No developer or publisher sees a cent from a resold key. It's the digital equivalent of buying used.
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The Evil Within 2 releases in 2 days
- Thread starter Dusk Golem
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No developer or publisher sees a cent from a resold key. It's the digital equivalent of buying used.
Tomorrow during the day at the earliest I'd say. Friday morning at the latest. It's gonna show up in that download link before you get a confirmation email, so your best bet is to sadly just check that link every so often.
I was talking more about the sale "pipeline" rather than money form the sale of a resold key.
I couldn't resist and watched Aris playing up to chapter 3 last night. The game looks great, and seemed very interesting, even if way more distinct from the first one than I was expecting, but that can be a good thing.
But holy shit, people like to talk in this game. Jesus Christ, they never shut up, you even have your typical Open World RPG Dialogue shitty camera work and dialogue options to know more random shit. It's been a while since I last played the first, but I don't remember characters talking nonstop like this. I was also glad at first that they kept the iconic "what the fuck?", but he says this all the damn time, they really embraced the meme, it's awful.
But holy shit, people like to talk in this game. Jesus Christ, they never shut up, you even have your typical Open World RPG Dialogue shitty camera work and dialogue options to know more random shit. It's been a while since I last played the first, but I don't remember characters talking nonstop like this. I was also glad at first that they kept the iconic "what the fuck?", but he says this all the damn time, they really embraced the meme, it's awful.
As long as I have it Friday morning to set to download before I go to work I'll be okay.
I hope they release it tomorrow morning since you can VPN and play it in 26 or 27h. I won't be home over the weekend T_T
Fancy Clown
Member
Woof.
Does the beginning of the game look good? As in, does it throw you into the core gameplay pretty quickly or is there a lot of handholding, walk and talk, story stuff you have to scrape through to get to the good stuff?
sooo I bought my copy from CDkeys, and now it's asking me to enter my phone number for verification. That's alright, I live in Kuwait and they got that as an option. I enter the phone number and it asks me to enter a valid phone number. It still has the sample Kuwaiti phone number have only 7 digits, even though all Kuwaiti phone numbers upgraded to 8 digits years ago.
so.......now what?
so.......now what?
Ah. I believe CD Keys purchases it copies wholesale, so:
Code:
CD Keys purchases from distributor -> distributor pockets x% and gives publisher y%
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Customer purchases from CD Keys -> CD Keys pockets 100%They get the initial sale. They get nothing from the resale. Its not really like the digital equivalent of buying used, since someone isn't selling on a copy that they have already played, everyone is buying it to play it. Its basically the same as any retail except the initial sale step is repeated.
If they buy from a distributor then its exactly the same as retail sales.
Thats how retail sales works.
Code:
Insert Retail Store here purchases from distributor -> distributor pockets x% and gives publisher y%
\
Customer purchases from Insert Retail Store here -> Insert Retail Store here [B]gets 100% of the profit[/B]Its not like the devs get literally nothing. The get a cut just like they would in most retail situations like walmart etc.
There's some forced walk and talk at the beginning, but it puts you right into the crazy stuff surprisingly quickly, for how the story is set up. And the intro credits are really classy, this is the part I regret spoiling to myself the most, it was seriously impressive.
As someone who hates forced slow walking, I can't say it didn't bother me, but it also bothered me in the first game, so if you were ok with that one, you'll probably be ok with this one too.
Fancy Clown
Member
Word, yeah the first game was tolerable in this regard since fortunately it didnt have too much of them. I was worried that the expanded focus on narrative in this one would mean a lot more of that kind of shit and result in Naughty Dog-tier slow rollout of gameplay systems but without ND quality presentation and writing.
I just wanted to point out that Valve does not charge a fee to generate a Steam key.
I realise that Bethesda receives money from the distributor from which CD Keys purchases the stock. That's why I said "CD Keys purchases from distributor -> distributor pockets x% and gives publisher y%". My point is that the "initial sale" is not the transaction with the customer.
I think you've misunderstood. I was illustrating the operational pipeline of CD Keys, not arguing that buying from CD Keys is not comparable to buying from a physical retailer. Digital retail -- that is, stores that sell digital keys and are officially affiliated with publishers -- is a different matter as, unlike physical retail, "stock" (i.e. the keys) isn't purchased but rather provided for free as there are no tangible costs associated with distribution. That's why such stores and digital distribution platforms like Steam, PSN and XBL cannot adjust the prices of or discount third-party titles of their own accord -- they don't own what they're selling.
You said its like buying used digital previously.
MiamiWesker
Member
Same situation as me, I need to travel to help my parents move so I'm not even leaving for pleasure. Crappy weekend.
I wasn't sure where they stood after the whole key reselling thing that happened a little while ago. Where devs were asking for thousands of keys to give away or sell at a lower price than what they were asking for on Steam.
Also, after derailing the thread with the morality of CDKeys (sorry about that), I caved and grabbed a copy. Codes seem to be going out now. Preloading as I type this.
The point being that there are no other parties involved in that transaction. The money you part with in exchange for your key belongs entirely to CD Keys. Yes, that technically also describes a physical retail transaction, but I wasn't arguing otherwise. I compared a CD Keys purchase with buying a used game because, in a practical sense, buying an unwanted physical key from CD Keys and buying someone's unwanted physical game aren't dissimilar.
Streams/YouTube playthroughs up to chapter 6 have started since Monday in all three platforms.
It is very dissimilar. One results in two customers single sale, the other is one customer single sale. Thats not even remotely the same. In the first case if there were two customers the publisher gets only one sale, in the second its one for one.
I'm just going to internalize my own dialogue while playing:
Seb: How could they do this to Lily? She's just a kid, man.
Seb: These streets and hills are so silent.
Seb: What an obscura creature.
Seb: Not another evil residence.
Seb: You know Kidman, we really are the last of you and me.
Seb: Remember Joseph?
Can you delineate the qualitative difference between someone reselling a physical game and CD Keys reselling a physical key?
I'm assuming he'll feature at some point seeing as he wasn't in a bathtub at the end of 1
I think he's saying that in the scenario with the used buyer, it's a potential lost sale(s) for the original supplier/pub. In practice. I.e. even though CDkeys buys the copies wholesale beforehand, they would have to order more from the supplier if one more person wanted to buy from them but they didn't have a copy already in-stock.
Maybe not. I don't know how CDkeys actually does things.
In the first case if there were two customers the publisher gets only one sale, in the second its one for one.
In CDkeys way of doing it its sell through, devs still get money for a sale and a single customer gets the game. Publisher>Distributor>CDKeys>Customer.
In used sales it isnt. Publisher>Distributor>Gamestop>Customer1>Gamestop>Customer2. Two sales Two customers one sale for devs.
Thats exactly right.
They released the keys. If you didn't get an email notification just go to the first order notification you got after buying the game and click the "download" link, keys will be there.
Thanks! I got my email but I can't activate it until after work. My wife doesn't know how to use steam either so I will have to wait.
Oh. You're saying that the comparison doesn't hold up when removed from the context of resale revenue and applied macro-cosmically. I don't disagree.
I can see the equivalence from Sersha's point of view. As in the supplier is probably getting paid only once in some/most cases.
If you purchase a key from CD Keys, you're buying a resold key that has already been purchased and therefore none of your money goes to any party involved with the making of the product or its distribution.
If you purchase a physical game from someone who no longer wants it, you're buying a resold game that has already been purchased and therefore none of your money goes to any party involved with the making of the product or its distribution.
The fact that used games can themselves be resold is beyond the scope of the discussion.
If you buy a new game from Gamestop, you are buying a game thats already been purchased and therefore none of your money goes to any other party involved. You are completely missing the point. This is how sales and distribution works. How used sales works is the game is sold N times to N customers and the developer only saw one sale.
Its not like CD Keys is selling one key that can be activated multiple times and only cost them the cost of one sale.
Yes, you said that earlier, and I said this:
No, I realise your point is that buying used is worse because that copy be bought and sold multiple times, but as I said literally just a few minutes ago, that's tangential. The context of the discussion here is whether purchasing a resold key counts as a sale for the publisher. It doesn't.
MikeBison
Member
Then why are the publishers selling to those distributors?
It's totally a consumers right to go and get the best price available as long as the key isn't known to be stolen or whatever.
Yes and I said you are still wrong, it isn't like used sales at all. Because in the whole pipeline a used sale results in the developer/publish only getting one sale for n customers. In the whole pipeline of reselling keys the publisher gets one sale per key. Its not similar in the slightest, because it isn't an unwanted physical key, it was bought with the intention for sale, not bought with the intention to play. It is not majorly different to how green man gaming or any other digital sales platform handles it the difference lies within there being an extra middle man or distributor. Thats it.
I'm not arguing that it's wrong for consumers to take advantage of globalisation.
MikeBison
Member
cdkeys and other resellers aren't really new though. I imagine if the publishers were being hurt by it they would have said something by now or tried to crack down on it.
Since you missed my edit:
I realise that. I bought my first resold key in August 2011.
Late edit: Make that July 2011. I was close!
But that makes no sense at all.
In order for CD-Keys to sell 100 copies of a game, the publisher has to receive for 100 copies of the game. But the same used game can be sold 100 times while the publisher gets their share once.
If you don't disagree that this also applies to a retail sale of a new copy of the game, then how can you explain your logic that is now saying that a new physical game is the same as a used physical game from the publisher's perspective?
Mrstriker09
Member
Any way to play this early tomorrow? Waiting tell friday sucks
My argument hasn't changed. I made the comparison to illustrate that, when purchasing a game from CD Keys, the publisher doesn't receive a cut of that transaction. That's the context and I agree with CryptiK that the comparison falls apart when applied at a broader level. Also, as I've already mentioned, I didn't specify "buying used" because "buying from a physical retailer" would be invalid.
Resold keys count as a sale. So yes they do. The key has to be purchased first. By that logic nothing in the retail space counts as a sale for the creator ever.
FlibbertiGibbet
Member
My code was just sent from CD Keys.
"Purchasing a resold key" refers to the customer purchasing the key being resold, not the reseller making the initial purchase of the key.
IlGialloMondadori
Member
Damn, where my key at?
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