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News THQ: No sympathy for second hand game buyers

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by CardJoe, 24 Aug 2010.

  1. steveo_mcg

    steveo_mcg What's a Dremel?

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    Not by individuals though, EMI don't get a fee every time i play my Clash ep that i bought down the market nor did they get a cut of the money i paid. I don't know about blockbusters licensing scheme but i'll bet it has more in common with the library than the second hand market when i comes to renting games.
     
  2. Blademrk

    Blademrk Why so serious?

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    TBH, of the games that have been released there are not that many where the game is continually patched / has DLC beyond a given shelf life.

    Given that a developer of one of these games is no longer actually supporting it beyond this date, do you still think they deserve to get a cut of the 2nd/3rd/nth hand sale?

    What about a game that the developer forgets about as soon as it's out the door? there's no additional development costs, no DLC costs.

    Another example, EA drop support (and servers) for a lot of their games a year after release (sometimes not even allowing that long). Do they deserve to get a cut of the nth hand sales of those games?

    And as for tying software to a single console or PC, that is just stupid -

    How many people have gone through several X-boxes with hardware faliure? (I'm on my 2nd now).

    How many complete PC upgrades have people gone through?

    And tying games to single accounts is just as selfish, a family with 3 children has an Xbox, how many accounts on the 1 console? are they expected to get several copies of the same game? How likely is that to happen?
     
  3. Dude111

    Dude111 An Awesome Dude

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    Exactly!!

    Couldnt have said it better myself bud!
     
  4. wafflesomd

    wafflesomd What's a Dremel?

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    And I honestly don't care. All I care about is getting the game at the lowest possible price.
     
  5. eddtox

    eddtox Homo Interneticus

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    It is not an automatic entitlement, but it can be reasonably expected and it is budgeted for it when deciding on the cost of the card.


    I guarantee they do all of those things, in different measures.
     
  6. ZERO <ibis>

    ZERO <ibis> Minimodder

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    If only second hand car sales worked the same way. Oh your car is used, if you want to go over 50mph your going to need to fork over for a new car.
     
  7. sharpethunder

    sharpethunder Minimodder

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    Well PC games are now getting tied to a single account with steam and soon console Games will be the same. Also i doesn't matter how many Pc you go though because you can still use the same os as much as you like
     
  8. Glix

    Glix Left Thumb Stick in the mud.

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    Am starting to be cautious of the games I buy on Steam etc.

    Tying games to one account = only one person plays one game.

    I'm betting 6 people are going to troll me saying "wheres the problem, that doesn't affect me, why would you need to play 2 games at once?"

    Here's the thing, people usually get into games when their young. Say you have 2 brothers. They have just managed to scrape together enough to buy 2 pc's together.

    One brother wants to play TF2, the other wants to play CSS. See what I'm getting at? 2 separate games, but one is inaccessible due to the other game being in use (you get booted off the server with the message "this account is in use in another location" I believe).

    Course some tard is going to walk in and say if you can't afford it tough...

    Console gamers, you want to hold on to your 2nd hand market!!! Keep it going. It's a luxury you have that pc gamers don't any more!
     
  9. mikeuk2004

    mikeuk2004 What you Looking at Fool!

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    What is it with people and labels? You are correct. I am a console owner. I am also a PC owner hence i am typing this on a personal computer.

    I am not a console gamer or a PC gamer. I am simply a gamer. I have enjoyed thousands of games for more than 20 odd years across most platforms. I had 80% of all consoles released and personal computers as kid through the 80's and 90's.

    I do not care about a platform, I care about games and having the opportunity to experience any game I wish to purchase.

    Normally, any games I buy second hand are games that I left too late and can no longer purchase new as they no longer make them. One example was Marvel Ultimate Alliance. It had been out for a year and became impossible to buy new or even second hand. It took me another year to locate a copy.

    The other second had games I sometimes buy are those that never really appealed to me or I had doubts about because they did not have demos available. I usually pick them up for £5 as I don’t mind loosing that much money on something I never really wanted to buy. If there was no second hand market then i would never of bought the game or ever experience the game. Therefore I would not be interested in any possible sequels.

    One example is Kane and Lynch, I had my doubts about it but picked it up second hand for £5 and enjoyed it. I now intend on picking up the sequal very soon new.
     
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  10. Toploaded

    Toploaded What's a Dremel?

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    In cases where shops like GAME sell a 2nd hand games for £2 less then the original asking price, I can see the publishers point of view. If someone is paying less then a pint of beer for the game that's been out for less then a month or two, and the publisher does not get any of that, where as the buyer would have no doubt brought it new if they had not seized this 'bargain' discount. But blame the retailers, not the consumers.

    If companies like this want to offer intensives to those that buy new, fair enough, that's sensible business, but god knows why they would put out such an anger provoking statement like this. There's a 2nd hand market for pretty much everything apart from toilet paper, so they need to get over it.
     
  11. eddtox

    eddtox Homo Interneticus

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    '£2 less than the original asking price' is not 'less than a pint of beer'.
     
  12. roland777

    roland777 What's a Dremel?

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    I think you're completely right to say that there's nothing unfair about 2nd hand sales. If you've bought a game you surely have the right (as with any other product) to transfer ownership of that game to another in return for a financial reward. (And please don't be too concerned that I actually agree with you on this :D )

    Publishers are starting to see things a little differently though - for every 2nd hand game sold, they see a missed opportunity to sell a new game. If 100,000 people want to play their game, they will want to sell 100,000 new copies of their game. If 70,000 people buy the game new, and 30,000 wait to buy the game 2nd hand (from one of the 70,000), the publisher will feel they have lost out on the revenue from 30,000 sales. Hence the comment about being 'cheated' by 2nd hand game sales.
     
  13. eddtox

    eddtox Homo Interneticus

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    I do see how that line of reasoning will make most pubs/devs (hell, most people) think "Holy Smokes, Batman! We've lost (30,000*£50) 1.5mil's worth of business!"

    However, they must be very careful with that assumption as there different factors affecting that theoretical loss.


    Real (Net) Cost, Perceived Value, Impulse Purchases, Demand, Market size and Retail price:

    A non-zero percentage of customers buying a game at release for £50 will reason that they can finish the game in a week or two, and sell it on for £40 or so. That is perceived as good value, as the net cost to them is only £10, for two weeks' entertainment, and the rest they can put towards their next purchase.

    A high perceived value increases the likelyhood of impulse purchases and drives demand as well as being conducive to increases in overall market size, without requiring significant decreases in retail price

    In contrast, if the game had little or no resale value (if, for example, the license was non-transferable), the net cost to the customer is £50, which, for most people is out of the impulse buy region. Each purchase would therefore be much more considered as the customer is effectively 'stuck' with their purchase, and most likely won't be able to make another for a while.

    This could lead to a decrease in demand for new games as people have less money to spend. It could cause the market size to stagnate or even decrease as people perceive gaming as expensive and poor value, and/or it could force devs/pubs to lower the release price of games in order to tempt buyers, thus reducing their profits anyway.

    I have no business training, so this is all just off the top of my head, but it does suggest the the relationship might not be as simple as 100 played, 70 paid = we got cheated out of 30.
    The second-hand market could well be crucial to the gaming sector as a whole and it's removal could a) make no difference to their profit margins or b) actually be detrimental.

    PS:Some have mentioned earlier in the thread that they have never bought a game second hand. I wonder how many of them have sold a game on, and whether they have used that money to buy other games.
     
    Last edited: 26 Aug 2010
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  14. bigsharn

    bigsharn Officially demotivated

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    If developers came out with decent games that you couldn't complete in a matter of six hours then *maybe* people wouldn't be so eager to buy second hand.
     
  15. Flibblebot

    Flibblebot Smile with me

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    Or sell them so quickly, either ;)
     
  16. Elledan

    Elledan What's a Dremel?

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    Indeed, I bet most people still got their original copies of Half Life from the late 90s, yet piles of shovelware will have been sold on a few dozen times since then. It really separates the good games from the mediocre and bad in how often they change hands :)

    If publishers really hate second hand sales so much, maybe they should focus on selling games people would actually want to keep longer than a few months :p
     
  17. roland777

    roland777 What's a Dremel?

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    It's just a shame that some large publishers seem unwilling to look at the big picture (or indeed at anything beyond short-term profit).
     
  18. roland777

    roland777 What's a Dremel?

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    I think part of the problem is that publishers want gamers to be bored with their purchase after a couple of months, so that they'll be ready to buy the next Generic FPS (or whatever). What they don't want is gamers playing the publishers' old games when they could be buying their new ones.
     
  19. Fiyero

    Fiyero Vindaloovian

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    Hehehe.
    So they expect to regurgitate the same old crappy engine, with a marginally updated roster, and to get £40-45 a shot every time?
    And then DON'T expect said crap product to then be regurgitated into the market cheap for people to buy 2nd hand?

    Oh dear.
     
  20. Elledan

    Elledan What's a Dremel?

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    They're about as worthy of pity as those poor, starving RIAA/MPAA executives. How dare we not buy every single CD and DVD they put out? Imagine all those potential sales... lost forever! :eeek:

    In this case it's somewhat personal because it's someone who is in the same branch as my company making retarded statements. I'd like to apologize for it. Apparently every industry has a few nutcases with egos too grand for their little minds :)
     
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