By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sales - My idea for dealing with used games sales. (You might not like this)

 

Blaming the used game market for a publisher's poor sales is:

Asinine. The publisher ha... 8 42.11%
 
Reasonable. Why buy new w... 1 5.26%
 
Suicidal. Way to bite the... 3 15.79%
 
Asinine and suicidal. Wha... 3 15.79%
 
Reasonable, yet suicidal.... 0 0%
 
Asinine, yet reasonable. ... 0 0%
 
Asinine and suicidal, yet... 0 0%
 
Not something I want to h... 3 15.79%
 
I like cartoons! 1 5.26%
 
I don't like cartoons! 0 0%
 
Total:19
MARCUSDJACKSON on 15 September 2011

your idea is not bad but not sound either.

i think Rol is on point. you have to stop the supply of the used game market so there won't be a damaned. retailers would fight your idea until death even if it passed they'd try to get it overturned.

if retailers and pub's worked closer together and struck up a deal then we'd see both parties happy.

my own personal belief is that when that game crosses the counter then its no longer the property of the pub.
my only thing is why complain when theres dlc? then again who wouldn't want more of the the green paper pie?



 Zarx's unofficial The Witcher 3    

Official Playstation Vita Thread!

write reveiws, articles, share thoughts, and expand on discussion like never before on gamewise.co/brainwaves

Around the Network
MARCUSDJACKSON on 15 September 2011
HappySqurriel said:
I think the solution is much simpler ...

People choose to sell their games back to these retailers to recover a portion of what they spent on the software, and they buy games used to save a small portion of the purchase price, to make the cost of playing videogames more affordable. If videogame publishers focused on digital distribution, past the savings from cutting out the retailers onto the consumer, and lowered their prices in general under the assumption that what they lost in the price of a single copy would be made up in volume sales, they would probably see higher revenues.

To put numbers to this ...

Suppose a publisher's revenue off of a game is $25 to $30, with the game console manufacturer taking about $10 to $15, and the retailer taking the remainder. If you can get the console manufacturer on board to reducing their cut to $5 to $7.50 and you sold the game for $20 to $25 online you would probably see 2 to 4 times the sales on the same game; and decimate the market for used games.

now theres a sound idea the problem is the internet and the need for physical copies for some consumers, and the the solution would be for the consumer to order the game to get a physical copy thats downloaded to the hard drive that can be found on the consumers online username.



 Zarx's unofficial The Witcher 3    

Official Playstation Vita Thread!

write reveiws, articles, share thoughts, and expand on discussion like never before on gamewise.co/brainwaves

MARCUSDJACKSON on 15 September 2011
thranx said:
RolStoppable said:
thranx said:
The best way to help with used games sales and not hurt consumers or retailers (besides gamestop) is to have regular price drops on games at known intervals. Something like release price is 60 for 1-3 months depending on demand. Than a 10 or 20 dollar price drop keep that price for 1-3 months, and than drop price again 10-20 dollars. Consmers win as they get the games for the prices they want, pubs/devs still get their cut since games are bought new, and retailers still get a cut as games will be bought from them. It will hurt gamestop as any used copy they bought when the price was 60 has a chance of not being sold until the retail price drops so they may loose money. well thats the just of it at least.

That would be devastating to the initial sales of new games. Only the most anticipated games wouldn't be negatively affected, but all the rest would sit on shelves for four to six months, because people know that they will get the games much cheaper if they only wait a few months. Many gamers already do this now, even though price drops aren't guaranteed. But doing this on a fixed schedule... that's just going to cause publishers more harm than the current situation with the used games market.

I think the same number of people would wait. People already wait for price drops on games, they just wait for a used version to become available. The numbers could be adjusted slightly. A lot of gamers i know prefer to get the game within the first month of release or they usually dont get it. I dont have the time to look up data but perhaos someone could look and see what the legs on games are like after 1-3 months of release and if they are being outpaced by used games sales it would be a good idea to just drop the price of a new game. I personaly only buy maybe 1-2 games full price all year. The rest are bought used or on sale at steam/amazon.

 

The other option is for pubs to just not sell new games to Gamestop. I wouldn't. Why rely on them when you have wal mart kmart target and best buy all across america. Just cut gamestop out of the equation and simply do not let them sell your games new to just be brought back to be put up for sale against new games. Pubs can't stop gamestop from selling used games but as far as i know they dont have to sell them their games to sell new.

but whts to stop gamestop from buying the selling the used games after gamers are done playing said games and want to sell them? i do like your idea but Rol's right.



 Zarx's unofficial The Witcher 3    

Official Playstation Vita Thread!

write reveiws, articles, share thoughts, and expand on discussion like never before on gamewise.co/brainwaves

JEMC on 15 September 2011
RolStoppable said:
The first paragraph was by far the best of the entire post, even though its wording is flawed too.

The solution is actually pretty simple. A used game can only come into circulation when somebody decides to sell their game. Therefore the goal has to be to prevent this from happening. If a consumer doesn't want to sell their game, there is no used game to buy and anyone who wants the game has to buy new. It's not a matter of hype, but substance.

Believe it or not, someone in the industry thinks like you:

From a Gamespot interview with Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick:

 "The theory was, let consumers know there's a reason to hold onto your games because the bulk of impact of used game sales on front line sales is in the first six weeks," Zelnick explained. "So if we can get people to hold onto their game for the first six weeks, the titles aren't in the stores in the used game section, which means people have to buy the front line title from us." 

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6334125/red-dead-dlc-targeted-market-trends-take-two

How they did this? Launching the DLC "Outlaws to the End" for free.



Please excuse my bad English.

Former gaming PC: i5-4670k@stock (for now), 16Gb RAM 1600 MHz and a GTX 1070

Current gaming PC: R5-7600, 32GB RAM 6000MT/s (CL30) and a RX 9060XT 16GB

Steam / Live / NNID : jonxiquet    Add me if you want, but I'm a single player gamer.

simonsimon on 16 September 2011

My Idea...

Games can only be sold back to the developers. And then they inturn can re-sell and get their cut from the second-hand sales. The companies get their money, The customers can still buy affordable games and make money from returning them. and re-tailers can bulk buy used copies from distriubtors like they do with new games and then re-sell, just for less.

I imagine it could be done on a posting system. In the UK there are companies that will buy your mobile/cell phone from you. (check online for a quote, post it, it gets assessed, you get the final quote, and the money or it returned back to you) I think it could work this way. its easy and less hassel free then having to go into town.

what do you think?



Around the Network
Cirio on 16 September 2011

I've always been confused by this, so maybe someone can explain: Why should there be anything done to "deal" with used games? The used market is common to just about every product out there. Whether it be movies, books, cars, clothes etc. Why are video games getting this special "attention" in the used market and why are developers so aggressive in dealing with them? I don't hear much about the film industry fighting against used DVD sales nor do I hear anything about artists blaming used music CD sales nor authors blaming used book sales.