General Game Gabbin'

[Syobon]

inb4 The Three Musketeers or something.

[Alex]

Dota 3

[Gryewolf]

If they make a Portal 3 I hope it's about Chell again.
Maybe give her a real gun.
And dialog.
And a love interest.
And new clothes.
Also probably down grade the Portal Gun a good bit too, maybe it uses ammo, like charges or something.
She's also gotta have a side kick or something.
Oh give her armor instead of the orange jump suit she wears all the time.
Yeah that'll be awesome.

[Kamak]

Saying people that buy used games would never buy it full price is a false assumption that you have no proof to back up.

It is correct that the developer sells it games to the retailer, but if the retailer can just keep reselling it's games when customers return them, or when customers buy less games because they are buying them used elsewhere, the retailer doesn't buy from the developer anymore and the developer loses sales.

And arguing the contrary with no proof doesn't make your point any more valid either. Prove that a decent number of people who traditionally buy used games would make the jump to paying new game prices, as you've been arguing.

It's frankly not something either side can conclusively prove, so calling burden of proof out on it without providing proof for your side is fallacious.

And perhaps if companies were to give gamers incentives to NOT sell their games after they complete them (perhaps by making them into something of a collector's item/giving them something that will unlock a minor feature in a sequel game, or perhaps making a game that's unique and GOOD (in the customer's eyes) enough to make the consumer not want to sell it), they wouldn't have to worry about the endless cycle of used games happening. More than my minor qualms with DLC, I really hate the way the gaming industry/community has become a "buy a new game, beat it in three days, and sell it to buy next week's game". Games with multiplayer online can help stem the tide of this by a little bit, but frankly, by the time the next similar game comes out (usually FPS, at least in my circle of gaming friends), it's time to trade in the game for the latest multiplayer craze that everyone is getting swept up in. I have a few friends that have the used market down to a science, and its ridiculously predictable.

I used to be on both sides of that movement (both, buy every new game and trade them in for the next game and stalking the used game racket (though back when I did it it was much more hit and miss for certain titles. Took over a year to get Kingdom Hearts.)), back when I had little cheddar and a giant list of games to play, but now I'm much more into buying and keeping the games I have (though ones I don't like I end up selling/giving away). To me, it's a lot more rewarding to limit the number of games I play and keep myself from selling my collection just to splurge on the next big thing.

So personally, I find replayability/incentive to not sell the games in the first place will help sales more than on disc DLC or multiplayer key codes. You're stopping the games from making it to the used game market to begin with (or at least limiting), and the perceived quality of the game is higher, meaning not only better initial sales, but also better ongoing sales as exposure to the game increases with no used games to soak up the subsequent buyers.

Also, I don't have any issue with used games having certain features (like online, as long as the game isn't entirely online centric) unavailable as an incentive to buy new. What I do have issue with is if there's no real way to buy new games a year (or more) down the road.

Think of how hard it is to find games from last generation/the beginning of this generation. Now imagine trying to find a new game so you get the entire thing. If companies are willing to keep an avenue open for consumers to get new games (even if only on an online site), I'd feel better about it. However, I don't like the idea of latecomers (and it's not always "you were too lazy to buy it when it was just released", there's a lot of people much younger than me trying to get gamecube/PS2 games, games that were out when they were 6-8) potentially being screwed by something meant to slow down the used sales market.

[Syobon]

And arguing the contrary with no proof doesn't make your point any more valid either. Prove that a decent number of people who traditionally buy used games would make the jump to paying new game prices, as you've been arguing.

It's frankly not something either side can conclusively prove, so calling burden of proof out on it without providing proof for your side is fallacious.

I'd argue that my side is more economically valid, since homo economicus would never pay more for the same product (yes I know that guy's a douchebag). You have a point that I can't proof all used sales are lost sales, but that isn't my point. My point is that a percentage of used sales are lost sales, which is always bad from the company's point of view. The point I was disproving was that a used sale is never a lost sale, which is quite the ridiculous notion.

So personally, I find replayability/incentive to not sell the games in the first place will help sales more than on disc DLC or multiplayer key codes.

I agree that too will help reduce used sales greatly. Most current games have a lot of replayability in the form of multiplayer though.

Think of how hard it is to find games from last generation/the beginning of this generation. Now imagine trying to find a new game so you get the entire thing. If companies are willing to keep an avenue open for consumers to get new games (even if only on an online site)

You mean like Steam? The reason old games are harder to find is because they're not being produced any more, you can hardly expect a company to keep producing games at a loss just so young people can play them too. Also, companies do not make it impossible to buy used games, they just give you positive incentive for buying them new. It would indeed be bad if they did do that, and some have tried so in the form of DRM, which I'm against as well.

[Mr. Mander]

Killing Floor crashes whenever I join a server

Best five dollars ever spent

[General]

Playing .flow
No pants have been shat yet
Still have high expectations

[Kamak]

So personally, I find replayability/incentive to not sell the games in the first place will help sales more than on disc DLC or multiplayer key codes.

I agree that too will help reduce used sales greatly. Most current games have a lot of replayability in the form of multiplayer though.

Think of how hard it is to find games from last generation/the beginning of this generation. Now imagine trying to find a new game so you get the entire thing. If companies are willing to keep an avenue open for consumers to get new games (even if only on an online site)

You mean like Steam? The reason old games are harder to find is because they're not being produced any more, you can hardly expect a company to keep producing games at a loss just so young people can play them too. Also, companies do not make it impossible to buy used games, they just give you positive incentive for buying them new. It would indeed be bad if they did do that, and some have tried so in the form of DRM, which I'm against as well.

The issue with replayability being based on multiplayer though is that the multiplayer communities can be fickle. When the "next big thing" comes out, the multiplayer suffers immensely, whether it's the next entry in the same series or an entry in a similar series. Many times, the multiplayer doesn't recover as much (Halo seems to be a fairly big exception, but then again, Halo is one of the bigger dedicated multiplayer communities), which means much less incentive to hold onto a game if no one is going to be online to play with.

And I don't consider Steam because it's not ubiquitous for all game releases. It may eventually reach that point, but it's not there yet.

To address the rest of the point, the issue of "new vs. used" for old games doesn't matter right now. If you buy a new or used hard to find game from the beginning of this Gen or last Gen, pretty much all of them are going to be the same, regardless of whether they've been played before or not. However, if the "new" (unplayed) version of the game has features not available in the used version, then finding a new version becomes a bigger priority, and eventually, the amount of new versions of the game are going to run out.

My point is, if a company is going to make a distinction between used and new games, they should provide a way for people to get the game new (not meaning that they need to make sure every store in the world is stocked with the game, but it does need to be available at least), or at least a way to unlock the features on the used disc.

Granted, if eventually all games are distributed digitally, then there should be no need to worry about this, because unless companies are going to be stupid about it, there should be a new copy of the game available at any time.

[Syobon]

My point is, if a company is going to make a distinction between used and new games, they should provide a way for people to get the game new (not meaning that they need to make sure every store in the world is stocked with the game, but it does need to be available at least), or at least a way to unlock the features on the used disc.

They don't "have" to do anything. Why should a company go the extra mile to do something that's just going to cost them cheddar? I agree that it'd be nice if they did, but we really have no right to outright demand these things. All you can do is convince the company that enough people would buy the old game for it to be profitable for them. Fortunately, with the advent of digital distribution, the costs of selling games is greatly reduced, so I do think a lot of old classics will be made easier to acquire. Just look at the Wii's online shop.

[Kamak]

And where did I said they were required to do so? I just said that they should, like how politicians should be held accountable for their campaign promises. Doesn't mean it's going to happen, but it'd certainly be very nice if it did.

[Shad]

Are you comparing businessmen to politicians

[Kamak]

Are you comparing businessmen to politicians

At this point the two terms are synonymous.

[scebboaliwiw]

Got Rhythm Heaven recently. Ridiculously fun and difficult and ridiculous.

[Kamak]

Got Rhythm Heaven recently. Ridiculously fun and difficult and ridiculous.

That's one of my favorite franchises.

I really can't wait for the Wii version to come out. Just got announced for a February 13th release stateside.

[scebboaliwiw]

Yeah I heard about that. Hoping to get it for my birthday which is about 2 weeks away from that.