Piracy vs Used sales?

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Socoder -> Off Topic -> Piracy vs Used sales?
Wed, 30 Jun 2010, 23:57
spinal	Here's a little question in an attempt to get a little forum activity. Which is worse for the games industry, piracy or used game sales? To start you guys off, here is my opinion. [disclaimer] My opinion may not be actually true, it is just what I think Piracy only slightly effects the games industry, which it does by scaring of the developers. Filling their heads with questions such as "If that system is so piratable, what makes you think I will see any profit in it?". I do not believe that piracy in any way directly effects game sales, at the very lease it causes people to root out the terrible games a little quicker, news spreads and only the better games sell well. Pirates, on the same hand are not going to part with their money, they do not intend to pay for game X, therefore, pirate X downloading game X in no way effects the sales figures for that game. Used game sales however is very harmful to the industry. You have potential customers giving their money to somebody other than the publisher. If I go into a store to buy a game and I see that game new for £35 or used for £25, I will mostly choose the used one. The result there is very obvious, the publisher has genuinely lost a sale. that's right. I went into the store as a potential customer and gave NO money to the people who actually made that game. Now if you take into account the amount of used games that get resold, the publishers are loosing probably £millions. In conclusion I believe that used game sales is absolutly terrible. -=-=- Check out my excellent homepage!
Thu, 01 Jul 2010, 01:49
Afr0	You have to remember that used sales are usually for old games, not games that were recently released (although in the gaming industry, that's all very relative with things moving so fast). I think we will start to see (and already are seeing) a paradigm shift away from thirdparty 'real-life' retailers towards online games sold through Steam and from companies' websites. I just hope it doesn't get to the point where they will force us to play games remotely through a server! :\ -=-=- Afr0 Games Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
Thu, 01 Jul 2010, 02:12
Jayenkai	"the point where they will force us to play games remotely through a server!" dot com Prices hurt more. It's blindingly obvious to all involved, that folk are happy to pay the cheaper 2nd-hand price. If they weren't, the thousands of stores that are doing it, wouldn't still be doing it. That's pretty much the crux of it, right there. These companies are so desperate to make a profit, they'll happily screw their own future sales by selling the games so stupidly high. Those who don't want to pay the premium won't sit about waiting for the price to fall. They'll sit about waiting for a 2nd hand copy, because they know that'll be cheaper. Halve the price, Double (or more) the sales. Good old Diminishing Returns.. My Business Studies teacher would be happy that I remembered that phrase. (But probably wouldn't be happy that I appear to have completely forgotten his name.) Piracy has and will always be there. Companies aren't dumb.. They know this by now.. They won't pre-budget 5,000,000 sales if they know that 75% will be pirated! But the "Maybe Later" thing is much harder to budget for. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Thu, 01 Jul 2010, 09:41
mindstorm8191	I have two things to add to this. I think piracy is where shareware games can come very much in handy. If you can produce a shareware version of the game, to where everyone is able to try the game out, then your potential players can get a real feel of the game, and then decide if its worth the price to pay for it. Its important to make shareware titles more accessible than piracy, though. Another major factor about used game titles is that there aren't always a lot of games available from used sellers. And those titles that are available are usually less valuable than other games. What I think typically happens is that who-ever brought it the first time felt it wasn't worth the money to keep, and then sold it for whatever low amount of cash the used seller will pay for it. I recently brought Need For Speed: Carbon from a local used seller, and to be honest, I'm disappointed that its only a 1-player game. However, I also purchased Super Mario Wii from Best Buy a few weeks ago, and have enjoyed playing that a lot - you can have up to 4 people playing at the same time, which adds a lot of replay value to the game (even though I beat it pretty quick). They also have Super Mario Galaxy out for $50, but seeing as this is most likely a 1-player game, I see no benefit in paying that much for it. Just my two cents! -=-=- Vesuvius web game