Is Sony pulling a fast one?

[T2k]

Speaking as an artist at a large game developer, I'd like to know why you think we don't deserve every penny we put into those games? Unlike movies, video games have a shelf life of only a couple years at best, and that's if they are a blockbuster.

FYI: movies have only a couple of weeks in theatres and months of rental and DVD release life and onoly if they are blockbusters.

Stop painting the false picture of games are having harder times - it's the opposite.
Make a blockbuster - including features! - like Half-Life and you can sell it for years to come, everybody will buy it. It's all about replay value and onlinbe features like MP.

As somebody correctly pointed out: if you can't make money the normal way then just go back to McD or finish the school or start a new one or a new career.
It isn't obvious that your costumers have to be ripped off for your inability to step up against your bloodsucking publishers.

Yet our budgets are now close to being on par with the film industry, I know, because I worked there too. I know everyone would love all entertainment to be free, but I got bills to pay, mouths to feed, and this is my business.

This is because you are feeding the same beast the movie industry is based on: the marketing parasites, the so-called "publishing industry" (there no such thing) parasites and so on.

Start a small company and you'll be just doing fine from small money.
Plenty of GREAT and HIGH QUALITY games have been made out of a 10x smaller budget that of average EA game.

Copy protection is a pain in the ass, but so are keylocks, macrovision, pin codes and security systems, because as long as there are theives out there, they are needed.

Really? SO why is Steam so successful, cheap and yet convenient at the same time?

You guys really need to wake up. This is the BS crap that MPAA/RIAA/etc try to sell.
IT IS NOT TRUE AT ALL.

If you pout something worthwile into that box, I will buy the box set. Since you don't put anything into it, I don't buy it.

It's easy as 1-2-3. Look at Steam: I can access ALL my games, all the time, even if I move to another continent for weeks - all I need is internet. And if I'm not sure I will have broadband internet over there, I just burn my files to a DVD or bring my laptop with my games installed.
If I really like the game, I'll buy the uber box set for $10 more instead the online downloadable version.

This is the future, not the old, parasite-feeding, middleman-dictated retailing.

The honor system just ain't working anymore.

You've been told, yes - but it's actually BS.
It's working very well - just the middleman, the parasites smell the danger that some day you will realize you can do it ALONE, without them.

All they are trying to do is ensure their role forever.

Justify it all you want, you are literally stealing money out of my pocket and everyone who works with me [\quote]

This is total BS: since when you are entitled for incentives from the second hand market?

Stop drinking the publisher's Kool-Aid - you are hired to do the job ONCE, get paid ONCE (they get better money: they get paid once per user), not to get a lifelong pass for rigging a frikkin body under 3-4 months.

because the incentive for working in this business is royalties and stocks, both of which are affected by the second hand market, mod chips and other forms of "sharing".

This is the Kool-Aid part: you are being their hostage voluntarily. They are ensuring you won't break away hence their useless middleman status won't change.

Wake up, Neo - you're being fooled...

 

[VIPERS-PIT]

The cost of production of a video title is not $1000 but in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. New technology and the demand by game buyers of bigger games, better video and sound, more options, expandability, now even of on-line play is really driving up the cost of video games. Some older games are better then the newer ones. Some aren't. The consumer decides.

As for resell of software, a title sells for $50 gets bought back for $25 and resells for $40. Every title resold cuts out the software house, takes money out of their pockets. Why, because that resale circumvents the sale of a new product. You folks need to take a look at the near future and the automobile market is a very good example.

Back in the 70's you had to buy a car. Lease programs were not around. Then came the 80's and everyone had lease programs. Auto makers profits florished -- or did they? Profits started shrinking and the price of new cars started rising. My first new car cost $4300 in 1974. I just paid $38000 for my last new car last year. What happened?

Leasing happened. People stopped buying new and most leased. When those leased cars came back in the dealers owned those cars and had to do something with the dead weight. In the early ninties market analyst predicted that the US auto market was heading for dire straights if the bulk of their product continued to be leased and not purchased.

Now it is 2006 and GM is in trouble and no one knows if there will be a GM two years from now. Ford is heading down the same street -- they have been losing tons of money for the last few years. Chrysler was purchased by Mercedes. Analysts hope Toyota will buy GM and save them. What the heck has happened? The lease market and the growing used car market has a strangle hold on the new car market and the future is not bright.

I see the video game market going in the same direction and maybe that is why more games are going online and offering you 'extras' for a price. That is the only way to circumvent the resell market. Once the particular piece of software has been upgraded you might not be able to resale that piece of software and the new buyer be able to purchase the 'extras'. This might be what Sony has in mind.

Everyone knows it is the unions that killed GM and are killing Ford. Leasing had nothing to do with it. Its 100% union. The retired union workers cost GM 7 grand PER CAR before any two pieces are put together. Now on a car like the cobalt that sells for 14 grand and sells wholesale for 9 grand, that means there are 2 grand worth of parts and labor in the car.

 

[T2k]

Everyone knows it is the unions that killed GM and are killing Ford. Leasing had nothing to do with it. Its 100% union. The retired union workers cost GM 7 grand PER CAR before any two pieces are put together. Now on a car like the cobalt that sells for 14 grand and sells wholesale for 9 grand, that means there are 2 grand worth of parts and labor in the car.

Of course.
Joe, once again, is talking out of his bottom part - he apparently didn't notice that every other maker is just doing fine.

 

[JoeSp]

Actually, not ever other maker is doing fine. Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia are doing well. That is it in the automotive market. Mercedes has been taking hits lately and buying Chrysler did not impress their stock holders. VW and Audi have been report much slower sales in the us the last 3 years with each year declining. Nissan is Japan's other car maker and their sister company Infinity while making nice cars does not even rank in the top 20 luxury car sales. BMW is holding but not gaining on anyone and Volvo still has not recover from their 'acceleration' problems of the 80's.

What 1970's book you reading out of T2k? The automotive industry worldwide is in a talespin. It has been for the last 5 years. Heck the kiddies are now garning big sales here in the US. I am talking about Hyundai and Kia. The Koreans are following the Japanese and they are kicking US automakers buts.

Build a good product, ask a fair price and people will BUY your cars. I don't think there are alot of lease plans on cars selling for under $10000. Heck, probably not alot of lease plans for cars under $15000. You can get them but why, it is cheaper to buy the car! Besides, it is easier to resell a leased car with 50,000 miles on it for $5000 then one for $20000. Simple economics, the lower price goes first and the higher price sits around longer -- costing the owner (US manufacturers and their dealers) more money.

Oh, just in case you don't know, in Japan there is what they call lifetime employment. No layoffs, no loss of income, they get paid just as well as their US counterparts and their retirement is better. So, you can not blame it entirely on the Unions -- they share the load of crap with the automakers and the workers. Read the above paragraph again.

 

[gandhrav]

this thread is full of people from videogame industry such as sony and game developers.

I don't beleive a Bullsh!t which comes out of their mouth. And my advise to them would be that keep dreaming..... Once I buy a product, than it belong to me, you have no control over it cause you have no right over it anymore. I can use it, break it, even eat it:, or throw it in toilet. Bottom line is its my property.

If you lazy ass wana just develop one SINGLE game and want to be keep getting paid for it for the next 20 years, than stick your product in you a$$ cause I am not buying it, and you gonna be spending next 20 years in unemployment.

I usually just read and never post but I couldn't stop mysef

I just can't beleive the nerve of them, If I buy a game for $60 and than want to sell it to my neighbor or best friend for $20, Than I DON'T have to pay developers a penny AGAIN. I allready paid for it once. Rob sombody else you theives.

 

[T2k]

Well said...

 

[Digital Dude]

Amen!

 

[jbcheshire]

Yep, what he said!!!

 

[griz_fan]

Reselling a product is NOT PIRACY! And every argument offered to support that claim has absolutely no basis in reality or fact. The whole Ford/GM tangent is so rediculous, I can't believe I have to comment on it. Face it, people have been selling used cars since before Henry Ford. GM managed to build a sucessful business model around trading up (start with the Chevy, trade up to a Pontiac, then a Buick, then retire with the Caddy). GM and Ford's problems are due to a series of bad business decisions; bad relationships with the unions, bad investments, over-reaching in some markets and simply building cars that people didn't care to buy.
Many of the same problems plague the video game industry, too. When someone comes out with a great game, it sells and becomes a cash cow. Piracy is a very real problem in the video gaming industry. Illegal copies of games cut deap into the bottom line of developers and publishers. That is where to problem lies, not in reselling games. The game publisher sets a price for thier product and sells it. Why should they get a cut on subsequent resales? That is small-minded protectionism at its worst. Its like having each state charge a tariff for shipping products across state lines.
So, if Sony is seriously considering this tactic for the PS3, that could go down as one of the worst business decissions of all time. Not only would it hurt console sales, but it would strangle software sales as well. Paying $60-75 for a game is bad enough, but not being able to sell it when finished to fund the next game would make it really tough for a lot of people to buy more than one or two games a year.
This is bad for consumers and bad for business.

 

[ebonovic]

How many of you, have purchased a used version of a game...
Only to then enjoy the game that much, that you purchased the newest release version full price on the day it was released (or close to it) ?

I have done that a few time to try out a "series"
That is how I got hooked on BurnOut for example...

I am VERY reluctant to buy games for my XBOX360 at $60 a pop... Even with rentals at $8 a week (which is nuts), or some of the gamefly options......

I would rather spend $20 on a used or "platinum" version of the game, so I can try it out at my own pace.... If I like it, then I might give the newest one the nod at $60

 

[Anshar]

The fact of the matter is that secondary markets have always existed. They exist because the market demands that they exist. Our economy is driven by supply and demand and there is a demand for second-hand video games.

There was a comment made that the creator of computer code owns the code. I agree with that. But... once you compile that code into a working program, it ceases to be code and becomes a product. When you sell that product to me, it's mine. I own it and can do with it what I will - short of reverse engineering it to get the code behind it. You have the code. I have the finished product. You can use the code to make more copies of the product like having plans for a widget allows you to build more widgets. I can't (legally) use my copy of your finished product to make copies of your product.

If I resell my copy of the finished product, that is my right. It's not like I'm making a copy of it and selling the copy. I am choosing to give up my ability to play the game in the future in exchange for a sum of money. If I later regret that decision and want to play the game again, I have to buy the game again. I might get it used if I can, but if I can't I would have to buy a new copy again.