Heavy Rain developer estimates $13M loss on second-hand sales

@Mustang Fanboy - I bought it when I got my PS3 & I really enjoyed it. If you're into heavy story games, I would recommend it, especially now since you can probably find even a new copy for dirt cheap.

Know that it does start off really slow so it will take a bit of time for it to get interesting.

@Mustang Fanboy

The game itself is amazing in my opinion.

@Mustang Fanboy I enjoyed it.

@Mustang Fanboy
It's definitely worth playing at least once. A very unique experience.

@Mustang Fanboy

It is a beautiful interactive movie experience.

@Mustang Fanboy
Ford lost $40billion in used sales last year. .
I'm sick of this BS from publishers. The VAST majority of games I've bought used or rented, I never would have even considered buying as a new release, just like movies, etc. Games are a bigger revenue industry than the motion picture industry these days. I hardly feel sorry for these guys. Produce GREAT games and you will make money and everyone will be happy. It's business, that's how it works.

@kentuckyfried

I still think Plumbers Don't Wear Ties is the height of interactive movie experiences.

@Mustang Fanboy

I am sure you can get a cheap 2nd copy!

@Mustang Fanboy

Definitely rent it if you are unsure and merely curious. I bought it, and wish I rented it.

It was an interesting game, but was a bit cheesy. The mechanics are clumsy, and the voice acting and writing are horrible. Especially the writing.

@Mustang Fanboy buy it or rent it I dont think you will get through it in a day maybe two if you play alot but it has a bunch of outcomes one of the best games of all time

@zenaxe
i agree with you except Ford losing any money on used sales. car prices are set to cover cost plus a margin of profit on each car. so when they sale a car, they are making back their investment plus some. for software, they have a certain number they have to sell a certain number to recoup any investment that have gone into it.

but you are right about the quality of games being the number one selling factor. if a game is good enough, i will buy it new and support these developers/publishers. however, throw some half-assed effort out there and expect me to bite, well, i'll just keep my $60 and give it to some other deserving publisher.

@zenaxe This times a million!

@Mustang Fanboy The game is interesting, yet it is like a B rate movie. Also (for me) the game seems more 'glitchy' since the Move update. Still worth a play through though for the unique experience.

@zenaxe There's a huge difference there. A car with 100,000 miles on it IS WORTH LESS than a new car. It comes with risks - it has a shorter life on its original parts, it can have damages to it, a number of things. A used car is never 'brand new'. A game disc MIGHT have scratching, though most people check for this, but this is besides the point. A game is a digital good that is easily reproduced for next to nothing. A car's cost is mostly in physical production per unit, not initial development. A game is just the opposite - almost all is in overall development costs in comparison to the per unit costs.

If you read about the economics of it, used games are why games have gotten more expensive. More used games, less new sales, games developers therefore need to make more per unit sale to survive. This drove up the game prices, and subsequently used went up slight and became more attractive. A used sale is you taking your money and not giving a cent to the people who have talent and creativity to make a game - it's money into a middle-mans hands that helps no one but investors in places like gamestop.

Your car analogy is utter crap. A new car is not the same as a used car, but (assuming the disc works) a used game is, in game play, the same as a new game. This is why ford doesn't care about used cars - because a new car has far more value.

If you bought 40 used PS3 games, you gave no money to developers - developers who now have less capital to invest in smaller or more niche projects, and who will now make cuts in the scope of their other projects.

"Produce GREAT games and you will make money and everyone will be happy."

Except that is completely false. Let's put that in the perspective of movies. There are a lot of really shitty movies that make a lot of money. There are also a lot of great movies that don't do well because they have a smaller market or don't get big budget blockbuster promotion.

Movie studios don't only make 'Great' movies. They make the most PROFITABLE movies. The same would happen to games. By your rationale, only great games sell well. This is shit. Well-marketed games with mass appeal, regardless of their quality, sell well. Sequels, Brands, Franchises. So no, making a great game does not make it sell well. It is on the backs of those mass market games that many great games come out. But if we're only going to make games that fit what I'm going to rephrase instead of 'great' to 'profitable' games (because that's the the publishers will finance given limited income), then we will never see games that branch out from the norm, that change the paradigm. The independent or out of the box thinking type games that would never have seen the light of day because they aren't guaranteed million sellers, so they never get the financing. These are the games most hurt by used sales. Halo or Call of Duty isn't hurt for shit - it's like Transformers movies now (i.e. they make a huge profit from the movie and related sales, regardless of actual quality). It's smaller stuff that takes risks that loses out.

All we will have left are the big name games and strict clones of the big name games. And in that case, you're completely wrong, because "everyone is happy" is utterly false.

@Pawsed

How about books then? You get the same value from second hand books as you do from buying them new, but you don't hear publishers bitching about second hand sales.

The car analogy isn't a perfect example, but it isn't utter crap either. Lets be generous and say that it takes two years for an average driver to rack up 100,000km on their odometer... you won't find a two year old game on the shelf going for it's original release price; hell, you can get Arkham Asylum for all of $5 these days (released in 2009).

As for your breakdown of the economics of game prices - I figure you're probably jut making that up because used games barely factor in to the calculations. The reason (aside from general inflation) that game prices are going up is that development costs are going up... studios are sinking hundreds of millions of dollars in to producing AAA titles these days.

@Pawsed - Substitute anything for "cars" and the argument would still sound ridiculous. When was the last time you heard a furniture salesman complain that used furniture sales had cost him money?

The point is, people in this country have the right of first sale. If I buy something from you, and I want to resell it, you can't stop me, period. Game developers want to trot out the worlds smallest violin on a constant basis to complain about used game sales, and all the while they are scheming to switch everyone to digital distribution and take away their first sale rights once and for all.

Video game publishers should have set up their own distribution channels a decade ago, when EB game was a small fry, and Gamestop barely existed. They would have controlled the sale of used games, instead of Gamestop pretty much having a monopoly on used sales. If they want to seriously tackle this problem, they should take over Gamestop already and be done with it.

@PeVo :
How about books then? You get the same value from second hand books as you do from buying them new, but you don't hear publishers bitching about second hand sales.

*laughs* You don't read industry mags, do you? YOU may not have heard them bitching, but they do. All the time. (Also, about libraries. Yes, really.)

@StClair

Hah ha, you're not wrong :) Oh well, how about furniture then?

@Pawsed Holy crap, write a book much?

The point is, you can sell any number of other products, legally and happily on the second hand market.. books, CDs, cars, televisions, power drills. These things are not considered 'losses' by their respective makers.

And another thing, your whole argument revolves around something losing value over time? You honestly think the people who bought these games used, would have bought these games at new prices? You can do two things to sell more games at launch... make a better product, or sell at a lower price. I guarantee Heavy Rain would have sold 3 or 4 times as many copies at 20 bucks brand new than at 60. So there, more profit for less dough.

These publishers just want more money without having to work for it.

And if you can't see that, you are a blind shill for the gaming industry.

@Gmail Calendar Rep

All these people saying cry moar and deal with it are the same people crying about ten dollar passes.

@Gmail Calendar Rep
Deal with it, indeed. They need to chop the price of these titles down, and make them exclusive to the purchasers. imagine, titles are priced accordingly, and heavy rain would have cost no more than $30. But you could only play it if you purchased it.

@Gmail Calendar Rep
They should see their sales if they go entirely digital.

@(Unverified)

Agreed... they will "Deal with it"... by converting all their products to digital distribution. Effectively removing the "option" to resale from the consumer.

@Mcmax3000
IMO, launch at $40, include some freebies. Eventually, reduce its price to $20, $10, even as low as $1. The problem you are fighting is piracy...and I do like how de Fondaumiere (perhaps inadvertently) points out that from his point of view, used game sales at Gamestop are the SAME THING as evil hucksters playing backup copies on their hacked consoles. Anyway, to beat piracy, you need to make your game cheaper than the effort it takes to pirate it.

He certainly doesn't need to launch the game at an ultra-low price, but at some point, the game will be well past the time to command a premium price...and wouldn't you rather get a dollar for all the super late-comers to the game rather than give that dollar to Gamestop or mod-chip companies?

I don't know if you have to go as low as a dollar. Maybe it's 5 or 10. But it should eventually be LOW. You have to undercut used game sales.

@sigma8 - You're not really fighting piracy to any extreme degree on consoles. That's not saying it doesn't exist but that's not as much where the issues lie as elsewhere.

And from their perspective, used game sales are the same as piracy. Not necessarily from a moral point of view but from a business standpoint, they are both someone that 'owns' a copy of your game without having paid the developers/publishers for it.

@Mcmax3000
I agree with the $40 new game price point idea. Now that gamers are expected to spend money on DLC within weeks and sometimes days of launch, $60 is just too much to ask. $60 is the total investment that I am willing to put in to a single game. In fact, if I hear that a game is going to have DLC that I want, I don't buy the game until it's under $40 used or new. Look at Arkham City. It already has so much DLC lined up that I probably won't pick it up until it's down around $30.

@sigma8
How will $5 new games undercut used game sale? Gamespot will just sell the used games at $3. Producers/maunfacturers will never undercut prices for the same goods which are in used condition. Unless it's some kneenex or old gum used by a rockstar/celebrity, it just doesn't make sense.

@Mcmax3000
Factor in inflation, and it's only like $1 more then we paid last gen.

Still cheaper then games were when i was a kid. SNEs games often cost 60-70+, and when you factor in inflation, those are like $80-90 games.

@mrantimatter - In my case, it's actually cheaper than I paid for most of last generation thanks to the Canadian dollar. For most of the previous generation, I was paying $69.99 for new games.

I'm not saying that I personally have an issue with the current price point (the 100+ retail 360 games I own, all purchased new, certainly speak to that) but for gaming to really hit the mainstream that the industry wants, $60 is too much, especially when they're trying to sell DLC on top of that.

@Mcmax3000

I agree with the general point that most games should be priced lower. IMO *some* games, like Gears 3, MW3, etc. could be priced at $60 because of the budget required to make them and the fact that gamers have already shown the willingness to en mass purchase the game at $60.

However, even a studio leader like Cliffy B. has said that developers and publishers are only hurting themselves and their own games by insisting that *all* games be priced at $60 at launch. Not all games are worth that much money. Developers and publishers need to realize that and start to differentiate the price points between truly blockbuster AAA games and lesser games. Then they, like you wrote, need to aggressively drop the price throughout the game's lifetime so to discourage gamers from buying the product used because a used copy is so much cheaper than a new copy.

@GMUHistorian - I agree completely. Some games can absolutely still be priced at $60. Even without the budget considerations, a lot of people get dozens, if not hundreds of hours of gameplay out of games like Gears, Halo & CoD so $60 for those isn't unreasonable.

But a game like Heavy Rain, while fantastic, had very little replay value so a $40 price tag would've been more appropriate.

I think part of it also comes down to perception by the gamer. A lot of gamers see a game launching at $40 and they assume that it's a bargain title for a reason but if more games launched at varied price points, that would likely help that perception.

@sigma8 Wait a minute... that's the smartest thing I ever heard anyone say about anything.

@sigma8

Even if you do reduce the game to $1, it's still not going to be cheaper to buy the game then it is easy to pirate it.
The whole point of piracy is that its extremely easy to get the game for free.

Piracy isn't the big issue on consoles anyway, it exists but it's no where near as big as PC.

@(Unverified)

I doubt they'd undercut, but if I could get the same game new instead of used for $2 more, I'd do it. Publishers should keep releasing cheaper versions of the game as the price comes down in the used market if they want to cannabalize sales. And even if it won't stop all used sales (obviously it won't), it will still give them additional revenue and hurt Gamestop's bottom line. I'm not saying it's exactly the same kind of market as cars or books, but there are still things they can do that would help without screwing the customer. They are just hoping that with idle threats, they can fear monger people into buying things, or maybe scam some legislation; they just need to sack up and deal with their issues the right way before they get worse.

@This Little Man Says His Name Is:

For many people, myself included, there is a price point where the cost of buying a legit copy is less than the hassle of finding, downloading, burning etc etc etc. This is especially true when one has a steady job and more money than time, and would rather spend all of it actually playing.

@Faceless Troll Not only that, but what if there are other gamers in your house? If your brother plays your game on his account, that's another sale the game companies think they go cheated out of. I guess you and your brother should each buy your own copy of the game.

Make it download only then.
So your whole family can play it but you can´t sell it to another person.

Otherwise, don´t complain.

I don´t see Book Stores setting Used Books Stores on fire.

@Koming you dont see book stores around anymore really. after all the borders close its doors, then what.

@xxMayDay31xx
but Heavy Rain has so many endings and different ways for it to play it, saying it doesn't have lasting value is ridiculous. and comparing it to mirrors edge is even sillier.

@(Unverified) Except that David Cage, Heavy Rain's director, said that you should only play the game once and accept what happened as Your version of the story.

@xxMayDay31xx

i still play Mirror's edge sometimes. the Pure Time Trials DLC was great, and i still have some speedruns to do.

@zebwinz Kinda funny that they put 'solve trial by doing x' and 'solve trial by doing y' trophies in then.

@soypancho - "I haven't heard any other industry calling used market sales "lost sales"."

I bet you a lot of industries think of it that way, the gaming industry is probably just the only one that talks about it publicly.

For them, it is a lost sale. It's a sale of their product to someone that they don't see any money from. That's a potential customer of their's lost. Hence, lost sale.

@Mcmax3000

"For them, it is a lost sale. It's a sale of their product to someone that they don't see any money from. That's a potential customer of their's lost. Hence, lost sale. "

No, it's not always a lost sale. When dead space came out I had no intention of buying new, zero. I would have never bought it new, but I got it used on amazon for $14 one day for the PS3 because it was so cheap. that is not a lost sale. because I had no intention of buying it new.

after I played it I convinced 3 friends to buy it used or new on the 360.

all four of us pre ordered Dead Space 2 and I bought a move to play extraction

they need to think before they speak about used sales