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[travisbickle]

Bioshock
Vanquish
Ico
Fatal Frame
Limbo
Contra: SS
Braid
Portal

I don't see how any of these were affected by lack of DRM? You've even put a Valve game in there!!

 

[Halcyon]

There doesn't need to be a huge discussion. Let them put it on the market then just don't buy it.

I'd you're afraid mass market will buy it, let them then when these 'features' start showing their colors it will have an impact on sales.


I'll still buy a ps4 even if they have the same type of DRM but I guarantee you I will only buy 2 or 3 games a year at most.

 

[unbias]

Open Source used economic analysis of used games in a used games topic, while faceless007 used a look-how-inept-others-are-so-you-better-respect-my-rights emotional appeal. We can see which approach wins more support on GAF.

No he did not, not even a little, he just knows enough to say things that would give him an F if he was writing a college thesis. Neither are you, I've already explained starting on page 24 how the 2nd hand market is looked at by every industry, not the game industry. You guys want to believe in the magical belief that the 2nd hand market is forgone growth, based on preconceptions, instead of economic norms. There is absolutely nothing that shows that the 2nd hand market of video games acts in anyway different then the other industry. There is definitely nothing that even hints that the 2nd hand market is forgone growth of new games. The idea is for the ignorant or purposely manipulative(publicly traded companies).

By all means believe in anything you want, but dont start spouting that him or you are using what resembles economic analysis.

 

[Mael]

No he did not, not even a little, he just knows enough to say things that would give him an F if he was writing a college thesis. Neither are you, I've already explained starting on page 24 how the 2nd hand market is looked at by every industry, not the game industry. You guys want to believe in the magical belief that the 2nd hand market is forgone growth, based on preconceptions, instead of economic norms. There is absolutely nothing that shows that the 2nd hand market of video games acts in anyway different then the other industry. There is definitely nothing that even hints that the 2nd hand market is forgone growth of new games. The idea is for the ignorant or purposely manipulative(publicly traded companies).

By all means believe in anything you want, but dont start spouting that him or you are using what resembles economic analysis.

Well bad use of economic analysis is still a use of economic analysis...

 

[Xenon]

apparantly Gamestop and etc fill a void in the market

More like created it. The company is nothing more than a fat leech that has gotten bigger with its host. There is a reason why the only used product Best Buy sells in it's stores is video games. Game developers and producers have every right to try and combat Game Stop's aggressive tactics in selling used games. Just like people have every right not to buy it and bitch about it. But just because it goes against the way things were or are does not make it anti-consumer. Steam proved that the model works and has value.

Personally I think removing the used element from console gaming could be a good thing. All the high five-ing in this thread over the current state of AAA development falling on the developers is a bit one sided. The consumers and used market also are to blame for the current state of things. Publishers are just giving the people what they want to buy. If gamers couldn't trade in their games after a few weeks they would be less likely to buy shallow graphical showpieces.

 

[unbias]

Well bad use of economic analysis is still a use of economic analysis...

I'm not even sure it qualifies as "Economic" analysis, it is creating preconception on how the economy works(which is wrong) about something and adding that preconception on the market. Maybe industry analysts, but you cant just ignore how the economy works by saying the second hand market in the game industry doesn't act like economic norms, when everything it does points to it acting like 2nd hand market norms.

I mean that is like listening to your employee who never watches baseball start talking about why WAR stats are overrated. I mean, I don't think I would call that a sports analysis...

 

[Mael]

More like created it. The company is nothing more than a fat leech that has gotten bigger with its host. There is a reason why the only used product Best Buy sells in it's stores is video games. Game developers and producers have every right to try and combat Game Stop's aggressive tactics in selling used games. Just like people have every right not to buy it and bitch about it. But just because it goes against the way things were or are does not make it anti-consumer. Steam proved that the model works and has value.

Personally I think removing the used element from console gaming could be a good thing. All the high five-ing in this thread over the current state of AAA development falling on the developers is a bit one sided. The consumers and used market also are to blame for the current state of things. Publishers are just giving the people what they want to buy. If gamers couldn't trade in their games after a few weeks they would be less likely to buy shallow graphical showpieces.

AHAH, now the customers are to blame because they don't buy enough of the products?
It's like the existence of these companies are something mandated by god!

I'm not even sure it qualifies as "Economic" analysis, it is creating preconception on how the economy works(which is wrong) about something and adding that preconception on the market. Maybe industry analysts, but you cant just ignore how the economy works but saying the second hand market in the game industry doesn't act like economic norms, when everything it does points to it acting like 2nd hand market norms.

I mean that is like listening to your employee who never watches baseball start talking about why WAR stats are overrated. I mean, I don't think I would call that a sports analysis...

Well that's still a ridiculously stupid analysis.
Now if we were arguing that it had any value...

 

[unbias]

More like created it. The company is nothing more than a fat leech that has gotten bigger with its host. There is a reason why the only used product Best Buy sells in it's stores is video games. Game developers and producers have every right to try and combat Game Stop's aggressive tactics in selling used games. Just like people have every right not to buy it and bitch about it. But just because it goes against the way things were or are does not make it anti-consumer. Steam proved that the model works and has value.

Personally I think removing the used element from console gaming could be a good thing. All the high five-ing in this thread over the current state of AAA development falling on the developers is a bit one sided. The consumers and used market also are to blame for the current state of things. Publishers are just giving the people what they want to buy. If gamers couldn't trade in their games after a few weeks they would be less likely to buy shallow graphical showpieces.

Every industry has the right, just no other industry is dumb enough to actively try and get rid of the 2nd hand market, they understand it isn't forgone growth.

 

[Kingbrave]

More like created it. The company is nothing more than a fat leech that has gotten bigger with its host. There is a reason why the only used product Best Buy sells in it's stores is video games. Game developers and producers have every right to try and combat Game Stop's aggressive tactics in selling used games. Just like people have every right not to buy it and bitch about it. But just because it goes against the way things were or are does not make it anti-consumer. Steam proved that the model works and has value.

Personally I think removing the used element from console gaming could be a good thing. All the high five-ing in this thread over the current state of AAA development falling on the developers is a bit one sided. The consumers and used market also are to blame for the current state of things. Publishers are just giving the people what they want to buy. If gamers couldn't trade in their games after a few weeks they would be less likely to buy shallow graphical showpieces.

More like they are chasing that COD money.

 

[NullPointer]

If gamers couldn't trade in their games after a few weeks they would be less likely to buy shallow graphical showpieces.

But since gamers *can* trade their games in right away it makes sense to create and publish shallow graphical showpieces?

And if publishers are just giving us what we want, which is it that we want again? The shallow graphical showpieces or the long term value replayable ones?

Just trying to understand the arguments being made.

 

[bernardobri]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

*golf clap*

Well said.

 

[BlastProcessing]

More like created it. The company is nothing more than a fat leech that has gotten bigger with its host. There is a reason why the only used product Best Buy sells in it's stores is video games. Game developers and producers have every right to try and combat Game Stop's aggressive tactics in selling used games. Just like people have every right not to buy it and bitch about it. But just because it goes against the way things were or are does not make it anti-consumer. Steam proved that the model works and has value.

Personally I think removing the used element from console gaming could be a good thing. All the high five-ing in this thread over the current state of AAA development falling on the developers is a bit one sided. The consumers and used market also are to blame for the current state of things. Publishers are just giving the people what they want to buy. If gamers couldn't trade in their games after a few weeks they would be less likely to buy shallow graphical showpieces.

So when publishers give people what they want to buy it is just the free market working. When Gamestop gives the people what they want to buy it is "leeching". Makes perfect sense.

 

[Cynar]

No he did not, not even a little, he just knows enough to say things that would give him an F if he was writing a college thesis. Neither are you, I've already explained starting on page 24 how the 2nd hand market is looked at by every industry, not the game industry. You guys want to believe in the magical belief that the 2nd hand market is forgone growth, based on preconceptions, instead of economic norms. There is absolutely nothing that shows that the 2nd hand market of video games acts in anyway different then the other industry. There is definitely nothing that even hints that the 2nd hand market is forgone growth of new games. The idea is for the ignorant or purposely manipulative(publicly traded companies).

By all means believe in anything you want, but dont start spouting that him or you are using what resembles economic analysis.

I think I love you.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

Fantastic. Send this to any idiot who tries to defend this shit.

 

[vpance]

But since gamers *can* trade their games in right away it makes sense to create and publish shallow graphical showpieces?

And if publishers are just giving us what we want, which is it that we want again? The shallow graphical showpieces or the long term value replayable ones?

Just trying to understand the arguments being made.

In a perfect world, IMO publishers should be able to greenlight any kind of game, whether super replayable or cinematic fest, for budgets big and small.

One argument is because games nowadays are so shallow which is why we trade them in so quickly. But shallow is subjective to each player anyways. I don't think that's the main reason but it is one of them.

The other argument is that if pubs made money more easily then riskier or more interesting titles could be made. How they do that without pissing off the parties involved is the main question.

 

[neorej]

The next Xbox will just require you to insert a new game every week, to keep the industry healthy.

 

[BrokenEchelon]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

 

[Neuromancer]

faceless007 you're my hero.

 

[Anth0ny]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

One of the best posts I've ever seen.

 

[hardcastlemccormick]

The consumers and used market also are to blame for the current state of things. Publishers are just giving the people what they want to buy.

Who is asking for games that cost into $100 million dollars and took an entire generation to make? Who is asking for developers to put their entire company, even their publisher, on the line? Who is asking for them to bet the future life if a new or old IP on a brand new iteration of the franchise - pinning further development on a single game? Who is asking for increasingly bland experiences with badazzling but empty aesthetics? Who is asking for four-to-six hour experiences with no replay value? Who asked for taking an old classic IP and stripping it of any originality? Who asked for sequels slowly strangling the series of any uniqueness or creativity?

Apparently not that many people are asking for all of these, or else the gaming industry would be getting the sales it needs to survive.

The industry aimed too high, suddenly started ballooning budgets, and then went "oh god there aren't any sales here to cover it up." Their response to this? Homogenize, wring the AAA space of any creativity and put the advertising on full blast. But we can't have smaller budgets, oh no. We've got to have our mo-capped dogs and celebrity voice actors that nobody asked for. We've got to cover the cost of letting you develop your game for five years because you have no direction. We've got to cover you trying to wedge into an already saturated market of shooters and brown, and then failing miserably. We've got to cover for you making games that nobody asked for and nobody will buy.

And then, time and time again, the consumers are expected to show up at the door every time these developers come out with some new way to make the package look worse. Oh, now you get half the content. Oh, now we're going to sell you that content back to you over a period of a year. Oh, now we're placing your game's access on computers you don't control, and then those computers won't work. Oh, now you can't sell it when the game turns out to be shit, just like the last AAA overhyped mess. Oh, now the game doesn't actually belong to you, it never did. How is any of that giving the consumers what they want? The publishers have a vision of what consumers should want, and then water down the end result to facilitate that.

Thus we're left with the consumers having to continue putting up with shitty decisions that negatively impact their side of the transaction because the fish move out of the way. It's about time people started getting pissed off.

(This is a modified form of a post I made a few days ago.)

 

[LevelNth]

faceless007's post is the most well-written and eloquently stated I've read at GAF in 5 years. And that is no exaggeration.

Well said good sir, you described this horrible industry's problem to a T. Let it burn I say.

 

[Jocchan]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

Thank you.

 

[hardcastlemccormick]

I added a link to faceless007's post to the OP.

I never figured this thread would be so incredibly awesome. Congrats to everyone for making such a damn good conversation.

 

[Xenon]

But since gamers *can* trade their games in right away it makes sense to create and publish shallow graphical showpieces?

Yes. If a large portion of your buyers know that they are going to trade in their game after a few weeks there is less of a demand for re-playability in their games.

And if publishers are just giving us what we want, which is it that we want again? The shallow graphical showpieces or the long term value replayable ones?

Not what we want, what is more of a safe bet for them.

Just trying to understand the arguments being made.

I am saying that the high prevalence of trade ins in gaming could affect spending of customers and by default what developers produce. Maybe changing the current dynamic would change the way buyers and developers approach games.

 

[faceless007]

Who is asking for games that cost into $100 million dollars and took an entire generation to make? Who is asking for developers to put their entire company, even their publisher, on the line? Who is asking for them to bet the future life if a new or old IP on a brand new iteration of the franchise - pinning further development on a single game? Who is asking for increasingly bland experiences with badazzling but empty aesthetics? Who is asking for four-to-six hour experiences with no replay value? Who asked for taking an old classic IP and stripping it of any originality? Who asked for sequels slowly strangling the series of any uniqueness or creativity?

Apparently not that many people are asking for all of these, or else the gaming industry would be getting the sales it needs to survive.

The industry aimed too high, suddenly started ballooning budgets, and then went "oh god there aren't any sales here to cover it up." Their response to this? Homogenize, wring the AAA space of any creativity and put the advertising on full blast. But we can't have smaller budgets, oh no. We've got to have our mo-capped dogs and celebrity voice actors that nobody asked for. We've got to cover the cost of letting you develop your game for five years because you have no direction. We've got to cover you trying to wedge into an already saturated market of shooters and brown, and then failing miserably. We've got to cover for you making games that nobody asked for and nobody will buy.

And then, time and time again, the consumers are expected to show up at the door every time these developers come out with some new way to make the package look worse. Oh, now you get half the content. Oh, now we're going to sell you that content back to you over a period of a year. Oh, now we're placing your game's access on computers you don't control, and then those computers won't work. Oh, now you can't sell it when the game turns out to be shit, just like the last AAA overhyped mess. Oh, now the game doesn't actually belong to you, it never did. How is any of that giving the consumers what they want? The publishers have a vision of what consumers should want (whether or not they're right, doesn't matter), and then water down the end result to facilitate that.

Thus we're left with the consumers having to continue putting up with shitty decisions that negatively impact their side of the transaction because the fish move out of the way. It's about time people started getting pissed off.

(This is a modified form of a post I made a few days ago.)

This post deserves to be quoted too.

Edit: HOLY SHIT I GOT MY FIRST TAG

 

[Penguin]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

Does anyone have like a collection/link to all of the great posts like this that have been made over the past week?

 

[NullPointer]

Yes. If a large portion of your buyers know that they are going to trade in their game after a few weeks there is less of a demand for re-playability in their games.

This reads like a self fulfilling prophecy.

Those gosh darn gamers trading everything in - guess we shouldn't make anything with lasting value.

 

[hardcastlemccormick]

Does anyone have like a collection/link to all of the great posts like this that have been made over the past week?

Most of the best are linked here.

This post deserves to be quoted too.

Edit: HOLY SHIT I GOT MY FIRST TAG

Internet high five, bro

 

[BruiserBear]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

God Tier Post

 

[NullPointer]

HOLY SHIT I GOT MY FIRST TAG

 

[elohel]

putting a grip hold on used games as opposed to facilitating them is backwards, unnecessary and deserves ridicule

but as posted before its ultimately up to consumers

 

[Nibel]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

Requesting that Open Source should be renamed to "Open Wallet"

 

[SirPenguin]

If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it.

Your whole post is masterful, but this part really resonates with me the most.

It really is absurd, isn't it? As this generation comes to a close, it appears its lasting legacy will be that of inventing dozens of ways to charge consumers long after (or long before) their initial purchase

And for what? To prop up an industry where the average cost to produce a game is now in the tens of millions? Who does that benefit?

If I'm doing my finances and I find my monthly budget has crept from $1000 / month to $5000 / month, what do I do? Do I examine my expenses and bring them back in line, or do I dip into my 401k, take out a loan, and start a pyramid scheme in order to support my new lifestyle?

 

[Figboy79]

This needs to be printed off and nailed to publishers foreheads.

As someone who works in the gaming industry, can I do the nailing? I know a few people at my job that could use it...

 

[Steroyd]

and yet they cried like babies that used games cost them sales

http://www.gamespot.com/news/heavy-rain-dev-says-used-sales-cost-studio-millions-6333786

this is the fucking industry in a nutshell

it is all about the potential sales they might have had....
because to them any lost potential sale is theft

Yikes! That's a terrible attitude. *sigh*

 

[Xenon]

This reads like a self fulfilling prophecy.

Those gosh darn gamers trading everything in - guess we shouldn't make anything with lasting value.

I never said that, but I do think the used market affects peoples spending habits and expectations. I also think that this is something specific to this generation thanks to the graphics the machines were able to produce. It is something that has been happening over the years, not as simplified as you are trying to make it.

Tomb Raider failure was just a developer pushing the formula too far not because it doesn't work. There are a large number of people who buy games for that cinematic experience and then move on to the next one. This is what sells games nowadays. I think being able to trade the game in for a decent percent of their cash back does play into that. It bothers me that they spent that much on a game and have almost no replay value in it. If this is important to gamers why wouldn't it be a huge consideration in a game like TR? Most likely because developers have not felt much pressure where it counts, sales?


I am not trying to say that this is just simple cause and effect. But I do believe stores like Gamestop and their high volume of buying back and reselling used games plays a part in the current state of game envelopment.



edit: Maybe the solution would be all new games operate with a DRM for 90-120 days after the game is released. After that period the person could release the game and could trade it in or transfer ownership, maybe a gift system like steam. Or they could do away with the DRM altogether once it expires and make the disk required after that point. This would put it closer to movies which is the most similar thing to it in terms of development costs.

 

[Vyrance]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

The perfect post. Amazing.

 

[RionaaM]

More like created it. The company is nothing more than a fat leech that has gotten bigger with its host. There is a reason why the only used product Best Buy sells in it's stores is video games. Game developers and producers have every right to try and combat Game Stop's aggressive tactics in selling used games. Just like people have every right not to buy it and bitch about it. But just because it goes against the way things were or are does not make it anti-consumer. Steam proved that the model works and has value.

Personally I think removing the used element from console gaming could be a good thing. All the high five-ing in this thread over the current state of AAA development falling on the developers is a bit one sided. The consumers and used market also are to blame for the current state of things. Publishers are just giving the people what they want to buy. If gamers couldn't trade in their games after a few weeks they would be less likely to buy shallow graphical showpieces.

I can't manage to see how the failure of an industry can be blamed on its customers, when they're in fact the ones supporting it. Can you blame someone for not wanting to buy a product at full price, or wanting to get rid of it and recoup a little amount of what they paid for it?

This is what I believe people defending this fail to understand: the problem with this industry is not that people are selling their games, it's that people want to sell them in the first place. To them, these products aren't worth keeping, and they would rather get a (however small) amount of cash for it instead, which could or could not go to the purchase of another (new or used) game.

Steam didn't prove anything. The used market of PC games was dead for a long time, with installation limits, accounts and CD keys linked to the system. Steam came to claim the place occupied by retailers, and did so by making huge sales and providing the convenience of being able to download the games from any PC and not needing the game discs to play. The impossibility of selling your games IS anti-consumer, there's no way to spin it around, but the money you could get by doing so gets matched (or even surpassed) by the money you save due to buying them at such cheap prices.

Console and PC markets are completely different. One is an open platform, the other is as closed as it can be. One deals mostly with digitally distributed products, where the cost of the games makes up for the loss of reselling rights. The other deals mostly with physical products, where it's expected to be able to resell or lend them. And having a monopoly (more like oligopoly) will not make prices go down, as there's no reason for them to. The only possible outcome is the opposite: prices will inevitably go up since there won't be any competition from used games unless they are bought from an approved retailer, and console manufacturers will control the whole market.

Yes, publishers may be giving people what they want to buy, but they should also give them what they would want to keep. For every person who bought a used game there's another who sold it because they didn't find it interesting enough to ever play it again. If gamers couldn't trade in their games after a few weeks they would be less likely to buy games, period. Now please tell me how that could be a good thing, because I totally fail to see it. Devs lose, publishers lose, retailers lose, potential customers lose. Who wins in that case?

This post deserves to be quoted too.

Edit: HOLY SHIT I GOT MY FIRST TAG

Fucking awesome, man! If there was ever a GAFfer who deserved a tag, that's you.

 

[Kazerei]

faceless007, you are my favorite gaffer ever

 

[Laguna X]

Outstanding post faceless!

 

[Effect]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

It's a think of beauty! *claps*

 

[hardcastlemccormick]

I can't manage to see how the failure of an industry can be blamed on its customers, when they're in fact the ones supporting it. Can you blame someone for not wanting to buy a product at full price, or wanting to get rid of it and recoup a little amount of what they paid for it?

This is what I believe people defending this fail to understand: the problem with this industry is not that people are selling their games, it's that people want to sell them in the first place. To them, these products aren't worth keeping, and they would rather get a (however small) amount of cash for it instead, which could or could not go to the purchase of another (new or used) game.

Steam didn't prove anything. The used market of PC games was dead for a long time, with installation limits, accounts and CD keys linked to the system. Steam came to claim the place occupied by retailers, and did so by making huge sales and providing the convenience of being able to download the games from any PC and not needing the game discs to play. The impossibility of selling your games IS anti-consumer, there's no way to spin it around, but the money you could get by doing so gets matched (or even surpassed) by the money you save due to buying them at such cheap prices.

Console and PC markets are completely different. One is an open platform, the other is as closed as it can be. One deals mostly with digitally distributed products, where the cost of the games makes up for the loss of reselling rights. The other deals mostly with physical products, where it's expected to be able to resell or lend them. And having a monopoly (more like oligopoly) will not make prices go down, as there's no reason for them to. The only possible outcome is the opposite: prices will inevitably go up since there won't be any competition from used games unless they are bought from an approved retailer, and console manufacturers will control the whole market.

Yes, publishers may be giving people what they want to buy, but they should also give them what they would want to keep. For every person who bought a used game there's another who sold it because they didn't find it interesting enough to ever play it again. If gamers couldn't trade in their games after a few weeks they would be less likely to buy games, period. Now please tell me how that could be a good thing, because I totally fail to see it. Devs lose, publishers lose, retailers lose, potential customers lose. Who wins in that case?

This is also an excellent post. This thread is bringing out the best of GAF.

 

[hwy_61]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

Dayum, he opened a can of education on our asses.

Bravo, sir.

 

[Chie Satonaka]

If the industry does hate GAF, posts like the one faceless007 just put down are the reason why.

I salute you, sir.

 

[charlequin]

Because games that are designed to be satisfying and complete in a sane amount of time are a thing we want to get rid of?

I feel safe suggesting that games with multi-million dollar budgets should comfortably offer 100+ hour lifespans and that anyone with the ambition of creating a short, self-contained ludic experience should offer it with a budget (and price) to match.

Not true, because publishers will have to lower prices to optimize sales, and publishers will get revenue that was previously going to GameStop.

Publishers could lower prices right now. We didn't go up to $60 this past generation by magic; we went up because publishers wanted to squeeze extra cash out of the most dedicated sliver of their audience, even if that meant completely destroying the market for mid-range games.

The idea that Gamestop has the competitive advantage here in price wars is ludicrous. The more expensive a game is, the more dollars Gamestop can drop from the price while maintaining the same margin and the more easily they can knock the price underneath any predetermined price ceilings consumers are bumping up against. Offering people a relatively new $60 title for $45 is (in many people's minds) a great deal; offering a $30 for $22 doesn't have nearly as much selling power.

This is how things used to be done until the concept of free post-launch content and user-created content became verboten.

I think it's worth noting that Microsoft single-handedly destroyed the concept of audience-retention free post-launch DLC, too.

 

[Biker19]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

I'm definitely saving this in case some corporate apologists claims that, "Our publishers/developers are suffering! We should support them in every way possible!", etc.

 

[remnant]

When journalists and websites bitch about GAF being mean, I'm going to remember faceless post.

This is the type of discourse we see in the best of GAF. Brutal honesty that doesn't care about being nice..

 

[abic]

Well, this is the disconnect I guess. You admit you only hold this view because of the detrimental effects (you think) are impacting the industry. You are asserting that a fundamental aspect of property rights and consumer rights as it has existed since the beginning of trade should be adjusted and recodified on a per-industry basis, not because it's inherently bad or unethical, but just because you think it's a threat to the industry's health. Which means you are essentially arguing for protectionism for corporations--consumers are free to exercise their consumer rights only up to a certain point, but if that free exercise is perceived to threaten the viability of the industry, then their rights must be limited in order to save the industry.

I don't think I can put into words my disgust at this demeaning display of groveling at the feet of your game developer overlords. Even a die-hard laissez-faire capitalist would not be so subservient, because even a capitalist would accept that sometimes industries die and that's the way the world works. As much as I enjoy games, there is no inherent good in this industry. The ends do not justify the means here; there is nothing that makes the gaming industry inherently worthy of preservation, not to the point that would justify carving out a special exemption for them where used games are somehow magically not OK when they are OK for every other packaged good on the planet. Just because your favored set of content producers couldn't properly adapt does not justify rewriting the rules of what "property ownership" means and fundamentally removing the ability to preserve, inherit, pass on, lend, and share its products.

The industry does not come first; consumers do. I have no sympathy for an industry that cannot properly stumble its way around a viable secondhand market like every other mature industry in the world. Sometimes your old product just isn't good enough, and the way you solve it is by making a better product, not by forcing consumers to adapt to your archaic and myopic business model with your dying breath. If this industry can't find a way to make money off the primary market -- even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and "expanding the audience" and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer -- then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn't deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell. It doesn't need your protection, it needs to be taken out back and beaten until it remembers who its real masters are.

I especially have a hard time having any sympathy because so many of the industry's problems are of its own making. They chose to focus on shaderific HD graphics over long-lasting appeal and gameplay; they chose to focus on linear scripted cinematic B-movie imitations that were only good for one playthrough instead of replayability and open-ended design; they chose to pour so much money and marketing into military porn and fetishized violent shootbang Press A to Awesome titles, exactly the kinds of games that hardcore gamers, the most likely gamers to trade in games quickly were prone to buying and reselling; and perhaps most galling, they chose to give Gamestop loads of exclusive pre-order bonuses while they knew exactly what Gamestop would say to those customers once in the store. They kept making insanely lavish and nonsensical displays of spectacular whizz-bang, despite that being exactly the kind of game most susceptible to trading after one week because there was nothing left to do with it. And now they're discovering that putting so many insanely expensive eggs into one fragile and easily breakable basket is maybe not the most sustainable business model ever.

So forgive me if I find myself not caring one bit when the industry complains that it's just so hard to sell six million copies of Gears of Medal of Battle of Uncharted Angry Dudes VII in the first week and that's why they need to take away used sales for the entire platform. No, the problem isn't at this end.

Best post in GAF in a long time.

I challenge the Penny Arcade writer to reply to this.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

Best post in GAF in a long time.

I challenge the Penny Arcade writer to reply to this.

The post was also linked to in a developer's Twitter post who was defending DRM. The developer apparently deleted the reply.

 

[CloakedPuppet]

The post was also linked to in a developer's Twitter post who was defending DRM. The developer apparently deleted the reply.

Of course he did. There's almost no way to reply to a god-tier post like that. I almost stuttered just from reading it.