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

So goodbye second-hand record shops, see ya later Ebay.

Like it or not, a game is a product which the customer takes ownership of (MS and EA disagree, I know). If the customer wants to recoup some of the money that they spent on it, fair play. The second-hand games market is the biproduct, and to eliminate it would be impossible and unfair.

If I bought a new chair and then decided to sell it, I don't think the chair-maker would complain that it was meant only for the ass of the original retail buyer.

Ugh, who let Campbell out of his cave again?

I would (as a consumer) absolutely agree that the 2nd hand market in shops is distorting the marketplace badly. Lets be clear the shops are making obscene margins on these things as they dictate the purchase price.

Of course the shops are actually signing their own death warrant by forcing software houses to opt for digital distribution which will leave people without huge fat broadband pipes up the creak so to speak.

In conclusion anti consumer and anti developer.

If publishers find the used games market so attractive, then why don't they enter it? Trade used games themselves! I am sure that if GameStop can make money off trading used games, then Steam can do it too. But I guess greed is more important than a realistic outlook on you consumers and potential markets.

And so they cling to the last white hope of perfectly DRM locked games that will retail for full price even twenty years after their original release. Sorry, ain't gonna happen. Once the ad campaign runs out, the interest in your product will drop and it will be forgotten. Save only a few games who do work on communities and word of mouth instead on inflated promotion budgets. But that's because they are actually good.

@seasidebaz

You pay your self a wage? You rent your property to yourself? You pay tax and insurance to someone else on top of your personal tax and insurance?

Professional developers and homebrew developers are not comparable when it comes to expense.

Retailers and Publishers are evil

Games should cost less

And Developers should get what they deserve, and by deserve I mean bags of cash for the likes of LBP, Helf Life, Beyond Good and Evil etc; a shot to the head for crap like Enter the Matrix, SW: Force Unleashed, Generic Wii Mini game compilation 54, etc.

"Someone compared this to second books sales. Idiot. It's nothing like that whatsoever. "

Mr Writer needs £15,000 a year to live. this means his 2 books a year which he is able to write must sell 100,000 copies. he only sells 75,000 but local librarys have lent out his book 25,000.

This is different how?


I'm not a fan of shops selling 2nd hand at full new price and dont support it, but the industry isnt helping itself with the causes and solutions to it which harm the end user.

Braben going down that road that Lars did with Napster. Not going to find much support my friend and much back-peddling will ensue.

I can see a 'Some kind of Elite' coming out soon

"There are plenty of places that sell used and new books and films etc. try Tottenham Court Road for instance. Small independent shops rather than major retail chains admittedly, but that's beside the point, people have had that choice for a long time why should it be taken away just for games? "

The fact that they are small, independent shops is NOT beside the point. It is the ENTIRE point.

And games are not ludicrously expensive. Did you have a look at the MegaDrive twenty year retrospective article? Do you remember how much MegaDrive games cost? £39.99, unless I'm very much mistaken. Go and put 40 quid into an inflation calculator and stick 20 years of inflation on it and see what comes out. Games are bigger, cheaper and better value than ever.

Why are you all so determined for HMV to make a huge, great, big, fuck-off piles of money out of you while the developers are left out in the cold anyway? You EG forumites are a funny lot.

The future is Gamecock and their way of letting the developer retain the IP, having a small publishing team to allow as much profit to go back to the developer as possible (they make the games afterall) and not getting involved in any of the development decisions. Oh hang on, they go bought by SouthPeak.

We need another Gamecock.

Games are ludicrously expensive.

Just used to be even more so ;)

That was because games went to cartridge in the 16-bit era. They used to be £2.99 two years before on cassette. But the games industry kept that £39.99 when they went to even cheaper to make discs.

@Plugmonkey,

I agree, Im not particularly in favour of hmv making lots of money, or any shop that charges soo much for 2nd hand stuff, but I am against the sentiment that the 2nd hand market in general "has to go" to save gaming. I dont think it does, and I think gaming will do fine. I agree developers should get more money, just not from shutting out the 2nd hand idea. Just my opinion :)

Retail have too much say. They dictate the terms of what the games are going to be sold for and it cripples everyone. I really hope that one day we dont have retailers and can download directly from publishers. Steam FTW.

@farticus:

Nope. Microsoft will be doing all that for me. They will be paying my profits from the proceeds of my game.

I work as a professional developer in real life, not games-related, but a proper developer. I wouldn't class my games dev as "homebrew" either, for the simple fact that (hopefully) people will be buying my games. I can understand that premises etc. need to be paid for, but if an indie studio is getting hit by the pre-owned market then don't do disc-based releases. If they're getting hit by piracy, get out of the PC market.

My point is that if I can make a game, by myself, equivalent to what a team of professional games developers can do, only quicker, then what the hell are they doing in the games industry? It's not rocket science. If you're not making money, GET OUT OF THE DAMN BUSINESS OR CHANGE YOUR TACTICS. It's basic economics.

Interestingly, the reason why there's no retail market in second hand dvds is because there's not a big enough margin in selling them again. So sell games for less than £40, increase first time sales numbers (obviously) and reduce pre-owned sales (probably lower piracy into the bargain?)? Otherwise, you go the other way, increasing the new cost of games ever higher, whilst making your first time buyer market smaller and smaller. I can't be the only person putting off buying games at xmas because I know they'll be 1/2 the price in the sales (I've bought one or two, but there is a surfeit at the moment).
/Edit - Apologies Rev Campbell - Just noticed you making similar/same argument earlier. Still , it holds up well eh? ;-)

I think from a consumer point of view, as evident from a lot of the responses here, they don't care about developers or the retailers - they just want to pay as little as possible for what they want. Fair enough I suppose.

The point Braben is trying to make (and not very well I might add) is that retailers are biting the hand that feeds. Ignoring prices for the moment, for retailers like Game their 'pre-owned' business makes up a majority of their revenue and thus completely cuts developers/publishers out of the loop. Consumer or not, you can't honestly say thats fair for the people who make games. And you wonder why brand new games cost so much?

Things are changing though. Games and other media are slowly migrating online. The next gen of consoles may very well be online only. They should milk the 'pre-owned' business whilst they can because their days are numbered.

Imo games are NOT expensive these days, in fact, they cost pretty much the same as they did 10 years ago.

I was clearing out my old PC game boxes from the loft and found my Fallout 2 box...which still had the receipt inside. I paid £34.99 for it 10 years ago! Fallout 3 is £24.99 from Play.com for the PC, and £39.99 on the xbox.


Also noticed play.com are doing a 360 elite + fable 2 + fallout 3 for £249.99..niiiiiiiice!

Surely the answer is for publishers to get a small cut from the proceeds of second hand games then everyone is happy... well except for the shops not being quite so happy maybe because they'll have to pay money out but they must make more on the sale of pre-owned games for it to be worthwhile in the first place. I mean I trade games in at GAME and I often only get a fiver for them. I'm pretty sure they sell the game for more than double that and that is all profit.

Not everyone can afford to buy brand-new full-priced games so the second hand market serves a very useful purpose and at least those people are *paying* for the games not downloading them illegally. It also a good way to find a bargain or old classic that you wouldn't find in a shop that only sells brand new games.

If you buy a pre-owned copy from the store you are like a pirate, but stupid since you didn't keep your money.

Kirly_Wombat - The problem in my and Mr Braben's opinion isn't so much that all 2nd hand game sales must be stopped, but when 2nd hand games flood the primary retail channels, where exactly are the developers supposed to turn?

Look at it this way. If Game AND Gamestation AND HMV are ALL stopping their customers at the checkout with their purchase and saying "Would you like a 2nd hand copy of that for £5 less" (because THEY make EVEN MORE money that way) where does the developer's revenue come from any more? Where are the games still being sold where they see any of the money? They're being strangled at source. From the developers point of view their sales window become, what, the first two weeks?

In music and books and films there are secondary retailers selling 2nd hand stuff, but the primary channels are clear. There is a constant influx of new material. If the primary retailers essentially stop selling the developers copies of the games, how do you expect them to survive?

"Name one high street book, music or film retailer that sells 2nd hand copies of the books, music or films right alongside and instead of the new copies."

Pretty sure Blackwell's does this for books and Blockbuster for films. Could be wrong though.

Pre-owned goods in shops isn't unique to games: people buy stuff and when they finish with it they sell it, so they can buy something else or pay off a debt or just get rid of it from the house because it's taken up space. If it's really a problem then they just need to wise up to and mitigate those factors:

* specifically to games, people won't "finish" them if there's a shitload of DLC being released;
* people won't need to free up so much cash to buy new games if they're cheaper in the first place;
* they don't take up (physical) space if the distribution is digital.

Meh.

@Marshall 2008, I totally agree with you. If you are paying the price for a brand new game, you should be getting a brand new game, not a previously owned copy of it. They should have it clearly marked that is is a pre-owned game as well as have a different section in the shop for them.
About the "not for resale" thing, its not going to stop people lending other people their games to try out.
Same with DVD's most people buy them and lend them to a relative or friend.

@seasidebaz

"I work as a professional developer in real life, not games-related, but a proper developer."

Hehehe, cheeky. I like it! I'm also a professional developer (web applications) but saying games development is not 'proper development is likely to rile a few people here I reckon! (though I'm sure that isnt what you meant) ;)


"If you're not making money, GET OUT OF THE DAMN BUSINESS OR CHANGE YOUR TACTICS"

Not an easy thing to do when you have so much money invested in a market/career. Not saying I agree or disagree, but it's a far more complex problem to solve than that.

They definitely deserve a cut of the proceeds. Otherwise, what's to stop shops like Game and HMV to sell mostly pre-owned? It's almost 100% profit for them. And, let's face it, what they pay for pre-owned and then turn around and sell that same game for is completely ridiculous. It's like a 300% markup.

I just want to know which idiots choose to go to HMV for games anyway ?

That's seventeenth on my list of ten places and this idea of theirs isn't going to magically promote them up the list.

Personally I don't really buy 2nd hand games, I do rent quite a few games though and there'll be plenty of single player/story driven games that'll I'll be renting this Christmas which once finished I'd hardly ever play again. There's just too much crammed into a 3 month period. Am i evil for renting?

Surely this is an Industry problem that Devs, Publishers and Retailers need to sit down and sort out, but I get the impression that nobody actually dicusses it or does anythingproductive about it; just moans every once in a while on the internet while the Publishers and Retailers laugh like panto vilains and roll in pits of cash

"But remember that you can't digitally distribute the console and peripherals in the first place. And no retailer is going to sell the console if they know that's the last time they will see the customer. The publisher / trade relationship would break down. "

Yeah that must be why no one sells MP3 players.

oh wait.

Next time he talks, I hope its related to The Outsider.

stop comparing it to piracy and go after the pirates, the amout of people playing GOW2 before i can with my full price pre order which i will not sell is plain just not fair. just stop trying to pick on the people who do support you as they are easier targets by forcing locks and keys and install limits which are stripped out when ripped online.

is there anyone who only buys 2nd hand games? at hmv prices i seriously doubt there is, especially with the good deals online on new games, do many people still only buy on the high street and for £3 less? whereas a pirate never puts money into the industry.

priorities!

Lots of keyboard warriors about today I see, calling people names over the internet is so macho, well done.

I've already explained how preventing secondhand sales would probably result in less new games sold. If you prevented HMV from selling secondhand you would have to take action against GAME and Gamestation too.

Once you've waved the magic wand and stopped secondhand sales will it also magically give people the money and store credit they would have got from trading in? I wish we could try no trade ins at all for six months, just so that some particularly thick headed people could see how trade ins have been helping to prop up sales in a market where RRP is way too high.

And sweet baby Jesus, is someone still wanking on about the old "multiple revenue streams" excuse for games being so expensive?

Be a little less inflamatory and a little more constructive for once, Campbell.

I cited it as "a factor", not as an umbrella excuse. And it certainly is a factor.

It does annoy me when retailers sell preowned games for a couple of quid less than the full price game.

Especially when they push preowned so hard. I can understand why they do it (the profits are much higher when you buy a game for a tenner from gamer and sell it for £30.

If there was a big difference in the price i wouldn't mind

If you buy a pre-owned copy from the store you are like a pirate, but stupid since you didn't keep your money.

That's a reasonably good point, you know. From a dev's point of view, a pirated game and a 2nd hand game are one and the same. Imagine if Game and HMV started selling pirated copies instead of genuine ones. See why that would be a major issue? The fact that there's already a bloke down your local market who sells pirated games would not make it any less of an issue if it suddenly cropped up in the main highstreet retailers.

@chrisola , SNES games were £50-£80 about 15 years ago. So games have gotten cheaper if anything.

@PlugMonkey, yes I agree that it affects the developers avenues for cash. But again, preowned games are clearly marked (99% of the time), and noone is forcing people to say yes, Ill save £5 and have the preowned. Infact I dont know anyone who would say yes, from a quick poll of 10 or so friends (not proof or anything, just saying :) ). In fact, the shops might be there own worst enemy then, as preowned games being at almost new prices. If they were £20 for a 2nd hand version of a newly released title, thered be even more of an issue.

Ill modify my view though, having reread the article two or three times, I ll agree shops shouldnt do what they are doing. But Braben was having a swipe at the 2nd hand market in general, not just highstreet retailers, and I still disagree with that.

@seasidebaz
"If me, on my own, can make a decent engine, decent graphics, decent sound, and people will pay for my game, then a studio which employs EXPERTS will make a game more quickly and to a higher standard than me, thus making more money than me. Fact."

Except you'll probably get paid peanuts. Not really enough to pay for a pc, support, marketing, offices... Ooh the list goes on.

By all means, feel free to prove me wrong. Heres another way:
http://www.kongregate.com

1500$ payout for game of the month. Flash is free, submission is free. And yet I don't see articles left right and centre urging developers to quit their job and go indie. Maybe because its harder than it looks to get a sustainable income from games.

Be a little less inflamatory and a little more constructive for once, Campbell.

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

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

Out of interest how many people opt for the pre-owned game when it's only £5 less?

I don't sell my unwanted games...I give them away...suck on that Braben.

@Kirly_Wombat
"@chrisola , SNES games were £50-£80 about 15 years ago. So games have gotten cheaper if anything."

As has already been mentioned, those prices were due to the high manufacturing costs of cartridges which no longer apply to CD's and DVD's. Prior to cartridges games used to come on tape/cassettess and they were generally around £3, with some premium titles being £5 or £10. After cartridges however the industry retained the old prcing model even though the switch was made to much cheaper CD's.

Edit: Remembering using tapes on my ZX Spectrum makes me feel so old and I'm only 27

@PlugMonkey, yes I agree that it affects the developers avenues for cash. But again, preowned games are clearly marked (99% of the time), and noone is forcing people to say yes, Ill save £5 and have the preowned. Infact I dont know anyone who would say yes, from a quick poll of 10 or so friends (not proof or anything, just saying :) ). In fact, the shops might be there own worst enemy then, as preowned games being at almost new prices. If they were £20 for a new title, thered be even more of an issue.

Nobody's forcing them, but then with CDs and DVDs nobody's even offering them (except Blockbuster apparently, although my local one only has ex-rental, not 2nd hand).

As a consumer, my main objection is the crappy reduction you get. Game will buy a game back off you for £15 and then sell it 2nd hand for £37! Back in the day, GameStation in York used to buy games for £10 and then sell them for £13, meaning they had a constant high turnover and loads of new stuff in all the time (although back in the day, they could hardly be described as a 'highstreet retailer' :D).

@daz_john_smith, yes fair enough. It didnt occur to me about the change in format inbetween times. Nice that the savings got passed on for a change then :)

@PlugMonkey, yes totally agree on the piddling reduction issue. Time was that 2nd hand goods were sold at around 1/3 to 1/2 of the brand new price, in the good old days. Dont see much evidence of that now :(

You know what else is a serious threat to the industry?

People talking about games despite having not brought one out in the past 8 years, then saying that pre-owned is killing the market.

Well done, David. *slow clapping*

-------------------------

erm...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_De...

2003-2008 like 11ish games?

you DO know he doesn't make games himself anymore right? ;)

*slow clapping*

daz_john_smith - And sales have gone up, and development costs have gone up - but none of this or the format or anything else really matters.

The bottom line is that 15 years ago a AAA video game cost you, John Q. Nobody, forty of your finest crispy notes. And today, 15 years later, they still cost you exactly the same forty finest crispy notes. And that is cheaper, not more expensive.

Considering how expensive pre-owned games are, how can this issue even be a problem. Who is buying a 2nd hand, and no doubt scratched to hel,l copy of a game that they can have brand new for a difference of £5?

I normally agree with what Braben has to say, but not in this case.

Once a product has been sold by the originating company, it's now in a free market. It's your baby, and it's all growdsed up and left home... it's gone, wave bye-bye. It's up to them to now use that original profit to make other products. You can't sit back on your laurels and rake in aftersales on all subsequant transactions from person to person.

Analogy: Ford make cars. They don't get a penny from a 2nd (3rd... 4th... 5th) hand sale of that same car, they make more cars from the profit on the first sale, and any other cash from after sales services.

If game companies want residual after sales money coming in, their distributors should produce their own official guide books and trinkets, instead of licensing all that out to Prima or whoever.

"Mr Writer needs £15,000 a year to live. this means his 2 books a year which he is able to write must sell 100,000 copies. he only sells 75,000 but local librarys have lent out his book 25,000.

This is different how?"

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

Not read the comments, but he has a point if it is hard to distinguish pre-owned. It's easier in the States where New = Sealed.

I think the dude's is thinking proprely. Give something to the ppl who really contribute for the community (hey, that's me!), like a code for something special online, a special Achievement/Trophy..., whatever. A positive discrimination.

And please, don't do those analogies (like with cars) an used car is not the same as used 0's and 1's (they are the same as new 0's and 1's).

@PlugMonkey
It didn't cost me anything 15 years ago since I really couldnt afford them, it cost my, John Q Nobody, parents 40-50 crisp notes maybe 3 times a year since that's all they could afford.

The consumesr are not the enemy here. The retailers add a tasty markup to new products and rape everybody they can on pre-owned; and on top of that the Publisher then takes a fairly large sum of what profits are left over leaving Devs with very little. However rather than discussing it like adults and coming up with a reasonable solution that benefits everybody it seems like the the best the Industry can come up with is to hit the consumer in the wallet yet again.