Microsoft confirms XBOX ONE game pricing

Polychrome

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What Cori is saying is that car manufacturers *do* have an avenue from which to collect on used cars, and that's in repairs and spare parts. No, not every customer goes to the dealer, but a lot of money still finds its way to the manufacturer. Buying a used car may set you back a fair amount of money if you're not careful, if the car hasn't been properly taken care of, or if you want body work or customizations.

If a DVD hasn't been properly taken care of? You surface the disk for $2 at Hastings and move on with your life. And even if it's beat up it will usually play flawlessly. It takes decades for a CD or DVD to wear out just from basic use. A car needs constant care, and an old beat-up one will have a lot more trouble running than an old disk.
 

Mystictrust

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To kind of inject my opinion into the center of EchoRedux & HeyCori's little back and forth spat here, I don't think a car is a good/fair analogy to compare against devs deserving residuals on used games - it's an entirely different business model. This is going to be a long post, so FYI.

Cars are generally sold at or above cost for a physical product. If you've done any sort of research into what a dealership might pay for a new car (and used that information to haggle down prices, as I have) then you definitely know this. Still, I realize that there are dealerships that operate on an extremely thin profit margin, or even sell below cost - making up for the cost on things such as interest on financing, upselling of low cost features, extended warranties, etc. Naturally, the bulk of the wholesale price of a vehicle is beyond the relatively cheap manufacturing cost, paying things such as employee salaries, marketing, and the technology that drives the factories - operating expenses. A ton of that cost, and high markup beyond the low manufacturing cost is made at purchase - a consumer is putting up a huge amount of cash for a vehicle all at once.

The physical cost of the disc that a game is on, in volume, is probably pennies - though I suppose you could argue that compared to low costs of auto manufacturing it's similar. A video game development studio incurs costs from licensing game engines, investing in new technologies, game development over a period of years (per game title, for many games), etc. Well technically, to be fair, a publisher will generally take care of licensing costs and such, but it's still part of the overall cost of a game. The publisher that finances the developers has a variety of costs and things to watch out for. As an example, if the developers assure the publisher that a game will be ready by X date, and the publishers market the crap out of it (as they need to, for future sales), the developers might run into a bunch of bugs or development issues that delay the game, resulting in a bunch of pissed off people who generally kind of "move on". Excitement dissipates, sales aren't as spectacular as they could have been, etc etc. Large sales of games typically seem to happen in a relatively short window of time, and things move extremely fast in the gaming world. Gamers are also fickle. If you can't capture that window, you might be sunk. And look at games like Tomb Raider - made $6 million, which wasn't enough and a bunch of terminations were the result of that fiasco. AAA games can cost in the double digit millions to produce, increasingly more so with the demands from gamers (as well as purchasing habits). But AAA games sell at a cost MUCH, MUCH, MUCH smaller than that. There is no "extended warranty" on a game, no money to be made on financing. I suppose you could equate bonus features on a car to DLC, but I would argue that DLC costs more to produce and market than a Bluetooth/technology package on a car. And takes away time from working on the next title to keep the development company afloat.

So... $60 (or maybe around $50 wholesale) for millions in development cost, and that $60 has to cover everything. Well, multiplied by a TON of gamers.

There are also around 24 auto manufacturers in the entire US right now (according to Wikipedia). There are 79 game developers in my city alone (Austin, TX - according to gamedevmap.com. Unsure of accuracy). Not all devs spend double digit millions on games, but every single one of them is subject to the intricacies of putting their games on the market. They all have short windows to capture gamer's short and fickle attention spans. They all need to get their game in as many stores as possible, and find a way to make it interesting enough so that Gamestop Employee #5254 doesn't steer an interested gamer over to the new Call of Duty instead. Profit margins are spread thinly throughout all of these development studios, hundreds of them. Not a fair comparison, you might say? Then check out the list of game publishers in the US, and forget about individual developers. There are a lot according to Wikipedia, though I'm not going to bother counting how many. It's more than 24. Okay, scratch that, I don't want to look like a fool here, there are about 83 actively independent US game publishing companies, and that is not counting those that are a subsidiary of a larger publishing company. All of those are developing using in-house studios, or financing the development of games with game development companies.

Walk into a Honda dealership for a new car, and only Honda makes the profit on your new car. Walk into a Gamestop, and there are hundreds of other game development studios vying for your attention... and it's kind of hard to get a free test drive out of a game, so some people only go with a Gamestop employee recommendation or pretty box art and sometimes a solid marketing pitch on the back of the game box.

To summarize my comparison, an auto manufacturer is not subject to the same types of struggles that the game industry is when it comes to selling their product. A car is also kind of a necessity for a large percentage of the population in developed countries. A video game is not. I think a much fairer comparison would be of games to movies, also part of the entertainment industry. There are a ton of movie studios all over the US, obviously with a huge cluster down in the Los Angeles region. Movies are given HUGE budgets in double and triple digit millions, and sell tickets to those movies at extremely low prices, and DVDs for those movies at extremely low prices (relatively). There are publishing companies that market and sell the movies, while financing the filming and production of these movies through studios both big and small. They are subject to fickle audiences with picky tastes in movies, marketing to draw in the crowds with a limited release window, and there are problems if a movie gets delayed and interest is lost.

Yet, movies make residuals and have other sources of income as well. If I pay $8 - $12 for a movie at the theater and it blows me away, I'm going to pay for the DVD/Blu-ray disc. Or I'm going to pay for a digital download on my Xbox or Amazon or wherever. There's also residual income from royalties whenever a network like HBO airs the movie, or Netflix secures the rights to stream the movie on their network (after paying a large chunk of upfront cash)

The production of games seems to play out in a similar fashion to the production of movies (albeit with smaller crews, and developers in place of actors) and financially I argue that it is similar. The games themselves also have storylines and most tell a story just like in a movie. Some have movies in them. Some basically are movies. And Quantum Break is quite literally combining both (yet TV small screen instead of movie big screen). However, games do not get residuals and do not have any secondary source of revenue. The publishers and developers quite literally only get income once. They basically are forced to sell in supremely large quantities to make up for everything in guaranteed sales, and hope that DLC can help keep continued sales up (word of mouth, more PR about an extension to a popular game, etc).

I think game developers have it rough. Heh, and despite the high rate of employment rotation and pressure, I still somehow want to break in to the games industry for a career.

TL;DR Used game residuals and game development is closer to movie production and residual income in that part of the entertainment industry than auto car sales and the "one time payment" model in the auto industry.
 
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TonyDedrick

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I just find the used game excuse just that...an excuse. Publishers will try to convince you that we woke up this morning to a used game market and that it must be stopped. Used games have been a part of this industry from day one. Why wasn't it an issue 15, 20 or 30 years ago? Hard to feel bad when the fat cats are still raking in billions in profits every year.
 

Mystictrust

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Used games have been a part of this industry from day one. Why wasn't it an issue 15, 20 or 30 years ago?
I think because game development costs have skyrocketed, more than anything, as gamers demand more and more from their games. Film based movies that people would go to the theater for way back when had no DVDs, or even VHS, to be able to watch at home. One time cost. But film budgets were a lot smaller then than they are today. Same with game development.
 

EchoRedux

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Buying a used car puts you at significant financial disadvantage. You have to make repairs and those repairs can run into the thousands. There is no way around that. In 20+ years I've never buffed any of my Sega CD games and they still work perfectly. And if I had to get one buffed I'm positive it wouldn't run into the thousands. The scale between cars and games does not work. The math does not compute. Buying a game used will not put you at a financial disadvantage like buying a used car will.

The point I was making about the servers is that those servers cost money to run. That wasn't a big deal in 1984 but it is now. Devs are losing money because players that buy used can still play online without contributing to the costs of running those servers.

Mind you, I'm not against the used market. But I do sympathize with devs that want players to buy new as much as possible. Not that the used market should be eliminated.

I bought a used car and outside of a few oil changes and tire rotations, I've never once had it repaired for anything. The automaker didn't make a dime on me. The automaker doesn't get a cut from the mechanic nor from ExxonMobil for the Mobil 1 product being used.

I honestly don't know anyone in the real world who a) owned a CD console and b) never experienced an unplayable disc. I'd say 20% of XBox games die out after 400 hours of use. I'd bet .01% of cars do that, which we would call lemons. Old roommate was on his third COD 4 CD and he takes extremely high care of his things.

Bringing up math is irrelevant because the concepts are the same between cars, or books, or video games. The amounts in question do not need to be comparable, just the concept. Buy and sell a used book, be it at a garage sale or a second hand book store and neither the author nor publisher get money. Buy and sell a used car or game and it's the same thing. If one's a financial burden to the buyer, I don't see why that gives dev's the right to used game sales.
 

EchoRedux

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What Cori is saying is that car manufacturers *do* have an avenue from which to collect on used cars, and that's in repairs and spare parts. No, not every customer goes to the dealer, but a lot of money still finds its way to the manufacturer. Buying a used car may set you back a fair amount of money if you're not careful, if the car hasn't been properly taken care of, or if you want body work or customizations.

If a DVD hasn't been properly taken care of? You surface the disk for $2 at Hastings and move on with your life. And even if it's beat up it will usually play flawlessly. It takes decades for a CD or DVD to wear out just from basic use. A car needs constant care, and an old beat-up one will have a lot more trouble running than an old disk.

Doesn't matter if there's additional revenue streams in used cars but not used games because that just means the gaming industry needs to innovate enough to capture more money from the aftermarket. In fact, via DLC, there are additional revenue streams. Gaming industry even gives special content on certain games that have codes to owners who buy the game new. They can make that available via DLC for gamers who buy it used. I don't know where you guys live, but if I get my car repaired, unless I'm ordering spare parts not covered by warranty, the car manufacturer isn't making money. What's the big deal if someone keeps their new car forever or someone keeps a new game forever? You guys make it seem like the devs pay extra to support the initial sale. If they pay server costs for an x amount of time, I doubt they will pay server costs for a longer period of time because people are buying the game used a year or two later. The server was already going to be paid for far beyond that time.
 

EchoRedux

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To kind of inject my opinion into the center of EchoRedux & HeyCori's little back and forth spat here, I don't think a car is a good/fair analogy to compare against devs deserving residuals on used games - it's an entirely different business model. This is going to be a long post, so FYI.
A ton of that cost, and high markup beyond the low manufacturing cost is made at purchase - a consumer is putting up a huge amount of cash for a vehicle all at once.

And the maintenance, and the warranty. Auto manufacturers have costs after the new car is driven off the lot. They still have costs even when the car is resold and thus "used". Ever heard of those 10 year warranties? Yes, they apply to all owners of the vehicle up to 10 years. There are clear costs to those warranties until they are up. I see nothing but parallels to the gaming industry with online play. The dev's are supporting the servers for new discs, and the people who still own those discs for a certain amount of time.

The physical cost of the disc that a game is on, in volume, is probably pennies - though I suppose you could argue that compared to low costs of auto manufacturing it's similar. A video game development studio incurs costs from licensing game engines, investing in new technologies, game development over a period of years (per game title, for many games), etc. Well technically, to be fair, a publisher will generally take care of licensing costs and such, but it's still part of the overall cost of a game. The publisher that finances the developers has a variety of costs and things to watch out for. As an example, if the developers assure the publisher that a game will be ready by X date, and the publishers market the crap out of it (as they need to, for future sales), the developers might run into a bunch of bugs or development issues that delay the game, resulting in a bunch of pissed off people who generally kind of "move on". Excitement dissipates, sales aren't as spectacular as they could have been, etc etc.

Yet, there's research and development costs on cars too. Patents, intellectual property, design, all of those represent a tangible cost, yet are intangible materials in the actual manufacturing of the car. We don't see that millions poured in on the research of a small air conditioning unit that produces massive cooling through 12 vents in the car, we just see the hundreds that it actually cost to physically produce when it's installed. Hey, there are other costs such as advertising, distribution (you know what it costs to ship a car cross country?), selling fees, not to mention the dealerships need to make their money too. Oh, and dealerships are rarely owned by the manufacturers, almost all are independently owned, obtaining a franchising license to sell a certain make. Car production can be delayed too. Heck, the 2013 Lincoln MKZ was pushed back 3 months from the expected launch date. You think the dealerships didn't hurt by only having 3 Lincoln models?

There is no "extended warranty" on a game, no money to be made on financing. I suppose you could equate bonus features on a car to DLC, but I would argue that DLC costs more to produce and market than a Bluetooth/technology package on a car. And takes away time from working on the next title to keep the development company afloat.

An extended warranty represents a cost for the manufacturer. Paying for servers is the same thing, a cost for the dev's. Car manufacturers don't make any money on financing unless they do the financing themselves. There's money to be made on financing a game purchase, it's called using a credit card. Hey, the gaming industry can finance your purchase of video games by offering an EA branded credit card! Just a way for the industry to innovate by offering credit. Give people a 5% discount on the purchase of games and charge 25% APR on the balance!

When you say a Bluetooth/technology package, do you mean having an aftermarket installation? This would have been covered in a new car and someone buying it used would still have the benefit. If the person buying the used car had one installed, I doubt the car manufacturer would make a sale since I don't typically see the car manufacturers making those products.

So... $60 (or maybe around $50 wholesale) for millions in development cost, and that $60 has to cover everything. Well, multiplied by a TON of gamers.

And? Car companies have a wholesale price, and a retail, and the covers everything too.

There are also around 24 auto manufacturers in the entire US right now (according to Wikipedia). There are 79 game developers in my city alone (Austin, TX - according to gamedevmap.com. Unsure of accuracy). Not all devs spend double digit millions on games, but every single one of them is subject to the intricacies of putting their games on the market. They all have short windows to capture gamer's short and fickle attention spans. They all need to get their game in as many stores as possible, and find a way to make it interesting enough so that Gamestop Employee #5254 doesn't steer an interested gamer over to the new Call of Duty instead. Profit margins are spread thinly throughout all of these development studios, hundreds of them. Not a fair comparison, you might say? Then check out the list of game publishers in the US, and forget about individual developers. There are a lot according to Wikipedia, though I'm not going to bother counting how many. It's more than 24. Okay, scratch that, I don't want to look like a fool here, there are about 83 actively independent US game publishing companies, and that is not counting those that are a subsidiary of a larger publishing company. All of those are developing using in-house studios, or financing the development of games with game development companies.

Both cars companies and developers face fiercely competitive markets. There's obviously a lower barrier to enter the gaming market. But if devs aren't making money, that means they over saturated their industry and the laws of economics would say that they should go out of business.

Walk into a Honda dealership for a new car, and only Honda makes the profit on your new car. Walk into a Gamestop, and there are hundreds of other game development studios vying for your attention... and it's kind of hard to get a free test drive out of a game, so some people only go with a Gamestop employee recommendation or pretty box art and sometimes a solid marketing pitch on the back of the game box.

Uhm, the dealership gets a cut, the salesman gets a cut, their repair shop can expect future business, so no, many people are profiting on a new car. On a used car, just like a used game, if you're paying someone for maintanence, that's their business, and the manufacturer doesn't get their cut. Spending "$2 at Hastings" just like with a car, you are paying money for repairs, and that money doesn't go to the manufacturers.

To summarize my comparison, an auto manufacturer is not subject to the same types of struggles that the game industry is when it comes to selling their product.

Uhm, they are.

However, games do not get residuals and do not have any secondary source of revenue.

This point kind of makes your comparisons between video games and movies weaker than the comparisons between cars and video games.

The publishers and developers quite literally only get income once. They basically are forced to sell in supremely large quantities to make up for everything in guaranteed sales, and hope that DLC can help keep continued sales up (word of mouth, more PR about an extension to a popular game, etc).

Actually, like movies, video games can make money when they're reintroduced to new mediums. Like how movies get money when a cable network buys the rights to play it, or money from DVD sales, an Xbox game can be reported into an Xbox 360 and an Xbox One game. I'd pay again to get Morrowind on an Xbone.

I think game developers have it rough. Heh, and despite the high rate of employment rotation and pressure, I still somehow want to break in to the games industry for a career.

Hence the over saturation. I'd say follow your passion but you're looking at likely being unemployed with it.
 

vertigoOne

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Developers/publishers need to put their weight behind changing the system if it is not working for them, rather than being idle about it and expecting the system to change itself in their favor.

And I do not care what Gamestop is reporting for profits/losses, when the fact is that they are raking in major profit on each used game they sell. They are probably overpaying their executives and that is why they are operating at a loss. I do not have any sympathy for Gamestop as similarly l do not have any sympathy for used car dealers.
 

HeyCori

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I bought a used car and outside of a few oil changes and tire rotations, I've never once had it repaired for anything. The automaker didn't make a dime on me. The automaker doesn't get a cut from the mechanic nor from ExxonMobil for the Mobil 1 product being used.

I honestly don't know anyone in the real world who a) owned a CD console and b) never experienced an unplayable disc. I'd say 20% of XBox games die out after 400 hours of use. I'd bet .01% of cars do that, which we would call lemons. Old roommate was on his third COD 4 CD and he takes extremely high care of his things.

Bringing up math is irrelevant because the concepts are the same between cars, or books, or video games. The amounts in question do not need to be comparable, just the concept. Buy and sell a used book, be it at a garage sale or a second hand book store and neither the author nor publisher get money. Buy and sell a used car or game and it's the same thing. If one's a financial burden to the buyer, I don't see why that gives dev's the right to used game sales.

Sorry, but if you think the costs associated with a used car is even remotely like the costs associated with a used disc then we will have to agree to disagree. Especially when you start making up numbers like 400 hours and .01%. 400 hours is barely 17 days. I've put months into Capcom vs SNK 2 on the Dreamcast without having to spend a dime on repairs. I've been playing Sonic CD on and off again since the 90s (because it's that awesome). Same disc. No extra costs. The math is important because we are talking about math. Money. NUMBERS. If you don't think that's important then no, we will have to agree to disagree.
 

MobileVortex

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If dev's / publishers have a problem with used sales, they have an outlet to fix this. Digital distribution. Have regular sales, or drop the price to that of the used market, kill gamestop or used game stores margins and you will see them disappear fast. Kill their margins they will start giving less and less for trade ins. Another way is a free to play model, allow users to download the game or a limited part of the game for free, and micro transaction the hell out of everyone. Sell single player and multiplayer versions of games, this could benifit a lot of people who could care less about single player or multiplayer. This is their problem to fix, not Microsoft or Sonys.
 

EchoRedux

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Sorry, but if you think the costs associated with a used car is even remotely like the costs associated with a used disc then we will have to agree to disagree. The math is important because we are talking about math. Money. NUMBERS. If you don't think that's important then no, we will have to agree to disagree.

I'll agree to disagree. I don't think the quantity of money is relevant to the discussion. I don't find any of that matters at all to the discussion of why dev's deserve a cut despite other industries like the automotive industry not getting a cut on used car sales.

Especially when you start making up numbers like 400 hours and .01%. 400 hours is barely 17 days. I've put months into Capcom vs SNK 2 on the Dreamcast without having to spend a dime on repairs. I've been playing Sonic CD on and off again since the 90s (because it's that awesome). Same disc. No extra costs.

Since a few people on here were going on about how cars need constant maintenance and repair, I was trying to put it into perspective. I mean, what's the failure rate on cars after 400 hours of use? What's the failure rate of CD's after 400 hours of use? If you add up all the time you've played Sonic, I doubt it approaches 400 hours. Like I said, my roommate was on his third COD 4 CD before he got MW 2 (he played World at War but after a couple months went back to COD 4)
 

Reflexx

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Unlike cars (which offer multiple revenue streams through OEM parts), most games only have one revenue stream for devs.

Also, cars are a need. The market is HUGE compared to games. So car manufacturers can have more variety in their product line. They can offer 5 different vehicles at different price points. Devs often only work in one game at a time. And the one game may determine if that dev lives long enough to make another game.

With games, the market is significantly smaller, and almost everything made is a niche product. And this small market has determined that they will not consistently pay more than $60 for the product. So game companies cannot price games according to how much they cost to make. There isn't a huge "luxury game" market like there is a luxury vehicle market.

Vehicles are made in such mass quantity that when a person sells his car, there's a decent chance that he buys another car from the same manufacturer. With games, a developer might make 1 game every 2 to 4 yrs. When you sell your game, you're not going to buy another product from them for a long time. In the mean time, that game may make it to 3 or 4 other people that will also not buy a product from that developer.

With a car, you know that you are getting an inferior product when you buy used. With a game, the product (the actual intellectual property), is unchanged. It's just as good as a new copy. And if a disc is scratched it can be resurfaced for $2. And the code contained on that disc is still exactly the same. 100% equal to a new product.

With a car, the manufacturer doesn't have to pay for maintenance. You pay for it.

With a game, the support and maintenance is handled by game companies.

There are so many flaws with the used car analogy that I'm surprised that anyone takes it seriously.
 

MobileVortex

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People are taking this used car thing wayyy to far. The point is no other used market gets any "real concrete: return from it's sales. Why are games so special. ITS A "FREE" MARKET its up to the publishers / devs to get creative and figure out how to defeat the used market. Which in my opinion would be easier then any other used market.

K THNX BYE

<3
 

EchoRedux

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@Winning Guy

It's a fact that Ford gets no cut for used car sales, J. K. Rowling gets no cut on used book sales, and dev's get no cut on used game sales.

Pointing out differences between the auto industry and the gaming industry doesn't change it, and from what I've seen, it doesn't call for a change. Until someone does it, I can't see that analogy as being flawed.

However, you bring up interesting points. I'd like to comment on them if I may.

With games, the market is significantly smaller, and almost everything made is a niche product. And this small market has determined that they will not consistently pay more than $60 for the product. So game companies cannot price games according to how much they cost to make.

Actually car companies set a target sales price and try to build in as many features to be able to sell at that given price. Say market price for a sports sedan is 35,000. Companies will do their best to make a competitive vehicle at that price.

Obviously if Ford tries to put hundreds of luxury items in their Fiesta model and cannot sell the car at an inflated price, Ford will take a hit and post major losses, hence why companies have budgets. Dev's clearly have to budget as well.

Also, game dev's can price their sales though. Assuming the dev's have some business sense, they will hope to achieve higher sales when they spend more money to develop a game. Sure each unit is $60, but selling 5 million copies is better than selling 500,000 copies.

Vehicles are made in such mass quantity that when a person sells his car, there's a decent chance that he buys another car from the same manufacturer.

Huh?

With games, a developer might make 1 game every 2 to 4 yrs. When you sell your game, you're not going to buy another product from them for a long time. In the mean time, that game may make it to 3 or 4 other people that will also not buy a product from that developer.

If I sell Madden 11, I'm probably buying Madden 12. Heck, I can buy Madden 12 right now, NEW, for $9.95. I think when people buy used games, it's been out for a while and no longer going for $60. I'd also bet that the people buying used cannot afford the $60 price tag anyways and are looking to spend 5 dollars instead of say 10 dollars. I think the money the devs are missing out on is completely overstated. I don't think the typical game is resold 3 or 4 times.

With a car, you know that you are getting an inferior product when you buy used. With a game, the product (the actual intellectual property), is unchanged. It's just as good as a new copy. And if a disc is scratched it can be resurfaced for $2. And the code contained on that disc is still exactly the same. 100% equal to a new product.

I doubt it. With a car it still gets me from point A to point B. It's main purpose is still there. If a game's going to be supported on the servers for 5 years and someone buys the game used a year after it comes out, they only have 4 years of support, no?

With a car, the manufacturer doesn't have to pay for maintenance. You pay for it.
With a game, the support and maintenance is handled by game companies.
There are so many flaws with the used car analogy that I'm surprised that anyone takes it seriously.

If the CS scratches, you pay for the repair too, no?

With a car, the manufacturer has a warranty that lasts a certain amount of time, and that warranty is transferred when the car is resold. If a dev supports servers, why should they support only the initial purchase? Why should that support not transfer when resold?

I find flaws with your refutes but I'll take you seriously. :smile:
 

NaNoo123

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This discussion is pretty strange in that it's pretty much taken for granted we will be going DD relatively soon, say 10years to pluck figure out of air.
So GameStop etc need to change.
Everyone in the business apart from them will be pushing digital forwards.
Making digital lot more compelling even with use of dlc etc.
They will have a lot more control than they do with disks currently.
I personally think that what MS was trying to do was going to help GameStop, now publishers will try harder to make people go digital.
 

vertigoOne

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This discussion is pretty strange in that it's pretty much taken for granted we will be going DD relatively soon, say 10years to pluck figure out of air.
So GameStop etc need to change.
Everyone in the business apart from them will be pushing digital forwards.
Making digital lot more compelling even with use of dlc etc.
They will have a lot more control than they do with disks currently.
I personally think that what MS was trying to do was going to help GameStop, now publishers will try harder to make people go digital.

The logical conclusion to the reason behind the 24-hour check-in was obviously for used games to co-exist with digital distribution...will be interesting to see how long the used game market will last in this next generation in spite of MS's reversal.
 

Keith Wallace

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People are taking this used car thing wayyy to far. The point is no other used market gets any "real concrete: return from it's sales. Why are games so special. ITS A "FREE" MARKET its up to the publishers / devs to get creative and figure out how to defeat the used market. Which in my opinion would be easier then any other used market.

K THNX BYE

<3

Actually, I think that there is a big difference between games and most other secondhand markets. As it was mentioned, cars are constantly losing their value. Part of that is because, unlike SOME big-name game franchises, you can expect a new release of most car models every year. But the real difference here is quality. The quality of the information on a disc does not deteriorate like a car does. Yes, the time a disc takes to wear down might be shorter than that of SOME car parts, but those are not legitimate comparisons, necessarily. Even if a game fails, the $60 replacement necessary won't approach the cost of replacing any meaningful car part that fails.

But that's not my point. If you buy a used car, there isn't much of a functionality guarantee. That's where the "lemon" term comes in, when you buy a seemingly-good car that ends up crappy. With games, you get something of a respectable grace period on the secondhand market (in the case of GameStop, 14 days). The proof of failure of a game is often immediate, as a disc imperfection can quickly lead to an unreadable disc. However, that used car you bought could seem fine for a month, then have the fuel pump or the transmission or whatever go out, leading to an expensive headache. This fact leads to two things that distinguish used games and used cars:

1. When you buy a used game, the game itself is basically guaranteed to be in like-new condition for less than the price of a new-game purchase. Essentially, buying a used game is like getting a brand new car at a discount for no legitimate reason. In almost all cases, if you have the opportunity to get a new car for the price of a used car, you'd take it.
2. Used games are not subject to the replacement parts that used cars are.

Imagine if you went to GameStop to get Halo 4. At launch, it would have been $60 new and $55 used. You'd prefer to get it used because it's 100% the same product for $5 less ($10 less if you're a part of their 10% discount club). Now, imagine if used games were ACTUALLY comparable to used cars. Instead of $55, you maybe get it for $45, because of the risk of failure. You buy it anyway, assuming the risks. After a month, you're on the second-to-last level, but wait, that level is broken. you have to pay $10 to have it fixed, or the game won't run anymore. After another couple of months, the online multiplayer map Complex has broken. It's another $5 to fix THAT. To make a used-car analogy, you need to consider what makes used cars both desirable (the lower cost), but also risky (unknown parts quality, often no long-term warranty).

Used games do not suffer from the constant fear of an expensive repair like cars (especially used ones) do. There is a greater certainty of quality in the used games market, and most failures NOT due to user error (scratching your own disc) are almost guaranteed to occur within a warranty window, meaning you don't have to fear about getting a 100% working replacement.

Used games are a very sturdy market because consumers can essentially guarantee that they will get the EXACT same product of the EXACT same quality as a $60 purchase for a new game. Yeah, you might miss an instruction manual or a game case on occasion, but you'd likely take a 5-10% discount on a new car if they took away such trivial things.
 

Polychrome

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\ In fact, via DLC, there are additional revenue streams. Gaming industry even gives special content on certain games that have codes to owners who buy the game new.

But what if the entire game was DLC? Wouldn't that be the easiest answer?

Oh, right. That was the Xbox 1 *with* the DRM. ;)

If cars are really that much of a good example, have you considered that GM can't seem to stay upright without being subsidized by the government? Like with used games, something eventually has to give.

(And before anybody mentions it, yes, I'm aware GM is a bloated, bureaucratic, union-ruled monstrosity that probably should have been allowed to go bankrupt a few years ago.)

There's more than enough examples presented in this thread that show how the car example really doesn't fly. Cars are a necessity that are high maintenance. There are people who literally rent the newest car yearly, and the dealers allow them to so they can get a steady stream of money for a year, then sell the car to boot with a service package and payment plan when the renter is done. I bought one such car, but as good a condition it was in (and it's still holding up pretty darn well), there was no denying that it was "used", and felt so. And now? Thanks to a few unlucky situations, I've picked up a few ugly dents. As much as I love the car, and as wonderful as it runs, and even though I've given it only synthetic oil, it's showing its age and is needing more and more care.

Games are just simply not subject to this. The used is exactly the same as the new. Your game system is likely to go before the disk does, and it seems console-makers typically sell at a loss.

The way things are going, I'm almost expecting all game devs to just say "screw it" and make exclusively cash-shop funded MMOs in a few years.
 
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NaNoo123

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The logical conclusion to the reason behind the 24-hour check-in was obviously for used games to co-exist with digital distribution...will be interesting to see how long the used game market will last in this next generation in spite of MS's reversal.
I think(my view) MS was probably trying to a accommodate everyone with their drm, even consumers although most may disagree with me.lol.
I doubt any publishers would've locked game down to no resale, just get a bit from it. People would boycott a total no second hand on a game.

Publishers wouldn't be in such a rush to go DD, where as now i think they will. They just have to make it compelling i.e. Cheap compared to disk.

Trouble is size of downloads. But with the fact you can borrow disk then purchase it digitally, i wonder if that's what people will do.
Just seems like GameStop think they've come out really well, when i think its worse for them.
 

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