Second Hand Sales and Their Effect on the Gaming Industry.

noodler

ScumLord wrote: »

That' just buying power. In the UK they'll always have the biggest new release for £10 in tescos (one time I was over there they were even giving away a free giant yorkie bar with the new release priced at £10, it was ridiculously cheap) but you won't get that price across the entire range of new releases just the one they know for a fact will sell. With the likes of Tescos it's just a matter of getting you in the door, the cheap price on that one item is just bait. Do the world a favour and don't ever buy anything in tescos.

I did mention a shedload of retailers other than Tesco didn't I? or are you only addressing the FIFA 10 situation? Either way your point is not really as valid for the other retailers listed.

Resident Evil 5 was 40e upon release in XV, Uncharted 2 is 45 in HMV on release. I think it is clear from the controversy the MW2 price is causing that prices are no longer generally at 60e+.

Ross_Mahon

Game developers have also become very greedy themselves, Charging people for DC and special edition, I think ill continue buying second hand games.

gizmo

Ross_Mahon wrote: »

Game developers have also become very greedy themselves, Charging people for DC and special edition, I think ill continue buying second hand games.

Again there is a certain level of confusion in this post. First off, game developers don't charge for DLC, the platform holders (Microsoft, Sony & Nintendo) and publishers charge for this content. Several developers have come out and said that they wanted to offer some of their content for free but were both forced to charge for it and then forced to charge more than they wanted to.

Secondly, you seem to be missing the point of collectors editions, or at least the original one before the likes of the crazy Modern Warfare 2 Prestige edition. The original idea was to offer retail-only bonuses to customers who bought copies of the game so as to discourage them from downloading it. There were also some games who just had them for the sake of it, Ultima Ascension from back in 1999 is one of the best I can think of with it's lovely cloth map, prints of in-game artwork, a cool little pendant and tarot cards. Either way they're a nice option for some people and the fact that they exist alongside standard editions means they're hurting no one.

D4RK ONION

I for one usually get special editions, just because I'm a bit of a magpie like that. Prestige edition is coming my way.

There was a bit a while back about how the castle crasher devs wanted very much to give their DLC out for free, but Microsoft essentially told them to piss off. They took a novel and frankly, very admirable stand against this

http://www.destructoid.com/the-behemoth-giving-away-free-castle-crashers-king-pack-dlc-codes-122891.phtml

Sierra Oscar

grizzly wrote: »

Digital downloads – why don't the publishers offer bigger discounts for this? They would cut out the middleman very quickly. Too often the price to download and the price to buy the disc are the same. This seems shortsighted – once someone has bought the digital version it stops the disc from being sold on 5 times and hurting 1st hand sales.

Totally agreed, at the moment most big publishers are just treating the digital download service as another way to cash in on sales, when it is fairy evident to consumers that by principle games sold online should be at least some bit cheaper due to the lower manufacturing costs of no CD's & cases.

Anyway as people have already hinted at, the main problem stems from games being just too darn expensive. Having to fork out €60+ for a console game is pretty steep . . . hence more people just buy second hand copies.

If the games were cheaper, they would certainly get more sales in my mind.

Rhyme

I'd love to see some figures on EA making their previous sporting titles obsolete with 'Roster Update 09', how the second-hand market is pumped full of last years titles every time they increment the number on the box.

Granted the newest Fifa game is a pretty big advancement on the last title, or so I've heard.

D4RK ONION

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Totally agreed, at the moment most big publishers are just treating the digital download service as another way to cash in on sales, when it is fairy evident to consumers that by principle games sold online should be at least some bit cheaper due to the lower manufacturing costs of no CD's & cases.

Anyway as people have already hinted at, the main problem stems from games being just too darn expensive. Having to fork out €60+ for a console game is pretty steep . . . hence more people just buy second hand copies.

If the games were cheaper, they would certainly get more sales in my mind.

What I find worse is MS points. Y'know that moon money Microsoft uses for the arcade games and more importantly for me, RB DLC? Purchasing it in a shop works out cheaper than adding it to the account by credit card. It just makes no sense, and it makes me angry... Getting off my topic though!

ShooterSF

I think every industry on the face of this planet deals with a second hand market. Yes gamestop has made the gaming one into a huge market. That's life tough and while I'm too much of a collector to trade in I do see the use of it.
Eventually I'd love to see an open source console ( a hybrid of PC and console) with ultimate freedom for developers and cheap games available to download.

Sierra Oscar

D4RK ONION wrote: »

What I find worse is MS points. Y'know that moon money Microsoft uses for the arcade games and more importantly for me, RB DLC? Purchasing it in a shop works out cheaper than adding it to the account by credit card. It just makes no sense, and it makes me angry... Getting off my topic though!

Egh, dont get me started on MS points. The fact that one can only buy certain bulk quantities of the points resulting in usually over-paying for content really annoys me . . .