Ban second hand games! says Crytek (kind of)

Shiminay

cloud493 wrote: »

I think part of the complaint is that AAA games are too high in price. But thats another argument

I'm not picking on you specifically on this one cloud, but I saw thing and figured it's easier to just quote this one line and address it.

20+ years ago a game for the Nintendo cost £30 to buy. Translate that into Euro and you get €38. So, new games now cost about €50. In 20+ years the cost of producing a game has gone from several thousand to several million. There is a larger market to offset this of course, but at the same time, when you take into account cost of living and inflation and all that other stuff that economists harp on about, that's a minuscule increase in cost of end product to the consumer.

Hobbies aren't cheap, this is the price of being a gamer - if you can't afford to play with the rest of us, who's fault is that? It's not like we're being fleeced with the cost of new games and why the fk shouldn't games producers and publishers make money? What is it they're supposed to pay their staff with?

richymcdermott

JohnMarston wrote: »

If they release free demos online for their games, and if it is that good, i will pay retail price on release day. The cost of publishing will come way down when you eliminate physical discs, something i am against because i like a physical copy in my hand.

they say that but judging from psn where ME3 is 70 quid i hardly judge it will be , its only going to hurt the games that never going to get a chance then all a sudden the market will be over saturated with fps titles

Myrddin

Shiminay wrote: »

20+ years ago a game for the Nintendo cost £30 to buy. Translate that into Euro and you get €38.

Where were you shopping?! I remember SNES games retailing for £40/£45 all day long. Sometimes £50 even, hell SF2T cost £70 or something.

This isn't about not being able to afford new games, it's about having the choice to buy used or new. Like you know, the way we do with everything else we buy.

Spunge

First they complain about all the money they lost from people pirating crysis, even though it sold like 3 million copies so far. So they moved to consoles. Now they are complaining that people can buy them 2nd hand, even though they sold a few million there as well. Bunch of muppets.

Shiminay

A Toymaster in Castlebar. I'm talking NES, not SNES n00b

Myrddin

Shiminay wrote: »

A Toymaster in Castlebar. I'm talking NES, not SNES n00b

Ah I see, your old

My bad, I had it in my head you meant SNES. I never had an NES growing up so I only buy for it these days. Thank god I can eh, & there's not some silly used game protection on it...;):)

Grumpypants

Shiminay wrote: »

I'm not picking on you specifically on this one cloud, but I saw thing and figured it's easier to just quote this one line and address it.

20+ years ago a game for the Nintendo cost £30 to buy. Translate that into Euro and you get €38. So, new games now cost about €50. In 20+ years the cost of producing a game has gone from several thousand to several million. There is a larger market to offset this of course, but at the same time, when you take into account cost of living and inflation and all that other stuff that economists harp on about, that's a minuscule increase in cost of end product to the consumer.

Hobbies aren't cheap, this is the price of being a gamer - if you can't afford to play with the rest of us, who's fault is that? It's not like we're being fleeced with the cost of new games and why the fk shouldn't games producers and publishers make money? What is it they're supposed to pay their staff with?

I just looked in the press my N64 copy of Zelda and my SNES copy of sensi soccer are both £49.99 sterling.

Game are now €69.99 RRP. If you are worried about the most lucrative entertainment industry in the world then you are more than entitled to pay €69.99 for your games.

I do suspect though you take advantage of the used market subsidizing the price of your games by buying your games at around the €45-50 mark.

Feel free to post an extra 20 euro to the publishers to cover staffing costs.

Reekwind

Shiminay wrote: »

Hobbies aren't cheap, this is the price of being a gamer - if you can't afford to play with the rest of us, who's fault is that?

The industry's for pricing people out of the market. Nobody asked studios to shift to invest huge budgets in perfectly modelled 3D biceps. Nobody asked developers to embrace the blockbuster model with such gusto. It's not our fault that they can't control their costs

As is proven by indie and niche developers today, and most studios back in the day, it is perfectly possible to craft a good game without hiring an army of programmers and spending millions on advertising. Particularly so given the games, unlike films, are not inherently reliant on one big opening weekend. So yeah, I've no sympathy for those claiming that games are suddenly ruinously expensive to make

cloud493

I don't disagree with anything you've said about the price of making a game, I really don't but we are in a grim economic state, moneys tight for all of us, throwing down 50 euro on a game, is very very steep. And you say how much it costs to make a game, lets take modern warfare 3 as your example, they made however much money off that, yet they still charged way over the odds for it, 52.99 at the best price at launch. Silly.

mrm

That poorly written article in the OP reads "game company achieve sufficient sales to progress to producing a third money maker in the 'franchise', but sales would have been better only for console secondhand sales and pc pirating (nb. they would have also been better if you had released a decent demo and a 'finished' game within which the AI were actually linked to the game:(). Crytek person welcomes future systems that 'fix' SH games issue. While PC pirating is upsetting and flattering, some players obviously wont pay the asking price or any price for said game. Crytek person admits to not having the answers."


Not sure if this is the game media sh*t stirring (most likely with that article) or typical game business industry bitching and moaning that they cannot monopolise the industry, while admitting that they are making enough money from initial sales. I have yet to see a many articles in which the games ibusiness state 'if we obtain every possible sale opportunity we can address reducing the price of a new game for our customer base'. It all translates to 'gaming is now our business and we want all the money'. Nature of the beast I suppose.


SH game sales proves that gamers are willing to buy games at a lower price than new game cost, NOT that they want to intentionally 'hurt' the industry that they are interested in. This is primarily a pricing issue but the game business has its greedy head in the sand regarding this. The problem might be the game industry spending too much money on polish.:p

So gaming industry, for a system of new purchases (circa €50) only can I have the following (guarantees only):

• finished games with no bugs, no need for day 1 patches.
• no more 'bought' reviews.
• Substantial 'finished product' demos of your game prior to release
• no more 'homefront' or 'OF: dragon rising' lies.
• no more Molyneux dreams = lies.
• no more pre order bonuses.
• no more bad ports encouraging console fanboy flame wars on boards.ie
• release some games in months that dont end in 'ctober' or 'ovember'
• no more saturation of 'second hand idea' games. eg. crysis 3 does not constitute a 'new' game. Less car number plate games too - 'well I own a 2012 fifa".
• No more 'annually subtly tweaked' game series.
• More new IP's.
• Less old IP's. (careful with this one)
• a decent level of scripting and plot development in scripted plot development 'based' games. (Yeah YOU Crysis 2)
• no more boasting that you are spending €$£?100m on advertising to compete with makers of franchise game iteration 5, and forgetting to spend enough money on making a good game and then renting out serves to make game worse but place more into your pocket. Spend all the money on the game!
• more support for 'riskier' IP. (Demon Souls)
• HL3 released before MW42.
• Backward compatibility on new consoles for games we already have purchased new
• no more raping old franchises for 'nostalgia' sales.
• Dragons Dogma not to be capcom'd.
• no more support for activities that will annoy angsty rant happy gamers- e.g. day 1 dl.......too much to list
• ALL the good pc games to be properly ported over to the consoles. Give the PC Dark Souls in return. That should even things up.:)

I feel too often that we are been presented with the same product to purchase again and again, with no comeback if the product was sold under false pretense.

I agree with the OP that SH market is used heavily to achieve new games purchases for the gamers who intend to get through a considerable amount of games in the year. It can be quite a high cost full on otherwise. It is just suitable to ignore that SH games sales are derived from a trade in, most possibly towards a new game (I doubt anyone has got rich from cash trades).

In relation to the extents of SH sales and piracy (which I am sure has been researched to death at this stage by the industry) is this not already factored into the price point of a new game - which I assume it has as is proven in the opening paragraph of the CVG article? Hasn't every SH games already been purchased at the full price, all money going to where the industry intended? Has the games industry come this far on the wrong price point, or with incorrect game budgets? The games industry seems to want to make a point, but that point always comes across as blatant greed.
Sorry for the long post!

hightower1

Spunge wrote: »

First they complain about all the money they lost from people pirating crysis, even though it sold like 3 million copies so far. So they moved to consoles. Now they are complaining that people can buy them 2nd hand, even though they sold a few million there as well. Bunch of muppets.

As I said man, seems like they cannot fathom that mayb they made a mediocer game. Blame everyone and everything except themselves.


LIke capcom releasing the dull operation racoon city stating the market isnt there anymore as an excuse for poor sales

Like THQ pushing for second hand market to be stopped all while their company is going under due to poor sales of frankly dull games.

Devs just think that their product is great no matter what. Asking for a cut of second hand sales or destroy the market is a joke. You wouldnt fork over money to a builder if you wanted to bu the second hand house would you? Builders know they wouldnt get away with asking for the housing market ot only stock new structures cause they'd be laughed at.

marco_polo

In fairness to Developers, while the proposed solution is all wrong, the grievance is fairly legitmate as Gamestop make over €2 Billion dollars in sales from used games, not a cent of which filters back to wider games industry. Personally I would like to see some sort of resale royalty imposed on the commercial trading of used games, which would be a fair solution, but for a long list of reasons it is is unlikely to ever happen.

http://www.gamesradar.com/gamestop-trade-practices-slammed-ca-judge-orders-warnings-used-games/

On a side note glad to see Gamestop got pulled up for the above practice of saying nothing about online codes, hopefully it is not long before it spreads to other jurastictions too.

Retr0gamer

marco_polo wrote: »

In fairness to Developers, while the proposed solution is all wrong, the grievance is fairly legitmate as Gamestop make over €2 Billion dollars in sales from used games, not a cent of which filters back to wider games industry.

So what if they make money from it? You don't hear the motor or movie industry bitching about second hand sales. Gamestop found a market niche, exploited it and are reaping the rewards. The games publishers didn't and are unwilling to embrace it like the motor industry do. Screw them. If they can't adapt in the business world then they should lose money being stubborn about it. It's what capitalism is all about.

richymcdermott

marco_polo wrote: »

In fairness to Developers, while the proposed solution is all wrong, the grievance is fairly legitmate as Gamestop make over €2 Billion dollars in sales from used games, not a cent of which filters back to wider games industry. Personally I would like to see some sort of resale royalty imposed on the commercial trading of used games, which would be a fair solution, but for a long list of reasons it is is unlikely to ever happen.

http://www.gamesradar.com/gamestop-trade-practices-slammed-ca-judge-orders-warnings-used-games/

On a side note glad to see Gamestop got pulled up for the above practice of saying nothing about online codes, hopefully it is not long before it spreads to other jurastictions too.

In fairness the same developers and publishers that are complaining bout gamestop and other game shops about use game sales still give stores exclusive pre order bonuses so i dont understand their logic.. If its a genuine problem they should take it up with the stores not take it out on us. Just because they decided to have the best graphics possible which puts money up on their games , if it doesnt see a profit but sells well is not the consumer fault .. The whole online pass is stupid anyways .. Ea games servers after 6 months to a year shuts down with or without online pass , yet games like cod4 , resistance 1 & 2 with require no online pass is still up after nearly 4-5 years and yet no online pass required

hooradiation

Shiminay wrote: »

20+ years ago a game for the Nintendo cost £30 to buy. Translate that into Euro and you get €38. So, new games now cost about €50. In 20+ years the cost of producing a game has gone from several thousand to several million. There is a larger market to offset this of course, but at the same time, when you take into account cost of living and inflation and all that other stuff that economists harp on about, that's a minuscule increase in cost of end product to the consumer.

Well with inflation £30 Irish pounds from 1992 is €62.07 Euros (as of last year)
So, games are in and around the same price, but the development costs have skyrocketed.

No wonder publishers (not developers, jesus fucking christ people, learn the goddamn difference) are looking for ways to make money and trying to stop the bleed of money that the second hand market represents looks like a decent way to offset things.

JohnMarston

mrm wrote: »

So gaming industry, for a system of new purchases (circa €50) only can I have the following (guarantees only):

• finished games with no bugs, no need for day 1 patches.
• no more 'bought' reviews.
• Substantial 'finished product' demos of your game prior to release
• no more 'homefront' or 'OF: dragon rising' lies.
• no more Molyneux dreams = lies.
• no more pre order bonuses.
• no more bad ports encouraging console fanboy flame wars on boards.ie
• release some games in months that dont end in 'ctober' or 'ovember'
• no more saturation of 'second hand idea' games. eg. crysis 3 does not constitute a 'new' game. Less car number plate games too - 'well I own a 2012 fifa".
• No more 'annually subtly tweaked' game series.
• More new IP's.
• Less old IP's. (careful with this one)
• a decent level of scripting and plot development in scripted plot development 'based' games. (Yeah YOU Crysis 2)
• no more boasting that you are spending €$£?100m on advertising to compete with makers of franchise game iteration 5, and forgetting to spend enough money on making a good game and then renting out serves to make game worse but place more into your pocket. Spend all the money on the game!
• more support for 'riskier' IP. (Demon Souls)
• HL3 released before MW42.
• Backward compatibility on new consoles for games we already have purchased new
• no more raping old franchises for 'nostalgia' sales.
• Dragons Dogma not to be capcom'd.
• no more support for activities that will annoy angsty rant happy gamers- e.g. day 1 dl.......too much to list
• ALL the good pc games to be properly ported over to the consoles. Give the PC Dark Souls in return. That should even things up.:)

I feel too often that we are been presented with the same product to purchase again and again, with no comeback if the product was sold under false pretense.

I agree with most of that, but what is wrong with pre-order bonuses?

hooradiation

JohnMarston wrote: »

I agree with most of that, but what is wrong with pre-order bonuses?

That a pretty bad list of 'demands', or at the very least so goddamn unrealistic as to be bordering on parody.

Myrddin

hooradiation wrote: »

So, games are in and around the same price, but the development costs have skyrocketed

While manufacturing costs should be a lot less due to optical media & not expensive carts & online distribution.

Dave_The_Sheep

hooradiation wrote: »

So, games are in and around the same price, but the development costs have skyrocketed.

Also to be considered, I'd imagine that the numbers of units sold have increased as well, due to a bigger market across a bigger range of platforms. Does anyone have any stats on this?

hooradiation

EnterNow wrote: »

While manufacturing costs should be a lot less due to optical media & not expensive carts & online distribution.

I really can't see those costs having come down significantly, at least not enough to offset the kinds of increases we've seen in the money it takes to make a game.
Optical media are much cheaper than cartridges but the cost of getting the stuff from A to B isn't going to have become much cheaper, is it?
At least not decreasing to the same degree that the budget to make a game has increased.

And online distribution (steam etc) does have the less obvious cost of having to keep the service running 24/7 - I wonder how that influences costs....

Myrddin

hooradiation wrote: »

Optical media are much cheaper than cartridges but the cost of getting the stuff from A to B isn't going to have become much cheaper, is it?

They're lighter & you can fit a whole more more cd's in a box than you would expensive cart boxes, meaning more for less...isn't it?

And online distribution (steam etc) does have the less obvious cost of having to keep the service running 24/7 - I wonder how that influences costs....

You don't see the likes of Netflix, or other online based distro/media subscrption charging top money to run 24/7...I wonder why not?

Shiminay

I think there's one obvious solution that only the future (one with unimaginably fast network speeds) can bring and that's to do away with physical media entirely. Then the service providers and/or publishers can manage second hand digital sales and take a commission.

mrm

hooradiation wrote: »

No wonder publishers (not developers, jesus fucking christ people, learn the goddamn difference) .

I'm sure all here understand the goddamn difference but the article in the OP of this thread refers to the opinions of the developer. Are you sure that you are in the correct thread or fully understand the article?

but what is wrong with pre-order bonuses?

It just appears to be the games PUBLISHER getting into bed with the enemy to the detriment of the gaming community, with different pob's available from different retailers. Pre order bonus is nice if it is consistant but not the way it is currently handled across the differing relationships between the publisher and the various retailers. But my point has more to do with the fact that if as publishers, and developers alike apparently, get their wish and there is no second hand trade in market I will not pre order any game again, and I simple wont accept another gamer having a shinier gun than me if we both have spent the same amount of money.:)

TheGunns

It isn't really about whether its right or wrong as since they have the power to do it, they will do it if or whenever they please. It's just like pc games, they still sell even with the lack of second hand capabilities. People think theyre entitled to being able to sell something that someone else created without compensating them for it. I think that if you made a movie and someone wanted to sell it, then you would want to get money in return for it.

In relation to the second hand sales of cars and nobody complaining about that, well its simply the case that one cannot prevent people from selling a car to somebody else. Whereas with games sales it is very very possible.

viclemronny

EnterNow wrote: »

The type of used games that are €5 below rrp, well thats a different matter. Thats' just ridiculous & greedy on the part of the retailers. It's just a pity there's no nice balance in between.

I wonder what the feasibility of publishers operating a second hand system themselves would be.

As in you'd buy your game form the shop as normal. You play it through and decide you've gotten as much from it as you can.

You sell it to the publisher and post it back to them. They could then give you either credit to a paypal account, credit with them to spend on other games or something like that.

You use that money to buy new games. The publisher can pay you the same as a shop and sell it for less than the shop. They get their cuy and you can sell your game to fund new games.

This eliminates the issue of games for a 5er below new price. At least, even if it is only a 5er cheaper, the publisher, as they are now getting a cut, can include all the same stuff that a new game goes.

Even just buying for, say 2 months, and then instead of making more copies and selling them at a reduced price, they sell the second hand ones.

Everything would be the same as now but with money going to developers as oppossed to shops.

Would shops be in a huff? Yes. Do EA and the likes care if they annoy shops if they have a proper online shop and postal service organised? Possibly not.

Myrddin

TheGunns wrote: »

People think theyre entitled to being able to sell something that someone else created without compensating them for it. I think that if you made a movie and someone wanted to sell it, then you would want to get money in return for it.

Yeah but...someone has to buy your movie in the first place in order to sell it. You've been paid already. Let whoever bought it, sell it on, recieve some of their investment back...& they might just buy your sequel The person buying the second hand version is getting it cheaper, but it's old news by then & they likely didn't see your movie warranting full price to begin with & wouldn't have bought it anyway.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with being able to buy a second hand game...it's a market that has been around as long as gaming itself has been around. This 2nd hand sale is akin to piracy type nonsense is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.

hooradiation

EnterNow wrote: »

They're lighter & you can fit a whole more more cd's in a box than you would expensive cart boxes, meaning more for less...isn't it?

But, there's also fuel prices to consider. Like any distribution system it's a bloody complex thing. At the very least the change in development costs are many magnitudes simpler to price.

EnterNow wrote: »

You don't see the likes of Netflix, or other online based distro/media subscrption charging top money to run 24/7...I wonder why not?

That's not what I said, running those services is not a non-zero cost.

Now, I'm guessing that Valve/EA/Whomever spreads that cost across all sales, so I'm wondering how much it actually is and how that compares vis-a-vis the more traditional model of just storing the game in a shop. And that the cost for storing them is always going to increase, seeing as you can't really remove the content from your digital distribution service, where as the cost of keeping stock is fairly flat. You can only ever have X volume of stock at any given time.

mrm wrote: »

I'm sure all here understand the goddamn difference but the article in the OP of this thread refers to the opinions of the developer. Are you sure that you are in the correct thread or fully understand the article?

Do they? Because the amount of times I see the phrase "greedy developers" used leads me to think people have a terrible case of using words that are not interchangeable, interchangeably.

Myrddin

hooradiation wrote: »

But, there's also fuel prices to consider. Like any distribution system it's a bloody complex thing. At the very least the change in development costs are many magnitudes simpler to price.





That's not what I said, running those services is not a non-zero cost.

Now, I'm guessing that Valve/EA/Whomever spreads that cost across all sales, so I'm wondering how much it actually is and how that compares vis-a-vis the more traditional model of just storing the game in a shop. And that the cost for storing them is always going to increase, seeing as you can't really remove the content from your digital distribution service, where as the cost of keeping stock is fairly flat. You can only ever have X volume of stock at any given time.

I take your points, & it's not something that has easy answers.

Predominantly I'd class myself as a simple gamer, & not an industry fanboy. For me, this isn't about the cost at all, if stuff is going up in price, then thats the way it is. This is all still rumour for now, but it just reeks of greed for me.

What about a simple system whereby you can buy a used game licence for each game. Imagine you could still go out & buy a used game ok...now, because that game has already been tied to an account, you need to pay €10 to tie it to your account. This means that whoever deserves the profit gets it, & the shops can't charge mad money because everyone knows it's still gonna cost you an extra €10 to unlock it...thereby keeping the initial price of a used game down to reasonable levels.

Reekwind

TheGunns wrote: »

I think that if you made a movie and someone wanted to sell it, then you would want to get money in return for it.

So should I pay a studio or director every time I buy a second hand DVD?

hooradiation

EnterNow wrote: »

I take your points, & it's not something that has easy answers.

Yeah, figuring all this out isn't something I know, so I'm just wondering than stating anything, but for the purpose of this topic trying to figure this all out is important.
Or at least acknowledging that things are more complicated than the first appear.

EnterNow wrote: »

Predominantly I'd class myself as a simple gamer, & not an industry fanboy. For me, this isn't about the cost at all, if stuff is going up in price, then thats the way it is. This is all still rumour for now, but it just reeks of greed for me.

I dunno about greed. Games really don't depreciate, and you get the same experience as the person who actually paid the publishers if you buy second hand. If you buy the game second hand and get the full experience then ought you not be paying the people who created the entertainment as opposed to the jackasses at gamestop?

EnterNow wrote: »

What about a simple system whereby you can buy a used game licence for each game. Imagine you could still go out & buy a used game ok...now, because that game has already been tied to an account, you need to pay €10 to tie it to your account. This means that whoever deserves the profit gets it, & the shops can't charge mad money because everyone knows it's still gonna cost you an extra €10 to unlock it...thereby keeping the initial price of a used game down to reasonable levels.

That's kind of like the online pass - which some people loudly hated, I guess there's no pleasing everyone.

If we move to purely digital distribution, this kind of thing will just **** right off and that's fine by me, but until then it's going to be shops and publishers squabbling over this kind of thing. Sadly.