When did this whole concept of used video games devastating the profit margins of developers become popular? I had never heard a single word about this until a few months ago. Now it's on every blog of any relevance and is on the lips of every company. It's the frontline in a war on gamers. The issue is one of the more hotly debated of the day. Retailers vs Companies, and the loser is the gamer.
I'm not sure when this came into the public mind. For years it was distributors vs pirates. Major game publishing companies have been trying to squeeze every penny from gamers by fighting the pirates that are supposedly cutting into their profits. Now these companies have moved on to attacking used game retailers? At the same time they have exclusive deals with the very same retail chains offering content to people that purchase from specific locations. Preorder at Gamestop and get a free outfit for your character. Buy it at Walmart and unlock a special background for your title screen. The offerings were often less than impressive, as displayed here, and I don't think they did much to encourage anybody save the obsessive completionists desperate for every tiny bit of content. That's why the 'offers' are starting to go a bit overboard. EA is coming up with the idea that in order to play their sports games online you have to buy them brand new, otherwise the option is locked. Buying one of these games used doesn't mean those options are forever locked due to the missing one-time use code, oh no not at all you just have to shell out $10. That's right, you have to pay $10 extra just to get a fully functional game. And to think that we used to only be worried about paying for DLC that's already on the disc.
It's a dangerous assumption by these companies that the person who purchases a used game two years later for $10 would have ever paid full price. Yet that is always factored into their numbers in an effort to further increase the image of the so called damage. The decision of a consumer to purchase a used game is really all about price and impulse. Seeing a game that was once popular a mere six months ago fall from grace and sit on the used game racks at $15 while it's still new for $40 is a choice that seems to make itself. It might have received some popularity due to word of mouth which meant a person knew of it but wouldn't actively seek it out. Seeing it on the used game racks leads the consumer to vacantly shrug and go "Okay, I'll buy that. I heard it was good and it's wicked cheap."
There's also the argument that going to a video game store and holding the game physically are valuable experiences of being a gamer. That's definitely true but the main issue is that the whole experience of being a gamer is changing. Be nostalgiac about it, certainly, but also understand that the world is changing and conceptions of the gaming industry is changing. The developers are winning the used games "battle" by pushing digital distribution. It's not entirely efficient on the current generation of consoles, but the future is leaning towards the end of physical video games.
I have issues with the developers solution to used games which is digital distribution, the most notable being my access to that game in 20 or 30 or 80 years time. I can still get a cartridge from an NES or Atari 2600 and plug it into the system and play, but how will this be achieved with digital distribution? Will I only be given access to the game for the life of the console? Will it only be available for me to play for a limited time even though I've paid full price? Will we still pay outrageous fees even when production costs are negated? Maybe I'm just an old time gamer that can't see past the singularity into the next phase of gaming (probably not, I'm ready but I'm bitter) or it could just be that I feel consumers and gamers have rights.
But if you can download it, you can pirate it. That's a battle they'll never win.
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