GameStop: Used game buyers uninterested in free DLC

Anyone playing the game(At least with ME2 and DA) while connected to the internet knows about it. Also, from my own experiences, GameStop employees mention it at checkout. Dunno if that is common though.

Nutman (Love the name) at my local GameStop store the clerks never heard of any of the Dante's Inferno advertisements. They also don't mention DLC. Actually, all they do is make fun of you for not buying 360, an orignal IP/ non-bigname titles, and/or when you buy new.

I found one store in my city that does none of this. When I mentioned getting Monster Hunter 3 to them they didn't laugh and tell me not to get for this reason "because it's on the Wii." (yes, other stores gave me that reason) they just talked to me about the game. Now it doesn't help this store is a good 20 miles away.

I'm in the same boat, even then I search and find them new. Devil Summoner 1 new costed me a pretty penny.

yea the only used game i bought was M.Vs.C 2 on ps2...what a tough find....when i saw it i had to pick it up as i had been looking for it FOREVER...still have it too even though I downloaded it on XBLA...

Except developers are getting crafting and charging $15 for said DLC now so the customer would pay more money by buying a game used (in your $10 discount scenario) and then purchasing the additional content.

I agree with you that what he is saying is so preposterous and illogical. Gamestop obviously cares a great deal which is why they are probably going to be gobbled up by one of those equity firms before the business starts to seriously suffer.

They probably came to this conclusion after realizing that everyone who bought Mass Effect 2 new does not care about the free DLC. So why would the people who bought it used? It's just all pretty lame.

Sure, it's your choice to sell your games if you want to, but you ought to be cognizant of the effects that your choice has on the industry just the same. You can shrug your shoulders and act dismissive about the implications of that choice, but you're only fooling yourself.

Now that's not to say that you need to stop selling your games. No, I just don't think it's right that you and others like you act so dismissive about the problem just so that you can continue to contribute to it with a clear consciense. Whether or not you're willing to admit it to yourselves, the used game market is a threat.

@Darrell: Every industry in history has dealt with second hand sales. Cars. Music, Movies, furniture, everything(at least everything that isn't consumable). Those who choose to be in those businesses are the ones who have to adapt, because no amount of backlash is going to get people to give up their consumer rights.

Car companies do this by offering warranties, for example.(which are usually only valid for the original buyer). The movie industry does this by releasing movies in theaters at first, a service for early adopters that cannot be resold. These methods are not unlike what we're seeing now with free DLC for those who buy their games new. There are other methods to convince people to keep their games.. multiplayer modes, time based unlocks, or free/cheap updates like Burnout Paradise did.

Oh, and just for me personally.. it's EXTREMELY rare that I get rid of games, except when I pick up a bundle just to get one or two specific titles, then I'll get rid of the rest. The other case would be a game that I blow through and have no intention of ever playing again and which I think has no collectible value. In addition, I NEVER contribute to the Gamestop machine.. I usually trade directly with other consumers through sites like Goozex.

Bottom line: As long as publishers keep putting out great games that I can get excited about, I'll keep buying new and keep those games on my shelf.

I'd imagine younger gamers have more trouble buying/selling online due to a lack of a credit card. Many kids use cash allowances from their parents to buy games from Gamestop. And selling to Gamestop is very easy too, since it's all physical.

Ebay, Paypal and so forth probably require too much effort for the average youngster.

mmm...very true...poor bastards

The value oriented consumer (I being one of them) doesn't buy the new title used at $5 off. We buy the 8 month old title that's down to $20 and possibly on a buy 2 get 1 free sale.

The sole voice of reason. Well said, sir.

1. Gamestop can sell their games for as much as they want. If they want to mark up games above the "standard" MSRP, that's their choice, but it WON'T result in *more* earnings.

2. Developers don't set the prices of their games.

3. Noone with common sense judges the value of their games by their length. If this were a valid judgement, the only game worth playing would be World of Warcraft(or another MMORPG since they provide limitless playtime). A great game can quickly go sour if it becomes drawn out. How good would games like COD4 or Batman:AA be if they were extremely long?

"In short I think that DLC should be a big warring on the front of the box right alongside with DRM. Yeah sometimes either iether works out but its a total crapshoot."

You mean like the big Blu-ray logo which warns me not to waste my money on the product and go and buy the DVD instead?

Sounds like you're living inside an anomoly.

You blaim the developers for the pricing problems and popularity of used games but first off that's extremely short sited on your part, and second the pricing of games is far more complicated.

First its short sited to say its the manufactures/developers faults, back in the 80's games didn't hold their value any better than the do now, they actually held it less, the problem beacons to the pricing formulas and competition. Back then then was far less competition in the ways of product and the game manufactures knew this so they generally left their games high for retail, but many didn't think the $40-$50 price tag was worth it, yes Atari NES and SEGA games were this much in the early days of consul gaming, so what did people do, they rented them, most of these games usually didn't have more than 24h of reasonable game time any way, many could be beat in a matter of hours, so be it. Now we complain about the games costing so much and then dropping in price in a few months, again the product pricing formulas, but what has to be remembered is these games now contain so much content, some times junk some times decent, that renting isn't an option anymore unless you just want to try it, even with week and unlimited play rentals.

Second what are these sales formulas being referred to, well its the pricing points companies like EA, Microsoft, SquarEnix, Nintendo, Sony, etc. uses to determine what the SRP of a game should be at release, and when to drop it, and its different for every company out there, that's why its so complicated, but the drops usually come in particular orders.

1) The development costs have been reached, the game is now making profit over development. Most games have different pricing components and percentages of costs go into the pricing plan, the first is cost of development, this is usually also the first to go, yes the distributors could continue to charge this extra amount to increase profits, and often they do because this amount is hit within the first few weeks of sales, but at some point this is dropped to make the game more reasonably price.

2) Plateau and drop off points, game sales plateau and drop after a few months, this is the point they often drop the pricing point. By this time most of the games have made their development costs back, and a small drop can be afforded, this is usually done by dropping the amount paid into for development in the first place.

3) End of life. Games do have a life span, most are no more than a year, so the manufactures have to come up with a way of continuing the sales of the game, there are many different methods ranging from dropping it to just above production and distribution costs, around $20 sometimes less, to repackaging and distributing of the product and a multi-game bundle or game of the year edition.

After this the game is just dropped.

Some games have a built in life span, EA is especially bad about it with their Sports games, yet they don't get rid of them, they drop the game by $10-20 for original SRP and then release the new one, the old one is a perceived much better value when considered against the new one, which isn't much different from the previous versions.

The manufactures aren't complaining about their profit margins, they expect and plan the SRP to drop over time. The manufactures are complaining about the profit losses from companies like GameStop who make it their company policy to sell used over new.

You go into GameStop and try buying a new game that has been out for a week or two, they will likely have a used copy in because a percentage of people will buy a game and not like it, so they sell it to them on the cheap. GameStop employees are strongly recommended to sell the used copy before the new. Why? Because they are only making a few bucks on the new copy while making more than what they paid for the new copy on the used one, even a new game with $20-$30 in store credit buy back price, and that is high, is netting them more profit than the same title new, many of the used games during that time frame are actually new games being sold because the store they were bought from doesn't take returns after 7 days even if sealed, what does GameStop do with these, open them and sell them as used, because it is illegal to sell them as new if you didn't get them though the manufacture, and good luck on getting that best buy label off without getting caught or ripping the package.

The DLC thing is an incentive for gamers to buy new instead of used, wait for the next gen game consuls, possibly even this gen but I hope not, you might go to Best Buy or GameStop and buying a card to type in a number and Download the entire game onto your hard drive, no more used games at all.

@3dpenguin:

"You go into GameStop and try buying a new game that has been out for a week or two, they will likely have a used copy in because a percentage of people will buy a game and not like it, so they sell it to them on the cheap. GameStop employees are strongly recommended to sell the used copy before the new. Why? Because they are only making a few bucks on the new copy while making more than what they paid for the new copy on the used one, even a new game with $20-$30 in store credit buy back price, and that is high,"

Yes, because the retailer's objective is to PLEASE THE CUSTOMER AND MAKE A PROFIT, NOT PLEASE THE GAME INDUSTRY. The used market existed well before this generation of gaming, and nobody was crying about it then. So why all of a sudden is it a problem now? Now that the economy is hitting rough waters, economic reality is catching up with a lot of these game developers. Game developers put themselves into this mess by backing the HD consoles that are literally a money pit. Nintendo isn't crying about used games sales, and has even said that attacking used games is pointless because used games are not the problem but simply the symptom of declining interest in games.

Reggie recently said in an interview that the game industry has a very bad problem with ignoring their customers and not trying to look at things from the customer's viewpoint. The game industry is not exempt from the laws of economics. The market ultimately decides with its money. If the customer isn't satsified with their product, they sell it off and take their business elsewhere. If a customer keeps having to resell their games because they are terrible, they exist gaming altogether. Gaming is in the entertainment business. Entertainment is a VERY hard business to be in because there must be an unwavering and intimate respect for the audience (or customer). Most game developers these days do not have this attitude. And they are going out of business for it, as they rightfully should.

Instead of whining, or attacking their customers, the game industry should be trying to better understand their customers and show respect for their imaginations and tastes, and bend over backwards for them. But they aren't interested in the customer experience, so their games continue to bomb, and they remain ignorant of where the blame truly lies: Themselves. And they're gonna continue to whine themselves right out of business, and it will be well-deserved as it is in any other industry that actively attacks its customers *coughRIAAcough*.

'"You go into GameStop and try buying a new game that has been out for a week or two, they will likely have a used copy in because a percentage of people will buy a game and not like it, so they sell it to them on the cheap. GameStop employees are strongly recommended to sell the used copy before the new. Why? Because they are only making a few bucks on the new copy while making more than what they paid for the new copy on the used one, even a new game with $20-$30 in store credit buy back price, and that is high,"

Yes, because the retailer's objective is to PLEASE THE CUSTOMER AND MAKE A PROFIT, NOT PLEASE THE GAME INDUSTRY. The used market existed well before this generation of gaming, and nobody was crying about it then. So why all of a sudden is it a problem now? Now that the economy is hitting rough waters, economic reality is catching up with a lot of these game developers. Game developers put themselves into this mess by backing the HD consoles that are literally a money pit. Nintendo isn't crying about used games sales, and has even said that attacking used games is pointless because used games are not the problem but simply the symptom of declining interest in games.'

Don't put the used game industry on a god like pedestal... They don't give a flip about the customers if they did they would either a) give more money for the trade ins or b) sell their used games for less than 10% of retail, far less, give $20 for a game charge $30 for it, considering they would probably sell 2-3 times the number of games at this price they would still be turning a better profit than they do on the new ones.

Also, the game industry is in the business of selling and making games, and the game industry isn't hurting like you make it sound, smaller companies and former industry leaders who refused to get with the times went under or get bought out, EA, Microsoft, SquarEnix, Nintendo, Sony, Activision/Blizzard and all the others which are out there are doing perfectly fine, they have seen a drop in their sales as of late, but as you like to point out we're in a bad economy right now, and the used game market isn't helping any, many companies would probably be willing to reduce their prices some if it wasn't for companies like GameStop which will just undermine their prices even at the new rate.

As for used games always being around, there is a major difference now. Used games use to be locally owned rental/retail shops which would buy the games for cash and sell them used at a $5-$10 mark up from what they gave, which was based solely on how popular the game was how much you got back, and they would take damn near anything, now GameStop on the other hand is a completely different can of worms, they make it a business to buy games at around 30% retail and then marking it up to 90% retail, so on a $60 game that is a $38 profit in comparison to the new game which is only a profit of $10-$15 a title at that price. You think you're sticking it to the man because they don't make games YOU LIKE, but guess what, those games they are release are turning a profit, the only ones that might not are the common shovel ware, which interestingly enough are most often on the Wii, which is cheap and easy to develop for, the shovel ware on the PS3 and 360 go into the consul stores because its just too damn costly to release on disc, especially with the PS3.

If you don't like a game don't buy it at all, because both markets are troll markets. The game developers do watch used games sales, even though they don't make any money at it, because this will give them a bigger picture of how games are selling and what the turn over rate on the games are, so if a game if a game isn't even making it into the used game market really fast, Halo and GTA series, they are going to bleed that game title dry until it does, if a game ends up going into the used market quickly usually you won't see that game title ever again.

As for them backing the HD market, that was where it was going anyway, why beat around the bush about it, games abandoned cartridge media in favor of DVD because that's where the entertainment industry was going, and when the entertainment industry went HD they followed, that's where it is going. If and when the Big N does decide to retire the Wii you will probably find that the new system will probably be on par with this generations HD consuls, and the next generation HD consuls are going to still be superior to the new Nintendo system because Nintendo isn't interested in selling the newest thing, they are interested in selling to the largest audience, which is not hard core gamers. The thing about it is it only costs marginally more to develop for HD, which is far cheaper than what it cost back in the 8bit 32bit and 64bit days, that's the reason why the content was so lack luster and lacking in content because it was extremely costly to develop in the 2D days, its gotten cheaper to develop in 2D but when its only marginally cheaper nobody is going to develop that way unless the system or the game title dictates it to be.

But as I said earlier, this is all moot anyway, because the industry has already decided to go DLC, all that's holding it back now is a method of delivery, which is likely on its way since the US is sick of being picked on for being 17th in world internet speeds.