It won't be next generation forever.
Awesome stuff about publishers behaving badly
Oh god, wasn't even thinking about it that way, but that is an AMAZING rebuttal to that.
Then you're fucking blind.
No used games to trade in = people buying less new games.
It's that simple.
long post
It's partially the developing industry's own goddamn fault for aiming for the stars and the moon and suddenly realizing that they aimed too high. Who is asking for games that cost into $100 million dollars and took an entire generation to make? Would the sales be impacted if that were halved or quartered? Is there enough sales potential (realistic, actual sales potential, none of this "it might sell better than Pokemon" bullshit). We've seen good looking games made on smaller budgets. Look at the stuff coming out of Eastern Europe for god sakes.
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 fucking 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.
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 the game doesn't actually belong to you, it never did.
If the industry was smart, they would have had a linear progression of costs, but they're run by idiots who don't understand the market. Instead, they're baking these stupid anti-consumer things into the console, and selling the console on silly TV fluff and apps that half your entertainment center already runs. Because, sure, that will get people to buy a $500 monolith instead of a $50 Roku. Who the hell comes up with this shit?
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.
But Gamestop would never accept that original trade if person 2 wasn't going to buy the used game. Why shouldn't Gamestop benefit? They are the middleman. You just want them to give people free money and throw the discs away?
No, here's the problem. Tomb Raider sold 3.4m units in the space of a month and it's a "failure" because it will fail to recoup its budget.
THREE POINT FOUR MILLION FUCKING UNITS FOR WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY A B-TIER FRANCHISE AND THAT'S STILL NOT ENOUGH TO MAKE ANY MONEY.
And killing used games would have solved this how? Would it have made the execs at Squenix who thought throwing $100m budget at a franchise that's been irrelevant since the turn of the century suddenly get a clue?
Oh, but no, they argue "GAMERS PUSH FOR HIGHER AND HIGHER BUDGETS AND WE HAVE TO GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT! THEIR ENTITLEMENT COMPLEX CAN'T BE SATIATED! WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO LET BUDGETS SPIRAL OUT OF CONTROL!" and that's lovely, but since when did they ever give a fuck about what we actually thought?
Are Microsoft going to turn around and backtrack on this DRM fiasco because "WE HAVE TO GIVE GAMERS WHAT THEY WANT!"? Are they fuck.
Are EA going to throw all their games up on Steam and patch Sim City to not need the stupid Origin authentication because "THAT'S WHAT THOSE ENTITLED GAMERS ARE SCREAMING FOR!"? Fuck no.
If you couldn't afford to give people what they wanted, then why didn't you just turn around and say no like you do with every other thing we complain about? Here's why; Every publisher big and small decided to get into a dick waving contest and it turns out that not everyone has a big dick. Squenix got its tiny little acorn cock out and went up against Mandingo Activision screaming "LOOK AT MY MASSIVE JUNK! YOU'LL WANT TO CARE FOR IT!" and everyone just turned around and shrugged and bought something else.
Not everyone has a big dick. Acting like you have a big dick when you don't have a big dick is going to make the reveal of your tiny little penis all the more humiliating. And that's what happened here. Squenix acted like Tomb Raider, a franchise that habitually sells less than 3m lifetime per entry was going to suddenly sell COD numbers just because they spent $100m on it and guess what happened? THE FUCKING INEVITABLE.
In terms of the franchise post-Core, the game is going to do really well, probably double what you'd expect from a Tomb Raider game post-PSone but it cost far, far too much.
But no, it's all used games that did this. Used games made Capcom make some horrible design decisions on DmC and piss off the entire fanbase. Used games made Activision and EA flood the market with guitar games and accessories long after people stopped caring. Used games made Microsoft make a fourth Gears of War game that nobody asked for from a developer nobody cares about. Used games made Sony pump out another God of War game after they spent the past few years flooding the market with HD remasters. Used games made Sony make a Smash Bros clone with no appealing characters to help sell it. Used games made Bizarre Creations make James Bond and racing games no-one wanted. Used games make publishers shutter studios the moment the game they were working on goes gold, before they've even had a chance to sell a single new copy, let alone a used one.
I could go on. And on. And on. You could write a book about every single executive level screw-up this gen and yet these same people with their million dollar salaries and their shill puppets still try to insult our intelligence and blame used games and awful, entitled consumers for companies shutting and talented people losing their jobs.
So please forgive our cynicism when we don't want to buy into the bullshit you're spouting.
Oh god, wasn't even thinking about it that way, but that is an AMAZING rebuttal to that.
It's good for the business, it's not for the consumer.
But if it's not good for the consumer, it's not good for the business, because the consumer won't buy it.
OK, so what if Microsoft said you could trade in your license for $15 credit towards the next COD game? Because that's the sort of thing the article is proposing.
In the last few months Twitter has been doing a great job of outing disgusting people.
Hey, Ballmer gotta eat!
man.... people really do think like that, huh..
Actually if this was all then it would be bad enough. What I find mind boggling is that people are arguing that this all will be a good thing for the consumer in the end. That is fucking laughable.
Giving MS complete control in a closed system with no threat of piracy is the absolute worst case scenario for a consumer.
This is just another datapoint in the fact that Penny Arcade has become the Micheal Jordan of the gaming industry.
But Gamestop would never accept that original trade if person 2 wasn't going to buy the used game. Why shouldn't Gamestop benefit? They are the middleman. You just want them to give people free money and throw the discs away?
No, here's the problem. Tomb Raider sold 3.4m units in the space of a month and it's a "failure" because it will fail to recoup its budget.
THREE POINT FOUR MILLION FUCKING UNITS FOR WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY A B-TIER FRANCHISE AND THAT'S STILL NOT ENOUGH TO MAKE ANY MONEY.
And killing used games would have solved this how? Would it have made the execs at Squenix who thought throwing $100m budget at a franchise that's been irrelevant since the turn of the century suddenly get a clue?
Oh, but no, they argue "GAMERS PUSH FOR HIGHER AND HIGHER BUDGETS AND WE HAVE TO GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT! THEIR ENTITLEMENT COMPLEX CAN'T BE SATIATED! WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO LET BUDGETS SPIRAL OUT OF CONTROL!" and that's lovely, but since when did they ever give a fuck about what we actually thought?
Are Microsoft going to turn around and backtrack on this DRM fiasco because "WE HAVE TO GIVE GAMERS WHAT THEY WANT!"? Are they fuck.
Are EA going to throw all their games up on Steam and patch Sim City to not need the stupid Origin authentication because "THAT'S WHAT THOSE ENTITLED GAMERS ARE SCREAMING FOR!"? Fuck no.
If you couldn't afford to give people what they wanted, then why didn't you just turn around and say no like you do with every other thing we complain about? Here's why; Every publisher big and small decided to get into a dick waving contest and it turns out that not everyone has a big dick. Squenix got its tiny little acorn cock out and went up against Mandingo Activision screaming "LOOK AT MY MASSIVE JUNK! YOU'LL WANT TO CARE FOR IT!" and everyone just turned around and shrugged and bought something else.
Not everyone has a big dick. Acting like you have a big dick when you don't have a big dick is going to make the reveal of your tiny little penis all the more humiliating. And that's what happened here. Squenix acted like Tomb Raider, a franchise that habitually sells less than 3m lifetime per entry was going to suddenly sell COD numbers just because they spent $100m on it and guess what happened? THE FUCKING INEVITABLE.
In terms of the franchise post-Core, the game is going to do really well, probably double what you'd expect from a Tomb Raider game post-PSone but it cost far, far too much.
But no, it's all used games that did this. Used games made Capcom make some horrible design decisions on DmC and piss off the entire fanbase. Used games made Activision and EA flood the market with guitar games and accessories long after people stopped caring. Used games made Microsoft make a fourth Gears of War game that nobody asked for from a developer nobody cares about. Used games made Sony pump out another God of War game after they spent the past few years flooding the market with HD remasters. Used games made Sony make a Smash Bros clone with no appealing characters to help sell it. Used games made Bizarre Creations make James Bond and racing games no-one wanted. Used games make publishers shutter studios the moment the game they were working on goes gold, before they've even had a chance to sell a single new copy, let alone a used one.
I could go on. And on. And on. You could write a book about every single executive level screw-up this gen and yet these same people with their million dollar salaries and their shill puppets still try to insult our intelligence and blame used games and awful, entitled consumers for companies shutting and talented people losing their jobs.
So please forgive our cynicism when we don't want to buy into the bullshit you're spouting.
This is just another datapoint in the fact that Penny Arcade has become the Green Day of the gaming industry.
It actually is. You should tweet that at him.
kaboom
I don't see what made Tomb Raider cost $100M, when the Uncharted games are 20-30M a pop.AWESOMENESS
Except Green Day is funnier.
Except it doesn't. At all.gaf is always a tear fest with candlelight vigils everytime a studio is closed yet a system that helps the industry stay alive and profitable is being demonized.
In the last few months Twitter has been doing a great job of outing disgusting people.
I couldn't afford a HDTV till i got my first job in 06, my mother was kind enough to get me a 360 back in 05 and I bought a HDTV the following year. Just because someone does not have the latest and greatest of every gadget does not mean they don't deserve to play.
Having a competent team that knows it's shit helps save a buck or two. Not spending millions on expensive ads helps as well.I don't see what made Tomb Raider cost $100M, when the Uncharted games are 20-30M a pop.
Explain how it's illogical that people who can't afford Internet probably also can't afford to drop $500++ on a next gen console with full priced games. This goes back to the stupid "XBOX ONE ONLY HAS HDMI WTF!!!" argument. You want in on the next gen, there is always a very high price tag for that. It has NEVER been cheap, going back to my first console, an Atari 5200. That son of a bitch was $800 including games, adjusted for inflation.
Toys cost money. Shiny new toys, the "first on your block!" toys, have always been very expensive. That is the way it is, and has always been.
I don't see what made Tomb Raider cost $100M, when the Uncharted games are 20-30M a pop.
If they really care, they won't buy day 1 games at full price and instead will wait until they can afford it without the benefit of trading their old games in. If enough people do this and publishers see a huge drop in their day 1/launch window purchases (which, if you aren't Nintendo, is where you make the vast majority of your money), Microsoft will be forced to revise their used game strategy.
Like I said, the market will correct itself. Millions of Xbox 360 owners are not suddenly going to go to the PS4, assuming they were happy with their experience on the 360. Sony's massive error with the PS3, the price of entry, is what created many of those customers.
If Microsoft doesn't make the same error and have the cost of entry too high on the Xbox One, those people are lost to Sony for another generation. Most people want to come home, watch some TV, play some games with their homies, and do it as easily and cheaply as possible. They do not give a shit about GDDR5 RAM, Jon Blow games, or Journey 2: The Quest for More Sand. Microsoft gave these people their answer last gen, and given the stuff like CoD DLC windows which is what appeals to that crowd, used games means jack and dick to those people.
Business sells game A for $60
Customer returns game A for $40
Customer buys game B for $60
Business resells game A for $50
What happened here for the publisher?
They sold 2 games and get $100~ and lost $50 due to the used game
The money goes back to buy new games, yes, but that used game sale only lines the pockets of the retailer and removes revenue that should be for the publisher
Dude has just come off as a huge douche, way to shit on the underclass especially when you get most your games for free.
I couldn't afford a HDTV till i got my first job in 06, my mother was kind enough to get me a 360 back in 05 and I bought a HDTV the following year. Just because someone does not have the latest and greatest of every gadget does not mean they don't deserve to play.
I will buy less games if I can't trade old ones in to purchases new ones at a lower price.
ahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahhahahahahahahah
Explain how it's illogical that people who can't afford Internet probably also can't afford to drop $500++ on a next gen console with full priced games. This goes back to the stupid "XBOX ONE ONLY HAS HDMI WTF!!!" argument. You want in on the next gen, there is always a very high price tag for that. It has NEVER been cheap, going back to my first console, an Atari 5200. That son of a bitch was $800 including games, adjusted for inflation.
Toys cost money. Shiny new toys, the "first on your block!" toys, have always been very expensive. That is the way it is, and has always been.
You "deserve" what you can "afford". If you can't afford the cost of entry, play the old shit. That's what it's there for.
It's partially the developing industry's own goddamn fault for aiming for the stars and the moon and suddenly realizing that they aimed too high. Who is asking for games that cost into $100 million dollars and took an entire generation to make? Would the sales be impacted if that were halved or quartered? Is there enough sales potential (realistic, actual sales potential, none of this "it might sell better than Pokemon" bullshit). We've seen good looking games made on smaller budgets. Look at the stuff coming out of Eastern Europe for god sakes.
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 fucking 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.
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 the game doesn't actually belong to you, it never did.
If the industry was smart, they would have had a linear progression of costs, but they're run by idiots who don't understand the market. Instead, they're baking these stupid anti-consumer things into the console, and selling the console on silly TV fluff and apps that half your entertainment center already runs. Because, sure, that will get people to buy a $500 monolith instead of a $50 Roku. Who the hell comes up with this shit?
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.
But Gamestop would never accept that original trade if person 2 wasn't going to buy the used game. Why shouldn't Gamestop benefit? They are the middleman. You just want them to give people free money and throw the discs away?
No, here's the problem. Tomb Raider sold 3.4m units in the space of a month and it's a "failure" because it will fail to recoup its budget.
THREE POINT FOUR MILLION FUCKING UNITS FOR WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY A B-TIER FRANCHISE AND THAT'S STILL NOT ENOUGH TO MAKE ANY MONEY.
And killing used games would have solved this how? Would it have made the execs at Squenix who thought throwing $100m budget at a franchise that's been irrelevant since the turn of the century suddenly get a clue?
Oh, but no, they argue "GAMERS PUSH FOR HIGHER AND HIGHER BUDGETS AND WE HAVE TO GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT! THEIR ENTITLEMENT COMPLEX CAN'T BE SATIATED! WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO LET BUDGETS SPIRAL OUT OF CONTROL!" and that's lovely, but since when did they ever give a fuck about what we actually thought?
Are Microsoft going to turn around and backtrack on this DRM fiasco because "WE HAVE TO GIVE GAMERS WHAT THEY WANT!"? Are they fuck.
Are EA going to throw all their games up on Steam and patch Sim City to not need the stupid Origin authentication because "THAT'S WHAT THOSE ENTITLED GAMERS ARE SCREAMING FOR!"? Fuck no.
If you couldn't afford to give people what they wanted, then why didn't you just turn around and say no like you do with every other thing we complain about? Here's why; Every publisher big and small decided to get into a dick waving contest and it turns out that not everyone has a big dick. Squenix got its tiny little acorn cock out and went up against Mandingo Activision screaming "LOOK AT MY MASSIVE JUNK! YOU'LL WANT TO CARE FOR IT!" and everyone just turned around and shrugged and bought something else.
Not everyone has a big dick. Acting like you have a big dick when you don't have a big dick is going to make the reveal of your tiny little penis all the more humiliating. And that's what happened here. Squenix acted like Tomb Raider, a franchise that habitually sells less than 3m lifetime per entry was going to suddenly sell COD numbers just because they spent $100m on it and guess what happened? THE FUCKING INEVITABLE.
In terms of the franchise post-Core, the game is going to do really well, probably double what you'd expect from a Tomb Raider game post-PSone but it cost far, far too much.
But no, it's all used games that did this. Used games made Capcom make some horrible design decisions on DmC and piss off the entire fanbase. Used games made Activision and EA flood the market with guitar games and accessories long after people stopped caring. Used games made Microsoft make a fourth Gears of War game that nobody asked for from a developer nobody cares about. Used games made Sony pump out another God of War game after they spent the past few years flooding the market with HD remasters. Used games made Sony make a Smash Bros clone with no appealing characters to help sell it. Used games made Bizarre Creations make James Bond and racing games no-one wanted. Used games make publishers shutter studios the moment the game they were working on goes gold, before they've even had a chance to sell a single new copy, let alone a used one.
I could go on. And on. And on. You could write a book about every single executive level screw-up this gen and yet these same people with their million dollar salaries and their shill puppets still try to insult our intelligence and blame used games and awful, entitled consumers for companies shutting and talented people losing their jobs.
So please forgive our cynicism when we don't want to buy into the bullshit you're spouting.
basically this, used games and lending /borrowing games just makes financial sense to consumers.
These days most games drop $20 after two or three weeks. Even Halo 4 was $40 a few weeks after launch and it was supposedly the best selling halo game ever. I don't really see why buying the game for $55 in between launch and that time serves anyone.
GameStop may not be able to aggressively hawk used games for $5 less than the new price to customers under these new controls, which is great if you're a developer or publisher.
Because people who live in shitty areas of the world with no internet still want to play games. People fighting overseas in our Military still want to play games. It's not as simple as "BUY INTERNET". It's not freaking offered.
It sounds like you have the empathy level of an Adam Orth or Ben Kuchera.
In fairness, I think Scott's response would have been much better put as "what about the 1000's that can't afford $60, but are able to buy games at a lower price later on?"
I agree with Kuchera's response, but I don't agree with the way he gave it. 140 characters isn't much to go on, however. I guess. I can't believe I'm defending his response since I'm in stark disagreement with his piece, but whatever.