Are Developers Cheating Second-Hand Gamers?
- May 19th, 2010
- Posted in Articles
- By rymanb
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For many years, you may have seen game that you’ve wanted, but not absolutely had to get on day one, so you wait for a bit. One day, you go into a shop and see a pre-owned version of the game for about half the price. Great! Right? Well for you, maybe, but for those same years, the developers have felt left out – a pre-owned title does not gain them money as it is merely one person selling to another person in the superficial hands of a retailer.
Well, now developers are starting to get their own back, they’ve had enough of this and have decided to alter the content which second-hand gamers get. Yes, it could be classed as wrong, and many oppose this system; but many others also see the point that developers have. But is this fair to the gamer? Do the developers know how it feels to buy a game and then realise that you’ve only really bought most of it?
Let’s start off with the basics shall we? Running a videogame company is hard, fact. You have to spend a year or two developing your product before you actually make any money – which is a risky business. If your consumers don’t like your game and no-one buys it then you’re finished, but if they love it you get loads of money. Simple, right?
What developers are arguing about is how they don’t get a full share of the game sales money after about six or seven months after release, and if said developer is making a game, then they need that money to maintain the project. As you can probably imagine, this is quite a tricky thing to bypass, what’s to stop retailers from buying stock from consumers and then selling it on again? No laws are being broken, and everyone’s happy (except the developer).
Obviously, this practice has been going on a long time now, with potentially millions of pounds lost to the retailer every year. So, some developers have devised a way to get even, alter the content that the second-hand buyers get. In some cases, such as in BioWare’s case, the developers are kind, and offer the first-hand gamer extra content which might usually not be available or would usually cost money. (For those who aren’t aware, BioWare included codes for free redemption of a DLC pack and an in-game item in sealed copies of Dragon Age: Origins)
On the other hand, such as the system that Sony seems to be opting for, is the developers being slightly more stingy and taking out features that although may not be core to the gameplay, can still leave a gaping hole in the game as well as the gamer. An example here (sadly) has to be ModNation Racers PSP, where all sealed games include a code to unlock the online portion of the game, hence meaning that second-hand gamers will not be able to go online without purchasing the ‘Online Entitlement’ Pack for about £8/€10. Obviously this system will affect some games more than others, and with ModNation Racers quite emphasising the use of the game online, it’s sad to see this happening.
But surely there must be another way round this problem which doesn’t involve punishing the gamer, if not stop this practice then at least make consumers more aware of the features that they may or may not be receiving. One route to take might be to require the retailer to pay a royalty to the developer for each game sale they make, but then the retailer loses out.
Another route to go down might be to follow in BioWare’s footsteps and include extra content for first-hand buyers, but then the developer loses out in some ways. Whichever way you take, someone has to lose out here, and it’s a shame to see some developers opting for the easy ‘take-it-out-on-the-gamer’ approach, all we can hope is that one day someone somewhere will come up with the perfect system ensuring that everyone is happy, until then we’re just going to have to struggle through I’m afraid.
One final route, which many developers have introduced in recent years, is to extend the game’s life cycle by adding DLC throughout the year and then retailing a ‘Game of the Year’ Edition later on which includes most or all of the extra content. Games like Fallout 3, Oblivion, Batman: Arkham Asylum and many more have done this and it does seem like a viable option to take even if it does resort to selling DLC at a dirt-cheap price.
So to answer my original question: ‘Are developers cheating second-hand gamers?’ I have to say yes, and no. It depends really on how the developers implement their content. If you take the above example of Dragon Age: Origins, where BioWare inserted a code into each new game allowing the free redemption of one of the DLCs then no, that is not cheating second-hand gamers, because these gamers get the full game and only miss out on some extra features. However, if you take the above mentioned example of ModNation Racers PSP, where each new game is given a code containing ‘Online Entitlement’ then I’d say it is cheating second-hand gamers, as you’re taking out one of the main features of the game for them. Expect to see a lot more of this issue circling around the video-game industry in the near future. There are two sides to this coin, and we (and all other gamers) have to hope that every developer chooses the right side – the fair one.
Very interesting article! You’re right that it’s a two-sided coin, I can see how the developers/publishers want to bring more money in over a longer period of time, especially when covering the continuing costs of running multiplayer servers. However, once the game has been purchased you can argue that those costs are bundled into the price of the game and by selling that game on you are passing on your right to play online to the next owner of the game – only 1 person at a time will be playing online with each copy of the game.
The real question for many gamers is how to pay for the increasing cost of game development – either new tactics like paying extra for online content on used games will come in or there will be another alternative: game prices will go up.
It’s strange that due mainly to the Internet, game prices have come down in more than just real terms over the last 6 or 7 years. I remember paying nearly £50 for Resident Evil 2 on release day – the last 3 games I bought on release day (Just Cause 2, ModNation Racers and Red Dead Redemption) cost me £32, £31 and £30 respectively. Somehow game publishers will want to reverse this trend as games become more expensive to develop. The only question is where will they get their extra revenue from?
What surprises me most is how game retailers like GAME manage to stay afloat considering how much cheaper games are online, everytime I go into my local GAME nearly everything there I can find cheaper on amazon.co.uk. Although in saying that, you do get the game on the day and there’s no postage costs I suppose.
Where is it you go for your games? Because they look pretty cheap, I generally order from Amazon and pre-orders are usually about £40.
I always used to order from Amazon as they offer such good service but recently I’ve been able to save so much money by buying them elsewhere that Amazon are losing a lot of my custom. I normally get games on pre-order, often 6 months or more before release, which leaves me able to use various voucher codes that float around the internet from time to time. The last few I got from Zavvi and The Hut (which are the same company now) and I used a 10%-off voucher as well as using Quidco to get cashback. You can’t use either of these techniques with Amazon so almost everything I order is £5 or more cheaper than Amazon.
Still to come I’ve got Demon’s Souls (Black Phantom Edition) which I pre-ordered for £32.79 from The Hut, along with £2.20 cashback. I’ve also got Gran Turismo 5 pre-ordered from Gameplay for £32.99 plus £1.98 cashback. I used a 10% voucher for The Hut and a £5-off voucher for Gameplay.
If you’re willing to order stuff well in advance you can save quite a few £s. I usually pre-order quite a few things then if the early reviews come in and look a bit crap I just cancel the pre-order. Gotta be careful doing that though, I nearly ended up with 3 copies of The Road on Blu-ray last week!