CryTek turns from Piracy to Used Sales - Next-gen used games block "would be absolutely awesome" Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 NEXT | |
They kinda did. They made Crysis and then watered it down to cater it for consoles. I don't even think it's worth pirating, but I can see why people thought it wasn't worth paying for. I played it on a stand on a GameStop and I completely lost interest. | |
When you think about it logically there has to be a percentage above zero of people who bought used or pirated who would have bought the game otherwise. They might not buy it at full price but they want the game enough to pay for it. The real question that needs to be answered but obviously can is "is the number of people who will trade in used titles to buy yours greater then the number of people who would have bought used if it was an option but are willing to buy new if its not?" Now just because I am saying used games are bad for individual businesses does not mean that I think they are bad for the industry. They can actually help with brand new sales for the reason that I mentioned above. | |
In my region of the U.S. the two chains I frequent most are Bull Moose Music and Newbury Comics. Some years back both stores primarily focused on new copies with the occasional used copies mixed in (or sometimes a small used-only section instead). Now they've both switched gears. They still sell new copies, but the overwhelming majority of the merchandise in the stores is used. Bull Moose is particularly great for used purchases because the prices are ridiculously low, the disc conditions are usually near-mint, and if they aren't near-mint they'll resurface the discs in-store free of charge. Can I afford to buy new copies of everything I want? Absolutely. But I'd rather buy near-mint condition used Blu-Rays for $5 to $10 from Bull Moose than new for $28 from the Best Buy on the same street. Especially since with Blu-Rays I'm typically stuck paying extra for DVD and Digital Copies that I don't want and serve only to jack the price up since stores like Best Buy seem to always conveniently stock FAR fewer copies of the Blu-Ray-only editions. As far as games though... meh. I'm first and foremost a PC gamer, so I don't generally get to benefit from used game sales. Steam sales kick ass, though. | |
The problem isn't people buying used games. The problem is that you're going to spend $50 million to make a game and then hope you can make more than $50 million in a few weeks, which you can only do if it has great reviews and it flies off the shelves. What if a really big surprise hit releases next to your game? What if your game gets dinged in reviews down to (oh no!) 75%? Or what if it's just too dang similar to a game that came out few months earlier and even if your game is better consumers just aren't ready for ANOTHER one? You're playing a $50-million-a-pull slot machine. If you win you get the next Modern Warfare 2 and make billions. If you lose you close a development house, lay everyone off, and then take another pull. This is a horrible and suicidal way to do business, and I'd say it's FAR more of a problem then customers not playing along with your broken business model. "... but even if we can convert 25 percent of those gamers into paying customers [you have an extra million sales]." How do you go about doing that? "You'd have to ask someone who knows something about that, because it's not me." Valve has already figured this problem out. You should probably listen to them, considering they turned Russia into their second largest European market. | |
I haven't bought many used games in the past year, but eliminating an entire market just so they can sell an extra million copies seems like a dick move to me. I think they'd end up losing more customers if they tried to block used games on next gen consoles. Some would move exclusively to pirating and modding their consoles to get what they want. Also the Crytek guy up there sounds like a dickhead. | |
I'm with CryTek on this one. I also think there should be one use activation keys for books and films. | |
SO the devs finally figured out that they can;t win vs piracy. do they go and try to create buyer friendly reward programs, day1 purchase bonuses, etc? HELL NO "let's assault the used game market" this is fucking sad. | |
Because of course consumers have no right to sell what they physically own. Seriously the piracy levels of Crisis 2 was simply shameful but this is ridiculous. They have no regard for their consumers whatsoever. They wish to kick and scream and ball about used game sales and piracy and treat their fans like shit with their behaviour and wishes whilst better devs just get on with things and act in a mature manner. They know that they should respect their consumers and that some sales shall be lost inevitably to piracy and used sales. The latter is legitimate and they understand that they have no right to mess with it, the former is not legitimate and pretty scummy but to take DRM as a solution will hurt their honest consumers, and so they do not do it despite the piracy. Crytek is not like this, they view us as a given and behave as if we have no choice but to play their game, they are the true criminals here and dont deserve a single damn sale if they continue like this. We should stop playing the games of devs who act like this, just to demonstrate they need us and they learn that we matter. Impossible I know but I can dream dammit. | |
No, but it does for pretty much ever other product on Earth. You know it's pretty much only the Game/software industries that make an issue of this sort of thing. Look at the auto industry, they pretty much embrace the whole buy/sell/trade thing. Then again most auto retailers/dealership are owned by the manufacturers so even when a used car is sold from them, the manufacturer still makes money. Hey! I've got an idea, why don't all the major publishers like EA, Activision, Nintendo, Square-Enix etc. start their own retail chains that can compete with GameStop and do the whole Buy/Sell/Trade thing. That way when we go do the whole buy/sell/trade thing the publishers will still make money (in other words they could then make money off of used game sales). Oh that's good, I've got to write that down. ...oh wait I just did. | |
It's one thing to attempt to defend profits, but you don't defend profits by placing restrictions on individuals who are attempting to enjoy your product, just on the offchance they might be a pirate. And that's without even going into the area of Used games. As far as I know, no other industry in the world actively tries to intervene in the re-sale of their products by their customers. I'm actually quite sure the consumer's and distributor's right to re-sell a product they've paid full price for is actually present in British and U.S. Law, although I can't say the same for other countries, since I've never looked beyond the U.S. and U.K. Now, I'm not saying that I support the Freetards - the odious, selfish, something-for-nothing shysters who think it is their god-given right to have anything they want for free. Nor do I support those people who think they can justify stealing a product. Piracy is one of the reasons why us folks who actually pay for our games are having to put up with increasingly draconian nonsense from publishers and developers. Honest, paying customers shouldn't have to put up with this bullshit. Game developers/publishers have no right to impose on their customers the way they often do. Individuals have the right to re-sell a product which they already paid full price for without a company stepping in to tell them they can't do that because they have their greedy eyes on the potential profit out there. As for DRM, quite a substantial quantity of evidence has been floating around that suggests imposing heavy DRM on games can actually lead to increased piracy. If you give a shit about why I think this, read the following. If not, jump over it... Oh, and someone should tell them not to try to quote figures on piracy. There are no concrete figures on piracy. There probably never will be. The only way there can be solid figures is if someone in authority was keeping track of every download of a pirated copy and every P2P exchange of a pirated copy, but if that was the case then there would be no piracy at all, because they'd then be able to find and shut down every single source.
I like you, sir. I have nothing to add to your post, and yes, i am badgering you with a flashing red inbox notification for no good reason. | |
Meh... for the purposes of this argument its basically the same thing. CryBaby would tow the company line for EA since EA gives them the ability to publish on such a grand scale. And this doesn't surprise me... CryBaby already said they are not working on TimeSplitters 4 (contradicting their previous statement) so I don't really care for the opinions of another company that is going to churn out EA sponsored crap. | |
The problem is that they havnt solved this problem. With Russia they entered into a market that didnt exist before and offered a service that was previously never available. That situation there can not be applied to this one. As for the article you linked sure they throw out some fancy numbers but there is not nearly enough information given for it to mean anything. They dont even give enough information to back up the numbers they threw out there. They also dont provide any evidence that what they are doing reduces piracy just that if they drop the price it increases sales. Something that anybody with a extremely basic understanding of marketing could tell you. What it doesnt tell you is if your profit is actually increasing or not. | |
Honestly, I've always thought that they should just set up a contractual agreement with Gamestop et al. that gives a percentage of the used games sales to the publishers. Obviously, Gamestop and Co.TM would not be happy with that agreement, but it would certainly help dissuade some of this insanity and hatred, along with the bile that inexplicably gets thrown their way by consumers who believe publishers should have every right to dictate how much they need to spend on their hobby.
Also, this. | |
No kidding. You know who else didn't make money off of used sales? Honda. Did they whine, cry, and moan about it? NO! What did they do? They partnered up with local used dealerships, (and/or opened up their own), and sold the used cars themselves! They put a little marketing ploy to encourage people to buy the "certified pre-owned" cars, and started making money off of used sales. Seriously, how can these game developers and game publishers be so bad at running a business? Here's an idea. Offer incentives to people for sending their used games straight to the developer or publisher, instead of say Gamestop. Money in the bank from used sales and good customer relations. It's a win-win situation game developers and publishers. However, if you get a bigger hard-on for a lose-lose situation, then by all means blocked used games. I'll respond by not buying your consoles. | |
All I want to do is save some god damn money. That's it. I'm not maniacally laughing as I buy the game or thinking "HAHAHAHAAHA! This will put a dent in the profits of those pathetic worms!". I'm thinking "I could get a game for $60 only to have it shit in my face, but I could just get it for $20 so the shit will stink a bit less". That's not evil. That's being a fucking consumer. | |
I think at this point the platforms' respective bugbears render them functionally equivalent - you either lose sales to piracy or to used games. The end. | |
One pirate download doesn't equate to one lost sale. So many people don't seem to realise that. | |
Or that could work too. Either way would involve a hell of a lot less manpower and resources then all these other (failing) attempts at stopping used game sales are probably costing them and wouldn't piss off or alienate their customers. | |
And? He didn't mean (or at least I hope so) that DRM = Piracy, No DRM = No Piracy. | |
Don't really see the problem here. As long as they advertise clearly that there will be things like one-use only activation keys or free day-1 DLC with new copies (but not used ones) I don't really see the problem. Don't like it? Vote with your wallet and they'll change it. But I can definitely understand from a developers or publishers point of view why they'd want to limit used game sales for a product that doesn't deteriorate in value and thus is unable to compete against it's own second-hand form. | |
Actually, with video DVDs, we've already seen a bunch of 'defective' formats that would plain refuse to be played in smart devices, such as computers or... well, modern DVD players. A number of those 'copy protections' turned out to be playback protections. In some countries, working around these hefty flaws - in order to be able to actually access your bought content - is illegal. There have also been a number of defective audio CD formats that got labelled as being copy protections. Same thing there - any multi-purpose 'smart' playback device could very well have issues with these plain broken original discs. If they would ever manage to come up with proper copy protections for games, I wouldn't mind at all. But I would like to be able to be allowed not having to own a bunch of the same console just because my collection happens to span several arbitrarily defined 'zones' or 'region codes', and I would love to be able to install games to my internal harddrive at my own leisure. I would also love to be able to buy original versions of games from the online marketplace designated to my 'region' or country, and not randomly end up with cut or dubbed or censored content. Those are all major turnoffs for me... and the current vouchers, codes and other 'bonuses' don't really help much, methinks. | |
This is why I avoid ebooks like the plague, because if non-game publishers had the tools to pull this crap, they would. | |
He's surprised used sales aren't already banned? Because it's "software"? Weird, last time I checked, Photoshop didn't make me pay $15 to use their magic wand or any other bullshit like that. | |
Read what I put then read what you put then slap yourself on the forehead and say doh. I didn't say they didn't impact sales I said if you removed piracy and used games then that doesn't mean sales will rise as much as some people here think it will. Some people just don't want to pay full price for games. Like I said, I do buy some games used but if there were no used games I just wouldn't buy them games at all. Example being Prototype 2. I'm waiting until I see it for £10 or less on Amazon which usually takes a few months. I have zero interest in paying full price for it because it isn't a game I really want just one I may fancy playing on occasion. If there were no used sales at all then it's a game I would never buy. I do know people who pirate games because they don't want to pay. They can afford them they just don't want to. If piracy didn't exist then they still wouldn't pay for games because they have no interest in the industry at all, they just download games to mess around with and fill an hour or two. Some people just don't care enough to part with money.
Course the percentage is above zero, I may of over stretched the mark a bit there. But there are still a hell of a lot of people who won't buy games even if you take away the cheap/free options. | |
I know several used bookshops in my local area... | |
I actually ended up reading more. DRM caused me to read dozens of books on Physics. So I guess in the end I should thank them, I might have purchased their product and not learned neat new things with my time :o.
That was beautiful. | |
So wait, making completely rational statements now counts as 'bitching'? Apart from his point that it doesn't work like that in other software industries, which is straight-up ridiculous, he's said that a used games block would boost profits (hint: IT WOULD) and that piracy is bad, but there's a positive side. Hell, that's probably the most sensible outlook I've seen from a developer on piracy - the Indie view, that pirating is cool forever, only seems to come up when the dev has happened across vast amounts of money. Funny, that. | |
What do they say about assumptions? You may very well be right - but unless you live in a parallel universe with no DRM, it's a pointless argument. | |
See I would be okay with no used games except for the fact that stores stop selling older games and then you can't get them, as well as the fact that places like gamestop literally never have sales aside from the insane shambles that is black friday. | |
You know what, I don't hate pirating, but 4 million pirated is just too much. I don't oppose used game sale's and I still want to be able to borrow games from my friends though. I mean game retailers like game stop are hardly staying afloat as it is, the last thing they need is they one of there main source's of income thrown out the window. | |
So I understand your beef is not with the concept of second hand, but with GameStop, GAME, and the like. That I can understand, and actually agree with. I say that second hand should be more akin to a flea market than another company milking customers of their money. There's for example a little second hand music/movie store near where I live. They're not big, they don't advertise, they just run a second hand store. They won't tell you top buy at their joint instad of buying a new copy. And that's how I think a second hand gaming market should look too. Oh wait, there actually is a second hand gaming store like that near to where I live too...and they actually give you a decent price on the games you trade in, they won't buy for 5€ and sell for 40€, they'll buy for 20 and sell for 30 or buy for 5 and sell for 10. | |
It's weird that [second-hand] is still allowed because it doesn't work like that in any other software industries It's so odd that someone who is at a position in their job that requires them to be a smart person would say something so incredibly stupid. Books I get that you may just be used to PC software, but damn was that a dumb thing to say. | |
He used the word "convert"... doesn't he know that forceful conversion doesn't take?
I don't know about that, I always thought that paying money for the privilege of being able to buy DLC was kind of dumb. EDIT: I'm also wondering if the piracy rate of their games would drop if Crytek started releasing free benchmarking software | |
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Powell's Books, the largest used book store in the Northwest, very famous, though they sell tons of new as well.
Sam Goody (or whatever they changed their name to) still operates in my neck of the woods selling used CDs next to the new ones (hell, they're even using the old EB Games Shelves and everything)
According to Google Maps, I have 5 used book stores, and 7 used music stores in my local 40 mile radius. Just saying.