Preowned - It's Killing The Industry!!!

[Unofficial Who]

Got to say Steam is killing preowned on the PC. I used to have big misgivings over DLC but things like Mass Effect 1 for a fiver? Totally undercuts preowned and creates a long tail that developers have been hankering after.

Looking in the discussion thread I've noticed old games like Psychonauts being talked about again as new people discover that. Pre Steam and other solutions Psychonauts would have died a death ages ago and people would either have to pirate it or do without.

[SaintM]

The pre-owned market on PC has been next to nothing anyway, hasn't it?

[gone fishin]

Sony are trying something with the PSP

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/18/sony-tr...game-hits-used/

The new SOCOM can only be played online after being linked to one PSN account. If you happen to buy it used, you also need to shell out $20 for another online "voucher" to play multiplayer.

It almost like the days of Phantasy Star Online for the DC!!! That came with an unique code, if it had been previously entered- you were fucked. You could only play offline, which kind of defeated the purpose of the title. At least this is a form of compromise where you still get online.

But moosegrinder's point about EA- that the "Project $10" (or whatever they're calling it) where they are actively trying to get more income from the pre-owned market. Same as above, but to get access to additional DLC you'll have to buy a voucher (I guess, around $10). I have no problem with that, but it's just another reason for games companies to not have the complete game on the "retail disc". Yeah, you've got DLC and patches.. but this could be another reason for even more DLC. Things that you would absolutely expect to be in the basic package will now probably be taken away. You will have to go online to get access to it (so I guess you're fucked if you're not online) and will it start to move towards Ubisoft's amazing approach to ACII on the PC, where you must be online in order to play the game. The connection is dropped, you can't play it. And I suppose it's good for those naughty 360 owners who have modded their console.. because they will have to go online.. and face the banhammer of hell.

What other industry would do this? Could you imagine movies, music or books being at the position where you had to enter a code to get vital film scenes, album tracks and book chapters? Oh.. and if you've bought it second hand, well... you'll have to give the publisher more money! Here Francis Ford Coppola , take an extra £10 so I can see the horses head part of the Godfather, because I was bad and bought it from ebay.

And we know what EA's current policy is for their online servers- anything more than 2 years and they seem to be shutting them down. What happens if you buy that game in 5+ years when it's become "retro". Will the servers even be online, will EA even sell you the download voucher?

The games industry seems desperate to cling onto it's £40-50 price point (I had a rant about this in another thread, what a surprise ). They either add stupid peripherals to it (e.g. guitars, skateboards, inflatable sex dolls), have premium versions (e.g. a stupid fake helmet, printed tat, silly little figures of inflatable sex dolls) or just literally add an extra fiver to the MSRP (e.g. Modern Warfare 2). Why not try to bring the price point down? That's why you never see pre-owned DVDs for sale in HMV. Make the games shorter, and much more memorable in it's experience and you can take your 20 hour single game and cut that into a decent trilogy of games. Hey, they might even sell more games to the new market share that Nintendo and all those sub £20 casual games (like Just Dance) have tapped into.

Nintendo tried the exact same thing with the voucher for Animal Crossing, and the feedback was terrible- which meant they had to step down and just issue more free vouchers, if you had bought it 2nd hand. Will there be a similar anger about this? Probably not. But to me, it seems like an excuse to try and wring more money out of the consumer- at the expense of the consumer.

[McCoy]

The games industry seems desperate to cling onto it's £40-50 price point (I had a rant about this in another thread, what a surprise ). They either add stupid peripherals to it (e.g. guitars, skateboards, inflatable sex dolls), have premium versions (e.g. a stupid fake helmet, printed tat, silly little figures of inflatable sex dolls) or just literally add an extra fiver to the MSRP (e.g. Modern Warfare 2). Why not try to bring the price point down? That's why you never see pre-owned DVDs for sale in HMV. Make the games shorter, and much more memorable in it's experience and you can take your 20 hour single game and cut that into a decent trilogy of games. Hey, they might even sell more games to the new market share that Nintendo and all those sub £20 casual games (like Just Dance) have tapped into.

I must say, that I quite like that idea. Instead of releasing Halo 4 for £40 in 2012, when not release Halo 4.1 in 2011 and Halo 4.2 in 2012 both for £20 each. Reduce down the pre-owned market, and for time strapped gamers like myself it's an incentive to buy a game even though you don't have an epic amount of time to devote to it. Lots of games these days I've not brought or waited until they were cheap just becuase I don't have the time to devote to them, why not simply cut them them in half, release them slightly apart and charge less for them. Everyone wins. Sort of like what they are doing to the final Harry Potter movie by splitting it into two releases.

[ah]

i reckon most people trade in more games than they do music or movies not because games cost more but because the games they're buying to replace the ones they trade in are less distinct as experiences from those they're trading in. a new game is like an upgrade, or an update, to their videogame fun rather than an additional awesome thing. it's not the way i play games, but then i probably buy far fewer games than the serial traders and pre-owned purchasers, so my contribution to the industry is small for the opposite reason - i buy a game and stick with it for some time.

the industry is bloated and needs to shrink drastically. there is simply not consumer appetite for quite so many FPS-with-a-twist games at £40, or for annual minor upgrades to sports games and rhythm games, and there is simply not enough consumer cash to support all the developers that are looking for a share of that pool of money. while the industry continues producing as many games as is currently the case, consumers will seek to offset the cost of the new ones by trading in the outdated product. if the pre-owned market is artificially destroyed or weakened, that won't magically make more money available. if people can't trade in their games, they'll spend less on new ones.

the problem is the size of the industry. it's just too big for its consumer base to support it in the manner to which it's become accustomed.

[El Pibe]

It's become a little bit a joke in my local Game - seems they want to kill pre-owned themselves?

MW2 £44.99 new or £42.97 for a battered second hand copy - bargain!

So many pre-owned games are more expensive than their new counterparts.

[Mogget]

Wouldn't it have been a better idea to create a new thread, as opposed to resurrecting one that is three years old?

[Harsin]

Pre-owned threads are killing the forums.

[Joyrex-J9]

Wouldn't it have been a better idea to create a new thread, as opposed to resurrecting one that is three years old?

The thread was started in March 2004 it's like the Keith Richards of threads

[Garwoofoo]

I must say, that I quite like that idea. Instead of releasing Halo 4 for £40 in 2012, when not release Halo 4.1 in 2011 and Halo 4.2 in 2012 both for £20 each.

Once upon a time, a company named Valve decided to try a similar approach with their popular franchise Half-Life. Unfortunately no-one knows how that one went because we're all still waiting for them to finish their game, nearly four years after the release of the first episode.

I'm not really a fan of releasing games in small chunks - you either get the Valve approach, whereby you get frustratingly small chunks of game delivered at ever-increasing intervals, or you get the Telltale approach, where each episode features masses of recycled content from earlier releases.

[Smoothy]

Wouldn't it have been a better idea to create a new thread, as opposed to resurrecting one that is three years old?

Why when it's exactly the same subject? Why waste time repeating something that's already said when you can add your own take on it on a pre-existing thread?

[Fusty Gusset]

Pre-owned threads are killing the forums.

[mwaawm]

Seeing as preowned games are hardly ever cheaper than buying brand new games of the internet retailers it makes me suspect that their cheaper price cant really be having as huge an impact on the sales of new games overall as some pessimists believe.

I've tried trading in games myself but hardly ever bring myself to do it because of the derisory sums offered by the stores and the fact that the new game I want is so overpriced compared to just buying it online and waiting a few days for delivery.

[Swallow]

I dunno, it's an interesting read and some points from the opening post are still more than valid.

Seeing as preowned games are hardly ever cheaper than buying brand new games of the internet retailers it makes me suspect that their cheaper price cant really be having as huge an impact on the sales of new games overall as some pessimists believe.

The fact that you simply cannot pick up a new copy of certain games in a store which has 10+ second-hand copies available has an impact, though, I think. I think a lot of people who buy games from Game etc. just do not realise the difference, on every level, between the two options.

[therealjohnpeat]

The idea of generating revenue from every resale of a title makes a lot of sense - it's a case of the industry actually using it's brain and adapting it's offerings to the market instead of stamping it's feet and demanding legal change just to keep it profitable (the latter being stupid and wrong).

The whole issue of preowned will simply disappear (or become irrelevant) because buying a physical game in a box is a dying idea - I give it 5 years before it's actually the less popular way of getting games.

Meanwhile I'll just throw-in my 10p again. Everytime someone trades-in a game the chances are they spend the trade-in money on another game. Chances are that's a game they couldn't have afforded without trading-in - so without pre-owned, sales of new games would drop.

That retailers make more than publishers or developers is publishers and developers problem. If they feel retailers are taking the piss with pre-owned, they simply need to reduce the retailers margin on new titles to make the money back.

Of course - if retailers decide it's not worth selling the games new, then the publishers and developers are screwed - but again the business solution is to find other outlets/other ways of moving your products.

Asking for legislational change/asking to remove people's right to sell their goods when they're finished with them - is unacceptable - esp when a solution is actually fairly simply (as with this PSP licence idea).

[Mr Cochese]

On the plus side, we're six years on and the games industry hasn't died. Funny that.

[stevosowl]

the suggest new scheme is terrible

i will not be buying into it.

let me buy the game for a fixed price and that's it.

[Dudley]

Erm. Yes, if you have to agree to a license before installing the software. Of course, in that example, I wouldn't agree, so I'd have to take it back. I love sex, me.

It's an old post but worth replying to.

They can put all the licence agreements in they like, if they contradict the law (as they do in this case) they're invalid. You can't be held to an illegal contract in the UK.

[therealjohnpeat]

the suggest new scheme is terrible

i will not be buying into it.

let me buy the game for a fixed price and that's it.

This approach isn't going to work for you. No longer will you buy a game (you might buy a limited licence to install/use it or even the right to take a subscription to it) - it's only a matter of time before the idea of "buying" a game - owning a box with a disc in it - is dead and gone.

Meanwhile I don't think it's unreasonable for the new game to contain 1 licence for online play and for anyone who buys that game pre-owned to have to buy another one.

The alternative is to make selling that game impossible because the licence has gone and can't be replaced. Games like Spore etc. have no resale value for this reason.

Imagine if they did that to every XBL enabled title - giving just 1 key to unlock the online aspect of the game - there'd be hell on!

[Meh]

... it's only a matter of time before the idea of "buying" a game - owning a box with a disc in it - is dead and gone.

In the far future, when we're battling cyber-dinosaurs, perhaps.

Not everyone's online 24/7.

[Sigourney Beaver]

Has anyone noticed in their local GAME or Gamestation that in recent weeks, the supply of new games on shelves has dramatically reduced and that pre-owned has increased? I've even seen a few Gamestations that have started selling retro games again.

[PeterUK]

Has anyone noticed in their local GAME or Gamestation that in recent weeks, the supply of new games on shelves has dramatically reduced and that pre-owned has increased? I've even seen a few Gamestations that have started selling retro games again.

Yep just mentioned this the other day, it's awful - there's three Games in Kingston and they're FULL of preowned games.

Nary a new title in site; well only about 20.

It's riddiculous.

[Superunknown]

In the far future, when we're battling cyber-dinosaurs, perhaps.

Awesome. I need to know more!

Until you can get *fast* broadband in most of the country, (and most people have actually got it, rather than it simply being an option), downloading 7GB+ of data (or 50GB on PS3) is not going to catch on instead of physical media. Getting people to upgrade is notoriously hard-work and takes forever (just look at BluRay or Digital TV). Unless the publishers try to force the consumers hand by withdrawing physical media, digital download for full-size console games is not going to go mass-market any time soon.

[Sigourney Beaver]

Pain in the arse, but I suppose it's helped my progress in the expenditure thread, coz I virtually refuse to buy pre-owned unless I get a hankering for something in particular on an old format.

[Meh]

Awesome. I need to know more!

Until you can get *fast* broadband in most of the country, (and most people have actually got it, rather than it simply being an option), downloading 7GB+ of data (or 50GB on PS3) is not going to catch on instead of physical media. Getting people to upgrade is notoriously hard-work and takes forever (just look at BluRay or Digital TV). Unless the publishers try to force the consumers hand by withdrawing physical media, digital download for full-size console games is not going to go mass-market any time soon.

I think he means, like, you can still buy your game from whatever flea-pit you fancy, but you'll need to log into PSN/Live to actually validate the copy as not being pre-owned.

[Masu]

This approach isn't going to work for you. No longer will you buy a game (you might buy a limited licence to install/use it or even the right to take a subscription to it) - it's only a matter of time before the idea of "buying" a game - owning a box with a disc in it - is dead and gone.

Meanwhile I don't think it's unreasonable for the new game to contain 1 licence for online play and for anyone who buys that game pre-owned to have to buy another one.

The alternative is to make selling that game impossible because the licence has gone and can't be replaced. Games like Spore etc. have no resale value for this reason.

Imagine if they did that to every XBL enabled title - giving just 1 key to unlock the online aspect of the game - there'd be hell on!

They have been using this idea for ages now- but with the "extra" map codes (think GOW) that, although included on the disc, can only be unlocked with a licence key and once its used cannot be re-activated on other accounts. Expect online play, in one guise or another, to use this format very, very soon.

[Warszawa]

It's worth noting that Bayonetta - which was last week on sale online from £24.99 - £17.99 re-entered the UK top 40 on both formats. In January it debuted high and quickly bombed downwards, hence the usual third-party software insta-pricecuts.

Now, it's obviously an attractive game, hence its re-entry. Had it retailed for, say, £24.99 from launch everywhere and at an appropriately lower wholesale price, SEGA would've been making less per copy, yet it would likely have A) Sold more initially and B ) Stuck around for longer, selling more consistently. That in turn leads to word of mouth and a generally steadier, lengthier period at retail without the massive price-cuts. Now, price isn't the only factor but it's surely in the best interests of the publishers to figure out a way to have their software sit on shelves for a longer stretch of time and not suffer a price collapse within three weeks. Nintendo are currently the only ones to be able to pull that off successfully. You won't see a big Nintendo game for £15 a month after it comes out but you'll probably see it in the charts (usually retailing for £30 or thereabouts) for far longer than the average Ubisoft title. It's more pronounced and obvious with the Wii, but even in the GameCube era, they never flooded the shelves and did the quick fix thing. You couldn't pick up Wind Waker or F-Zero GX for peanuts within weeks.

[therealjohnpeat]

In the far future, when we're battling cyber-dinosaurs, perhaps.

Not everyone's online 24/7.

and those people can continue to play older games on their older consoles whilst the rest of the world moves on.

The PC market is almost entirely online-distribution-based now - and PC games are noted for being large/bloated and not too download friendly so I'm sure consoles will have no difficulty with this at all.

Even if they do stick with discs, expect the idea of online capabilities/maps/DLC to grow to the extent that the original box/disc will probably contain the tutorial with everything else being bought online for use on 1 account/machine only.

I'm actually amazed this hasn't happened with the 360 yet in fact...

[Meh]

and those people can continue to play older games on their older consoles whilst the rest of the world moves on.

The PC market is almost entirely online-distribution-based now - and PC games are noted for being large/bloated and not too download friendly so I'm sure consoles will have no difficulty with this at all.

Even if they do stick with discs, expect the idea of online capabilities/maps/DLC to grow to the extent that the original box/disc will probably contain the tutorial with everything else being bought online for use on 1 account/machine only.

I'm actually amazed this hasn't happened with the 360 yet in fact...

You don't seem to understand the fact that ISPs have shitty traffic throttling and that not everyone in the world has broadband.

This is not something that's going to change - not for a long time.

Edit: Unless you mean everything's on the disc, but it needs 'activation'. Again - this is not going to happen for a very long time, if ever, and you know it.

[therealjohnpeat]

You don't seem to understand the fact that ISPs have shitty traffic throttling and that not everyone in the world has broadband.

This is not something that's going to change - not for a long time.

Edit: Unless you mean everything's on the disc, but it needs 'activation'. Again - this is not going to happen for a very long time, if ever, and you know it.

Online capabilities are now present in all consoles - and all consoles have the ability to download games (even the Wii!!) - it's only a matter of time before this scales up and games-on-a-disc scales down.

I reckon broadband penetration in the UK/Europe/Asia is where it needs to be for a much wider adoption of online delivery - and we're seeing just that.

You're stuck in a world where 'big' games are released in 'big' boxes with 'big' pricetags wheras it's entirely possible the future will veer away from such things and their years and years of development costs and time and the majority of games sales will suddendly be 'relatively' simpler titles. Certainly not every game will be 9GB - games may even adopt an episodic download approach or who knows what.

Sony have even taken the first step in removing retail from their chain with the PSPGO - not the most auspicious combination of circumstances/console/sales situations to start with, but it won't be the last.