Pre-Owned game ban "Fantastic"

[Lᴜᴋᴇ]

IGN:

 

Last month, rumors began circulating that the next Xbox will block the play of used games. Saints Row: The Third design director Jameson Durall has spoken out about the rumor, calling the idea "fantastic."

 

In a blog post on #AltDevBlogADay, Durall writes, "Personally I think this would be a fantastic change for our business. Even though the consumers would be up in arms about it at first, they will grow to understand why and that it won't kill them."

 

"The system is already there for Microsoft. All they'd have to do is use the DLC and codes model they have to tie a game to your Xbox live account," Durall continues. "Each retail disc would likely need that unique key somewhere in the code so the account would be able to link it properly. Ideally it would tie a full version to the console it is registered on so family members can play even if the main account isn't signed in."

 

As far as lending games, Durall notes that Microsoft "could implement something similar to what Amazon is doing with their Kindle Books

 

Durall believes that the system could be similar to rental services, and that Microsoft could even create its own rental program.

 

"I could see Microsoft implementing their own rental service which would maybe give them a code that activates the game for X days and they are charged a small amount," Durall suggests. "This could work when you borrow the disc from someone or even with digital download of the full version. It would also send a percentage of the rental to the Developer with each rental, likely improving the overall revenue we would receive from it."

 

Durall concludes by commenting that used game sales hurt the industry more than most people realize, and that "we have to do something about these issues or our industry is going to fall apart."

 

For Durall's full thoughts, check out his entire blog post.

 

What do you think?

I think that If Microsoft blocked preowned games then games sales would not actually be increased, but decreased, as gamers, inclusion myself, don't want to fork out £40 for a game every single time :/

 

[Vitamin Pwn]

i rarely buy games as it is right now so if they banned playing used games on the next xbox then i guess im will be done with xbox

[One]

Pre-owned market hurting the industry? The game companies really do find it easy to lie to our faces.

[CandiBunni]

If they want people to buy more games new, they should give us incentive to BUY THEM NEW! Doing things like this, the online passes, and things like that aren't going to work. If you want to see an increase in the sales of new games and a decrease in used games sales, you need to do two things.

 

1. Make your game worth the full price tag.

 

Now, I've been guilty of buying games new, then kind of feeling like I really shouldn't have payed so much for them. Even if I enjoy them to a great degree, I still feel like they weren't fully worth the full retail price. Games like Prototype, Splatterhouse, Mirror's Edge, etc. Games with short single player campaigns and no/little multiplayer are usually games that I would probably be better off buying at a discounted price. Give people reason to play through them over and over. Feel free to include multiplayer, just don't have it detract from the single player or be so bare bones that it isn't very fun.

 

2. Offer people good deals/items for purchasing a game new.

 

I see countless times on Steam where they'll offer deals like "Pre-purchase GAME X, and get upgraded to the Limited/Collector's Edition for free!" Offer people things like this. Give them items, characters, skins, weapons, anything like that as incentive to buy the game new, and do not give them the chance to get it if they purchase it used. If you offer up good, legitimate reasons to buy a game new, people will want to do so.

 

Other than that, some people just don't have 60$ to shell out for a new game. Some people have to wait to get a game when it was dropped in price because they may not be able to afford paying full price all of the time.

[Lᴜᴋᴇ]

Mystic, I agree, if companies want people to buy their games new, they need to provide an incentive to do so.

[Absolute Dog]

If something like this gets imposed they are seemingly missing one key element of potential loss. Many gamer's and/or their parents buy used systems and games for themselves and their kids trying to save money, especially in this economy. Then a gamer/parent has to shell out an additional $60.00 for a Gold subscription. For many, buying year old games, used consoles and Gold is there only way online. If they are forced to buy new, many may opt not to do it which means MS loses the Gold membership sale. Plus if you know there will be no market to speak of for reselling a game you have purchased that does not live up to your wants or you tire of, the buyer will become much more select in what they buy new and pre orders would most likely drop. The rental scenario seems a joke, in my opinion, on many levels. One being that many house holds now a days have 2 or more XBOX 360's for the kids and adults. How would you tell them they have to rent their own game within their own home to play it on different consoles.

 

There has to be a line for corporate's ability to squeeze every last penny from a consumer and providing quality products. This whole philosophy seems like it would only benefit the larger franchises.

[imakequilts]

As a family who owns two xbox systems it would pretty much cause us to buy less games. We buy used games quite often and it is games that we would have never bought new. I personally don't think it would increase new game sales. We actually buy two new games of the games that everyone in the family really wants to play, one for each xbox. But the other games are games the children want to try out but not games they are willing to pay full price for. And for the not quite so popular games we only get one copy and share on both xbox's. If we could not share we would be less likely to buy the games at all.

[RedStarRocket91]

Yet another piece of casual discrimination against people who don't have internet access for their consoles. If I can't get online to tie said DRM to my Gamertag, does that mean I can't play it at all?

 

I'm sick of this kind of rubbish, it's like day-one DLC. I don't want to clog up my hard drive with stuff that should be on the disc, and worry about how big the file is because my university has a tiny download limit, just because there's a chance I could have bought the disc second hand. If I bought a game new and for whatever reason couldn't get onto the internet, that is me being criminalised despite going out of my way to buy a game new. Game publishers already make more money than God, and treating all their customers like potential pirates and thieves just makes me want to go out and pirate stuff, because it would be easier than all the hassle I get from trying to play by the rules.

 

I completely agree with Mystic, if games companies are so worried about the second-hand game market, why not just lower the price of your games? I won't ever pay £40 or more for a game on day of release, no matter how good it is. I probably would however pay in the region of £30 for something that's actually well-designed and not just an unimaginative sequel or an uninspired, focus-group-tested game designed to sell lots of copies rather than actually provide a unique and original gaming experience.

 

Do something to make your customers actually feel appreciated, the impression that's given off by companies like Activision and Ubisoft is that they actually resent the people who fund them, and only tolerate players because otherwise they wouldn't have jobs. Companies like Valve and Bungie do a great job of making everyone feel welcome, and as a result just look at how many fans they have. So give out free bonus stuff, or one-time activation codes which allow you to access stuff already on the disc instead of downloading it. Add weapon skins, gamer pictures, themes, characters, whatever. Just stop threatening your own player bases with increasingly Draconian measures, and stop being so obviously obsessed with profit. Most games now on console are also available for PC, and if I feel like I have a choice between giving money to a company which actively hates me and which deliberately makes my life hard, or getting a game for free without any DRM hassle, then I will be a pirate every. Single. Time.

 

This is from the perspective of someone who doesn't actually support piracy, by the way. But it's often how I feel when I hear these companies whingeing about how they "only" made £100million on some game and that every player should be punished as a result.

[The Director]

This could severely impact the gaming industry negatively. It will eventually put game rental companies out of business, as well as severely damage the profits of the companies that specialize in games. A for instance of this would be the companies GameStop and GameFly. GameStop makes almost as much money off of used games as they do anything else they sell. Used games create roughly 45% of their profit. Eventually, unless they made drastic changes, they would go bottom up. Considering this company is a major gaming company that buys a decent chunk of games from Microsoft, their downfall will also be felt by Microsoft. GameFly is an online game rental service that rents and sells new and used games. Most of their profit comes from renting though, and since they also buy a lot of their games from Microsoft, there is another hit.

 

Honestly, I don't see Microsoft creating a console that won't play used games, mainly because of the bad PR. Most consumers will not like that they have to buy the games new, and environmentalists won't like that people who get tired of their games have to throw them away. Not only would they lose money by doing this, and hurt many companies that help support them, but the PR campaign would be a disaster, and many gamers will go to the new Sony and Nintendo consoles instead of the new X-Box if one of those companies decided to include used game playability. There were also talks about this tech being included in the original X-Box, and in the X-Box 360 if any of you can remember that far back.

 

In summation, I really, REALLY doubt that they would do that.

[RedStarRocket91]

I think it's different this time around though, Director. Back when those consoles were released we didn't have things like Call of Duty or Battlefield, games which can quite easily make half a billion pounds within days of release.

 

Microsoft frankly cannot afford to lose something like that, and of course Activision aren't under contract to make games for them. If they were to threaten to stop releasing these games for the Xbox unless Microsoft included this kind of restrictive DRM - and considering Activision's track record when it comes to treatment of their customers and general profit hunger, it would surprise me more if they didn't once the technology becomes available - Microsoft wouldn't really have a lot of choice but to give in, because since the gaming world is now so apparently heavily populated with idiots who think that modern shooters actually have the best video game endings ever, having Call of Duty go PlayStation-exclusive would be the PR failure of the century for Microsoft, and would cost them a small fortune in Xbox gamers who would switch over to Sony in order to play the latest repetitive 'realistic' military shooter.

 

The fact that I'd be happy to see these idiots go is irrelevant, as it translates as significantly less money for Microsoft to invest in new technology and games.

[The Director]

~Snip~

I highly doubt that Activision would threaten that simply because they sell more on the X-Box than they do on the PS3, and if they left Microsoft then Microsoft would not sell the games for PC or for the X-Box. Not to mention that they would have to use the same tactics on Sony as well, and let's face it. Sony doesn't give in to pressure like that. That's how the PlayStation was invented, you know. If a gaming publisher went console specific because the console company wouldn't give in to their demands, then they would be kicking themselves in the butt because they would be losing all of that profit for just a little bluff. And if they did threaten this to both companies, and both companies said no, then they would be thoroughly screwed. Not to mention if one company said no, and they left that company to go work with the company that said yes, they would lose a lot of profit simply because the console that DOES play used games will sell more than the one that doesn't.

[RedStarRocket91]

Not to mention if one company said no, and they left that company to go work with the company that said yes, they would lose a lot of profit simply because the console that DOES play used games will sell more than the one that doesn't.

 

That still overlooks that one console might end up with an incredibly lucrative exclusive deal. If you're making the entirety of a game like CoD's profits rather than sharing it with a competing platform, that almost certainly covers up any loss of profit from not having used games. And even if there are a lot of used games sold, that doesn't actually make any profit for those companies.

[Lᴜᴋᴇ]

unimaginative sequel or an uninspired, focus-group-tested game designed to sell lots of copies rather than actually provide a unique and original gaming experience.

MW3 much?

I still can't believe I payed £45 for that game :/

And yeah, this would be completely unfair on a large number of people - those with multiple xboxes, no Internet/XBL, download restrictions, not as much money, and many more.

I think this could be the kind of thing Microsoft would do, but I doubt they actually will…

[The Director]

That still overlooks that one console might end up with an incredibly lucrative exclusive deal. If you're making the entirety of a game like CoD's profits rather than sharing it with a competing platform, that almost certainly covers up any loss of profit from not having used games. And even if there are a lot of used games sold, that doesn't actually make any profit for those companies.

No, it doesn't overlook that. What I was getting at was that the "lucrative exclusive deal" wouldn't mean jack if no one bought the console that it was for. Do you remember FFXI? Probably not, because it was only available new. You had to have a brand new copy of it to play it. That game died out a few days after it hit the shelves. If an entire CONSOLE wouldn't let used games be played, but a console just as good as that one did, then obviously the one that does will sell WAY more than the one that doesn't let you play them. If the console doesn't sell, then neither does the game, and the company that decided to go with the console that didn't sell would sink HARD. And the only reason that COD is such a "lucrative" game is because it is cross platform. If Halo was cross platform, it would probably outsell COD by a boatload. Most people don't buy consoles for specific games, they buy them because the console has features that they like. Console companies know that their profits would drop if they sold consoles that didn't allow for used games to be played on them. That's where the red and black come in. If it is less profitable for the console to not play used games, then the console WILL play used games. Microsoft and Sony didn't get where they are today by being brain-dead. They got where they are today because they know how to get people to buy their stuff, and you can bet that if they DO make a console like that, then it will sell a whole lot less than the previous ones they made.

[Lᴜᴋᴇ]

Many people buy consoles based on their budget. I certainly bought my Xbox because it was a hell of a lot cheaper than the ps3. And Xbox live, where I live, is only £28 a year, which IMO is well worth paying. If just the Xbox banned preowned games I can't help but feel less and less people would buy it, as the price of buying a new game is well over the price for Xbox live. The price I payed for my first Xbox 360 "fat" was £60 (preowned), and the cost of a single new game is now over £40. Not to mention the Xbox came with a controller, all cables and a hard drive. Does something not quite add up? So that is where preowned games are so useful, and if they were scrapped for Xbox, I can't help but feel Microsoft would lose many, many potential new users.