Dude, disagree. Against your wall of text there can be no victory but I’ll address some of your points as succinctly as I can (I have ajob and can’t witter all day at you. Maybe developers should spend more time working and not typing 1000 word essays on forums?):
1)The correct comparison would be comparing to DVD/Bluray sales. The films cost similar budgets to make but they still sell and you can trade them in. However, day 1 sales for games compared to opening weekends to films pale in comparison. That’s because initial RRP is too high on games hence people falling back on the used game market a few months later.
2)I think YOU definitely do not understand business. Sales are being stifled by the huge launch prices of these AAA titles. Drop the initial sell price to £25-£30 and you’d sell more. Let’s not get into a pissing contest but I’m a corporate contracts negotiator, not some 14 year old who gets his parents to buy his games, so I know something about retail.
3)The model the industry should be adopting is Steam, I’m glad you brought that up. What makes Steam work? Price. People don’t mind only having a digital purchase if the price point is right. You can’t charge full RRP and then expect people to pay for products they don’t own. Digital is the future because of the benefits it offers consumers, not because of the price gouging opportunities for publishers!
4)The used game market is not a threat in any other industry with high initial development costs, for the automotive trade it actually bolsters the market! The key is to not have a massive disparity between RRP and used prices, which commonly happens with games after they’ve only been on the market a few months! People who trade used games are just giving the consumers what they want, just like anyone who sells used cars, washing machines, freezers or stereos. If you don’t understand different business models, don’t comment on them.
5)My first system was actually an old Atari, but my main was a Sega Master System with Alex Kidd built in. Ha! That’s 1-0 to me!
@Shiftfallout @adamg78 Dude, you're wrong about used games, 100% wrong, and by buying into the corrupt message from developers you're encouraging anti-consumer DRM.
In every other walk of life outside of a digital space, purchasing means owning. Apple and Amazon are trying to subtly change this without people knowing but the backlash against Microsoft shows that when we buy something for £40, we damn well expect to own it.
Developers are going out of business because they keep inflating their budgets on titles with no thought as to whether it will result in better gameplay (see Tomb Raider's predicted sales for evidence of the primates running some of these games developers). Tacked on multiplayer and mandatory minute graphical improvements are now standard practice and we end up paying for the extra development resources spent to achieve them. If Ford built a solid gold car and then charged you £2 million to buy it, would it sell? Same principles apply in the games industry and in a time of austerity it gets my goat that we get to carry the can on bloated AC sequels and Aliens: Colonial Marines.
If you ask me developers need to start selling games at lower initial RRP to encourage gamers to make an initial purchase. Then have additional packs as DLC to lengthen or improve the experience. That way consumers would be more willing to take a punt on new releases, the used game market would not be so appealing and consumers can reward good developers according to what they think they deserve.
Don't buy into the BS dude, when you do it just encourages shoddy business practice that we all end up paying for.
@malokevi @lsdbaby @PetJel They haven't said the adverts won't appear while games are running, they've just said it won't be intrusive to the "experience".
You'd better bone up on your facts my friend. It would help if you understood what you are defending.
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