EDGE ONLINE said:
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/gamestop-reports-sales-earnings-fiscal-123000523.html
GameStop Reports Sales and Earnings for Fiscal 2011
- Thread starter Gowans
- Start date
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/gamestop-reports-sales-earnings-fiscal-123000523.html
Xander51
Member
Yeah, buying Impulse to get in the DD game was a weird move. It will be interesting to see the used game war heat up, and then potentially die down as more publishers rely on restrictive DRM.
Phonomezer
Banned
Obscene amount of money for doing next to nothing.
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
So what do you recommend in order to change this?
The singleplayer pass...if you purchase a game used, you have to pay another $40 to play it.
The Abominable Snowman
Member
I can see Gamestop doing the Gamefly in the near future. It would be an awesome business model that only they would be able to pull off.
The other side of that is: it's not a huge total profit considering all their revenue. And without used sales, they would absolutely go out of business. Their expenses are way too high to be stuck selling low margin products.
Does the industry benefit without a retailer who champions them? I don't know if developers do, but I think it's a net gain for publishers and that's why they constantly give them pre-order exclusives that drive traffic to Gamestop. Used sales or not.
CadetMahoney
Member
I recommend Sony and MS collude together and work on a new system where all the old games work but all new games are somehow tied to online and to an account or something.
It's the only way to be sure.
Ivan A Nguyen
Member
Gamestop said:
Looks like they will be cutting employee wages.
GraveRobberX
Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
Now can those who go "Fuck Gamestop" and the proverbial "Why do publishers want to do business with them?"
That is why
Internet service providers instituting caps is only going to help Gamestop's model. When DD can't take off because people dont want to exceed their minuscule monthly limit, it will continue to allow physical game sales to be required.
Welcome back buddy!
GraveRobberX
Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
MightyHedgehog
Member
Well, they do have to risk a lot upfront in building out the number of locations they need to make this happen, but once that's done, you're right. Pretty much gravy until publishers start to stratify their current output and build up a more significant DD plan while making moves to weed out and narrow their current output of physical releases. Probably all culminating in a new default security system to limit secondhand sales or a new retail SK system which tracks and credits publishers a cut on secondhand sales made in their chain.
Except that GS isnt the only "game" in town. In this day and age, with e-retailers like Amazon, with the ability to not only match but undercut GS on prices, making their already razor thin margins on new products increasingly miniscule. GS is running out of room to turn a profit.
Jokepost?
Doing nothing except for plastering price stickers all over the box.
Maybe publishers should start taking my used games in return for credit and make some easy money themselves.
Miggytronz
Member
Its not that good as is right now.
There's still a whole slew of brick and mortar trolls who still walk into stores. Gamestop works for them.
On the same token: a GOOD profit margin for a retailer's sale of a new game is $10, and the sale of a console nets zero profit. Publishers want B&M retailers to sell their product, but then they essentially don't want to pay them to keep the doors open.
Until the entire industry changes the way it does business, being in the business of selling used games will remain a case of "You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't".
Maybe publishers should start taking my used games in return for credit and make some easy money themselves.
They would rather complain and try to convince you that you don't actually own the $60 product you just paid for.
This is only true for launches.
but but... developers and publisher said they don't get any money because of used games and pirates
Gamestop is making a 47% margin on their products while pubs/devs get a whooping 0%. What is your point exactly?
That's their choice. Resale is a perfectly legitimate business and nothing more than a means to an end for customers. They don't care who they sell to so long as it's worth it to them.
If they want some of the pie then they need to step up.
balladofwindfishes
Member
this is subjective and not seeing the entire picture.
you're assuming the profit and monetary gain from the product is solely from selling the physical product, but that's very short sighted.
Factually incorrect. It stops being the publisher/developer's product the moment it's bought by a consumer. Once the consumer owns the product they can do whatever the heck they want with it. That's called freedom my friends and it's what we practice (sort of) here in America. Do not tell me what I can and can't do with products I've legally bought and I won't tell you what to do with yours either.
MightyHedgehog
Member
No one's disputing whether it's allowed or not. Of course, it is. The problem is that publishers want their cut of pre-owned sales and will do and say what they need to in order to make secondhand retailers look more greedy than they might be, to make themselves out to be victims of another opportunist in the chain.
Sohter.Nura
Member
GameStop is doing pretty healthy, despite the lower net income compared against last year.
As an investor, I'd be a little worried about the volume of sales not increasing YoY by much, but at the same time, it's hard to increase volume by much when you have a GameStop in every corner.
I'd be interested to learn how is their YoY store sales comps doing. I'm guessing it's probably either flat or slightly down, which would be a sign of shoppers shopping somewhere else for their gaming needs.
Do we have a figure showing how much the industry grew / shrink last year for a comparison?
As an investor, I'd be a little worried about the volume of sales not increasing YoY by much, but at the same time, it's hard to increase volume by much when you have a GameStop in every corner.
I'd be interested to learn how is their YoY store sales comps doing. I'm guessing it's probably either flat or slightly down, which would be a sign of shoppers shopping somewhere else for their gaming needs.
Do we have a figure showing how much the industry grew / shrink last year for a comparison?
Kelegacy
XBOX - RECORD ME LOVING DOWN MY WOMAN GOOD
The best way to get me to buy a game brand new, at launch, is to offer a bunch of content with it. But that's just me. If I can beat a game super fast, no full price sale. A nice meaty game that keeps me busy for 15 hours and up is worth $50 or $60 most times to me, and I generally won't buy it used or wait for a sale. Of all the games I have purchased at full price in the past couple years, they have been RPGs or open world games with potentially big play times. And they stay in my collection usually, especially if they are good. For instance, Two Worlds 2 was a new purchase, but I traded it away.
Anything else, I'll rent if possible. If renting went away, as well as used games, I wouldn't play the shorter games unless I could get them super cheap brand new, if ever. I don't play games online much so short SP campaigns are not going to see a full purchase from me.
That creates a dilemma of developers bloating their games for longer play times, which is also just as bad or worse as a really short game. So it's a fine line to walk.
Not all games are created equal, so for the rest there's the used store.
Anything else, I'll rent if possible. If renting went away, as well as used games, I wouldn't play the shorter games unless I could get them super cheap brand new, if ever. I don't play games online much so short SP campaigns are not going to see a full purchase from me.
That creates a dilemma of developers bloating their games for longer play times, which is also just as bad or worse as a really short game. So it's a fine line to walk.
Not all games are created equal, so for the rest there's the used store.
CosmicQueso
Member
I know better than to ask... but what you talkin bout willis?
The vast majority of pubs & devs understand it's a legitimate business but that it is inherently unfair. I haven't seen many comments saying consumers don't have the right to participate in the used market. However, the idea that there is all this revenue out there that could mean the difference between losing and making money for a dev and that they see not one cent from these used sales would make you worry too if your livelihood depended on it.
When you take all the emotional nonsense and hyperbole out of it the result is an opportunity cost (not unlike piracy). There is some percentage, however small, of people who buy used and who pirate that would have purchased the games new were those alternatives not available. This statement is not saying used is not legitimate or legal or unethical. It's just math. However, an opportunity cost does impact a business. Economics 101.
The sides who say "F GameStop" or "F the Pubs/Devs" really fail to see that each group needs the other to survive.
So, back to it, what do you mean by "they need to step up"?
Sohter.Nura
Member
I've said this before and I'll say it again... I think the key for the used game market is to find a way for publishers to win a slight amount from the used games sold... Say, 10% of the amount rung at the register goes to the publisher or something like that. But then the consumers would lose, because B&M retailers would probably just raise the ASP of used games.
Isn't there a law in place to protect the used movie business similar to this?
Isn't there a law in place to protect the used movie business similar to this?
The article literally says:
Any other factors would assuredly be miniscule.
Er what? The numbers are right there, what are you talking about?
I agree with everything in this post.
The end-all solution of course will be the publishers setting up their own DD-storefronts ala Origin/Steam and having a complete monopoly on what they wanna charge. This is about 10 years away though.
McHuj
Member
Because they have never looked at GS financials before?
MulderWasTaken
Member
So why is it that Gamestop gets the best pre-order deals/maps/etc? Why the delelopers/publishers don't punish GS by giving them the crappiest deal or no deal at all, if they resent so much that they sell used copies of their games?
But who should handle the storing and the actual selling of the physical copies? No publisher has its own chain of distribution to handle that.
I was responding to your use of the word "their". The product no longer belongs to the publisher and or developer once a consumer buys it. That's what's incorrect and the basis of the a faulty argument. Creation does not, by law, entitle those folks to a cut of the profits once the product has legally changed hands. We all know this and yet we argue anyway.
And lest I come off as some sort of anti developer zealot let me say I am most certainly not. If it weren't for those guys I wouldn't get to enjoy the hobby that I am so passionate about. I am 100% behind supporting the developers for what they do but not at the expense of taking away freedoms afforded to the consumer. I will never support that.
PsychoSoldier
Banned
Seems clear that without used games Gamestop would probably be in the red.
One can (and should) criticize their business practices, but if developers and publishers want to stop retailers like Gamestop from pushing used games they need to be incentivized better to selling new items instead of used.
Not that I think that there's an easy way to do that.
One can (and should) criticize their business practices, but if developers and publishers want to stop retailers like Gamestop from pushing used games they need to be incentivized better to selling new items instead of used.
Not that I think that there's an easy way to do that.
Ivan A Nguyen
Member
It's the snake eating it's self.
On the tail you have all the used games that GameStop buys and sells. At the head you have new games that are being sold at GameStop.
People trade in their new game to buy a newer game. Gamestop sells a higher volume of games because gamers are not paying as much for the new game when they trade in an old one. Why does Gamestop get the best stuff? Because first week sales are generally the biggest sales week for a game's life. Front loading that week by using pre-orders is another incentive to get people to buy in the first week.