News - Second-hand gaming cost Heavy Rain one million sales

[maverick77_uk]

A pre-owned market is nothing new. Take books. People have been buying / trading loaning second hand books for literally centuries. There are public libraries in every town where you can BORROW FOR FREE, READ AND RETURN books. Has this lead to a reduction of authors? No. In fact, if you enjoy a book, you are more likely to look for, and buy other books by that author.

I feel the same is true for gaming. If I buy a car, am I then banned from selling that car on second-hand? No. Obviously, I'm against piracy, and if you sell a game on, you are also selling on the right to play that game - the same as when you sell a car, or a book.

Why does the games industry think they are so unique that their product shouldn't have a second hand market? Every other product does. Its just "lucky" that its dealing with the E-world, where thay can introduce on-line activation and registration, and so stop people selling their "car" on second hand.

[kalniel]

Product condition.

Still, that's what publishers are attempting to emulate with online pass/0-day DLC etc.

[aidanjt]

Big deal.

People have been playing second hand games for decades and now companies are moaning about it!!

Haven't you heard? Content publishers are entitled to 100% first hand sales profit. They have no obligation to produce anything people would be tripping over themselves to get first hand. And of course, having your IP is absolute proof that you're guilty of sailing the high seas under the Jolly Rodger and looting merchant vessels full of games.

[Unique]

What about game rentals then?

How many music and video sales have been lost to second hand media sales,rentals and people taping stuff for the last 40 years or so??

If they have an issue with stores doing it(although for music and video this has been happening for decades) then they should moan at the stores.

However,many of these companies see it as an opportunity to stop all second hand sales and rentals too.

from what he says, it's mainly the big chain stores on the high street that are the problem, rather than the smaller traditional independant stores of old that shifted a few dozen second hand games a week. it's when you go in a big store and see the latest games and have the choice of buying a new copy from which the developer gets paid, or a second hand copy where the store is making the profit and the original owner makes a loss and the developers don't get a cut

from what i understood, to legally rent games and movies etc you needed a license, and part of those fees went back to copywrite holders, whislt none goes back in second hand, which is why some developers would like some form of a license system where they get paid a percentage

i'm not a gamer so it doesn't bother me either way, but apparently it is a major concern in the industry. i think the upshot will be a step closer to the DLC route where all games will be sold online and no-one will be able to sell second hand, and that may put a major dent in, if not stop piracy, solving two problems at once

[funke_munke]

The price of games i what makes me buy 2nd hand. On PC I have extremely rarely purchased 2nd hand (from these forums) - maybe twice or three times in the entire time I have been using a PC as my primary gaming device (10 years-ish). On the Ps3 however, with games priced at 40 quid+ and relative uncertainty as to wether I would enjoy my purchase or not, you're damn right I'm going to go for the cheaper option. If you bought a table and it came with a stipulation that you could not resell it, I think most sane people would be outraged. You OWN it.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

from what he says, it's mainly the big chain stores on the high street that are the problem, rather than the smaller traditional independant stores of old that shifted a few dozen second hand games a week. it's when you go in a big store and see the latest games and have the choice of buying a new copy from which the developer gets paid, or a second hand copy where the store is making the profit and the original owner makes a loss and the developers don't get a cut

from what i understood, to legally rent games and movies etc you needed a license, and part of those fees went back to copywrite holders, whislt none goes back in second hand, which is why some developers would like some form of a license system where they get paid a percentage

i'm not a gamer so it doesn't bother me either way, but apparently it is a major concern in the industry. i think the upshot will be a step closer to the DLC route where all games will be sold online and no-one will be able to sell second hand, and that may put a major dent in, if not stop piracy, solving two problems at once

So should the media industry go after Ebay and stores like CEX as they sell loads of secondhand DVDs,Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs,CDs,SACDs,DVD-Audio discs and records??

What about all the sales of films and tv shows lost though people taping them?? The same goes with music. You could argue that film,tv and music companies have potentially lost tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of dollars in the last 40 years.

Should car companies stop secondhand sales of cars? After all they have spent billions of dollars developing new models,so why should they allow secondhand sales?? On top of this maybe they should close down independent garages too as it means less of the servicing and repair money goes to the original manufacturer too. Every penny counts as we are now in a recession and new car sales are down.

On top of this one has to ask the question why there are "so many" copies of a relatively new game are available secondhand soon after launch.

If you cannot produce content that people are willing to pay for full price in the first place it either means you are producing rubbish content,overpriced content or content which has a very short lifespan. It also makes the assumption that your media is worth £40 to the person purchasing it. If it is only worth £20 to them,they will pay £20 and not more.

This seems to be more of issue with console games TBH as with the PC the games seem to be much better priced and there seems to be more DLC content available too.

OTH,people have been buying and selling console games for decades and it is the way many kids can afford to get games in the first place. If they don't want second-hand sales perhaps they should produce "one-shot" editions which are not transferable. Instead of charging £35 to £40 a launch,they could charge £20 to £25. This way it means there is less financial incentive for people to sell their games on.

[andyb123]

trading games is only for consoles anyway so who cares

[Yosh]

1 million people who wouldn't have bought it brand new, so they have lost zero sales.

I really don't like the way companies are stating they are losing out on the 2nd hand market, at the end of the day its been the same for decades and only now do they start moaning.

The game is sold new once only and they get their take from it, they shouldn't continue to profit off of second hand sales, its like person A buys a car new from a dealer and when he sells it to person B, person B then has to pay a fee to the dealer, it doesn't make sense.

Just because sales are down means that these companies built up by their customers are now milking us for everything they can.

[Avenger1324]

It's scary to think that someone that senior is a games company actually thinks like that.

I bought Heavy Rain second hand for a tenner, and very happy I did. It was a good enjoyable and engrossing game, but one which I completed in one sitting. I then spent another 6 hours replaying certain chapters to uncover some of the alternative endings, and short of starting from the beginning to play for the perfect evil playthrough did everything I wanted to.

I buy a lot of games, but rarely pay full launch price for them. I look at a game and decide how much I'm willing to pay for it, and wait for the price to fall. The preowned price will hit that price first, and then I have to decide if there is any difference between buying preowned or buying new.

I'm in favour of games companies that add extra content to games for those that buy it new - as a decent incentive to attract new buyers. But I'm totally against EA's tactic of removing online from the game and having that as a 1 time activation. Online is a fundamental part of most games, and not a genuine bonus or add-on feature.

[miniyazz]

I once made the mistake of buying a second-hand game which neither the seller nor myself realised could not be played by a different person. So postage costs later, I got my refund, neither myself nor the seller were happy with the publisher, and did I buy a new retail version? Did I hell.

[badass]

So should the media industry go after Ebay and stores like CEX as they sell loads of secondhand DVDs,Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs,CDs,SACDs,DVD-Audio discs and records??


Should car companies stop secondhand sales of cars? After all they have spent billions of dollars developing new models,so why should they allow secondhand sales?? On top of this maybe they should close down independent garages too as it means less of the servicing and repair money goes to the original manufacturer too. Every penny counts as we are now in a recession and new car sales are down.

These are pretty much the crux of the matter to me.
Every other industry has second hand sales and they don't complain. In fact I beleive it's against European law to artificially restrict the second hand market in your product.
It is perfectly reasonable for someone to be able to sell something to someone else once they are finished with it to get some money back and the original producer to not see a penny.

The only argument the pucblishers and developers have against this is the infrastructure they provide at their own cost to allow multiplayer game playing.
The one person online pass system they use seems a fair way around that. DLC certainly isn't IMHO.

[Saracen]

I don't buy used games. I don't think I EVER have, and if I've forgotten something, it's certainly been a very rare occasion. I also don't think I've ever sold a game on, which is why I have a considerable storage problem with loads of boxed games. To be honest, I'm planning on cutting the covers on the boxes off and storing games in bags, just to reclaim space.

What I do do these days, though, is buy games after they've been out a couple of years, and the price has dropped. The last few I bought were a fiver each.

If you have a limited budget for games compared to your desires, you have three options :-

1) Buy less games, or
2) Buy late, and cheap, or
3) Buy second-hand.

Games companies need to recognise that with the economy as it is, funds are limited and, like just about everything else, the consumer spending is decreasing. Get used to it. Cut your expenditure according to your income, and don't insult or moan at customers just 'cos they're buying used, because for quite a few, their logic is "buy, play for a while, then sell while it's still worth something to fund the next purchase". If you buy at £40, use for a month then sell at £20, the net cost is £20. The alternative is to buy half as many games.

[directhex]

1 million people who wouldn't have bought it brand new, so they have lost zero sales.

You really think 0/1000000 of those people would have paid for it? 0?

Because if a SINGLE one of those million paid full price for it, they'd have made more money than they did.

People piss and moan about the lack of original games on the market these days, and the surplus of sequels - it's because, with modern game development costs typically starting at 7 figures, you've gotta sell more than a million copies to break even, so you go for "safe" bets. If a risky game tanks, then that's it for the franchise.

[directhex]

It's not that surprising really. Comparing the overheads to those of Hexus Classifieds or eBay, they're going to need to give rock bottom amounts to make any kind of profit. Especially when games' prices drop off so rapidly after the release.

Game etc charge about £3 less for the preowned version of a game - but rather than ~£10, the publisher gets ~£0.

There is scope for compromise here.

[keithwalton]

You really think 0/1000000 of those people would have paid for it? 0?

Because if a SINGLE one of those million paid full price for it, they'd have made more money than they did.

People piss and moan about the lack of original games on the market these days, and the surplus of sequels - it's because, with modern game development costs typically starting at 7 figures, you've gotta sell more than a million copies to break even, so you go for "safe" bets. If a risky game tanks, then that's it for the franchise.

Out of the 2 million that did buy it new, how many would of not purchased it if the publisher has stopped them from selling it on later. Quite a few i'd of thought
What about all the people that brought the game but didn't collect the achievements (offline ps3)

I played the demo when it first came out and liked it but not enough to buy it at the price they were asking for.

CEX are the people they should be most concerned by as there entire business model is based on buying and selling 2nd hand electronics.
The reason why they pay so little for items is
a) overheads of stores and staff have to be paid for
b) prices are always falling and stock sits around for a while, so they need to make sure by the time the average item is sold again they are still in profit.

CEX tend to offer you half the sale price in cash, or 75% of the sale price in store credit.

[Rob_B]

If buying from game etc I tend to buy new for that very reason (although of course I rarely buy from them due to price) I only really use them if I'm trading in, in which case I'll get a pre-owned to fit in budget.

My last 3 or 4 games were steam/origin based though I think. I don't think I have the space for all of the games I've bought over the years, you must have a big house Saracen