How Should Next-Gen Consoles Handle Used Games | Tell GameRevolution

GR: The next generation of gaming is right around the corner, and with it comes all sorts of nasty changes, the nastiest of which being new forms of digital rights management.

[dbjj12088]

The way Wii U does it....

[TrendyGamers]

Definitely with a Lancer.

[doctorstrange]

The way the PS2 does it

[ftwrthtx]

I concur, doctor.

[McScroggz]

I don't know. I want to be able to lend it to my friend, but used games are hurting the industry. Honestly, I'd say treat it like Steam except have the ability to lend a game to a friend. If and when consoles don't have used games anymore, we will ultimately spend less on games and publishers/developers will get more.

I'm just worried that any deterrence against used games, even if reasonable, will negatively affect a console too much. I hope I'm wrong, because I'd much rather get sequels to a game I really like than save $5.

[madpuppy]

your wrong, used games hurt the used game industry just like it hurts the movie, music and book industry, the difference is that game publishers don't want to follow that law. they want to be treated special and have their industry be free of the first sale doctrine. something every industry has had to accept since things started being sold. Developers and publishers of games shouldn't get a free pass because they don't like it.
And seeing that the gaming industry's annual profits dwarf the movie,music and book industry combined 100 fold, I don't understand why this is a problem.

[Anon1974]

Used game sales hurt the game industry like used car sales doom the automotive industry.

[Cueil]

not the same... movies have box office sales and then the secondary market of DVDs/BR

[McScroggz]

(From another post I made)

Say I make a game and produce 100 copies.

I sell 50. Instead of selling 100 copies, 50 other people buy it used and I get zero money for it.

Why can't more people understand this?

Movies usually make their money back in theaters - you can't buy a used movie ticket. Plus there are many different widely used revenue streams like TV, Netflix, etc. Plus, when you do go to buy DVD's or Blu-rays in the average retail store they don't even sale used copies! And if they do, they most likely aren't literally trying to sell you a used copy at the check-out if you picked up a new copy. It's vastly different than games.

Much like movies, music artists make the bulk of their money from concerts. Not to mention royalties. CD's are such a small percentage of potential profit nowadays. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more pirated CD's than purchased used or not used physical copies of CD's.

Books cost A LOT less to produce. It takes a lot fewer resouces/people in general to make. Plus, I'd be willing to bet that buying books digitally has overtaken physical sales (or close.

Game publishers are greedy, sure. But you know what? Game developers spend years of their life making a single game, only to see a large amount of people buy a game used which leads to less money to feed their family, the game they made not getting a sequel and sometimes closing down a studio. I'm getting tired of people who think anything that isn't beneficial to them directly is evil and greedy.

And I'd love to see some facts supporting your claim that the gross profits from home console games dwarfs movie, music and books combined. I'm calling BS on that. Take out IOS (NO used games) and PC games (which have almost no used games) and I'd be willing to bet it's not that great. I guess something like Call of Duty may skew the numbers a bit, but let's be reasonable here.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and because used games are a non factor for PC's they get fantastic sales on Steam, often even with pretty new games. And, every game sold (even old games) gives a profit to the publisher/developer. If anything not having used games costs us less AND gives publishers/developers more.

[steven83r]

@McScroggz
You shouldn't make any money off the 50 used copies. You made you profit that you felt was reasonable to charge for your game. Now it is my property and if i want to sell it to recoup my money i should be able to do so.

Let me break it down in a way you will get your money from used games but won't sound good. I buy your game for $60 play it and want to sell it. You set up a site where we can sell back our game to you for $30-45 which you have to shell out from your pocket. And you put it back up for sale for $50 cause its used. And if you can sell all of them then it works out for you otherwise you're now stuck with 50 used games you bought back which ate into your new sales profits.

In the end i payed $60 for the game its my damn property you are not going to tell me i cant sell it or trade it. Just like a car. If we begin to stop used game sales lets keep it going with cars and other crap. You buy a car your stuck with it. Which means no hot rods or classics as they are not sold today as NEW.

[madpuppy]

Cuel: "not the same... movies have box office sales and then the secondary market of DVDs/BR"

MrScroggs: "ugh, what you said"

And I still say IT doesn't matter!! I don't care if it took a game dev 40 years and 2 generations to create a game, every industry is bound by "the first sale doctrine"
and be glad that there is that clause in copyright law or everything that you purchase wouldn't be yours to do what you want. there would be no ownership.

that protects me AND YOU, I never saw so many people so willing to give up their rights!!!

the First sale doctrine protects YOUR right to keep, lend, sell, destroy or defecate on the things you buy!

[ShwankyShpanky]

Bubbles for madpuppy and steven83r.

And steven brought up something like what I think these whiny pubs should do if they've got such a problem with used games and they insist on a cut... they should set up their own damn buyback programs.

And to the "books cost a lot less to produce" comment: that may be true for some books, but definitely not all. I'm currently reading Graham Hancock's "Underworld," and the author flew all over the world, hired researchers, learned to deep-sea dive, and funded diving expeditions to gather material for the book, and it costs a lot more to print and bind each copy than it does to stamp a plastic disc. And it's still only $17.95. Sure, I doubt it cost him $20mil, but it also didn't have a $100mil marketing budget to be made up for either. Of course, Graham Hancock probably doesn't pull down as much as Kotick or Riccitiello does annually, either. Funny, that.

[fsfsxii]

I never heard of any industry being hurt by used stuff, used books don't hurt the publisher.
Publishers are just greedy

[madpuppy]

these apologists for game publishers don't seem to understand that it doesn't matter that games cost more or take longer to create. THE LAW IS THE LAW, and if your industry cannot abide by the legal rights of the consumer then there is a flaw in their industry NOT in the law!!! EVERY INDUSTRY DESERVES A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD!
and no industry should be above the law!!!

[justrandom]

publishers are leeches(dont know if it's the correct spelling,english not my mother language)Some gamers are brainwashed into thginking that used games hurt the industry.
Definetly it wont hurt Naughty Dog etc etc that make top quality games that I buy NEW.But also I bought used games wich I liked them and bought new the sequel.Its gonna go down the industry if DRM will be implemented on every console.I always was PS fan,but DRM and all that crap?I will abandon gaming,Im man of my word for as much as I love GT.

[dcbronco]

@steven83r

Where are you going that gives you $50 on a used game. I've never seen anyone do that. $35 maybe, but never $50. And Gamestop, the one most seem intent on protecting, will only give you $25 for a two week old game. And they will then sell it for $55. Digital products are different because they don't degrade. Take a car to a dealer two weeks later and the value will have gone down $4,000. And will be resold for significantly less than it was bought for a few weeks ago.

After a few years it will be worth less to the next person that buys it. A game will still have the same value because it hasn't degraded.

[rainslacker]

The actual trade in price of a game is unimportant to the issue. No one is forcing anyone to sell their game for $35 or less. They are given the option to sell it and then that same company can go sell it for whatever they want, because you know, it's now their property.

GameStop has always been a red herring on the issue of used games, and it needs to stop. One can argue that their trade in practices are not consumer friendly, but there is no way to argue that their policies are against consumer rights.

"Digital products are different because they don't degrade"

In that case reselling a used copy of a game should get the seller the full selling price. Obviously no one is going to do that when they can just get it new. So the value goes down. Whether or not the actual content degrades is unimportant to the actual selling value of the product.

[dcbronco]

I'm not sure where the MS rumored policy changes anything for the consumer. They can still sell their game. It's Gamestop that has to pay to get it activated. And that money would then go to the develop/publisher and the console maker. I don't necessarily see why the console maker gets anything but it's their console. Degrading means a lot when anyone can sell a non degraded copy and potential keeps the developer from selling anew one. Whether you think people won't buy or not isn't important. If they won't, the price comes down for new copies till they will. Developers will make better games or die. Games traded in will benefit the developers. Gamestop and others will find a better business model or die. Gamers will get cheaper new games. Everyone will be happy but Gamestop and others. But they should be because they will still be making something. Just no longer more than the developers.

[NameRemoved0017]

If someones buying something used I highly doubt they are going to pay full price for it.

[steven83r]

How can a used game market hurt the game industry. That is so stupid. If a developer sold 300k games NEW. and 100k returned it and were resold it doesn't matter because the original sale is whats important. Piracy is what hurts the industry. Buying 1 game and making 300k copies of it to give away then i can see how that is bad. Used game market is a risky one. Gamestop probably has thousands of games they will never sell even though they bought them off people. If developers want a piece of the used market than we should be able to send them our games and they give us fair market value.

[McScroggz]

Think about it. I make 100 games and sell 50 new. The other 50 are bought used, instead of new. That's 50% of my profit lost. Plus the cost to manufacture those unsold games. It's not the original sale that's important, it's every sale. I could go into this further, but I'll keep it at that.

Also, GameStop buys a game back at an unfairly low cost only to make a huge profit. Used games are far, far from being risky for GameStop.

[rainslacker]

GameStop actually destroys about 10% of the games they take in because they are unplayable or unsellable. They take in every game regardless of condition or value.

@McScroogz
First, see my comment above. 4.3.1 regarding GameStop.

Now to the rest. Yes we understand the dynamics of what's going on, and the point your trying to make. But that still doesn't change the fact that those 50 people that brought your game are free to do with it as they choose. It is not up to the person who brought the game to take a hit on the value of their property in the interest of the original producer of the product. No industry, anywhere, has this sort of thing in place, and it's not right that game publishers should be granted an exception. Software in general, is the only place where they seem to get away with it in the interest of preventing piracy. Now that is being extended to used games.

Your argument falls flat, because gaming is one of the most profitable entertainment medium in existence.

If publishers want us to keep their games, then they should make them to have that value.

MoreRPG makes a good point below. If you are so concerned with publisher profits, why not take a part of the money you receive from trading/selling the game and send it directly back to the publisher. That's what this all amounts to.

[project_pat36]

I don't personally care whether or not used games can be bought with or without a fee, I rarely buy used games because they cant be found on the day the games are launched, which is when myself and a majority of gamers would purchase the game. I like building a good gaming library.

[MoreRPG]

I dont see any you sending part of the money you got from selling your games at gamestop back to the developers.

[justrandom]

Well,than we have to sell the games back to the developers if they had their own used games store.Its not our fault that Game Stop and othe stores found the oportunity to make business out of used games.

[HurstDarkStar]

Im not sure why anyone that doesnt support asked them selves why publishers think they own the profits to something the already sold off at full price, I mean can you imagine buying a Ipod and apple tells you to give them more money even after they took money?

[SpinalRemains]

Its not a real problem! Its greed!

It need not ne dealt with at all. Movies and music have been fine with it for decades. Games too. Suddenly some greedy douche decides he wants more and we should call this a problem plaguing lost revenues?

Gtfoh.
Made up problem for a cash grab.

[justrandom]

They will continue to find ways to exploit gamers' hobby.We should stand up.
I buy most of the games new anyway.BUt I will not tolerate if they block the used games.Although we are talking about videogames I feel like being a family ,cause its us who made this companies who they are today.