Possible ways to gain second-hand revenues for developers. *rename

[bbot]

The guy's the founder of Quantic Dreams, maker of Sony exclusive Heavy rain:

"Guillaume de Fondaumiere: I would say that the impact that the recession had, that the most important impact especially on AAA games on console, was the rise of second hand gaming. And I think this is one of the number one problems right now in the industry. I can take just one example of Heavy Rain. We basically sold to date approximately two million units, we know from the trophy system that probably more than three million people bought this game and played it. On my small level it's a million people playing my game without giving me one cent. And my calculation is, as Quantic Dream, I lost between €5 and €10 million worth of royalties because of second hand gaming."



http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-09-09-guillaume-de-fondaumiere

 

[patsu]

I think everyone in the industry is concerned, but they may have to look for a solution that is palatable to the consumers. It is common sense.

 

[GrimThorne]

On my small level it's a million people playing my game without giving me one cent. And my calculation is, as Quantic Dream, I lost between €5 and €10 million worth of royalties because of second hand gaming."



http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-09-09-guillaume-de-fondaumiere

I think this is what alot of people just don't understand, that developers are the ones who want to block used games. They have been pushing aggressively behind the scenes for years. They view used games as being WORSE than piracy and desperately want this business model destroyed.

So while blaming Sony or Microsoft is popular, gamers may want to direct some of that anger and frustration in the proper direction.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Please let's not have another moral discussion about whether used games are acceptable or not. We have two at least already, in the Techno-ethics forum where they always end up.

How's about for once we limit the thread to what possible ways there are to recoup revenue from used-sales, what impact they have on the user experience, and whether there's a plausible solution to keep everyone (moderately) happy?

Gamestop et al are clear targets for a revenue share policy, perhaps agreed by consent within the industry. But that doesn't solve individual resale. Developers expecting the same dollar cut from resales are expecting too much, and too high a fee will push consumers against them. It needs to be something consumers are happy adopting as fair and unintrusive.

How's about you need your credit card details or cash in your PSN/Live account, and every time you get a trophy/achievement, 5p goes to the developer?

 

[Jedi2016]

Gamestop et al are clear targets for a revenue share policy, perhaps agreed by consent within the industry. But that doesn't solve individual resale.

I don't think individual resale is really an issue. Yeah, there's games on Ebay and Craigslist and the like. But it's the major companies like Gamestop that make it so easy to do this, and they capitalize heavily on it. They should be attacking that business model directly rather than going after the basic concept of used games. Instead, with what MS is doing, by actually forcing customers to go through an authorized retailer in order to buy/sell their games, are actually encouraging that business model.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Quantic Dreams doesn't belong to Sony, so the thread title is deceptive.
And this Guillaume is naive to say the least.

It's pretty much a given that many people only buy some games because they can be resold so they can afford other games. Other people buy used games because they can't afford to pay full price for them.

If his game wasn't resellable, he definitely wouldn't have sold the 3 million copies he apparently thinks he's entitled to. It's pretty much idiotic to think as such, because blocking used games won't make people richer or willing to spend a larger portion of their income on games.

Without the ability to resell the game, he wouldn't even get his 2 million copies.


As for the rest, I agree that the change of owner could be charger with a small fee. Up to 2 or 3€ seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Or maybe a dynamic fee that lowers over time, for example in a 50€ title:
- The game came out last week, fee is 20€
- 6 months later, fee is 10€
- 1 year, fee is 5€
- 18 months, fee is 2.5€ and it stays like that until "nobody cares".

The developer could even charge that with the "excuse" that it was an "operational fee" for changing the ownership in a cloud system or something. And since changing ownership was a paid service, then free DLCs and technical support were guaranteed to the second-hand user.

 

[dagamer]

The problem of reselling a 5 year old game isn't the issue. It's someone buying a game for $60, trading it in for $30, and Gamestop selling it for $54.99 right next to a new copy so that after week 1, more people are buying those "used" copies than shrink-wrapped new copies. And it's clear developers and publishers want to put a stop to THAT because it happens in the golden week/month when a game gets most of its sales.

As such, I actually expect a system from both companies that only affects companies who actually get deliveries of games from Sony and Microsoft to agree to a new ToS which effectively puts a kibosh on that practice.

 

[GrimThorne]

The problem of reselling a 5 year old game isn't the issue. It's someone buying a game for $60, trading it in for $30, and Gamestop selling it for $54.99 right next to a new copy so that after week 1, more people are buying those "used" copies than shrink-wrapped new copies. And it's clear developers and publishers want to put a stop to THAT because it happens in the golden week/month when a game gets most of its sales.

I've often thought that to be an odd practice because the developer/publisher is literally competing against their OWN game in the prime of it's popularity and sales worthiness.

 

[MfA]

I think a significant amount of the backlash is about the semi-always online aspect of the DRM. Semi-always online is not really needed to lock a game to a console, hell if they wanted to they could have designed a system which doesn't need online at all (by putting a crypto RFID in the discs).

Semi-always online is about control, a lack of confidence in the security of the hardware (misplaced in my opinion, they almost got it right last time and they should be able to get it right this time) and IMO mostly about sacrificing the user experience of a minority just because of the one size fits all, consoles can't have options which require an IQ>40 to understand mentality.

They could just offer a simple explicit online authentication procedure for game installation, with an explicit online deactivation as well if they want to offer some kind of limited second hand or redeemability option. This would represent a slightly inconsistent user experience though ... whereas if they simply require you to be (semi-)always online you achieve more consistency. Everyone who wants offline play is being sacrificed for consistency.

 

[astrograd]

So while blaming Sony or Microsoft is popular, gamers may want to direct some of that anger and frustration in the proper direction.

The retailer.



MofA,

MS wants to allow users to play games without the disc in the drive, which makes sense given the technical infeasibility of using the disc to stream modern amounts of data to be rendered. They also want to be able to have your games all tied to your gamertag/account so it can be accessible from the cloud no matter where you go. These are major conveniences for consumers and things gamers specifically have demanded for a while now. I dunno a good way to that without occasional DRM check ins. I will agree in the sense that I'm not sure why gamers wouldn't be able to have the disc in their tray to verify without a connection though. Their progress just couldn't be synched to their profile in the cloud. Who knows, maybe that's what they will so. Will be interesting to see if they can find ways to appease pubs/devs, consumers, and retailers. Seems these platform holders are in a very tough position trying to moderate all of these conflicting interests/concerns.

 

[Davros]

Hope this is the right place

According to MCV, retailers will get something less than 10% on each pre owned sale. The rest goes to Microsoft and the publisher. Prices quoted by MCV for pre-owned hover around the £35 mark, inclusive of the retailer's cut, so of that figure the retailer sees no more than £3.50. The £35 is the activation fee, so presumably that would be set in advance by Microsoft independently of conditions in the retail market. Stinker or classic, the price tag may be the same. When contacted by MCV, Microsoft was quick to say that "should you choose to play your game at your friend's house, there is no fee to play that game while you are signed in to your profile," but other than that was unwilling to discuss potential retail scenarios. It also leaves open the question of what happens if your friend wants to play your game on their profile. Or if three kids in the same house want to play the same game on their profiles.

Given this new information, it remains to be seen whether or not retailers will be eager to fall in line with Microsoft's philosophies. Having to sign up to Microsoft's conditions, using its system , only to get a less than 10% cut, isn't going to appeal to many retailers. It begs the question why anyone would ever want to sell an Xbone pre-owned title.

In addition, here's a clarification regarding the 10% sales cut issue: The source revealed that game retailers will be forced to sell second hand games at just a 10% discount on the original RRP. This news will come as a shock to consumers who are currently used to purchasing trade-in games at up to 50% of the retail value.

 

[XpiderMX]

Hope this is the right place

According to MCV, retailers will get something less than 10% on each pre owned sale. The rest goes to Microsoft and the publisher. Prices quoted by MCV for pre-owned hover around the £35 mark, inclusive of the retailer's cut, so of that figure the retailer sees no more than £3.50. The £35 is the activation fee, so presumably that would be set in advance by Microsoft independently of conditions in the retail market. Stinker or classic, the price tag may be the same. When contacted by MCV, Microsoft was quick to say that "should you choose to play your game at your friend's house, there is no fee to play that game while you are signed in to your profile," but other than that was unwilling to discuss potential retail scenarios. It also leaves open the question of what happens if your friend wants to play your game on their profile. Or if three kids in the same house want to play the same game on their profiles.

Given this new information, it remains to be seen whether or not retailers will be eager to fall in line with Microsoft's philosophies. Having to sign up to Microsoft's conditions, using its system , only to get a less than 10% cut, isn't going to appeal to many retailers. It begs the question why anyone would ever want to sell an Xbone pre-owned title.

In addition, here's a clarification regarding the 10% sales cut issue: The source revealed that game retailers will be forced to sell second hand games at just a 10% discount on the original RRP. This news will come as a shock to consumers who are currently used to purchasing trade-in games at up to 50% of the retail value.

From de same MVC article:

UPDATE 2: Microsoft's Major Nelson has at last offered a direct (although not direct to MCV, incidentally) reply to our story on his website. It reads:
“Over the past few days, we have been reading comments and message boards following the Xbox One announcement. There are a few questions regarding used games. I wanted to clarify and provide this official statement:
“The ability to trade in and resell games is important to gamers and to Xbox. Xbox One is designed to support the trade in and resale of games. Reports about our policies for trade in and resale are inaccurate and incomplete. We will disclose more information in the near future.”

Nothing until E3 or GamesCon.

 

[-tkf-]

Please let's not have another moral discussion about whether used games are acceptable or not. We have two at least already, in the Techno-ethics forum where they always end up.

How's about for once we limit the thread to what possible ways there are to recoup revenue from used-sales, what impact they have on the user experience, and whether there's a plausible solution to keep everyone (moderately) happy?

Gamestop et al are clear targets for a revenue share policy, perhaps agreed by consent within the industry. But that doesn't solve individual resale. Developers expecting the same dollar cut from resales are expecting too much, and too high a fee will push consumers against them. It needs to be something consumers are happy adopting as fair and unintrusive.

How's about you need your credit card details or cash in your PSN/Live account, and every time you get a trophy/achievement, 5p goes to the developer?

Re-name the thread?

Free DLC announced alongside the obligatory paid DLC when the game launches, keep the game for x weeks get free extra content.
Replay value, add value to the game experience when it's replayed, anything from cool unlocks to .. MORE free DLC
Keep your game alive with constant updates, free and paid.
Use the Disc to access for example exclusive demos and betas before the general public.
Create a loyalty program, validate 10 discs and get access to free stuff, soundtracks whatever.
It could be 10 titles from old to new, and yes some could speculate in getting cheap used copies, but then they aren't shopping at gamestop.

I guess it's only a matter of time before the publishers try to convince the law makers that they should make a law against used games, after all they can get tax breaks

Why not go for the kill instead..

1:Start selling/buying/trading used games.
2artner up with amazon/ebay
3: Profit

It's consumer friendly and not evil!

 

[Nisaaru]

The retailer.



MofA,

MS wants to allow users to play games without the disc in the drive, which makes sense given the technical infeasibility of using the disc to stream modern amounts of data to be rendered. They also want to be able to have your games all tied to your gamertag/account so it can be accessible from the cloud no matter where you go. These are major conveniences for consumers and things gamers specifically have demanded for a while now. I dunno a good way to that without occasional DRM check ins.

The problem can be solved if the user has to lock/unlock his game and not let the unlock process being handle automatic after installing the game elsewhere. The later requires the network check to remove temporary licenses. Game locked, no install elsewhere.

If you put the effort on the user to handle the access rights you also inject a moral hazard problem to the used market as people buying used games need to trust the seller on ebay to unlock the license. Companies which rent/buy such games need extra effort to check the license which might make it unprofitable. But maybe I miss something here.

Anyway, from my personal perspective I can't really see the used game sales as a real factor while renting games might be. The real issue is that after 3 months prices for most games fall by 50% and a few more months another 25%. I have no problems to wait 3 months for games I don't feel an urge to get at once. I only get used games(extremely rarely) if I can't get the game through normal channels anymore. It's just not worth it with the falling prices.

 

[-tkf-]

MS wants to allow users to play games without the disc in the drive, which makes sense given the technical infeasibility of using the disc to stream modern amounts of data to be rendered.

It makes sense for a pure convenience factor, we already have full installs on this generation. The only difference is not having to validate your install with a disc but by an online activation server.

 

[GrimThorne]

From de same MVC article:



Nothing until E3 or GamesCon.

So let'em work it out. Hopefully to sensible solution. The thing is I understand why this is happening, the retailers have been getting a pass on used games since the beginning. So finally the industry is stepping in, the truth is it shouldn't have gone on this long.

During the height of the home video rental days, the rental chains had to purchase their videos from the motion picture studios at a premium. Usually about $75-$125 per title. Despite these high prices the chains usually made a tidy profit from the number of times a popular title was borrowed by their members. The typical block buster champion could match it's entire budget, and global profit at the counter. On top of that, the chains made a secondary profit by tossing their overstock into bargain bins which consumers snapped up for their permanent libraries.

It wasn't perfect, and the chains often complained about the studios using them to make up for their losses at the box office, but for the most part it was a balanced system that worked for the movie industry. That was until the on-demand era was born. We all know what happened after that.

The game industry's process is completely in reverse. Retailers pay no premium, retailers sell discounted used games right along side un-purchased new releases. Some of them even rent these games as well, extending their profits. The retailers have never offered a solution except to say that they can't survive without used games. The devs/publishers say they're being undercut by those sales, and gamers just want affordable titles and the means to access them without restrictions.

The game industry needs a balanced approach to this. Unfortunately whenever anyone tries to fix something this complicated they end up breaking several things in the process.

 

[MfA]

MS wants to allow users to play games without the disc in the drive

This isn't a problem ... only online activation is needed for this scenario. The xbox simply reads the unique disc ID off the disc and registers it online with the account and xbox.

They also want to be able to have your games all tied to your gamertag/account so it can be accessible from the cloud no matter where you go.

This will be a synchronization type of deal since it's not always online, for synchronization it doesn't really matter if it happens in 24 hours or 24 days.

 

[eastmen]

As long as its a sliding scale it shouldn't matter.


For instance - Gears of war 4 launch month - 3 months later $35 to unlock the title. New is $60 used at gamestop would be $55 anyway.

Months 3-6 it be $25 then a 6-12 $15 and years 1-2 $10 and finally $5. Maybe even old titles can go down to $1 .

As long as new game prices also come down in kind over time it should be fine.

 

[eastmen]

This will be a synchronization type of deal since it's not always online, for synchronization it doesn't really matter if it happens in 24 hours or 24 days.

Well it would allow a second person to play the game for 24 days without any problem.

I buy call of duty and install it on my system. I sell it to you for $40 bucks. So now I paid $20 bucks for a 24 day rental while you paid $40 for a full copy or vice versa .

 

[MfA]

Well it would allow a second person to play the game for 24 days without any problem.

"This isn't a problem ... only online activation is needed"

I buy call of duty and install it on my system. I sell it to you for $40 bucks. So now I paid $20 bucks for a 24 day rental while you paid $40 for a full copy or vice versa .

During activation the server would see the ID was already activated for an account and would disallow the new install.

There is only one real problem with offline play, but it is also a problem with 24 hour offline play ... if they want to allow a game to be activated on multiple xboxes for family accounts, but only played on one xbox at a time they need all the xboxes on the account to be always online OR require the disc as a key.