Epic: Second hand games are a huge issue
Gears of War sold well, but more than twice as many people who bought it, played it according to Epic.
Capps also said that piracy was a huge issue for PC games specifically, pointing to Crysis as an example. According to Capps the ratio of pirated to non-pirated versions for Crysis was a staggering 20:1. Capps says that's why Epic has no intention to release Gears of War 2 on the PC, not ever.
"That's gruesome to a company like ours that's been in the PC market for so long," he said to GI.biz. "We're trying to fix it, there's a new alliance of companies trying to make PC gaming work again. But if people are playing games without buying them, then the games aren't going to keep coming."
Right now though, Capps is more concerned with the second hand market, saying that Epic's primary retailer makes the majority of its money from second hand sales despite being a specialist games store.
"We don't make any money when someone rents it, and we don't make any money when someone buys it used - way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it."
The solution, says Capps, is a platform like Steam which can feed back to developers sales figures and cash on the same day.
"We're able to respond immediately. That model's so wonderful from a developer perspective, not just making money, but knowing where my customers are and being able to make them happy. With retail, I just don't have that - I get 'Oh Europe came back with this many numbers,' and I get that 60 days after we ship."
Capps also reckons that DLC is going to play a more important role in the future, but what do you think about that? Let us know in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyMy new policy on games with DRM is to buy second hand and never actually install from the disk that way i get to stick to my principles of not giving drm loving scum bags any money and still getting to play any decent games with out being a scum sucking pirate (much). Which also goes for crap games such as those that epic have been shoveling of late.
WTF not happy with screwing out PCs with DRM. It also stops us selling our games so we can get more money to buy more games. I used to think when you bough something you owned it. Not any more.
Hell when i buy my car ill be expecting it to start only 100 times and be un-trade inable!
Piracy may be hurting the games industry. BUT they are ruining it, and it doesnt help when we get "We are not releasing this game on PC". Then they do 2 years later in a **** port. THATS WHY NO ONE BUYS IT!!!
Lets face it Gears of war 2 is 40 quid in the shops right now second hand in a week it will be 35. rented a fiver. if your like me and at the moment have too many games to play Far cry 2, fallout 3, COD5 and L4D in a week. then it's easier to wait for some games to come down in price any way. Bring down the prices and piracy has a good chance of dissapearing, if not reducing.
yeh when people are buying preowned games, charging us more in the future after we buy a game is definately a way to stop us buying preowned. Sound counter intuative?
I cant see that the preowned market is a huge problem really. When im buying a game, if im really interested in a game i dont mind paying full price, for something im less bothered about i wont. in that way if there wasnt a preowned market i wouldnt be bothered buying some average games at all. so they arent lossing anything in my opinion because otherwise i wont buy it. the preowned market may even be stimulating the new market, im sure some people like the idea of buying a game and getting some of your money back after a month or so, so maybe they can go out and buy another(i myself begrudge selling a game to a shop so they can put it back on the shelf for twice the price they but it of me- thats just the way i see it)
also, profit made from preowned goes to the game shops which is probably goin towards the price we pay making them cheaper as they have income coming into them in from other sources which is probably stimulating the new market aswell.
Why are we the consumer the problem and publishers feel they have to trick us into buying games new or paying more instead of the industry looking at themselves to fix the problem
the consumer is always goin to do whats in their best interest, just the way it is
but then you are spending money and none of it is going to the people who made the game. you're basically pirating the game but paying for it :S
broken logic much?
This whole Piracy issue isn't the causal factor of this industry's problems as "business leaders" like this guy keep whining about, it's the RESULT MADE POSSIBLE BY THE EMERGENCE OF NEW TECHNOLOGY, as a reaction to poor service and inflated prices for years, as well as a few opportunistic chancers who like something for nothing... On that point, by the way, can all you self-righteous hypocrites flaming the act of piracy as though it was rape or murder just calm down and try to get things in perspective please?
It's either pathetic that people like him bark like this, or it's deplorable that they try and BS like they do.
Sure the ACT of piracy is very damaging, but the solution is proved and has been for a LONG time; STEAM anyone?
Not just steam, but Valve as a whole. They are a gleaming benchmark of how to make and distribute games, and more importantly LISTEN to their customers and play fair.
I just find it so hard to take this sort of argument from such a large player in the industry when they keep ignoring the alternative options because of their own strategies and agendas. IF THEY DID BUSINESS PROPERLY AND PUT THEIR CUSTOMERS FIRST, THEN MAYBE THEY'D SUCCEED IN THEIR CHOSEN LINE OF WORK!
To hear this guy trying to redefine a fundamental practice in trade as has been since... forever... by which I mean, fairly trading your rightfully owned goods at a lower value to others in the market for such goods, is just a great example of how out of touch some of these guys are becoming.
If I buy a game, I buy the right to use that game, the same applies for absolutely every other item or service I can buy, to now suggest that once I buy, I cannot sell that "right" on at a depreciated value is outrageous!!!
Is it even legal??
This industry is probably going through its greatest ever trial at the moment, and it will emerge, eventually, in a form that suites modern times. This challenge has largely been brought about by emerging technologies that have, in turn, made it harder to securely distribute, and also spawned the emergence of more tailored alternatives (consoles). These challenges are now seperating the men from the boys... Epic... and the "boys" just keep whining and crying and making the most ridiculous excuses and proposals.
Sounds like perfectly normal business practice if you ask me.
The games companies should have done something similar, but they didn't and now they're regretting that decision.
As for the second hand market, no other industry expects to make money from second hand products. Then, on the other hand, no other industry has after-sales infrastructures, such as online gaming or patching, like the games industry does.
Still, that infrastructure is still there if somebody doesn't sell their game and keeps playing online for months after buying it. That's no different, really, in the case of the someone who buys a secondhand game and plays online. The games company gets no extra money in the case of someone who keeps a game, so why should they get any money from a secondhand sale (assuming online play is free)?
Wanting to get money from secondhand sales is just greed, pure and simple. No other industry expects it, so why should the games industry expect any different?
And yes, piracy exists on every platform, but it is more rampant on the PC because it is so much easier (piracy on consoles requires some level of technical know-how).
Still, to not develop on the PC because of piracy is just a lazy excuse. Fact of the matter is that games companies probably make more from console sales than they do from PC sales. If that's the case, tell us that's why you don't want to develop on the PC. We understand market forces. We don't like bullsh!t excuses.
Epic used to be such a great company, but they seem to be bleating like a wounded goat every other week these days.
If they want us to keep our games. look at BURNOUT devs criterion. Not only are they giving us Excelent updates(often), A new FLYING CAR soon. BUT are not charging for it!
They will have a new LARGE update which will be paid for. But they seem to understand their audience and more intent on good support and fair value for money.
THAT is how it should be done. Not moaning like a bunch of twats.
Not really, i'm paying for a valid licence just not from the publisher. Piracy is using the product with out a licence imo. Fact is I don't want my money to go to EA, even indirectly by supporting the second hand market, but this is the best medium if i still want to play the game.
Ooooh perhaps this is a good thing for us PS3 owners perhaps devs will realize its the only non cracked console on the market even after 2 years and start to show it some proper respect.
I can see how the used market is an issue, people go into Game and pay near retail for used and the only people who benefit is Game, not the devs who put in the effort to bring a quality title to you, its not right really is it, if I was a game dev I'd be looking at ways to implement DRM to stop this too, online/telephone activations etc, will no doubt be in a lot of future titles.
other information: L4D is awsome
That is all
And game will tell you that they make so little on the sale of the original that they would either bump up prices and become even less competitive with the e-tailers or go out of business. I can't feel sorry for either camp but at least Game has made an attempt to fix its business model and not just whine at the end user.
How do they tell?
Way more than 2:1 for GoW and 20:1 for Crysis... I may not be a master of "da maff" but those numbers don't add up, one in twenty pirated for Crysis and one in two (second hand) for GoW.
Spot the bigger issue and quit whining about PC piracy!!!
So make games you don't actually need to sell. Look at the almighty Google Empire. They build it on free stuff!
Why? For one thing, asking a "full price" (54$) for a game such as Bioshock on Steam, while it's on sale on retailers for half that price or less and you actually get the physical product instead of just the download is hardly a solution or reasonable. Yes okay, that's just one example, but that's why I can't agree it being a clean cut and easy solution just yet. Yes it is great, yes it has potential to be even better, but it's not ready yet.
As for the actual news, makes me sad. Pirates yarr are sad too.
Still have to agree that Epic could consider making BETTER GAMES that would actually appeal to people enough to merit BUYING them. I can't remember the last time I have been enthusiastic about anything they've put out.
Less whining how bad it is and more doing something about it. DRM in its current forms (if you care to call them that) is not a solution as it only limits the rights of the rightful owners. That is unless they think that consumers who buy a product don't own it anymore as others have pointed out as well.
GTA4 cost 100mil to make and they made 500mil+. That was pirated to hell and back, so how come Rockstar isn't having press releases on a weekly basis to complain? Unless I missed them, then please correct me.
Games are meant to be one of the best cost to time activities around at the moment (tho i still think books are better at less than £10 for hours of entertainment), but lets face it thats just not true for most games. A 15hour game bought at £40 is ludicrous when compared to a decent online game like COD4 which u can pick up for £25 and get hundreds of hours out of it.
As for piracy...well theres nothing to be said there that hasnt been said a thousand times already.
They want it both ways, If you pirate it its the same as stealing a physical object but if you want to sell it then suddenly all you own is the right to play the game and not a physical object.
Its never enough for those whinging idiots, First they ditch pc games to cream more money off of console exclusives and now they are slagging off one of the core concepts of the console market. If they carry on like this they will run out of customers.
It's a tricky one really. If I paint a picture or knit a jumper and sell it to the store, I've already been paid. I'm not entitled to be paid a second time for something just because the person who bought my stuff sells it back to the store or onto a 3rd party. Make one thing, get paid once. The idea of me getting paid everytime a new person buys the painting from it's last owner is kind of silly isnt it?
I appreciate the amount of work the games company puts in to making a game (most of the time) but it's greedy to want to be paid everytime someone new buys the game (be it new or second hand) as opposed to everytime they buy the game from the creator (new). There's an important difference.
Every second hand game that the store sells (for a price way to close to retail if you ask me) has already been paid for once. What happens to it after that is none of the games company's business. The problem is that the games makers are trying to find a way to get money for 'Lost Sales'. The majority of lost sales come from 3 places, Piracy, Second Hand Market and Not buying the game (which may or may not actually be a lost sale if you didnt want to own the game).
Piracy is the only one of these that the games companys are correct in being annoyed about. Whilst not all Pirates would have actually paid for the game if they hadn't stolen it there is still a percentage of the pirated games that could have been sales were it not for the Piracy.
The second hand market's 'lost sales' arent the games companys sales at all. They've already sold the game once. End of story.
Eh... sorry for the minor rant :p
Back to the topic in hand - piracy is a problem in the games industry, as it is in most entertainment media industries ( music, video, etc ), but simply not releasing on a platform certainly is a move in the wrong direction and is not really a solution to the problem. I also take offence to Dr Capps inferring that the solution is a steam like platform when such a platform already exists (and they still refuse to release/develop the game for PC)
Fair point.... occasionally... these days.
I used to think the same in STEAM's early days, and that's because what you say was nearly always the case.
These days though, I find it hard to find much of a difference between STEAM's prices and those at Play, Game, or Amazon.
for example, Fallout 3 is $50 and £25 on etailers, Crysis is roughly the same, as is Warhead, Left for Dead etc....
Obviously they've worked on their pricing processes.
The only thing that bothers me now is our falling value of the pound.
Based on previous long-term history it was always reasonable to consider $2=£1, roughly, these days it's more like $1.50=£1.00, in which case you end up paying more. That's more the fault of our incompetent and short-sighted politicians than anything else though as our economy is receeding almost four times more than our peers, which is why I still consider the former long-term estimate as the figure that represents a reasaonable longer-term value to compare STEAM's prices.
That's the next step for Valve's pricing model for STEAM I guess; include currency exchange rate variations based on region in order to remain competitive.
Also, don't forget the nice one-off deals and introductory offers, and the seamless integration and community aspect, and mod support, patch-free gaming, blah, blah, blah...
The main reason I think that other devs, and publishers especially, are bitching and bleeting ridiculous nonsense is that they haven't figured out how to compete with Valve properly and are desperately trying to level the playing field with scant regard for the doing the right thing.
Based on that assumption, it 's nothing more than a competitive strategic move that has nothing to do with serving their customers, attacks their primary channel (videogame stores), and further holds them back fro mtaking the right moves.
Personally, it smacks of corporate arrogance led by ageing has-beens who need to be replaced with competent businessmen instead of trying to drag everyone back on pain of DRM, legal action, and outrageous control suggestions.
I sincerely hope to hear one day that companies like Epic get bought out at fire-sale prices, with no future for their, fankly, damaging "leadership"; those who make decisions in the organisation, not a suggestion that they are or have ever been leaders in this industry.
If there wasn't this insane amount of game piracy, game devs wouldn't even need to complain about the 2nd hand games market.
I really don't understand why these stupid f*cks stealing games do not understand that in the end they will be hurting themselves. I also cannot understand how they can so blatantly ignore that they are taking away the base of other people's livelihood. They just give a damn about other people's hard work, they are parasites w/o conscience and social competence, they only react to direct threats and punishment.
Just look at the numbers for Crysis. It's a fun game. It works. And if people want to try it first and find they like it, they should purchase it. If they think it's too expensive, wait 9 months and you will get it from the bargain bin. It will still be a great game 9 months from now.
But that's not the point for these hell bred software pirates. They want to satisfy their greed for free and have others pay the price.
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@iwog: Ok, make that 8:1 pirated/purchased Crysis copies. Is that anywhere significantly better? NO!
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@Teq: If you're too dumb to revoke the license before reformatting, your fault. Don't blame the game publisher for it. Guys like you pretend they're so upset about getting screwed when in fact they don't, but prefer to completely ignore why it has come that far - and that's because of retards like you.
__________
Btw, neither do I work for the computer gaming industry, nor do I make money with their products. I am just so upset how you selfish worth-less-than-nothings make life hard for honest people like me.
Contradiction?
The reason Steam is so successful is because they charge the full retail price for games that you *cannot* sell on.
QFT.
Here, here!
You can get some decent prices on Steam, but generally they are slightly above the average retail price (more so for us in the UK now the £ is dropping back) - but the key difference is that you can sell your retail game on if you don't like it/finish it/need cash for the next game.
I've got no problem with Fallout3 DRM nor did I have with the Bioshock DRM (nor did the guy who bought it off me). Providing DRM doesn't screw my machine up (Starforce) I don't mind. I wish I could avoid needing a DVD in the drive all the time, but it's not the end of the world. The steam alternative (losing from 50% - 75% of the game's value as resale) makes gaming uneconomical for me, and more importantly, offends my sense of natural justice.
Note that EMI moan about piracy but don't try to prevent me selling my CDs to other people. Nor do Penguin books worry that I might lend my books to other people. Last I heard, Kanye West was still just about managing to buy his bling, and Girls Aloud are still able to afford to make ends meet. I hear Michael Crichton died a wealthy man. And to my knowledge, Daniel Craig hasn't resorted to an evening bar job to pay the bills.
So why do Epic, EA, Ubisoft and pals all struggle on the proceeds or retail game sales?
If they want to stop piracy, they should open up Steam so that games will be trade-able, and there would be no resistance from the paying punters.
The problem is that the games are getting higher prices those days, and a lot of them just are not worth the money. Gears one was good, but the single player mode was just too short. I don't think it was good value for money (which is why I got it second hand for £28) if Gears was £30 new I would have got it new and not felt so bad at how short it was.
So, yes there are solutions to those problems, but no one has really implemented them in a way that works.
What would you suggest in the event of a HDD or mobo failure?
Fixed.
Imo not having to pay any royalties on PC games is another bonus, also you can't really rent PC games or return them to shops which work in developers favour. Why can't they moan about the publishers cuts of the products. After all the people who put time and effort into making these games are they ones that deserve the kudos, they then get screwed over.
I've moved over to my 360 since GTA 4 (PC is aging a bit) and it pains me to pay £10+ more for a game everytime I buy it on console but I do. £40-50 is a lot for a game given the market.
None of this is new it just looks like there struggling for excuses tbh
Trivial. All you are doing is re-assigning a recorded CD key to another Steam user. They could even charge $1-$2 for the privilege.
In theory, you can't because you can't sell Steam accounts (against the EULA). In practice, this is what commonly occurs.
It is a pain trying to remember which account is which!
Good point, actually.
I mistakenly forgot to consider the fact that STEAM doesn't let you sell your games on afterwards either, but does it really help to nit-pick for the sake of it, and ignore the 90% + of the rest of my argument?
I do still agree that refusing to let people sell on their games is wrong and not what any gamer wants, and given that Valve are clearly leading the field in digital distribution, maybe thye are making a mistake here. Eventually, as digital distribution grows and competition rises, issues like these will be among the first to be dropped.
Besides, the only time I did end up needing or wanting to sell on a STEAM acquired title was when I bought the Orange Box, and was offered to turn the unused, duplicated title licenses into gifts that I could use on another account on a seperate PC like my laptop, or pass it on as a gift.
So, you will "not ever" release your game on PC even though the solution to your problem clearly already exists?
This looks more like Epic simply does not want to make pc games anymore and is trying to see if they can come up with a good reason to kill off the idea with excuses. They know it costs more monies to make a good (or great) game for PC. I guess they feel that there company can not make a game good enough to compete in the pc market and are thus trying to avoid it :(
I mean, I bought Half-Life 2 Retail. That meant I got Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike:Source, and Half-Life 2 Deathmatch. I ended up buying the OrangeBox 18 months later and guess what, I had 2 versions of Half-Life 2.
Right now I could give, for free, the entire game of Half-Life 2 to any of my friends. I was floored when I saw that. After years of buying and rebuying updates, expansion packs, and boxed sets I was very pleasantly surprised to see that all the value was still there.
This guy sounds like he would shrivel up and die if he actually followed the Valve/Steam solution to the letter.
Also, if you want people not to sell your game back, give them a reason to keep *playing* it. Note, this is not the same as taking part of your game away and giving only to the "first sale" person. Thats not an incentive, but rather a penalty for buying used. People keep movies/DVD because they may watch them again. Make your games *better* so that they have increased utility when kept. Try to not make your games a single disposable experience. Burnout paradise is a great example. They are giving you *more* value for your $60 game, so that you can justify the purchase and feel good keeping it.
With GOW2 they decide to give you less, not more. How is that "making your customers happy"
Is the second hand PC market really that big to be a valid concern? And if epic stop second hand sales its only going to p*** off console owners, Because PC gamers already hate them.
Repeatedly.
You know you can just install steam on your laptop and use your existing account to play all your steam games? You can download your steamgames to as many PCs as you want, they only become accessible when you log onto the steam account on the PC you're on. :) If you did know, then I've misread your post :P
I do think Valve need to add the option to sell on your games, that's my only complain about steam, well, that and your game saves being stored locally on the PC instead of both locally and your steam account.
Epic has become Epic Fail in my eyes, constantly whining about something. They must be off their heads to actually think many people will take them seriously while moaning about how the second-hand market needs to be stopped. They're pretty much throwing their credibility away with each statement they make.
They need to understand that people aren't realistically 'making money' on the second hand market. They've been paid already for their product, why do they deserve more money just because their product is having a change of owner? They're acting like Game has been buying single copies of games, copying them, and selling them on.
To whoever said second-hand games is the same as piracy, they need to take their head out the sand. As for piracy, it exists, stop complaining and get over it. If your product is good enough to make people want to buy it, then they'll buy it, if not, it'll get pirated. Also, pirating isn't stealing, there's a definite difference between copyright infringement and stealing. it doesn't mean I'm saying since it's not stealing, everyone should do it, but people need to stop calling it theft, because all they're trying to do is make it sound seedy and horrible.
Bethesda and Valve have got this right, Bethesda with their minimal use of copy protection, yet massive sales that are through the roof due to them selling quality. Valve with steam, and them also selling quality.
Epic needs to get it right, as well as a lot of other devs. All this draconian DRM wouldn't be needed if your products were great. DRM in my opinion is totally pointless anyway as it's always broken, save time, money and effort and just don't bother with more than a simple disc check from the game.
It seems some devs will think poor sales is solely caused by piracy and not poor or boring products, sooner they realise this, the better things will be for everyone including the devs.
BS. i used to work at a rental store, and the price for rentabale version of any game or movie , is 10 times that of the normal retail version. rental places have to pay for the legal right to charge to rent.
if they are going to cry, at least cry about the truth.
sandys, I, too, hope that developers see that forward thinking technology DOES benefit them and that keeping ahead of piracy (in terms of technology) does pay off in the long run. Now if only the PS3 would start seeing more/better titles coming its way from 3rd parties, and also less crap ports.....
How many people rent a game and then like it so much they go and buy it full price cos its a good game. This also applies to pirated games really as some people do download a pirated game as a demo only to go and buy it.
Or just lower the damn prices, and then people wouldn't have to fret about trying to save five bucks by buying it second-hand. There now, that was easy.
Michael Capps is a moron.
Give the games away, charge a monthly fee to play it. If I like the game and want to keep playing I keep paying the $5 per month or whatever. If I don't want to play anymore I stop paying the fee.
It eliminates the second had market (good or bad based on your opinion) as everyone pays to play.
Allows for you to pay what the game is worth to you (if you get a lot of game time out of it and want to keep playing then you keep paying, if you go through it and don't like it or finish it quickly you're out just the one month fee)
Don't most MMORGs use this model already?
Encourages developers to provide new content.
True it requires an internet connection... then again if you're reading this than that shouldn't be a problem for you.
Probably could be engineered in such a way as to eliminate most piracy without DRMing your machine either. If you don't login you don't get that last little bit of code required to play the game... and rotate the missing code around each time you play. Thus the only piracy would be of accounts and if you see the same account logged in from 2 different IPs concurrently that should be a pretty sure sign that the account is pirated (or shared against EULA terms).
Thoughts? Would this work? Or not?
Oh look, a river of tears, let me just find my teeny tiny violin.
QFT! Surely they realise if they made better games people are more likely to pay for them. I myself read reviews, play demos. If I am impressed by them I will go and buy the game. If not they don't get my money and I certainly wouldn't pirate a game let alone a bad one! Basically epic want's to fill your house with pap. Also when Dr. Michael Capps looked on the torrent sites did he not check for 360 torrents?
Noooooooo! I don't want to rent a game. I'm buying it - it is a capital purchase. If I play it lots, I get good value for money; if not, I don't.
My BF2 stats page showed a calculation of how much I'd paid per hour (based on RRP) - it was around 18c per hour.... Are the publishers going to expect $0.18/£0.11 per hour, per game? Or would it be a WoW-ish £10 per month?
If the games are given away free, what incentive do they have to make good, new games? Just keep the same old cash-cows running ad infinitum...
Good point, but Even then, Paying a monthly fee for a game you already purchased at full price, Is something that baffles me.
I mean, take the money they rake in each month from the subscriptions, take away the server maintenance fees, and moderators and maintenance crews, and I'm pretty sure you're still left with s**t loads of $$$.
Then push the arrogance even further by putting an expansion out, same buy-in price as the original, adds 1/6th of the content of the first installment, only 10 exp. level cap difference, and keeps the suckers coming back that way. 10 million strong. No new game mechanics, same old Bulls**t just rehashed...
Maybe not the best solution, but at least it's reasonable to think of similar ways to implements this type of model.
Just a account creation scheme were you log in to play, like you said with ever changing .exe codes, p.i.t.a. for the internet connection, but you could use a kind of time borrowing method if you plan on going away form your internet connection (ie borrow 15 days for a planned trip, so if another IP logs into the account, it will ask to return the borrowed "liscence" to make the game available to the other IP, in which case the rightful owner could do since he would have is computer/laptop hooked-up obviously)
Not really a failproof solution IMO, butthat's my way of seeing things.
I just bought a used car £5000 it cost me, just done MG Rover out of around £10000. (Aside from the fact they are already (kind of) bankrupt) I think the used car market is doing the industry alot more damage than the used games market and they dont complain.
Buying new is creating more disks, buying used is re-using old disks, surely this should be encouraged from an environmental point of view :p
PC games are £20-30, whereas 360 games are consistently £40. Plus many 360 games are fun for a few days, or have short single player campaigns. So I've rented the majority of my 360 games, or even bought the PC version when its a decent version - like Dead Space.
The last 360 game I actually bought new was Pro Evo 6 (we're on 8 now right?) Since then I think I've bought at least 20 PC games new - lately Fallout 3, Dead Space and Left 4 Dead.
Buying new on PC is usually even cheaper than buying second hand on console too.
Digital downloads should theoretically be cheaper, if the devs pass on the savings they make by not having to pay for a publisher and shipping etc. Left 4 Dead was actually quite expensive through steam (£33 I think) but that was mainly due to tax and conversion rates from US dollars.
for repetitive games like Gears of War, i really don't understand what is Epic moaning about.
If crysis would cost 20€ i would gladly buy it. It has been out on the market for over a year now, and it still costs 40 to 45€. So nobody will buy it any more.
Epic should be happy to have sold so many copys of Gears. Because the installation is crap on the pc, and i even had to buy a new pc to get it running. (game didn't run on my amd and ati platform, no idea why). And gears is a shorl lived game, very short single player and the multi player is just standard. Oh did i mention that i lost my savegames serveral time ( i stopped counting after 10 times)
In Russia you can get new and orginal games for 15€! Just a CD/DVD in a case, nothing additional. Thats it. So you can stop piracy. And for people like me who like special editions, pay 40 to 50€ and you get one special boxed edtion. So everybody is happy. No crappy DRM which crashes you windows every time you try to run another game....
So please Epic, bring out new games, sell them for a month then cut the price. Or ship just games which will be interesting again.
Nobody of the companies are interested what the gamers want, they just want to make money with games / genres which are just too used.
Take a look at Introversion Software. These guys do it right. I don't like steam, so i go to there shop and buy a game there. Just digital or boxed, like you want. After purchasing, with paypal, you can download the game and run it. And a few days later the game arrives boxed. Oh did i mention that the new game they just releases just costs 14€ :-)
So, it would be nice to see a Gears of War 2 on PC. If not. i won't buy a Xbox just to play the game. I would rent me one, and rent me the game and play it. Thats it. If you won't release Gears 2 on pc, you don't get any money from me.
"Have you played your Epic game? Then send it back to Epic!"
(so we scrooges from Epic can sell it again for the same money you bought it for!)
Have you guys followed the links to the interview?!
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/michael-capps-part-two
If it is a good game there is more chance of someone paying the extortionate amount of £40 or more. Otherwise you might as well wait for a second-hand copy.
Epic have serious problems with their idea of what consumers think. I will only understand their trail of thought when they start losing money and get swallowed by a bigger company.
I also had a quick go at the Resistance 2 beta, it's not my cup of tea.
I've also played, 'betas' (or as they've been called for so many years 'demos', but keep it mum, yeh?) for years and years and if I liked the game, I pre-ordered it or went out and bought it.
I would imagine, given a taster of gow2, that (from reviews) I'd probably buy it. Gow1 was pretty good up to a point - stepping out of the light just got too frustrating for me.
However,
A few comparisons:
1. Second hand means that he loses a sale. Boohoo. All second hand deals gives no net revenue to the maker/originator. So for that remark. Epic Fail!
2. Games makers has to provide a patch for the game. Which game makers do not have to but do anyway or they would lose customers.
Comparable to a GFX/PSU/Mobo or even car maker(s). That is called a guarantee. Which they have to provide by law none the less. Epic Fail!
3. Piracy. It's a problem comparable to car theft. Except that if a car gets stolen it's normally stolen from the end user. Unless it was stolen from the factory. Epic win!
Now regarding Steam as the solution to all chaos.
Steam is a good system in terms of distribution and income. Very good.
I do not know the revenue on Steam when it comes to Valve's cut of the cake. But a sale is a sale none the less. Which is non transferable. But let's look at the differences between that and physical media/e-tailers/retailers.
Steam is digital distribution. No physical media what so ever. That means that the developer does not need to buy "factory time" for CD/DVD's and physical pakaging too.
The developer could actually just walk over to Valve's HQ with a HDD and plug it in. Or upload it directly to their server.
Price difference: No clue actually (Factoring everything in, from hourly wages for both sides to negotiate, electricity and so forth.)
But that has only to be done once. Once!
After that, Valve takes full responsibility for distribution and the developer can sit back and relax knowing that game price minus Valve's cut gets deposited every time a sale is made. Make a patch if needed. Done.
Surely you cannot beat that argument from a developers perspective?
But how about the end user (Us)?
Some criticism I have heard over the years or even in this thread.
Want the ability to sell the game on when you are done with it? Cannot do that.
Want to lend out a copy to a friend? Nope, can't do that either. You bought 1 (One) copy of the game or actually the right to that copy.
Want to do anything else with it? You can't really.
Valve holds the key so to speak.
Now for some defense for Steam.
Use your Steam account anywhere in the world on any computer with an Internet connection.
Backup your savegame(s) to a USB key, wipe the harddrive and install Steam again. Connect your account. The game(s) you bought via Steam downloads again. No charge whatsoever (minus connection bill)
Which brings us to the last point: Price.
"Steam prices are too high!" says most people.
Ok ok. But who pays their electrical bill huh?
What about bandwith from them, upkeep to server hardware and so forth?
EA has ads in their Battlefield servers to run them.
You are paying a little extra for the privilege of:
No "in game" ads.
Safe distribution.
The ability to re download the game if your harddrive dies/wipes/formats.
Auto patching of both client and game.
No physical media that can get scratched or lost.
No optical drive that could die/is noisy while you play.
No waiting in the store/opening hours/leaving the comfort of your home.
No invasive DRM schemes.
And best of all:
The developer cannot call you a pirate.
So I buy from Steam whenever possible.
not quite true, If I recall corectly Bioshock still had it's DRM in the Steam version.