letting go of their copies.

    On the other hand, you have titles like Metal Gear Solid 4, which was discounted to £30 only 2 weeks after its release...

  • Lemming81 #162 3 years ago

    @arbiter: "Here's the problem: Games need to be expensive in order to cover costs throughout the chain from concept through development, publication, distribution and lastly, retail."

    So why does a movie, that costs the same if not more than a game to make with just as large a crew(if not more) cost an average of about £15 on new release DVD (and let's say, another £6 per person box office sales), and there is no worry about second-hard market?

    Movies are initially cheaper and their second-hand market doesn't hurt the studios....


    ..so why should games be different?

  • Dan234 #163 3 years ago

    He's got a point. If Lost Winds came on CD he'd probably get a fraction of the sales because the game would be resold several times over with Game pocketing the difference.

    So there are two ways around it; working with game stores or going digital.

    I'd prefer the former. If it's the latter then second-hand market gets knocked on the head as well as the pre-owned market.

  • BillyBrush #164 3 years ago

    @Smelly

    thanks for the name calling, very intelligent and grown up are you...

    you don't seem to be understanding something rather obvious though...WHY SHOULD A RETAILER GIVE GAME DEVELOPERS A CUT OF SOMETHING THEY'VE NOT PURCHASED FROM THEM

    utter fuckwit, with the cheek to have a go when he doesn't understand how capitalism works...how can i have a debate with you, you don't have an understanding of how trade works, ownership, anything...if i sold you a turkey will you want to cut Bernard Matthews in on the deal?

  • AOFanboi #165 3 years ago

    Braben ignores what others have pointed out here: The effective price of a game is what you pay minus what you get for it when you sell it on. (E.g. car journalists often focus on second-hand value because of this: A new car with a good second-hand value is a "better" buy than another at the same price but with a lower second-hand value. Same holds for every physical good out there.) This makes single-license products like MMOs relatively expensive since you cannot resell them.

    And the industry will never go after the massive second-hand traders because they happen to also be the biggest retail chains. Braben can shake his tiny fist but he will cry "yes Master" at launch - unless he goes the license code route or something Steam-ish. As long as you are selling a physical product you have to expect second-hand sales, even if you try and trick people into thinking you are only selling a license. (Can I get a cost-of-shipping replacement for my PS3 game disk if it breaks? If I can, then and only then do I accept it was a license you sold to me.)

    And can people please stop the abuse of math and language that is to claim that pirated or second-hand games represent a loss? If I buy a €40 game used for €30, the publisher does not find that their bank balance has dropped by €10! There is no loss, just absence of (potential) income.

    Sometimes second-hand is the only way to get something that is "out of print" or which sells out rapidly; unless we want to amend copyright law to add copyduty so that a customer can demand a copy from the publisher (maybe a print-on-demand like solution, should not be too difficult.)

  • Les #166 3 years ago

    "Here's a tip: make single-player campaigns with some replay value - then maybe they won't be so quick to hit the used market."

    Come on, how many gamers (the non-casuals at least) care for replayability of a game? Most games we don't finish and when we do rush through a game we can't wait to play the next title that has been gathering dust for months on our shelves...

  • smelly #167 3 years ago

    @BillyBrush:

    "you don't seem to be understanding something rather obvious though...WHY SHOULD A RETAILER GIVE GAME DEVELOPERS A CUT OF SOMETHING THEY'VE NOT PURCHASED FROM THEM "


    Okay.. Where as you (like most people) are moaning about the PRICE of the games.. a VAST majority of a games price when you buy it new goes to the retailer.. When you buy a used game from the retailer pretty much 90% of the price goes to them.

    But yet THEY arent lowering prices are they? Hell, they dont even sell you a 2nd hand game at a decent price (usually knocking off 5 quid tops). Despite the fact they take shit loads of money at BOTH levels, do they give discounts BACK to the consumer?

    Do they fuck.

    A retailer probably can make up to (or even more than) 200 quid off a sale (and resell) of a single physical decent game..

    Has it ever occured to you that THEY subsequently could be lowering prices? Or indeed lowering the prices of the resells (which I consider to be absolute fleecing).



    "Sometimes second-hand is the only way to get something that is "out of print" or which sells out rapid"

    GAWD! Has it occured to you the REASON the shelf life of a game is so short is BECAUSE of the 2nd hand market?


    On all levels GAMERS are getting SCREWED by the RETAILERS.. But yet you guys are actually sticking up for them and slagging off one of the people who MAKE the games for you.

    Games can exist without retailers.. They cant exist without the people who actually make the fucking things.

    As for it "not harming the industry" Bullshit. Its already happened! Why else do you think we have so many carbon-copy "gauranteed seller" fps games? Why else do you think everyone is jumping on the casual bandwaggon? It's become WAAY to risky to make games - subsequently next to no-one is taking risks..

    Im talking to a brick wall here arent i?

  • smelly #168 3 years ago

    "WHY SHOULD A RETAILER GIVE GAME DEVELOPERS A CUT OF SOMETHING THEY'VE NOT PURCHASED FROM THEM "


    .. If thats the case.. why should the developers sell their games to retailers in the first place at all? Why not sell them online with decent DRM and take the retailer out the picture?

    If that happens - it'll be the retailers to blame..

  • BillyBrush #169 3 years ago

    @Smelly

    retailers have shop rent, it's competetive, and online ones certainly don't make a profit margin that's that high...they buy them off the official distributors probably either Gem or EUK, or Andromeda, for around £23.99 a pop

    If retailers make shedloads of money, other retailers can come along and discount them offering us a better deal...that's how competition works, Tesco et al are involved, plenty of people out there who can compete and make margins small.

    You are not talking to a brick wall but i think you are not making a good argument at all for getting games publishers or devs into the profits of the second hand market...it's a transaction between the individual and a retailer, the publishers have no part in that, and i don't see that you've made any good reason why they should be in on that transaction....this does result in someone playing a game and 0 going to publisher or dev sure, that's pretty easy to work out....but why should they get in on a transaction between me, the owner of the disc, and the shop? if you can answer that you'll be knocking my argument down....even if it's something that is illegal and UK trade and customs wouldn't accept why not try? there's a question there i've posed, and you've not shot it down, shoot it down.

  • BillyBrush #170 3 years ago

    @Smelly

    and re the last post pls refer to the initial comment i made about games being all downloaded to HDD in future...that is what they'll do...i won't like it, sounds like you will

  • bad09 #171 3 years ago

    Wow missed this article!

    I knew it wouldn't be long before they go after 2nd hand games. I'll tell you this without 2nd hand gaming I wouldn't play half the games I do.

    Your games are too expensive games industry I've been paying you so much money over the years month after month, just like DVD/Blu-Ray movies I can't AFFORD to buy it ALL 1st hand (or at all some of the time, even with the 2nd hand market) money doesn't just appear in the consumers wallet you know. Everyone involved from devs to retail needs to rethink the way they sell games to compete with 2nd hand gaming (and piracy)

    Not just the download route though PLEASE! I like boxes!
    Edited by 1 at 12/09/08 @ 08:37

  • karstux #172 3 years ago

    "but why should they get in on a transaction between me, the owner of the disc, and the shop?"

    You're exactly that: the owner of the disc. You own the 25 grams of polycarbonates, nothing more. In particular, not the game code and media! You're just a licensee, and if that license were to be non-transferable, or if it included a term which states that in case of resale, a share would have to be paid to the developer, there's nothing you could do about it. It would be perfectly legal - and, in my opinion, ethical as well. If someone enjoys playing a game, then compensation should go to its creator.

  • Triggerhappytel #173 3 years ago

    I buy an absolute shit load of pre-owned games these days, but to be fair they're all £3 games off eBay which are either hard-ish to find or still stupidly expensive in shops.

  • bad09 #174 3 years ago

    "If someone enjoys playing a game, then compensation should go to its creator."

    Bull crap! They get paid to make it that is all, bollocks to this royalty crap (as much as I enjoy gaming) like everyone else they are paid to do a job. Like it or not people have the right to sell their goods on and people have the right to buy those goods.


    Does Ferrari get a share if someone sells his car........

  • neonemesis #175 3 years ago

    Don't know if anybody has already made these points but...

    1. If the pre-owned market was somehow killed, people would just ebay their stuff anyway.
    2. When so many good games come out at any one time, if you can't afford them all and then they go out of print, what would that mean? "Oh, sorry, you'll never be able to buy that game because you didn't get it when it was in print and now that pre-owned is dead, you can never get it". A little extreme but it could happen.

  • SEVQA #176 3 years ago

    It is as much my capitalist right to sell my goods for cash to who I god dam please just as much as it’s the publishers, developers and retailers right! You don’t like it, go and live in North Korea!

  • karstux #177 3 years ago

    Most reasonable people here aren't suggesting that pre-owned be killed entirely. Options could be a time-limit, which permits pre-owned sales only after, say, a year from launch. Or a "license transfer fee", so that the studios get a fair share from 2nd hand sales. Or perhaps killing the commercial pre-owned market, leaving private trade such as eBay intact.

    Oh, and car analogies suck. Ferrari don't license their cars to you, they actually *sell* it. Ferrari also don't sell 90% of a particular model within 2 months of the product launch, while competing with itself on the pre-owned market. It's a completely different matter.

    "like everyone else they are paid to do a job"
    And where do you think their wages come from? Like most companies, game studios start with a debt/external financing from a publisher. They have to recoup on that. Through retail sales.

  • karstux #178 3 years ago

    "It is as much my capitalist right to sell my goods for cash to who I god dam please just as much as it’s the publishers, developers and retailers right! You don’t like it, go and live in North Korea!"

    An important aspect of capitalist society is the freedom of contract. If a publisher were to sell a game under the contractual condition that it can't be re-sold, it would be entirely within his rights.

    If you don't like the terms of a contract associated with a sale, well, your only option is not to buy.

  • Fodder #179 3 years ago

    @smelly

    "So back to your point:
    "Not if the guy who buys 2nd hand games just pirated them instead, which is what you were suggesting. "

    Either way, buying 2nd hand, pirating - the developer doesnt see any money."

    Except for the money that he got from the original sale, which might not have happened if there was no 2nd hand market.

    My point is that if everybody who bought 2nd hand games pirated them instead, sales of original games would go down. The existence of the 2nd hand market means that people buy new games that they otherwise wouldn't.

    FWIW, I hate the way Game and the like deal with 2nd hand games. I'm a developer myself, so would much rather people bought new games. But I don't think that 2nd hand==piracy is a useful argument, as they're not equivalent. The relationship between 2nd hand and new sales is more complex than that.

  • IronCladChicken #180 3 years ago

    I think its been pointed out a few times aldready - But DVD's, CD, Books, etc.. all other forms of entertainment media have a huge second hand market place live and kicking - No-one complains about these...

    As for the shelf-life of games, I can still pickup Sam&Max (from 1993), Diablo2 (from, what 1998?) from GAME - These titles are obviously still selling or they wouldnt keep packaging them (though obviously becasue f piracy noone has been making any money from Sam & Max for the past 15 years). The easy solution is one Sony hit on a long time ago - A year or two after the inital release, repackage and resell the games at a budget price.

    It seems to be a problem with the greed of publishers accompanied with an underdeveloped business model for entertainment software.

  • Dan234 #181 3 years ago

    I think the we're having this argument because some people believe pre-owned is the same as second-hand. I don't think this is the case as pre-owned games are sold in the same place and at almost the same price as new games and if the shop has enough pre-owned stock they don't order in more new games.

    Then there are those shop-run clubs which mean that the shop doesn't pay you for your games which you sell back to the shop, you get points which allow you to get some a game sometime in the future (but you still have to pay something for them). So the shop's raking even more in.

    If anything, if pre-owned didn't exist then second-hand games (e.g. on eBay) could probably rise in price.
    Edited by 1 at 12/09/08 @ 10:30

  • amcd28 #182 3 years ago

    @ karstux

    In reference to your previous posting on the ownership of the licence.

    If a game developer chooses to load on terms such as limited resale permissions, that's an onerous term and as such should be communicated to the consumer at the point of sale. If it isn't, then the term isn't (technically) enforceable.

    They need to communicate this as it is likely to influence the buyer's decision.

    What do consumers therefore buy? The game with no resale limitations or the one with restrictions in place. Hard choice?

    I agree that if developers are underfunded then they should receive more monies, but it should only be something like £2.00 as any more than this -reasonable- amount were to be charged then the cost of second hand games would have to rocket.

    Not everyone has the ability to buy games at full price when they're released (mortgages and children do cost...), so trading is an enticing option for me.

  • SEVQA #183 3 years ago

    “Like most companies, game studios start with a debt/external financing from a publisher.”

    And I could say the same for most consumers today: Like most people, I start with a debt from my bank!

  • davc4 #184 3 years ago

    I could actually see the devs/pubs being able to make a chunk of profit from 2nd hand sales via the retailer.
    If the Devs and the retailer sign into an agreement that say 1% of profits from the resale of games goes back to the developer then they can resell the games, this puts none of the burden on the consumer except possibly increased prices to the preowned titles as the retailer tries to claw back some profits.

    But as i have said before and what some people are disputing is that it is the price of games that has caused the 2nd hand market to be as big as it is and it is not the other way around.

    And in saying this what is the publishers dont seem to care about reselling games at a lower price anymore, i remember back when i was a teenager i sed to be able to pick up compliation packs of slightly older games. Nothing like this seems to go on anymore especially for the consoles.

  • Dan234 #185 3 years ago

    And in saying this what is the publishers dont seem to care about reselling games at a lower price anymore, i remember back when i was a teenager i sed to be able to pick up compliation packs of slightly older games. Nothing like this seems to go on anymore especially for the consoles.

    The shops aren't going to get them in stock, they can make more money out of pre-owned.
    Edited by 1 at 12/09/08 @ 13:00

  • Oh-Bollox #186 3 years ago

    I think its been pointed out a few times aldready - But DVD's, CD, Books, etc.. all other forms of entertainment media have a huge second hand market place live and kicking - No-one complains about these...

    Books, CDs, DVDs etc are very different markets, for reasons which have already been explained, sometimes quite well, earlier. While it is tempting to compare them as they are fellow mediums, the markets are quite different.

  • Grom #187 3 years ago

    @Shinji - sorry very late with this reply

    Actually all art sold at auction now has to pay a percentage back to the original artist. This has been the case for over two and a half years in the UK and a lot longer in some European countries like France - since about 1920 in fact:

    [link url=http://en.w ikipedia.org/wiki/Resale_right
    ]http://en.w ikipedia.org/wiki/Resale_right
    [/link]

    Also show me a British city apart from London or Hay on Wye which has more than 5 second-hand bookshops - and specialist shops selling very old books don't count because we're talking last month's bestsellers here aren't we? Certainly you don't go into Waterstones and see a whole shelf full of pre-owned books for half the price of the new version - and yet on the same street there will probably be two branches of Game with shelves full of pre-owned games.

    The games industry is different so you shouldn't pull parallels like that in the first place - especially when your parallels are wrong. The most directly comparable industry, the movie industry, certainly doesn't put up with shops full of second hand DVDs. No-one will be benefitted if the games industry gets equally heavy handed so the retailers should start thinking about voluntary ways to address this problem.

  • karstux #188 3 years ago

    @amcd28

    "If a game developer chooses to load on terms such as limited resale permissions, that's an onerous term and as such should be communicated to the consumer at the point of sale. If it isn't, then the term isn't (technically) enforceable."

    That is certainly true. The same should hold for the entire EULA. Most times, the customer doesn't really know what he's agreeing to when buying the game or clicking the "I Accept" button during install.

    However, I'd much rather have a term in the EULA that forbids me to re-sell than an overzealous technical DRM measure (Bioshock, Mass Effect, Spore...) doing the same! And I have the feeling that we're going to get one or the other.

  • amcd28 #189 3 years ago

    @ karstux

    Mobile phone contracts forbid resale until the total amount payable is due. That's unfortunately not practicable in the games industry unless we rent our games for £3.00 a month for 12 months!

    OR/ Would a terminating end user contract be the answer, in that after 2 years the DRM locking expires, because the game's essentially worthless at that point?

    I am of course musing as I know nothing of the world of business

    /-)

  • bonker #190 3 years ago

    "Well, seeing games development first hand it is a pisser when people spend three years working on a game and then all the proceeds are eaten up by a retail chain. "

    Unfortunately the multiple-pimped business model from manufacturer>distro>retailer>Joe Public is still around for stuff that could be distributed and stored electronically.

    The change will come but at the moment it's the distros and retailers who have the cash to 'influence' the likes of MS etc to not go full-on with electronic distribution.

    It will change in time but (like oil/new sources of energy) only when the same people who currently have the money/power are in a position to keep their money/power come the changeover ...

    Unless someone comes along with enough (MAJOR) clout to take the pimps outta the chain and sort the distro/selling themselves Steam stylee.

    Of course, when it does happen, don't expect anything to be cheaper - in the USA maybe where there's something akin to a free market but fucking forget about it in Europe ...

  • db3 #191 3 years ago

    Of course 2nd hand game trading is bad for distributors and developers, but I bet retail relies heavily on it due to the high margins they get.

    Reduce the price of games to around £20 and more people will buy on impulse and collect rather than trade.
    Also might dissuade some from piracy.

  • bad09 #192 3 years ago

    "And where do you think their wages come from? Like most companies, game studios start with a debt/external financing from a publisher. They have to recoup on that. Through retail sales."

    Work in the industry karstux? ;)

    Of course I know this but at the end of the day if they cannot make enough through sales they need to rethink what they are doing, PRICE being the first thing! Do you think people buy 2nd hand for any other reason than it's AFFORDABLE gaming?

    Trying to stop a basic human right is not going to encourage retail sales and pay their wage is it? If I buy a book/record/CD/Video/DVD/BLu/Game I WILL sell it on if I want (just like I have ALWAYS done), it's my right.

    Step on that (as well as my internet privacy!) and I walk away from this greedy whining games industry completely and give 'em no money at all (like I have with music), plain and simple. May be extreme buy I'm a man of principle, hell the movie industry NEARLY went off my money list to after the format wars farce!



  • Mordaan #193 3 years ago

    all idiots..

    game has to give you a reason for not to resell it

    period

    DRM is shove it up your arse style

    but replayability, fun and quality are valid and good reasons

    electronic distribution without DRM is an average reason

  • Dan234 #194 3 years ago

    Trying to stop a basic human right is not going to encourage retail sales and pay their wage is it? If I buy a book/record/CD/Video/DVD/BLu/Game I WILL sell it on if I want (just like I have ALWAYS done), it's my right.

    True, but shops only have pre-owned section next to the brand-new section for one of things you mention (games) and may decide to stop getting new stock in if there's enough pre-owned stock there. Pre-owned is not like second-hand.

  • Tehren #195 3 years ago

    The pre-owned market has yielded exponential sales growth for retailers. I haven't got access to the figures, but I'd wager the margin on pre-owned games far outstrips that on new titles (hence their willingness to promote them).

    Braben's comments are spot on. Oblivion & BioShock were both 10/10 titles for me, but the former got twenty time as many hours. The condensed nature of the FPS experience makes it no less valid, it's developers no less deserving of reward.

    The PC model seems fairer - lower initial price but no chance of trade in. There's always BitTorrent but I choose to support that which I love.

    Start paying yo way or get ready for a perpetuity of Wii-flavoured casual ass bullshit. Forever.

  • Rack #196 3 years ago

    Part of the reason why developers can't make an attractive product at an attractive price is that retailers are sucking the blood out of the industry, ensuring that the most attractive way of playing games is one that sees a tiny proportion of the profits going to developers. I'm not happy about games being loaded with restrictions, but I think the potential benefits for that kind of system would far outweigh the inconveniences.

    Unfortunately that's not the way it works. See Spore, loaded with restrictions on usage to the point you can't play it yourself, let alone sell it on after you've finished with it, and it's actually MORE expensive than any comparable game. If developers can give me something tangible in exchange for giving up these rights I'm happy about it. The Orange Box was an excellent example of this, but attacking the value of games from all angles doesn't help at all.

  • TexMurphy01 #197 3 years ago

    Here's an idea Braben, fucking make Elite 4!

  • CaoSlayer #198 3 years ago

    I praise second hand market because is the only way to get some old games without resorting ebay.

  • bad09 #199 3 years ago

    "True, but shops only have pre-owned section next to the brand-new section for one of things you mention (games) and may decide to stop getting new stock in if there's enough pre-owned stock there. Pre-owned is not like second-hand."

    I disagree, I've been in many relevant shops that stock new and 2nd hand of most ents platforms from books to DVD. Lets not forget the monster that is Ebay where anything can be bought used.

    So how is "pre-owned" not exactly the the same as 2nd hand? you are still buying a product someone else has owned rather than new. You may not like a store making money off buying goods and reselling at a profit but it's still just selling/buying 2nd hand (or 3rd,4th etc) goods.

  • Dan234 #200 3 years ago

    The problem is the scale when compared to the size of the game market and the relatively short amount of time that games have to sell (usually the just a few months). With pre-owned you walk into the shop and if it's not in the new section it's in the pre-owned section, you don't make any special journey to find it. eBay, the local paper, etc... require more work.

    How will devs get around this if shops don't want to share the proceeds of pre-owned sales? Assume the game is going to be pirated (like in South Korea), sell games so cheap so people will want to buy them instead of some less-than-perfect pre-owned copy (therefore removing the incentive for the shop to run a pre-owned section), make money off the DLC which can't be pirated, and load up the computer with spyware to make sure you're not using pirated DLC?

    So shops will end up looking at a very different profit margin and unfortunately it'll also screw the second-hand market. It really is in both the shops' and their customers' interests that shops share the profits from pre-owned.
    Edited by 1 at 13/09/08 @ 17:49

  • bad09 #201 3 years ago

    @ Dan234

    But why do games have short shelf life? It's not because people don't want these games. They have a short life time at 40 quid a pop but that should be a warning to everyone involved that 40 quid is too much theses days for games.

    I constantly buy older games as the 2nd hand price becomes reasonable for an impulse buy (i have to wait much longer sometimes for retail price to drop that far). I also hunt down REALLY old games thank to EBAY.

    The is a long life for games it's just the way retail works it sees very little of that life and the publisher/dev see even less.

  • karstux #202 3 years ago

    @everyone

    I'd like to thank the lot of you for participating in this debate in the way you did. Most of you argued in a thoughtful, well-spoken and civil manner, it has truly been a pleasure. Discussions like these are rare, but certainly the reason why I come here. Well done!

  • bad09 #203 3 years ago

    @ karstux

    Indeed, good discussion on an interesting subject that I think may be discussed more and more in the near future.....

  • Dan234 #204 3 years ago

    @bad09: I'd imagine prices are set so high partly in an effort to recoup money lost though pre-owned sales.

    Perhaps the price point could be set at 20, but it would probably be financial suicide if there's no agreement with shops in place about compensating the developers with a percentage of money made by the shop from pre-owned sales, unless it's something like Brain Training which sells over a long period of time.

  • bad09 #205 3 years ago

    @ Dan234

    I do understand and in all honesty I don't claim to know anything other than I've bought and played games for over twenty years. But I can't help but feel in my bones if games were cheaper (in Blu/DVD territory) sales would increase ten fold and many would not bother to hunt down that 2nd hand cheap copy of some game they are slightly interested in. Or indeed only buy their favourite game series or sure fire hype machines.

    Of course we ALL pay money for the games we want but the rest falls by the way side a lot of the time and the biggest obstacle for those games is price.
    Edited by 1 at 15/09/08 @ 23:55

  • Ulfar #206 3 years ago

    So crap game that takes 5 to 10 hours to complete with no replay value and its the consumers fault for wanting to save money.

    Braben you have lost any credibility you ever had in my opinion.

    I gave up on waiting for the next Elite game when you started producing tycoon games, it became obvious that money is all that you want in the easiest way possible.