Depends on your definition of 'a horde'. The industry patently thinks it will produce 'some'. Which is generally considered to be more than the 'none' they have now.


In my experience most of the people who download pirate games will do so regardless of the price of the game in the shops. However cheap they may be, they're never as cheap as 'free'.

In the end, the whole situation is leading the industry to push ahead with digital delivery and validation.In theory at least, that will serve their ends re: the second hand market and reduce piracy at the same time. Plus they get to keep the chunk of profit retailer & distributor normally cream off. It's a no lose situation as far as the industry is concerned.

I like the EA solution. Buy new and get extra content. Buy preowned and do without the content or pay EA a small fee for it. It seems pretty fair to me as a) shops can still sell preowned, b) those who chose to buy preowned still can and c) the devs stand to get some money back from preowned sales if people purchase the extra content.

Agreed, freeloaders will remain freeloaders, but my point was it is likely to drive some of the secondhand market customers towards piracy.

Unless that extra content is actually worth it I will wait for the games to join the bargain bin. No need to do anything illegal.

I've often wondered if the developers/publishers should be more concerned about just how quickly game prices drop online - it's bad if even I'm shocked

Presumably these games are just taking up valuable space in a warehouse somewhere otherwise

It must be lethal. The games are gone within a few months. Only to be found in bargain bins or eBay.

Quite a lot of the games industry thinks of people who buy second hand games as little better than pirates. Either way, the person is playing the game without having given the company that made it a penny. They're morally different but functionally identical.


The rumour is EA (I think it it) delivered a pile of unsold copies of APB to Realtime World's offices in a crate as a sign of their displeasure at it's sales.

Jon

Who takes the hit on the cut price games though? Is it the dev or the retailer/distributor?

In a way, I hope that's true

I would suspect developer. They are probably sold on a sale or return basis which would mean developer gets the hit. Though bought outright and the retailer takes the hit. Though the price offered is probably a lot better so that would reduce the price to the developer.

Sony 'exploring' Online Pass equivalent for first-party games - platform holder in support of paid used games initiatives

Sony is in support of publishers who've introduced systems to monetise the sale of second hand games, and plans to come up with a similar system of its own.

First pioneered by EA (with its Online Pass system) and later followed by THQ and Ubisoft, publishers have began incorporating systems in which purchasers of second-hand games are forced to pay an additional sum - around $10 - to gain access to the multiplayer modes of the title in an effort to profit from used game sales.

Sony's European president Andrew House said that Sony's in favour of such practices. "On the principle of making online portions of the game available or unlocked from the disc-based release for a fee, we're broadly supportive of that," he told GI.biz.

"And we're exploring actively the same option for our own content," he added.

Activision boss Bobby Kotick has showed interest in taking it further and charging a subscription fee for anyone wanting to play online in games like Call of Duty, in a proposed effort to monetise the astounding popularity of the series' multiplayer modes. But Sony's not too hot on that idea.

"In terms of just a charge for basic online play, that's something that we have to talk about a lot more and we struggle with a little bit because we feel very vindicated and base a lot of the success of PSN today - a 70 per cent connection rate across consoles - on the fact that we've removed that major initial barrier to entry," said House.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=261447

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Yes, that'll do wonders for your long term sales as people don't buy games unless they're absolutely certain they're gonna keep them

And even if it was effective, the game shops will start dropping their prices for second hand games... And even that's forgetting that the online modes for a lot of games are just an afterthought (where with MW2 for instance it seems to be the primary consideration).

I would suspect developer. They are probably sold on a sale or return basis which would mean developer gets the hit. Though bought outright and the retailer takes the hit. Though the price offered is probably a lot better so that would reduce the price to the developer.[/quote]

Errr no.
Developers are paid to produce a game with bonuses if it does well, that is as far as they are involved (possible making DLC etc)

Publishers/distributors are the ones that take the hit, it's why publishers can games and not devs

So publishers are getting ripped off. But Pre owned returns money back into new games. Maybe not 100% but a lot more than would otherwise be achieved. The average gamer might have a budget for the year. If they can get some money back from their old games to buy ore then they can buy more. If not they might be much more selective regarding new purchases. They might wait till the reviews are out. Which might actually be better for the magazines as their influence will increase. People like me might wait till the legit game is down to the price we want so they will still not be any better off. I am not going to experiment with a £50 game to discover I cannot play it. That will mean that people will have to try the game in-store to find that out for themselves.

I honestly dont think I'd have bought Mass Effect 2 full price if I did not trade in AC2. Not that I'd have bought it preowned, I'd have waited for it to come down in price. Without the preowned market EA/Bioware would have missed out on my full price purchase.

I wouldn't have bought my PS3 at all if I didn't think second-hand games were an option, not to mention that if you find a game that's well made you start to wonder what else the company has done (Black as an immediate example)...