125 replies to this topic

[so_tough!]

Mendon, on Sat Dec 17, 2011 11:45 AM, said:

I guess the thing that got me most about the article was the comment by RPG designer Chris Avellone when he said "I hope digital distribution stabs the used game market in the heart."

When the industry itself is excited to kill the used game market, things don't bode well for those of us who enjoy collecting and displaying.


Mendon

It's a weird thing to say. I don't get that attitude at all. If a consumer buys something, why cant they sell it on? It's all about money it seems.

[Mord]

Metal Ghost, on Tue Dec 13, 2011 1:05 PM, said:

First off, the cost of a game today is basically the same as it was 20 years ago. With inflation, that's really saying something.

No, it isn't. At least whatever you might think it's saying is wrong.

If you're going to compare the price of merchandise from 20 years ago with todays' price, and then "take into account inflation", you better make damned sure you also take into account inflation's effect on people's salaries.

If I were to take into account inflation with my yearly salary, and compare it to a similar salary of 20 years ago, I'm making a lot LESS than someone making the same amount of money from 20 years ago. What this means is that the price of something from 20 years ago, that might have been reasonable to the average joe (And I'm nowhere near as well off as some of the gents on here.) in 1980-1990 is not exactly reasonable for that same joe if he wasn't making more money every year to stave off the effect of inflation.

[onlysublime]

Mord, on Sat Dec 17, 2011 2:06 PM, said:

Metal Ghost, on Tue Dec 13, 2011 1:05 PM, said:

First off, the cost of a game today is basically the same as it was 20 years ago. With inflation, that's really saying something.

No, it isn't. At least whatever you might think it's saying is wrong.

If you're going to compare the price of merchandise from 20 years ago with todays' price, and then "take into account inflation", you better make damned sure you also take into account inflation's effect on people's salaries.

If I were to take into account inflation with my yearly salary, and compare it to a similar salary of 20 years ago, I'm making a lot LESS than someone making the same amount of money from 20 years ago. What this means is that the price of something from 20 years ago, that might have been reasonable to the average joe (And I'm nowhere near as well off as some of the gents on here.) in 1980-1990 is not exactly reasonable for that same joe if he wasn't making more money every year to stave off the effect of inflation.

games today are actually cheaper today than back then. Heck, the death of cartridges brought down prices a lot. I remember Street Fighter II for the SNES being as high as $70 way back then.

and if you go way way back. I remember pleading my parents to get me 2600 games that cost about $30. Activision games were the best but man they were expensive! I even sent in for the badges!

[Atariboy]

Pixelboy, on Sat Dec 17, 2011 9:06 AM, said:

Beyond collectibility issues, what we generally like about physical media is the ability to own and play old games any time we want with no restriction. In the future, we can expect that "TV game channels" won't just offer the latest games, but also a library of past games, stored on "archive servers" of sorts. You'll likely have to pay extra $$$ to access these "archive game channels", but I can imagine companies like Nintendo offering such channels as an equivalent of today's Wii Virtual Console and Wiiware. As long as the old favorites remain available in some form, people will have little to complain about. We may even see pirate channels (via open internet connections) that offer Atari 2600 games on demand!

Go to your channel guide and look for classic television shows. Where's My Three Sons, one of the most popular sitcoms a few years ago that ran for 12 seasons between 1960 and 1972? Where's all of the great 1950's shows like Life of Riley (I'm not even sure the classic 39 episodes of the Honeymooners are even presently being telecast)? I think just I Love Lucy on Hallmark and a few public domain fragments of The Jack Benny Show, The Dinah Shore Chevy Hour, and the long forgotten DuMont Network series The Goldbergs aired on This TV are what we have for 1950's television programming at this time (Doubt anyone hear ever even heard of DuMont. In the 1950's, it was NBC and CBS, ABC in a distant 3rd, and then DuMont).

Where are the timeless classics like Leave it to Beaver (Even that one currently isn't being syndicated nationwide)? When was the last time Lassie and Dennis the Menace were syndicated (You'd have to go back 15 years for that)? Where are the scores of popular 1960's shows? Where are all the 1970's shows like Emergency? How about the 1980's and things like the Facts of Life and such? I doubt there are more than 15 television shows from before 1980 being broadcast nationwide today. And it leaves next to zero chance for the lesser known classics like Daktari that was mildly successful in the 1960's and ran for several seasons to ever be telecast again. And then the shows that weren't successful that perhaps ran a season or less absolutely have to chance of ever being shown again.

Modern television doesn't offer this stuff. There's an extremely small amount of past content available. And if it wasn't for Turner Classic Movies, there would also be barely any movies from before 1970 being aired on nationwide television today. There's absolutely no reason to expect that a videogame model would ever operate like you're suggesting. Just look at the Virtual Console. Beyond 1st party content, there's just a small taste of the console libraries for each system represented. And then you have license issues. That's why Outrun Online Arcade is getting delisted in a few days, for instance. Then you have publishing agreements that come to an end, etc.

If we go to such a model, few games will ever see the light of day again in the future after their initial period of availability ends. Even television isn't that way and is actually very hostile towards classic content these days in their demographics drive that makes appealing to the 13-35 crowd all important with everyone else being irrelevant.

I see no reason if we essentially went to a broadcast model for videogaming where things would be any different.

Edited by Atariboy, Sat Dec 17, 2011 8:03 PM.

[onlysublime]

you can get a lot of those shows via TV Land which bought up the rights for a lot of those. I also see I Love Lucy on the local FOX channel as well. You can get a lot of those through Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon, etc. as well. You can't expect to get these things for free forever. No different than buying old physical media.

[Keatah]

What happened to the simple days of buying a cartridge and populating a nice bookshelf over time? This was a time when each and every game, good or bad, meant something! I remember getting a new game every week and slowly but surely filling a shelf. It was like a special party each time. Then two, now a whole stand. And then it migrated out to the wall. And over time new systems got added. And two book cases were now needed. As the years passed by we learned to pirate Apple II games and warez. And this necessitated a whole 'nother section altogether.

[Atariboy]

onlysublime, on Sat Dec 17, 2011 8:07 PM, said:

you can get a lot of those shows via TV Land which bought up the rights for a lot of those. I also see I Love Lucy on the local FOX channel as well.

TVLand changed their model 10 years ago when new management came in. They don't even label themselves as a classic television network anymore (As as I far as I'm aware, presently they only air heavily edited episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show and the Andy Griffith Show for pre 1970 content and some Norman Lear junk for 1970's programming). Edit - I think they also air Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie for 1960's and either them or Hallmark airs M*A*S*H and Little House on the Prairie, but either way, it's not much.

Their focus has been on "Generation X" for quite sometime now when new management came in and decided to reinvent the network to go after younger demographics for increased advertising revenue, even though the existing model was unique and successful. Their emphasis now is on television programming from the 1980's through the 2000's, new original programming, and 1980's and later movies.

onlysublime, on Sat Dec 17, 2011 8:07 PM, said:

You can get a lot of those through Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon, etc. as well. You can't expect to get these things for free forever. No different than buying old physical media.

Get what for free forever? I haven't watched an over the air broadcast since 1993 or so, and even then it was only a couple of times with a local PBS station when fooling around with a small back & white set that my 2600 was hooked up to. I'm not getting any of my television programming for free.

All that Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon, and such offer for classic content is largely what is already available on DVD and already in my collection (And just a small fraction of that is available on those services like Netflix). And I'm not sure why you think that's no different than buying physical media.

It still doesn't change the point that the television model he thinks videogaming might switch to in the future already doesn't offer the expansive range of classic content options that he seems to think serves as evidence that it would with videogaming. It proves exactly the opposite. Go open up a TVGuide if they still make them or go to your onscreen programming guide, if available, and see for yourself. It hasn't been that way for 20 years now (Back in the early days of cable television during the 1980's, though, there was tons of classic programming being aired to fill many networks).

If we essentially go the television route with videogaming in the future, I don't see any reason to expect it to be any different than television broadcast and movies are today. The focus is going to be placed squarely on things like Call of Duty Modern Warfare X, Madden 20XX, and so on just like television programming is. We'll get a few bones here and there for classic content that is available for a time, but little else.

But most of it, once its initial period of availability ends, is going to go the way of the DoDo bird. With a flip of a switch, something can easily be gone forever. That's not a good thing.

Edited by Atariboy, Sat Dec 17, 2011 9:29 PM.

[pocketmego]

Pixelboy, on Sat Dec 17, 2011 9:06 AM, said:

I examined every post in this thread, gave it some thought, and something seems very clear to me: We're treading in uncharted territory with the download-only model. All we can do at this point is draw comparisons with the past, and try to draw conclusions and make predictions about where it's going. But in the end it's all about mass consumer acceptance. If on one hand I hate the inability to buy a physical copy of a game, but on the other hand everyone else is mostly fine with it, then hey, sucks to be me.

Here's what I think: We're still many decades away from playing games on holodecks, so as a entertainment source, TVs will likely stick around for several more generations to come. With the TV broadcast model comes the need to streamline the content into an easely-accessible homogeneous whole. Years ago, the advent of "cable channels" gave us more choice in TV shows, and that was mostly seen as a good thing despite the added cable subscription fees. But if you look at it today, it doesn't matter if you're watching broadcasts from the "older networks" or the cable stations, now they're all just TV channels for us common mortals, we just watch what we like, and we accept paying whatever fees that come along with it, as long as the broadcast service is available 24-7.

In the long term, I see video games being merged into that "homogeneous whole". At one point, they won't be called video games anymore, they'll be called either "interactive channels" or (perhaps more likely) "game channels". You'll just switch to a channel (the Nintendo Channel, the Microsoft Channel, etc.) using your remote like you do today, then pick up a compatible wireless game controller and play the games available on the dedicated sub-channels. What we're seing today is the transformation of the gaming industry towards this end, and it's going to stay as turbulent as it is today for at least the next 10 years, with game companies milking the cow any way they can while they can still get away with it.

So does this mean the end of physical media for games? Yes, for the most part, although we may see attempts at resurrecting console gaming similar to what we've seen with the Atari Flashback, but in all likelyhood these will remain niche products. But this doesn't necessarily spell the end of unlimited game availability. Beyond collectibility issues, what we generally like about physical media is the ability to own and play old games any time we want with no restriction. In the future, we can expect that "TV game channels" won't just offer the latest games, but also a library of past games, stored on "archive servers" of sorts. You'll likely have to pay extra $$$ to access these "archive game channels", but I can imagine companies like Nintendo offering such channels as an equivalent of today's Wii Virtual Console and Wiiware. As long as the old favorites remain available in some form, people will have little to complain about. We may even see pirate channels (via open internet connections) that offer Atari 2600 games on demand!

The same logic applies to handheld gaming, by the way. The smartphones of today will be regarded as dinosaurs 10 years from now. In the not-so-distant future, phones will just be portable TVs with service "channels" (the equivalent of "apps" today), many of which will be games. Games on handhelds will just be a tad more limited in terms of user interface. We can already see it happening today, but once cloud computing will have reached full maturity, handheld devices will be seen as simple portable extentions of the advanced TV systems we'll have at home.

Who will make the most money, and who will hold the most power in this future of gaming? Only time will tell. I haven't bought a console since the Game Cube, I haven't bought a handheld since the GBA, I don't own a cell phone of any kind at the moment, and I don't even have cable at home because I rarely watch TV and basic free digital channels are more than enough for my needs. So I'm just content watching events unfold from the side lines (and seing people bitch and whine about it), and observe the gaming industry slowly transform itself.

Quoted for truth. Except, I'd replace the idea of channels, with Apps. I think a more "Media you want when you want it" is likely to replace the current network style scheduling for a more YOUTUBE like model. Beyond that...excellent post!

[Pixelboy]

Atariboy, on Sat Dec 17, 2011 9:12 PM, said:

It still doesn't change the point that the television model he thinks videogaming might switch to in the future already doesn't offer the expansive range of classic content options that it would with videogaming. Open up a TVGuide if they still make them or go to your onscreen programming guide, if available, and see for yourself. It hasn't been that way for 20 years now (Back in the early days of cable television during the 1980's, though, there was tons of classic programming being aired to fill many networks).

If we essentially go the television route with videogaming in the future, I don't see any reason to expect it to be any different than television broadcast and movies are today. The focus is going to be placed squarely on things like Call of Duty Modern Warfare X, Madden 20XX, and so on just like television programming is. We'll get a few bones here and there for classic content that is available for a time.

But most of it once its initial period of availability ends is going to go the way of the DoDo bird.

I'm willing to admit that you make a valid point. Perhaps not many of the "old classics" will make encores in this "channel-based" future of gaming, But still, I believe that's where the industry is going. And I prefer to remain optimistic: If straight emulation doesn't help to bring back the classics, then perhaps some classics will reappear in the form of remakes.

Also, to believe that every game ever made should (and will) be preserved as part of a global historical heritage is a rather utopian concept, don't you think? It's been done with cartridges and CDs because they lends themselves to dumping, but it's going to get harder and harder to do with each generational cycle of gaming.

[pocketmego]

Atariboy, on Sat Dec 17, 2011 7:48 PM, said:

If we go to such a model, few games will ever see the light of day again in the future after their initial period of availability ends. Even television isn't that way and is actually very hostile towards classic content these days in their demographics drive that makes appealing to the 13-35 crowd all important with everyone else being irrelevant.

I see no reason if we essentially went to a broadcast model for videogaming where things would be any different.

Oh yeah, and how many brick and mortar stores can you walk into these days and buy Towering Inferno for the 2600? How many compilation discs of physical media can you find it on? Sure you can buy it for the 2600 itself, but how is that any different in the future if you still have a working 2600?

If your a classic game collector, you'll still have classic games machines. Because, I gotta tell ya...if not on emulation, I'm only playing something like Demolition Man on the Genesis if I hook up a Genesis.

[pocketmego]

Keatah, on Sat Dec 17, 2011 8:11 PM, said:

What happened to the simple days of buying a cartridge and populating a nice bookshelf over time? This was a time when each and every game, good or bad, meant something! I remember getting a new game every week and slowly but surely filling a shelf. It was like a special party each time. Then two, now a whole stand. And then it migrated out to the wall. And over time new systems got added. And two book cases were now needed. As the years passed by we learned to pirate Apple II games and warez. And this necessitated a whole 'nother section altogether.

Yeah, that was cute when I was a kid. But, I don't have room or desire to have walls and walls of game stuff just accumulating like some out of control BEAST. I have a decnt vintage collection and all of it had to go into storage when I got married. Some people just don't have that kind of room. A lot of adults (and not all of course) are starting to like the digital download or cloud model because it save so much extra space.

[Austin]

As long as the internet is open and protected (i.e., not "censored" by the Government as what they are trying to move towards), then everything can and will be preserved just fine. The only problem is that people will continue to spend time debating the minor issues at hand ("What happens if everything goes download-only?"), versus debating and acting on the deeper issue at hand ("How do we preserve content from a download-only future if the internet is on lock-down?").

Of course, even if the internet stays a "free" and uncensored platform, streaming-only games may throw a wrench into the picture if they catch on for good. It's tough to say how those would be backed up.

[pocketmego]

Austin, on Sat Dec 17, 2011 10:09 PM, said:

As long as the internet is open and protected (i.e., not "censored" by the Government as what they are trying to move towards), then everything can and will be preserved just fine. The only problem is that people will continue to spend time debating the minor issues at hand ("What happens if everything goes download-only?"), versus debating and acting on the deeper issue at hand ("How do we preserve content from a download-only future if the internet is on lock-down?").

Of course, even if the internet stays a "free" and uncensored platform, streaming-only games may throw a wrench into the picture if they catch on for good. It's tough to say how those would be backed up.

Good point. Fighting things like SOPA and whatever hellish nonsense follows it, must always be our REAL priority.

[Keatah]

The gaming industry is going to vibrate back and forth as it tries to maximize profits any way it can. That is a given, and you will not stop it by any conventional means. Complaining and discussing and petitioning, fagghh!! Means nothing. The only way is for everyone to vote with their wallets. And we know that is never going to happen.

I don't know, aside from about 40 or 50 games and apps - if nothing new was to come out - I wouldn't shed a tear. There's tons and tons of retro stuff, especially on the Apple 2 platform. Enough to keep me busy for years!

The gaming market has done nothing in the past 6 years to seriously impress me, or make me want to pony up the buku bux being asked for modern gaming titles. There's a few kick-ass titles on the PC which I faithfully follow. And I am happy to report, not all are commercialized!

[Jibbajaba]

I didn't read the whole thread, so I'm just responding to the OP. The way I see it, used video games are no better than piracy. You can pay $55 for a used game at Gamestop, or you can download the game from some torrent site. Either way, the developer and publisher see nothing out of it. Wen you go to Gamestop to buy a game, they pressure you to buy used instead of new. You think that doesn't piss off publishers? I feel comfortable saying that most people who pirate games wouldn't have bought the game if piracy wasn't an option. I can't say the same about used game sales. I think that publishers see that as more of a threat than illegal downloads. The ubiquity of Gamestop is bad enough, but now Best Buy, Walmart, Overstock.com, and Amazon are getting in on the used game market. Then you have GameFly, who rents games and then sells the used copies, so that's like a double-whammy against publishers. There's always eBay and Craigslist, too. Companies enabling gamers to not buy new games (and therefore not give the devs/pubs ANY money) are much more of a problem than piracy ever was.

And people who complain about games being expensive will get no sympathy from me. In the 16-bit days, some games were as high as $80, like Strider on the Genesis and the Final Fantasy games on the SNES. $80 in 1990 would be the equivalent of over $130 today. Don't want to pay $60 for a game? Wait a few months for the price to inevitably drop to $20-30.

Having said that, I don't really play modern games, so I don't care either way.

Chris

[Keatah]

If publishers made the games cheap enough, the used market would disappear or become unprofitable.
Complaining about the high-price of games is like a sidenote for me. More or less. I'm not a modern gamer, except for a few select titles on the PC platform. And they are not mainstream anyways. So if a game goes for $75-$100, then fine by me. It's great entertainment (I have low standards) to watch the industry vibrate around itself - figuring out how it can milk the public for everything - even to its own detriment.

My gramma always would say that games are for babies and it was time to grow up and be a man instead of whacking the stick all weekend long.

Edited by Keatah, Sun Dec 18, 2011 1:17 AM.

[Atariboy]

Pixelboy, on Sat Dec 17, 2011 9:32 PM, said:

Also, to believe that every game ever made should (and will) be preserved as part of a global historical heritage is a rather utopian concept, don't you think? It's been done with cartridges and CDs because they lends themselves to dumping, but it's going to get harder and harder to do with each generational cycle of gaming.

I don't think that. I'm just thinking of myself and my ability to fully enjoy past games if I don't kick the bucket for a few more years and I'm still around a few decades from now able to enjoy this hobby.

But if we do look at it from a preservationist point of view, hopefully the bulk of the history of this hobby will remain intact for at least a few decades after we all buy the farm (It's going to gradually be lost over time, there's no way around that, but we should be trying to delay that as best as we can). But going a digital route just invites this proposed era of gaming to be the next era with many lost treasures like the silent movie and early talking movie era, live 1950's television programming, and most videotaped daytime television were.

Companies do a poor job of preservation. And if we switch to a streaming model, they're going to be the only ones that actually hold this material and actually have a chance of preserving it. It's quite conceivable that popular games will disappear just a few years after launch. Ask Sega where the source code is to a lot of their late 90's arcade games. Where do you think Activision and Atari would stand with something like their Atari 2600 library and material from the time if it wasn't for communities like ours?

Yet, it's going to be 100% behind them if we go the streamed model.

pocketmego, on Sat Dec 17, 2011 9:33 PM, said:

Oh yeah, and how many brick and mortar stores can you walk into these days and buy Towering Inferno for the 2600? How many compilation discs of physical media can you find it on? Sure you can buy it for the 2600 itself, but how is that any different in the future if you still have a working 2600?

If your a classic game collector, you'll still have classic games machines. Because, I gotta tell ya...if not on emulation, I'm only playing something like Demolition Man on the Genesis if I hook up a Genesis.

What does any of that have to do with what we're discussing? Who in here was worried about things like their Atari 2600 games disappearing just because a future model of the Playstation and Xbox goes all digital?

No one is talking about this having a negative effect on existing platforms like the Atari 2600 (Since there isn't going to be a negative effect on past consoles). They're talking about the negative ramifications this is going to have on something like the future Playstation VI, or something such as that, when someone wants to revisit it 10, 20, or 30 years after it launched. With a streaming model, it's going to be impossible. And even with an all downloadable model, it's not going to be very practical.

Austin, on Sat Dec 17, 2011 10:09 PM, said:

As long as the internet is open and protected (i.e., not "censored" by the Government as what they are trying to move towards), then everything can and will be preserved just fine. The only problem is that people will continue to spend time debating the minor issues at hand ("What happens if everything goes download-only?"), versus debating and acting on the deeper issue at hand ("How do we preserve content from a download-only future if the internet is on lock-down?").

Of course, even if the internet stays a "free" and uncensored platform, streaming-only games may throw a wrench into the picture if they catch on for good. It's tough to say how those would be backed up.

What does this have to do with preserving digital gaming in the future? No matter what status the internet has, it's going to be impossible with streamed games and quite possibly be impossible with regular downloadable gaming (or a big hassle, at best). Not every console is necessarily going to be like the Xbox has been where you can hack it and still put patches and downloadable content on to it after official support has concluded. And as systems get even more complex and complicated, who knows if we can even expect homebrew emulators for them (Or if it would even be possible for us to extract the digital downloads in the first place to preserve them and make them available, it's concievable that things might get too secure in an all digital age eventually that makes this unachievable). And then, there's the possibility of a game demanding a constant internet connection with a server like companies like Capcom have already experimented with in the console world. Who knows if such a thing could be worked around in the future after the servers have been killed off.

There's no guarantees like there was with physical media. That's a shame and an excellent reason to be against this shift, no matter if you're unsure just how much of a negative effect it's going to have on the future. The only thing certain here is it's going to to cause hassles for gamers while benefiting developers and publishers financially.

Jibbajaba, on Sun Dec 18, 2011 1:02 AM, said:

I didn't read the whole thread, so I'm just responding to the OP. The way I see it, used video games are no better than piracy. You can pay $55 for a used game at Gamestop, or you can download the game from some torrent site. Either way, the developer and publisher see nothing out of it.

The developer and publisher made their money on the game. They have no more right to profit from secondary sales of a specific copy of a game than a developer has when a homeowner resells their house later on down the road.

Edited by Atariboy, Sun Dec 18, 2011 5:52 AM.

[so_tough!]

Austin, on Sat Dec 17, 2011 10:09 PM, said:

As long as the internet is open and protected (i.e., not "censored" by the Government as what they are trying to move towards), then everything can and will be preserved just fine. The only problem is that people will continue to spend time debating the minor issues at hand ("What happens if everything goes download-only?"), versus debating and acting on the deeper issue at hand ("How do we preserve content from a download-only future if the internet is on lock-down?").

Of course, even if the internet stays a "free" and uncensored platform, streaming-only games may throw a wrench into the picture if they catch on for good. It's tough to say how those would be backed up.

There's no problem with censorship (what a very untrendy view!), I would guess most people actually believe in some forms of censorship. but many wont admit it (it's not the hip thing to believe in! You want that hate site directed at your daughter taken down? Ok then you don't believe in 100 percent free speech!!!!). Maybe if there were some internet laws, there would be a lot less nasty shit online. I know you're probably talking about copyright etc though...right?

Edited by so_tough!, Sun Dec 18, 2011 6:03 AM.

[Jibbajaba]

Atariboy, on Sun Dec 18, 2011 5:34 AM, said:

Jibbajaba, on Sun Dec 18, 2011 1:02 AM, said:

I didn't read the whole thread, so I'm just responding to the OP. The way I see it, used video games are no better than piracy. You can pay $55 for a used game at Gamestop, or you can download the game from some torrent site. Either way, the developer and publisher see nothing out of it.

The developer and publisher made their money on the game. They have no more right to profit from secondary sales of a specific copy of a game than a developer has when a homeowner resells their house later on down the road.

People always create false analogies between intellectual property and other material items. You aren't paying $60 for a disc of plastic and its accompanying packaging. You're paying $60 for the right to access the intellectual property contained on the disc. When you buy a house, or a wooden chair, or a screwdriver, you're paying for exactly that, and there is no question that it then belongs to you. That item has intrinsic and tangible value. A disc of plastic does not. Digital media is simply the medium used by publishers to transmit their intellectual property to the user. Publishers rightfully want the sale price of a game to carry with it one non-transferable single-user license. And it isn't because they want to "screw" the user. It's because companies like Gamestop have built their whole business model upon the idea of profiting off of the work of others. Yeah, you read that right (if you clicked the link). Their net, NET, (not gross) profit, as in after all taxes and expenses have been paid, was over 408 million dollars last year. Gamestop alone reaps almost a half a billion dollars in pure profit. Add in what Best Buy, WalMart, Amazon, etc. make, and you can see that the games-reselling industry is costing the games-creating industry, the people who we should be supporting because they're the one making the games that we play, a ridiculous amount of money.

This question came up in the early 90's when music publishers tried to stop stores from selling used CDs, but at the time they really had no way of stopping it. But they do now. CDs are on their way out, being replaced by music downloads, and the same thing is going to happen to games.

And I never said that game companies have the right to profit from secondary sales. But they sure as hell have the right to find ways to sell you a game in a non-transferable fashion.

And please don't insult anyone's intelligence by saying that download-only games mean that the games can not be preserved for future generations. How do most non-hardcore gamers today play the classics? With ROMs. Non-physical, downloaded copies. Does anyone really think that download-only games are going to stop game piracy? That people won't figure out how to extract downloaded games from console hard drives, and make them playable on modded systems? That 20 years from now, these games won't be playable in emulators on then-modern computers? The industry could move completely over to cloud-based gaming, and people would still figure out how to overcome it.

Quite frankly, I'm surprised to see all the backlash against download-only games. There are countless games available on the XBLA marketplace and PSN Store that are great, and NEVER EVER would have been made if the only option would have been a physical media-based release. Same thing goes for iOS and Android. These download-only platforms have allowed smaller publishers with unique game ideas to create and release games that otherwise never would have seen the light of day. I would think that you guys would be a lot more excited about that than you would be bummed out about the fact that you can't have a physical copy of Madden 2015 or Call of Duty Special Ops Night Ranger Edition. If it really is all about the games, then we're headed in a good direction.

Chris

[Emehr]

Jibbajaba, on Sun Dec 18, 2011 4:06 PM, said:

People always create false analogies between intellectual property and other material items. You aren't paying $60 for a disc of plastic and its accompanying packaging. You're paying $60 for the right to access the intellectual property contained on the disc.

I guess it's true that if they say this enough times enough people will believe it. It also makes it easier to make the transition to download only. "See, you weren't paying for the shiny disc all along, you were just paying for the license to run this disc on your console! Yeah! That's the ticket!" Sorry, I don't buy it. They never sold us that crap with books or records. The laws of copyright have always been there to make sure people don't make copies of media and sell them for profit. These same laws can be applied to video games.

Jibbajaba, on Sun Dec 18, 2011 4:06 PM, said:

It's because companies like Gamestop have built their whole business model upon the idea of profiting off of the work of others.

Just like used CD stores. Just like video rental places that sold used videos. Just like record stores. Just like used book stores. This is not new. Video games don't get a special pass because they're the younger form of entertainment...or whatever reason they think they deserve a special pass.

Jibbajaba, on Sun Dec 18, 2011 4:06 PM, said:

<snip stuff about GameStop's profits>

It's no secret that businesses that sell used goods have higher profit margins on the used goods in contrast with their new, unopened product. It's not just GameStop.

Jibbajaba, on Sun Dec 18, 2011 4:06 PM, said:

This question came up in the early 90's when music publishers tried to stop stores from selling used CDs, but at the time they really had no way of stopping it. But they do now. CDs are on their way out, being replaced by music downloads, and the same thing is going to happen to games.

They didn't find a way to stop it they just found a way to sell us music that has less value: no liner notes, no media, and a lossy, compressed format. The consumer lost. Now we "buy" music that sits on faceless hard drives. "Gee, nice music collection you have there, Gene. Is that a Western Digital?" This will happen to video games and people are celebrating. I don't get it.

Jibbajaba, on Sun Dec 18, 2011 4:06 PM, said:

And please don't insult anyone's intelligence by saying that download-only games mean that the games can not be preserved for future generations. How do most non-hardcore gamers today play the classics? With ROMs. Non-physical, downloaded copies. Does anyone really think that download-only games are going to stop game piracy? That people won't figure out how to extract downloaded games from console hard drives, and make them playable on modded systems? That 20 years from now, these games won't be playable in emulators on then-modern computers? The industry could move completely over to cloud-based gaming, and people would still figure out how to overcome it.

Why not just have the game on media so our future classics aren't just a bunch of hard drives? Having to curate and play games in a manner obtainable only by means considered illegal by the manufacturers is not my idea of preservation.

What's insulting is having manufacturers use strawman arguments to maximize their profit margins.

Jibbajaba, on Sun Dec 18, 2011 4:06 PM, said:

Quite frankly, I'm surprised to see all the backlash against download-only games. There are countless games available on the XBLA marketplace and PSN Store that are great, and NEVER EVER would have been made if the only option would have been a physical media-based release. Same thing goes for iOS and Android.

Download-only is fine for indie developers. I support it wholeheartedly. I buy the HumbleBundles and I've been happily using independent software since I've had a computer. I have no expectations of physical media with independent developers. It's not like they have the budgets of the guys that are doing the bulk of the whining about GameStop.

The smartphone platform also brought with it no expectations of physical media. It's a whole new playing field, so to speak. A new place where independent developers can release their work and get mass exposure on popular platforms. I'm cool with that. It's pretty exciting.

[Atariboy]

Jibbajaba, on Sun Dec 18, 2011 4:06 PM, said:

People always create false analogies between intellectual property and other material items. You aren't paying $60 for a disc of plastic and its accompanying packaging. You're paying $60 for the right to access the intellectual property contained on the disc. When you buy a house, or a wooden chair, or a screwdriver, you're paying for exactly that, and there is no question that it then belongs to you. That item has intrinsic and tangible value. A disc of plastic does not.

There's absolutely no difference. People are paying for a physical item and have the right to resell it.

Jibbajaba, on Sun Dec 18, 2011 4:06 PM, said:

And please don't insult anyone's intelligence by saying that download-only games mean that the games can not be preserved for future generations. How do most non-hardcore gamers today play the classics? With ROMs. Non-physical, downloaded copies.

Quite clearly, you don't understand the very nature of how something like OnLive works.

Jibbajaba, on Sun Dec 18, 2011 4:06 PM, said:

Does anyone really think that download-only games are going to stop game piracy? That people won't figure out how to extract downloaded games from console hard drives, and make them playable on modded systems? That 20 years from now, these games won't be playable in emulators on then-modern computers? The industry could move completely over to cloud-based gaming, and people would still figure out how to overcome it.

Yippe, you just might still be able to play that game 20 years from now if you jump through hoops on fire and cross your fingers and hope for the best.

Frankly, I don't see how anything you said changes the points I raised.

[Jibbajaba]

Atariboy, on Sun Dec 18, 2011 5:20 PM, said:

Frankly, I don't see how anything you said changes the points I raised.

I'm not trying to address the points that you raised. I'm just stating how it is, how it's going to be, and why it's going to be that way. We got to buy and sell media for years and years, and the party is almost over.

Chris

Edited by Jibbajaba, Sun Dec 18, 2011 5:33 PM.

[Atariboy]

I'm not too worried about it, for now. At best, we're still years away from it dominating the marketplace. Like I've stated before, I think we can expect things like all retail games getting a downloadable release, same day digital releases, and competitive pricing this upcoming generation. Then, I think we can expect at least one further console generation where physical game distribution becomes a more secondary form of distribution, sort of like the status digital has held this generation (With Nintendo perhaps lagging one step behind Sony and Microsoft in embracing it). Nobody is ready to go all digital anytime too soon.

I won't be losing any sleep over it (I'll still play games, I'll just be changing my habits), but I do think this shift is an unfortunate one (Although I'll admit that I like what it has done this generation for smaller releases that you correctly cited as projects that would've never gotten a retail release in years past). But I'll complain at every turn about it taking over the space reserved for traditional retail products.

Edited by Atariboy, Sun Dec 18, 2011 5:47 PM.

[Jibbajaba]

Emehr, on Sun Dec 18, 2011 5:19 PM, said:

Just like used CD stores. Just like video rental places that sold used videos. Just like record stores. Just like used book stores. This is not new. Video games don't get a special pass because they're the younger form of entertainment...or whatever reason they think they deserve a special pass.

No, this is not new, and used CD sales were under fire in the 90's for the same reason. You mention CD stores, video rental stores, record stores, and book stores. Tell me, how are those industries doing these days?

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It's no secret that businesses that sell used goods have higher profit margins on the used goods in contrast with their new, unopened product. It's not just GameStop.

No it isn't just Gamestop, and that's exactly my point. In total, all of the entities who are profiting from used game sales are costing the games industry a shitload of money.

Quote

They didn't find a way to stop it they just found a way to sell us music that has less value: no liner notes, no media, and a lossy, compressed format. The consumer lost. Now we "buy" music that sits on faceless hard drives. "Gee, nice music collection you have there, Gene. Is that a Western Digital?" This will happen to video games and people are celebrating. I don't get it.

No argument here. I will say though that paying 99 cents for a song on Amazon means that I don't have to pay $15.99 for a shitty album with one song that I really like. But other than that, comparing music downloads to game downloads is an inaccurate analogy. As you stated, downloaded music is inferior to a brand new LP being played on a high-quality turntable. A downloaded game plays exactly the same as one that you bought on a disc.

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Why not just have the game on media so our future classics aren't just a bunch of hard drives? Having to curate and play games in a manner obtainable only by means considered illegal by the manufacturers is not my idea of preservation.

Game companies aren't in the business of preservation. They are in the business of making games that will sell well enough to make their production worthwhile. It is up to those of us interested in the history of games to find a way to preserve them.

Quote

Download-only is fine for indie developers. I support it wholeheartedly. I buy the HumbleBundles and I've been happily using independent software since I've had a computer. I have no expectations of physical media with independent developers. It's not like they have the budgets of the guys that are doing the bulk of the whining about GameStop.

The smartphone platform also brought with it no expectations of physical media. It's a whole new playing field, so to speak. A new place where independent developers can release their work and get mass exposure on popular platforms. I'm cool with that. It's pretty exciting.

I guess I don't see the distinction between indie developers and major ones. So if an indie developer produces a game, then download-only is fine, but if EA makes one, then we need it on a disc? Why? The chances are that the game produced by the indie developer is going to me better than whatever mindless drivel of a sequel EA pumps out. Frankly I'd be more concerned with preserving the indie game.

I understand the feelings of others here, but I don't agree, and the industry is headed the way it's headed. I don't feel the need to have something tangible as some here do. If I can have all of my movies, music, and games in a digital format instead of taking up space, then great, as long as the quality of the product itself is the same. As we already pointed out, that it not the case when it comes to music. But with games, books, and movies (if you download them at 1080p) it is. Whether you buy a game on disc or download it, it's the same game. Whether you buy a book or download it, it's the same book. Whether you buy a movie on 1080p Blu-Ray or download it in 1080p, it's the same movie.

I collect classic games because I like collecting classic games. And it's a hobby that isn't going anywhere. If you like collecting physical copies of modern games, what can I say? Time to find a new hobby.

Chris

[Jibbajaba]

Atariboy, on Sun Dec 18, 2011 5:46 PM, said:

I won't be losing any sleep over it (I'll still play games, I'll just be changing my habits), but I do think this shift is an unfortunate one (Although I'll admit that I like what it has done this generation for smaller releases that you correctly cited as projects that would've never gotten a retail release in years past).

Honestly, I think it's unfortunate, too. But I understand why it's happening. I have no doubt that media producers never liked the fact that their products could be bought and sold used, but they never really had the means to do anything about it. Now they do.

Chris