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[Salamando]

Buying digitally i think you should know what you are getting into. No physical disc, relying on a company to make the game downloadable for a very long time, no ability to sell. However if you wait long enough you will get a very reasonable price on a steam sale... and at that point its so cheap, who cares if you can't sell it back?

Last year there was a court case in Europe involving Cisco going after a website that was selling used licenses of their software. Europe's highest court ruled that Cisco cannot block the sale or trade of used licenses, but any seller must render the software unusable upon resale (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9228762/EU_court_rules_resale_of_used_software_licenses_is_legal_even_online)

Don't know where they stand on how easy developers have to make the transferring of licenses. Still, a little bit of extrapolation and you can see why Microsoft has the 24h check thing. They allow you to sell licenses and just implemented their own way of making sure the software's unusable upon resale.

As a developer of software, I'm a little biased here, but I think if software wants to restrict its usage to one person, it should be able to, just as consumers are able to not buy it.

 

[Jabba]

Gamers voices ARE the table. Without gamers/customers, there is no table to even sit at. That is why this is all so simple to me: don't like it, don't support it and 'it' (whatever 'it' is) will die a swift and deserved death. Period.

David

David I know what you are talking about here. But our voices are reactionary. We do not sit at the table until all the decisions on how it works are made, THEN we get to choose. Big difference. Big difference.

What the entities at the table are now afraid off, is the consumer banding together realising they could be at the table BEFORE anything like this happens.

Can we agree on the below idea here?
Although it's an idealistic and naive veiw, no system that curtails or infringes upon consumer rights should be put into "practice" just to see if "they can get away with it". That shows arrogance imo.

This entire thread is telling you,"learn it the easier way" not the harder way. Truly I have bought like 7 used games out of out of the 103 last gen.

I hit dire straights in the beggining of the gen. Some one bought my 360 and some games. When DOAX 2 came out I had to unfortunately trade other games to buy it new because I wanted it. Taking that away isn't fair, you know it isn't. When things changed, I bought new.

Now I think many games are exactly like Burais post. Hope you've read it. I kept wondering why I wasn't buying. I'm thinking it just isn't worth it. No Steam sales recently either. When reading Burais post, the light went off. He's correct, the difference in the perceived value between the creators and the consumer has a huge gap. It needs to be closed somehow.

You have been designing games for a long time. You should know what's shit and what isn't. Maybe a little more questioning and less of the "hey we are so cool attitude" prevalent in development would result in better games?

If the industry is moving to a business model taking away used games, unfairly I might add, again the majority of this thread is telling you DON'T.

 

[Jabba]

If only it were that simple.

MS's One reveal shows they're courting a much broader audience than just us gamers. (Did you see the emphasis on non-gaming features/content?) Even if we, the vocal gaming minority, avoid the One, it could very well still succeed, despite our rejection. And that's what they're banking on. MS will still get a sizable install base, the developers jump on board, and the the restrictive measures we loathe slowly become the norm via part-and-parcel acceptance by the general masses. So I don't think it's enough to just vote with our dollars once the console's released; by then it's too late. We should continue to make ourselves heard, to get the message out, to let everyone know that this is unacceptable.

Thank you. All of this happens because we are reactionary and not at the bargaining table from the beggining.

 

[Seth]

Last year there was a court case in Europe involving Cisco going after a website that was selling used licenses of their software. Europe's highest court ruled that Cisco cannot block the sale or trade of used licenses, but any seller must render the software unusable upon resale (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9228762/EU_court_rules_resale_of_used_software_licenses_is_legal_even_online)

Don't know where they stand on how easy developers have to make the transferring of licenses. Still, a little bit of extrapolation and you can see why Microsoft has the 24h check thing. They allow you to sell licenses and just implemented their own way of making sure the software's unusable upon resale.

As a developer of software, I'm a little biased here, but I think if software wants to restrict its usage to one person, it should be able to, just as consumers are able to not buy it.

How would you feel about preventing a piece of used software from being put on the market? What if the person who wishes to sell their used software was required to pay some sort of fee to unregister this product so that they could sell it, instead of requiring the person who purchased the used software to pay a fee? I think this would feel a lot friendlier. If you buy software you shouldn't expect to sell it back honestly, but should you want to, there are some hoops you'll have to jump through to do so. Of course seller can transparently pass this cost onto the buyer, but the perception is a little friendly i believe. Rather than getting home with your software you just bought and get greeted with a screen that tells you you must pay more money to even use it.

This of course doesn't get around the issue of having to check in online at the time of installing/deinstallation. But maybe this method would be perceived a little better.

 

[Jabba]

To all of you against used games because big publishers tell you they're not making it, how does it feel to be brainwashed and give up your reselling rights?

How about this, game creators. How about we get the right back to return games again? You make a crappy game, I'm allowed to return it for a refund. You make a short game? Refund. Oh no? Well then don't whine when I sell my game. It makes nil difference if I'm playing your game vs my friend is playing. How about your quit budgeting your games like the government budgets tax money? That will fix most of your problems.

I worked for a major Fortune 500 company years ago. I never understood the business honestly. They'd ruin relations with customers to squeeze a few more dimes from their wallets so the stock would go up a quarter of a cent. We'd bring in millions in profits but because we promised stockholders we'd bring in millions plus a few extra thousand, they'd consider the profits a loss. Bunch of greedy idiots running companies...

Don't get me started on speculated profit. It should be illegal.

 

[Dead Man]

Last year there was a court case in Europe involving Cisco going after a website that was selling used licenses of their software. Europe's highest court ruled that Cisco cannot block the sale or trade of used licenses, but any seller must render the software unusable upon resale (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9228762/EU_court_rules_resale_of_used_software_licenses_is_legal_even_online)

Don't know where they stand on how easy developers have to make the transferring of licenses. Still, a little bit of extrapolation and you can see why Microsoft has the 24h check thing. They allow you to sell licenses and just implemented their own way of making sure the software's unusable upon resale.

As a developer of software, I'm a little biased here, but I think if software wants to restrict its usage to one person, it should be able to, just as consumers are able to not buy it.

Transferable licenses would be awesome.

 

[threetri333]

Don't get me started on speculated profit. It should be illegal.

3 Post within each other..

You couldn't put them all in the same post?

On topic, why couldn't the developers earn more money?

 

[conman]

On topic, why couldn't the developers earn more money?

Because then developers wouldn't be so dependent on publishers for funding (and continued employment). And if developers weren't so dependent on publishers, then publishers wouldn't have so much sway in the industry. Like much else in big business right now, the games industry is a top-heavy industry, so the folks actually producing things (i.e. developers) get the short end of the stick. It's in publishers' best interest to keep developers paid just enough to keep them from giving up entirely, but not enough to gain any real leverage. We've seen some high profile situations of what happens when creators start pushing for greater independence and creative authority (i.e. the heads of Infinity Ward and Patrice Desilets). Publishers squash that stuff quickly.

And if publishers are smart, they can figure out key issues to turn developers against players. Used games and piracy are the two that publishers keep using to turn us against one another. But the real problem is the dramatic (and unsustainable) growth in the publishing side of the industry. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

 

[Shaheed79]

When the first "Million Seller Bomb" was made, I knew that the console game industry's preferred business model was unsustainable. Yamauchi saw it coming way back in 2001, and gave a conceited speech about it at E3 of that year. Many developers scoffed at the warning and continued business as usual.

Here we are, nearly 12 years later, and we are at the dawn of a war between publishers, who refuse to accept responsibility for an industry where a game can sell 2-3.5 Million copies and still lose money, and consumers, who will do anything to retain the right to completely own something that they pay for.

Even if they were somehow able to lock down every used game in the entire console game industry, the majority of these publishers will still lose money at the end of the year. They are attempting to treat repeated knife wounds with a band-aid. Publishers are willing to try anything before being completely forced to address the real problem as an industry. They wasted countless GDC's ignoring the pink elephant in the room, and now they want consumers to suffer the consequences of their unwillingness to pull the breaks on the runaway trains they created.

In this time of great concern and debate, let us not forget the old proverb Mark 1: Rein Chapter 2 Verse 4 -"Gears of War only costs 10 Million to produce."

 

[Juice]

This is a really fascinating discussion in my opinion. It wouldn't be happening if the Xbone just didn't have a disc drive at all. Perhaps they should have announced a core version without an optical drive to help frame their intention.

At the end of the day, this is just a negotiation between console makers and the core gaming community.

Moralistic arguments don't really stick, because the first sale doctrine is dead in the digital era. The only way to claim a moral high ground is to claim that a physical disc is fundamentally different than a download. The premise is that a durable disc of digital bits deserves a different set of user "rights" than an ephemeral download in which those same bits are loaded onto a different durable disc (an internal hard disk).

But that breaks down under scrutiny, in my opinion. Ultimately Microsoft is proposing that all games be treated equally, and that a game purchased at retail is identical, whether you buy a download code voucher or a physical disc.

In a sense, that equity makes sense from a platform cohesion perspective. It feels a bit weird to me on my Wii U that if I buy a disc version of a game that I can't play the game without the disc, even though I know that I could download it from their eShop. I'm not sure how much I appreciate that the distinction is also meaningful for me as a user.

Ultimately, I love the digital marketplaces that I use—the Apple App Stores and Steam. They're easy, predictable, lightweight, and cheaper than what they replaced.

If a console were to emerge with Steam as its marketplace, I'm sure most of us would be thrilled. But instead, it's Microsoft, so most of us are convinced the marketplace will be a shitty experience, as expensive as ever, and not trustworthy. That's the real issue that's worth attacking, but instead we're just arguing about the first sale doctrine.

If you don't like the guy locking down his ecosystem, don't participate in his ecosystem.

 

[rpmurphy]

When the first "Million Seller Bomb" was made, I knew that the console game industry's preferred business model was unsustainable. Yamauchi saw it coming way back in 2001, and gave a conceited speech about it at E3 of that year. Many developers scoffed at the warning and continued business as usual.

Here we are, nearly 12 years later, and we are at the dawn of a war between publishers, who refuse to accept responsibility for an industry where a game can sell 2-3.5 Million copies and still lose money, and consumers, who will do anything to retain the right to completely own something that they pay for.

Even if they were somehow able to lock down every used game in the entire console game industry, the majority of these publishers will still lose money at the end of the year. They are attempting to treat repeated knife wounds with a band-aid. Publishers are willing to try anything before being completely forced to address the real problem as an industry. They wasted countless GDC's ignoring the pink elephant in the room, and now they want consumers to suffer the consequences of their unwillingness to pull the breaks on the runaway trains they created.

In this time of great concern and debate, let us not forget the old proverb Mark 1: Rein Chapter 2 Verse 4 -"Gears of War only costs 10 Million to produce."

Do you have a link to the transcript or the speech? Thanks.

 

[ShowDog]

This is really pretty simple. There are 3 parties with stakes here: 1) Consumers. 2) Publishers. 3)Retailers (Gamestop).

With the current system, consumers and retailers reap the benefits. Gamestop has it down to a science in that it hurts consumers with extremely high used game prices and kills publishers by cannibalizing their sales from the very place they are trying to make them (biggest videogame retailer in the country). As a consumer, I can benefit myself tremendously by buying a used game from Half or Amazon and pay much less than at Gamestop. But most people are lazy/stupid.

People shouldn't be championing a continuation of the current system. It's good for us, sure, but it's not sustainable for publishers. In time, this will come back to negatively affect us the consumers.

The ideal scenario is a situation that favors consumers and publishers and leaves retailers like Gamestop out to dry. What is that system? I don't know. I DO know that Gamestop provides zero value to me as a consumer. They don't even carry pre-current gen material at most stores. A total fail from an enthusiast perspective.

Do I really trust publishers to create a system that equally benefits themselves and consumers? Hell no. It's possible we may lose all of the rights and benefits we had before. If it's just a small loss to us, say some sort of hassle involving codes to block Gamestop, I can see the good in it.

But anyone against the idea of change to the system in general needs to wake up. The IDEAL scenario favors consumers and publishers. What we have now is not ideal. Gamestop needs to burn. And I guess the point I'm trying to make is that people saying "Screw publishers, their problems are not my problems" are not looking at the long term health of their hobby.

 

[Card Boy]

The online pass was the perfect compromise in my opinion.

 

[Shaheed79]

Do you have a link to the transcript or the speech? Thanks.

It may have been E32k or 2k2. All I remember is around that time Yamauchi gave a speech to the industry about how game budgets would balloon out of control and eventually crash the industry, if they didn't take proper precautions. This sentiment was echoed by Iwata more eloquently around the same time period.

The general reaction from pubs, devs and media was that Nintendo were on their way out as a console maker, and were desperately trying to say anything to get third parties onto their side.

Here is Nintendo's E3 2k1 conference courtesy planet gamecube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWSmFjOgyG4

 

[ShowDog]

The online pass was the perfect compromise in my opinion.

I actually thought it was pretty clever too, and combined with the rather quick price drops of EA games the last few years I ended up picking up just about every one I wanted new for around $30.

 

[Shaheed79]

Do you have a link to the transcript or the speech? Thanks.

Here is Nintendo's E3 2k1 conference courtesy planet gamecube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWSmFjOgyG4

Now that I'm watching it, Iwata is describing the conundrum we are facing at the this very moment within his E3 speech. It's about 100x more relevant today than it was when he made it.

 

[quest]

This is really pretty simple. There are 3 parties with stakes here: 1) Consumers. 2) Publishers. 3)Retailers (Gamestop).

With the current system, consumers and retailers reap the benefits. Gamestop has it down to a science in that it hurts consumers with extremely high used game prices and kills publishers by cannibalizing their sales from the very place they are trying to make them (biggest videogame retailer in the country). As a consumer, I can benefit myself tremendously by buying a used game from Half or Amazon and pay much less than at Gamestop. But most people are lazy/stupid.

People shouldn't be championing a continuation of the current system. It's good for us, sure, but it's not sustainable for publishers. In time, this will come back to negatively affect us the consumers.

The ideal scenario is a situation that favors consumers and publishers and leaves retailers like Gamestop out to dry. What is that system? I don't know. I DO know that Gamestop provides zero value to me as a consumer. They don't even carry pre-current gen material at most stores. A total fail from an enthusiast perspective.

Do I really trust publishers to create a system that equally benefits themselves and consumers? Hell no. It's possible we may lose all of the rights and benefits we had before. If it's just a small loss to us, say some sort of hassle involving codes to block Gamestop, I can see the good in it.

But anyone against the idea of change to the system in general needs to wake up. The IDEAL scenario favors consumers and publishers. What we have now is not ideal. Gamestop needs to burn. And I guess the point I'm trying to make is that people saying "Screw publishers, their problems are not my problems" are not looking at the long term health of their hobby.

Then publishers should take it up with gamestop and not the consumer. But they won't because they want the whole pie plain and simple. The could easily threaten gamestop and get a deal that does not involve us consumers. Instead they are pulling this crap to destroy consumer rights and take the whole pie now. Consumers will lose big time and in the end it will destroy console gaming. Publishers are delusional if they think effectively doubling the price of a game will result in more sales. Gamestop is not the reason for the used games it is publishers over pricing its product.

 

[Biker19]

When the first "Million Seller Bomb" was made, I knew that the console game industry's preferred business model was unsustainable. Yamauchi saw it coming way back in 2001, and gave a conceited speech about it at E3 of that year. Many developers scoffed at the warning and continued business as usual.

Here we are, nearly 12 years later, and we are at the dawn of a war between publishers, who refuse to accept responsibility for an industry where a game can sell 2-3.5 Million copies and still lose money, and consumers, who will do anything to retain the right to completely own something that they pay for.

Even if they were somehow able to lock down every used game in the entire console game industry, the majority of these publishers will still lose money at the end of the year. They are attempting to treat repeated knife wounds with a band-aid. Publishers are willing to try anything before being completely forced to address the real problem as an industry. They wasted countless GDC's ignoring the pink elephant in the room, and now they want consumers to suffer the consequences of their unwillingness to pull the breaks on the runaway trains they created.

In this time of great concern and debate, let us not forget the old proverb Mark 1: Rein Chapter 2 Verse 4 -"Gears of War only costs 10 Million to produce."

It may have been E32k or 2k2. All I remember is around that time Yamauchi gave a speech to the industry about how game budgets would balloon out of control and eventually crash the industry, if they didn't take proper precautions. This sentiment was echoed by Iwata more eloquently around the same time period.

The general reaction from pubs, devs and media was that Nintendo were on their way out as a console maker, and were desperately trying to say anything to get third parties onto their side.

Here is Nintendo's E3 2k1 conference courtesy planet gamecube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWSmFjOgyG4

Heh, it's all coming out to be true. Publishers are the ones that are in denial about it, & won't ever consider the possibilities that they may wind up filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy & joining former companies like Midway Games & THQ until it's too late for them.

 

[conman]

Heh, it's all coming out to be true. Publishers are the ones that are in denial about it, & won't ever consider the possibilities that they may wind up filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy & joining former companies like Midway Games & THQ until it's too late for them.

Publishers know just as well as we do what the problem is. But the only "solution" is for publishers to fail. They're not in denial; they're just not suicidal. They've simply grown too big, and there's no possible way for them to "lose weight" in a healthy and sustainable way. All they can do is to continue digging up desperate profits wherever they possibly can. The fact that they're blaming legitimate consumers for the industry's woes is a sign of just how far gone they are. Once you go down that path, there's no going back.

They're like bio-engineered chickens that have been designed to grow quickly. Once upon a time, that made some amount of sense and was efficient and increased profits. But as the chicken industry came to depend on that process, chickens had to be engineered to grow fatter faster and faster. There was no alternative. Now, we're at a point where if a chicken doesn't get slaughtered very young, its legs break under its own body weight and it starves and dies. This is possibly the (leg) breaking point for big publishers.

And I say, good riddance.

 

[hooijdonk17]

My theory is that majority of used game sales that will be banned will turn into piracy instead of new game sales.

I only have anectodal evidence and deductive reasoning do back this up, but if I'm vindicated I'll just be happy to watch it all come crashing down a-la Fight Club.

This industry exists and should exist for me, not vice versa.

 

[Gintamen]

When is the last time you purchased a book with the front and back covers torn off? If a used book from Amazon arrived that way, you would immediately return it. Right?

Definitely not, if that saves me 50+% of the price, who cares, my Kindle books have no visible cover at all for others to see. It will also have a very used description though, when bought at Amazon.

 

[dragonelite]

My theory is that majority of used game sales that will be banned will turn into piracy instead of new game sales.

I only have anectodal evidence and deductive reasoning do back this up, but if I'm vindicated I'll just be happy to watch it all come crashing down a-la Fight Club.

This industry exists and should exist for me, not vice versa.

I think you are right.
Or i could see pc gaming and steam get even bigger.
Where they will pirate on release and maybe buy when discounted on steam.

 

[snap0212]

People shouldn't be championing a continuation of the current system. It's good for us, sure, but it's not sustainable for publishers. In time, this will come back to negatively affect us the consumers.

When making the claim that it's not sustainable for the publisher then you have to back that up somehow. Some evidence that proofs publishers make less money because of used game sales or that it cuts into their profit. The fact that GameStop makes a lot of money off of used game sales is no such proof.

The ideal scenario is a situation that favors consumers and publishers and leaves retailers like Gamestop out to dry. What is that system? I don't know. I DO know that Gamestop provides zero value to me as a consumer. They don't even carry pre-current gen material at most stores. A total fail from an enthusiast perspective.

The ideal scenario could have been worked out by publishers over the last couple of decades but they didn't do anything. GameStop and others saw that there's a market for used games and publishers have ignored it completely. While publishers are sending the money that I, as a customer, am only welcome if I either continue to spend money on DLC or next year's game as well then it's not really hard for GameStop to compete with that. Their message is clear: Your games are worth something, we'll give you money for them.

Publishers did not reward me for keeping my games, GameStop rewarded me for getting rid of them.

What publishers also didn't do is give me an incentive to just not shop at GameStop. Instead the collector's edition might only be available there, the early pre-orders might only be there, certain DLC offerings might only be available there. They're giving plenty of incentives to go to GameStop and then complain about me doing business with them.

 

[SicSemperTyrannis]

How would you feel about preventing a piece of used software from being put on the market? What if the person who wishes to sell their used software was required to pay some sort of fee to unregister this product so that they could sell it, instead of requiring the person who purchased the used software to pay a fee? I think this would feel a lot friendlier. If you buy software you shouldn't expect to sell it back honestly, but should you want to, there are some hoops you'll have to jump through to do so. Of course seller can transparently pass this cost onto the buyer, but the perception is a little friendly i believe. Rather than getting home with your software you just bought and get greeted with a screen that tells you you must pay more money to even use it.

This of course doesn't get around the issue of having to check in online at the time of installing/deinstallation. But maybe this method would be perceived a little better.

Bolded portions are of interest to me specifically. The used game situation could be handled much better for sure. If you are making the 24hr check for the registration/deresgistration of used games primarily then the online requirement could easily be lifted. Allow the trade of games while still requiring online registration and installation, but if you want to trade a game in you have to connect to the server via the system to deactivate the game from your account. The retailers that decide to take these games in trade could then authenticate that the game is not currently activated on any systems.

This would also allow a similar system to how DRM is handled on the 360 right now with XBLA games. In that you can play any games you have downloaded online or offline as long as the license is on the system you are currently playing on. And if you wish to move licenses to another system you can either do it online through xbox.com and change the registered system to allow for offline play of a specific game.

Basically Microsoft is going about the DRM and internet required the wrong way. There was a better way for them to do this whole system, but they screwed the pooch.