Epic: Second hand games are a huge issue

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/11/10/epic-second-hand-games-are-a-huge-issue/1

Dr. Michael Capps, President of Epic Games, has called for developers and publishers to try and find some way to combat the second hand games market which he says is a huge issue for the industry.

Capps also said that piracy was a huge issue for PC games specifically, pointing to Crysis as an example. According to Capps the ratio of pirated to non-pirated versions for Crysis was a staggering 20:1. Capps says that's why Epic has no intention to release Gears of War 2 on the PC, not ever.

"That's gruesome to a company like ours that's been in the PC market for so long," he said to GI.biz. "We're trying to fix it, there's a new alliance of companies trying to make PC gaming work again. But if people are playing games without buying them, then the games aren't going to keep coming."

Right now though, Capps is more concerned with the second hand market, saying that Epic's primary retailer makes the majority of its money from second hand sales despite being a specialist games store.

"We don't make any money when someone rents it, and we don't make any money when someone buys it used - way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it."

The solution, says Capps, is a platform like Steam which can feed back to developers sales figures and cash on the same day.

"We're able to respond immediately. That model's so wonderful from a developer perspective, not just making money, but knowing where my customers are and being able to make them happy. With retail, I just don't have that - I get 'Oh Europe came back with this many numbers,' and I get that 60 days after we ship."

Make games more affordable.

Period!

Make games more affordable.

Period!

mamkem6

I know right you know how much this gens games would sell if they were still 49.99?

[QUOTE="mamkem6"]

Make games more affordable.

Period!

Animal-Mother

I know right you know how much this gens games would sell if they were still 49.99?

I've got an even simpler solution: make games worthy enough for players keeping them.

I would NEVER re-sell Metroid Prime 1/2, RE4, Zelda TP/WW, God of War 1/2, MGS3, etc (my last gen games).

"According to Capps the ratio of pirated to non-pirated versions for Crysis was a staggering 20:1"

Uh... so there are over 60million people with crysis? :shock:

so we can't buy pre-owned games now according to epic? thats the only way i can afford most of my games!! money hungry ******** !

we bought the game, we should be able to sell it on. its OURS.

Um no he should shut his mouth honestly....used games are fine....devs should focus on selling new/retail games.....

I've got an even simpler solution: make games worthy enough for players keeping them.

I would NEVER re-sell Metroid Prime 1/2, RE4, Zelda TP/WW, God of War 1/2, MGS3, etc (my last gen games).

IronBass

This just in: Used car market is killing new car sales

Edit: I was just thinking.. since the used game market exists because people don't want to pay $60 for a game, then developers should start halving the price of games sooner. Or dropping them to at least $40 a few months after release. If the price of a brand new copy is a negligable difference between the used version, then I expect most people to go for a new copy.

This just in: Used car market is killing new car salesMyopicCanadian

Not sure why, but that tickled my funny bone! LOL

Dear Epic,

You can't win. On the PC it's Piracy. On Consoles it's second hand markets. There's nothing you can do about it. Just make great games with non-intrusive DRM and people will buy them. Make games with excellent replay value so people don't pirate the game because they think buying it would be a waste of money. Make games with excellent replay value so people don't trade in their games as quickly because they feel they've wasted their money on a short game.

I can understand that they might dislike the second hand games market as their primary responsiblity is to their shareholders (or owners). Following their logic they have even more of a case against rival games companies.

They would probably be better off forgetting the issue though, as it may not improve their sales as much as they think. I buy almost every game second hand for the reason that I don't think they are worth the money new. I would rather pay 10% of the price for 90% of the fun by playing top quality last gen (or last years) games (e.g. Could someone please tell me what I would be paying £30 extra for by upgrading from Fifa 08 to Fifa 09?)

Make games more affordable.

Period!

mamkem6

That's the old chicken or the egg argument. If they lower the prices, would they sell more new games or are the prices high because they are competing against their own product in the second hand market?

If they sold the game for $49.99, would people stop buying second hand...no.

When people buy second hand, they cannot recoup the production costs, making raising initial sale prices the only way for them to recoup costs

For every million selling game (GoW, MGS4 etc.) there are 5 games that flop (Too Human, Haze etc.).

Not to mention, the second hand market is ridiculously unbalanced.

Take a new release game to get $15 cash or $18 credit and the 2nd hand store turns around to sell it for $54.99. I can get games from the internet, brand new, for that price. Or they give you $1.00 for a game "that is hard to sell" and sell that for $19.99.

Screw that...

Used games are practically a gamer tradition. I buy a ton of games used because they're so much cheaper. You can get so many awesome last gen titles for less then $10 online- $10! Is it so wrong to buy used?

Screw that...

Used games are practically a gamer tradition. I buy a ton of games used because they're so much cheaper. You can get so many awesome last gen titles for less then $10 online- $10! Is it so wrong to buy used?

TAKE_IT_BACK

its wrong because the developers making the game see no money for those titles. Which means they are losing money to make all the good games. On games no longer in print its okay but not for new games.

Solution: Make games more AFFORDABLE

Then you can come up with solutions against piracy. But for now people sympathise with the "pirates" because of the fortune it costs these days to play games. Second hand sales and piracy will continue unless devs:

1) Make games more affordable (To combat piracy)

2) Include extra content on the Original new copy (To combat second hand sales)

I've got an even simpler solution: make games worthy enough for players keeping them.

I would NEVER re-sell Metroid Prime 1/2, RE4, Zelda TP/WW, God of War 1/2, MGS3, etc (my last gen games).

IronBass

Yep that should be the solution, that and with a game like Gears you need to continue to add to the multiplayer experience if you want people to hang onto their copies.

Mamkem6 was also on the right track with the price issue, a lot more people would buy games and hang on to them if they were no so over priced to begin with.

Regardless I do not think it will be fair if companies find a way to stop trading in games or more importantly to me stop renting them, a lot of this is just greed and considering how many people have lost their jobs this year alone because their employers went under I think Epic should be happy they are turning a nice profit.

Screw that...

Used games are practically a gamer tradition. I buy a ton of games used because they're so much cheaper. You can get so many awesome last gen titles for less then $10 online- $10! Is it so wrong to buy used?

TAKE_IT_BACK

It's not wrong but you are proving his point.

Come on now, we're all gamers in here, we don't care for the outside world much)

What is this outside world you guys speak of? I heard it has the best graphics and physics out there and no respawns, can anyone confirm this with a link?

Be careful. 'RealWorld' is admittedly very impressive graphically, with quite incredible draw distances and only occasional jaggies (of course PS3 version does have problems with the framerate) but it can be very repetitive. No macros or hot-keys make boosting stats a pretty time consuming process. If you are going to play it I recommend interacting with the Gyrlz. Their AI is pretty questionable at times but the plot lines involving them are quite compelling.

YES it's wrong to buy used. Those games are sold pure profit....usually in excess of 500%. That $10 game was traded in for less than a dollar, which is 1000% markup.

All it does is contribute to their crappy used game empire. It doesn't benefit us at all.

In fact, ONLY buy used when it's most convenient and when you're looking at a game you don't have the option buying new The reason is because the publisher, developer, and manufacturer do not see a single dime from your purchase. If you bought new, they'd get at least some portion of your purchase price before the gremlins at Gamestop sucked more from their ridiculous markups.

If you want to fund this industry....buy new games. If you want to fund a retail chain that does nothing but stink in every capacity, buy used games.

Um no he should shut his mouth honestly....used games are fine....devs should focus on selling new/retail games.....

jg4xchamp

But they cant when Gamestop puts a copy of GTAIV that is 10 bucks cheaper with a 7 day return policy sitting beside a GTAIV copy that is 10 bucks higher and has no return policy. It's too tempting.

I've bought plenty of used games in my time, but I do see the problem with it and try to avoid it as much as possible now, unless it's a really rare game or a great deal. Otherwise, I'll shell out the extra 5 or 10 bucks so the developer gets their due.

I'm not going to preach the evils of the used game market, as I've bought plenty of them in my day. However, from a company standpoint I think he's totally correct. If they survey gamers and find that let's say only 50 out of 100 actually bought a game(new), but that 75 of those people played it, they have every right to figure out how to actually get some of those people to buy their product new. Now maybe only 15 of those people would buy new rather than rent or buy used if it were an option, but that's still more money for them.

How can you complain about how expensive games are today? Games for the NES cost $50, and now thy're $50-$60. I'd say that's pretty low compared to the cost of game development and how high that's become. Gaming is an expensive hobby, it always has been.

I'm actually a little surprised that the companies haven't tried suing stores like Gamestop over this practice. Unlike other inductries like DVds/CDs, which may have a few much smaller retailers in the reselling business, when it comes to games, everyone knows the top offender. Heck they don't even do ads about buying new games, just trade in your old ones.

[QUOTE="TAKE_IT_BACK"]

Screw that...

Used games are practically a gamer tradition. I buy a ton of games used because they're so much cheaper. You can get so many awesome last gen titles for less then $10 online- $10! Is it so wrong to buy used?

njean777

its wrong because the developers making the game see no money for those titles. Which means they are losing money to make all the good games. On games no longer in print its okay but not for new games.

So what? Epic director and cliffy both have a Ferrari, they want a lamborghini? They already make enought cash to be rich and pretend they are cool, what they would do with more cash?

They talk about PC piracy as if every PC gamer pirates games (less than 25% of PC gamers pirate games and they only pirate a select few games). I've been playing PC games and been a PC gamer since 1990 and i've never pirated a game. Sure, there's a select group out there that pirates games. But the games still sell 1+ million alot of the time assuming that the game is worth it (Crysis, WoW, CoD4, Warcraft 3, Starcraft, The Witcher, UT, etc. I can go on and on).

Epic is either 1. Hypocrites or 2. Ignorant to facts.

Lets look at facts. Their last 2 games (UT3 and Gears of War) were primarily console based titles. UT3 wasn't even half as good as UT2004 in terms of content or playability. They simply rereleased a dumbed down version of UT2004 and pawned it off as something new to the console crowd (who is wildly unfamiliar with UT games). Why would we buy UT3 when it simply isn't as good as UT2004 (A PC exclusive)? Also considering UT2004 sold well over a million copies. More people are playing UT2004 over UT3 online on PC. UT2004 was simply the better title by a longshot.

As for Gears of War...they complain about PC sales when they release a PC port of a year old 360 title? Honestly, how ignorant can you be. Release Gears of War simultaneously on PC/360 and you have higher PC sales. Simple. I for one would've picked it up immediately on PC the day that it was released if it were released simultaneously with the other version. The game was worth it. Though i picked it up on PC when it released on PC anyway, it would've been nice to have had it a year earlier. If they had released Gears 2 simultaneously on PC/360 I would definitely have picked up the PC version on the first day. Even though a PC version is no doubt going to happen, i'm seriously debating whether or not to buy it just due to their ignorant and extreme amounts of complaining that they're doing.

The fact that they cannot see this stuff is astounding. Unreal Tournament used to be a PC exclusive franchise and they sold very well. At least 1 million the majority of the time in fact. I've been saying this for a long time, they need to keep UT as a PC exclusive and keep Unreal Championship as a console exclusive. Both had their respective platforms to cater to and both were better for it. UT moreso than the latter though. ;)

I buy ALL my games second hand

Too bad Epic

wow, a lot of whining nobodies in this thread

nobody has said resale of your games is wrong or evil. the fact is that second hand sales and purchases do hurt developers. this is undeniable, and saying "boo hoo for X developer" makes you look like an ignorant sod without an understanding of the basics of how a currency-based economy works. nobody is claiming some of you super-sensitive types are morally abhorrent for propping up used games. a developer is noting that the used game market is a problem for them, and why, and are obviously looking at solutions. the notion that some people have gotten so worked up over this is further proof of why the gaming community is so embarassingly bad at arguing an kind of point it has to make or defend.

wow, a lot of whining nobodies in this thread

nobody has said resale of your games is wrong or evil. the fact is that second hand sales and purchases do hurt developers. this is undeniable, and saying "boo hoo for X developer" makes you look like an ignorant sod without an understanding of the basics of how a currency-based economy works. nobody is claiming some of you super-sensitive types are morally abhorrent for propping up used games. a developer is noting that the used game market is a problem for them, and why, and are obviously looking at solutions. the notion that some people have gotten so worked up over this is further proof of why the gaming community is so embarassingly bad at arguing an kind of point it has to make or defend.

CaptainHarley

YES it's wrong to buy used. Those games are sold pure profit....usually in excess of 500%. That $10 game was traded in for less than a dollar, which is 1000% markup.

BobHipJames

Seriously, a month ago I walked into EB Games to buy Halo3. It was $60, but the clerk said "Why don't you get a used one, they're cheaper." Yeah, a whole $5 cheaper.

Who are these people that buy a game for $60, sell it back for $5, then go buy a used game for $55? I know that used games are a big thing on consoles, but for the life of me I don't understand the economics from a gamer perspective (unless you shop on Ebay, where you can find deals, or if that $5 really makes/breaks it for you). I guess if you're really never going to touch the game again, it makes cents (pun intended), but you really get crap in return.

wow, a lot of whining nobodies in this thread

nobody has said resale of your games is wrong or evil. the fact is that second hand sales and purchases do hurt developers. this is undeniable, and saying "boo hoo for X developer" makes you look like an ignorant sod without an understanding of the basics of how a currency-based economy works. nobody is claiming some of you super-sensitive types are morally abhorrent for propping up used games. a developer is noting that the used game market is a problem for them, and why, and are obviously looking at solutions. the notion that some people have gotten so worked up over this is further proof of why the gaming community is so embarassingly bad at arguing an kind of point it has to make or defend.

CaptainHarley

if the used game market is a problem for them, why dont they join it instead of fighting it?

why dont they set-up their own used game program? instead of trying to stop people from doing whatever they want to something they OWN?

I got news for you, Epic....60.00 games are a huge issue for us gamers. I still buy new games of course, but when the holiday season rolls around and there is a literal horde of games being released that I want, chances are, I am going to wait a while for the price to drop, then find me some used copies on Ebay or something. There is just no way I am going to pay 60.00 a pop for every game that I want to buy. Hell, the used games market is what assures me that I eventually get every game I want to buy.

The second hand fight is a fight they won't win. Unless the industry offers relatively cheap downloads (like Burnout Paradise), people will keep buying used. They can't go to court and sue Gamestop or the big box retailers (which I've noticed are also starting to offer used games) because they will never win. If they do win, then used car sales, used CDs, DVDs, Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, Netflix etc. would all go out of business and there'd be a huge backlash.

For myself, I will never buy a sports game new. It's not worth the 60 bucks to have a few months of updated rosters and mildly improved gameplay from a previous years version that I can get for under 10 bucks. I buy a lot of used games, but if the new version is a only a few bucks more expensive (for some of the newer games, a used version may be 55 bucks and a new version may be 60, I'll just go for the new version, less hassle with scratches and stuff), I'll buy the new version.

Piracy is a legitimate issue on the PC and it's a reason why PC gaming will be gone in a few years (except maybe for online only games like WoW). PC Gamers who complain about the lack of new games coming out can only look at themselves to blame. If you like the games, buy it and support the developers.

Make games with loads of quality content, and I'll be more inclined to spend $60 on a 10 hour singleplayer.