www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-03-19-used-games-business-is-killing-single-player-experience-says-frontier-developments
I was reading:
(David) Braben says used games has "really killed core games"
"The real problem when you think about it brutally, if you look at just core gamer games, pre-owned has really killed core games," reflected Braben. "In some cases, it's killed them dead. I know publishers who have stopped games in development because most shops won't reorder stock after initial release, because they rely on the churn from the re-sales."
"It's killing single player games in particular, because they will get pre-owned, and it means your day one sales are it, making them super high risk. I mean, the idea of a game selling out used to be a good thing, but nowadays, those people who buy it on day one may well finish it and return it."
"Developers and publishers need that revenue to be able to keep doing high production value games, and so we keep seeing fewer and fewer of them."
Braben, who has worked on titles like Elite and Kinectimals, is currently facing a crisis on his current title, The Outsider. The game is heavily invested in single player story mechanics, but Braben remains somewhat skeptical of the current development landscape.
It made me wonder if people in general would buy more games new if you could just buy them online. And if you guys/gals would buy games from PSN if you could download the day and date it becomes available? How about with a $5-10 dollar discount (or more) for buying download only? It seems to be working for the Vita and XBLA. So I was wondering about retail games.
To keep things fair, PSN games and XBL games could be released, if the developer wanted to, 10-11pm so you could play them with your friends who bought games midnight release.
Doing both would keep Gamestop and buyers of used games happy because you could trade in used games and they would have to price games better because there's no way in heck anybody would buy ME3 for $55.00 used at Gamestop when its $50.00 on PSN. That would make retailers happy because more people could buy new and they could cut out a lot of things like retail space issues, especially around the holidays. Printing discs. Limited copies of lower demand games. JRPGs, for example, generally only being limited to 50,000 copies or so. That would solve the last two because games would only get 'distributed' (for lack of a better word) until it's bought. That would also allow devs come out with more riskier titles. Another good example is Tim Schafer's point-and-click Kickstarter game. He would more likely risk making a PSN port because the risk is lower. He doesn't have to pay retail advertising space no unused games sitting in a bargin bin etc. What do you guy's think?
I was reading:
(David) Braben says used games has "really killed core games"
"The real problem when you think about it brutally, if you look at just core gamer games, pre-owned has really killed core games," reflected Braben. "In some cases, it's killed them dead. I know publishers who have stopped games in development because most shops won't reorder stock after initial release, because they rely on the churn from the re-sales."
"It's killing single player games in particular, because they will get pre-owned, and it means your day one sales are it, making them super high risk. I mean, the idea of a game selling out used to be a good thing, but nowadays, those people who buy it on day one may well finish it and return it."
"Developers and publishers need that revenue to be able to keep doing high production value games, and so we keep seeing fewer and fewer of them."
Braben, who has worked on titles like Elite and Kinectimals, is currently facing a crisis on his current title, The Outsider. The game is heavily invested in single player story mechanics, but Braben remains somewhat skeptical of the current development landscape.
It made me wonder if people in general would buy more games new if you could just buy them online. And if you guys/gals would buy games from PSN if you could download the day and date it becomes available? How about with a $5-10 dollar discount (or more) for buying download only? It seems to be working for the Vita and XBLA. So I was wondering about retail games.
To keep things fair, PSN games and XBL games could be released, if the developer wanted to, 10-11pm so you could play them with your friends who bought games midnight release.
Doing both would keep Gamestop and buyers of used games happy because you could trade in used games and they would have to price games better because there's no way in heck anybody would buy ME3 for $55.00 used at Gamestop when its $50.00 on PSN. That would make retailers happy because more people could buy new and they could cut out a lot of things like retail space issues, especially around the holidays. Printing discs. Limited copies of lower demand games. JRPGs, for example, generally only being limited to 50,000 copies or so. That would solve the last two because games would only get 'distributed' (for lack of a better word) until it's bought. That would also allow devs come out with more riskier titles. Another good example is Tim Schafer's point-and-click Kickstarter game. He would more likely risk making a PSN port because the risk is lower. He doesn't have to pay retail advertising space no unused games sitting in a bargin bin etc. What do you guy's think?
W.
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