Lionhead: Pre-owned worse than PC piracy

[Crni Vuk]

The publisher, however, does not. They don't see any of that money. If three people end up selling/buying the same copy, gamestop saw custom from three people; the publisher only 'saw' one customer.

I personaly dont think that makes sense though.

As said. SOMEONE HAS to buy the games afterall even with used copies. They will most probably not see that money from me anyway. It is like trying to reach for those "die hard pirates". Useless. And I do buy new games. But not very often because it is a huge gamble. Will you get this time only 5 ours of enjoyment or 15 ? Bugs ? Glitchy gameplay ? How many times had I simply more ffustration with a game then fun because of stupid DRMs and being abused as Beta player.

Now I really do not want to compare pirates and second-hand buyers. But if I buy used games someone had to buy it first unless with "stealing" games where no one bought it.

So I do not see how a publisher can come up and say "OMG HAX!!!! WE DON'T SEE ANY OF THEIR MONEY!".

What I want to say with that is. If a product has bad sales it most probably has NOTHING to do at all with the second hand business but most probably the quality of the game. This has probably a much higher impact on the sales of games. Because I gladly pay 40-50$ for a well done product. Example. I bought my self a tablet from wacom. New. Those things are expensive! I could have baught it "used". But I love that thing so far. And I am very happy with it. It does not feel like wasted money. But I can not say the same about a few games I bought. Hence why I prefer to get them used. If possible.

 

[Wintermind]

Fine. Don't tolerate. Don't buy the games. That's your power as the consumer. If you disapprove of EA's or Activision's practices, don't buy their products. It is in their interest for as many new games to be purchased as possible. To them, the consumer who buys the game new is loyal; the consumer who buys the game used is not loyal to them. They have devised a system to reward the customers who are loyal to them, at a lesser cost to them. And, even if a customer is not loyal enough to them to buy new, they can show their loyalty to the company by purchasing that 'new game dlc' online or in store or whatever. And the price is generally high enough to make it similar to the price of buying new. This sends a message to the customer: "Why wait? You want the stuff that everyone else got. Why bother waiting for a used copy, that won't necessarily be in good condition or have it's shit together. Just buy it new, it's easier."

See, the difference is this. While it's completely im-fucking-possible to truly prove that the company has lost a sale, whether due to piracy or due to preowned sales, there is a slight difference; money is changing hands. With piracy, that doesn't happen, thus making it totally impossible to prove a lost sale. With used games however, it shows that the consumer is willing to spend money, and it's not that far of a leap (though it may be an unprovable leap) that they would buy it new.

I don't know how exactly the purchasing system works between the wholesale/retail thing. Does gamestop buy 50 million copies at X dollars and then sell for X+Y mark up? Or do they buy them for z, sell for X+Y mark up, and owe X-Z to the publisher? Again, I don't know. I assume that they buy them up front.

Let's assume that they do buy them upfront. Gamestop analyzes pre orders, market research/study things, previous sales of similar games, previous game sales in general, previous sales from the same developer and same publisher, alongside any supposed consumer feedback about the franchise/developer/publisher. Hell, they probably even study forum activity. They use that information to determine how many copies to buy from the publisher. Let's say 100 million. They distribute those out to the stores based, again, on the above data. They then study the sales of that game. They pay close attention. If they find that out of every five copies, three were sold immediately, one was sold soon after an one more lingered in the shop as copies went back and forth across the preowned games counter, they may decide they don't need that fifth copy for the next game that matches that criteria, that the stores can survive on later resupplies, shift stock around between stores, and push the used games on the consumer, save some money on buying costs and try to push the sales of that game into the black sooner rather than later. This is good for Gamestop. This is bad for the publisher, who will be selling less games to gamestop.

Somebody 'already' buying the game is the not the same as two people buying the game.

I doubt that second hand sales seriously cut into the sales of a game; but i do not doubt the cut is there, especially in long term sales.

Why didn't you buy your wacom tablet used? Why are you so very happy with it? Whats the price difference between used and new?

Haven't you bought games you enjoyed new? or used? And bought games you didn't enjoy new or used?

I assume you did your research before you bought your tablet. Since it's so expensive, I assume you did a lot. Do you the same for games? Do you look into whether it's known to have bugs with certain hardware or have localization issues or anything?

You can't really compare the two between the fact they aren't really in the same segment of the market. Entertainment products are far different from wacom tablets. Enterainment products can be a waste of money for reasons entirely subjective to people, i.e., the content. and the things that one person hates about the product be the thing one person loves about it, where as something like the tablet is far more likely to have to have much more common and similar complaints which would deal much more with the quality/construction of the product as opposed to entertainment product's content.

 

[KarmaPolice]

Let's look at this in the big-picture, yes?

Capitalism is simple. Adapt or die. If you are finding lower profit margins, either increase profit (one way or another) or look at your costs.

Now, to increase profit would actually be pretty hard, at least in the richest-third of the world. They can't jack up prices any more 'cause they are allready at the state where people are turning to 'alternative products' (second-hand, pirate, etc). The market for games are either static or very slowly growing, due to economic stagnation, rising taxation and demographics which mean now that the over-65's outnumber the under-25's. (In Europe. The US is better, but not by much). With the supermarkets queezing market share for games (bet the makers get very little profit on each sale there), specialist stores either going under or dealing with dwindiling sales, the old-style of market is going the way of typewriters and external modems.

Now, quite a few of you suggest that they drop their starting price to give a spur to sales. In 1991, Phillp Morris tried the same with their products. They dropped their prices by 15%. The markets went into panic. The share price bombed. And other companies followed suit, meaning in the end, they all had the same market share, but less profits.

The problem is that many developers now are huge public-listed companies (on the stock market), and some others are arms of even larger multimedia empires.
The Anglo-Saxon companies' CEO's don't worry much about individual games, they worry about keeping cash reserves and the share price high to fend off any stock-raider attacks, to keep the dividend level as high as possible to keep the big investors happy (only in it for the money, they wouldn't care if it was from games, cars, beer or crack cocaine). They have got locked into a graphics arms race with their competitors and they don't know how to stop it. Their sheer size and timidity of their leadership means that most original ideas die quickly. You can't tell the difference between a good new idea from a bad new idea. Usually.

It's no secret why Japanese and continental European companies are often more innovative - it's just their leadership has a longer-term gameplan, devotes more cash to R&D and have shareholders who are more interested in market share, products etc as well as the immediate profits.
When Mazda went under in the '70s, the shareholders (led by a bank, of all people) marched in, and turned around the company within 6 years. They didn't just make the company more efficiant, but they also spent loads on R&D and made a whole new product range which restored the company both into the black and secured the long-term future of the company. (They didn't even fire many people. They re-trained them.)

In Anglo-Saxon companies, the first things to go in fiscal stress are R&D, training and product support. It may be a good short-term decision, but in the long run is part of the reason that British industry is dead, and the US one is starting to resemble it.

Back to the topic. Second-hand games are the real reason that makers are backing overpiced downloads and DRM registering technology. They know that 95% of piracy they can't get at.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Fine. Don't tolerate. Don't buy the games. That's your power as the consumer. If you disapprove of EA's or Activision's practices, don't buy their products. It is in their interest for as many new games to be purchased as possible. To them, the consumer who buys the game new is loyal; the consumer who buys the game used is not loyal to them. They have devised a system to reward the customers who are loyal to them, at a lesser cost to them.

Lets see how far this loyalty will go for you when you have a game you love but can not play anymore in 5 or 10 years because their autentification servers are out and they didnt see a reason to get a patch out. Or you have no way to find it anymore as download and thus you can not play your game anymore.

I know this is a extreme scenario. But not a unlikely one. - And I did already suffered enough issues with GfWL games that I do NOT buy them anymore. It is by far in my eyes one of the worst systems where the game would not register games I bought or only hours later after trying it.

But you are right. In the end it is all left to the consumer. Either he buys. Or don't.

Though at the same time with your attitude you are DIRECTLY playing in the hands of companies which do not see any reason to do something in the name of customer friendliness. That way you completely shift the responsibility to the "consumer" though in my definition BOTH the consumer AND the company share a certain responsibility.