Developer calling Used game sales #1 issue in the industry..

[Ivo]

The industry needs to get uses to it (pun intended). The other industries have (although it is pretty guaranteed they also hate it and would love it to not be possible).

As others have said in the thread, games tend to be overpriced and often even grossly so at that. I believe that rampant piracy, a huge used market, and the boom of phone games are all symptoms of this to some extent.
The used market and 1 buck games really drive the point that 50 to 60 is too much even for AAA titles.

One major opportunity the industry has to improve things is making games have a longer "lifetime". Why should games only sell in the first weeks of being launched? That is not what happens to books or movies. Then aggressively lower the price over the lifetime. Compare to movies - they have a premium while in the theaters, but they start to become very cheap when they get released for homes and eventually they even become free for viewers - although really it is ad supported - when they air on TV.
If people know that they will be able to buy the game *new* for the discount price, they would be less likely to offer the discount price for a used copy.
It used to be pretty common at least for home-computer and PC games to see budget re-releases or compilations at very good value for money after the original release date. It also helped I guess that PCs are to some extent backward compatible whereas consoles tended not to be. I also see this kind of stuff for consoles but not nearly as frequently as I used to see with PC games I would say. Indie devs nowadays even sell their games at "pay what you want" and manage to rack up many sales they otherwise wouldn't.

Another major avenue of "attacking" the used market is just lowering the prices new. For the same % of "discount" for buying used, if games just retail for less new then the difference to used can not stay as large in absolute terms and more people would just buy new over saving such little amounts. Industry can save money by not pushing costly graphics so much (for example).

There are also solutions that already work now and don't gimp the customer too much. Encourage customers to keep their copies. Instead of giving less with "pre-paid DLC" or multiplayer only for the "new buyer", give more for buying new / original. Blizzard is a good example (or used to at least) with on-going updates and patches and free multiplayer for MANY YEARS, they encouraged players to keep their games.
For sequels, they could make you unlock stuff for inserting the previous entry in the series etc.

Ivo.

[Lokkenjawnz]

What bothers me is that the industry bigshots seem to think that people who buy a game used would have absolutely bought the game brand new if they couldn't find a used copy. So they think, well I must be losing money. But the thing is, that's not the case. At all. I for one very rarely buy games brand new, because I simply can't afford it. If I want a game enough, I may be willing to buy it brand new, but it's gotta be a pretty great game. Also, most of the games that I buy brand new have been DS and 3DS games, which top out at 40, and are often on sale. If I couldn't get these, or other games, for that cheap, honestly I wouldn't be able to buy them at all, or at least not very many of them. Moreover, the few games I buy new I'm able to afford purely because I buy my other games used. If the used game industry were to suddenly disappear, I think it would cause a massive decline in videogame sales, and would seriously hurt companies, because it would cause people to severely budget themselves as games would never be impulse purchases.

Basically, the industry either needs to bring the price of games down, or just shut the hell up. Clearly none of them understand basic economics, and moreover the concept of budget vs. wants.

So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go enjoy my used games.

[Xeogred]

Good points Ivo. And I do honestly wonder if the market simply being oversaturated is somewhat of a big issue as well. I honestly don't keep up with TV or movies that much at all, so I can't compare them, but it's almost always felt like there's just way more games being released than any other medium... and there's just simply too much at times. And if you want too new games at launch, that's going to run you over $100 right there. Two games.

[AppleQueso]

Good points Ivo. And I do honestly wonder if the market simply being oversaturated is somewhat of a big issue as well. I honestly don't keep up with TV or movies that much at all, so I can't compare them, but it's almost always felt like there's just way more games being released than any other medium... and there's just simply too much at times. And if you want too new games at launch, that's going to run you over $100 right there. Two games.

I work at wal-mart and I can say that's definitely not the case.

I think everyone agrees though that games are too expensive. New games should reach a price scheme that'd actually allow for customers to make impulse buys.

[TornadoCreator]

My stance on this is simple. I buy used ALL THE TIME! As a game collector I buy games for PS2, Dreamcast and Saturn that are 10+ years old regularly, and the idea that when I come to collect modern games for PS3/Xbox 360 I can't, that pisses me off.

There's a major issue with the "anti-used" movement at the moment. They have day-one patches and in-box codes to "unlock" parts of the game, and that seems fine until you realise something. This makes their game finite. If I want to watch Star Wars, I watch Star Wars... I don't have to log on to the Lucas site to unlock some of the scenes of the film and that film is decades old now. So what if I want to play a PS3 or Xbox 360 game in 2032 when the servers have all closed down and the game is no longer avaliable new. I have to buy a used copy and can't get the day one patches to fix this game. Now I basically have the butchered beta version of your game with bits missing because your company was more focused with making a few extra dollars rather than making an iconic game that will be remembered by future generations. I mean seriously modern games developers can't even be arsed to hire beta testers, they just expect us to test the games and release patches for the first two weeks.

This is unacceptable. As far as I'm concerned, if I hear the words "Day one patch" I just pirate the game without any remorse. Friendly torrent service here I come. If they can't be arsed to make a decent product out of the box, I can't be arsed paying for it.

As for the whole "used games hurt the industry", bullshit. Without used games there wouldn't be an industry. People buy one or two news games a year that they actually keep, unless they're games collectors or true enthusiasts. The reason the games industry can charge 5-6 times the price of a DVD and still make a profit is that people trade in the last game they bought in order to buy the new one. You buy a game for $60, trade it in for $30 and buy the next one for $60 and the pattern continues. What you're basically doing is a very expensive rental program. The thing is, if shops couldn't sell the used games on for $40 or so, they wouldn't be willing to give you that money back and you'd only be buying half as many games. Remember, that used game that you're buying has already been paid for once, so if there's loads of people buying it used, loads of people ALREADY DID buy it new. Video games are a luxury, and if you make people choose between playing AAA titles for $60 and being forced to keep them or doing something else with their money... they'll do something else. Playing them for $25-30 because they can effective trade them in and get money back takes the sting out of the price and makes it affordable for more people. If you make video games an expensive passtime, especially in such an economy, you'll find that gamers will shun the industry and start playing games in other ways. Gamers will start picking MMO's over AAA titles as an MMO is contantly updated and extremely expansive (World Of Warcraft, Aion or EVE Online could take 500+ hours to see everything and the multiplayer can easily keep people playing much longer than that). An MMO costs only $15 on average. Or they'll abandon current gen gaming and all revert to last gen gaming for single-player. PS2, Xbox, Gamecube etc. games are very cheap and rarely needed patches or codes to get the full game, so this may well breed another "Retro" gamer clique. Worst possible result though is you'll simply increase the need for piracy. Making games too expensive for us to afford won't stop us playing them, it'll just stop us paying for them... I'm sure the games industry doesn't want to recreate the video game crash of '83 but it will if they carry on.

So yeah. That's my take on this. Honestly, if games companies want to combat game piracy, they should just make shorter, cheaper games but release them at a lower price. I know it sounds silly, but a 20-30 hour full HD game is nice, but expensive, but the 3 hour non-HD (I believe) Portal cost only £10 (about $16) here and it's one of the best received games of that year. If games companies released 3 hour long budget titles, they could easily make a killing selling brand new, "cheap" games and gamers wouldn't feel cheated and would likely not consider trading them in as it wouldn't be worth it, they'd only get a couple of pound/dollars so why bother.

One last point I will make. People talk about Gamestop and it's monopoly. We don't really have that in UK. There's loads of different shops that do used games, so there's not really a monopoly to be had. But I do have a rule. I will go into the shops and ask for a new game, if the game is opened (ie. not factory sealed), I will put in a formal complaint and refuse to buy the game unless they order it in for me still sealed at the same price. My local Gamestation gives me sealed copies now and any new employees get a nasty shock if they give me an open copy when I say "so do I get the industry standard 20% discount for buying a display model game or are you going to give me a new one, and by new I mean factory sealed". They soon get the message if you do that.

[Xeogred]

Good points Ivo. And I do honestly wonder if the market simply being oversaturated is somewhat of a big issue as well. I honestly don't keep up with TV or movies that much at all, so I can't compare them, but it's almost always felt like there's just way more games being released than any other medium... and there's just simply too much at times. And if you want too new games at launch, that's going to run you over $100 right there. Two games.

I work at wal-mart and I can say that's definitely not the case.

I think everyone agrees though that games are too expensive. New games should reach a price scheme that'd actually allow for customers to make impulse buys.

1. Goes to show what I know.

2. Sounds like Steam... and yeah, it's dangerous!

[DreamcastDude]

I only buy dreamcast and saturn games from flea markets and amazon but this guy sounds like a total douche

[pepharytheworm]

What would a developer know about the impact of used sales? I think I would rather talk to someone in economics. Would a economics professor know how to develop a game? No. So why would the reverse be true.

[isiolia]

What would a developer know about the impact of used sales? I think I would rather talk to someone in economics. Would a economics professor know how to develop a game? No. So why would the reverse be true.

Well, they know they have a studio to run, and that takes money.

They know from trophy data/etc that (offhand) three million people played their game versus the two million copies they received money for.

It doesn't take an economics degree to wish you got a 50% raise. Particularly when it'd be justified by work you already do.

[pepharytheworm]

What would a developer know about the impact of used sales? I think I would rather talk to someone in economics. Would a economics professor know how to develop a game? No. So why would the reverse be true.

Well, they know they have a studio to run, and that takes money.

They know from trophy data/etc that (offhand) three million people played their game versus the two million copies they received money for.

It doesn't take an economics degree to wish you got a 50% raise. Particularly when it'd be justified by work you already do.

My point being how does that equate to loss of sales? How can he prove that all those people would have bought the game new if no used to buy and how does he prove that all the people that did buy his game new would have still bought it new if the knew they couldn't sell it back or trade games in to purchase it.