Take-Two hates second-hand sales
Second-hand sales are proving a bone of contention for publishers and retail stores at the moment.
As such, the publisher said, it is increasingly moving towards online authentication systems to try and combat second-hand sales, as well as releasing DLC that encourages players to keep hold of their games.
Second-hand sales have long been a contentious issue for the industry as although they push up sales figures and profits for the stores, the publishers and developers accrue no extra profit from them.
"GameStop continues to aggressively push their used game business, which is having a meaningful negative impact on sales of new games," noted analyst Doug Creutz after consulting with Take-Two CEO Ben Feder.
"Management is frustrated with this trend and is examining ways to ameliorate the problem, which includes strategies around online play and downloadable content which extend the lifespan of AAA titles.”
If one of the ways that the company hopes to eliminate second-hand sales is by linking games into online systems like Games for Windows Live and Rockstar Social Club however then we’ll be sorely disappointed.
Do you ever buy second-hand or used games instead of new ones? Let us know in the forums.
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27 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyBig bag of **** you is on its way to their offices.
Charge me through the nose for a game, and then tell me I can't trade it for something better?
Make a better game :/
I don't recall anyone bitching about the insane PS2 second hand market that was, and still is, quite a large section of my local store..
Great..... now they want us to have lifetime commitments to games. When I knew that a game was great I bought it new in pride. (Example: God of War), when games had OK reviews I would buy them used.
I believe the cycle increases sales. How many times have you taken in all your crappy games to get some money for the new game with awesome reviews? So thanks to people that buy used so people with limited money can buy new!
Most of the games I see for sale used with substantial discounts are hard to buy new anyway. If there is a recent game thats used at GameStop with a $5 discount, I'm going to buy it NEW cause I think its worth it. I think most people do this.
+1
Once I buy a game I want to know I can sell it on incase I don't like it or like naokaji says, it has no replay value.
In this respect, they're no different to other manufacturers. They may shout and scream about server costs, but if that really is such a burden on your bottom line, you should include the lifetime server costs in the budget for the game, and if that leaves you out of pocket, adjust your pricing accordingly.
In short, my message to game publishers: stop crying and get a life.
It made no sense to me or maybe I'm just getting old and I'm not "with it" when it comes to pricing. :)
QFT.
Many times in the past I've bought a game which had OK reviews simply because I knew I could trade it in afterwards if I hated it. I've also taken a big stack of old games to get them traded in for something new and shiny too.
The trouble with a lot of places is that the pricing is crap. Very often there's no saving on used games compared to new games, even months after the new games are out. If you ask me, that's a stupid way to do it.
I sympathise with developers, I'm sure piracy is an issue, and they're trying to squeeze every penny they can from their releases, but something as draconian and daft as this can't and won't work.
I rarely trade my games though... they give you £12 and then sell it for £30-£35. You are probably better off selling them and buying them on ebay in that case.
Ive noticed that HMV are also doing it now as well.
c'mon, I'm not alone in this....
I said it in the Epic thread as well. Games manufacturers need to grow up. Car companies dont go about getting all arsy about the 2nd hand market where arguably most of us get our cars anyway.
Stealthy edit: Sorry Lepermessiah didnt see your post up there :p
back to the issue, I agree it is strange that devs are trying so hard to stiffle the sale of their product on the second hand market. I don't think it's fair to make a broad jump to other markets such as cars. AAA title games are huge capital investments (50+ million USD) that only have a very small window where they generate returns. There is a huge risk of taking a triple AAA to market from a strictly buisness perspective. Which is why you see so many sequels and canned Ideas, no one wants to dive in the deep end of something experimental. From a buisness perspective they are trying to increase profitability which Is the goal of just about every buisness.
I think MMO's or games with integral online content are seen as a way to increase sales and profitability, look at blizzard's World of warcraft, nearly impossible to pirate, and it generates millions of dollars a month in subscription fees, I bet it is probalby the most profitable computer game ever made.
final note, there is not always a legal right for second hand sales. Contracts and services can be legally binding and may not be transferrable to a third party, for instance a single seat of some custom engineered software may be $100,000 and as part of the contract stipulations it may not be transfered or sold to a 3rd party without developer approval. I doubt it would be legal in the average EULA for consumer software to prohibit second hand sales, but you technically don't "own" any games you have the cd for, you own a limited use liscence and your proof of purchase is the physical disk.
Gaming, like television and film, has a growing quality problem; a tendency to rely on marketing rather than gameplay to support the order books. This can be corrected by perhaps pulling back from the very large budget games in the way that some movie studios seem to be avoiding hundred-plus-million budget films on the basis that such budgets cannot be allowed to fail. This attitude promotes one-size-fits-all blandness and a complete lack of imagination because it aims to create products that are inoffensive to everyone at once. This is obviously impossible, but they still try, so we get uninteresting games and they never quite get the figures they were looking for. Only under capitalism does this system seem sensible.
Unfortunately, as in the film industry, no matter how clear it becomes that nobody is buying the product because the product is ****, the last thing that'll ever happen is for anyone to admit it's **** and do something about it.
As other have pointed out, the game industry is pretty much alone in wanting profits of 2nd hand sales.
It's kinda interesting that when someone pirate a game, they "steal", but when someone buy a game, he/she doesn't own it according to them.
It doesn't make any sense to me...
Valve knew this a long time ago. Hence they made the Steam system with online verifications. It minimizes the second hand sales and they also continuously patch and update most of their games (heck even Half-Life 1 got an update not too long ago).
Yes you can still sell your games if you bought retail (you got a CD-KEY to sell that way), but it means the one who is buying your CD-KEY (which is what actually happens) must get this claimed to his account. Might take some time depending on the workload on Steam support.
Once again Valve is ahead of the bunch, and many people applaud Valve for what they are doing. Maybe Take Two makes worse games than Valve and thus doesn't deserve to get away with the same stunts.
QFT.
And it's good to hear people speaking out about Steam - don't get me wrong, I have a dozen Steam titles currently, but I resent the fact that Valve are trying to lock me in. If I can, I'll buy retail - just so I can resell when I choose to.