Used games
Hello. Lots of banter these days going around about used video game sales. I do have some opinions on the matter.
First of all I absolutely do not fault users for selling their video games. I also do not fault the purchasers of used video games. I myself sell video games I am done with on eBay and have bought quite a few there as well. I don’t want to be perceived as a proponent of anything hostile to the consumer (like “banning” or “restricting” sales of used games, which is obviously illegal and not going to happen). That being said it is a fact that ~ 40% to 60% of Gamestop and Electronics Boutique shelf space is earmarked for used games, meaning 40% to 60% of their stock earns cash that I as a developer will never see.
I’ll be honest here: games take a lot of money to make, market and put on a shelf. When you buy a used game the developer and publisher don’t see a dime of that. Since this will always exist (the sales of used games) developers and publishers need to work with this fact instead of fight it. My goal is to have the money from game sales (for the game I worked on) go into my pocket. I want to do this in an attractive way to the end user (“Hey! Keep my game and you get X too!!!”).
I’ve been trying to find a way to make people want to KEEP their games. I would also like to find a way to make buying of a used game less attractive than buying a new game. I don’t have the silver bullet here; I just have some ideas rolling around in my head.
1- Online gameplay = longer “keep it” period. Not 100% true obviously but in general a game with fun online potential (or games that are online only like WoW) seem to have a much smaller number of used games circulating out there. Issue is (with console games) that even though broadband connections are becoming more prevalent, the online user-base is still in the minority (again, on consoles). BTW online gameplay isn’t just playing online. It can include downloadable content (free or pay), community building, etc.
2- The used game = less than a new game. Software is not a physical commodity. True it does come on some sort of media (DVD, CD, Cartridge, etc.) but the product itself is uniquely impervious to the ravages of time. Some can argue (and I would agree) that the increasing complexity of games (graphics, etc.) has a similar effect to the older game (it now looks dated) which in turn degrades said older game’s value. Be this as it may, it isn’t the same as other products. If you had a new jacket and a used jacket both of the same make and year (both are “Brand X, Style Y” jackets) I am betting you would buy the new one even at a greater cost. Someone has been wearing the other one. It has been through the wash once or twice. Who knows where it has been? Maybe there is some way to translate this to software. Now I am not suggesting anything as dumb-ass as what DIVX tried to do with degradable media or anything (again I don’t have the silver bullet). But maybe if when you first put in a disc it downloaded a piece of extra goodness that could only be downloaded once. Or maybe the game came with a cool gun on a memory card that integrated with your save game and then erased itself; forever imbedding itself in the save. Neither of these hurts the initial buyer and the game still works for 2nd hand users but in a reduced capacity. True the save can be transferred with the game but now you have to ask yourself “how far is this save?” or “did he really give me the save?” when you buy the game.
Other ideas are milling in my head and none of them are perfect. Really I want to just adopt a Steam or iTunes distribution structure to keep brink-and-mortars out of the loop. That way they can’t take their bite out of the profit AND used sales would be confined to people who go to a lot of trouble. The have to download the software, back it up to DVD, delete their downloaded version (unless they are a software pirate which is a different yet slightly related topic) and then sell said DVD. That’s a lot of trouble AND the buyer is going to be a bit leery of that 2nd hand product I think (home-brew DVDs do tent to garner a certain suspicion of bootlegging automatically, at least to me they do). That is a cool idea but it goes right back into the fact that your customers have to be online. And also with the console market we all have to deal with Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo... Sigh...
First of all I absolutely do not fault users for selling their video games. I also do not fault the purchasers of used video games. I myself sell video games I am done with on eBay and have bought quite a few there as well. I don’t want to be perceived as a proponent of anything hostile to the consumer (like “banning” or “restricting” sales of used games, which is obviously illegal and not going to happen). That being said it is a fact that ~ 40% to 60% of Gamestop and Electronics Boutique shelf space is earmarked for used games, meaning 40% to 60% of their stock earns cash that I as a developer will never see.
I’ll be honest here: games take a lot of money to make, market and put on a shelf. When you buy a used game the developer and publisher don’t see a dime of that. Since this will always exist (the sales of used games) developers and publishers need to work with this fact instead of fight it. My goal is to have the money from game sales (for the game I worked on) go into my pocket. I want to do this in an attractive way to the end user (“Hey! Keep my game and you get X too!!!”).
I’ve been trying to find a way to make people want to KEEP their games. I would also like to find a way to make buying of a used game less attractive than buying a new game. I don’t have the silver bullet here; I just have some ideas rolling around in my head.
1- Online gameplay = longer “keep it” period. Not 100% true obviously but in general a game with fun online potential (or games that are online only like WoW) seem to have a much smaller number of used games circulating out there. Issue is (with console games) that even though broadband connections are becoming more prevalent, the online user-base is still in the minority (again, on consoles). BTW online gameplay isn’t just playing online. It can include downloadable content (free or pay), community building, etc.
2- The used game = less than a new game. Software is not a physical commodity. True it does come on some sort of media (DVD, CD, Cartridge, etc.) but the product itself is uniquely impervious to the ravages of time. Some can argue (and I would agree) that the increasing complexity of games (graphics, etc.) has a similar effect to the older game (it now looks dated) which in turn degrades said older game’s value. Be this as it may, it isn’t the same as other products. If you had a new jacket and a used jacket both of the same make and year (both are “Brand X, Style Y” jackets) I am betting you would buy the new one even at a greater cost. Someone has been wearing the other one. It has been through the wash once or twice. Who knows where it has been? Maybe there is some way to translate this to software. Now I am not suggesting anything as dumb-ass as what DIVX tried to do with degradable media or anything (again I don’t have the silver bullet). But maybe if when you first put in a disc it downloaded a piece of extra goodness that could only be downloaded once. Or maybe the game came with a cool gun on a memory card that integrated with your save game and then erased itself; forever imbedding itself in the save. Neither of these hurts the initial buyer and the game still works for 2nd hand users but in a reduced capacity. True the save can be transferred with the game but now you have to ask yourself “how far is this save?” or “did he really give me the save?” when you buy the game.
Other ideas are milling in my head and none of them are perfect. Really I want to just adopt a Steam or iTunes distribution structure to keep brink-and-mortars out of the loop. That way they can’t take their bite out of the profit AND used sales would be confined to people who go to a lot of trouble. The have to download the software, back it up to DVD, delete their downloaded version (unless they are a software pirate which is a different yet slightly related topic) and then sell said DVD. That’s a lot of trouble AND the buyer is going to be a bit leery of that 2nd hand product I think (home-brew DVDs do tent to garner a certain suspicion of bootlegging automatically, at least to me they do). That is a cool idea but it goes right back into the fact that your customers have to be online. And also with the console market we all have to deal with Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo... Sigh...
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