Preowned Games and Anti-Used Technology

The retail world is pretty cut throat at the best of times, but when you have to rely on your customers to bring back the stuff they've already bought from you in order to resell it, that's a pretty dismall outlook. That's exactly what's happening with the world of video games and the gaming industry in general. So why are hardware manufacturers and publishers so intent on stopping it from happening?

 To be honest. I have no idea as to why. As I will go on to explain, it could be the end if they do.

In the UK there is currently talks of major gaming outlets such as GAME paying part of their profit from preowned sales back to the publishers, albeit in return for them dropping the necessity for online codes. Now the latter part I am always going to support - the bain of inserting a crappy code via controller just so we can play online seems crazy. a) there is never enough players on servers at the best of times, particularly on older/niche games, and especially in Australia; and b) what on earth makes the publishers think they have the right to double dip on the one game that they have already sold, AND made money from? You don't see this sort of odd behaviour coming from car or furniture sales.

OK so they're going to throw back that they have to continually support the product over time via updates and online servers (assuming they're company hosted).. Whoa whoa whoa there a minute Mr, if I bought a car and it was missing the back seat, whilst not a vital component of the car operating, i'd still be taking it back and asking for the entire product as assumed receipt on original purchase. Now on the other side, had I purchased the car second hand and it was missing the back seat, well you'd just have to assume that was the deal at the time. Of course, the other retort is "oh but games are on going and we cannot assume the final product is going to be 100% perfect" - blah blah, want some cries with your wahh burger? Bitch please... why the fuck not? You think making a car these days is simple? In fact when I buy a new car I can get a 5 year warranty with that sucker. If your final product isnt up to scratch then sack the dev team or the testers, hell sack both - someone isn't pulling their weight. Let's face it, everyone in gaming except for the retailer is on pretty good money.

Which brings me to my next point: In Australia the most common RRP on games is AU$109.95, yet in the US it's US$59.99 (~AU$56) and £39.99 (~AU$60) in the UK, meaning we're a bee's pubic hair away from paying twice as much as anybody else! Combine that with delayed release dates, is it any wonder people don't want to buy mint games? Don't even get me started on the piracy element that this sort of capitalism rort introduces. So where the hell is the rest of the money going? I suspect that the reason they charge these amounts is because we have been conditioned to pay it since before internet sales were so readily available.

So now there is talk that the NextBollox/Durango/Xbox 720 (what ever codename you choose) is going to use anti-used technology. The how they plan on implementing it doesnt really matter, it's the why im interested in. It's no secret that Micro$oft will attempt to bleed you dry where ever they can, but if they choose to implement said technology it will only go one of 2 ways; it will set a precedent for Sony and Ninty to follow (ARRRGH), OR, shoot themselves in the foot if the others don't follow (meh). Either way, why oh why would you even want this sort of thing? Royalties and licensing is your answer, the problem still lies in the initial cost of purchasing new. If we were all paying $30 or $40 for a mint game, it wouldnt be an issue. Not only that, preowned is a main source of income for the very channels of distribution that they rely on to sell their games.

EB and GAME in Australia still represent the majority of sales as a percentage over the majors and if you go cutting off their life blood, you're effectively killing off your own sales. Sure, sales will (eventually) spill over into JB, Dickies and Big Dub but the hurt of the industry as a whole is something a manufacturer may never recover from. Let's take a moments silence for the hardware divisions of Sega and Atari.

By the by, where do they think a large portion of the pre-orders and mint sales come from? The answer is trades! Trade n Save mofo's, don't pay with cash - pay with games... If it weren't for preowned, many of the publishers sales would never have eventuated in the first place. The price is just too high for many to NOT trade. Many people will just sit back and wait for the prices to drop significantly later down the track.

Then, inline with preowned sales, is the onsell, or prequel demo. Lets use Mass Effect 3 as the example. Someone has never played any ME's but has seen the trailer to ME3. Goes into store, purchases ME 1 or 2 preowned on the cheap. Loves it, comes back and preorders ME3. Surely that's a win for everyone involved. The retailer, the publisher and developer and even the consumer.

At the end of the day, preowned IS good for business and if Microsloth or any other manufacturer can't see that, then they should just shut their doors now while the coffers still have something in them. That and stop being such greedy blackcurrants and drop the wholesale costs down significantly. It's not like physical sales are going to last long anyway. Stop hanging out in Hollywood, the idiocy of the MPAA is rubbing off.