Convenience comes at a cost, which includes privacy and blocked websites. Privacy and viewing blocked websites come at the cost of a one-time inconvenience. The important thing is that we all get to make our choices.

 

Okay I understand that your industry perspective is that Gamestop causes lower sales. The reason you seem to giving for that is that they sell used games. Is your argument that if it wasn't for the option to buy used all those people would buy new? That really doesn't make much sense and why just Gamestop? Used games are sold in many places. On top of all that the fact that Microsoft is giving them a cut of digital sales doesn't line up with them causing lower sales. Why would you cut them in if they were bad for business.

 

Not sure if it works where you are, but have you tried Opera browser?

 

Because they weaponized it. Most places are more casual or small, GS asks every customer at least 2 times on every phone call, and when they go into the store. They use secret shoppers to ensure compliance with this policy. They actively fought against game developers and publishing houses when they tried to put into place ways to recoup the lost sales. No one else had this policy in a chain, no one else actively fought against the Industry to prevent measures to curtail it. No one else threatened to not stock items with ways for the publishers and developers to recoup money on the secondary market.

That is why.

 

I think it's interesting that people are so angry that a platform offering free trades might not be acting in the best interests of people who are using the platform to trade for free. (Not talking about you @Walrus, just musing out loud here.) Who do they think Robinhood's "customers" really are? Certainly not the people who aren't paying them anything.

 

Pretty sure every trading platform offers free trades now. I know Fidelity and TD Ameritrade do. Should we not be able to trust them to some degree?

 

If it's free you're not the customer you're the product

 

Interesting. I think this is simply a matter of a difference in perceptive. Correct me if I'm wrong but your perceptive is based on believing that used sales or the way Gamestop facilitates used sales have a sizable impact on new sales and that publishers should profit from used sales. I think it's more like the case of used watches. The majority of watches available at an Omega boutique can be found on the second hand market from a variety of sources. While there may be some overlap they generally cater to different customer bases and Omega certainly doesn't get a cut from those sales. Anyways with games going digital isn't this all a moot point? With digital games isn't a place like Gamestop that buys and sells used consoles a benefit to developers? The longer the consoles are in use the more opportunities to sell them more games.

 

The discussion about used games reminds me that it’s time to buy Borderlands 3 on eBay. Being so far behind the times, my digital monsters die for pennies on the dollar.

 

I still think my PS3 is cutting edge.

 

Some basic economic difference between watches and games. Games sales are front loaded in the first few weeks. Games usefullnlife is measured in hours of play. Most console games are 60-200 hours now for the average gamer. In the summer when most games come out that’s a week or so for a college student out of school. They can beat the game then return it for credit, and the person willing to wait a week can get it for less just by waiting a week or two. There is also the secondary release of a title as a classic or game of the year edition or something like that 6 months to a year later that allows the game industry to sell its own lower priced version down the road to people that did not play it when it came out or a year or so later as younger gamers move into its demographic.

Video games take time and cost a lot of many to bring to market. We work very similarly to the movie industry where games take 3 years and 100 million dollars plus to bring a AAA title to market. For the developers it goes through 2 people’s hands before they get a cut after they pay of their investors. The publisher, then the retailer.

As for online game sales PC has almost completely moved that way this point, but for various reasons consoles not yet. Although the latest Xbox has an online only version that has no media drive.

 

Since this thread has moved to a different (if somewhat related) topic, and it sounds like you’re quite knowledgeable about your field, do you mind sharing your thoughts on how piracy affects the industry? Also, surly there are discussions of the streaming service model. Would there be a windowing of game releases in that model? I’m not a gamer, so not well versed in the industry, but I am genuinely curious.

 

Okay, but none of that changes that you seem to be assuming that used sales are directly and significant pulling from new sales. To take your example, now the majority of the movies I watch are streaming but before that I used to rent DVDs. I never bought movies on DVD. If I couldn't rent I was not going to go buy it. Taking the rental option out of the equation was not going to turn me into a direct customer for the studio. I'm not saying there isn't some overlap between those who buy new vs used. I just think it's a small overlap. You also don't seem to be factoring in the people doing the selling. Maybe those front loaded customers would buy less if they couldn't repeatably and easily recoup some of the cost the following week.

 

Not a gamer either, but I do know that Microsoft already has a subscription service model called Game Pass.

 

a rental DVD carries a different license then a consumer purchase DVD. Those DVD costs blockbuster or Redbox much much more then the ones you buy on Amazon.

the video game industry has almost perfect data in its users and in some cases could identify when a second person was using media that had already been used for hours on another machine. It was well documented how much was lost. It was then clearly shown when free dlc was included in the box product and would have needed to be purchased by the second or third buyer.

Look I spent a lot of time on the business end of the industry. I talked to people at industry only conferences a few times a year for over a decade. I’ve appeared in Documentaries about the business end of the industry and spoken at multiple conventions, I’ve been on multiple worldwide press tours for the titles I have managed. The video game industry at its heart is not about fun and games it’s all about money. It’s a cut throat business with a constantly shifting playing field and business model as trends and technologies change. People outside the industry and new employees especially have problems understanding this.

Can I give you direct numbers for the loss no, as any data I have on is under strict NDA. But everything I have said is considered fact in the industry, and can be backed up with some google use.

 

Piracy primarily affects the smaller and independent studios that cannot afford to pay for DRM, large publishers using economy of scale can make DRM effective. Of course this only applies to PC titles, as console titles have built in DRM either by the media or by electronic purchase tied to a user account.

Piracy hurts the small guys, there is no question and it almost killed the PC game industry 2-3 times within the past 4 decades.

Streaming aka downloads is pretty much the defacto standard for PC and is the only option on mobile, and it is the preferable solution. One the title is locked to a user account on a service like an appstore or Steam, Bnet, Epic Launcer etc. it also means more money for the developers as they get a much bigger chunk of the revenue of the title, for example on steam I think the developers/publishers keep 70% of the profit, wherein a retail environment it is like 20% at the end of the day. Plus you only need a golden master about 1 week prior, instead of 1-2 months prior to print and distribute hard copies.

Online downloading and mobile both originally democratized the playing field and made the large publishers less powerful as anyone could put product into the appstore or Steam. The problem became to much ended up there and all titles tended to get lost in the shear volume of titles appearing every day, make the resources of the large publishers and the larger marketing outreach take control again. The rise and fall of large publishers is a trend that repeats every few years or so as new technologies or platforms for distribution appear, some fail, some shrink, then the survivors get bigger again as they reestablish control of marketing.|

Make sense?

 

Very interesting. Thank you for taking the time to write that up

 

Interesting. I have PS4 but hardly use it. I read some video game playing is good for using parts of your brain and may slow the onset of Alzheimer’s etc. I have like red dead redemption 2 and a couple other games. What I found amazing is the amount of money some of these titles bring in. Blowing away some major motion pictures. I shouldn’t have been surprised but I guess since I’m detached from them, like my horse kept getting shot on red dead so I’d get annoyed and stop playing I figured everyone did the same.

 

Your labeling that 2nd and 3rd user of the disc as a loss. That's not fact that's an assumption.
You can't prove that those people would have otherwise bought new. In reality you don't even know if money even changed hands between those users. It could have been gifted, it could have been loaned, friends could have traded, etc

 

Yes we can, actually, we tend to be very smart in the game business, and it was verified with inbox 1 time dlc. We have MBA's and lots and lots of data and tracking. But please feel free to argue with multiple billion dollar companies...