Pre-order pre-owned games at GAME

gizmo

Right, as I've probably made quite clear in various posts in the past, I'm not a big fan of second hand sales by the major retailers. I feel the reasons for this are pretty straightforward and the topic itself has been debated to death on the forum already so I won't do so again.

This....this is something else though.

The GAME website has begun taking pre-orders for pre-owned games.

Do so and you'll save £16, paying £33.99 for a week-old game.

Eurogamer understands that GAME is currently trialling this new initiative. The shop was reluctant to comment.

Eight games are currently available for pre-owned pre-order: Fight Night Champion, WWE All-Stars, Virtua Tennis 4, Crysis 2, Homefront, Dragon Age II, Shift II: Unleashed and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12.

Should go down well with publishers.

To be honest I'm torn between being utterly bemused at the fact that people think this is a good idea and being flat out amused because, as that last line states, publishers will not be happy, at all. It's moves like this which will hasten the shift to games which cannot be traded-in at all in the future so they're essentially shooting themselves in the foot...with a bazooka.

Retr0gamer

Scum

folan

cant really blame developers for investing heavily in DLCs and the like with this ****e going on. I dont often buy in Game or GameStop becasue they are just pawn shops.

Grumpypants

Surely the best solution for developers is to start making games that are not deemed useless within a week of their purchase.By offering good quality free DLC within the first two-four weeks of release. Building a good solid story mode with a good solid online mode to compliment it.

Shiminay

I'd like your "online pass" to entitle you to all future DLC. So when I buy the game new (and I'm willing to shell out an extra €5, maybe even €10 at initial purchase for this), I know that I'm going to have all the DLC as and when it's available (if I want it).

Following from that, if I buy the game second hand, hit me up for a €20/€25 charge to receive online functionality and DLC.

WarZoneBrother

Tell me why again would people pay 40pound when they can get it for much less a week after launch??... I do not understand that part to be honest!... Makes little to no sense!

johnny_ultimate

WarZoneBrother wrote: »

Tell me why again would people pay 40pound when they can get it for much less a week after launch??... I do not understand that part to be honest!... Makes little to no sense!

You see that's the thing. With pre-owned copies of new (or newish) releases the prices are so absurd that the only people benefiting from it are Game themselves. As you say, games drop in price almost instantly these days - I personally saved 15-20 euro on Dead Space 2 by waiting less than two weeks when it was quickly discounted everywhere. The alternative would be to buy it second hand, save a fiver max and then have to shell out for an online pass or whatever. It's crazy stuff.

While I disagree with pre-owned sales in general (barring for rare, out of print releases) I can see the benefit of picking up an older game pre-owned for peanuts. But for new releases, customers are getting shafted, and developers are losing out on valuable income. I hope publishers react against this "pre-ordering" malarky, as it really is ridiculous. Especially when you can probably shop around online and get the games even cheaper than the pre-order pre-owned "offer" (Game horrifically overprice in most cases). Hopefully consumer's will see sense and give this the cold shoulder.

Helix

funny that most of the games in the list are ea titles that require online pass isnt it

no savings to be had there folks, since youve to pay a tenner to use them online

Sabre0001

Helix wrote: »

funny that most of the games in the list are ea titles that require online pass isnt it

no savings to be had there folks, since youve to pay a tenner to use them online

My immediate thought when I saw the list!

irish_stevo815

Helix wrote: »

funny that most of the games in the list are ea titles that require online pass isnt it

no savings to be had there folks, since youve to pay a tenner to use them online

Fight Night Champion, WWE All-Stars, Virtua Tennis 4, Crysis 2, Homefront, Dragon Age II, Shift II: Unleashed and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12.

The ones i've bolded above are from EA & THQ which have already used the Online Pass in these series of games, so if you pay €35 for the game second hand, you still have to pay €10 to get to use any online features. So at the most you will be saving 5 quid...........it's daft when you look at it that way!

steve_

I dont understand this at all. Why would they do this as it would surely lead to a big decrease in people buying new titles, and leading to a quicker shift to digital distribution. Hopefully the "trial" will make them realize how stupid the idea is. Dont get me wrong as a consumer i like knowing my games can be traded as funding towards new games, but this stunt is trying to just cut developers out of the equation altogether.

Has there ever been a store that provides a return to developers on traded games? Like say for each preowned copy of bulletstorm that sells the developer get a small percentage, up to two or three months after launch. I know that when GAME take in a trade in its 100% profit for them, but surely something small like this will at least keep things peaceful and allow brick and mortar stores to stay around a while longer.

johnny_ultimate

irish_stevo815 wrote: »

The ones i've bolded above are from EA & THQ which have already used the Online Pass in these series of games, so if you pay €35 for the game second hand, you still have to pay €10 to get to use any online features. So at the most you will be saving 5 quid...........it's daft when you look at it that way!

Dragon Age and Crysis I'm fairly sure are EA published too, so wouldn't be surprised with online passes there too. It's all a bit ludicrous!

Retr0gamer

Grumpypants wrote: »

Surely the best solution for developers is to start making games that are not deemed useless within a week of their purchase.By offering good quality free DLC within the first two-four weeks of release. Building a good solid story mode with a good solid online mode to compliment it.

With todays development costs it's very difficult to do this. I really enjoy a good solid single player experience that is tightly designed and is 8-12 hours long. This is something that will kill those types of games off.

Helix

irish_stevo815 wrote: »

The ones i've bolded above are from EA & THQ which have already used the Online Pass in these series of games, so if you pay €35 for the game second hand, you still have to pay €10 to get to use any online features. So at the most you will be saving 5 quid...........it's daft when you look at it that way!

expect crysis 2 to feature it too. possibly homefront - and im not sure what extent dragon age is online since im not an rpg lover so no idea there

basically everything on the list bar virtua tennis is highly likely to be an additional fee to play online

Helix

steve_ wrote: »

I dont understand this at all. Why would they do this as it would surely lead to a big decrease in people buying new titles, and leading to a quicker shift to digital distribution. Hopefully the "trial" will make them realize how stupid the idea is.

its not a stupid idea, its a very clever way of making online pass based games cheaper without admitting to joe public that its because theyve to pay a tenner for online use

the stupid ones are the ones who fall for it

steve_

Iv never paid for online access, but is it per title? So i buy preowned and its a tenner play that game online ontop of my annual subscription?

johnny_ultimate

steve_ wrote: »

Iv never paid for online access, but is it per title? So i buy preowned and its a tenner play that game online ontop of my annual subscription?

New games from EA and a few other companies come with a one time activation code. With this, you're allowed play online. In the case of some single player games - Mass Effect 2 is one example - it allows access to some free DLC for weeks and months after release. Any other user wanting to play online with the same copy of the game needs to purchase this pass.

While it seems restrictive - and is a problem for households where two or more people will play the game - I also think it's a surprisingly good idea. It is a way of countering the second hand market by providing an incentive for new purchases, and some income for the developer from second hand purchases. It's not perfect, but a clever system IMO. Don't know how widely it would be known about outside 'core' gamers though!

Helix

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

While it seems restrictive - and is a problem for households where two or more people will play the game

its not

the first console that "unlocks" the online side using the code can have all gamertags/psn ids on that machine play it i believe, and the code is also locked to the initial player's id - meaning that if you have 2 ps3s, unlock it on the first one using the psn id of the player who owns the second one, itll work just fine on both consoles. so just one code needed per household

gizmo

As a sidenote, Crytek have said Crysis 2 won't come with the online pass.

steve_

Its a good idea alright but i think its too expensive. But again maybe thats just to encourage new title sales. The only solution really is to offer preowned at a much cheaper rate, whihc obviously means you get less for your trade ins

Helix

gizmo wrote: »

As a sidenote, Crytek have said Crysis 2 won't come with the online pass.

interesting one there - though i assume coz its the console debut they didnt want to limit their audience i suppose

not like ea not to force their hand there all the same

Helix

steve_ wrote: »

Its a good idea alright but i think its too expensive. But again maybe thats just to encourage new title sales. Can codes only be bought through the console or could you buy from the EA site and enter the code later

through the console as far as i know

gizmo

Helix wrote: »

interesting one there - though i assume coz its the console debut they didnt want to limit their audience i suppose

not like ea not to force their hand there all the same

Bang on I'd say. New franchise so they want to get as many people playing it as possible in order to build on it for future iterations. Whether it works or not, well I guess we'll have to wait and see.

As for the Online pass purchase, that has to be done through your console. More info here.

Grumpypants

Retr0gamer wrote: »

With todays development costs it's very difficult to do this. I really enjoy a good solid single player experience that is tightly designed and is 8-12 hours long. This is something that will kill those types of games off.

I don't know, looking at RUSE that had a solid solo campaign and really good solid online side to it, and they followed it up with some free DLC a few weeks after release. They then went on to release DLC you had to pay for but i think that's fair as the player got a lot of use out of it.

I hate to see a game like Mafia which i really enjoyed but it was very short and almost felt like they pulled stuff to use as DLC and low-and-behold the game was barely out a day and they announced DLC you had to pay for which really should have been part of the game.

It is a problem that needs to be addressed as all 3 parties need each other, i think a moratorium on selling used games for say 3-4 weeks after release would do a lot. It would give time for the sales to take hold.

TrustedApple

Really i am not a fan of 2nd hand games the only games i buy 2nd hand are games i cant find anywhere online or instore or if there is over 15 euro extra for the game

But i do say this is funny because if you where dealing in videos games you would be doing the same because you will need to make the must money you can to stay open

But if your not happy with what the games stores are doing just stop buying games of them !!!

Also i will add that GAME are the best of the games stores because they know how to look after people in there shop not like GAMESTOP who in kilkenny have the rudeist staff i have ever seen in my life who told me that where the only place in town that takes trades ins when HMV is 10 mins away from them

And alos i seen the manger from gamestop kilkenny going to the game area of HMV and takeing down how much every game cost and still HMV are 10 euros cheaper for new games

Retr0gamer

Grumpypants wrote: »

I don't know, looking at RUSE that had a solid solo campaign and really good solid online side to it, and they followed it up with some free DLC a few weeks after release. They then went on to release DLC you had to pay for but i think that's fair as the player got a lot of use out of it.

Ruse is an RTS though and not the type of game you'd expect to only last 8 hours and have no multiplayer.

I'm talking about games like Bayonetta, Vanquish, Silent hill 2 etc. I don't want those type of games to last 40 hours or more and have tacked on multiplayer I'll never use. It would be detrimental to making the game.

marco_polo

Retr0gamer wrote: »

With todays development costs it's very difficult to do this. I really enjoy a good solid single player experience that is tightly designed and is 8-12 hours long. This is something that will kill those types of games off.

What reinforces this point is the increasing number of studios offloading the entire multiplayer development to a second studio, MOH and Crysis 2 being the best recent examples (I imagine the likes of Valve, Dice and Treyarch cope only because they are in the nice position of having existing tech to build upon, I would wager starting from scratch would be a different story.). But few studios have the rsoources to build from scrath.

What I really can't stand is multiplayer for the sake of it, not that the single player was great by any stretch, but I present Bioshock 2 multiplayer into evidence and rest my case. It is clear that take two just did not have the resources to doeven a half decent job of it.

Grumpypants

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Ruse is an RTS though and not the type of game you'd expect to only last 8 hours and have no multiplayer.

I'm talking about games like Bayonetta, Vanquish, Silent hill 2 etc. I don't want those type of games to last 40 hours or more and have tacked on multiplayer I'll never use. It would be detrimental to making the game.

Ah i get you, we're actually talking about the same thing , those games are games I would play finish and play again, I've a stack of games on the shelf that are only around 6-8 hours long that ive kept and play more than once and will never trade them in.

I was talking about developers that make games that you would barely want to get to the end of the game never mind play it for a second time & tack on a crap multiplayer and then release costed DLC, titles like Kane and Lynch 2 for example.

I don't really have a problem with games that just have a single player aspect as long as it is good. I just used RUSE as a good example of a developer being fair giving the solo campaign, plus a good online aspect plus some free DLC before they started charging, rather than giving players a half arsed solo campaign and charging straight away for DLC that should have been in the game.

And if you look at what this is offering the store is pretty sure of getting enough copies of all those games returned within 1 week of release to make this venture worthwhile. Usually you only see stacks of rubbish games appearing on the 2nd hand shelf after the first week.

steve_

samapple789 wrote: »

And alos i seen the manger from gamestop kilkenny going to the game area of HMV and takeing down how much every game cost and still HMV are 10 euros cheaper for new games

Thats common practice in game stores, you can expect to see staff from other stores checking out prices every friday for new titles.

As for this whole ordeal i read an article and gamestop said that this idea of paying for EA online access will actually strengthen sales:

http://bit.ly/egVGHd

penev10

If the publishers and platform owners want to tackle the second hand market then they should get serious with their digital distribution.

I'm sick to death of hearing (from the industry) that digital distribution is such a black art and they are still getting their heads around it.

The hard-drive space is there, the bandwidth is there just offer consumers a reason not to buy a physical copy! (eg dont release a download of Mass effect 2 on PSN for 59.99euro when it's 35 in the shops!) With all the manufacturing and distribution costs nullified (not to mention the retailers 20%!) why can't they offer digital downloads at prices less than the high street???

gizmo

penev10 wrote: »

If the publishers and platform owners want to tackle the second hand market then they should get serious with their digital distribution.

I'm sick to death of hearing (from the industry) that digital distribution is such a black art and they are still getting their heads around it.

The hard-drive space is there, the bandwidth is there just offer consumers a reason not to buy a physical copy! (eg dont release a download of Mass effect 2 on PSN for 59.99euro when it's 35 in the shops!) With all the manufacturing and distribution costs nullified (not to mention the retailers 20%!) why can't they offer digital downloads at prices less than the high street???

This is the console market though penev10, one which isn't as willing to accept digital distribution as readily as the PC market just yet. The inroads the publishers have made thus far are decent, at least with regards to those games which are available. The prices, as you've pointed out though, could do with a little work.