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"Are you sewious Dad?!?" > GAMESTOP Commercial

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Lilwolf:
um... games have never been cheaper.  Games have always been in the 30-60 buck range, all the way back to the apple / commidor days for new games.  And people have always sold games second hand or traded.  There is just a company doing it...  Funcoland did this like 15-20 years ago.  I think there are just more options, and the games are in some cases shorter.

But now game companies can do things like sell their games online (steam).  Require online and interactive online registration that can stop this...  Or heck, have the game 100% online (mmog). 

Or heck, give either cheap / free updates making the game worth owning for more then a few weeks / months. 

I think the game companies should stop worrying too much about resales of games and making sure the game is worth the price.

RandyT:

--- Quote from: MidnightClubbed on December 11, 2010, 08:29:10 pm ---I agree that 'full price' games may be too expensive for some people, but Gamestop are the dominant game retailer in the US and they are encouraging people to buy used rather than new, and so are choking the developers and publishers.  For the developers they might as well be selling pirate copies. 
That $5 you generally save off a full-price game can quite easily be saved with an amazon order, or by waiting a few weeks for a price deal.

This (and piracy) is pushing the games companies much more quickly towards digital download and subscription services as they see their costs rising and profits falling.  Hopefully the market will rebalance prices at that point.


--- End quote ---

Physical media is but a tiny amount of their production costs. It adds significant perceived value and people still want something physical when they lay out $50 for something.  Understand that the ability to re-sell something is taken into account by the consumer for every purchase they make that isn't considered a consumable, and video games haven't quite reached that bar.  The ability to turn these $60 games around later are what fuels, I would say a good portion, of those sales.  Stop making that possible, and those sales will wane considerably. 

The popularity of used games is simply the market speaking in a loud clear voice that new titles are too expensive.  If the game companies want to address that, and very likely open the market up for gamers who may never buy a title while in it's main life cycle, encouraging more on-line play and use of those services, they know what to do.  They just don't want to, because as much as they complain about it, the model is still working for them.  At last count, Black-ops has pulled in 250 million....not too shabby, regardless of how many of those get resold.

RandyT

RayB:
I remember saving up and buying "Hacker" by Activision for the C64 (1985?) for $35.

If you're patient and can wait 6 months, often times games today that were $50 or $60 end up selling for $20-$30 new. You want the luxury of "right now", that's your choice and you pay for that choice. Except Nintendo's own games. Those NEVER seem to get discounted  :angry:

RandyT:

--- Quote from: RayB on December 12, 2010, 02:10:08 pm ---I remember saving up and buying "Hacker" by Activision for the C64 (1985?) for $35.

--- End quote ---

There were also only about 20 million C-64 / C128 systems sold in over a 10 year period.  Just the 360 has more than 2 1/2 times as many units sold in less than half that time.  Considering that titles are now pretty easily ported from one system to another, the total market size is even much larger for a title.  More possible sales make it much easier to recoup investments (and much, much more) today than it ever was in the 80's.


--- Quote ---If you're patient and can wait 6 months, often times games today that were $50 or $60 end up selling for $20-$30 new. You want the luxury of "right now", that's your choice and you pay for that choice.

--- End quote ---

The gaming industry should adopt a similar strategy to that of what the movie industry currently does with Blu-Rays.  For about a week, a new title is sold at a good price.  After that, it goes up and you can wait a while for it to come back down, unless there is a promotion of some nature.  This would give folks a chance to get in on a new title while everyone is still playing it on-line, and some occasional price fluctuations would wreak havoc on the used markets price structure.  As I stated, there are things they can do to keep much of their profits from going to Gamestop.  But they would need to let go of the idea of "having their cake and eating it too", which they are loathe to do.

LeedsFan:

--- Quote from: RandyT on December 12, 2010, 01:42:30 pm --- At last count, Black-ops has pulled in 250 million....not too shabby, regardless of how many of those get resold.

RandyT

--- End quote ---

The thing is games like Black Ops and other online games and MMORPGs need a registration code to activate them. And once that is used the game cannot be resold. I never see any used titles of WoW or FFXI on sale.

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