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Lionhead: Used games are worse than piracy |
Listed in: News Tags: lionhead, mike west, piracy
Lionhead's Mike West had some interesting words to say about the used game market that GameStop has made so popular.
"Piracy these days on PC is probably less problematic than secondhand sales on the Xbox," West said. "I've been working on PC games for many years and piracy is always a problem."
"There are a lot of honest people out there as well, and if they like your game they'll buy it. The pirates, whatever you do on whatever system, they will crack it," he continued. "It might take no time."
"I think the longest it's taken to happen is two days. Someone will crack it somewhere and there's not much you can do about it. It's just a depressing situation we're in that people don't think it's worth spending money on computer games."
I'm not exactly sure how it's worse than stealing a game, but considering used game sales don't go to the publisher, it's certainly an issue for them.
via Destructoid
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Frowning upon second hand sales it to hate the first sale doctrine, and ownership laws are very specific; if you own something, you can sell it. This includes the license to play an authorised copy of a game. Games are not a service.
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and piracy is not steeling its using unlicensed software unless u are making a profit on it (aka counterfeiting) , and if u look at it from the publisher or devs standpoint there is no difference in selling a used product, or counterfeiting
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So, I wait till game'X' is $8 at some place like ebgames.
F__k - if the used game market didn't exist, Piracy would reign with a much tighter grip than anyone would immagine and gamers would turn to buying a few titles a year and pirating the rest... now is that REALLY what douche bags like Mr. West want?
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wheres my like button?!
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Also used games are those who just don't want to spend all that money on games who are now a days just unfinished. I remember per ordering Force Unleashed II only to to play it after school and beat it in one sit in. Pirates do what they want when they want if if games are as good as they are advertise I've known some to actually go and buy it so i can attest to that.
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So selling Pirated Games is not like a huge business loss fro the devs.
But selling original discs that come with the box and you don't get in trouble with the law can be sold at 20% to 40% off the retail price and when older, upto 70% off the retail price.
So if You want for Example Halo Reach new, it will cost you %59.99, if you find it used, it will cost you the chepeast %30 bucks, if you buy it pirated let's say "Tepito" Mexico... $2 bucks.
The reason why they see used games business worse than piracy it cause of the profits, and believe it or not, there is way more ppl that use original games used rather than pirated... NOT EVERYONE HAS THEIR CONSOLES FLASHED!
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your absolutely right. Also at the same time games are expensive today $60 is sometimes to much for people to buy new games so people just get what ever money they can find and get a used game but like you say at least their honest about it.
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All this is (yet again) is a case of greed. If they're that worried about games being sold on pre-owned then maybe they should make the bloody things worth keeping!
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I would arguy that used game can actually help sales of new games but it all relative. The person who buys a used game, may have never bothered to buy that game at a higher new game price in the first place but is now taking the plunge because of the lower price point. Once they buy the game and like it they might be more willing to buy brand new copy of the sequel or pay for DLC.
I bought HAWX used, like it and bought HAWX 2 brand new. If I would have never picked up the used copy of HAWX, Ubisoft wouldn't have seen me buy HAWX 2.
Another example is I bought Fallout 3 used and enjoyed it so much that I purchased all DLC for it, purchased New Vegas brand new, and just recently purchased Fallout 3 and all of it's DLC on Games for Windows Live during the 50% special they had.
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so its like if 5% of profit for each pre-owned game went back to the developer, im sure they wouldnt be so glum it means one copy if resold alot of times may make asmuch as 3-4 copies new, so if second hand games sellers say ok we will give 5% of each pre-owned sale back to the developer, maybe developers could use that extra profit to create less buggy games and half finished games because after 3-5 months they will sell about 5 copies of their old game full price due to the fact there is like 40 pre-owned copies placed right next to the new copies in stores,
Instead they are now finding clever ways to screw over the stores by including stupid online codes like mortal kombat, all this crap just because pre-owned stores are raking it in off the developers work
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I personally don't buy a brand new game till the price is around $40 for a fairly new release (Amazon or Best Buy special sale promotion) or $20 or $30 for an older released game. If their game started out at $30 and $40 dollars maybe more gamers like myself would take the plunge and buy a brand new game right away.
Why don't these developers stop bitching about used games and concentrate on making quality new games so that gamers are less likely to sell them and put them into the used market. Theres quite a few games I purchased new that I still have because of the quality and replayability. Mass Effect 1 & 2, Left 4 Dead 2, GTA IV, Dragon Age Origins, Forza, and Fallout 3 and New Vegas are just a few that come to mind.
1 game a month at $60 is over $800/year when tax is taken into equation. If I'm able to resell each game at $25 each, that gives me back $300 a year which I can use to buy 5 more new games.
These developers and publishers are complete idiots to think that consumers have unlimited cash laying around to spend on $60 entertainment software. And any time someone comes forward saying they're "frustrated" about the used game market, I think F.U. douchebag. It's easy to bitch while you're driving your Ferrari.
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Some people just can't afford to buy any game. And for the PC, you can't trade them in cause of the serial codes. So to me pirating is just a way to try most games out. Ofcourse I won't buy EVERY game, but I do for most. Some games I might have never bought if I couldn't try them out first.
And seriously, doesn't EVERY business face the second hand market? I bought my motorcycle on a website from another person, but Yamaha won't ever care about that will they? xD Only people in the game industry whine about this.
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The USB protection scheme is really unobtrusive to the gamer, hard to crack and doubles as a profile key so just plug in the key to a different PC with the game installed and your profile is good to go.
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piracy isn't wrong... it's a choice between giving up control and taking it back.
to buy new, you generally need to do it at or near launch for all but the biggest titles... someone please point me in the direction of a new (*unopened* you gamestop fucks) copy of blue dragon.
this removes the ability for the consumer to make an informed purchase without purchasing the game. they then decide they don't like it and "trade" it in for about half what they paid for it. guess what, used game sales are at least 50% the industry's fault for this reason alone.
i used to pirate everything before i bought them new... after being burned on a few collectors editons... and now the invention of the "online pass", and current financial state... i just don't buy anything anymore.
pre-order bonuses don't help... the hardcore buy multiple copies for the exclusives and trade them in or resell them... so stop doing it.
just give the consumer what they want... CHEAP. they will spend way more on cheap stuff than they will expensive stuff. why the fuck is this so hard to grasp?
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Then you read stories like this, where companies moan and groan over used games and movie sales.
What people need to realize is that you have clear cut fair use rights with physical media, INCLUDING the right of first sale, which is what makes selling used authentic copies of software legal in the first place.
Move to a distribution model to where there is no physical media and the game literally changes.
As there would be no physical media that you must buy which would represent your legal license to the content, your rights to what you can and can't do with content obtained through a legal download or through streaming would have to be dictated by an end user license agreement rather than what was established under copyright law through fair use provisions, undoubtedly with terms that benefit the companies at the expense of the customer.
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A very good example of this is the incident with Amazon.com and electronic books sold to Kindle customers. A couple of books by George Orwell were deleted off of customer's Kindles without their consent because it turned out Amazon.com had no right to sell the books to their customers.
Amazon.com did refund customers their money, but the point is that the customers had no choice and no control over the process.
This is in contrast to what had happened with copies of "Tetris" by Tengen for the NES when it was realized that Atari had no rights to publish the game. Copies that were already sold could not be taken back unless customers voluntarily gave them up because of the right of first sale. Though the program code is the property of Tengen, the physical media containing it would be the property of the customer. All Tengen could do was recall unsold stock.
For the Kindle, even though the Kindle is your property, the end user terms you agreed to in order to buy the electronic book overrides the fair use right of first sale because your purchase of the book didn't come to you originally in any physical form; it was downloaded to your device electronically.
Physical media = competition and greater control by the customer.
The used game market is competitive to new software sales.
Eliminate the used game market by establishing only downloadable games and you leave no way for prices of new software sales to be regulated by the market except with other new games; the companies can continue to sell downloads for the same price as games on discs, knowing that players would be forced to buy the downloads at full price as there would not be a used source for the same.
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