News Epic: Second hand games are a huge issue

What happened to you Epic? You used to be cool man...

 

QFT! Surely they realise if they made better games people are more likely to pay for them. I myself read reviews, play demos. If I am impressed by them I will go and buy the game. If not they don't get my money and I certainly wouldn't pirate a game let alone a bad one! Basically epic want's to fill your house with pap. Also when Dr. Michael Capps looked on the torrent sites did he not check for 360 torrents?

 

Noooooooo! I don't want to rent a game. I'm buying it - it is a capital purchase. If I play it lots, I get good value for money; if not, I don't.

My BF2 stats page showed a calculation of how much I'd paid per hour (based on RRP) - it was around 18c per hour.... Are the publishers going to expect $0.18/£0.11 per hour, per game? Or would it be a WoW-ish £10 per month?

If the games are given away free, what incentive do they have to make good, new games? Just keep the same old cash-cows running ad infinitum...

 

Good point, but Even then, Paying a monthly fee for a game you already purchased at full price, Is something that baffles me.

I mean, take the money they rake in each month from the subscriptions, take away the server maintenance fees, and moderators and maintenance crews, and I'm pretty sure you're still left with s**t loads of $$$.

Then push the arrogance even further by putting an expansion out, same buy-in price as the original, adds 1/6th of the content of the first installment, only 10 exp. level cap difference, and keeps the suckers coming back that way. 10 million strong. No new game mechanics, same old Bulls**t just rehashed...

Maybe not the best solution, but at least it's reasonable to think of similar ways to implements this type of model.

Just a account creation scheme were you log in to play, like you said with ever changing .exe codes, p.i.t.a. for the internet connection, but you could use a kind of time borrowing method if you plan on going away form your internet connection (ie borrow 15 days for a planned trip, so if another IP logs into the account, it will ask to return the borrowed "liscence" to make the game available to the other IP, in which case the rightful owner could do since he would have is computer/laptop hooked-up obviously)

Not really a failproof solution IMO, butthat's my way of seeing things.

 

I would say that selling these games for less would eliminate the problem, 20$?? Sixty dollars is way too much, people are cheap, so they pirate games. So cater to the cheap people and sell the games for less and you recover that 20:1 ratio pretty quickly.

 

I pretty much only buy used if I can, the software is identical to new.

I just bought a used car £5000 it cost me, just done MG Rover out of around £10000. (Aside from the fact they are already (kind of) bankrupt) I think the used car market is doing the industry alot more damage than the used games market and they dont complain.

Buying new is creating more disks, buying used is re-using old disks, surely this should be encouraged from an environmental point of view

 

I've bought so many more PC games than console games.

PC games are £20-30, whereas 360 games are consistently £40. Plus many 360 games are fun for a few days, or have short single player campaigns. So I've rented the majority of my 360 games, or even bought the PC version when its a decent version - like Dead Space.

The last 360 game I actually bought new was Pro Evo 6 (we're on 8 now right?) Since then I think I've bought at least 20 PC games new - lately Fallout 3, Dead Space and Left 4 Dead.

Buying new on PC is usually even cheaper than buying second hand on console too.

Digital downloads should theoretically be cheaper, if the devs pass on the savings they make by not having to pay for a publisher and shipping etc. Left 4 Dead was actually quite expensive through steam (£33 I think) but that was mainly due to tax and conversion rates from US dollars.

 

^^^ only if digital distrobution is a lot cheaper, we'd buy it, otherwise who want just an account?

for repetitive games like Gears of War, i really don't understand what is Epic moaning about.

 

What is wrong ist EPIC? I always thought it was one of the better companies, not interestet in hurting the gamers.
If crysis would cost 20€ i would gladly buy it. It has been out on the market for over a year now, and it still costs 40 to 45€. So nobody will buy it any more.
Epic should be happy to have sold so many copys of Gears. Because the installation is crap on the pc, and i even had to buy a new pc to get it running. (game didn't run on my amd and ati platform, no idea why). And gears is a shorl lived game, very short single player and the multi player is just standard. Oh did i mention that i lost my savegames serveral time ( i stopped counting after 10 times)

In Russia you can get new and orginal games for 15€! Just a CD/DVD in a case, nothing additional. Thats it. So you can stop piracy. And for people like me who like special editions, pay 40 to 50€ and you get one special boxed edtion. So everybody is happy. No crappy DRM which crashes you windows every time you try to run another game....

So please Epic, bring out new games, sell them for a month then cut the price. Or ship just games which will be interesting again.
Nobody of the companies are interested what the gamers want, they just want to make money with games / genres which are just too used.

Take a look at Introversion Software. These guys do it right. I don't like steam, so i go to there shop and buy a game there. Just digital or boxed, like you want. After purchasing, with paypal, you can download the game and run it. And a few days later the game arrives boxed. Oh did i mention that the new game they just releases just costs 14€

So, it would be nice to see a Gears of War 2 on PC. If not. i won't buy a Xbox just to play the game. I would rent me one, and rent me the game and play it. Thats it. If you won't release Gears 2 on pc, you don't get any money from me.

 

Very funy, he probably makes us ready for the next step in the Epic evolution of getting more money from gamers:

"Have you played your Epic game? Then send it back to Epic!"

(so we scrooges from Epic can sell it again for the same money you bought it for!)

 

Greetings!

Have you guys followed the links to the interview?!
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/michael-capps-part-two

 

Just saw this on another site

If it is a good game there is more chance of someone paying the extortionate amount of £40 or more. Otherwise you might as well wait for a second-hand copy.

Epic have serious problems with their idea of what consumers think. I will only understand their trail of thought when they start losing money and get swallowed by a bigger company.

 

wtf? After playing the beta of lbp, I wanted more and I wanted it now! Sod screwing a chick and moving on, I wanted to marry and have babies!

I also had a quick go at the Resistance 2 beta, it's not my cup of tea.

I've also played, 'betas' (or as they've been called for so many years 'demos', but keep it mum, yeh?) for years and years and if I liked the game, I pre-ordered it or went out and bought it.

I would imagine, given a taster of gow2, that (from reviews) I'd probably buy it. Gow1 was pretty good up to a point - stepping out of the light just got too frustrating for me.

 

I noticed the download maps card in GOW 2 for the 5 reworked GOW1 maps and thought crafty way to get people to buy new (which isn't too bad providing they also supply the maps for gamers who bought pre-owned games at a small cost, othwerwise what's the point - a large % will have sold their copies on and there will be very few with access to the maps making them virtually unusable).

However,

keeping the final boss locked if you haven't bought the game new (or even if you don't have access to Live to enter the code) is absolutely not on

 

WTF EPIC!!!! WAKE UP AND SMELL REALITY DAMMIT!!!! /rant

 

I will not even get annoyed on the blatant idiocy that Mr. Capps has said.
A few comparisons:

1. Second hand means that he loses a sale. Boohoo. All second hand deals gives no net revenue to the maker/originator. So for that remark. Epic Fail!

2. Games makers has to provide a patch for the game. Which game makers do not have to but do anyway or they would lose customers.
Comparable to a GFX/PSU/Mobo or even car maker(s). That is called a guarantee. Which they have to provide by law none the less. Epic Fail!

3. Piracy. It's a problem comparable to car theft. Except that if a car gets stolen it's normally stolen from the end user. Unless it was stolen from the factory. Epic win!

Now regarding Steam as the solution to all chaos.

Steam is a good system in terms of distribution and income. Very good.
I do not know the revenue on Steam when it comes to Valve's cut of the cake. But a sale is a sale none the less. Which is non transferable. But let's look at the differences between that and physical media/e-tailers/retailers.

Steam is digital distribution. No physical media what so ever. That means that the developer does not need to buy "factory time" for CD/DVD's and physical pakaging too.
The developer could actually just walk over to Valve's HQ with a HDD and plug it in. Or upload it directly to their server.
Price difference: No clue actually (Factoring everything in, from hourly wages for both sides to negotiate, electricity and so forth.)
But that has only to be done once. Once!
After that, Valve takes full responsibility for distribution and the developer can sit back and relax knowing that game price minus Valve's cut gets deposited every time a sale is made. Make a patch if needed. Done.
Surely you cannot beat that argument from a developers perspective?

But how about the end user (Us)?
Some criticism I have heard over the years or even in this thread.
Want the ability to sell the game on when you are done with it? Cannot do that.
Want to lend out a copy to a friend? Nope, can't do that either. You bought 1 (One) copy of the game or actually the right to that copy.
Want to do anything else with it? You can't really.

Valve holds the key so to speak.

Now for some defense for Steam.
Use your Steam account anywhere in the world on any computer with an Internet connection.
Backup your savegame(s) to a USB key, wipe the harddrive and install Steam again. Connect your account. The game(s) you bought via Steam downloads again. No charge whatsoever (minus connection bill)

Which brings us to the last point: Price.
"Steam prices are too high!" says most people.
Ok ok. But who pays their electrical bill huh?
What about bandwith from them, upkeep to server hardware and so forth?
EA has ads in their Battlefield servers to run them.

You are paying a little extra for the privilege of:
No "in game" ads.
Safe distribution.
The ability to re download the game if your harddrive dies/wipes/formats.
Auto patching of both client and game.
No physical media that can get scratched or lost.
No optical drive that could die/is noisy while you play.
No waiting in the store/opening hours/leaving the comfort of your home.
No invasive DRM schemes.
And best of all:
The developer cannot call you a pirate.
So I buy from Steam whenever possible.

 

not quite true, If I recall corectly Bioshock still had it's DRM in the Steam version.

 

Greetings!

And Farcry2. And Warhead.