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Egg headed man sticks it to Jaffe over used game sales
- Thread starter JSnake
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charlequin
Banned
Tiktaalik said:
Because we're talking about stores run on closed platforms by platform-holders with a greater vested interest in reducing competition and maintaining high prices than in producing a consumer-friendly, cheap storefront. (Again, the difference in basic business model is important here: the iPhone is a profitable device whose main selling points are the phone/web-browser/media-player features and whose "apps" are very much a "value-added" proposition, unlike a game console where the only purpose for owning it is that software.)
obonicus said:
Depends a lot on the title.
Are there twice as many people who would buy Modern Warfare 2 for $30? I'm going to guess not.
Are there twice as many people who would have taken a chance on Mirror's Edge at $30 compared to how many actually bought it at $60? I'm guessing so, especially given its sales on discount.
If you note, in other creative media, the concept of a "standard price point" is much less prevalent. People don't expect every DVD to sell at the same price; stuff hits shelves priced differently to start and is heavily discounted from "MSRP" at most stores you can buy them at.
I don't see any reason why the standard price-point for games can't move down towards, say, $40; why we can't move to a varying-price system where new games come in anywhere from $20 to $40 by default, based on the content they contain, with more prevalent bonus/"collector's editions" versions priced higher to capture extra consumer dollars; why we can't adjust the expectations of "a game" towards a lower total amount of content in fitting with these lower prices. I think, in general, the industry would become much less hit-dependent and risk-sensitive with a change like this.
RurouniZel said:
An excellent point. The DS is a great source for odd and niche titles to succeed, and I have to imagine the lower pricepoint is a huge factor. I certainly am inclined to buy most DS games I have some vague interest in, even if I'm not certain they'll be great, when I won't do the same for 360 games -- the price is absolutely the reason.
obonicus said:
If we're talking about an industry-wide change, we're talking about a lower price point dictated by the platform-holders, not pushed out by publishers; it would almost certainly look the same way that, say, DS games do now, with similar percentage rates for licensing fees, retail margin, etc. taken out of a smaller starting price.
It's true that individual third-party publishers can't really push this kind of change on their own, but that doesn't actually mean that the change wouldn't be better for the industry as a whole if implemented.
Drek said:
So again, I ask: why keep playing ball with Gamestop? Publishers keep giving huge competitive advantages to Gamestop: marketing kickbacks, special pre-order promotions, etc. As long as the industry is dependent on game-specific retail to succeed and their business model makes it impossible for anyone but Gamestop to sustain a game-specific retail business, this is going to be how the market operates.
Does no one here understand the first sales doctrine?
If you're selling media, you get to make money once. Deal. You don't see authors burning down libraries.
If you're selling a license to use your media, then you have all kinds of control.
If the publishers don't like GameStop, then they should just stop selling discs and only sell download code cards to put into stores.
Is this thread just full of juniors or something? What's with the inexplicable emotional investment over such a straightforward economic and legal issue?
If you're selling media, you get to make money once. Deal. You don't see authors burning down libraries.
If you're selling a license to use your media, then you have all kinds of control.
If the publishers don't like GameStop, then they should just stop selling discs and only sell download code cards to put into stores.
Is this thread just full of juniors or something? What's with the inexplicable emotional investment over such a straightforward economic and legal issue?
Gorgon
Member
Drek said:
As the lemon farmer maybe I have to either change my business model or close shop. Clearly me selling fresh lemons to the stand owner is not the most advantageous for his business. The stand owner is just adapting to the market, seeying that people prefer to pay for cheap concentrate at lower prices than buying the more expensive lemonade from fresh lemons. Maybe other stand owners are doing the same and he will quicly be out of business soon if he doesn't change. The stand owner adapted to the market and the lemon producer didn't. It's called free market.
If the stand owner agrees to some kind of compromise, fine. The point is, he has NO obligation, moral or legal, to do so. He's just ensuring that he's kids also can get feed and go to college (it's not only the "lemon producers" who have kids as Jaffe seems to think) and the concentrate is cheaper and consumers prefer it.
EDIT:
Drek said:
We're talking about businesses whose purpose is to maximise profits, not school buddies. These relashionships are based on getting the most out of a business, not keeping a business relashionship out of love between partners. This is how the market works in EVERY INDUSTRY and there's no reason to suppose that the gamming industry should be any different. Again, it's a free market and it doesn't matter if we like it or not.
proposition
Banned
He wasn't being an incendiary asshole. The first asshole-y comment of the transcript was 'don't let the door hit you on the way out'.hauton said:
dragonfart28
Banned
Digital downloading is good as long as it can viably compete with the retail market regarding the average cost of a game. Games are already too expensive, and most intelligent consumers are flocking to used games because they realize this. For a consumer to consider purchasing a downloadable game instead of a retail game, the cost of that downloadable media should be lower since there is no additional cost to the business for packaging/shipping, etc.
If downloadable media is expensive, that business model will never take off.
But it will.. thanks to indie developers. When the cost of development finally becomes low enough that indie developers can create and publish enough of their own high-fidelity/blockbuster games, they will bring the big companies to their knees by selling those games digitially at lower prices.
EA/Activision/Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft will then swoop in and follow suit, but these conservative companies will not be the ones to get rid of the retail market in favour of downloadable media. They are too greedy to change the price of their media to reflect the lower cost of digital distribution.
If downloadable media is expensive, that business model will never take off.
But it will.. thanks to indie developers. When the cost of development finally becomes low enough that indie developers can create and publish enough of their own high-fidelity/blockbuster games, they will bring the big companies to their knees by selling those games digitially at lower prices.
EA/Activision/Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft will then swoop in and follow suit, but these conservative companies will not be the ones to get rid of the retail market in favour of downloadable media. They are too greedy to change the price of their media to reflect the lower cost of digital distribution.
dragonfart28 said:
I feel like a parrot. Prices of DD games that have a retail version are held at that level because of pressure from retailers.
Retailers have such leverage because the sales of retail versions currently outweigh the sales of digital versions of games. When the sales balance shifts heavily if favour of digital, that leverage will be lost and things will likely change.
Megadragon15
Member
Here's a point lost in going on strict DD model: the impulse buying consumer. When an uninformed consumer goes to a store to buy various items and not games in particular, they sometimes will choose a game based on a name or an illustration. How else does shovelware get sold? Are these consumers still gonna impulse buy if they are actively looking for games and not buying games as an afterthought?
Not really, the issue is that Jaffe says the publishers are going to transition to selling a license via DD in order to get away from the predatory practices of media retailers by cutting them out and that there wouldn't be as much of a push towards this if it wasn't for the douchebag way that Gstop acts.Juice said:
Draft said:
So what happens when I spend $1000's on downloadable titles and the console maker goes under?
What happens if my system breaks down?
What happens when the next console is released?
DRM?
Will I be able to play my downloadable games 20 years after it's initial release? 10 years after?
Sorry, there are just too many issues with 100% DD and I'm sure most of you championing just don't realize how shitty it's going to be.
Pretty much. Sure I could have bought Hearts of Iron 3 on Gamersgate, but I *want* the disc. I want to know that I own the game independently of the continued existence of the service provider. I may choose to purchase smaller XBLA style games digitally, but there's no way in hell I'm moving my primary purchases digital-only.Ardorx said:
Juice said:
Yes, and the others who aren't juniors I think must've recently been promoted to members. :lol There is no way a sane person would ever agree with the publisher unless they;
A: enjoy getting screwed in the ass
B: work for a publisher, dev, whatever and receiving money for it.
C: both A and B
The advertising methods will change. They will have better advertising on the online stores to hook people in.
Or they will have the down load codes in stores. You still pay the money in store and then use the code to download when you get home. Or enter your username at the store already so its already downloaded when you get home.
Azih said:
Predatory practices? Cutting them out?
I'm really sick of how people talk about Gamestop as if they owed something to developers apart from the money they paid them for the games they bought.
When you buy a game you own it. When Gamestop buys a game they own it. Just like Jaffe can't demand a cut of you selling a used game on Ebay he can't demand a cut from anybody including Gamestop.
Gamestop has the right to buy as many games as they feel like it and the right to stop buying new games in order to resell ones they bought used.
If there is a problem here it isn't Gamestop but developers who see them making a profit and in their greed want some of it too even though they have absolutely no right to it.
If developers really hate Gamestop the solution is incredibly simple - stop selling them your games! They are not the only retailer in the world.
Scrubking said:
The issue is used game sales, not new. Publisher's can't stop players from selling their used games to Gamestop. Unless they go the PC route of unique cd keys.
Publishers can add value to their games though to try and keep gamers from selling the game a week after beating it though. More and better free online content is one way.
Ardorx said:
This is one reason I stick with Impulse. I figure Stardock, of the four big DD companies, is the one that is least likely to go under fly-by-night. We'd get rumblings- especially since their business model isn't just games. Valve and Paradox seem pretty safe as well.
The model is like Coke, Cheerwine, and Mr.Pibb right now, hoping either Stardock or Paradox just up to be Pepsi.
Each of those two, as well as Paradox, has promised to put a DRM-free patch should doomsday occur. I believe all three would do so. Worst case, pirates will have cracked it to be DRM-free already if it's on PC.
Cynar said:
Not really, there's a perfectly sane argument against first sales doctrine in the case of videogames, that the way GameStop does its business hurts game development. I'm not going to take a stand on this situation, but if you're eventually going to deal with certain games no longer being made, or publshers will start including "one use only" CD key that binds a game to your Live or PSN account.
Your point A is silly because you're going to get screwed in the ass 10 years from now regardless. Those arguing against the first sales doctrine now are either devs, publishers, or people who still want the option of private resale in the future.
Gorgon
Member
Mario said:
I gave this example before, but here you have it again: I bought Mass Effect for 9 euros online while Steam was selling it two years after lunch for 45 euros. I'm sure the 36 euros difference wasn't because of retailer pressure. This happens all the time with Steam.
I understand retail pressure and why games aren't cheaper through DD right now. But there's a lot of greed too. The only explanation seems to be that some people are so brainwashed and in such a blind crusade against physical media that they are blind to the clear exploitation that services like Steam also practice.
There's no good guys here. Pubs, Steam-like services, retailers, they all want as much of your money as they can. They will exploit you as much as you permit them.
It is also quite discussible to what extent will games get lower prices if Pubs go DD only. There's no guarantee this will hever happen. It should, but looking at how people don't mind beying raped now by Steam and will go out of their ways to defend them, I don't see why they would mind later. All it takes is some excuse like "servers and development is getting more expensive guys, we have to keep prices at 65 USD a piece, sorry and buy a lot".
The same can be said of the line of thinking that more money for pubs will mean more money invested in a game and better and more polished products. There's no guarantee for this either. Usually a company that is producing 10 games will cancel, say, 2 before they anounce them and gamers never even hear about them. It happens all the time and they loose money on this. Of the other 8, 1 or 2 gets canceled after announcement. And of the other 6 or 7 only 4 or 5 cut even and/or give profit. What this means is that those games that are profitable have to pay for those that get cancelled or sell poorly. It also means that a company will more probably invest in more games to offset this instead of producing the same number of games but with higher production costs. I'm not saying that this will happen all the time, but it is an example that shows that what a company does with its money depends on internal policy alone and there's no rule that more money=better games.
RedNumberFive
Banned
I would never count on these companies honoring their promises of unlock keys in the event that they go under. That would be the least of their concerns.arstal said:
I would also not assume or count on any of these companies being around in the future. If you would have told me 10 years ago that Sega would be out of the console business, I'd tell you to get the fuck out, yet here we are.
Starchasing
Member
Tacitus_ said:
Lets say companies stock selling phisycal media...
lets say i want to buy a soccer game...
i basicly have 2 options
fifa or PES
do you think that EA will lower its price when it owns the whole chain of production??
dev -> publisher -> retailer ???
FLEABttn said:
This is true in all fields. Lots of cars aren't made because they wouldn't sell enough new ones in the current market, but might sell enough new ones if new was the only option on the market. You want examples? Pontiac began shying away from its muscle car brands in the mid 1980s because the used market was making it infeasible. That's a primary reason the Firebird went away. And this is BEFORE we discuss cars that never even existed, i.e. cars we don't know about, which theoretically could have existed if 100% of all cars were purchased new.
The difference isn't that "used sales hurt game gevelopment," because used sales effect production of new products in every industry. The difference is that game development isn't set up to accomodate the used industry in the way others are. That sounds like game development's problem, not used sales. It would be like a car industry that refused to produce anything but Firebird-esque cars, then complained that the market is tilted against them.
FrostuTheNinja
Member
I haven't finished reading the entire thread yet but I must say, it's about damn time someone called Jaffe out on something. The guy has always been a loud mouth, "LOOK AT ME I MAKE GAEMS!" shithead.
Outspoken? No
Self righteous Lord of the Douche? Yes
All we need now is for someone to ask him how much he really liked Rygar on the PS2.
Edit:
I also like the fact that Jaffe ran away from the situation instead of backing himself up with facts and numbers that he should have. The true signs of a coward.
Outspoken? No
Self righteous Lord of the Douche? Yes
All we need now is for someone to ask him how much he really liked Rygar on the PS2.
Edit:
I also like the fact that Jaffe ran away from the situation instead of backing himself up with facts and numbers that he should have. The true signs of a coward.
What is everyone's opinion on the option that EA did last year?
When you buy a game, you can play its single player aspect, but in order to play multiplayer, you must register your PSN/Xbox live name with the key that came with the game.
It's a one time used code only, and if you resell the game to Gamestop, the next person to buy the game used can't play it. If they want to play online, they'll have to go and buy a $30 code to play online.
I personally see that a good workaround for publishers to fight used games.
When you buy a game, you can play its single player aspect, but in order to play multiplayer, you must register your PSN/Xbox live name with the key that came with the game.
It's a one time used code only, and if you resell the game to Gamestop, the next person to buy the game used can't play it. If they want to play online, they'll have to go and buy a $30 code to play online.
I personally see that a good workaround for publishers to fight used games.
proposition
Banned
Being hyperbolic alone isn't offensive. Nor is being whiney. Using a tarted up version of 'fuck off' is.John said:
PepsimanVsJoe
Member
If I'm 36 and still telling people to "fuck off" over the internet let me know and I'll put a bullet through my skull.
Commanche Raisin Toast
Member
me thinks the non-jaffe dude is just trying to start some shit. classic game of stirring up the pot and then hammering the other person about how badly they are reacting. is this guy is highschool?
he keeps trying to define jaffe's point as "get rid of used games" when jaffe keeps repeating that he thinks it's great and should stay but publishers should get some cut from the sales. i don't see anything wrong with that. if it keeps publishers from hiking game prices up, and maybe even ruffles the system up enough to where standard pricing starts to dissolve and everything is more competitive, then awesome. isn't that how it is in japan? games aren't all the exact same price at retail?
i can see where Sir Douche is coming from a little bit, but it seems to me like he just wants to start some shit with jaffe and try to "prove" his "point" by getting jaffe all riled up and then pointing out how riled up said jaffe is. weak.
he keeps trying to define jaffe's point as "get rid of used games" when jaffe keeps repeating that he thinks it's great and should stay but publishers should get some cut from the sales. i don't see anything wrong with that. if it keeps publishers from hiking game prices up, and maybe even ruffles the system up enough to where standard pricing starts to dissolve and everything is more competitive, then awesome. isn't that how it is in japan? games aren't all the exact same price at retail?
i can see where Sir Douche is coming from a little bit, but it seems to me like he just wants to start some shit with jaffe and try to "prove" his "point" by getting jaffe all riled up and then pointing out how riled up said jaffe is. weak.
Starchasing said:
They would if the competition isn't in collusion. While I think there is a segment of gamers where the demand curve is inelastic, casuals tend to be much more elastic in their demand curve, and are more price-senstitive. They'll love revenue, and since under DD marginal costs of production are very low- (fixed cost is the primary concern), it won't be a good idea.
I'd guess that the marginal costs of a DD PC title is around $1.00 plus whatever the DD's service cut is. (Marginal Cost would mostly be bandwidth and support)
FLEABttn said:
Most have been very good, in my opinion. I find it absurd that people could think of the video game industry as magical and unique, completely different from every other industry. This isn't just cars -- it's jewelry, movies, firearms, books, houses, music, TVs and other electronics, furniture, and so on. Every single one has a used market.
Your point should be obviously specious, however. You claimed that other industries aren't hurt by used sales. If by "hurt" you mean "some people who would buy new buy used instead," then obviously every other industry is hurt by used sales. Do you think people who buy used cars would choose not to buy a car if only new cars existed? Obviously new car sales would go up if used car sales were quashed.
So what's the difference? That's an honest question.
Opiate said:
A used good has a lower lifespan then a new good. A digital good doesn't realy depreciate, especially if it's data.
There's no real incentive for a consumer to buy new that can be done without the publishing crippling the title on purpose through DRM.
FrostuTheNinja
Member
PepsimanVsJoe said:
Quoted for truth.
Any adult who glides through life, telling people to "fuck off" and other assorted goodies is considered trash by any every other community except the gaming scene. It's shit like this that makes people think we're a bunch of degenerate baby killers.
It almost sounds like his mental development didn't go beyond the age of thirteen.
Starchasing
Member
what about making a game you feel atached to? or a game with a lot of replayability?
what about cheaper games?
i know i sold most of my 360 collection yet i didnt sell my ds games
arstal said:
Which wouldn't explain why movies have used markets, or office software (yes, you can buy used copies of Windows etc), or music, or a variety of other industries with low depreciation.
In addition, this can actually work in favor of games. The fact that there is high depreciation of automobiles -- as an example -- discourages me from selling it back. If I could buy a $20k dollar car, use it for 5 years, and sell it for $19k at the end of that time, this would be extreme incentive to buy new. It costs me 1k to own a new car for 5 years! Why not buy new in that case?
And on the flipside, there is strong incentive to buy a new car because you are garaunteed it will actually work (well, significantly moreso than you would if you bought a 10 year old car).
There actually is a way to keep the consumer buying new: decrease the trade in rate. Make games that people don't resell. There are publishers that have taken this route with great success.
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