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Total Biscuit arguing for no used game sales

One problem is that Steam was awful for several years (Uplay and Origina are still crappy).

That was okay because Steam wasn't a monopoly service. I don't think I want a console with a monopolised digital distro channel that might be okay.

The main reason no-one complained about digital distro in the PC was that we already have an internet connected gaming PC.
One major plus of console gaming is it's plug and play simplicity. Internet validation and jumping through authorisation hoops detract from that, with no clear benefit to the gamer.

XBL already has digital download games. MS has made a balls up of it and it's generally very expensive and unattractive. Why should we celebrate the fact that it's being made mandatory?
 
One problem is that Steam was awful for several years (Uplay and Origina are still crappy).

That was okay because Steam wasn't a monopoly service. I don't think I want a console with a monopolised digital distro channel that might be okay.

The main reason no-one complained about digital distro in the PC was that we already have an internet connected gaming PC.
One major plus of console gaming is it's plug and play simplicity. Internet validation and jumping through authorisation hoops detract from that, with no clear benefit to the gamer.

XBL already has digital download games. MS has made a balls up of it and it's generally very expensive and unattractive. Why should we celebrate the fact that it's being made mandatory?
Oh man! It's sooo hard to play my PC games. I mean all I have to do is hit the icon on the desktop and maybe enter a password. Stresses me out.
 
I think the biggest problem is that nobody should trust Microsoft to behave the way Steam does in offering any sort of advantage to the consumer. They are too inconsistent and money driven to warrant any sort of confidence from us anymore.

Nailed it right up front. The company that uses most of my dashboard real estate for advertising to me on a service I pay for is not to be trusted in setting fair market prices within a closed ecosystem.
 
The only way to budget properly is to cut back on graphics and audio. When games were cheaper to make you could sell a game for 40-50 dollars, sell a million copies, and profit well. The only way to get budgets down is for all publishers to agree to getting rid of games that cost more than 10 million to make.
But the success of games like Minecraft have shown you don't need AAA graphics and audio to sell, even on consoles. Isn't it the best selling XBLA game? To sell, you just need good games and word of mouth.

I do see what you mean about budgets, but if you knew your game had almost zero chance of making back the money needed, why budget that much? Just make a smaller game. Smaller games don't automatically equal less sales.
 
I think used games have become such a huge thing that its only natural game creators want a slice of that pie. They kill off the long term sales of a lot games now (heck the online pass was born out of used games hurting Burnout Paradise) so If GameStop and other retailers dont want to play ball they can force them with DRM and having to buy codes if they want to resell.

Games are nearly always DRM's on PC and Mobile now anyway so I can see it being accepted by the masses on consoles and everyone will get use to it and move on OR online requirements will be to strict, restricting the amount of console owners and killing the industry. Cant wait to find out which.

I just hope MS and Sony have actually learned from the mistakes made by PC games over the last few years. Its pretty simple.

Quick Online registration / account locking = Ok.
Always Online / Frequent online checks = Bad.
 
I don't like TB's arguments at all in regards to music and movies.
Both of those industries have already naturally matured into a very convenient digital distribution infrastructure. During their transitional phase, people that were purchasing CD's and DVD's were not forced to lock their CD to their home stereo/car stereo or their DVD to their home DVD player. They could freely take their movies/CD's to friends houses and watch/listen to them there or lend them out.

The video game industry has a long way to go until it's completely ready for digital distribution.

The only thing I can agree with him on is the practice of retail stores trying to sell used over new, it's very annoying.
 
Or they could sell their budget titles at a reasonable price. It doesn't help when a budget game still costs as much as a AAA title. There are plenty of games out there that cost $15 that don't look super budgeted or cheap and are a joy to play:

Trine
Bastion
Braid
Hotline Miami
Lara Croft Guardian of Light
Limbo
Mark of the Ninja
Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon
Call of Juarez Gunslinger
Torchlight

Just to name a few off my steam list.
The bigger companies can't survive making budget titles. Anything that costs less 10 million or less to make is a budget title.
 
For PC games, there's essentially no such thing as buying/selling used games. Everything is digital download, attached to an online account. All online play goes through this account.

You can trade unused games, but not used games on Steam. Yet no one complains. I wonder why... because PC gamers are not stuck in the past like console gamers.

PC games pioneered online play with Blizzard's Battle.net and digital distribution with Valve's Steam. Now it's time for the console world to get out of the past and catch up. Time to let physical retailers go bankrupt, move to a world of digital distribution only, where all games and online features goes through one account and unified online platform, like Battle.net or Steam, and hence the question of reselling games is simply moot.

Total Biscuit gets it. Because he understands PCs. And that consoles are stuck in the past.
PC games didnt pioneer shit. Renting a license is how software sales have always worked. All you are advocating is console gamersgamers give up their right to own content to join a locked monopoly.

If you are going to advocate this shit, at least try to be honest.
 
For PC games, there's essentially no such thing as buying/selling used games. Everything is digital download, attached to an online account. All online play goes through this account.

You can trade unused games, but not used games on Steam. Yet no one complains. I wonder why... because PC gamers are not stuck in the past like console gamers.

PC games pioneered online play with Blizzard's Battle.net and digital distribution with Valve's Steam. Now it's time for the console world to get out of the past and catch up. Time to let physical retailers go bankrupt, move to a world of digital distribution only, where all games and online features goes through one account and unified online platform, like Battle.net or Steam, and hence the question of reselling games is simply moot.

Total Biscuit gets it. Because he understands PCs. And that consoles are stuck in the past.

Or, just maybe, it could be that PC is an open platform that facilitates healthy competition whereas consoles are a proprietary platform where online-only and DRM will be much less beneficial to the consumer.
 
It's crazy, but one day you will only be able to order the physical special edition version online.

The stores might carry a few but that's that. Kind of like what CDs are doing now.

Yeah, yeah I know CDs are DRM free. But it's crazy how often the CD version is cheaper than the MP3 version. People don't even want to deal with them anymore.

Game discs will just be like the hipster version of VINYL.

These new boxes would probbaly be all digital anyway if internet infrastructure didn't suck balls. I'm pretty sure MS didn't even want a Blu-Ray drive in there.

Don't get me wrong I like my media. I still like my CD artwork, Superior quality of Blu ray movies, and the ability to lend my games to friends.
 
Used CDs didn't hurt the music market.
Used DVDSs didn't hurt the movie market.
Used cars don't hurt the automobile market.
Used games don't hurt the game market.

CD's and DVD's are dirt cheap. They also make a lot of revenue elsewhere than at retail.

Used cars have inherent disadvantages to a new car, a used car has wear and tear a new car doesn't... cars degrade quickly in value.. and you do see car manufacturers combat used sales by upping warranty periods, offering free upkeep service for a number of years, etc.. trying to keep models out of used for at least a few years.

What am I reading someone help me

Games more of a luxury than cars WAAH
Cars degradation of performance and safety WAAH
Wear and tear (and this doesn't apply to games?) WAAH
No post-purchase for manufacturer WTFDOESTHISEVENMEAN

TotalBiscuit bro I expected more of my 155 IQ homie

EDIT: Also, LESS COMPETITION =/= LOWER PRICES jeez l2monopoly

Games are pure luxury, not needed in the slightest... for a lot of at least Americans having at least one car in a household is pretty much a necessity. Now, some cars are luxury purchases, but all in all.. a game is more of a luxury good.. and has zero to do with price.

Cars of course degrade in performance and safety over time... how could someone say they don't? You do know that cars are made to run off using fuel to cause explosions to turn an engine to turn the wheels that are stopped by metal-composite pads pushing on metal discs to stop... right?


But the FREQUENCY of those sales, not to mention their Games On Demand pricing being a terrible joke. Games that LAUNCHED on the platform are still sitting at 20/30 dollars.

Exactly my point. No way is blocking used games going to improve pricing. TB is out of his mind if he thinks that'll happen.

Has more to do with price fixing for retail... they couldn't last gen afford to ditch retail as their main revenue outlet... they obviously feel the time to switch is now. I applaud them for it.. but it seems a lot of people wish we'd delay that future.. some for good reason.. some who'd never buy a console to start with.
 
He really hit the nail on the head. Fuck GAME and GameStop, they are very reason developers are increasing the price of games in order to get the profit they lose because of used game sales. I definitely stand by no used games and I think MS did right though I am totally against online DRM. I really hope Sony does this as well, I am certain prices will go down and sales aplenty just like the PC market.
Why aren't there sales currently now, on Xbox live.
 
Why aren't there sales currently now, on Xbox live.

Gamestop.
Trying not undercut retail is what's holding back availability and pricing.

Not to mention the 3-month wait time for new games on demand. It's surely retail-related. There's no valid technical reason for a staggered 3-month delay after retail. GoD releases, unlike PSN full games, require no additional dev work, and are essentially paperwork submissions. (per Sven at Capcom).
 
Has more to do with price fixing for retail... they couldn't last gen afford to ditch retail as their main revenue outlet... they obviously feel the time to switch is now. I applaud them for it.. but it seems a lot of people wish we'd delay that future.. some for good reason.. some who'd never buy a console to start with.

That is a BS excuse because XBLA only games are much more expensive there than on other platforms. Only console makers can take tablet games and charge 5x to 15x as much as other market places. A closed platform is always going to have horrible pricing. Retail is the reason we have decent prices. They compete against each other weekly many selling games as a loss leader. Move all games to MS or Sony digital market place and customers get ripped off completely since there is no other option.
 
I don't like TB's arguments at all in regards to music and movies.
Both of those industries have already naturally matured into a very convenient digital distribution infrastructure. During their transitional phase, people that were purchasing CD's and DVD's were not forced to lock their CD to their home stereo/car stereo or their DVD to their home DVD player. They could freely take their movies/CD's to friends houses and watch/listen to them there or lend them out.

The video game industry has a long way to go until it's completely ready for digital distribution.
This is precisely the crux of the issue, IMO. This is a decades old practice that hasn't been a threat to gaming at any time and now we're steadily transitioning away from it anyway. All this industry has to do is ensure that the transition to digital remains appealing to the customer and they won't have to try devising these cockamamie schemes to arbitrarily lockout physical copy resale all of sudden. That's more likely to just spook everyone into shying away from a platform entirely.

NervousXtian said:
..but it seems a lot of people wish we'd delay that future..
No, a lot of people just don't think there's any need to mess with longstanding practices while we _also_ head into the future.
 
This is precisely the crux of the issue, IMO. This is a decades old practice that hasn't been a threat to gaming at any time and now we're steadily transitioning away from it anyway. All this industry has to do is ensure that the transition to digital remains appealing to the customer and they won't have to try devising these cockamamie schemes to arbitrarily lockout physical copy resale all of sudden. That's more likely to just spook everyone into shying away from a platform entirely.

Like my earlier example, while CDs are still available people are sick of them. Even with the good deals! Shit you can get the AutoRip version for less the MP3 version. How does that make sense? But people just prefer the digital version.

Now with movies we are going almost the same route but not there yet.

And games we are now headed that way also. I suppose people still want their options while we wait to see what consumers really want. If people end up preferring the digital copies then physical copies are not long for thsi world.

No ones wants to be dragged there kicking and screaming though.
 
Sorry TB, but you've lost me as a subscriber.
There's no need to play the devil's advocate on an issue like this when there are countless of corporate apologists eager to defend MS.
If anything, we need a rational voice pointing out the how harmful this is to consumers, as all we know for sure that we're getting are the negatives - with the positives (Steam like sales) sounding more like a naive wish.
 
Sorry TB, but you've lost me as a subscriber.
There's no need to play the devil's advocate on an issue like this when there are countless of corporate apologists eager to defend MS.
If anything, we need a rational voice pointing out the how harmful this is to consumers, as all we know for sure that we're getting are the negatives - with the positives (Steam like sales) sounding more like a naive wish.

Same here, unsubbed
 
Gamestop.
Trying not undercut retail is what's holding back availability and pricing.

Not to mention the 3-month wait time for new games on demand. It's surely retail-related. There's no valid technical reason for a staggered 3-month delay after retail. GoD releases, unlike PSN full games, require no additional dev work, and are essentially paperwork submissions. (per Sven at Capcom).
LOL. So publishers blame retail for literally taking their profits, but stagger their digital services to appease them? That is moronic, and what about the xbla/psn games that never touch GS and still rarely, if ever seeany price drop?
 
jmdajr said:
It's crazy, but one day you will only be able to order the physical special edition version online.

The stores might carry a few but that's that. Kind of like what CDs are doing now.

You could also argue that games as packaged-goods are, even now, mostly provided to service the casual mass-market, more than gamers.

If you consider how different the range of content at retail is from digital distribution services like PSN or XBLA, you can see these two markets diverging in the future.

If you play enough to consider yourself a "gamer" its more likely than not you'll have downloaded a whole bunch of titles off of Sony and MS's online services this gen. Stuff that's locked to your account and is essentially non-resellable anyway. Most of the time we let this fact slide because its generally cheaper than packaged games.

What I'm getting at is this: If, as I mentioned in an earlier post, gamers do globally refuse to accept DRM locked retail games, and the market crashes - the titles that are going to survive longest are the Fifa's, the Madden's, the CoD's, the titles that have a heavy mass-market following and are played by people who buy consoles to basically play that one game because it fits with their general lifestyle and interests.

You subtract those heavy-hitters from what we have today, and... most of the stuff left over could be migrated onto PSN/XBLA reasonably naturally. You want Demon's/Dark Souls. get it off PSN for a modest price like you can right now. After all, if you don't have an internet connection, you are going to be missing out on part of their unique features anyway.
 
What I'm getting at is this: If, as I mentioned in an earlier post, gamers do globally refuse to accept DRM locked retail games, and the market crashes - the titles that are going to survive longest are the Fifa's, the Madden's, the CoD's, the titles that have a heavy mass-market following and are played by people who buy consoles to basically play that one game because it fits with their general lifestyle and interests.

I guess we don't know how casuals are going to accept DRM just yet. I think they might care less than we think.
 
We've also gotten used to it. There was much gnashing of teeth to be had when Valve launched Steam (though this was partly because it was so shit back then).
The day Half-Life 2 came out is still one of the greatest internet meltdowns I've ever been a part of. The Diablo III launch wasn't even close to as bad, at least in North America.
 
Total Biscuit? More like Totally Out Of Touch! Am I right, guys?!

I still find it weird that people are trying to push what naturally happened to the PC market for its survival as a reason why this is good for consumers in the console market.
 
For me personally I will never switch to digital for movies. Blu Ray's just sound way to damn good compared to the digital versions.

I completely agree. If I buy a movie it's on Bluray. I would never waste my money on the inferior digital only version.

Interesting how for CD, BluRay..the physical version is in fact superior. No Compression for CD, and far less compression for BluRay.

But for games? Content is exactly the same. But hey, I get to share with my buds.
 
Gamestop.
Trying not undercut retail is what's holding back availability and pricing.

Not to mention the 3-month wait time for new games on demand. It's surely retail-related. There's no valid technical reason for a staggered 3-month delay after retail. GoD releases, unlike PSN full games, require no additional dev work, and are essentially paperwork submissions. (per Sven at Capcom).

The thing is it's also in the publishers interest to do this. They have sunk costs in the retail copies that are still out there and retailers will order less if they don't sell.
 
LOL. So publishers blame retail for literally taking their profits, but stagger their digital services to appease them? That is moronic, and what about the xbla/psn games that never touch GS and still rarely, if ever seeany price drop?

I have been waiting for an answer on that one since this issue started. The defenders avoid this like the plague. Don't forget those titles are more expensive on XLBA than any other digital store out there by a lot in most cases.
 
It's crazy, but one day you will only be able to order the physical special edition version online.

The stores might carry a few but that's that. Kind of like what CDs are doing now.

Yeah, yeah I know CDs are DRM free. But it's crazy how often the CD version is cheaper than the MP3 version. People don't even want to deal with them anymore.

Game discs will just be like the hipster version of VINYL.

These new boxes would probbaly be all digital anyway if internet infrastructure didn't suck balls. I'm pretty sure MS didn't even want a Blu-Ray drive in there.

Don't get me wrong I like my media. I still like my CD artwork, Superior quality of Blu ray movies, and the ability to lend my games to friends.

Nothing wrong here, but this is exactly why some people collect physical media. We already see the shit kicked of PS3 and 360 gamers when they can't transfer their digital games to PS4 and xbone. Feels bad man.
 
I completely agree. If I buy a movie it's on Bluray. I would never waste my money on the inferior digital only version.

Interesting how for CD, BluRay..the physical version is in fact superior. No Compression for CD, and far less compression for BluRay.

But for games? Content is exactly the same. But hey, I get to share with my buds.

Is there even any compression for Bluray? Or is it lossless because of the size?
 
Is there even any compression for Bluray? Or is it lossless because of the size?

For video yes, but it has a really high h.264 bit rate. The soundtrack is sometimes completely uncompressed, or basically lossless.

A 2 hour uncompressed 1080p movies would be over a Terabyte in size.
 
Why aren't there sales currently now, on Xbox live.

There are. In fact, there are a number of Games on Demand right now that are the same price as or cheaper than on Steam. There are sales all the time. Dark Souls is $9.99 right now, for example. The GoD store is getting better and better at that, which people conveniently ignore.

But as to why pricing still seems a little out of whack on that marketplace - its because retailers still dominate sales, and Microsoft (and the other publishers) aren't ready to start undercutting them yet.
 
This is just publishers refusing to admit that they are the problem. Budget properly and you wouldn't need extra revenue streams just to stay profitable.

Exactly. Publishers are ridiculously overspending their money on developments of making games & on marketing/advertising the games, which in turn, requires millions upon millions of copies sold just to turn a profit or to break even. As a result, most of them either lost a ton of money (like Square-Enix with games like Tomb Raider) &/or have many studio closures.

Something about it has to change in the gaming industry, otherwise, we'll either see a AAA/AAAA gaming crash or see most of the gaming industry collapse, & I think that we'll see it happening in about 3-4 years time from today. While it's true that many publishers have money, they can't run off of this unsustainable model forever.

Also, I agree with Amir0x's post.
 
LOL. So publishers blame retail for literally taking their profits, but stagger their digital services to appease them? That is moronic, and what about the xbla/psn games that never touch GS and still rarely, if ever seeany price drop?

Yeah, pretty much. Retail holds the cards right now, really unless the model changes. Regarding the latter, yeah it's not great, but it seems like more people wait for the inevitable sale, even if short-lived. They'd probably push more xbla/psn games with more aggressive sales. It seems like customers are not biting at some of the price points, which will tend to force their hand. It just might take time for them to get the message.
 
It seems to me that it's inevitable that stores like Gamestop will collapse like Blockbuster and get reduced to things like kiosks (which could sell every game if they are digital). It's just a matter of how long they stick around which depends on how much the games industry thinks it's in their interest to prop them up. The current volumes depend on digital being secondary which will eat away at retail if you get reasonably priced games day 1 and features like preload preorder.

Stores do add value e.g. Moms like to go to stores and buy their kids a physical thing which they might need assistance to choose. Making it all digital leaves money on the table. So it's really a question of what form retail will take.
 
Not going to say that budgets don't need to be reigned in, but I'm not just going to put blame on dudebro games. To me each era of gaming has trends, and that will continue. It used to be platformers and fighting games, and now it's FPS. Successful ideas will always be milked.
 
There are. In fact, there are a number of Games on Demand right now that are the same price as or cheaper than on Steam. There are sales all the time. Dark Souls is $9.99 right now, for example. The GoD store is getting better and better at that, which people conveniently ignore.

But as to why pricing still seems a little out of whack on that marketplace - its because retailers still dominate sales, and Microsoft (and the other publishers) aren't ready to start undercutting them yet.
Those games that are still higher price than going to GS?

And no, GoD having one decent sale in a blue moon is not much. Have you seen the amazon sale by comparison.
 
It seems to me that it's inevitable that stores like Gamestop will collapse like Blockbuster and get reduced to things like kiosks (which could sell every game if they are digital). It's just a matter of how long they stick around which depends on how much the games industry thinks it's in their interest to prop them up. The current volumes depend on digital being secondary which will eat away at retail if you get reasonably priced games day 1 and features like preload preorder.

Stores do add value e.g. Moms like to go to stores and buy their kids a physical thing which they might need assistance to choose. Making it all digital leaves money on the table. So it's really a question of what form retail will take.

Yeah, but even shit like Redbox is in danger. I mean I guess you can rent the game and the drm will only let you play it for x amount of time. I don't know.

Anyhow soon at the store you will only see download gift cards.
 
Used CDs didn't hurt the music market.
Used DVDSs didn't hurt the movie market.
Used cars don't hurt the automobile market.
Used games don't hurt the game market.

Ridiculous. Of course they do: they remove first hand sales. Simple as that. Your perception of hurt is different, but hurt they do.

More directly: I have lost my job because a game was canned where preowned is a factor taken into consideration when discussing sales potential. How does that not hurt the market/employees/game companies?
 
Yeah, pretty much. Retail holds the cards right now, really unless the model changes. Regarding the latter, yeah it's not great, but it seems like more people wait for the inevitable sale, even if short-lived. They'd probably push more xbla/psn games with more aggressive sales. It seems like customers are not biting at some of the price points, which will tend to force their hand. It just might take time for them to get the message.
More "maybe, probably,hopefully" no definite proof that giving MS/Sony a monopoly will lower prices.
 
Yeah, yeah I know CDs are DRM free.

Not all of them are.
Standard CD-DAs are DRM free.

That's why you often find Audio-CDs without a CD-Digital Audio Logo on it. Because their copy protection techniques (including DRM Windows software) are actually not following the CD-DA standard. Which is one of the reasons people avoid CDs. Because those non-standard CDs don't play on all CD-Audio players.

Most of the CDs that I buy are from Asia. Because almost all of them don't include this crap.
 
It is such a shame that this is so obviously designed as a click bait to make the channel some money.
Not much money made in agreeing with everyone with a non-controversial opinion.
 
Not all of them are.
Standard CD-DAs are DRM free.

That's why you often find Audio-CDs without a CD-Digital Audio Logo on it. Because their copy protection techniques (including DRM Windows software) is actually not following the CD-DA standard.

Hmmm. I wasn't aware. So all Audio Books have DRM? Or just some?
 
Used CDs didn't hurt the music market.
Used DVDSs didn't hurt the movie market.
Used cars don't hurt the automobile market.
Used games don't hurt the game market.

OP already disproved this point. CD/DVD (or music/movie industry) have SEVERAL mediums for revenue, not just first hand sales. Video games have, for a long time ONLY had first hand sales. It's only just recently you've seen platforms such as paid DLC, microtransactions create new revenue. Even still, first hand sales is the largest revenue stream for a large number of games, and used games completely eliminate this.

Cost of video games are astronomical. I support any method that allows publishers/developers to recoup cost, which would in the long run lead to more, diverse games.
 
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