If I have to connect my console to the internet to play games…then why should I bother with a console? There are many times when I don’t have an internet connection but I DO have power. During those times, I frequently want to play a console game. If I have to have an internet connection, then my console has lost a lot of its value to me.
Meh. They would have to bring the price point for a new game down considerably for that to fly with me - the bulk of the Xbox games I have are used, because they coincide with where my price point, except for the the very rare “Gotta have this now” title or games purchased as gifts. (And titles purchased through Xbox live.)
I am not in a hurry to shell out $68 to play through Battlefield 3’s single player campaign, but I will pick it up when it’s closer to $30.
This is especially true for console games, because they are frankly not worth as much to me as PC games. I am currently playing through the Xbox version of GTA IV, and the main thing I’ve gotten out of it is a push to set aside the time to move my video card over into my new PC, since my old one has been Linux-only for a while. I could get used to the blurry, myopic rendering, but then you get into the actual missions and the controls are so nerfed that it barely feels like a game, which I guess may be necessary, given the weak controls.
Like GTA III on my phone, it just provides enough of the game to make me want to play it on a better platform.
Anyway, unless they came down significantly on new pricing, no way would I buy a console that wouldn’t let you play second-hand games.
So what happens in 10 years, when the console’s successor has been out for a couple years, and they’re dropping support for the old one? Does the console just become a brick without authentication servers? Will everyone become unable to play anything if the network gets hacked, like what happened to PSN last year?
No dog in this fight, but I assume some technical savvy individuals who do not care if they break the law will (or have) develop a workaround.
Although I do enjoy watching for sales on Steam, and I get bargains that way, sometimes they’re bargains on things I wouldn’t have remembered if it hadn’t popped up on sale.
Anyway, though I too fetishize the actual box and disc, and I have a closet full of them, I have been won over to digital distribution for older games because they cut me a bargain. It’s often cheap enough that the price is worth paying even if I don’t have the full rights I’d have with a physical copy. For one thing, the fact that I can’t resell my copy is no great shakes for me, because that’s something I just never do. I’d pay a little more for the right to play a certain game on more than one computer at the same time, though that is rarely likely to come up, but otherwise the deal they’re offering is usually worth the money for older games.
However, I don’t think I’d like to digital distribution for new games. I wouldn’t pay new-game money for the kind of restrictions I’m happy to put up with for cheap old games. If that becomes the only deal, then I can wait for games to become cheap. In any case, if this Kickstarter stuff works out, I can realistically expect that much of my new-game budget is going to get sunk into games that are made for the niche markets I belong to – olde-schoole adventure and RPGs – rather than the watered-down versions of these genres that are being cranked out now. And that stuff so far is being developed multi-platform at reasonable prices. So, the enticement to throw my money at mass market games is just getting weaker and weaker. If consoles all go this way, I see a bright future for my gaming that bypasses that bullshit.
If they want to succeed at this, they have to compete in the second-hand market, not try to kill it outright.
I see it this way: New console. Games can be either downloaded digitally or bought as a physical disc.
The physical disc games can continue with the second-hand market as it currently is.
The digitally-distributed games are sold through the console’s marketplace, which you buy into via points. This is already pretty common, so there shouldn’t be a problem with its acceptable.
Here’s the kicker: digital games can be refunded. You delete the game off your console, you get X% of your points back. Spent 2400 points/$30 for the game? You get 1200 points back. You give up all rights to that game, and if you want it again you need to pay another 2400 (net 1200 due to the refund).
It incentivizes players to ‘trade in’ games they don’t want any more, it keeps the income stream steady, and it keeps the ‘second-hand’ market firmly in the console creator’s control. Done right, the convenience factor will encourage most players to give up physical discs, drawing them away from the physical second-hand market.
It’s that ‘done right’ that’s the kicker, of course. The system needs to be rock-solid secure and very user friendly. The former means Sony can’t do it and the latter means Microsoft can’t do it.
There’s absolutely no benefit for the producer to issue those refunds. The importance of the resale market isn’t really about people being able to sell their games and recover their costs, it lies in the discounted prices for the used buyer. The digital marketplaces would simply need to be aggressive about discounting older games to match what the current pricing is for used games. If I could buy a 6 month old game for 40% of the new price from the publisher digitally, the incentive for me to go out seeking a used game for $15 is pretty much gone.
That’s how the console makers and publishers destroy the used market. By eliminating the need for people to go out seeking the physical used game by putting a better version of it in front of them on demand at the same price.
The wise PR move would be to do this and subvert the used market slowly instead of being draconian about it and DRMing the used games out of existence. Personally I’d rather give my money to EA and Microsoft than to Gamestop or some skeeze on CL so long as the pricing is comparable.
I think, at this point, their best bet is to either directly compete with Gamestop (unwise, not good to piss off your second biggest distributor), or make some sort of deal with them that they get exclusives and benefits if the publisher gets a cut of the profits (possible, but they already get exclusives and benefits so it would have to be a pretty sweet deal).
I agree. It’s one thing to discuss piracy. But playing a game and then selling it used is not at all questionable activity on the part of the consumer. If they want to capture those profits, the market solution is to move their price point. Otherwise, as far as I’m concerned, they’ve already signaled they don’t want those consumers, including those who’d be happy just paying $5 less. GameStop doesn’t seem to mind those customers, and the distributors obviously don’t want them, so why is this a problem in need of a solution by anyone? It seems like it’s already been solved just fine.
PC’s are always going to be around, at least in the foreseeable future, but gamers have to realize that as far as consoles go, we are in the first generation of the attempt to license games by the developers. The current battles now being fought will be for the future of console gaming. As a console gamer, I have not had to answer the question of what happens when support is gone for the games on my system. I take for granted that I can load up any PS, N64, or Genesis game to my TV and they’ll still play if not broken. Older games with batteries have been replaced by emulators, so I’m not too choked up on that.
But when the PS4 comes out, or the one after that? What happens to my PS3 games if they have a heavy online component? This fight really pisses me off because I do not subscribe to the notion that I am simply licensing these games instead of owning them. Fuck that. If my PS3 games go dead and there’s no support from Sony, then that’s it, no more console gaming for me.
The game companies should be careful who they piss off, as I am almost their perfect client. I buy nearly all my games new, and I NEVER sell back any of my games once I have them. The only used games that I buy are ones that too old to find new, and even then I would look on game companies online to see if I can get them new. I don’t want anybody’s grubby hands on my game before me, I’m just weird like that. Yes, I do have emulators, but they are all SNES generation and older. And I have bought remakes of older games provided they make them, withness my 3 different versions of Final Fantasy IV (GBA, Playstation collection, DS remake, not the mention the emulator of the SNES version, and the emulator of the original Japanese Hard version). But if game companies are going to screw me by taking away my ability to play old games on old systems, then I am going to screw them.
I think the analogy to used cars or used books is apt, save for one aspect. Its not that I agree or don’t agree with the comparison, but the reason game companies are doing it, they say, is because of the price and the money they lose. This isn’t about the value of a DVD, or the value of information, versus a physical product, it is ALL about the claim that companies are going broke by having a larger percentage of their games sold as used. I think that’s shit. Pretty much every industry I can think of has a vibrant used market. If game companies are saying that in their own particular industry they cannot do this, well I just don’t believe them. If 30% of their losses are to used markets, then maybe make less expensive games. We don’t need every game to be Modern Warfare 3, plenty of games are simple and addictive and those can drive the market just as the big blockbusters do. Its as stupid an argument as saying blockbuster movies are bankrupting the studios because not enough people sees them. Well in that case, make smaller movies
This topic has inspired me to write to The Official Playstation magazine decrying the proposal. I hate the forced online portion of games and I will do anything to prevent that from being an industry standard. The industry can live just fine losing some market share to used games. Maybe if new games weren’t $50-$60, more people would buy new instead.
I’m disappointed that publishers have decided to go the “let’s use technology to make our products less capable than before so we don’t lose money!” rather than “let’s offer incentives to entice people to purchase the games when they’re new!” The latter comes off as somewhat more customer-friendly.
In truth, I don’t think the used-games market is hurting the publishers. A kid who was only willing to pay $20 for a used copy of Gears of War might well love it so much that he pre-orders Gears 2, and maybe he buys some DLC too. Used games are just advertisements for your future product. Modern Warfare 2 sold 4.7 million copies on day one; Modern Warfare 3 sold 6.5 million on its first day. I’d wager more than a million of those extra sales were people who’d bought the previous game used and were eager to play the next.
Really? You don’t think it had anything to do with the hundreds of millions spent in marketing that game?
I think you’re touching on yet another problem in console gaming. Only incredibly expensive marketing campaigns get games like MW to sell the numbers it sells.
And only a handful of games get that sort of treatment. And it is only a handful of games that make the big bucks.
Most of the rest are on their own. It is exactly these other games that suffer the most, because average Joe console gamer is going to buy the next Modern Warfare, Halo, or Gears, and the rest… well he’s got gamefly/Gamestop used bin for that.
Some people just aren’t paying attention to the software industry. The SaaS model is winning and it’s resulting in lower costs for the consumer in almost all variations. That gaming would move to that model is no surprise. Of course a necessary component to the advance of SaaS in the market is the reduced user costs and minimal barrier to entry. If the gaming industry reacts like, say, the CRM industry then the prices of games will decrease considerably and the cost of consoles will have a corresponding decrease in cost and complexity. It’s cheaper to buy and sell licenses than it is to sell products and that savings can be passed to the consumer and reinvested into the creative.
Now, if Sony and MS try and sell licenses for the same price as durable products then they are being greedy and stupid, but then a competitor will rise up and make them irrelevant. That’s the free market at work. Gamers are going to get hurt in the process and that sucks but hopefully the big boys are smart enough to realize this, it’s worked for most industries so far and Microsoft is actually one of those companies that has been instrumental of moving to the cloud and passing along the savings that generates. XBox is a cash cow that they might be loath to give up, but they are doing it with Office
If in fact, this rumor comes to fruition, I will no longer purchase any new consoles or games, my 360 will be the last console I own, I’ll game on my Mac, and/or just build a gaming PC
And as we all know, the cake is a lie…
It amounts to the same thing either way. The goal is to make the customer want to buy new instead of used rather than forcing them to; what I described is just a possible and certainly probably flawed implementation.
@Omnicient:
I’d like some examples of these Software as a Service models that are so dadblasted popular. All I can think of that aren’t free are downloadable console games, Steam, and some cell phone/tablet apps. I’d say 99% of paid non-game software is still in the old model.
And are you sure Microsoft is actually doing to do it with Office? Because they’ve been talking about changing to a service model for years. And if I understand the way they are going with Office, it’s actually a subscription service, which I seriously doubt is going to go over well with non-business users.
BTW, calling antivirus as SaaS doesn’t count because, for one, they’ve always been that way, due to necessity, and, two, they’ve largely been replaced with free alternatives. Sure, free software that needs a subscription is still technically SaaS, but
it’s commoditized (making something plentiful and cheap so you can sell something else) and not designed to make money. And, remember, the quoted reason for all this is to make more money. Surely they don’t think they can do this by commoditizing games to sell more consoles.
What if console makers offered a “buyback” program where you could give up the rights to your digital game for a certain percentage of the new price of said game in credit towards purchase of a (different) new game? Like, say, 50%?
The subscription model doesn’t have to be that overt. Games where you cannot get the full experience without an online component counts too.
A few months ago I posted about a horrid gaming experience with Starcraft 2. That game is still on a disc thankfully, but has automatic updates that you can’t turn off or skip. I was having some internet issues at the time which caused my connection to slow to a crawl. Lo and behold, I go to fire up the game one day and this automatic update tells me I have to wait for it to download. It took fucking hours, and I couldn’t skip it at all! The ironic thing is, you can play the game offline, but when there is an automatic update, you either have to wait until it finishes or not play. There is no option that I know of, or else they’ve made it maddeningly obtuse to find, to skip automatic updates altogether. I wouldn’t consider SC2 a SaaS game, but you can see the industry is moving in that direction
Like Max Torque suggested, companies are going down the punitive path rather than using incentives. “Do this or else!” instead of “If you do this, you can have this!” It is an absolutely insipid argument for the companies to make to say that used games cannot coexist with new games. The industry just has to accept that and move on. They need to make gamers want to buy new games instead of punishing them when they look for used. Plus, unlike books and movies, you generally can’t find new versions of older games in stores. I would love to get a working version of some of LucasArts old adventure games that I don’t have to download and subscribe to from Steam, but they don’t have them on sale anymore (or not ones that will run on modern machines). With at least movies and especially books, you can pick up an old copy and it’ll work just fine. Barring that change from the industry, I will continue to use emulators as I see fit, especially since I own about a hundred Nintendo games and fuck them if they think I shouldn’t be able to play those anymore.
What game companies need to do is to stop pissing away money on the newest graphical interface for their generic money-sink failures. There is a market for older games if only they will pay attention to it. You could run old NES games on Flash now, and emulators for SNES games are less than one or two megabytes. There’s no reason why those game rights should be sitting all unused in a desk somewhere while millions of those cartridges are too old to be useable.
Or he comes to expect games to cost him $20 and decides to wait out GoW 2 being available for twenty bucks before he’ll consider it.
There’s several different Steam-esque services that are popular (Green Man Gaming, Good Old Games, Gamers Gate, etc) and, more telling, Amazon has been making a big play into the digital downloads market in the past year, competing heavily against Steam to get a piece of the pie.