Used game retailers respond to 'Project Ten Dollar'

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The second login/pw worked for me.

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Bookmarked.

There's a BugMeNot Firefox plugin that makes it even more convenient. You just right click on the login field and click Login with BugMeNot.

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Is this legal?
Knowing my luck I'll be the one who has the FBI after me after accessing YouTube as a test.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2745/4377499850_523ea3382f_o.jpg

You're only worth 10 bucks, Peter?

Still more than you, buddy boy.

I'm not sure where, but I'm certain I slipped into an alternate timeline somewhere guys.

Activision has become one evil ball of evil suckage, Ubisoft is instituting the digital Schutzstaffel to watch us play their games (ironic that they're french amirite) and EA, the object of my revenge fantasies for thirty-five years... is now probably the least evil publisher out there. Something is clearly wrong here.

If anyone knows how I can get back to my timeline where only white people can become president, Firefly wasn't canceled and EA is still evil, let me know.

Err no they won't charge the same prices as that would be suicide and they ain't stupid. How the hell did Dr. Blights comment get voted up when it is quite obviously stupid?

They will drop the used game by £10 and the ammount they give you for the game by £10 (i'm using pounds as i'm from the UK and these things tend to ignore exchange rates when they get over here... unless its favourable to the US companies of course)

A stupid Idea from EA really as if retailers do drop both prices (as they will have to) you will get less money for your games when you trade in, so you won't be able to afford the new copy anyway only the second hand one (loss number 1). If they want to make money from that they require you to buy the extra content, which only a certain percentage of people will do (and i don't think its going to be a high percentage, loss number 2)

Why do the videos games market seem insistant that they get money from second hand sales however, this is something i have never understood. None of the other markets seem insistant on getting money from second hand sales and there arn't many markets (that i know of) that do? Why should video games be exempt from the whole first sale stuff?

No they wont drop the price theres still a demand most people will just see the price on the second hand copy and the price on the retail copy and wont remember project 10 dollar

and also not everyone will want the couple of extras from project 10 dollar so the games shops wont wanna risk that either


The used games market needs to die its the only reason prices are so high the games shops still wanna make a margin on the games so if they take of 10% of the price off a used copy and only pay you like 10-20 dollars for it there making massive profits off these games but if we were to wipe 10 dollars off all game costs there revenue would decrease dramatically

this is most telling here in Aus where EB will sell everything at the MAX RRP so they can sell a 110 AU game for 105AU used and theyd only give you about 50AU for a new release(prices in previous paragraphs were in US) where JB sell for 80 - 90 dollars on most games 100 on the rare case that a game is 120 at EB and they dont want people to trade back they still accept them because A) theyll sell eventually(even on a clearout sale theyll still get at least what they paid for it) and B) it means that person will spend the trade money in there store

I started "Project $24" a few months ago. That's how much I pay Blockbuster for a game pass (would use Gamefly if USPS would stop stealing the discs out of the envelopes). For some odd reason the one I live by is always jam packed with copies of all the recent titles. I'm not sure when this happened since Blockbuster used to be a joke when it came to game availability.

So yeah, I rent a game, play it to completion, then return. Rinse and repeat. I don't really like competitive multiplayer games so this strategy has no cons besides maybe missing out on some "special item". Nowadays there is way too much good stuff coming out to keep up with so I rareeeeely ever play a game again after beating it.

In February alone I have played (to completion) Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, Darksiders, and Assassin's Creed 2 for the low low price of.... $24. And when I run out of hot new games to play, I just cancel blockbuster and go pick up some cheap, older, used games that I may have missed on ebay for a month. Then turn around and sell them which is easy once you have a system down.

I have blown a small fortune the past 10 years of my life on video games. Never again. That is unless companies go to digital distribution. Then I'm kinda screwed and may have to resort to piracy.

Actually, he freakin' looks like Gordon Gekko.

That is exactly what I was going to say.

that is if you buy from gamestop. ebay sometime has them cheaper the if you buy it new just got to look.
if this goes through that means gamestop will give you 1 penny for that 3 week old game

Okay, let's say that GameStop wants to give me a penny for my game and I say, "No thanks." and everyone else with a brain also says, "No thanks." and then GameStop goes out of business because no one wants to sell their game there for $.01.

I call bullshit as well... what exactly is happening to those used games that are being traded in? You mean they aren't selling them.. or they only sell them to people not looking for recent games?? His logic is severely flawed...

Probably not because Ensemble was a PC developer which didnt really have to deal with used sales at all, and Pandemic was pretty shitty.

Ensemble's main issues were A: Age of Empires wasn't what it was. B: They were a victim of Microsoft's "let's kill all first party development!" scheme of 2008-2009.

Halo Wars was ensembles last game which was Xbox only. And Pandemic made some great games. Full Spectrum Warrior, Star Wars: Battlefront 1&2, Mercenaries 1&2 and Destroy All Humans just to name a few.

Let's just change that to Battlefront 1 and 2

Unfortunately, I doubt this idea has any chance of curving used game sales.

1- The burden of DLC falls on the consumer and most are not always aware of this.

2- The problem isn't that easily solved. The problem is that most publishers have created a monster having their game sold via brick and mortar establishments.

The only way they're going to stop used game sales is by cutting out the 'middleman'.

Can anyone guess what that involves?

"DD"

Pandemic failed because their games weren't making enough money, which indicates that the market didn't want them

The industry likes to paint this picture of developers as "victims" in all of this, but ultimately the onus is on them to make games that people are actually going to buy.

@Wiizer,

Oh man, if the entire industry goes "DD", not only will the middleman be cut out, but gamers like me, too. Gaming will be so much more expensive for the consumer. Every game purchase will be final. No returns. No resell. I would never buy a game unless I was 100% sure I wanted to keep it for years.

@Mr Khan
I agree, except in the case like Clover where they were putting out quality games, but people still didn't buy them because they were stupid.

And why should gamestop be responsible for that? Did the publishers representing those developers ever take initiative and try offering the customer a used game buyback program to take these used copies off the market?

No, instead, they ran smear campaigns and now these pre-release DLC options (ie... content that would otherwise be part of the retail package anyway) against a perfectly reasonable used game market in attempts to rob customers of their purchases' overall value.

It's amazing how we all seem to forget how trade works... an exchange of one item of value for another item of value. But now these publishers want to change all that, so that only they get the value, and we end up with a pile of bits that has no value beyond the initial buyer.

By removing used games from the equation, game publishers are cutting into the funds their customers need in order to continue buying new releases at the rate they do now. Eventually, publishers will have to reduce prices on their end just to stay afloat when their target market can't afford $60 a title.

Honestly I never understood quick reselling anyway. I'm a collector and I don't buy games I don't at least plan on keeping. I've sold a few back over the years, mainly games that incrementally update like Ace Combat and Dynasty Warriors series, but I still have Sega Saturn games. And I never buy used games that aren't in near mint condition and have at least a twenty dollar difference in price, or cant easily be found new anymore.

Seems to me if you are going to buy a game and turn around and sell it three weeks later, save yourself a ton of money and sign up for Gamefly.

Gamefly is expensive, plus you have to wait, I buy new or used and just resell online for the same price or at a few dollars off of what I paid.

I wait for sales like Buy 2 get 1 free and amazon's $10 credits. I can normally make money off of those. I did the math recently and since last october I've lost a total of about $32 and some change....and I've played pretty much everything on PS3!

Gamefly is however, perfect for the people who don't want to hold onto those games. I rent a game that I'm not 100% positive I want to buy. If I like it, I'll purchase it. If not, I finish it (or not) and send it back. By having gamefly, I get to experience games I REALLY want to play, but am not willing to shell out the full 60 dollar MSRP for.

And because of my lengthy membership, I get the game for 10-20 dollars off even if it's just been released. The cases, manuals and whatnot 'all' ship in damn near perfect condition... And you get a 5 dollar coupon every month to spend on games on their store or a game you have rented and want to keep.

HOWEVER, I have not purchased anything recently that would be kicked with a DLC voucher. I plan to email them about that soon.

...But seriously people, you can counter this price gouges you know... Go to ebay/half.com and sell your stuff there and at least those companies don't make such a crapton of profit. I've sold stuff there and they took maybe... 2-4 dollars from the final sale of my copy of AC2?

Or go to swap meets. You can beat the used game sales, you just have to stop using it. Either subscribe to a rental service to keep supporting a mix of physical and digital ownership so to speak or use online trading services.

You've never sold a game? Either on EBay, or to anyone else? You won't be able to do this if EA gets their way. I personally like the option to trade in or sell games I have while they're value is high, knowing I can always get them later on the cheap. I don't care about Gamestop, but they are being made the villain here, so publishers can take away the right we have to sell our property. I would like these guys to tell me how much money they pay to their car manufacturer, or the builder of their house when they sell them? There is no good justification to take our right to sell our property away from us. I can sell movies I buy, books, etc, but not $60 video games? Absolutely ridiculous.

I used to trade in games years ago before I realized what a ripoff it was. And no, I don't sell my games either. So this is fine with me.

If you buy games just to sell them again "when their value is high" so you can buy them cheaply later... Why not just rent them? At the risk of sounding like chrisD, gamefly has served me well over the years.

It also doesn't make them unsellable, they're still very playable. In all of the cases so far, the DLC has been a neat bonus but not vital. You're being overly dramatic.

(PS books and movies probably have a much much lower resell value in terms of percentage than games do, HTH)

But... You CAN sell it, just minus some optional DLC. What are you going on about?

My problem is, now that a few of my friends know that I don't sell my games, they sell their copies and expect to borrow mine. I will sometimes, but it makes me come across as a stingy A-hole when I say "um... no" when I really just don't feel like dealing w/ it. Oh well...

It's HARD to take you SERIOUSLY when you TYPE like we CAN'T read THE MOST IMPORTANT words in your SENTENCES.

Are all these "I support EA" posts shills? What other industry gets a cut of the secondary market....NONE. What kind of thinking does it take to actually believe thats its good business to devalue a product before purchase? Would you think its OK if Form required you to buy a new $5,000 control computer if you bought a used car before it would work, thats the same idea. This is a pathetic attempt by a company to try and suck the life out of the gaming industry by making their games worth less to the original purchaser, since it now holds almost zero residual value.

Trying to say that Gamestop is making too much money so this is good is flawed in so many ways. Sure GS hoses you over if you sell your game to them...but thats your decision. Its just like downloading games, I do it when the price is right since there is no way to resell them...they have less value when new, so they command a lower price. Marketing 101

Games (and modern digital media in general) are different from other industries because they are much more "durable" than other goods. A used car is different from a new car, but a used game offers the exact same experience. In more economic terms, used games are almost perfect substitutes for new games, while the used car and new car markets are very different. There are also further problems with your analogy, such as the fact that GameStop pushes their used goods on you, while a car dealership would always rather sell you a new car.

Are you serious, ThinksMedia? No other industry gets a cut of the secondary market? That's so weird you say that, because when I traded in my old car at the Toyota dealership they turned around and sold it. So much for that theory. And the part about the original product being worth less is also bullshit since not having one DLC gun doesn't ruin my gaming experience and it shouldn't ruin yours either. Common Sense 101.

@WREturns With A Vengeance,

I hate to tell you dude, but Toyota dealerships aren't owned directly by Toyota, they're franchisees. Toyota, the company that makes the cars does not see any money from you trade-in, the dealership/franchisee does.

AoE,
If it works like every other franchise partnership in the world then, yes, Toyota does get a cut of the profits.

@WREturns With A Vengeance,

Toyota gets a cut of the profits on new vehicles and CPO Toyotas sold at the dealership; they do not get a cut of the profits dealerships make on trade-ins. By the way, did I mention I work in the car industry? Specifically for an industry news and analysis organization, one that happens to have close contact with both dealers and manufacturers. I do know a thing or two about what I speak. Out of interest do you have any auto industry experience beyond consumer?