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I got a little lost in some of the more economic paragraphs, but I definitely agree with the general idea. This line especially: "People don't necessarily care about New versus Used. People care about price." I really wish publishers would stop trying to attack the used game market and instead try to work with them.
Iono, Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom didn't do too well at that reduced price point.
The hang up is that people believe the content is devalued, thus they have a split second to second guess the purchase. For many, that's the difference of a sale.
Devaluation of a product is a concern and it could do a lot more to a property than just undermining it. Plus it doesn't factor in all of the distribution costs that go in to the games industry.
Games print at $60 because it probably costs $10 a disc (after production, marketing, etc.) for the manufacturer. Then you have the retailers buying the copies at $25 and then selling it at $60. In the end the game only really made $15 to start with off of each copy. Not $50.
For GTA, that's not a real issue as the increases in 2nd, 3rd and 4th prints reduces that $10 down.
However for a lot of hit or miss games, it could be a deal breaker.
The whole distribution side is pretty complicated. Mostly in factoring in sales, bulk dumps of games, preorders and all of the rest of the things that go behind the scenes. At the end of the day, the total sales figures come from units of games purchased by manufacturers. You can't have a used game market unless the market is over saturated with your product.
Also, if a game is really good then there isn't too many trade ins. Not too many people have figured that out yet. Just ask Valve's developers how worried they are about the used game market.
The hang up is that people believe the content is devalued, thus they have a split second to second guess the purchase. For many, that's the difference of a sale.
Devaluation of a product is a concern and it could do a lot more to a property than just undermining it. Plus it doesn't factor in all of the distribution costs that go in to the games industry.
Games print at $60 because it probably costs $10 a disc (after production, marketing, etc.) for the manufacturer. Then you have the retailers buying the copies at $25 and then selling it at $60. In the end the game only really made $15 to start with off of each copy. Not $50.
For GTA, that's not a real issue as the increases in 2nd, 3rd and 4th prints reduces that $10 down.
However for a lot of hit or miss games, it could be a deal breaker.
The whole distribution side is pretty complicated. Mostly in factoring in sales, bulk dumps of games, preorders and all of the rest of the things that go behind the scenes. At the end of the day, the total sales figures come from units of games purchased by manufacturers. You can't have a used game market unless the market is over saturated with your product.
Also, if a game is really good then there isn't too many trade ins. Not too many people have figured that out yet. Just ask Valve's developers how worried they are about the used game market.
Do you work in analytics? You should.
I agree with you, however companies will never start their games that low. They will always make more money setting it out at $60 first and foremost and then dropping it days, weeks, or even months later. Money is always the bottom line, the rest of the benefits you mentioned is just icing on the (money) cake.
I agree with you, however companies will never start their games that low. They will always make more money setting it out at $60 first and foremost and then dropping it days, weeks, or even months later. Money is always the bottom line, the rest of the benefits you mentioned is just icing on the (money) cake.
The reason I buy used is because it's incredibly hard to find a game worth 60 bucks. INCREDIBLY HARD. 40 dollars is always nice, and I can think of a lot of games worth 40 dollars that I would buy new if they were, but wait until they are used because 60 is just too much.
However, online passes are just horseshit. You should not have to pay just to play something online just because you bought it used, don't punish the used gamer, make buying new better. Give it codes for cool new weapons. Give it codes for a special game mode. Treating the used game market like piracy by trying to eliminate it at the cost of those people will just turn them off to buying your games at all, and will never want to buy your games if they are at full price. Giving new players something better is always a better idea. I would buy say, LA Noire new if it gave me something. I still might buy it new, I think it's worth 60 bucks, but I need a reason to buy it new.
However, online passes are just horseshit. You should not have to pay just to play something online just because you bought it used, don't punish the used gamer, make buying new better. Give it codes for cool new weapons. Give it codes for a special game mode. Treating the used game market like piracy by trying to eliminate it at the cost of those people will just turn them off to buying your games at all, and will never want to buy your games if they are at full price. Giving new players something better is always a better idea. I would buy say, LA Noire new if it gave me something. I still might buy it new, I think it's worth 60 bucks, but I need a reason to buy it new.
@Caiters
The closest I came to working in anything like that was working at Wells Fargo, but I did a few semesters of Economics before I got bored with school. And nah, my current job pays just as well and is way easier.
And I'm not saying that EVERY game has to start at $40 or lower. Your Call of Duties, Final Fantasies, Maddens (the licenses are godly expensive) and Metal Gear Solids can start at $59.99 like they always do, because they've got budgets that are worth it and are guaranteed the sales. I'm talking games like Nier, like Mindjack, like Two Worlds II, etc. Games that don't have triple-A budgets with triple-A marketing and thus, shouldn't be expected to sell for triple-A prices.
Games that don't have that sort of marketing and production muscle behind them might not find a market at $59.99, but could very easily find a large market at $30-$40 as a niche title.
The closest I came to working in anything like that was working at Wells Fargo, but I did a few semesters of Economics before I got bored with school. And nah, my current job pays just as well and is way easier.
And I'm not saying that EVERY game has to start at $40 or lower. Your Call of Duties, Final Fantasies, Maddens (the licenses are godly expensive) and Metal Gear Solids can start at $59.99 like they always do, because they've got budgets that are worth it and are guaranteed the sales. I'm talking games like Nier, like Mindjack, like Two Worlds II, etc. Games that don't have triple-A budgets with triple-A marketing and thus, shouldn't be expected to sell for triple-A prices.
Games that don't have that sort of marketing and production muscle behind them might not find a market at $59.99, but could very easily find a large market at $30-$40 as a niche title.
"People don't necessarily care about New versus Used. People care about price"
So what is lowering the price going to do when lowering the price of new will also lower the price of used? The people that benefit the most from the used market are the ones on the tightest budgets, and if people only care about money then why wouldn't they just continue doing what they're doing and get to play more games?
If they really did sell more units then the price of used games would be driven lower (assuming more turn-ins) and offer more incentive for people buying later to buy used. Unless developers really offered reasons to hold onto games, does it matter whether the person is selling the game for as much as the used to? It's a worse return on your investment, but it's still a return that you wouldn't get it on a game you might not want to ever play again. If the trade-in prices for games rapidly dropped (like with FFXIII in Japan especially), it provides more incentive to trade-in early and thus the prices on used games will start dropping long before the new price does.
The problem here is that the used game market can stay competitive regardless of what the price of the new game is. A lower price may mean more sales initially from people that really want a specific game on day 1, but it'd ultimately be a massive benefit for consumers rather than the developers/publishers. I don't think it'd really do anything to reduce the used market; what it would do is help more niche games sell against $60 behemoths or the less popular against the more popular considering people will be able to buy more games at $40. I need some convincing that it would actually meaningfully take money out of the used market though.
So what is lowering the price going to do when lowering the price of new will also lower the price of used? The people that benefit the most from the used market are the ones on the tightest budgets, and if people only care about money then why wouldn't they just continue doing what they're doing and get to play more games?
If they really did sell more units then the price of used games would be driven lower (assuming more turn-ins) and offer more incentive for people buying later to buy used. Unless developers really offered reasons to hold onto games, does it matter whether the person is selling the game for as much as the used to? It's a worse return on your investment, but it's still a return that you wouldn't get it on a game you might not want to ever play again. If the trade-in prices for games rapidly dropped (like with FFXIII in Japan especially), it provides more incentive to trade-in early and thus the prices on used games will start dropping long before the new price does.
The problem here is that the used game market can stay competitive regardless of what the price of the new game is. A lower price may mean more sales initially from people that really want a specific game on day 1, but it'd ultimately be a massive benefit for consumers rather than the developers/publishers. I don't think it'd really do anything to reduce the used market; what it would do is help more niche games sell against $60 behemoths or the less popular against the more popular considering people will be able to buy more games at $40. I need some convincing that it would actually meaningfully take money out of the used market though.
I'd like to see no sports games on the disc format. All of them should be digital only. I'm sick of seeing 20 copies of Madden '99 or NBA 2kWTF at my local used retailer. SICK OF IT...
@Vali
Lowering the price doesn't work out to well unless all games use an Online Pass/Content Lockout code. That sort of thing can and does drive down the trade-in value of a game, which means that combined with the lower MSRP of the game, you don't have a cycle of "Buy game for $60, trade it in for $50, rinse and repeat". Like I said, a $40 game that GameStop can theoretically sell used for $35 is a $25 credit without a $10 online pass. With the $10 online pass, the value of the trade-in GameStop is able to offer is only $15.
Losing more than 50% of the MSRP on the trade-in value will do quite a lot to discourage trade-ins, especially compared to the current 25% to 16% people lose.
As for how this effects the used market, that one is simple as well. Some people are cheap, and no matter what you do you aren't going to sell them a new copy as long as a used copy exists. See Step 3 of my post, because that's where those people are dealt with. Nothing you really can do about them aside from going pure digital distribution, which is a much larger change than the one I've proposed.
Other people, however, simply see some prices as too high, and would happily pay for a title new at a lower price point. Many more people are going to be willing to take a chance on an interesting game at $30 instead of $60. Now, if publishers can figure out the right balance of profit vs. market reach (which would be the $25-$40 range for most games, I believe), they won't have to worry about flooding the market with used copies that people will pick up. More people will have bought the game new, which means there are less people TO buy it used.
As a quick example, 20 of the people who regularly visit an EB Games are willing to pick up Quirky Title X. At $60, only 6 of them are willing to buy it... Which means that there are 14 people in the wings waiting to snatch a used copy. Demand for the used copies will be high, meaning the trade-in credit will also be high and will be an incentive for the purchasers to sell it back.
However if Quirky Title X drops at a $30 price point, 13 of them are willing to pick it up. Demand for the game is not so high, and there will be correspondingly less trade-in value and thus, a lowered incentive to sell it back. And should GameStop take all 13 titles back in trade-in, they're going to discover that only 7 of them actually sell and the rest sit, rot on the shelf and cost the company money.
So when Quirky Title Y drops for the same price, the trade-in value on that is automatically going to be even lower, because GameStop doesn't want to risk taking the game back. The more new copies of a game they sell in a particular area, the less they're going to want to take copies of those games back. The less they take back, the smaller the used market gets.
Eventually, the economy of the games industry adjusts to this new rhythm and publishers start to see a little bit more of a return on their sales, and GameStop starts making their money on the sale of new games instead of used. Once their bread and butter starts coming from that direction, they won't have any need to try to push the used market, since it's a sideline instead of a driving force in their own profits.
Everybody wins, even the customer.
Lowering the price doesn't work out to well unless all games use an Online Pass/Content Lockout code. That sort of thing can and does drive down the trade-in value of a game, which means that combined with the lower MSRP of the game, you don't have a cycle of "Buy game for $60, trade it in for $50, rinse and repeat". Like I said, a $40 game that GameStop can theoretically sell used for $35 is a $25 credit without a $10 online pass. With the $10 online pass, the value of the trade-in GameStop is able to offer is only $15.
Losing more than 50% of the MSRP on the trade-in value will do quite a lot to discourage trade-ins, especially compared to the current 25% to 16% people lose.
As for how this effects the used market, that one is simple as well. Some people are cheap, and no matter what you do you aren't going to sell them a new copy as long as a used copy exists. See Step 3 of my post, because that's where those people are dealt with. Nothing you really can do about them aside from going pure digital distribution, which is a much larger change than the one I've proposed.
Other people, however, simply see some prices as too high, and would happily pay for a title new at a lower price point. Many more people are going to be willing to take a chance on an interesting game at $30 instead of $60. Now, if publishers can figure out the right balance of profit vs. market reach (which would be the $25-$40 range for most games, I believe), they won't have to worry about flooding the market with used copies that people will pick up. More people will have bought the game new, which means there are less people TO buy it used.
As a quick example, 20 of the people who regularly visit an EB Games are willing to pick up Quirky Title X. At $60, only 6 of them are willing to buy it... Which means that there are 14 people in the wings waiting to snatch a used copy. Demand for the used copies will be high, meaning the trade-in credit will also be high and will be an incentive for the purchasers to sell it back.
However if Quirky Title X drops at a $30 price point, 13 of them are willing to pick it up. Demand for the game is not so high, and there will be correspondingly less trade-in value and thus, a lowered incentive to sell it back. And should GameStop take all 13 titles back in trade-in, they're going to discover that only 7 of them actually sell and the rest sit, rot on the shelf and cost the company money.
So when Quirky Title Y drops for the same price, the trade-in value on that is automatically going to be even lower, because GameStop doesn't want to risk taking the game back. The more new copies of a game they sell in a particular area, the less they're going to want to take copies of those games back. The less they take back, the smaller the used market gets.
Eventually, the economy of the games industry adjusts to this new rhythm and publishers start to see a little bit more of a return on their sales, and GameStop starts making their money on the sale of new games instead of used. Once their bread and butter starts coming from that direction, they won't have any need to try to push the used market, since it's a sideline instead of a driving force in their own profits.
Everybody wins, even the customer.
"Step 2: Cut content and hide it behind a code, and allow used purchasers to buy the content with a $5-$10 pass online. Then offer GameStop the ability to buy codes to pack in with used purchases. "
*Frowns*
You mean amp DLC up to eleven?, seriously, i understand what you tried to go for but if anything i've learned from the VG industry is that they'll twist it as badly as they can in order to get some extra bucks, if they released a AAA game that did this and sold well i can safely bet my left nut that in the blink of an eye ALL games released after it would have half of it's content "hidden by codes" like Assassins Creed 2 DLC missions did. Even if it worked exactly as you say it would take a small exploitable loophole somewhere for the usual Tragedy of the Commons situation to happen, it's just human nature.
Point 1 and 3 are fine though
*Frowns*
You mean amp DLC up to eleven?, seriously, i understand what you tried to go for but if anything i've learned from the VG industry is that they'll twist it as badly as they can in order to get some extra bucks, if they released a AAA game that did this and sold well i can safely bet my left nut that in the blink of an eye ALL games released after it would have half of it's content "hidden by codes" like Assassins Creed 2 DLC missions did. Even if it worked exactly as you say it would take a small exploitable loophole somewhere for the usual Tragedy of the Commons situation to happen, it's just human nature.
Point 1 and 3 are fine though
@Edgydude
You seem to be under the misconception that my suggestions were for the benefit of consumers only.
No.
Under my plan, it will probably affect less than 5% of gamers and will result in a better economy for all involved. If you buy a game used and expect that the studio to not take steps, fuck your self-entitlement.
You seem to be under the misconception that my suggestions were for the benefit of consumers only.
No.
Under my plan, it will probably affect less than 5% of gamers and will result in a better economy for all involved. If you buy a game used and expect that the studio to not take steps, fuck your self-entitlement.
You seem to be under the misconception that my suggestions were for the benefit of consumers only.
Of course i don't expect that, but advice that benefits devs at the consumers expense is not the greatest idea either. Correct me if i'm wrong but basically you're advocating for the usual DLC model when the expansion model is much older and way better.
Under my plan, it will probably affect less than 5% of gamers and will result in a better economy for all involved. If you buy a game used and expect that the studio to not take steps, fuck your self-entitlement.
Correct me if i'm wrong but if this affects consumers that buy any game with at least 10% of content as "blocked on-disc DLC" that makes it something that affects 100% of consumers that bought that game, not 5%. Also, i'm a supporter of the "late adopter" method, why buy something for 60$ today that you can buy for 30$-20$ (or 2x1 of even 3x1 in some cases) if you can muster the willpower to wait for 6 months or so?, it's not entitlement it's stretching the hard earned dough as much as possible, something 99% of gamers can relate to.
As i said, i get your point and what you meant, but like i said before you seem to ignore the industry's historical way of twisting any noble idea in order to get more money for the same or less content from the consumer, something that's specially prevalent this generation.
Of course i don't expect that, but advice that benefits devs at the consumers expense is not the greatest idea either. Correct me if i'm wrong but basically you're advocating for the usual DLC model when the expansion model is much older and way better.
Under my plan, it will probably affect less than 5% of gamers and will result in a better economy for all involved. If you buy a game used and expect that the studio to not take steps, fuck your self-entitlement.
Correct me if i'm wrong but if this affects consumers that buy any game with at least 10% of content as "blocked on-disc DLC" that makes it something that affects 100% of consumers that bought that game, not 5%. Also, i'm a supporter of the "late adopter" method, why buy something for 60$ today that you can buy for 30$-20$ (or 2x1 of even 3x1 in some cases) if you can muster the willpower to wait for 6 months or so?, it's not entitlement it's stretching the hard earned dough as much as possible, something 99% of gamers can relate to.
As i said, i get your point and what you meant, but like i said before you seem to ignore the industry's historical way of twisting any noble idea in order to get more money for the same or less content from the consumer, something that's specially prevalent this generation.
@EdgyDude
I don't quite think you understand where I'm coming from, here.
This is not a "This will benefit the consumers best" suggestion. This is a "This will benefit everyone involved" suggestion. Right now, the used games market IS an issue for publishers. Their perception of the market is that they can't afford to take a chance on a unique game because nobody will buy it... So they don't market it or produce many copies, so while tried and true games like COD or Metal Gear sell fine, games which are good but ill-supported become cult hits with high eBay prices instead of genuine hits.
And an important bit to the DLC model I mentioned is giving the late adopters the codes as well, if they're willing to be patient and wait. Right now, my pricing model screws (and only screws) the people who buy a game, sell it back, and then buy another game. Longer term waits are dealt with via the included-codes mentioned.
And again, I hate how self-entitled gamers sound. The more I hear from people, the more I take the publisher's side in issues like this. The fact of the matter is that you, the customer, will be able to decide what a game is worth and what the online pass or excised content is worth to YOU. Under this model, the developer gets to say "Here, have 80% of the game at whatever bargain basement price you paid if you're that cheap. If you want the full, complete experience, cough up a measly five or ten bucks to get the other 20%."
Saying you support the "late adopter" method is another way of saying "I'm too cheap to even think of spending money on my entertainment in a way that benefits my entertainer."
Is it really out of line for publishers to give you a big old "fuck you" right back?
I don't think so.
I don't quite think you understand where I'm coming from, here.
This is not a "This will benefit the consumers best" suggestion. This is a "This will benefit everyone involved" suggestion. Right now, the used games market IS an issue for publishers. Their perception of the market is that they can't afford to take a chance on a unique game because nobody will buy it... So they don't market it or produce many copies, so while tried and true games like COD or Metal Gear sell fine, games which are good but ill-supported become cult hits with high eBay prices instead of genuine hits.
And an important bit to the DLC model I mentioned is giving the late adopters the codes as well, if they're willing to be patient and wait. Right now, my pricing model screws (and only screws) the people who buy a game, sell it back, and then buy another game. Longer term waits are dealt with via the included-codes mentioned.
And again, I hate how self-entitled gamers sound. The more I hear from people, the more I take the publisher's side in issues like this. The fact of the matter is that you, the customer, will be able to decide what a game is worth and what the online pass or excised content is worth to YOU. Under this model, the developer gets to say "Here, have 80% of the game at whatever bargain basement price you paid if you're that cheap. If you want the full, complete experience, cough up a measly five or ten bucks to get the other 20%."
Saying you support the "late adopter" method is another way of saying "I'm too cheap to even think of spending money on my entertainment in a way that benefits my entertainer."
Is it really out of line for publishers to give you a big old "fuck you" right back?
I don't think so.
