Alternative distribution to optical disks : SSD, cards, and download*

[pcchen]

1. That NPD survey is just a survey, not actual data like sales data they collect.
2. The trade-in question can all be dependent on the wording used in the survey questions. I don't trade my games in to gamestop either for example, because it's a ripoff. Go on ebay/amazon marketplace/craigslist and see how many people are selling their used games, it's a lot. I wonder if they asked if people lend each other games, and what the answer to that would be.
3. If you kill the used market, you'll have more piracy.

Well, that's probably what they can do for now, because NPD does not have access to sales data of those digital game web sites like steamworks. They may be able to get them eventually, but apparently not yet, that's why they have to rely on surveys. Nevertheless, a survey, if done properly, is (much) better than nothing.

And regarding to the trade-in question, IMHO, if second hand game market is dead, those who buy (or sell) second hand games are not going to buy the same amount of games they did before. If they can't resell their games they are more likely to just pirate or simply buy less games if piracy is not an option.

Technically, there is no reason why a digital purchase can't be transfered to another person. However, the business reason is very simple: there is no real difference between a new game vs a used game, if you don't care about the quality of the game media or the manual. For digital purchases it's even more obvious. That's why they want to kill this market, because if most gamers do that, games with less time value would not sell very well.

A more "proper" solution for this is, IMHO, to use rental model. You can buy a game at full price, so you can play for any time length, but you can't resell it. On the other hand, you can "rent" a game at reduced price for, say, a month, a week, or even a day. This is possible with digital downloads because the upfront cost is very small. If you just want to try out a game, you can buy a "day-pass" to try it for a day (which should be very cheap, like one dollar or something). You can buy the full game if you like it and want to play it whenever you want. However, if you think you are just going to play it for maybe a month, you can buy a month-pass for a reduced price.

Blizzard is actually doing this in Taiwan and South Korea for Starcraft II. The full game is NT$1,950 (~US$65). A month-pass costs NT$300, about US$10. A day-pass is NT$50, about US$1.6. They are just trying this out, so I don't know how well it goes, but the publisher in Taiwan seems to be very satisfied with the sales of Starcraft II (although it's possible that most sales are of full games).

 

[corduroygt]

A more "proper" solution for this is, IMHO, to use rental model. You can buy a game at full price, so you can play for any time length, but you can't resell it. On the other hand, you can "rent" a game at reduced price for, say, a month, a week, or even a day. This is possible with digital downloads because the upfront cost is very small. If you just want to try out a game, you can buy a "day-pass" to try it for a day (which should be very cheap, like one dollar or something). You can buy the full game if you like it and want to play it whenever you want. However, if you think you are just going to play it for maybe a month, you can buy a month-pass for a reduced price.

Blizzard is actually doing this in Taiwan and South Korea for Starcraft II. The full game is NT$1,950 (~US$65). A month-pass costs NT$300, about US$10. A day-pass is NT$50, about US$1.6. They are just trying this out, so I don't know how well it goes, but the publisher in Taiwan seems to be very satisfied with the sales of Starcraft II (although it's possible that most sales are of full games).

That's a very viable and appealing option for customers. I would use it for many games. They can't just do "it's full price or nothing and you cannot sell it" because that's going to alienate a lot of customers.

 

[eastmen]

That's a very viable and appealing option for customers. I would use it for many games. They can't just do "it's full price or nothing and you cannot sell it" because that's going to alienate a lot of customers.

What others might have to learn is patience. Gamers will have to learn to buget money and to wait for sales. DD allways have sales as you point out. If they wnat to or not is another question but not every game has to be played and beat on release day.

 

[eastmen]

Hey, I'm all for crazy sales like you've mentioned. So games for $10-15 bucks are fine by me, I welcome them. But I'm not paying full price for something I'm going to be playing for a couple months at best, if I can't resell it afterwards.

A lot of people depend on used game sales to fund their new game purchases and I'm not one of those guys who buys a game and then plays the multiplayer for a year, at least not very often that I find a game that's worth keeping. And even when I find a game that can sustain my interest for more than a couple of months, I can only give that kind of attention to 1 or 2 games, whereas I play about 10-15 different games in a year. This year, it's been BC2 and GT5 that are long term keepers for me, everything else from this year, I've sold or traded. BC2 is also going in when the sequel comes, of course.

I don't understand this ? Do you ever go to movies ? Your paying $11-$20 for a movie and it lasts at most 3 hrs. If you buy a 60 game that lasts you 15 hours your much better off if it lasts for months whats not to like.

I'm not sure your going to like the future of gaming if you feel its so disposable. I also don't really think this view point is fair to those creating the content when you look at other industrys.

 

[corduroygt]

I don't understand this ? Do you ever go to movies ? Your paying $11-$20 for a movie and it lasts at most 3 hrs. If you buy a 60 game that lasts you 15 hours your much better off if it lasts for months whats not to like.

Pointless comparison, since you are going outside for movies. The purpose of that is to get out of the house, so why don't you compare it with a movie rental at home, which is $1-$5?

I'm not sure your going to like the future of gaming if you feel its so disposable. I also don't really think this view point is fair to those creating the content when you look at other industrys.

The industry is doing just fine with all those used game sales. COD without online code sold way better than any other game out there. A lot of people I know use Gamefly as well.

 

[aaronspink]

Proof or STFU please. All PC DD revenues are about 400M USD out of the 10B USD video game market in the US. DD is still very small. Show me those full price games and exactly how many copies they sell.

You have already been given proof and it was your contention in the first place.

1. The game companies should be worried about me not buying anything, not me. I can still either wait 6 months to get the game for the $10-15 price, or if I want to play it right away I'll buy the disc version and resell it when I'm done. If they block the selling of used copies via DD, that's still not going to make me buy the game, there are always other avenues.

Why should they be worried. Do you buy billions in games a year?

2. Next gen will still have discs, so secondary market is still going to be there. Game companies are run by execs, not people with an axe to grind against Sony and Blu-ray, and they'll see that they can make the most profit by allowing second hand sales, since they help fund new game purchases in a big way.

Discs have nothing to do with the existence of a secondary market or not.

 

[aaronspink]

1. That NPD survey is just a survey, not actual data like sales data they collect.

ALL NPD data are surveys. None of it is actual sales data.

3. If you kill the used market, you'll have more piracy.

No, not really.

 

[Xenus]

Corduryogt if you kill the used market you will only have piracy if the prices stay like those of the current console online market and despite being old games they are rarely reduced in price. If you have a normal market in which old games decrease in value there should be no reason for rampant piracy.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

You'll also only have piracy with DD only if you manage to hack a console such that you can run arbitrary code. For example, X360 if it was DD only would have almost no pirating (JTAG'd consoles are probably far less than one half of one percent). And as it turns out you cannot pirate DD only X360 games currently unless you have a JTAG'd X360.

One other method to allow for used sales of DD would allow for ownership transfers but have a mandatory 10 USD fee that goes to the publisher/developer. So people can sell their games for whatever they want (10 USD minimum in this example), but the system will automatically deduct 10 USD for the publisher before payment is transfered to the seller.

Publisher fee could also be a percentage of the current Retail price. Percentage of sale price wouldn't work as then people would just arrange sales off system and then seller sells it for like 5 cents.

Regards,
SB

 

[corduroygt]

You have already been given proof and it was your contention in the first place.

No I haven't been given any proof that full priced DD market is anything more than a small niche.

Why should they be worried. Do you buy billions in games a year?

Am I the only person who sells their games? Gamestop makes billion dollar+ profits (not revenue) on used games every year, and I don't even go there.

Discs have nothing to do with the existence of a secondary market or not.

Regardless, it's the best way to get a good price on games, because unlike console DD, you're not under the monopoly of a single outlet to buy games and get the best price for yourself as a customer.

 

[corduroygt]

ALL NPD data are surveys. None of it is actual sales data.

This was a survey where they asked individual people, not the companies like in their sales Data. Surveys with people are a lot more prone to misunderstanding and error.

No, not really.

How do you figure that? I can guarantee that there won't be as much sales, given how much Gamestop profits on used games. You're going to alienate new game buyers if they can't sell their games.

 

[JPT]

This was a survey where they asked individual people, not the companies like in their sales Data. Surveys with people are a lot more prone to misunderstanding and error.


How do you figure that? I can guarantee that there won't be as much sales, given how much Gamestop profits on used games. You're going to alienate new game buyers if they can't sell their games.

Before Gamestop etc "organized" the used game sales market better, was it that big?
Also you claim that used games finances buying of new games, as it does for you, but nobody knows how much it actually contributes and imho I think its not as much as you want it to be. And the question is, how does the industry look at it, is finances X copies per year or is it x copies sales lost per year, as they claim with piracy.

 

[corduroygt]

Before Gamestop etc "organized" the used game sales market better, was it that big?
Also you claim that used games finances buying of new games, as it does for you, but nobody knows how much it actually contributes and imho I think its not as much as you want it to be. And the question is, how does the industry look at it, is finances X copies per year or is it x copies sales lost per year, as they claim with piracy.

Gamestop makes 1 billion dollar profit with a 48% profit margin on used games. This means they paid out about 1 billion to customers and sold 2 billion dollars' worth of games. You're taking away 1 billion dollars of income away from gamers, thus they will have less money to spend on games and buy fewer games.

 

[JPT]

Gamestop makes 1 billion dollar profit with a 48% profit margin on used games. This means they paid out about 1 billion to customers and sold 2 billion dollars' worth of games. You're taking away 1 billion dollars of income away from gamers, thus they will have less money to spend on games and buy fewer games.

What you are telling me now is that its a good business for Gamestop, the correlation between used games sales and buying of new games for the money is just based on anecdotal information from your behavior and most likely others to.

But it does not substantiate one way or another that used game business is good for the gaming industry.
We can assume and postulate a lot of stuff, but we need some real world stats to backup things either way.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Am I the only person who sells their games? Gamestop makes billion dollar+ profits (not revenue) on used games every year, and I don't even go there.

Heh, you just barely got that right. 1.12 billion USD gross profit on 2.39 billion USD revenue for FY ending Jan 30, 2010.

Here's the thing, however. Neither Microsoft nor Publishers see's a single dime of that. Thus they could really care less if the used game market disappears entirely.

The used game market could be 200 billion USD a year and they still wouldn't care as things currently stand.

Going forward expect to see more and more measures by console makers and publishers to phase out/discourage the used game market, or to monetize the used game market.

One way they can do it is codes that lock that copy to your account/machine. To use it on another account/machine you'd have to purchase a code to activate it... This would be useable for both DD and Physical copies. And more money to publishers means either more games they could fund, or more chances they could take on alternative games that aren't say FPS games.

Regards,
SB

 

[corduroygt]

Here's the thing, however. Neither Microsoft nor Publishers see's a single dime of that. Thus they could really care less if the used game market disappears entirely.

So no one who sells their games to gamestop ever buys the new hot game that just came out, that they otherwise wouldn't be able or willing to buy? No one who buys a new game thinks "I'll trade it in when the next new game comes out"?
How about two gamer friends buying two different games with the intention of swapping them when they're done?

 

[AlphaWolf]

So no one who sells their games to gamestop ever buys the new hot game that just came out, that they otherwise wouldn't buy?

If you buy a used copy, how does that help the publisher? You gain $Z off of a purchase but you put a product on the shelves that will potentially take $Z*2 out of a publishers pocket.

Consumers may buy less games without a used market, but they probably won't spend less money on new titles, which is all the publishers care about, because its the only thing they make money on.

 

[corduroygt]

If you buy a used copy, how does that help the publisher? You gain $Z off of a purchase but you put a product on the shelves that will potentially take $Z*2 out of a publishers pocket.

Consumers may buy less games without a used market, but they probably won't spend less money on new titles, which is all the publishers care about, because its the only thing they make money on.

How can you say that? They'll have less disposable income on games since they won't be able to sell them. This will effect new game sales.
You're basically saying no one who buys new games considers selling them...

 

[aaronspink]

How can you say that? They'll have less disposable income on games since they won't be able to sell them. This will effect new game sales.
You're basically saying no one who buys new games considers selling them...

Used games take out 2+ billion, they put in 1 billion. Net loss: 1 billion. Your argument is basic math fail.

 

[eastmen]

Pointless comparison, since you are going outside for movies. The purpose of that is to get out of the house, so why don't you compare it with a movie rental at home, which is $1-$5?

Even still its $1-5 and to rent a movie and your only getting upwards of $3 . Yo ucan spend $60 on a game and get 60+ hours. THe ratio of money spent per entertaiment is the same.

Also people go out to the movies for entertainment which is what video games are. So it really doesn't matter if you stay home. You also have to factor in that Renting a movie is one of many revenue streams . A movie gets to go through the thearter , home rentail , retail sales , cable revenues and other streams of money making. I wonder how you'd like the gaming experiance if you had to go to a place and play a game packed with other people around you and wait 6 months to a year for the game to hit your home console.

The industry is doing just fine with all those used game sales. COD without online code sold way better than any other game out there. A lot of people I know use Gamefly as well.

1 game does not make a industry.

use game sales are as bad as piracy mabye even worse