Digital Distribution and the Publisher/Retailer Hypocrisy

Used games are the scourge of the video game industry. They are the reason that games don't sell well, they are the reason why studios close and they also kill kittens, probably. This is the general industry stance on the topic of used games. Lamented by prominent figures like Cliff Bleszinski as the cause of excessive DLC, micro transactions and all manner of anti-consumer practices, it's clear that many figures in the industry would prefer that they disappear overnight.

[Godlovesgamers]

Cliffy B is a 'has-been' and an industry shill. To call Cliffy 'prominent' is to give him too much credit.

[Kietz]

Yeah, that's total crap.
I don't much care for the guy, but that is a load.

[WolfLeBlack]

To describe Cliffy as prominent is fair and quite accurate. The man has been, and still is, one of the most recognizable people within the industry, to the point that even non-gamers know his name.

Like it or not he is prominent.

[Godlovesgamers]

Just saying...

prom·i·nent
/ˈprämənənt/
Adjective
Important; famous.

Cliffy isn't "important" and as of late I'd call the guy "infamous" since he seems to be the spokesperson for corporate greed and anti consumer practices with his support of DRM and "it's the future, deal with it" attitude regarding such matters.

Cliffy is "well known", not "prominent", that is if we're going by the official definition of the word and not your personal interpretation of it.

[SilentHeaven109]

Prominent can mean either "important" or simply "well-known." If you asked your average gamer to name developers, Cliffy B would be right up there with Kojima, Cage and Molyneux, in terms of name recognition. Not to mention he developed one of the most popular and influential series of this generation.

I don't care for him all that much, especially with his constant corporate apologies, but whether you like him or his games, he's certainly prominent.

[WolfLeBlack]

No, I certainly wouldn't describe him as being important, however I would still hold that he is still prominent, or famous, if you like, within the context of the videogame industry.

Take the Oxford English Dictionary's example of how the word prominent can be used: "she was a prominent member of the city council." She was only prominent within the city council. Likewise Cliffy B, I would argue, is prominent within his industry.

I can certainly see your point for him being described as well known, but there's no true measurement system to ascertain which he is. In my mind he is prominent within the industry, and fairly well-known outside of it by more casual gamers. Outside of gamers completely I've met quite a lot of people who are aware of who he is and what he does, despite them knowing relatively little about games.

Infamous is interesting. I wouldn't disagree with that, to a degree. I've disagreed with a lot of what he's had to say lately, because like you say he's become the "face" of those arguing for DRM etc.

[cyguration]

This is a good article and I liked it.

He talks about digital distribution from an honest gamer's perspective, not as a member of the Doritocracy.

I'm so tired of vidya gaem jurnol1sts telling us that stuff like the XB1 is "the future", because it's not a future any gamer in their right mind wants to be a part of.

I like that the author mentions about bandwidth caps and limited data transfer rates -- I don't know about anyone else but where I live I have to pay an arm and a leg for crappy speeds and I don't have any other choice about it.

I'd rather run a one-legged, barefoot race through glass than have to wait for a 50GB game to download every time I make a digital next-gen purchase.

When ISPs stop gouging and bring up their base speeds to reasonable numbers, then maybe we can consider that digital future.

[MazzingerZ]

In many countries of Europe that might not be the case, EU fights monopolies which opens the network infrastructures for everybody(telecorps) hence new technique is used and price competition starts which give us better services for less money.

It's up to the goverments to choose between protect consumers or lick big corporation's asses.

The day all of them do that we will have a standard internet access everywhere and then, just then, can we enjoy of great services and new ideas that today are on-hold due to that lack of standard.

[nukeitall]

I find it ironic that people will fight tooth and nail for their "rights", but lower the cost and suddenly the rights don't matter anymore.

Lower prices can be taken away, and no stock to clearance, there is no real push to force prices going lower!

MS arguably tried to introduce a new digital platform that allowed the benefits of trading, selling, gifting and even lending digital games in return for the ability to ensure the game is indeed removed from the system, when it should be!

A lot of people rejected it, and now we are back in the stone age. No sharing, lending, gifting, trading or reselling. Enjoy!

[vickers500]

It's nobody's fault but Microsofts. They had every opportunity to showcase the potential benefits of an all digital console future.

They could have promised games that were much cheaper (like 20 dollars cheaper), sales that were much bigger and more frequent (like steam sales). There would still be a group of gamers that wouldn't like it, but overall, most people probably would have at least ACCEPTED it.

Instead they chose to tell us how much more restrictive their envisioned future would be rather than focus on potential benefits. Basically they were saying "this new future is going to be AWESOME... FOR US. Sure there's no benefits to you the consumer, but screw you guys, you'll buy our system anyways so you don't matter".

[SilentHeaven109]

People will give up their rights when there's some benefit to it, as I stated in the article. When you lose your rights WITHOUT any benefits, that's when people get pissy, and rightfully so.

In the case of sites like Steam and GOG, the prices stay low because there's a lot of competition in PC digital distribution. That isn't the case on consoles, where there's only ONE service per console. Services that have proven to be poor over the last generation, I might add.

You can do all of those things with physical copies without asking Microsoft's permission, by that way. I certainly enjoy that!

[Lvl_up_gamer]

Absolutely agree.

You have to understand though that there are a lot of young kids out there that just jump on the in thing to hate on. Right now it's DRM so anything remotely like DRM will be crucified even if in a particular situation it's a good thing.

This site is pro sony so naturally the DRM would have been yelled to the high mountains as a bad feature and the ignorant media that just needs hits flamed the issue to no extent.

Going into the next generation, It will be the first time I will not be saying I am a gamer as I am completely embarrassed at the amount of ignorance the gaming community/media had over the DRM issue. Now, like you said, we are back in the stone age in a stagnant motion where we could have made the appropriate steps to a better gaming experience.

So sad.

[iceman06]

What I find strange is that people would rather allow one entity to control the trading, selling, pricing of games in a closed environment as opposed to allowing the free market to control costs. The reason that physical copies become cheap these days is simply because of competition. You can get them from a variety of sources that encourage you to shop with them by shaving off of the initial price. In a closed economic ecosystem, which is what MS wanted to create and what the PSN and XBLN pretty much are, what would be the impetus for decreasing prices? "...no stock clearance, there is no real push to force prices going lower!" I am not naive enough to believe that the dollar is not the bottom line for Sony or MS. Why would I believe that either would choose to be benevolent and throw away large chunks of potential profit when they technically wouldn't have to?

[RavageX]

Just so you know, MS could have done all that WITHOUT the restrictions they were trying to pull.

Stone age my ass, they were banking on gamers like you to just line up for the crap they were trying to sell and it failed.

Just because it seems like a good idea to you and a few others doesn't mean that it actually is.

[tiffac008]

You can already share your digital purchases on the PS3 and 360 by simply sharing your account and redownloading what you have on another console. So there is really nothing to reject when we are already enjoying these benefits along with whatever we do with our physical media.

[Seafort]

lol "the cause of excessive DLC, micro transactions and all manner of anti-consumer practices" is pure greed by publishers and developers. It has nothing to do with used games or anything else.

Until publishers stop trying to get all the cake and eat it too this will continue.

It's up to the consumer to stop buying all the DLC crap that publishers throw at us and demand substantial DLC that improves and expands the game after release.

[Ogygian]

I completely agree with the article.

You pay a premium for a disc for the freedom to resell and the privilege of owning a box and manual, almost like how hardback books come with thicker covers which make them more bookshelf-worthy.

Steam, and digital downloads are there so that you can buy a license to use a game and forgo the right to resell it, lend it to a friend or own it in the physical world. This allows online stores like Steam to sell it at a very low price (something EA don't seem to understand with their high prices on origin).

So publishers should indeed not try and turn discs into physical CD keys for digital downloads, as this article implies.

There is another side to this coin, however.

Gamers cannot expect to pay the low prices of Steam and receive all the benefits of a console boxed copy. We pay the low price because there are undesirable terms which go alongside it.
If Steam is forced to allow resale, expect digital downloads to go the way of boxed console games an surge in price. If Valve lose those court cases, we're going to be in trouble.
Sad but true.

[KingDon]

Used Games are important to the industry. Overall they help make the industry a healthier place. New games would pehaps sell even less if you completely took away the ability to sell and trade in games from players.

[Sadist3]

Used games take money from the publishers/developers which means less profit returns for games. Look at Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider, Hitman...all excellent games that sold well, but because of the used game market didn't make the needed profit. If you want to see good studios continue to shut down, games continue to be cancelled, then keep supporting gamestop's used game market. Then when all we're left with is independent developers making retarded games like Octodad, guess you'll be happy.

[SilentHeaven109]

You really think it was the fault of the used games market that Tomb Raider, a game which sold over 3 million copies, was considered a failure? It was the bloated budgets and overly expensive marketing campaigns that caused TR to lose money.

When you're selling over 3 million copies of *anything* and not making a profit, there is something wrong with the process of making videogames at a fundamental level.

You ever notice how devs like From Software, who are sensible with their budgets and aim for a niche audience, never complain about used sales? There's no proof that used games hurt the industry, publishers just tell us they do because it's easier than facing their own problems.

As I mentioned in the article, if publishers don't like used games, they have the power to stop them by making digital more attractive. If they can't be bothered to do that, then they have NO right to try and tell us what we're allowed to do with a product that we own and they have zero claim to.

[superterabyte]

Octodad is a great game and I'll be getting it when it comes out for PS4

[RavageX]

Nah, companies need to learn how to manage their budgets better, and not make crap games.

For every good quality game you have some rubbish like that Fast and Furious game attempting to cash in, and just recently that Ride to Hell game.

Used games have been around since the beginning, if they were causing as much trouble as people like to claim gaming would have died decades ago.