The impact of used games
Since Microsoft revealed the Xbox One, they have sparked many a discussion about the future and viability of used games. Gamers are worried that they would not be able to enjoy games anymore at a cheaper price and have even took to social media to have their concerns heard. With the next console generation upon us, it seems like it is a valid concern seeing as how everyone expects the price of next gen games to increase. If publishers and console developers were to impose restrictions on used games, not only will it affect the used game market, it will also effect game sharing among friends and family.
For years now, brick-and-mortar stores have refused to share the profits of used game sales with developers and publishers. Since day one, they have held all the cards as publishers require these stores to help promote and sell their games. At the end of the day, publishers are reliant on these stores to turn a profit and thus, are completely vulnerable to their demands.
There is never any doubt to the benefits of used game sales to the consumers. Consumers get to enjoy great games at lower costs. Brick-and-mortar stores also enjoy tremendous amount of profits from the revenue of used games.
But what about the developers and publishers? Unlike movies or music, games are unable to help the publishers earn money through licensing fees or royalties. The success of a game is determined by how many copies it can sell during its lifetime. With the industry saturated with triple A developers and games becoming so expensive to make; profitability is at an all-time low for the industry. And with used game sales taking revenue away from them, it has become all the more difficult to turn a profit. Therefore, developers and publishers play it safe and release sequels and rehashes of old games rather than committing to new IPs.
On top of making sequels and rehashing popular game titles, developers and publishers are forced to extract revenue from used game sales from the gamers directly. They do so by selling DLCs and online passes. As these content are tied to an individual’s account and not the game disc, they would be able to sell the same content repeatedly no matter how many times the same used game has been resold. By monetizing additional content such as DLCs and online passes, they have been able to reclaim some of the lost revenue from used game sales. With all additional costs of paying for DLCs and online passes, it can be more expensive to pick up a used game as compared to getting a game new.
With all the issues that they have to deal with, can we as gamers really blame them for imposing restrictions or DRMs on used games? We as consumers can help publishers and support the developers by simply buying games first hand. Even getting a new copy of a game during a sale will help the publishers. Always remember that we as consumers have the power to influence with the way we spend our money.
Robert Strick
June 7, 2013 @ 11:31 pm
My argument has always been that draconian practices, such as online passes and on-disc DLC have been detrimental to the expansion of the game market. When these policies started to become adopted we saw a steady decrease in console sales. Why? Because consumers don’t want to deal with the inconvenience of getting a game from the store, installing it on the hard-drive, patching the game, and then having to put a code in.
The issue we have right now is the console market is attempting to replicate the success of Steam and other digital retailers, and will fail miserably, because frankly they don’t understand the market.