I haven't played sports games regularly since the NES days so this doesn't really affect me. However, I am a huge Burnout fan and since EA owns Criterion I wonder how long before they start to carry this model over to their non-sports games.
I haven't played sports games regularly since the NES days so this doesn't really affect me. However, I am a huge Burnout fan and since EA owns Criterion I wonder how long before they start to carry this model over to their non-sports games.
ALL HAIL THE 1 2 P
Originally Posted by THE 1 2 P
EA has already started doing something like this with their games. I just got Skate 3 today and inside there was an activation code for the "Skate Share Pack" which basically just gives you access to user created skate parks and the Skate 3 news updates.
Of course all these features were available in Skate 2 without having to use any kind of activation code.
Well I have to respectfully disagree. First gamers get charged $60 for a new game, then if they choose the collector's edition of a game, it's usaully an extra $20-40 for some questionable extra content, then it's $5, $10, $15 or more for DLC, and now just because someone wants to save money by purchasing a used versus new copy of a game, they have to pay extra if they wanna play online?! Where does it stop? I know people have choices as to what they want to spend their money on, but this is just pure greed on EA's and Gamestop's part.
A large percentage of people who rush out to buy games at full price do so knowing that they can sell the copies used to get back a good portion of the purchase price(within a few months of release), since used copies will no longer be as functional they'll most likely lose a good portion of their value much sooner. When people will stop wanting to buy used copies and these customers find that their recent games are worthless, they might be discouraged from purchasing new games at full price. Where do all these game stores get used copies to resell? People trade them in for credit, and if they won't be getting a decent amount for them they'll stop buying them at full price. Either way the companies will lose money, either they sell fewer copies for more money or they'll sell more copies for less money.
Also, how much would they really be losing by keeping online play available to those who purchased used copies? Plenty of businesses that deal with online services go with the "Freemium" business model and it works for them.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/maga...urrentPage=all
But for digital products, this ratio of free to paid is reversed. A typical online site follows the 1 Percent Rule — 1 percent of users support all the rest. In the freemium model, that means for every user who pays for the premium version of the site, 99 others get the basic free version. The reason this works is that the cost of serving the 99 percent is close enough to zero to call it nothing.
True, but consumers can still complain about it. Before people could buy a used game and it would work just as well as a new copy, now they'll be forced to buy a new copy to use the same features. Of course they can still choose to avoid buying a copy at all, but it would still be annoying to them that they'd have to choose. It pretty much will force people to adopt new systems and purchase new games right away, if a person wants to get a system several years after release and a game that came out several years ago, finding a new copy of that game can be difficult.
I don't really see why they would need to worry about used sales. Books are available used. Even though there are several books that have been in print for over 100 years and are easily available used, they're still in print today which means there's still enough people wanting new copies. Just make a game really good and enough copies will sell. Imagine if used cars were banned to increase auto sales, how many people could still afford to own one? Would more people buy new cars or would less people own cars?
I think the only reason some people are freaked out because new games these days have so many extra features that old games never had, such as online play itself, the ability to add things to the game that aren't normally in it etc.
To me DLC add-ons are nothing more than synonymous to game hacks people make of the older games these days. The only difference is that they are official instead of fan-made. The companies wanted to jump on the hacking and get paid extra for it.
[quote name='Shidou Mariya' date='Nov 17 2010, 10:05 PM' post='4889940']
I'm a collector, but only to a certain extent.
Not as extreme as Rickstilwell though.[/quote]
Between hardware failures and crap like this, it's like the entire industry is daring me to never buy a current generation console or game again.
Way ahead of you, buddy. The sixth generation was my final, ultimate stopping point. I didn't and don't have the slightest desire to continue beyond that.
"As you traitors roast in your own juices, I will be safely ensconced three miles below the earth's surface, listening to my wax-cylinder player and enjoying a delicious phosphate!"
I love the games this generation but honestly, this online shit is starting to piss me off. I'm tired of having to activate things and go to websites to set em up and do updates out of the box on games. It's just dumb. I want to open it up, pop it in and start playing. I don't play online. I don't play co-op. Why are these game companies punishing ME, the consumer who's faithfully bought their products? On the other hand, I'm now able to eBay the activation codes I don't have any use for....
scooterb: "I once shot a man in Catan, just to watch him die."
I don't understand all of the hatred being sent EA's direction. Video games now cost as much to make as major motion pictures. The only avenue video game developers and publishers have to make that money back is by selling their games. Every time a used game is sold for 5 dollars less it takes money away from them. You can't tell me people paying 55 for a used game wouldn't be buying new if there was no option for a used game.
You can say that used sales hurt the movie industry just as bad but I don't believe that is true. A movie has a chance to make it's money back in theaters long before anyone is selling used dvds. Video games only have the one chance to make money for the companies and that is with new game sales. Yes, with DLC there is now more of an opportunity to make money back but making 5 dollars here and there doesn't offset however many 60 dollar purchases were lost due to games being bought used for 55.
The point is, they don't HAVE to. They could make games cheaper. They could make movies a lot cheaper, too. But they spend a lot of money on stupid shit (graphics, online modes for games that don't need them/excessive actor wages, drugs) and ignore what makes the product actually desirable (gameplay, few bugs/a decent story, acting, etc). What percentage of the budget on these things is just for the hype machine? If the industry wanted to go back to less over-the-top expensive products, they could. But instead of actually changing their methods, they choose to place the blame on other companies, and make the consumer pay for it. Everything is going down this road of make the customer pay as much as possible for as little control as possible. It's lame. It will continue to happen as long as customers let it happen.
But really, games cost too much to make? Make some cheaper games!
There are plenty of inexpensive and even free games out there. If you don't like big budget games, just don't buy them. I can't understand why people are always complaining about how expensive new games are when it's not a necessity to buy them and there are literally more games than one person could ever play in a lifetime available for free or cheap starting with the earliest classic systems straight through to indie games on the PC.
Your argument falls apart when you consider that "catalog" book publishing (i.e. the classics) only accounts for a very small percentage of total book sales. For some publishers, it's less than 10% of revenue. Publishers make their money on best sellers just like Hollywood makes money on blockbuster movies and video game companies make 100% of their money on new game sales and DLC. Books wear out and people actually enjoy going to a theater for a different experience than they can get at home. Video game companies don't really have the same advantages. A used copy of a game is for all intents and purposes identical to a new one to most gamers.
Glad I don't care for most EA titles.
I agree, I've found plenty of freeware games that are worth playing and plenty are way better than titles available at stores. I'm also pretty sure most of the people who feel new games are too expensive avoid buying them. Excluding portable systems, the most current system I have is either the PS1 or N64 and I got those used, I pretty much just stick to the older systems. There are several current games that interest me, but I'm not going to buy a new system just to play a handful of games on each of them.
It's because most people already have the classics in their collections, they've been in print long enough for most people to have already owned them at one point. They are still popular enough to be in print though, and I'm sure if new books are written well enough they'll also stay in print long enough to become classics. They're not best sellers anymore but they still bring in money. You really shouldn't compare the percentage of sales of the publishers when what counts is what each author gets. Count how much money an author(or their estate) got since their book first got published, if it stayed in print for over 100 years that would still be more money than what a best seller would get if only in print for 6 months. Think of each game developer as an author, not a publisher. The better the game the longer it will stay in print and the more money the developer will get.
If the games are good enough they'll still sell. Seeing a movie once in theaters is about $10-$15, while getting a new game to play once is around $50-$60. If people like the movie they'll buy the DVD so they can watch it over and over again. Sure you can play the game more than once since you've bought it, but you'll only want to if it's good enough. If it's bad, there's a good chance you won't even finish it once. If more people felt that the games were good enough to keep playing, they'll be willing to buy a new copy rather than a used one. Plenty of people buy a used copy, play the game until they get bored, and trade it in again. Who cares about condition if you're planning to sell it once you're done? That same used copy can sell over and over again if it keeps getting traded in, to prevent that from happening make the game actually good so it won't get traded in. The more it sucks the more people don't want to keep it so it becomes available to buy used.
Whether a game is good or not isn't a basis on why people purchase used. Most people aren't collectors of games, etc. The benefits Gamestop offers for buying a game at used price far outweigh the new price of a game if the average gamer.
Gamestop is $5 less but gives you the option of an additional 10% off with the Edge card and they use this as another selling point. The Edge card gives you an additional 10% off plus a year subscription of Game Informer magazine for $12 a year(is it still $12? I remember back before the merger it was $10.) A $60 game that's used will be $55, then $5.50 off with the Edge card, so the gamer is really paying $49.50 which is 200% mark up from trade in and 100% profit for Gamestop.
Another thing employees at Gamestop are told to do is to let the customer know their seven day return policy. It doesn't matter if you like the game, hate the game, it doesn't work, whatever. If you purchase Final Fantasy 13 and play it for six days straight and then return it or happen to play it an hour but absolutely hate it, you will be given store credit since it's within that seven days. That keeps the person having to buy something at their store(new or used though,) and then they will always say that you can purchase another game and again return it.
With this seven day return policy, Gamestop knows that some gamers may want to finish it, forget about returning it or even like it enough to keep it. The fact that they have insane mark up on used games, they're making a ton of money off the games to not care if someone repeatedly comes in, beats a game, then switches it out with another.
Everything in the above post is opinion unless stated otherwise.
But you don't take into consideration the number of people(I'm sure it's a big figure) who just buy to play and then trade in for the next big thing, regardless of how "good" the game actually is. What about those who dumped Modern Warfare 2 for Battlefield 2? Or those who will buy NCAA 11 and then turn around and dump it for Madden 11? One could easily compile a list of titles this would work for.
Really, all this should mean is that GameStop/used shops will have to charge $10 less for the used copy, putting the price with a new online code back at what it was.
I dunno if GS would do that though, but they'd have to consider that an extra $10 a person would have to spend on a game after-the-fact would make that $50-55 used game seem much less appealing, regardless of an Edge card bonus...they'd just be better off buying new, and then GameStop would lose that margin in used software.
But, that would also mean less in trade-in value, thereby making some people more reluctant to getting rid of the game.
I think that a tiered pricing system would work for used software-a certain used price for no online, and a certain price for a game with a new code at point-of-sale. It might keep everyone happy(to a certain extent).
RIP bargora, you will be greatly missed.That is how we do things on Giedion Prime.
The point I was getting at was that if a game is really good, there won't be as many used copies available to buy as more people would be willing to keep them. It's not like there won't be any used copies, but there won't be tons available so people would just get new copies if they couldn't find used ones.
I remember when the Edge card first got started, it came with a subscription of GMR magazine and I believe it cost $24.99. The membership was for 10 months and I didn't even save enough to break even, I never bothered with that again. I remember it was for 10 months because the card expired in less than a year and I didn't get all of the issues in the mail though I was told it would be for 12 months. I should point out that where I am the stores are called EB Games, but they're owned by Gamestop and have accessories branded as Gamestop.
I remember when the return policy was 14 days, and you could only return something if something was wrong with it. I haven't kept up to date with all of their return policies.
Very true, a lot of people do this. While used copies will still be available, the number will be reduced. Instead of a game being resold 5-6 times before someone keeps it for good, it may be resold 2-3 times before being kept. If a game is good, it's more likely that more people will buy and keep it.
I'm really just tired of game companies blaming used sales for their lack of profits, plenty of other industries deal with the same thing yet are still doing fine. For example, if you buy a used hammer at a yard sale you're hurting the companies that make hammers. As I've mentioned earlier, would anyone put up with auto makers forcing people to buy new cars if they needed another one? Just imagine if you weren't allowed to buy used cars, if you wanted another one you could only scrap your old one and could only buy a new one. I'm sure used cars are big sellers so that would greatly affect the industry, but that just won't fly.
the industry certainly dont have a problem paying you to astroturf on message boards defending their practices do they?
I'm only stating my opinion. I don't care one way or the other about EA sports games, I don't play them. All that i'm saying is that I understand why such practices are being put in place and I don't have a problem with them. I know i'm in the minority but I buy every game that I want the first week it comes out new for full price. I want the money i'm spending to support the people making and producing the games that I enjoy.
The current generation is probably going to be my final. I'm behind on even my Gamecube stuff, I think. Unless games like LostWinds and Mega Man 9 & 10 get a disc release in the future though, I might be compelled to keep downloading stuff.
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