Developers Rankled by Used Gaming Sector
There’s a lot of interesting stuff brewing in the used gaming sector these days, but perhaps the most discussed topic has to do with the love-hate relationship gaming developers seem to be having with their customers.
Big-name gaming developers are increasingly frustrated with the popular of the used game market, fearing their profits are being eaten away by the on- and offline used game process, which includes one-on-one deals between gamers but also goes all the way up to big chains who have created an industry for the used market, complete with membership discounts, trade connections platforming and other amenities specifically developed for those who refuse to pay full price.
We’ve seen this kind of anarchy before. Think about it: More than a decade ago, music fans began to get pretty fed up with paying a whole bunch of money for tired of paying what they felt was too much money for music CDs. Paying for it, listening to it a few times and watching it collect dust on the shelves was just no longer their idea of how to spend a dollar. Enter the used-CD market alongside the eruption of so-called illegal file-sharing networks like Napster and Limewire, and the recording industry was forced to take notice.
Today, buying and selling used CDs is not so critical, but what grew out of the concept was the downloadable platform for music, ala iTunes and others who pay for licensing rights to sell songs by the tune, giving consumers the ability to customize their music collections without having to buy a whole “album” of songs from the same artist.
Many say the same kind of revolution is taking place in the gaming industry, where, according to some experts and gaming journalists, statistics point to more gamers are turning to online video games and used titles to avoid the high cost of new video games.
According to a recent report by industry trackers NPD Group, roughly the same amount of money was spent on used and online games during the first six months of 2010 as new titles.
For those who write, design and sell the video games, this is not a good thing. In addition to NPD Group’s finding that, overall, hardware and software sales were declining, the choice by gamers to exchange titles through used and online networks, including mom and pop used video game stores an national chains, means the traditional gaming market is going to soon suffer major financial setbacks. It could also hurt retailers that offer mostly new games.
Many gamers across the country are also turning to social networking sites and even Craig’s List and eBay to search for used titles to trade or buy.
One thing gamers are pretty savvy about these days is the fact that all that hype about new games coming out that developers and studios use to prop up high prices is just that: A bunch of hype. Many gaming developers out there have begun to employ new tactics to fight against the rising numbers of used game sales and used game retailers by offering special game features that are only available to players who buy new games, with codes required to obtain the product online.
The game is no less interesting or challenging two weeks after it’s been released and many hip gamers are waiting until the hype dies down, the studios lower the price points as they prepare to move the games off the top shelves to make way for the next new game, and or consumers who bought the hype (and the game) grow tired of it and put it on the used market for sale or trade.
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