What a bullshit ridiculous idea. Have I ever told you guys how much I hate the world?

Making critical parts of the game DLC is definite BS. Still I am not suprised to here more developers complaining about the second hand market. Given the current economic situation in the world I'm betting we here more complaining like this in the future.

Mmmmm....I love the smell of unchecked capitalism in the morning.

Look, I understand the used market is cutting into sales, and believe me, despite wanting a cheaper pricepoint, I have no desire to give my money to Gamestop instead of the people who made the game. And I have to praise EA, Microsoft, and Sony for finding ways to get you to buy games new and at launch like Burnout Paradise, Rock Band 2, Gears of War 2, and LittleBigPlanet and get exclusive content for buying it early/new or prevent you from trading it in because either they keep giving you free DLC (Paradise) or you don't want to have wasted your money on extra DLC (Rock Band 2). It got me to pick up two games this fall I wasn't even planning on getting right away or new.

But: If I have to buy a game new to unlock the final boss, that is going to be bullshit and I am not going to buy your game period. Tread carefully, developers.

ugh, and people wonder why I envy the dead. If shit keeps going this way I'm going to have to find something besides video games to occupy my time.

This is a bunch of corporate bullshit. These are multimillion dollar companies complaining about each dime and penny while real people are struggling to pay there mortgage let alone keep/get a job.

Yea great idea, lets ruin a game so that the consumer has to buy the new copy and all hope for future gamers are ruined.

Ok, do they realize that game retailers make nearly $0 off of selling new games? Gamestop only makes 1-2$ off of new sales and once that game drops in price the store takes the hit. nearly all of a game retailers income comes from used profits. If they go through with this idea, they are going to lose more money then they relize because I KNOW that companies like EB/Gamestop will shut down because of lack of sales.

Ontop of all this bullshit, do they realize that maybe people have a hard time paying $60 for a game, and rather pay $40 for it. If they take away the ability for me to purchase used games, they will utterly KILL the console and make PC the dominate system (Which I really do not mind, I rather play PC games)

Maybe if they make theri games $30, charge the store $20, and reduce the amount of price drops it could work, but if they do this there will be no profits made for the retailers that sell there games, and would ultimately go out of buisness, or drop them all together.

And yet, if this was implemented you can guarantee the majority of people would go on buying the game just the same, as seen countless times with 'major' issues with games that go on to be bestsellers.

Hell, I've never been that interested in renting games from any of these online places, but that's exactly what I'm looking into right now. I'm sick of paying £40+ for a game that I'll have done and dusted in a few hours/days. How about some value for money? Why is it none of these scumsucking grinches suggest offering value for money and customer satisfaction as incentives to buy new?

I can see myself dropping gaming altogether as a pastime soon, I'm tired of the utter disdain these people show their audience while sitting on Scrooge McDuck-esque piles of money.

This guy needs to be fed a nice tasty shit sandwich so he gets a better idea what we have to put up with.

I think the most irritating part of this is the statement that "way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it." No, you fucking cock, we all bought it, we just didn't buy it from YOU. I wasn't aware that engaging in a monetary transaction with someone other than Epic Games had suddenly become the equivalent of theft.

RestingSound:

No, it's the developers and publishers that need to grow up. It works both ways. The publishers don't make money from second-hand sales. The retailers don't make money from NEW sales. We can both argue "it's a business."

But the issue here is the entitlement complex that game makers have. Like they charge $60 for a game and DEMAND complete customer loyalty with no guarantee of a quality product, customer support or, in the case of EA, even trust.

You know who never bitches about used sales or piracy? Valve. Why? Because Valve is one of the most respected and loved publishes in this industry, and they treat their customers with respect. People are loyal to Valve because Valve earned it and didn't demand it. Nobody is loyal to EA or Microsoft. They do nothing but treat their customers as a contemptible necessity.

Yeah, Epic. Go ahead and do that. I'll make sure that I never buy any games, and EXCLUSIVELY download pirated versions from that point forward. Not a joke.

Here's a business model. The economy is in the shitter, people are struggling to keep there jobs. Unemployment is at another all time high. The developers and publishers are living well and now they see that sales are dropping because people no longer have the money. Stop bitching about it, you're still making money, you still have a nice house, car and job, you're doing way better then the people you expect to pay 50-60$ for a game when they are lucky to even afford to live. If they go through with a plan like this it WILL destroy retailers, and companies like EB/Gamestop (which is one of the largest sellers of your games) will be forced to close their stores and lay off their employees. By doing that not only will you lose a huge ass chunk of your sales by shutting down the stores that actually SELL your games, making you lose even MORE money that you're complaining about now, you will be solely responsible for taking away the jobs of tens of thousands, if not more, people.

Sick greedy bastards.

Here's the solution to their problem: release the game on Steam. This way you can't sell it when you are done with it.

But of course everyone knows only pirates play games on PC.

I still can't understand - How the fuck is it in any way your business, how the retailer makes his fucking money.

He paid for your game just STFU and let it go unless you want to start opening a chain of gamestores with no rentals.

Good luck with that.

@RestingSound: are you defending the notion of companies releasing incomplete games and charging you additional money on top of the $60+ so that you are able to complete it? Are you high? Maybe you need to be high? You're telling us not to complain about this?

YOU WANT TO PAY FULL PRICE FOR AN INCOMPLETE PRODUCT!? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!

@juggernaut: Lamborghinis? Come on, how can you expect the board of directors to buy themselves a fleet of private jets with all those people renting or buying used? Be reasonable.

You wouldn't want them suffering the trauma of jet-envy when their friends turn up in a shiny new Gulfstream G650 and they're still rocking a GV or something would you?

Also, why can't they get it through their heads that every other market has second hand sales and rentals, what makes them so special that they need to combat it?

Worst idea ever

Jim I think I will have to kick back into reality. The reason Valve does not complain about second-hand sales is not because their customers are so loyal and because they treat them with respect.
If anything Valve are the worst of the bunch because they already developed the perfect way to eliminate the second-hand market and it is called Steam. Once you download a game with Steam you're stuck with it and you still payed full price although Valve didn't even have to produce the disc.
And don't you tell me now that Steam does not work with the consoles. Valve couldn't care less about that. Their games are traditionall very PC-heavy and the PC is where Valve gains it's most income because they: a) do not have to pay licensing fees on the PC
b) most of their fanbase comes from the PC and PC-gamers usually stick with their superior platform (strictly speaking about raw graphical power).
So don't tell me that Valve is the nicest developer our there, they are not.

If anything like this gets implemented, I'm throwing my 360 out of a window and never buying console again. This is bullshit that if I buy used, I get boned over. It's as bad as PC copy protection.

@ RestingSound

What's so bad is that, as technology improves and gaming becomes more mainstream, maybe our hobby should become affordable. DVDs are cheap enough to be a commodity, while games are so expensive that any non-blockbuster title will inevitably wind up costing a premium on eBay because of small print runs to maximize returns on a costly niche title. Making the consumer pay even more money for a complete game when a game is so expensive in the first place is ridiculous. There's no backing down from my hobby now, but if I was at all financially sound in the head, I would have picked up movies as my obsession years ago, just for all the money it would save me.

Added DLC can be wonderful thing for the consumer, as seen in the case of Valve and Epic back on Gears 1, who were forced to charge initially by MS but let them go free as soon as they could. Sure, Harmonix is making tons of cash from Rock Band, but it can't be much of a profit per song, considering an iTunes download is $1 and that leaves only one more dollar with which to add lots of note charting, tune animations, certify, and make a bit of profit. While some DLC is just shameless money grabbing, and it's certainly all for profit, it's just another form of developers continuing support for a title and giving you the option to give it new life. PC gamers have been familiar with a different form of this notion for years.

@ CelicaCrazed

Because unless you're a big player like Microsoft or EA, no Best Buy customer is going to give two shits about your creative near-indie game or your obscure Japanese RPG series. Plus, I'm sure games like Persona would go over wonderfully at Walmart.

@ falinter

Keep in mind that the used DVD market is a difference of, what, $10 off a $20 DVD, while used games cut into a $60 profit much more, not to mention the fact that games are more costly in general, especially since it's not like they make money in theaters before being purchasable in a store. Not justifying anything, just felt like pointing out something.

DLC has the power to turn into quite an evil beast if thats the way they wanted to take things. But hey, if paying for DLC to beat bosses somehow gets me a 2D HD Castlevania on my PS3... I'm game. Sign me the fuck up >:-)

That would be just one of a few game series that I could see myself biting the bullet for if thats what it came down to. I doubt it will ever come to that, but I'm just saying.

Urgh...apologies for a repost, saw that the post wasn't there and just removed a section to try and get it to post.