If the internet grapevine puts forth truthful fruits, the next Xbox console will have some kind of built-in used game deterrent - thus bringing about the End Times, when pipe-wielding mobs roam the streets and rivers run black with publisher blood. We suspect there's more of glitter than gold to this particular gossip-nugget, but then, we recall being similarly unconvinced by reports that Nintendo had named a console after a noxious yellow fluid. Strange things can and do happen.
Microsoft's new console is a protean uncertainty. It could be anything, from a cuddly Kinect hub to a power-guzzling, fidelity-sweating beast. On the off-chance, then, that somebody deep in the R&D dungeons sincerely believes that adding systems that wall out pre-owned customers is anything other than a terrible idea, here's a list of alternative ways to tackle the "problem" - some proposed by industry figures, others dredged from the seething tureens we like to call brains. Certain of these suggestions are doubtless more practical, less laughable than others. We'll leave it to better men and women (read: you) to tell the difference.
We respect that the publishers have bones to pick with pre-owned gaming. It's a massive commercial ecosystem that depends on their input but gives absolutely nothing in return. But up to a point, publishers only have themselves to blame. New game prices are catastrophically high, and no, pointing to cinema tickets or DVDs isn't going to convince anybody - consumers don't console themselves with neat little commercial ratios when they confront unpleasantly large numbers. However much bang you're getting, £40 and over is a lot to spend on mere entertainment. Many of us have washing machines to repair, EA. And shoes to patch.
Some games are worth the sum, arguably - massive RPGs like Skyrim, for instance, or unending online fraggers like Battlefield or Modern Warfare - but they're the peaks in a world of troughs. We enjoyed Bodycount, but in hindsight, we're not sure we'd pay more than £20 for it - the gunplay isn't industry-leading and there aren't enough reasons to go back. Publishers need to take into account the results of testing when assigning price points, calculating whether the delightful wackiness of a title like Shadows of the Damned justifies charging full whack for an eight hour campaign. It's by no means an easy task, but it's one the industry should be more prepared to undertake.
2. Release more digital games
Of course, publishers aren't the only ones who have a say in how games are priced; as Matt wrote last year, retailers favour high-value stock so they have more room to manoeuvre in terms of reductions. Which leads us to point number two. Make a game for brick-and-mortar retail, and you've got printing and distribution costs to swallow, besides being obliged to haggle with retailers. Plump for digital distribution, and the costs dwindle. Result: more freedom to play with pricing options. Mainstream exposure is harder to come by when you release a game online - can't beat the high street for popular presence - but there's more scope for a long sales tail, as you're not dealing with limited shelf space.
41 comments so far...
CunningSmile on 9 Feb '12 said:
Of course the World economy has come up with a better solution all by itself: Game are going bust and everyone else is pulling out of used games. No used game vendors, no used game problem
Clanger67 on 9 Feb '12 said:
I agree something needs doing were the benefits of pre owned get back to the people who made the game.I only stick up for pre owned because i only got my 360 slim middle of last year.Before that i had the 60gb 360 more or less not long after it came out.My point being i am still getting games when i can that came out two or three years ago.In some cases i have been able to get these new but in a lot of cases i have had to get pre owned for availibility.If instead of locking the disc when you first buy it they could introduce a way to be able to reinstate that disc if you sell it.And obviously charge you a small sum to activate it as you are obviously making a massive saving by buying it pre owned.
msbhvn on 9 Feb '12 said:
That's a bit of an overstatement, Cunning. GAME aren't quite going bust, they're in difficulties, mostly because of their own price gouging and having too many outlets, both of which are easily fixed.
I haven't heard of any retailers saying they're getting out of used games, even Argos have pre-owned games. Even if all the retailers who sell new stop selling pre-owned, CEX will still buy and sell used games like they do with DVDs, Blu-ray discs, CDs, mobile phones, computers, and so on. It's perfectly legal and the publishers have no right to stop it.
Going download only won't eliminate the problem as MS still need retailers to sell the console in the first place and the retailers will want games to sell as well as the console.
Eliminating pre-owned sales will harm sales of new games, because a lot of people only buy new games at full price because they know they'll be able to get most of it back if the game's a pile of s***.
Clanger67 on 9 Feb '12 said:
Sorry i know this is a bit off topic again but according to cvg,lol,game are being bailed out by the banks but are being recommended to lose overseas assets.But then i am not suprised they charge nearly as much for pre owned than if it was new.
SolaceConquest on 9 Feb '12 said:
I don't think it would be right to put a pre-owned system in the new xbox. Sometimes I can wait for months and but pre-owned and get the same level of enjoyment out of the game as the poor sap who paid £45 for the same title.
Sure there needs to be some way that perhaps the publishers get something out of Pre-owned (I don't agree with MP online codes, but I know why they're doing it and can respect the decision to try get more money), but you have to see it from the retailers point of view too. They're the ones who paid out for the game, so they should be the one to get the money back from it.
I really dislike this new feature and I do feel it could alienate some gamers who can't always afford to buy brand new titles. I could actually see, sales of the new console not being as high as the 360 if they do block some pre-owned titles from not working to full capicity, if at all.
Bezza89 on 9 Feb '12 said:
If you wait 6 months a game is usually half price or less new anyway, preowned is for really cheap stuff, and any pass is not breaking the bank - all are 800mp that I've seen and when you get a good deal preowned anyway there's no argument.
CunningSmile on 9 Feb '12 said:
HMV and most of the supermarkets that tried to dabble in preowned have all said they are ceasing it or dialling it back significantly after it turned out not to be a license to print money like they assumed.
And frankly I think Game deserve to go bust. I don't have anything against them personally but I am an economist and if you can't make money when you are pretty much the ONLY specialist retailer in a field and your field has just had a) one of the biggest years on record, b) the launch of Kinect which has become one of the fastest selling technologies ever and c) MS saying it was their biggest year ever, than you don't deserve to succeed as a business, anymore than a man dying of thirst in an Evan factory deserves pity.
Bezza89 on 9 Feb '12 said:
Evan or Evian? I hope the former, for the hilarious images it conjurs in your scenario. PS The companions glitch has been sorted, I know you also had the same problem.
Clanger67 on 9 Feb '12 said:
I agree though i have tended to steer away from game for years.I did make a profit out of them when i traded my ps2 and a few games in for the original xbox and they ended up giving me 90p,lol.
CunningSmile on 9 Feb '12 said:
Sorry typing error, I meant Evian and not a factory that produces people with a popular Welsh name
And cheers for the Skyrim heads up. It's the only real glitch I've had and it was becoming weird that my combat focused character had become Arch mage and Thieves Guild Leader but not finished the combat focused thread.
msbhvn on 9 Feb '12 said:
I know GAME are evil and stupid, you don't have to convince me. I had seven (admittedly old and s***) games to trade in a couple of weeks back and had one of those bags that gave you an extra pound for each game. I got £16.20 total, trade-in, not cash. CEX would have given me a bit more even if I went for cash, but I thought the extra pound per game would have tipped the balance. Never again. At least with CEX you can check how much your stuff is worth before you leave the house.
Hadn't heard that about HMV, I stand corrected. The only supermarket I've bought games from is Morrisons and they've never done pre-owned.
ipsofacto on 9 Feb '12 said:
Go crazy with DLC for full-price games!!!!
jimbob30 on 9 Feb '12 said:
i love the xbox 360 console and hearing about the next xbox is always interesting.but the idead to block pre owned games is a dumb move for a start.as what would happen if sony dont do this to the next playstation they would be the console of choice.i do think that every pre owned game that gets brought half the money from that game should go to the devs
Windowlicker79 on 9 Feb '12 said:
I think the best solution is to have online multiplayer content locked. This is the only fair way they can do it.
Think about it. What right do they have to get extra income from the sale of 2nd hand games? None whatsoever. That business model doesn't apply to any other product. If I sell my TV, are Samsung entitled to earn money from it? Will the person I sell it to have to pay them a fee in order for it to work? The same applies for everything else. Every other consumer product. Cars, furniture, DVDs, hifi, refrigerators, washing machines, houses, lamps, clothes, .... no other industry expects to get any profit from 2nd hand sales of their products.
The only thing they can legitimately claim to have any right to make further profit on from 2nd hand sales is games that have online functionality. This is because servers need to be kept online. This is why I think every game should have all its online functions locked with a pass system.
joeyraccoon on 9 Feb '12 said:
If they REALLY want to kill off the pre-owned market then all it would take would be CHEAPER GAMES.
If the games were cheaper to start with then more people would BUY NEW GAMES and less people would be forced to EXCHANGE RECENT GAMES to get the new games, which is the driving force behind the whole "pre-owned" market.
In short , if that £40+ game was £30 instead then it would sell twice as many copies.
(probably).
Pompey78 on 9 Feb '12 said:
A couple of years ago I became aware that pre owned meant 100% revenue for the retailer and 0% for the publisher etc.
That changed my purchasing habits. Now I tend to wait anything from a few weeks to a few months to buy a game I want once it's come down in price NEW instead of pre owned.
I do this because the games industry that create the games don't get anything from pre owned. And that's from someone who is a shareholder in GAME !!!
Personally I think a retailer that has the balls to come out and say I'm prepared to give 25% of the profit from pre owned games back to the relevant pubclishers etc will be going the right way. I'm sure they'd get more stock, be able to price point better etc.
As for GAME themselves their difficulties IMHO are down to having to many stores, and therefore too many staff along with having lost their focus. It's not 2006 after all ! times have changed.
I do think that the complete removal of the preowned market would be detrimental in the long run as there are many other consumers who can't afford to buy new or even new at reduced prices.
I often see benefit mums in GAME screaming at their kids that they can only afford 3 not 4 pre owned games before they give them a smack and trot off to the benefits office
,
Cdr JamesCool on 9 Feb '12 said:
I think that pre-owned games should just be removed. Many people who have bought pre-owned have enjoyed the game so much that they went and bought the sequel new, so the developer doesn't miss out in the end. Also, getting store credit or cash for used games can help people who arn't exactly 'in the money' to invest that credit in a new game. The pre-owned market does help the developers in the long run, but I do understand that decreasing it a bit would help a little, remember that most devs are with big companies like EA who are hardly gonna lose much at all due to preowned purchases, enormous amounts of people buy games new anyway.
What I cannot stand for is online passes, they should be abolished. In their place, offer the loyal customer who went out and bought the game new some extra DLC, instead of penalising the smaller number of people who buy pre-owned. When someone buys the game new, they have payed for their online spot, when someone buys pre-owned they are using an online spot that has already been paid for, so this is not going to cause any extra strain on the servers and doesn;t add extra cost to running them.
ridinglikesatan on 10 Feb '12 said:
Easiest way of doing it, continue with the online pass, except do it for offline or the most important content. For offline content, make the DLC code an on disk readable one, so offline users don't get screwed. And allow offline codes to be ordered over the internet, by mail or phone.
Thos. on 10 Feb '12 said:
I'd be happier with downloadable games if they had more significant offers. If you look at Steam on the PC, they have regular amazing sales of big bundles of old games for a few dollars.
Microsoft presumably think significant sales will diminish the value of product, so they're charging the same price for games that they did when they launched three+ years ago.
I can imagine that sales figures for most games over six months old are as good as zero. If MS threw us regular impressive sales bundles, they'd make an absolute killing, and we'd get some cheap classics (and help "kill pre-owned".)
Chameleon on 10 Feb '12 said:
My objection is that my son has my old 360 in his room - what happens when he wants to play online? Have I got to fork out for the an online pass for him? Why? The game is NOT second-hand, it's just being used on a different profile and console in the same household. There's always an unintentional byproduct with these sorts of things, and passes don't JUST hit second-hand sales.
Also, if you're making me pay, you'd better leave the servers up and running for as long as I want to play. Turn them off 18 months down the line, and I want a percentage back. After all, they're just doing this to get their 'percentage' of the price you paid, why shouldn't I get a percentage back when they screw me over??
Be up-front and offer anyone who buys the game a year's worth of online MP included in the price, which has to be renewed 12 months later regardless of whether you buy new or not, and at least the publisher is being honest. A ****, maybe, but at least an honest ****.
Happened to me with Gears. Bought #2 pre-owned, bought #3 day one, along with a season pass. Epic hooked me with a low-cost punt on a pre-owned game, and I haven't looked back.
Pre-owned doesn't kill games, developers and publishers. Crap games do.
Bezza89 on 10 Feb '12 said:
Well, it is second hand because your son is not the first hand owner of the game, like giving someone a hat you've owned, it's then second hand whether it's given to your wife or Bobby the strangely prompt mexican. Hear me out on this, my brother has an xbox and he can't play stuff I own with pass content. In this case, it's generally best to allow them to play on the console with a pass or sign in with the downloaded pass on his console- it's hardly the best thing in the world, but if you don't want to pay the £6 it's a good way to compromise. If your son lived elsewhere you can see how it would affect it.
Clanger67 on 10 Feb '12 said:
I didn't realise there were many mexicans called bobby,lol.
CunningSmile on 10 Feb '12 said:
Not so prompt, I've been waiting for my new sombrero for months now, I've got a poncho and nothing to go with it!
Chameleon on 10 Feb '12 said:
I agree that if my son lived elsewhere, then the second-hand rule (very loosely) applies. Fact is: he doesn't.
He can grab a blu-ray off the shelf downstairs, take it upstairs and have full functionality. Same with a book (though I take the point that that's entertainment equivalency taken to an extreme).
But if I buy a game for the family to enjoy, I should be able to expect that game to work on each of the machines in the household to its fullest extent.
My point is the codes intended to put a dent in the use of pre-owned games have other consequences, and do not just effect the pre-owned market. Fifteen years ago, I could have taken a game round to a friend's house and had full functionality. Now, just because half that game (or more - CoD, I'm looking at you) is online, the publishers feel they are now able to screw a few more pennies out of us.
Clanger67 on 10 Feb '12 said:
Trouble is unlike any other media when you buy a game you and only you are also buying the license to use that game.
Bezza89 on 10 Feb '12 said:
You still can, you just need your gamertag - handily available within cloud storage if no usbs are memory stick converted. I'm just pointing out that even though he's in your house it is second hand, technically, and there is an easy way around it, it's (the pass) not all bad, and it seems the best way of dealing with preowned sales, and £6 is nothing when you consider how cheap preowned is.
Bobby the mexican is prompt, he's just not compos mentis.
Chameleon on 10 Feb '12 said:
I'll have to disagree with your definition of second-hand and your statement that pre-owned games are cheap. The game was bought for the family and is still in the family. It is definitely not second-hand.
You want fair with passes - make it so that the game comes with two or three passes, that have to be redeemed with 24 hours of each other. I can use it, if I want to be able to take it to a friend's house, I have 24 hours to choose which friend(s), or can set it up for my wife's or son's profile. Otherwise, the publisher is screwing me over. And I really feel that I'm not being unreasonable with that language, because that is what it amounts to.
I can load my profile onto his box, but sometimes that means me being signed in if he wants to be online - hardly a good solution.
And no-one has commented on what happens when the servers your pass is paying for (if you take some earlier comments) is taken offline. IMO, that is 100% unacceptable, however many years down the line it might be, unless you go for the pass=12months of use at a time option. The 'honest **** publisher' option. Turn every game with an online component into a WoW clone.
Bezza89 on 10 Feb '12 said:
My definition is what I think is the correct one, please let me know yours - and if preowned games aren't cheap then why buy preowned?
.
I can't see why this isn't a good solution, this solves all pass problems so that you don't need codes at your friends house or on your xbox, they can still play regardless if you are signed in but not playing... unless you are lending a game out - with them receiving it second hand, regardless of whether you still own it. The only problem would be with your sons xbox, but you could just play on your own xbox on another profile - yes this isn't ideal but it works, as opposed to multiple passes in one case which would render the pass useless to the devs/pubs because you could resell with a few passes having only using one of them and the devs/pubs get nothing.
Chameleon on 10 Feb '12 said:
Second-hand means it has left the hand of the first intended recipient. I buy many games 'for my family'. If it is within 'my family' it is not second hand.
On pre-owned, Game, for example, never sell pre-owned at more than a couple of quid cheaper than they are selling new copies, and give no extra for unused online passes. I got FIFA12 free with my latest 'box, and traded it in immediately. Got nothing extra for an unused pass, and you can bet it was on display for £40 within an hour. It is entirely possible to purchase used copies and, in purchasing an online pass, to have shelled out more than buying new. Why would you do this? I have no idea, as I don't do it. But I'm sure it happens to some.
Multiple passes that have to be redeemed within a certain timeframe of the primary pass could work, but would probably require the way Live works to be modified. Maybe an extra "2" on the end of the original code, making it one character longer? I don't know, but I'm sure it could be coded if publishers pressed MS for it. Alternately, it really isn't one game passed on once that the developers/publishers should be worried about - it's rentals, or a game being traded in numerous times, and one extra code shouldn't kill them off. Better games, that people want to own, keep and replay would be a start...
CunningSmile on 10 Feb '12 said:
One of the biggest problems with comparing games (particularly predominately online games like CoD) to books or DVDs when discussing second hand is that those don't have the ongoing expense to the publisher that a game does. The book publisher doesn't have to keep producing paper every time someone reads their books, and Universal doesn't have to pay the actors and directors if you lend a DVD to a mate but games developers do have ongoing costs associated with you being online, even if they don't have dedicated servers MS charge them for the use of Live as well as the ongoing stat tracking and balance issues that the bigger companies usually monitor.
Chameleon on 10 Feb '12 said:
Again, I'll say you can do one of a few things: -
i. Go down the WoW route, and charge by the month/year,
ii. Build the cost into the number of units you sell (yes, individual, first-hand copies), as has been the case for years, and which some devs still adhere to (Epic, for instance)
iii. Choose an online pass - but if you charge me, even as a second-hand purchaser, you must *NEVER* turn those servers off without, say, a one month period of *ZERO* activity, unless you intend to compensate me fairly.
Let's face it, maintaining one extra server does sweet FA to a publishing house's figures. If only a few people are left playing FIFA09, then maintenance is minimal as well. One guy looking in every day going "yup, still ok - now what's happening with the load on the twenty FIFA15 servers?"
Alright, that's overly simplistic, and there are other costs as well, not least MS. But if you want gamers to continue to buy your product, and the online passes required for it, you have to accept your role in everything as well. And minimal gamers does equal minimal running costs for the most part. In the meantime, servers DO get turned off, and I can understand that, but once someone pays for precisely that, it's distinctly more distasteful.
Cdr JamesCool on 11 Feb '12 said:
When it comes to ongoing costs for servers, when a person buys a game, they also buy an online spot. When they trade the game in and someone else gets it pre-owned they are using that spot that the first buyer already payed for, this doesn't cost the publishers anything extra, and as for the money they don't get from pre-owned sales, compared to what thy made for the game anyway, is peanuts really. Online passes are not a good idea, and should be replaced with good DLC bonuses to the first hand buyer as a reward. Online passes are just a stupid hassle, even for first hand buyers. I just want to play the game not type some code to give me access to half the content. Anyway thats just my view on this subject.
Bezza89 on 11 Feb '12 said:
Problem with that James is when someone trades it in they don't relinquish the spot on the server to the next buyer, the server spot is unique to the player so that later down the line you can play again if you want and have all of your statistics and levels still available, a game traded in a lot will have 4 spots from one purchase say, and imagine that even ten fold and you have 5 empty 8 player servers running, imagine how many games really get traded in and work out how many empty spaces on servers there are - it could be very costing.
Bezza89 on 11 Feb '12 said:
You have a problem with a one time payment for a used game's online component of six pounds but promote the idea of monthly charging?
Hadouken545 on 11 Feb '12 said:
I personally have never agreed with the online pass.If I go and buy a game like I have done for the past 12 years of my life and want to play multiplayer along with the person sat next to me why should I now have to pay more? Yes running servers cost money, but if 3 years after a games release there are still people playing online then they obviously did something right. How is it fair to then say thanks for everything, thanks for being loyal, say good bye to your multiplayer.
I totally agree with the extra dlc for buying new route. This has actually already influenced my decision of game purchases already. Brink for example, yes they were just a couple of in game costumes but they looked pretty sweet so I bought it for £20 new instead of £15 pre owned. Then again I have also bought many titles pre-owned just because of the deals that they were in store. Gamestations 2 for £20 for example, I always check them when I go into my local store and they always have some good things in them. Though price cock ups with pre-owned I believe are quite funny. I once went in store to buy a copy of Metroid prime, looked in both the new and pre-owned, new it cost £5 preowned cost £10. This still happens today with things such as Skyrim, when it went for £20 there were preowned copies for £37. Just makes you think if they are able to sell games that cheap so soon after launch why not just bring the price of all games down a bit in general. With the sales big games like gears, cod, battlefield, etc get would £5 or even £10 less per unit really to much for a developer and publisher to take.
Cdr JamesCool on 11 Feb '12 said:
I understand where you are coming from but the person who traded the game in no longer has the game so they won't be able to use the servers to play. As for the empty servers, well that just seems to be people moving on to other games, it's inevitable.
Bezza89 on 11 Feb '12 said:
Yeah they wont use the servers, but the devs don't know you don't have the game anymore and keep it open in case everyone goes online at once, I haven't played GoW 2 in ages, but epic will still have my stats and stuff for when I want to check out the old game, but I could have traded it in and epic are none the wiser.
Cdr JamesCool on 11 Feb '12 said:
I know but this doesn't cost them much as this is just memory. I understand that, in the case of the smaller devs, they do need the money that they don't get from pre-owened sales but alot of people can't afford £40 for a title that they are unsure about. Pre-owned sales can, in the long run, help the devs. If I enjoy a pre-owned game that I was unsure about I'll most likely buy a sequel on release.
VirtualCynic on 12 Feb '12 said:
I don't buy second-hand simply because I prefer new. I'm a lot more choosy about what titles I buy as a result, but that's why I rely on website reviews (and OXM) to make my choices. And the fact that I like to take the cellophane off.
As for online passes, I think that a single pass should be redeemable against all members of the same Live Gold Family pack. Just saying.
The idea that MS could block used games for the next Xbox is ridiculous and will harm sales of both console and games. If you are limited to your copy of a particular game being locked to your console, then you can't even lend it to a friend to try out, let alone sell it to them when you've finished with it.
Oh and urine is actually sterile, but you still wouldn't want to drink it.
Kettch on 12 Feb '12 said:
Kill preowned, you kill high street specialists, you screw consumers. At the stage of the console cycle, retailers make more profit from preowned than they can hope to make on new products. Most of that goes into the company to cover operating expenses, which happen to cover purchasing the latest releases. If preowned is removed from the equation, profitability falls, and new games cannot be bought in with stock enough to meet consumer demand.
As for pricing, how often do you see brand new games being traded for £30? Its frequent, I assure you, I know people in retail, and have made those trade ins. They charge maybe £35 or a bit more for that copy, and its only a fiver profit, and theyll have lost money on buying something else. Look at CEX. Their business model is almost entirely 2nd hand, and based on trades. Yes, they give good prices. But. A large proportion of what they do currently is for cash. The rest is against other products. That takes physical money out of the company. You cant pay the rent of shops with cds and laptops.
If you actually want to be able to buy consoles in the next cycle, you have to support your high street stores. The specialists go, what are you left with? A John Lewis electrical department that will have an unjustly poor selection? A supermarket that doesnt have the space to buy in the levels GAME and gamestation do? Preowned helps retailers stay in business in this stage of the cycle. It cant be killed off.
If you dont like preowned, no-one is forcing you to buy it
Chameleon on 14 Feb '12 said:
You missed my point - if you are going to charge me anything, you'd better be 100% upfront about how long my paid-for multiplayer component is going to last. No small-print crap about how this can be withdrawn at any time, then withdraw it two months after I've paid.
If you're going to screw your consumers over - which is what is happening - be upfront and honest about it. I don't like the WoW model, but at least if they announced they were going to turn the servers off, no-one could complain about losing subs money, since they'd just stop paying.
But a far better plan is to NOT have a pass, and just make sure that no-one wants to trade the game in, by being a superior game that's backed up post-release by the devs.