Publishers and their used games gripes.

[AppleQueso]

Games as a whole are selling better now than ever, and we still occasionally have new titles popping up in the $40 range. Why can't all titles pop up in this range? Video games have always been expensive, true, but given how much of a bigger industry gaming is now, you'd think they could afford to be even cheaper.

Most of my ps3 games were bought new, none of them were bought at $60.

[jfrost]

I think Gabe Newell suggested that the pricing scheme for new releases is wrong and should be revised a while back. Namco said so as well.

Edit: Links:
http://www.next-gen.biz/features/valve- ... -expensive
http://gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/ ... nsive.aspx

[Ack]

For the record, I suppose I should throw in something in the favor of corporations...well, specifically American ones. A recent report by the CATO Institute revealed the American corporate tax rate was about 35%, so all of the companies involved have over a third of incoming money taking by the federal government. Before anybody argues that that's not that much, consider that the average corporate tax rate is 18.2%, and that America's rate is one of the highest in the world.

Or, think about it this way. For every $60 game you buy, $20 goes to the feds.

[gtmtnbiker]

For the record, I suppose I should throw in something in the favor of corporations...well, specifically American ones. A recent report by the CATO Institute revealed the American corporate tax rate was about 35%, so all of the companies involved have over a third of incoming money taking by the federal government. Before anybody argues that that's not that much, consider that the average corporate tax rate is 18.2%, and that America's rate is one of the highest in the world.

Or, think about it this way. For every $60 game you buy, $20 goes to the feds.

Do they truly pay 35%? I doubt it. I'm constantly reading reports of companies paying very little taxes due to the way they're structured and deductions, etc.

The other aspect that hasn't been discussed is for companies to reduce their expenses in order to be profitable. One way is to do more outsourcing to China/India/Russia, etc. You can get an equivalent individual in those countries to do the same work for the 1/4 to 1/3 the cost of a comparable person in the US.

[Ack]

Oh yes, they'll structure themselves to manipulate as many loopholes as possible. It's like how at the height of his rap career, Old Dirty Bastard received food stamps thanks to a loophole in the way his income was handled, so despite being a multimillionaire he could apply for welfare. He figured if it was there, he'd use it. And who wouldn't want to find as many ways as possible to maximize profits and not have to cough up a third of one's income?

And while taxes are part of the reason companies are moving overseas, it's also due to the massive number of environmental regulations the US has in place and the expectations of the American workforce, which demands much higher wages, benefits, insurance, stock options and more, especially during economic hard times.

[weasels]

To justify the Developers stand point: If more customers were to buy a new copy of, lets say, Okami; then Clover may have been able to keep their studio open. Instead they had to shut down. Now the gaming community has lost one of its most promising developers.

While i really share your opinion with this (since clover has my top spot for best developer group ever) you should know that most of them went on and made a group called Platinum Games. if you know that group you know they made games like madworld and bayonetta (which reminds me of GODHAND in so many ways). it's a shame that capcom decided to get rid of them...but be happy they are still around making awesome game.

[FiftyDollarCurse]

So if I buy some old bookshelf second hand off of craigslist, I should give Ikea some money for it? That's bullshit.

This isn't the same thing. There's a major difference between buying and selling used items to somebody on Craigslist or a yard sale or even a pawn shop and selling your used items to a major retail corporation and them turning a 99 % profit on their re-selling of that item. Video games are an exception. You can buy used DVDs in just about everywhere but there is no GameStop equivalent in that retail space. GameStop is a racket and garbage. It also has nearly the entire video game industry over a barrel and can do anything they want to it. They stack "new" empty cases right next to their very slightly discounted used counterparts, so a developers product is essentially competing against itself. Most people don't know and/or care about the difference. This is intentional on GS's part, and downright cutthroat and dishonest.

Any way, these game developer don't seem to care so much about person-to-person selling of after market materials. But when it goes person - to major retail corporation - to person, I can understand why they'd have a problem with that.

And video games ARE too freaking expensive.

Video games are much cheaper than they used to be, at least in the US. Back in the SNES days I was paying $60-80 for a new game. Now we're 15 years later, and the standard is $50-60 for a retail release.

In the middle though, new PS1 games (except for some multi-disc games) were $40.00.

It sucks for them, but the only chance publishers have of breaking GameStop's near monopoly on dedicated video game retail is pricing their game at or below GameStop's used price. Which would result in a 'race-to-the-bottom' type situation in which we'd all get games really cheap but they would get significantly shittier as the publisher cut costs and struggle to find a profit margin.

[c0r33]

Well if game publishers would revise their pricing scheme then folks might have less incentive to buy used, hmm?

Have you saw gamestops pricing ? Most of the games now are 3 to 5 dollars less ? Oh ya the edge card I forgot 10% sweet cant be combined with other deals fuck ! Guess I cant be saving to much money for a game that anyone else at your local mom and pop shop would sell for 15 to 20 dollars less.

They dont have any reason to complain for whats happening. If they were smart they'd pull a EA and start selling DLC with all there games.

[ZeroAX]

honestly, even though I consider Americans smart consumers, the way Gamestop operates and people still buy from it buffles me. Why would anyone think of saving 3 dollars when buying something that costs 60$?


And companies imo can sue Gamestop for having the used right next to the new one, cause it could be considered a way to scam costumers, who can mix up the used with the new copy.

[MrPopo]

You can get an equivalent individual in those countries to do the same work for the 1/4 to 1/3 the cost of a comparable person in the US.

They are most certainly NOT equivalent. The quality is much lower.