Shops "defrauding the industry" - Braben Comments by Oli Welsh

used 1's and 0's are the same but usually someone sandpapers them making them a used 1 and 'umm... read error!'

My take on things.

First off, he desrcibed a situation where he asked for a new game and was sold a pre-owned game instead. That doesn't mean the pre-owned market has anything wrong with it. That just means a particular store has some stupid staff, who are dancing a line of legality.

Second, I am a dev and I want to eat and pay bills and stuff. But I kind of think this whole second-hand-market thing is bigger than us. Since the very concept of posessions bought and sold came into being, people have been selling things on. The very idea that its ok for me to sell object A to you, but that for you so sell the same object on is bad, is ludicrously modern. It almost seems morally bankrupt to suggest that someone cannot sell on something they have paid for.

Third, the whole right-to-use discussion hoves into view. When you buy a game you own the phyical disc but you do not own the game itself. You own a right to use the game, and technically that right-to-use is not resaleable. But I refer to point 2, that frankly it all sounds nice on paper but in the face of common sense it just sounds silly.

Fourth, Rev. Stuart Campbell, I'm pretty sure there are more millionaires in the movie business than there are in the games business. Do you really think that if selling games for £10 would make more money for developers that they wouldn't already be doing it? This is one of those classic moments where some internet poster decides that they are actually smarter than EVERYBODY in the games business, and everything would be great if only everybody would listen to their wisdom. Except normally the poster is about 14 and has never been near the development process. In your case, you are old enough to know better. How many games companies have you actually ever run? How many titles have you even released since the days of the Amiga 500+?

"I've been constructive about it for 20 years,son. Doesn't work. So now I say what the hell I like."

You take weak offense at someone referring to you by your first name (should they have called you Rev?), but then feebly patronise someone else by calling them "son". Get over yourself dude. You genuinely consider someone referring to you by your second name as "incredibly rude"? I just can't imagine what you must think during the no doubt frequent moments when someone calls you a c*nt ;)

Maybe if, whilst being contructive for 20 years, you had also said something sensible enough that people wanted to listen, you might have had more success. Being constructive works perfectly for the majority of people, maybe you broke it for yourself or got confused between "constructive" and "the same rude self-dellusionist I have always been"?



Final point. Braben has been around a while, and used to have quite a bit of success. He has now been seemingly tucked away in his lab for a decade or more, and has emerged from the light to find that the world has changed. He can't make the same money he used to make from PC development. The pounds are no longer watching themselves so he is feeling twitchy about watching the pennies.

The issue is simply more complex than he suggests. It is NOT realiable to suggest that every pre-owned sale if a lost sale. If I buy a game new, I do on the basis that I can eventually trade it in and recoup some of my expenditure. I may even trade it in against another new purchase. Anecdotally, when I first purchased the pricey Guitar Hero 1 package brand new, I did so by trading in another titles I had previously purchased brand new. No trade may have meant no sale for either title. Even if I just buy a bunch of pre-owned titles, I am benefitting from the spoils left behind by another punter who has at some point perhaps purchased those new games on that basis that they can be sold on later.

It is all swings and roundabouts, and to my mind devs need to find a way of fitting into the model. Whining is all very good, but someone else is finding a way to keep making money whilst Braben blows hot air.

It really is an industry eating itself!

... There are far too many variables to figure out a solution that would make everyone happy.

{
//some solution
}
== Dev: happy
== Retailer: happy
== Gamer: happy

I saw Assassin's Creed (PS3) for £13 brand new today. I still didn't buy it.

kangarootoo, +1 on most of what you said, (except the stuff between you and Rev Stu, Im staying out of that one).

Everything else was put far more eloquently than I managed, so welldone :)

Greed - The enemy of honesty, earnestness and ultimately, games.

Braben LOL.

@miiiguel

Analogies like that are perfectly valid. You might say they're 0s and 1s... but they're 0s and 1s on physical media, wrapped up in a pretty box and sold to your grubby mitts with money. It's a product, it was sold... thereafter it's out in a free market along with anything else physical that's ever been sold to the public.

Legalities dictate that you can't distribute those 0s and 1s off that disk, or even reverse engineer it... but a physical product is a physical product. Whether it's a game, a car, a pair of shoes, whever. Once sold, the 'creator' gets no further sales from it.

Games companies are like any other company. You either back it up with more products, produce supplimental products to accompany the original product... or you fold. It's as simple as that.

"Mr Writer gets paid every time his book is borrowed at the Library."

It's an absolute pittance, though. Friend of mine got a cheque awarding him 96p for people borrowing his book.

"First off, he desrcibed a situation where he asked for a new game and was sold a pre-owned game instead."

We have no way of knowing if that's true. For all we know he just missed the pre-owned sticker or is embellishing the story. Game and Gamestation clearly label their pre-owned stock as such.

chrisjm and floppy talk sense from the consumers POV..

As consumers that do care about and bolster the industry, to think of us as pirates is absurd. The second-hand games in shops like Game Station have been bought new by someone, somewhere, so the industry gets paid. It's not ideal for some of you devs ,but it's not piracy. If you sell a non licensed product on moveable media - expect it to move.

Obviously us consumers will bounce around within the walls that the industry and retailers have built. If it's possible that we can recoup a little money, then we will do so.

And at the high price that Game Station et al re-sell new releases, for sake of saving a fiver the customer may aswell buy a nice sealed, unscathed copy, which I always end up doing. But hell yeah, the used games should be CLEARLY marked.

Maybe the industry could do more to educate the game buying public to the situation. Have a flyer in the box saying "Support the devs by buying new", or "Everytime a pre-owned game is sold, a kitten dies".

Maybe it's time for more of a push toward digital distribution.

He's completely wrong about the film industry having 'not for resale' rental versions of DVDs. Walk into any Blockbuster in the country and the very first rack you will see is the Ex-Rental section where you can purchase the excess copies of a film for a low price. My DVD collection is bolstered by this practice on a regular basis.

The simplest way around this is the one repeated throughout this comment thread. Lower prices on new games mean the shops have less leeway to sell second hand copies. A new game at £20 - 25 would only be able to bring in £15 second hand, still a nice profit margin but not as attractive to the consumer who could buy the new version for a fiver more. I'm sure I am not alone in believing that if games were £25 new then I would buy a lot more of them straight away instead of only buying the big releases I am hyped for new and waiting for the second hand price to drop for the marginal titles.

@miiiguel

On the subject of new 0s and 1s. I agree that game code does not depreciate in effectiveness in the way a car might, and certainly doesn't need additional money putting into it the older and more rickety it gets. But games do depreciate in desirability the same way any older product does. An old TV may work perfectly and still be capable of functioning for another 20 years, but it is less valuable when compared to its modern peers simply because its features are less modern.

I know that doesn't relate directly to resale, but it sort of seemed relevant to mention... at least it did when I started writing :)

"Games companies are like any other company."
So, what's your take on the "special" video industry? You don't see retailers selling used DVD's or BR's, do you?

Indeed lavalant.

Indeed.

There's no way I'd have bought any of my first 3 consoles/handhelds without easily available and cheap second hand games.

Cheaper games means more gamers. And when those gamers get a little more walking-around money paying an extra 10 quid for a guaranteed un-scratched disc becomes worth it.

@PearOfAnguish

Well that is kind of my point. He is obviously pissed off about the pre-owned market, and in his anger is trying to force a strawman into the discussion, as if to suggest that the pre-owned market is creating by association a nation of retail con-men.

The two things, even if true, are not connected.

"You don't see retailers selling used DVD's or BR's, do you?"

Because there's less of a margin. You can pick up a brand new film for a tenner or less now, hardly worth selling second-hand.

And Gamestation used to flog used DVDs, don't know if they do anymore.

So, what's your take on the "special" video industry? You don't see retailers selling used DVD's or BR's, do you?

Blockbuster do, Gamestation do, Play and Amazon do, eBay does, I know at least 5 indie places within 2 miles of me that do.

Anyway, let me clearly state that, while I do not endorse the used-videogame market - I do my games new, and I never sell them - I don't consider it similar (not even close) to the shamefull piracy shit.

Blockbuster do, Gamestation do, Play and Amazon do, eBay does, I know at least 5 indie places within 2 miles of me that do.
That's new to me. Didn't know.

Where I live Blockbuster doesn't do it..., neither any other big retailer (big as in, as big as a big can be in Lisbon).

@lavalant

/sigh
Well done, a bold contribution, top marks. You keenly spotted that quality games are in fact a moral right, not unlike clean water, education and a life free of persecution. And here were the rest of us thinking that games were in fact optional luxury items much like gold plated rings, DVDs and prostitutes. Well, don't we all look stupid now.


Here is a question.

If the evil games business got its comeuppance for apparently forcing you at gun point to buy its sub-standard wares, and lost all profits for the next ten years... on what platform would you play your righteous homebrew software? Last time I checked, silicon chip factories didn't accept passion as a currency of payment.

reducing the price would be the obvious way to go, definitely - reduce/eliminate the driver for a second hand market, increase 1st days sales, extend the tail on games (as the price wouldn't drop so steeply over 1-2 months). Would take some balls to do.

Someone like EA would have to decide to release the next fifa at £15-20 to get any sort of proof that it would work. It would be an amazing experiment. would they double their early sales? Would it expand the games market? Would they get more revenue from more new copies (rather than preowned) being bought?

I would love to see this tried - I genuinely think it could work, but it would be a gamble. Doing it with a major franchise would reduce the risk (as you'll get big sales regardless).

I can't believe that some people are supporting second hand games. Surely if you enjoy games you want to support your hobby and the developers of the games you love?

When new releases are never more than £25 online, price just isn't an excuse.

He said, immediately before incredibly rudely referring to someone by their surname only.

I think you set the tone by referring to my initial comment as "drivel".

I've been constructive about it for 20 years, son. Doesn't work. So now I say what the hell I like.

Good for you, old timer.

@groovychainsaw

Any move to reduce prices has to be backed up by sound market information. Every business is trying to hit the perfect price point for their product. Too expensive and insufficient numbers will sell, too cheap and profits will not be maximised even if the market is saturated.

My point is that whilst that balance point is pretty tough to locate (and doesn't even stay static for very long), the concept that it should be located is business school 101 material.

EVERY business on the planet is striving to find that balance point every day. Which is why I made the point earlier that if the solution was as simple as "cut the price and you will sell more copies, bish bash bosh, you're welcome" the games industry would already be doing exactly that.

Selling lots of copies is not the only consideration. 1000 games sold for £5 each generate the same revenue as 50 games sold for £100 each. Except if each games costs 1p to press, the 1000 copies model is LESS appealing as it has cost you £10 instead of 50p.

@Cylinder
"When new releases are never more than £25 online, price just isn't an excuse."

I'm sure everybody would love to know where you get those prices consistently on new games. If I could buy new games for that price I would buy many more than I currently do, in fact when the Wii first launhced Virginmegastores.co.uk used to sell alot of their Wii games at that price and I don't think I've ever bought as many games in a single year.

Online distribution is the only way to avoid the resale option - though that is still some years off.

In the meantime it should be up to the game publishers and developers to re-work the re-sale license so that individuals are not penalised (ie. I can sell the game i bought via ebay etc) whereas licensed retailers are required to provide x amount is percentage from sale.

Doesn't take a genius to work that one out.

At no point in the article does he blame consumers or talk about punishing them. How many of you actually read it before posting?

There will always be ways to sell on your old stuff, like eBay or even face to face, and there will always be small independants that do it - the problem is the ease and focus that the major retail chains are doing it.

I hope we don't go "all-digital", because I like the act of ordering/buying a game, finding a proper time-window for that special moment of the first play of a new game...
A whole freakin protocol.

@kangarootoo:

That's a rather impressive set of measured and well thought out posts you've made there, sir. You don't have a blog do you?

part of the problem is the mark up on the preowned game, on average game will give you around 12-15 quid for a second hand game then sell it on at around 30-35 (at least in oxford street london) so they are making around 20 quid profit each time they do this whereas the people who make the game dont get anything.

In a just world those who created entertainment whether it be games, music books or whatever would be the ones who got the largest slice of the pie not those who distributed it

I understand that kangaroo, but if its the pre-owned market you want to damage/remove* then the gains from lowering your prices should (on the face of it, admittedly) outweight any losses from manufacturing. I'm not going to go as far as say you are guaranteed an increase in sales (although that seems logical), but it is certainly an alternative. The reason secondhand games are a major retail proposition is becuase of the high cost of purchase. Take it away and you WILL get more first hand sales. Whether or not it works as a business model, i don't know, but you can reduce the secondhand market in this way.

*As an aside, i suspect the big publishers may have a stake in the seondhand games market, or may deal with shops so as not to damage this moneymaker - just a thought, mind

"And by selling the games second hand they are taking away sales which actually contribute to the people that make them. I'm not saying ban the practice, but I can understand where he's coming from. "

How do you know the person buying the pre-owned game would have bought it new at full price?
And the millions who buy new games, would they rather buy preowned ? Complete bollocks, most people have other hobbies and only so much to spend on games due to relatively high price compared to other toys. The games industry is in exactly the same state it was in before the pre-owned boom, before this they blamed piracy.
The games industry needs to do more to sell more games, reducing the prices would be a good start.
It works with DVDs
eg: 300
US DVD sles $280,841,714 and the budget for the film was only 60 million.

@lavalant

"it's a choice between consumers having more freedom or publishers having more control, and I know which one I want."

I have to say, thats a pretty measured response given the way I laid into you. Kudos to you.

If it were only a choice between the two above then I might even agree with you (I'm a bit of a lefty truth be told). But there is surely a balance between the two to be had?

What we really want is a games industry that financially viable for developers, so that games can continue to be made and platforms can be available on which people can play their wares (some of which will be ace, some of which will suck, and so it has always been). What we also want is a final price point (or range of price points) that customers find suit their ability to buy.

In truth, the two are joined at the hip. If games are truly all overpriced and shit, the games industry will die. Despite the beliefs of some, devs WANT to make good games and they WANT to sell them for as little as possible. But regardless of what they want, they HAVE to make enough money to stay in business. And really, at the end of it all, so do you.

God, this is painful. For anyone who works in the industry its quite obvious there is a problem, we just need to come up with a sensible solution. And I don't think the main stores should be allowed sell second hand games. We need specialised stores that are somehow policed by the industry. Or something.

@daz_john_smith
"I'm sure everybody would love to know where you get those prices consistently on new games."

I use gamestracker.com. A few examples of new releases: Far Cry 2 £20, Fallout 3 £23.50, Left 4 Dead £23.

WHAT. A. DICK.

One of the problems with game selling is that they are priced completely out of the "casual gift" market. Yes, some people buy them as gifts but at ~70€ that's only for someone really close. DVDs and CDs have huge "gift sales".

I completely agree with the proposed solution: Sell original games for 20-30€, then make a rental version without extras and later on a download version. And then a collector's edition. And then... In a way, copy all good ideas from the movie industry.

Games for all formats should be £15.00 each no more, then there would be no profit for the resellers of pre owned titles. more people would buy consoles = more users= more sales & less piracy.

We would also not need to trade them in for a pittance just to afford the next £40.00 game but keep & treasure them like the gold they are.

The release schedule were in is crazy too, I can barely afford 2 good games which tends to make me consider the cheaper piracy route.

Whoever sets these prices is out of touch. Maybe the impending depression will make them reconsider, other wise its all going to collapse.

The solution, unless people from both sides start talking, will be the introduction of CDKeys on Console games. That killed the second hand PC market in no time and I don't doubt the industry will hesitate to do it again if it gets to that point.

The issue is not that developers should expect to get a cut of every second hand sale. I'm not sure that is what David or anybody else (beyond maybe EA) is suggesting. What they're objecting to is the way that retailers market second hand games more than brand new, at a close to brand new price. The net result of this is that there are fewer original copies of the game sold, since they can recycle the second-hand copies through the system as if they were new stock, but at a vastly reduced cost to them, and with vastly reduced revenue for the publisher.

Imagine you have ten copies of a game selling at £40 each, and ten customers. If they each buy a copy of the game new, then the revenue at retail is £400. For the sake of convenience let's say retailers take 20% of that, and the rest goes to the publisher. That would result in £320 revenue for the publisher, and £80 for the retailer.

Now imagine that instead of 10 new copies, you have 2, but after they've both been sold to customers they're sold back to the retailer each time for half their original resale price, £20. Each time, the retailer then sells these used copies to new customers for the slightly less than new price of £35. Imagine this going around the 'food chain' such that eventually all 10 customers have bought the game; the first two at full retail price, the last 8 at used price. In this scenario the publisher only makes £64 revenue, but the retailer makes £136 (of which some is essentially pure profit, since they were able to circumvent distribution channels to resupply themselves).

The result for the consumer in each of these scenarios is essentially the same (assuming they don't mind selling the game once they're done with it) but they have dramatically different outcomes for the two parties of publisher and retailer, with the latter actually giving the retailer more profit power than the publisher. Now, I'm no big fan of publishers in general, but it definitely doesn't seem fair to me that retailers could have more profit potential from selling games than the people who make them. In other industries where this sort of thing happens, we refer to it with terms like 'sweat shop' or 'slave labour'.

Now, I'm definitely not in favour of the retail model being abandoned in favour of a rental model; that would seem to hurt consumers far more than it would prevent retailers from behaving inethically. Digital distribution which ties a copy of a game to a single user as per XBLA or Steam games is another option, but outside the PC platform it feels excessively restrictive (I'm already in the situation where I can't play some of my XBLA games unless I'm online because they were purchased on a different Xbox 360 console; given their failure rate, I'm sure I'm not alone there). What might be necessary is some form of legislation that prevents retailers from selling second-hand titles above a certain price point compared to new, or perhaps to force retailers to be required to stock an equal number of new copies to second hand. Of course I'm sure some free-market-favouring individuals would vehemently oppose this sort of legislative meddling, but hey, we've all just seen how well the free market works when left to regulate itself... ;)

I think you set the tone by referring to my initial comment as "drivel".

That was just a statement of fact. You were actually impolite.

Dont know if this has been mentionned, but Blockbusters et al are totally allowed to sell their Rental DVDs when they seem fit. What is NOT allowed is to rent a DVD that was not meant to be rented (ie. bought in the local DVD shop). Why? Because film distribution channels have a clearly higher price for DVDs going to rental places. Something like 100€ instead of 15. If the films never leave the shelves on rental, after a while the owner will probaly decide to cut his losses and sell the disc, but at a risk of having less catalog on the shelves.

@jack_klugman

I had a myspace blog once, under a completely different name, but it wasn't anything to do with games. Despite my better nature it was just one of those annoying "this is whatever crap I got up to today and here is what I think about it" type blogs. It got quite addictive for a while, but unsurprisingly it never got high reader numbers.

The thing with a blog is that its just a platform for one opinion. Even if there is a discussion thread attached, the writer of the blog is still in a unique position and can't discuss freely without sounding like he/she is lauding over everyone.

I tend to prefer the mess of a level playing field like this, where others can contribute their opinions on equal ground and maybe we can all learn something.

I suppose a blog might be an interesting way of generating discussion, even if I don't then myself take part. As an additional activity rather than a replacement for my ramblings here. It would still be anonymous though as that allows me to comment with relative freedom (I am not in the least bit famous I should add, but anonymity is kind of relative).


@groovychainsaw

"then the gains from lowering your prices should (on the face of it, admittedly) outweight any losses from manufacturing"

It all comes down to the numbers though. If you got it wrong, you would simply lose money with no proper return.

"The reason secondhand games are a major retail proposition is becuase of the high cost of purchase. Take it away and you WILL get more first hand sales"

I really don't disagree, but I'm saying that more sales is not more important than more profits. You could send your sales through the roof if you dropped the price of every game to £1, but where would it get you other than into administration?

@Cylinder
"I use gamestracker.com. A few examples of new releases: Far Cry 2 £20, Fallout 3 £23.50, Left 4 Dead £23."

I thought you were talking about console games, I would have been less surprised if I'd have know you meant PC.

@HolyJebus

You can't police an open market in that way. It would be anti-competetive.

Its like saying we are ok with company X doing normal business, unless it impacts our profits by more than we are happy with, in which case we will PREVENT company X from doing normal business.

That doesn't sound remotely legal.

@kapowaz

+1

I get the impression that after their initial launch batch of games they don't restock with as many brand new copies as they would have in the past. I went into Bloackbuster several times to see how much CoD4 was and each time I was told they were out of stock of brand new and only had pre-owned available.

Another point, and then I'll f*ck off, as I'm sure the sound of my sermosing is starting to grate.

People keep referring to DVD sales as a comparison. Not sure why, as its a bad comparison. I shall blame RevStu (who I think probably has me on ignore; unsurprising, we've only ever had one disagreement on here and it didn't go well for him).

Anwyay, it comes down to economies of scale. As I was waffling on about earlier, if you sell more copies you can charge less per copy, but not too much less; you need to find the right balance.

A key concern is finding the balance point is knowing how big your actual customer base is. And the customer base for DVD sales is huge. Like proper Godzilla huge. If DVD purchase and rental is the town of coventry, game sales and rental would be my sock draw.

ALSO, rental forms a much larger proportion of DVD related profits, so sales don't have to make ALL the money. Game rental is still pretty small potatoes compared to game sales, because rental is generally not cost effective for the consumer.

IF games had the same sized customer base as DVDs have, we would see lower prices for games. I am sure of it. Maybe not as low as for DVDs, but there is rental to account for as I mentioned.


Right. I'm off to try the Mirrors Edge demo on PSN. Sorry for the character assassination RevStu. A little humility can go an awfully long way you know, but I was probably harsher than I can justify.

Edit: Actually, I just read this;
"That was just a statement of fact. You were actually impolite."

So damn superior. So I take it back. Your ego far outstrips your ability RevStu, in every area that I can see (save perhaps accurately quoting Red Dwarf episodes).

Braben a tad of a knob shocker ?

Christ, another one moaning about 2nd hand while to blind with pound signs to see why people actually choose 2nd hand in the first place. There seems to be more and more of these twats popping up having a go.

Listen games industry let's get one thing straight, don't push your luck. I can't afford to buy everything at retail prices so if you try to cut off 2nd hand I'll never experience a lot of your games anyway, and I'll hate you!

The moment someone actually tries to step on my freedom to sell on MY goods is the moment I decide to torrent my games and never give you a penny again.

You have been warned.......

I would if I were the games industry, drop the price by half overnight & bankrupt the greedy pre owned operators.

Then mount a massive advertising push & promise games buyers that pricing will remain competitive in the future, killing the piracy & pre owned problem in 1 go.

It would be consumers heaven & the sales figures would be amazing.