It's heartbreaking to me that many publishers/developers simply aren't AWARE that a great deal of their games suck dick.

When they bitch about not doing so well in the industry, I rage a lil' bit.

Lower the price of software and people may purchase new software more often, more money for them and retail still makes a cut. Raise it as Bobby Kotick jokes and you guarantee the increase the problem.

Digital distribution, downloadable content (free), lowering prices and bundling old games are all strategies Valve uses to squeeze every cent out of games in the best possible way. Maybe if publishers took some notes.

Maybe they should make their games worth keeping.

Can you please stop posting stories about this? It's capitalism, nobody wants to hear the publishers bitch anymore so stop giving them a soap box to stand on.

In my opinion, Nintendo has a pretty clever way of encouraging the sale of new games: All first party games have registration codes that are only valid once, and if you register enough games, you can redeem your "coins" for some items. Granted, only a Nintendo fan would care about what Club Nintendo has to offer, but imagine if every game developer/publisher did this... Even though I generally don't care for Microsoft and Sony, imagine if there was a Club Microsoft or a Club Sony...

Unless such things already exist...

The balls on this guy.

@Djnx
The comment "Maybe they should make their games worth keeping." is like saying "They should make their games better" its to generic, I meant like actual points, like saying "Having DLC every few months to make trading in a game not so alluring" or "More post Campaign levels to make the player keep coming back"

They treat us like shit, we treat them like shit, thats the cycle of the games industry, Enjoy!!

God help us if they ever find out about ebay. The sound of their collective scream will crack the planet in half.

I'm having a hard time figuring out who is further removed from the general public: game developers and publishers or politicians.

The video game development industry is laughable. Instead of looking at ways to reduce towering development costs they simply try to fuck their customers over a little more than they already are.

I love used games.

those greedy fucks are just gonna have to deal with it, just like the auto industry, clothing industry, furniture industry and about every other industry. if they don't want people to buy used games they need to give us an incentive besides shitty preorder game music cds. and this is fuctwat eidos saying this as well, make a game that's actually good and maybe, just maybe people will buy it brand new.

they cannot make me not buy something used. they will not because I won't let them tell me what i can or cannot do, they are the ones in the realm of can or cannot do.

There are many ways to make a game worth keeping. Take Fallout3, for example, and its downloadable content. If someone buys all of the expansions for it, they're probably a lot less likely to trade it back in. On top of that, they keep getting new gameplay experiences out of the same game through the DLC.

Another example would be something like Killzone 2, or Street Fighter 4, or any other game with fun online play. If you love playing online, and you're required to have the game disc to continue playing online, you're more likely to keep the game.

What has Eidos released lately that's really worth keeping? They just keep pumping out Tomb Raider and Hitman games. If they released more games that people wanted to hang onto, maybe they wouldn't be bitching so much.

$60 games that piss off the buyer or don't offer what a $60 game should have no benefit to consumers!

It's amazing how that works.

@ Djnx
Exactly correct, so in reality no game is worth 60 to everyone

Stop being a bitch Drybones. There's nothing wrong with saying that games should be 'worth' $60...or even saying games should be better. It's not like Jim was attempting to give actual constructive criticism to developers. I don't understand how you don't seem to be for better games...regardless of how they are better. Communist.

..."A serious problem" for YOU - not for me. And I don't care about your problems. I care about playing games and the cheaper, the better. So tired of hearing them all whine. Wait, i'm whining. See what they did to me!

Ive gopt no problem with the prices. Yes, I'd love them to be cheaper but, we pay what we do, and I've come to live with that. But fuck off with "publisher should get a cut of used sales" type shit. I sold some things on eBay. Yeah i should totally get some of the money if that guy sells it again... Asshat.
How many times would a house change hands? Do builders bitch and moan?

That baby has the grossest fingers ever. They look like shriveled caterpillars.

I love that the response to this is "Make a game that's worth our sixty bucks and then I'll care." How exactly is that going to happen? Want something original? Daring? Something that's outside of the mainstream? Pffftttt... good luck. If companies can't make their money back on games that they KNOW are going to be successful then they sure as hell aren't going to be taking any chances with anything original.

No, gamers, you are responsible for the success and failure of this industry and if you refuse to pay for games in a way that benefits the publishers and developers then those publishers can't make games. Ergo, you have less games (and less interesting ones) to play. Good on you though! Keep sticking it to the man!

And no publisher cares about used sales person to person or on ebay. What publishers are talking about when they say used sales is the GameStop/EB paradigm where all the used games are front and center, they under stock (and open) new games to devalue them, and then, after choosing to buy a new copy, the store tries to upsell the consumer to a used game (which means for 5 dollars less the publisher sees no money from the transaction) . That, dear friends is a problem. And no other industry has to deal with that. There are used CD stores, used movie shops, and used bookstores but neither the music industry, the film industry, or the publishing industry has to deal with its primary retail outlets competing with them. If they did those industries would bury those stores.

But hey guys! Thanks for guaranteeing me another 4600 God of War, Gears of War, and Babes of War clones. Huzzah! Capitalism for the WIN!

I say we outlaw all used sales. Ebay should be illegal. Used car dealerships burned down and any house that goes back onto the market destroyed.