Rage Cuts Singleplayer Content for Used Copies

My conscience is clear, I pirate all games, so no money ends up in the wrong hands.
 
Gamestop made over 80 percent of its profits off used games last year so make that hundreds of thousands if not millions.

Its not hard to understand why Publishers/Developers are fed up with Gamestop making a mint of there games but using gamers to convey that message is fucked up.
 
Why would people be buying the console version anyway... Same with oblivion/fallout...I never get why people buy unmoddable versions of modable games.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Why would people be buying the console version anyway... Same with oblivion/fallout...I never get why people buy unmoddable versions of modable games.
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I have Oblivion/Fallout on PC but honestly I've done sweet fuck all modding of them, I wouldn't be crying if I found out the couldn't be modded. I think for both games combined the only modding I did was LOD adjustments and swap out the long distance LOD ground textures in Oblivion, I didn't mod F3 at all. Just not my cup of tea. I used to mod games and be "oh wow this mod is cool!" then only play for 5 minutes and never touch it again, so I dont even bother modding anymore unless someone makes something that really stands out.
 
MrCrispy said:
Wrong. They are a customer of the game publisher/maker. The publisher is obligated to support the copy of the game, not whose hands its in.
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The money from a used game sale isn't going to the developer or publisher, it is only going to the retailer.

Again, I see no problem with a developer wanting to protect its profits by giving more content to people that actually pay them, rather than bypassing them completely via Gamestop.
 
Tudz said:
I have Oblivion/Fallout on PC but honestly I've done sweet fuck all modding of them, I wouldn't be crying if I found out the couldn't be modded. I think for both games combined the only modding I did was LOD adjustments and swap out the long distance LOD ground textures in Oblivion, I didn't mod F3 at all. Just not my cup of tea. I used to mod games and be "oh wow this mod is cool!" then only play for 5 minutes and never touch it again, so I dont even bother modding anymore unless someone makes something that really stands out.
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I don't nessicarily mean extensive modding. But for fallout/oblivion the models definately need replacing! There have been a few easily installed community made packs put together for graphical enhansements for oblivion which makes it look much more modern. I suppose it depends on how much time you intend to "invest" in the game. If its something pretty long like fallout/and rpg illfix glaring ugliness. If it's a game that i'll rush through in 3 hours I probably wont care.

But still, with rage and it's release day tools i'm hoping for something. Especially multiplayer mods. :D Some mods of id games have turned into much bigger things (e.g. team fortress). Shouldn't be too hard to edit characters in the game. The megatextures may take abit more work... But i'm hoping for some quality community made content!
 
odex said:
My conscience is clear, I pirate all games, so no money ends up in the wrong hands.
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If you look closely, there are game developers who deserve the full support of the gaming community.

For example, DCS. For 60 bucks, you get a full game (A-10 sim). Yep, you get everything, not just half of it and the other half being release later in a steaming pile of DLC crap. And despite the small community who bought this game, they continue to fix and tweak the game.


Serpico said:
The money from a used game sale isn't going to the developer or publisher, it is only going to the retailer.

Again, I see no problem with a developer wanting to protect its profits by giving more content to people that actually pay them, rather than bypassing them completely via Gamestop.
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Unless I misunderstood it, they are actively cutting off pre-existing contents rather than giving extra contents?

Re-sale is not about duplicating a game, its merely a change of owner, that means the person who sold it relinquishes his ownership of the game to someone else. So, the number of games out there is still the same, and the number of owners are still the same.

If a person doesn't want a game they bought, why should they be forced to keep it as a paperweight instead of letting someone else have it? Its like saying even if you no longer want your car, you must still keep it, its wrong to sell it. It makes no sense.
 
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It sucks but is not surprising... I'm glad it's not fuckin always-on drm, that would've been a dealbreaker for me... of course if the game is a POS I just won't buy it period, or maybe wait till I can download an emulated version on my QuickPadX123 in 2020 with the highres texture pack
 
DeathPrincess said:
Why would people be buying the console version anyway... Same with oblivion/fallout...I never get why people buy unmoddable versions of modable games.
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Couldn't agree more,I've spent at least as much if not more time playing Fallout 3 mods as I did playing the original game.Same with the STALKER games.
 
Serpico said:
The money from a used game sale isn't going to the developer or publisher, it is only going to the retailer.

Again, I see no problem with a developer wanting to protect its profits by giving more content to people that actually pay them, rather than bypassing them completely via Gamestop.
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For the millionth time, money for a used game has already gone to the publisher (when it was sold new). It doesn't matter how many times its resold after that, its the same thing as never being resold. The publisher only has to support 1 copy of the game.

Its actually quite disturbing that even people on [H] fail to understand this.
 
MrCrispy said:
For the millionth time, money for a used game has already gone to the publisher (when it was sold new). It doesn't matter how many times its resold after that, its the same thing as never being resold. The publisher only has to support 1 copy of the game.

Its actually quite disturbing that even people on [H] fail to understand this.
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It kind of makes you wonder why the developers are so up in arms about this now - after all, people have been buying stuff used for pretty much the entire history of mankind. I wonder if the car companies went through this back in the early 1900s, and were incensed that people would buy a used car instead of buying a new one from them?

My theory is that they've always wanted to stop second-hand sales (as every manufacturer probably does) but that they've just now realized they have the technology to make it feasible through online activations - and they managed to sneak in the whole "licensed not bought" idea a while back which gives them legal cover. Can you imagine the outcry if Ford decided to tie car sales to an online account and cripple engine performance if the car was bought used?
 
This is just console game makers being jealous of PC games. If the infrastructure existed for console games to all be digital downloads, they would have done it for this very reason.

At the same time, they need Gamestop out there pushing pre-sales and hardware to run these games on. Best not bite the hand that feeds.
 
Forceman said:
It kind of makes you wonder why the developers are so up in arms about this now - after all, people have been buying stuff used for pretty much the entire history of mankind. I wonder if the car companies went through this back in the early 1900s, and were incensed that people would buy a used car instead of buying a new one from them?

My theory is that they've always wanted to stop second-hand sales (as every manufacturer probably does) but that they've just now realized they have the technology to make it feasible through online activations - and they managed to sneak in the whole "licensed not bought" idea a while back which gives them legal cover. Can you imagine the outcry if Ford decided to tie car sales to an online account and cripple engine performance if the car was bought used?
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You're right, second-hand sales have never been popular with publishers.
To them second-hand sales equals piracy, because it's a missed sale. Their train of thought is: if you couldn't buy that game used, you'd be a potential buyer of a new copy...
A publisher's dream scenario is of course no used games, and no piracy.

Greed. It's that simple.

BTW: It's no different in the book publishing world. They too despsie second-hand sales.
 
odex said:
BTW: It's no different in the book publishing world. They too despsie second-hand sales.
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Yep, and now with the Kindle and the Nook they've also achieved their dream. Anyone want to take bets on whether this is the last generation of consoles that freely allows second-hand sales?
 
This just in, a new couch detects when it's original owner has changed and deflates it's cushions and collapses it's frame. It does this via patented butt-print algorithms.
 
I just reckon games, whether digital copies or boxed copies, will in the near future be tied to your motherboard. Kind of like OEM software.
 
It isn't about despising second handle sales, or some industries being evil or whatever. They are all the same, they simply want to maximize revenues and profit with their products with respect to the entire market (not the individual, this is another important distinction).

People want to bring up the cars example, but if they had some sort of magic way to limit second hand sales and convert those to new purchases they would do it in a heart beat, the reason they don't has nothing to do with right or wrong. Due to how the market as evolved, societal attitude, and practical as well as legal limitations of being able to do this they look at alternative ways to take advantage. Servicing, supplying parts, and even "certified preowned" type programs for example. They are trying to leverage there product for profit in the best way possible.

This is the same thing with the game industry. The real goal isn't about limiting second hand sales or whatever, it is about trying to generate the maximum amount of profit for their product. They've analyzed and weighed different options and obviously come to the conclusion that this will lead to their end goal.

The problem is when individual consumers analyze these issues, they tend to look at it from an individual perspective. However from the perspective of any large industry, this doesn't really matter, it is about your entire customer base in general, despite the whatever line they might feed you. If a company's action causes it to lose $20 of profit from my business, but it gains $5 more profit from 10 others, this is a net gain to them and my loss doesn't matter at all.
 
Maximizing profit has all to do with greed. When is enough? And greed is certainly a question of right and wrong, it's all about morality.

Capitalism has none. So this is what we're left with. Of course it's nothing new, it's just the way things are, and will remain for a long time.
 
odex said:
Maximizing profit has all to do with greed. When is enough? And greed is certainly a question of right and wrong, it's all about morality.

Capitalism has none. So this is what we're left with. Of course it's nothing new, it's just the way things are, and will remain for a long time.
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not-this-shit-again.gif
 
TheBlueChanell said:
They also pay their employee's like shit, I worked there for four years in high school. The SM may make decent coin but everyone else gets kinda shafted, I'd worse than most other retail outlets.
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A retail part time job meant for a teen doesn't pay well? I'm shocked lol :D
 
teletran8 said:
id is losing so many sales with their new way of doing things.
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Hey, when your soul gets sold down the river to whoever buys you out, you more or less become their bitch. Look at what EA has done to all the devs they own.

As for me, I have no intention of buying this on day one. Games like DNF have more or less ruined my desire to own a game before i've had the opportunity to find out more stuff about it. DNF isn't a bad game, but it wasn't worth $50. With the new breed of $60 PC games, finding out what you are buying becomes even more valuable. The only games that i'll ever preorder and buy day one are Halo games and Forza games for the Xbox.
 
I enjoyed reading these posts of people defending gamestop as if the only thing people hated about gamestop was that they take your used trade in and sell it for twice what you traded it in for. Thats just the tip of the iceberg, you can search google for the rest.

Before steam really took off I used to sell my PC games on these forums all the time, theres never a reason to fuel lamestop if you just exercise a modicum of patience, snap a few photos of your games and post them online. The end profit far outweighs the work involved.
 
chockomonkey said:
Half-Priced Books has been around for fucking ages.
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And CD's, and DVD's, and clothes, and furniture, and electronics, and tv's, and dvd players, and etc etc. What makes game companies so special. Fuck them. I don't ever see game companies go out of business because of second hand sales (not to mention piracy), so I don't give a damn about "thinking about it from their perspective". I am a buyer, since when do I give a shit about the poor whittle publisher's problems? That ain't my problem and I am not gonna conform to their concerns when every other industry on the planet has some kind of second hand industry. Only one I can think off of the top of my head that doesn't have a second hand industry is food. But that goes without explaining.

And even if I did care about their whittle probwims, it would be only if the extra cash went into the developers pockets and not some antiquated "publisher". Same with musicians. If money went straight to them I wouldn't mind my money going to them because they are the ones producing something. Money going into a slave owner, oops I meant CEO, like Bobby Kotick makes my dick itch.
 
Do some pirates still download and then donate? (e.g. donate to the artists, etc..).. Wondered if they made laws preventing that. Just curious.
 
Parmenides said:
Do some pirates still download and then donate? (e.g. donate to the artists, etc..).. Wondered if they made laws preventing that. Just curious.
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There's usually no mechanism for that; e.g. with music, pirates may go to more shows, advertise the band, or outright buy the album after the fact, but few bands have a 'Donate' button on their site :p. I'm not sure what this has to do with the topic on hand though.

VulcaN said:
I enjoyed reading these posts of people defending gamestop as if the only thing people hated about gamestop was that they take your used trade in and sell it for twice what you traded it in for. Thats just the tip of the iceberg, you can search google for the rest.
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Then you missed the point. Gamestop is a red-herring. People are equating used-game sales with Gamestop and then using that equivocation to advocate the end of used-game sales. If you disagree with Gamestop's business practices, the solution is to not do business with them, NOT to restrict the secondary market.

VulcaN said:
The end profit far outweighs the work involved.
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Enough people disagree with you to make Gamestop's business model profitable. FWIW, I agree with that statement.
 
I used to trade in games at eb games for what I thought was a reasonable trade. When gamestop took over I got wise to their shit quick.

I know its different for some people, but I have a post office on my way to work, on my way to grocery shopping, at the mall, almost on my way to everywhere. So dropping off a game in a self sealing box that USPS gave me for free took just about as long as going into gamestop and trading in a game. The only real effort spent was taking a photo with a digital camera or cellphone (1 minute) and posting it on a couple internet forums (5 minutes). Occasionally id take a few seconds to go back to the thread and reply with a bump, or respond to PM's with my paypal address. So for a few extra minutes of my time I was able to nearly double my used game sales.

I chalk it up to the stereotypical lazy human problem that seems to be on the rise with everything in life becoming more convenient at higher costs.

The past few times I've ordered release date delivery off amazon it came the day before the game was available in brick and mortar stores (I assume to combat the midnight release thing they try to do to lure you in). Of course I couldn't connect to the servers until they opened up with one of the games, but I didn't have to go out to the store and waste time and gas either.

I think if its the only option you have, then you gotta do what you gotta do, but if most people just put in a smidgen more effort, you can have enough money to almost outright buy a new game, instead of trading in several games to get 1 game.

Basically, enough people are lazy enough to make gamestops business model profitable. I wonder what new low they will sink to next as their profits go down from developers putting up more roadblocks on the used game market highway. If I remember correctly their last stunt got them a pretty nasty lawsuit.

As we enter further and further into the digital age you also have to wonder if video game B&M shops will go the way of some bookstores or video rental outlets, leaving big names like best buy as the only local place to get a physical copy of a game.
 
People get so bent out of shape on this. But this is just the way things work, every company making music movies or games would have done it 100 years ago if they could. Now they can so they will. Get over it, get used to it. If you have no self control and you just must have the game and ALL the content then pay for it other wise stop whining. What do you want congress to pass a used game law? lol probably.

I personally can say with steam and sales I spend alot less money on games in full and perfect condition than used or new retail games. So to me the non used game model is working fine. This gave me an idea though maybe valve and steam should allow people to gift or trade games in exchange for cash and valve will take a set fee for a game in order to do it. Basically valve replaces game stop.
 
Sometimes I have a friend I want to sell on a video game so we can play together, it would be nice if they offered more free weekends, or short time trials of video games to your friends so they could see what its like first hand.

Demos seem to have gone with the wind, guess developers were getting tired of spending millions only to have people find out their game was shit before they had sunk $50 into it. What we really need back is quality game demos that showcase everything a game has to offer. If you spend x millions making a game, why not make an exclusive demo level that really shows everything off.
 
Youn said:
This just in, a new couch detects when it's original owner has changed and deflates it's cushions and collapses it's frame. It does this via patented butt-print algorithms.
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But the new owner can pay an additional $100 to restore full couch functionality......... :D
 
Publishers should stop crying about second-hand sales and start considering or even researching what makes people sell/trade-in their games in the first place. If you make good games that don't have 4-hour campaigns, laggy/unbalanced/rinse-and-repeat multiplayer and gamebreaking bugs at launch, I dare say there would be less second-hand copies getting around and therefore less of a market.

This just makes it harder for gamers to get rid of shit games rather than addressing why gamers want to rid themselves of these games in the first place.


Buxaroo said:
And CD's, and DVD's, and clothes, and furniture, and electronics, and tv's, and dvd players, and etc etc. What makes game companies so special. Fuck them. I don't ever see game companies go out of business because of second hand sales (not to mention piracy), so I don't give a damn about "thinking about it from their perspective". I am a buyer, since when do I give a shit about the poor whittle publisher's problems? That ain't my problem and I am not gonna conform to their concerns when every other industry on the planet has some kind of second hand industry. Only one I can think off of the top of my head that doesn't have a second hand industry is food. But that goes without explaining.

And even if I did care about their whittle probwims, it would be only if the extra cash went into the developers pockets and not some antiquated "publisher". Same with musicians. If money went straight to them I wouldn't mind my money going to them because they are the ones producing something. Money going into a slave owner, oops I meant CEO, like Bobby Kotick makes my dick itch.
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Of all the evils committed by Activision and Kotick, fucking those who buy second-hand games isn't one of them.
 
cthulhuiscool said:
not-this-shit-again.gif
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I'm just saying no one should be surprised the trend is we're getting less for more. No one should be surprised they throw exclusive DLC with peripherals or pre-orders or new sales, they're just doing everything they can to maximize buyers incentive.

There's not even anything to discuss.
 
So...

don't buy this shit?

Fine by me. Same reasons I won't buy COD games, anything from Blizzard, etc.
 
Used game merchants directly accept money for someone else's idea without paying royalties. While I'm an outspoken critic of intellectual "property", I do believe that if anyone is going to directly accept money for a creative work, it should be the person who made it.

I think publishers are within their rights to deal with it, but just like DRM, legislation, litigation, and any other method that harms potential customers, the publishers are going about it the wrong way.
 
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