Business Approach for Video Game Physical and Digital versions *spawn*

[dagamer]

As long as its clear, the "fee" will always be the price of the game.

 

[AzBat]

Actually, no, the system I propose does not need to check in at all. If the discs are present, standard disc based DRM is active, disc works offline. Whether the game was installed on another console doesn't matter because for that installation to work without the disc, the person should have already paid for the digital license.But you can turn it into a digital download for a fee (and most probably, at suggested retail price like in your example. Your example is pretty much the same as my proposal. Basically, you'll have turned your disc into a digital purchase. Great for avoiding download times if any of your friends has bought the original disc, and just like you say, even if you are the original buyer, you can turn that into a digital download and then sell the disc, "subsidizing" the cost of turning it into a digital purchase. I tend to think this will happen after you want to keep the game but don't want to bother with a disc. I think it would be a perfect balance for publishers and consumers within the second hand market.

Sounds like the method Walmart is using for their Vudu movie disc to digital program. I would be happy with that. So basically a $5 upgrade to convert your game to a digital download. I could see them either including a digital code with the disc for special editions(extra $5 or more) or offering to purchase it as an upgrade during checkout at "participating retailers". This is where GameStop & the like are able to continue their existing DD services.

Tommy McClain

 

[BRiT]

...

Sounds like a horribly broken system.

So what stops the abuse of having an owner buy the physical disc and heaving 10 friends paying $5 to upgrade to digital edition. This would mean significant economic losses -- $60 + ($5 * 10) = $110 for 11 copies versus ($60 * 11) = $660 for 11 copies.

Even if you included a 1-time-use only code, there's nothing that prevents the owner using the digital code and giving the physical copy to a friend. This means you're back to the 2 copies for $60 instead of $120.

But this means the first buyer would have to purchase the game twice to get benefits of digital edition that's loaded from physical disc.

Your system requires a fundamental tweak one way or another. You need to make it exactly as Microsoft initially had created their service -- before you can play the game for the first time, it requires online activations tied to unique physical key. Once that physical disc key is activated once, all future activations require full price purchase online.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So what stops the abuse of having an owner buy the physical disc and heaving 10 friends paying $5 to upgrade to digital edition. This would mean significant economic losses -- $60 + ($5 * 10) = $110 for 11 copies versus ($60 * 11) = $660 for 11 copies.

Amazon UK has introduced something called AutoRipping that I discovered yesterday buying a birthday present. I ordered the CD and was told I now had access to the music immediately on Amazon's cloud. Sure enough, I could play the music, so I've effectively got a copy for myself as well as the present. And even weirder, it's retroactively added previous presents, so I have four CDs of music (none of which I particularly like!) available for free. It also means every sale is effectively 2 copies, as you can give the CD away (of course, you can buy a CD, rip it, and give it away anywhere, but this is official content sharing).

 

[AzBat]

Sounds like a horribly broken system.

So what stops the abuse of having an owner buy the physical disc and heaving 10 friends paying $5 to upgrade to digital edition.

How is that any different than the Vudu program? I can sell or give away my DVD or Bluray to anybody else. I assume they would be able to pay $5 to upgrade to a digital version as well. Walmart doesn't seem to have a problem with that. And it's not just them now. Best Buy & Flixster are doing it too.

Tommy McClain

 

[BRiT]

Those too, Vudu/BestBuy/Flixster, are horribly broken from a financial economic standpoint. The major difference is $5 is significantly larger portion of the price for a Movie ($10/$15/$20) than it would be for a Video game ($60).

The same applies for music, where albums are substantially cheaper, say $5 to $10 range looking at the digital stores prices.

Maybe if the fee was at least $20 it wouldn't be too horribly broken for Video Games.

 

[eastmen]

Also its legal to make a back up of your dvd. So they are just providing a service that you yourself can do for free or low cost.

I can back up all my blurays now why pay someone else ?

 

[deathindustrial]

Also its legal to make a back up of your dvd.

If you are talking about the US, it depends on the situation I believe. I don't think the DMCA allows this for the general public due to the encryption.

Cheers

 

[hesido]

Sounds like a horribly broken system.

So what stops the abuse of having an owner buy the physical disc and heaving 10 friends paying $5 to upgrade to digital edition. This would mean significant economic losses -- $60 + ($5 * 10) = $110 for 11 copies versus ($60 * 11) = $660 for 11 copies.

Even if you included a 1-time-use only code, there's nothing that prevents the owner using the digital code and giving the physical copy to a friend. This means you're back to the 2 copies for $60 instead of $120.

But this means the first buyer would have to purchase the game twice to get benefits of digital edition that's loaded from physical disc.

Your system requires a fundamental tweak one way or another. You need to make it exactly as Microsoft initially had created their service -- before you can play the game for the first time, it requires online activations tied to unique physical key. Once that physical disc key is activated once, all future activations require full price purchase online.

I don't think you have read the distribution model I proposed carefully. I did not talk about the amount of fee required, and it would probably be the same as the suggested retail price like mentioned before. The system allows discs to be used as digital downloads, for the digitally downloadable title fee. If the SRT goes down after a while, that fee goes down too. If you want to throw away the disc, you need to pay that money. This way, the disc keeps its value, its not a coaster anymore like the MS's model, and no online activation would be needed to play when using the disc. Your friend could lend you the disc, s/he can make it act as a digital download by paying for it. Great if she doesn't want to wait for the download. If you don't want any discs and don't have any friends to lend the disc to you, you'd still go for the digital download. Also, it would be nice for rentals. The games you want to keep, you can convert it to digital.

 

[BRiT]

I did read what you said. I don't think you read the flaw with it. So let me repeat what I find to be a flaw in your system and why I'd much prefer MS's original system.

But this means the first buyer would have to purchase the game twice to get benefits of digital edition that's loaded from physical disc.

Your flawed system:
Original Buyer - buys physical media for $60.
Original Buyer - wants benefits of digital media, pays digital media activation fee of $60.
Original Buyer - spends $120 for 1 title.

MS original system:
Original Buyer - buys physical media for $60
Original Buyer - wants benefit of digital media, activates it online for $0.
Original Buyer - spends $60 for 1 title.

 

[AzBat]

I imagine the installed disc games will show up in your games folder as they do Xbox 360, and there'll be a prompt to insert disc when you attempt to start one.

Personally I'm not sure it would even work. Does the "play one game & matchmake in another" work if you can't launch 2 different games? I would think you'd need to launch the primary game & start a matchmaking session & while it's waiting for all your players you'd need to be able to launch another game to play. How do you do that if both games are on disc? Maybe if one of them is a disc & the other is digital.

Tommy McClain

EDIT: Here's a link to Major Nelson's site on the Smart Match feature...

http://majornelson.com/2013/06/11/xbox-one-smart-match/

 

[dobwal]

Sounds like a horribly broken system.

So what stops the abuse of having an owner buy the physical disc and heaving 10 friends paying $5 to upgrade to digital edition. This would mean significant economic losses -- $60 + ($5 * 10) = $110 for 11 copies versus ($60 * 11) = $660 for 11 copies.

Even if you included a 1-time-use only code, there's nothing that prevents the owner using the digital code and giving the physical copy to a friend. This means you're back to the 2 copies for $60 instead of $120.

But this means the first buyer would have to purchase the game twice to get benefits of digital edition that's loaded from physical disc.

Your system requires a fundamental tweak one way or another. You need to make it exactly as Microsoft initially had created their service -- before you can play the game for the first time, it requires online activations tied to unique physical key. Once that physical disc key is activated once, all future activations require full price purchase online.

You could simply use a 2 license system. The disc initially comes with 2 licenses. One license that's disc based like we currently have and a second digital license. The initial purchaser gets use of the digital license once online activated and linked to their gamer tag while the disc retains its license like it always has.

You can sell or give away the disc and the used game buyer get to use the disc which is required to be in the xbox one for use. The digital license is already activated and accounted for so a second digital license must be purchased.

The digital license can cost whatever because the used game buyer has purchased the disc based license not the digital. MS can even provide a system where retailers can sell digital licenses paired to used discs. MS collects a platform and a pub fee for providing retailers additional digital licenses. Whereby who cares if GameStop sells a just release used title with digital license for $5 off the new retail price as its just a free form of distribution to MS and the pubs. Allow Kinect to scan a barcode off the GS receipt and you get to remove the dreaded manual pass code process that everyone hated with online pass. The digital license gets access to the transmedia features and a cloud backup of the title. The disc based license retains the ability to be sold into the used game market.

The disc/digital buyer is awarded with a complete feature set for supporting MS, the publishers and the retailers who ultimately control how much we pay for the hardware. Not everyone who goes into a retailer and purchase a title did so with an intent to purchase a title. You don't window shop for game cards, nor are there going to be discounted game cards available everyday. Game cards don't have the same ability to grab uncommitted buyers like games.

 

[bkilian]

You could simply use a 2 license system. The disc initially comes with 2 licenses. One license that's disc based like we currently have and a second digital license. The initial purchaser gets use of the digital license once online activated and linked to their gamer tag while the disc retains its license like it always has.

You can sell or give away the disc and the used game buyer get to use the disc which is required to be in the xbox one for use. The digital license is already activated and accounted for so a second digital license must be purchased.

The digital license can cost whatever because the used game buyer has purchased the disc based license not the digital. MS can even provide a system where retailers can sell digital licenses paired to used discs. MS collects a platform and a pub fees for providing retailers additional digital licenses. Whereby who cares if GameStop sells a just release used title with digital license for $5 off the new retail price as its just a free form of distribution to MS and the pubs. Allow Kinect to scan a barcode off the GS receipt and you get to remove the dreaded manual pass code process that everyone hated with online pass. The digital license gets access to the transmedia features and a cloud backup of the title. The disc based license retains the ability to be sold into the used game market.

The initial buyer is awarded with a complete feature set for supporting the publishers and the retailers who ultimately control how much we pay for the hardware. Not everyone who goes into a retailer and purchase a title did so with an intent to purchase a title. You don't window shop for game cards, nor are there going to be discounted game cards available everyday.

And again you get two people playing the game for a total cost of one game. (The original owner who activated their "digital license" and the second person using the disc)

 

[dobwal]

And again you get two people playing the game for a total cost of one game. (The original owner who activated their "digital license" and the second person using the disc)

You have that now. But at least you have the option of moving forward with providing and expanding digital features because only gamers who have paid MS and pubs for licenses get access.

You create a dual market. One that frees to move forward and one that provides traditional functionality while not allowing either to restrict the other.

Digital features would still be available through a disc purchase and no one has an expectation of selling used DD licenses.

 

[hesido]

I did read what you said. I don't think you read the flaw with it. So let me repeat what I find to be a flaw in your system and why I'd much prefer MS's original system.

But this means the first buyer would have to purchase the game twice to get benefits of digital edition that's loaded from physical disc.

Your flawed system:
Original Buyer - buys physical media for $60.
Original Buyer - wants benefits of digital media, pays digital media activation fee of $60.
Original Buyer - spends $120 for 1 title.

MS original system:
Original Buyer - buys physical media for $60
Original Buyer - wants benefit of digital media, activates it online for $0.
Original Buyer - spends $60 for 1 title.

I probaby conentrated on the 5$ part.

I don't claim this system is better the MS's in terms of getting rid of the physical media. But it sure is better in terms of second hand market, not having to activate things online if you just want to play with the disc. In the MS's system, the disc value after the game is activated is determined by MS. I don't think that's really better. You can't have it all, there has to be some compromises. If you are hell bent on turning it into a digital purchase, you could still sell the disc, you have your digital copy subsidized by the second hand sale.

On the proposed system, the immediate benefit is for people where the original is already paid for by someone else. If you are really against discs, you could still do a digital download. I also tend to think there'd be extremely cheap single day disc rentals, where you can use the disc as "not downloading" fee.

 

[Kb-Smoker]

Have they announced that you can even use the disc to installl then buy the dd version and you wont have download the title?

 

[Cjail]

^^^
What's the point of buying also a digital copy if you have already the disc?

 

[BRiT]

Have they announced that you can even use the disc to installl then buy the dd version and you wont have download the title?

That was the original system before forum warriors demanded the change. The disc was merely a quicker means of transport than internet download. The benefits were identical.

Now after the policy reversal, the physical disc and digital game are two completely different items. If it works exactly like the Xbox360 games-on-demand titles, then the physical disc can not be turned into the digital version without having to redownload the entire game.

 

[BRiT]

^^^
What's the point of buying also a digital copy if you have already the disc?

To be able to have all the benefits of digital version without having to download it all over the net. However MS has not detailed if that's possible after the forum warriors demanded they change the original policy. So now in this discussion we're talking through possible scenarios.

 

[hesido]

To be able to have all the benefits of digital version without having to download it all over the net. However MS has not detailed if that's possible after the forum warriors demanded they change the original policy. So now in this discussion we're talking through possible scenarios.

Those forum warriors might have saved Xbox One from utter failure.