Relaxed Muscle said:
Right now, from my point of view DD sucks, sure I bought my good share of DD, but going from my experience (Xbox live) it sucks, overpriced DLC that could be perfectly on the DVD, overpriced games, half of the games on "games on demand" can be found way cheaper on retail, etc...
If the industry wnats to go this direction, they better change that milking the consumer actitude, DLC can be an awesome way to add more value to the game but they decided to use DLC to make up for their awful management this gen...
Here's the problem, and I believe this is what Jaffe was trying to say.
The reason why digital downloads are so pricey is two fold:
1) The prices have to be set at a comparable level to what's at retail for new products or they run the risk of pissing off brick and mortar stores that won't stock the games.
2) Publishers/Developers are in desperate need of making up profits for individual sales to the consumer that they feel the need to price things at a premium to make increased profits.
It's more 1 than 2, and this is where a company like GameStop has devs/pubs over a barrel. GameStop now makes
more money off of second-hand sales than they do new games. They've literally built their business around the idea of taking in a game sold from
anywhere and pricing it, at times, just a few dollars cheaper than a new game. In some cases, they're making well over 50% profit off of a game that they never had to order, never had to stock on their shelves and never needed to account for before it hit shelves.
On top of that GameStop as a retailer has some
extremely bogus practices regarding how they stock new games; they'll take in any trades you want, of course, but when it comes to stocking new games, they'll often buy based on pre-order numbers and no more, so it forces publishers to provide first-run incentives to consumers to plunk down cash for a game earlier, which in turn gives GameStop a "well, we know this exact number of people will likely come in to pick up the game, so we can sell directly do them" scenario.
They're essentially controlling all aspects of a game's sale before, during and after the process and making profits all along the way, then have the audacity to cry foul when publishers just want to sell directly to the consumer. It's not a matter of a game exchanging hands from one person who no longer wants it to someone who does, it's scalping by way of a middle man. If you trade in a game and get $10 credit and they in turn mark it up to $50 and then
offer it to customers who come in for a new game for $10 less, everyone except GameStop is losing out -- especially you who already paid full price for the game (you or
someone at some point).
That GameStop does so many trade-in "bonuses" where you schlep 10 used games into their store to get a measly $5 trade-in credit or something makes it seem even more deplorable. Now, they've used their position as the biggest pure video games retailer to coax publishers/developers into making additional content that goes to pre-order customers -- which they in turn will make money off of for either held-back content that would have been on disc or extra time/money/effort on the dev/QA side to make sure all this content works right. Bear in mind that if you buy one of those slightly cheaper used games, you won't get the pre-order bonus, but you'll certainly be paying the same people for it. GameStop gets people both ways, and of course it's just business, but it's
shady business, and Jaffe's comments about them not being able to cry foul when devs/pubs decide they want to sell directly to the consumer make absolute sense.
It's precisely why I refuse to give GameStop any money. I
hate how they've controlled the whole retail chain and are now making more money off the backs of second-hand sales than they do new. They've systematically engineered the consumer to think they're getting something when they trade in games that may not have even come from GameStop, which in actuality the company is happily making money hand over fist for a game that was probably picked up at a Best Buy or something somewhere. If it
was picked up in their store first, they already got money off the pre-orders, spent just enough to buy copies they know would sell new, and then make all their other profits off copies that came from elsewhere.
It's deplorable, and I can only hope that some developer or publisher will buck the trend and start going digital for half price or something to give consumers who don't want the overhead from the box, manual, case, disc, licensing and shipping fees being passed on to them. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon for fear they'll be pushed off shelves as a revenge tactic.
Also, while I can't ever see publishers or developers getting a cut of rentals, I do wonder if the old process of charging well over a hundred dollars for a VHS movie that includes the rental license in it is applied to games (or DVD/Blu-rays for that matter). Somehow I doubt it.
