Publishers and their used games gripes.

[gtmtnbiker]

Good comments from everyone here. Regarding the salaries of programmers and custodians, it's truly a case of supply-and-demand. When there's little supply, the salary goes up. When there's larger supply, the salary is constant or may go down.

In the late 90s, there was a big job boom (.com boom) in the software industry in Mass. Not enough people to fill the positions. Salaries went up. I hired someone a year out of grad school at $80K+ when normally it would be around $60K+. We had to offer that because the pool of qualified candidates was low. We also would resort to hiring people with visas from China/India. Then a year or two later, the .com boom went bust. The guy I hired was laid off along with some other people in my group.

Fast forward 12 years later, the starting salary for someone relatively new out of grad school, 1-2 years experience, it's 60K. My own salary has seen very small increases in the past 7-8 years.

Regarding custodians or burger flippers making $7-8 per hour. At that pay rate, they're able to attract sufficient candidates. If they didn't, they would offer more money (they did during the .com boom in the 90s).

[jp1]

I think you overestimate how big that demographic is, but I also don't think that's the demographic they're concerned with. I think the demographic they're really targeting is the patient gamer who would probably buy the game new, but he'd rather wait a few weeks for the used copies to show up and knock $5-10 off the price.

Gamestop is successful in used games for a reason. It is impossible to determine what percentage of that used games sales represents the demographic I'm talking about but I have a hard time believing that all of these people that trade in their games left and right would be content to still purchase them at the same price if that service didn't exist.

Also, your whole "they want to sell back games that suck" thing is a tiny portion of buyers. If you're protecting yourself from shitty games by selling them back then you shouldn't be allowed to handle money; at best you'll get 50% back of what you paid. There are professional reviewers out there who can give a good rundown of the game; I"m not even talking about looking at scores, just the descriptions of what they liked and didn't like. And sure, you'll still find a game or two that doesn't click with you, but if it's 1-2 games a year it's not a big deal if you can sell a game back or not.

This doesn't really apply to me because I don't participate in trading games in at Gamestop. However, I don't put much stock in reviewers opinions. I see games or movies for that matter with wonderful reviews that I end up hating. I also see games I love with terrible reviews. Just because some guy has been offered a position to post his opinion about something online it doesn't make it a safeguard against getting a shitty product. Of course you have the option of rentals, until the industry gets their way and kills that too. They don't want you being able to rent the game and find out it isn't worth owning so they don't support that market either. Even though game rentals do support developers because all of those copies have to be purchased by the rental outlets.


I should be clear about one thing. I have no problem supporting developers. I purchase new games just as often as used ones. I usually wait for the price point to be reduced or for the game to be on clearance. If these guys would give an ounce of respect to the consumers that support their business when they open their mouth or pass along some portion of the immense savings they get from things like digital distribution (which they happily support because it kills the used market) they would see a lot more of my money. I will not pay full retail price for a digital copy of a game. I will never do that. I don't expect it at wholesale or anything because I know there are still costs associated with digital distribution but they are lower than that of retail and these guys want to hold on to every cent of that savings while it should be a two way street. I'm not getting a nice tangible product that I can keep as long as I want or trade or sell so I shouldn't have to pay as much for it.

And who says that just because these guys spend a lot of money and time making something that they are entitled to see a certain return. I don't see that kind of guarantee for any other industry. Movies flop, car companies go under, music labels close, clothing labels disappear, food companies close down, any business can fail. The business that sticks around for 100+ years is the one that gives the consumer what they want not the business that demands from the consumer what they believe they are entitled to.

I honestly don't know why I'm bothered with all of this because the only current gen console I own is the Wii. I'm happy to buy the first party titles for it brand new because I know they will be good and hold their value for the most part.

[MrPopo]

And who says that just because these guys spend a lot of money and time making something that they are entitled to see a certain return. I don't see that kind of guarantee for any other industry. Movies flop, car companies go under, music labels close, clothing labels disappear, food companies close down, any business can fail. The business that sticks around for 100+ years is the one that gives the consumer what they want not the business that demands from the consumer what they believe they are entitled to.

Yes, any business can fail. A good business notices when it starts to lose money and takes steps to prevent that. Those steps can be any number of things, in this case requiring people to pay money to get everything the guy who buys new gets.

[Flake]

Yes, any business can fail. A good business notices when it starts to lose money and takes steps to prevent that. Those steps can be any number of things, in this case requiring people to pay money to get everything the guy who buys new gets.

And alienate people from your brand? That sounds like a step in the wrong direction. Maybe a better step would be to take a page from the piracy advocacy handbook (which I can't believe I'm about to do because I hate piracy) and use this logic:

If you charge more than someone is willing to pay, you can not count that person as a potential or lost sale.

Used games prove people are willing to pay for what they are getting but publishers all stick to this Wii games cost $49.99 and Xbox/PS3 games cost $59.99 schtick instead of actually pricing their games for the realities of the market. Instead of this 'we are special and should be protected' BS, publishers need to instead identify the relative elasticity of demand whenever they put out a new game and price accordingly.

[MrPopo]

Yes, any business can fail. A good business notices when it starts to lose money and takes steps to prevent that. Those steps can be any number of things, in this case requiring people to pay money to get everything the guy who buys new gets.

And alienate people from your brand? That sounds like a step in the wrong direction. Maybe a better step would be to take a page from the piracy advocacy handbook (which I can't believe I'm about to do because I hate piracy) and use this logic:

If you charge more than someone is willing to pay, you can not count that person as a potential or lost sale.

Used games prove people are willing to pay for what they are getting but publishers all stick to this Wii games cost $49.99 and Xbox/PS3 games cost $59.99 schtick instead of actually pricing their games for the realities of the market. Instead of this 'we are special and should be protected' BS, publishers need to instead identify the relative elasticity of demand whenever they put out a new game and price accordingly.

Yes and no. Again, you're ignoring a demographic of consumers; people who are willing to wait a month to get the same product as the guy who bought new but for cheaper. DVDs/CDs are the only other product I can think of where there really is no downside to buying used vs. new. Steps like this gets rid of that demographic. Some of them will switch to buying new games because they want the full product, and half will go to used games because price is the important part. Then at that point a more informed decision about the price of video games can be made.

[ZeroAX]

Imo the console change every 5 years is to blame. Companies wouldn't have a problem making a 50$ million game and selling it for 30$ if they had the install base of the PS2 to sell it to.

[jp1]

Imo the console change every 5 years is to blame. Companies wouldn't have a problem making a 50$ million game and selling it for 30$ if they had the install base of the PS2 to sell it to.

This begs the question though why aren't they still producing more PS2 games? I mean the user base is enormous and it is still a viable option. Instead of releasing 1 or 2 down ports on the thing every year keep the games coming. No need to worry about HD just make great games at a lower price than the current gen crap and have a market for those of us who don't want to pay $60 a pop. The old console doesn't have to die out just because the new one comes along. Why aren't the higher quality titles dropping since they have had plenty of time to know the machine inside and out. It seems like this will be the first console to get garbage games late in it's life cycle instead of ones that amaze people.

I still have to disagree with you MrPopo about the steps they are taking being rational. There isn't any more to say than I simply disagree. It isn't rational to try and take control over a product you have already been paid for and demand extra money. They essentially want the used game to cost the same as the new game in order to kill that market. It might solve the problem they have with "losing" revenue although I think you are overestimating how much revenue they are actually "losing". Still it is treating your customer base like shit and that isn't a smart business decision ever. If they have a problem with not getting a piece of the pie on used sales then they need to take it up with Gamestop NOT with the consumer. Better yet offer trade in incentives and used sales directly from their own venue instead of trying to jump in and take over a business they don't have any right to be involved in.

If I want a piece of the used car market then I would start selling used cars and taking trade ins. I wouldn't go demanding that every person who purchases a used car send me $10. Once the game is sold they don't own it anymore and they shouldn't be concerned with it ever again unless they want to take an interest in buying it back.

[MrPopo]

I still have to disagree with you MrPopo about the steps they are taking being rational. There isn't any more to say than I simply disagree. It isn't rational to try and take control over a product you have already been paid for and demand extra money.

One more time. And this ties in with your used car analogy. A used video game and a new video game are completely equivalent from a consumer perspective. This is different from basically every other consumer item out there, including cars. What the publishers are trying to do is create a divide between a new copy and a used copy. It is then up to the consumer to decide if the downsides to buying used outweigh the price differential. Just like when you buy a used car, you have to take into account the additional mileage and the fact that the warrenty might have been completely used up. The difference with the video games vs. the car is that with the video games the extra cost the consumer might have to bare go to the publisher, while with a car those costs usually go to the dealer.

I think the main point we differ is that you see them as tyring to get a piece of the used game pie, while I see them as incentivizing the consumer to purchase new.

[jp1]

Incentivizing would imply giving something additional to the new game purchaser not penalizing the used games consumer.

The car analogy doesn't matter it isn't as if I'm implying used cars and used games are similar I'm simply using it to illustrate that if you want a part of a market you should make some effort and earn it not try and take it by brute force while justifying those means by saying you deserve it because you don't make as much as you want.

You can word it any way you like but creating a fee for an object you have already been paid for is not much better than theft in my eyes.

[jp1]

Also, the new vs used being the same is debatable but assuming that nobody cares about a disc being scratched or missing manuals or otherwise that is still just the nature of the product and they should find a better way to circumvent that than to just create fees out of thin air.