Preowned hurts the industry more than piracy

[bingo83]

With the rise in popularity of Pre-owned titles in the large videogame retailers such as Game, Gamestation etc the pre-owned title is now starting to hurt the developers where it hurts - their profit margin.

Such retailers are now starting to push their large selection of pre-owned titles as their is more profit in it for them.

Publishers and game developers are the biggest losers in this market as they are losing out on consumers buying their original products with one sale going to them and there it ends.

The consumer can resell the videogame back to the retailer and the pre-owned cycle begins. One of my friends who works in Game tested out this theory by discretely marking a copy of Fight Night 3 on the Xbox 360. This game came into the shop as pre-owned on 7 occasions. That is a huge loss for the publisher and developer.

If the publisher had even half of those sales as brand new the whole market would be in a far greater position.

Publishers expect a certain amount of piracy of their products and there is a certain type of person who will never buy an original product. Publishers know they will never get a penny from these people, but the person who is buying pre-owned is hurting the industry more than the pirates.

Everyone likes a good deal but the only winner is the retailers who stock pre-owned titles.

Thoughts anyone?

[WACCOE]

Sounds about right, yeah.
It's illogical that it hurts them more than Piracy, though.
I always look in the pre-owned section 1st, when looking to get a new game, or on eBay.
Don't see the point in buying a few month old game, brand spanking new, tbh.

[phatmuther]

Well maybe they should lower the retail price to start with. I love going into game and seeing the same title on the 360, PS2, and PC with the 360 version at £40 with the PS2 at £25 and the PC at £18. Its their own ----ing fault. Dont get me wrong, I think what game stores are doing is bad, but there is a semi solution.

Or ---- it and download the games.

[bingo83]

It's illogical that it hurts them more than Piracy, though.


Publishers know that the pirate will never buy an original product. The pre-owned market hurts them more as they lose lots more sales with pre-owned than if the game was only available brand new.

Pre-owned should be outlawed with games more than 3 months old being made available to buy brand new for say £25 to £30. That way the publisher and developers still get their money for each and every sale rather than that money ending up in the hand of the retailer.

[damien©]

Ermmm What a complete pile of crap. When you Sell you Car, Do you send a Cheque to the Manufacturer so they get a cut?

You brought the game, so you now own it. You owe nothing to the Publishers and they can such my nut if they want a piece of the pie.

[bingo83]

Ermmm What a complete pile of crap. When you Sell you Car, Do you send a Cheque to the Manufacturer so they get a cut?

You brought the game, so you now own it. You owe nothing to the Publishers and they can such my nut if they want a piece of the pie.

Car manufacturers still get a piece of the pie through Spare Parts, extended warranties etc. The same cant be said about game publishers.

[damien©]

Car manufacturers still get a piece of the pie through Spare Parts, extended warranties etc. The same cant be said about game publishers.

Downloadable Content such as Maps, Picture Packs, Theme's and then there is Replacement Disks after they break. I'm sorry but I find that most Publishers, Developers, etc make far too much money as it is.

[Truplaya83]

Can you hear that? The violins playing?

Simple, make more, better longer lasting games so we dont have to trade them in. I will never trade in my GTA collection, or GoW now. Fight nihgt is another example of the ea cash machine chucking games out every 12 months, endless series, but they only last 2 months at best, so we trade them in.

Thats just the way the cookie crumbles

[Blaze Lord]

Yeah. I mean, it makes sense, I'm sure it's true. But the winner isn't just the retailer, it's the consumer as well. So, um. We don't care?

[HotFish]

Can you hear that? The violins playing?

Simple, make more, better longer lasting games so we dont have to trade them in. I will never trade in my GTA collection


Could'nt have said it better myself - no way will i ever ever get rid of my GTA collection running from GTA 3 to GTA VCS! which was £15-20 new and has limitless playtime.

I always thought that how they made their monies in the retailers selling games and made a reasonable profit from them. My ex's sister used to run an HMV and sell me games (well she bought them at cost to HMV then passed them to me at home) and i would get like old ps2's games rrp at the time of £40 for £22 even cheaper.

The good thing about pre-owned for retailers are they buy them back without VAT and sell them on without paying the VAT man either as they arent new! No?

But i agree the prices are wrong sell them cheaper, sell more! -as people have mentioned that why we are seeing loads of dlc from everyone esp EA! as they are putting less in to make people keep a hold of the disc to get that extra car or new map - good idea?

Anywho's make no difference we will still in the UK pay alot more than others - bar Norway right Rilu!

[JJBDude]

Games should retail much cheaper at lets say £20, then there's £20 worth of downloadable content to be bought from the Marketplace. This is good for both the publishers/developers and consumers, as gamers that don't have Xbox Live but buy Gears of War pay the £40 for Single Player, it would be better if they bought the game for £20 and if they ever did get Xbox Live could download the multiplayer section of the game on the Marketplace for lets say £10?

What do you lot think of my idea/solution then? lol

[mjmaskrey]

I agree with it hurting them...it hurts even more so when you have online functionality as the devs still have to support a person (playing a pre-owned game) who hasn't given them a penny.

Usually (but not all the time eh ;)) with piracy you forsake the online part so at least the devs don't have to offer continued support to the pirated game.

That's why a lot of devs won't like PSNetwork all too much as they have to supply all online functionality at their expense, recouping some of that expense with retail sales but getting jack from pre-owned users playing on their servers...won't be surprising to see a lot of PS3 games online support stop completely in the not too distant future. Good old listen servers used in XBL won't have that problem..just with EA and their own dedicated servers.

:)

[damien©]

I see no problem myself and what MJ says doesn't seem to add up...

Say for Instance 5,000 People buy the Next GTAIV, they will get 5,000 Consumer to support possibly. If I sell my Copy to Padds78, they will still have 5,000 Consumers. I am no longer a consumer as I don't have a copy of the game.

The main reason for someone to buy a Pre-Owned Game is Cost, they aren't buying it to piss of Companies, however some do. Plus if I sell my Copy of GTAVI, I then have some money to buy another game on the Market and if they have enough good games then I would continue to buy then trade which gives me more money to buy new games.

So what they are saying lacks credibility, the main question you have to ask yourself is "If You couldn't sell any of Your Games after Purchase, Would you be more or less strict with your Spending habits?"

[Blaze Lord]

won't be surprising to see a lot of PS3 games online support stop completely in the not too distant future.

Or charge for MP on a game-by-game basis, which Sony has said will happen.

[phatmuther]

Or charge for MP on a game-by-game basis, which Sony has said will happen.

Oooooo, ouch, very nasty.