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Developers don't like pre-owned gamesDevelopers don't like pre-owned games

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Free Radical and Frontier slam 'jumble sale' second-hand games market

LEADING developers have spoken out against pre-owned games at retail – warning that studios could turn their back on the ‘traditional’ publishing model if the trend continues.

TimeSplitters and Haze developer Free Radical Design and Frontier Developments’ David Braben have both told MCV that the current system is flawed – as, while retailers rake in profits on a title every time it goes through the trade-in system, developers are left with nothing.

“Of course it isn’t fair that retailers are claiming all of the profits from the sale of second-hand titles, and it is bizarre that our industry tolerates it,” said director at Free Radical Design Steve Ellis.

“I can’t imagine going into PC World and buying a pre-owned copy of MS Office. It just wouldn’t happen.

Scaleform - GFX

The logical conclusion of this – the retailers’ ultimate goal – is that they only ever sell one original copy of any game and then they pass it around between everyone who wants to play it, keeping all of the profit for themselves except for that initial sale. How can that possibly be fair?”

The brains behind Frontier Developments David Braben agrees:

“Clearly from the developer and publisher point of view, the second-hand market is a real problem. The shops are essentially defrauding the rest of the industry by this practice, whether they intend it or not.

“It also means that while newly released games do still sell well, it is only a matter of a month or so before pre-owned stock often saturates the channel – with a single copy rumoured to go around the sale/return/sale loop ten or more times – amounting effectively, to rental.”

1
 

“Get over it”
Posted by: Dave Henry - Oct 26, 4:41pm

So David Braben's never part-Ex'd a car?


2
 

“Re: Get over it”
Posted by: Tom Dennis - Oct 26, 4:48pm

I agree with Dave Henry. If you don't want people to buy traded-in games then the games you create should be good enough for the original buyer to not want to trade them in.


3
 

“Re: Get over it”
Posted by: Andrew - Oct 26, 5:13pm

I don't agree. Imagine Final Fantasy VII. The game is great (awesome indeed) but once you fini****, you won't play it again so you would probably trade it in.

Many games are like this. The costumer that buys the pre owned FF game get the full game experience yet pays nothing (absolute zero) to the developer which is not understandable.

So I agree that pre owned game selling should be banned.
Buy games more carefully.


4
 

“Re: Get over it”
Posted by: Drew - Oct 26, 5:30pm

If I buy an adventure novel and complete it I have the right to pass it on or resell it as long as it is in it's original state ..
same for a hammer or a tv ... it is just a product .. I say the same about MS and AutoDesk .. and while we are on the subject of rip off .. why is it cheaper to by them in the usa and ship them over than buy them in the UK?

If you are loseing money you are priceing wrong as the secondhand market has always been there for none consumable products snd companies are still making millions profit and not feeding it back to the consumer.

Just my ten penny worth


5
 

“I see a good reason”
Posted by: Duncan - Oct 27, 1:48am

High street retailers cannot hope to match the price of games from internet websites such as amazon.co.uk. Without this income they would struggle incredibly I would imagine; online retailers are becoming more and more popular by the day.
Some people like a fresh new copy of their games for higher prices, other people like cheap games, but as far as I am concerned, if this makes game developers think more about their games replay value, I wont be complaining.


6
 

“Re: I see a good reason”
Posted by: Tom Dennis - Oct 27, 10:51am

Tom again. I'd just like to expand more on my previous post.

Firstly, people have to choose: Do they want a new game, which costs more but will be completely fresh? Or do they want to opt for a cheaper, second or third hand one, which might be scratched or missing a box and manual?

If you're like me, there's a third factor too: Should I buy this new, so that the original creators will get money for it? Or is this game simply "okay for a tenner" and they should have tried harder to make it worth the full £30-40 price tag?

Secondly: "I can’t imagine going into PC World and buying a pre-owned copy of MS Office. It just wouldn’t happen." Well, there's a shop near where I live that sells OMG SECOND HAND GAMES along with OMG AGAIN SECOND HAND SOFTWARE AND DVDSES!!!oneone. Also, I think that you'll find a huge array of second hand software for sale on the Internets.

Thirdly: "The logical conclusion of this – the retailers’ ultimate goal – is that they only ever sell one original copy of any game and then they pass it around between everyone who wants to play it, keeping all of the profit for themselves except for that initial sale." It seems that you're guity of at least one of the symptoms from the Scott Adam's brain defects list: Taking things to their illogical conclusion. "If you let a barber start by cutting off your hair, pretty soon he'll be hacking off your limbs!"

Personally, I have never traded in any of my games once I have bought them with the exception of "Addidas Power Soccer" (or whatever it was called). A friend gave it to me because he didn't want it. I thought it sucked too, so I traded it for Final Fantasy VII, which I still have.

Incidentally, it's worth mentioning that I am a games programmer, just so you know where I'm coming from.


7
 

“Re: I see a good reason”
Posted by: Tom Dennis - Oct 27, 11:01am

Two other things:

A) Although the developers of Final Fantasy VII didn't DIRECTLY get any money when I bought it second hand, I bought Final Fantasy 1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12 and Dirge of Cerberus first hand because I liked 7 so much.

B) I bought all of the TimSplitters games brand new, Free Radical. But from now on, I'm going to buy your games second hand. Just out of spite.


8
 

“Re: I see a good reason”
Posted by: Ryan - Oct 27, 12:38pm

Simply put, the less money games developers get from the sale of their own products, the less games they can develop. Look at the PC section of most computer game shops, its been steadily shrinking for years. Piracy has had an astonishing effect on the PC market to such a degree that many games now released on PC are just badly ported over from other console versions. (With the exception perhaps of online games which cant be easily reslod or pirated.)


9
 

“Re: I see a good reason”
Posted by: Tom Dennis - Oct 30, 11:24am

Authors don't like pre-owned books

J. K. Rowling and Terry Pratchett slam 'jumble sale' second-hand books market

LEADING authors have spoken out against pre-owned books at retail – warning that writers could turn their back on the ‘traditional’ publishing model if the trend continues.

Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling and Discworlds’ Terry Pratchett have both told MCV that the current system is flawed – as, while retailers rake in profits on a title every time it goes through the trade-in system, authors are left with nothing.

“Of course it isn’t fair that retailers are claiming all of the profits from the sale of second-hand titles, and it is bizarre that our industry tolerates it,” said author of Discworld Terry Pratchett.

“I can’t imagine going into Waterstones and buying a pre-owned copy of the Bible. It just wouldn’t happen.

-------------------

Do you notice what I'm getting at here? If not, here you are: No one else complains about losing money from having their products second hand. You can buy second hand books from loads of different places, but the original authors don't care because - get this - they understand that the important thing here is not that they're losing some of their potential income but that people want to buy their stuff and enjoy it.


10
 

“Re: I see a good reason”
Posted by: Matt - Oct 30, 11:37am

Home taping is killing music!
(And it's illegal)


11
 

“Thanks all!”
Posted by: edfear2 - Nov 3, 12:00am

Thanks for your comments everyone!
Another thing that isn't often mentioned is that people trading in games can facilitate the purchase of new ones - personally, being able to trade in games has helped me buy two titles in the past few weeks that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to purchase. So, in a way, it can kind of feed back into the system - so it;s hard to say that it;s all bad.


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