4 ms·

They can't charge less for the digital version because of gamestop. Gamestop won't carry games where the digital version is cheaper. There might also be similar

They can't charge less for the digital version because of gamestop. Gamestop won't carry games where the digital version is cheaper. There might also be similar arrangements with the console makers themselves, not wanting to encourage the PC market. Games made only for PC are cheaper and have better sales. As for reselling games, that would seriously hurt developers. A single game could be resold 100s of times, but only the first sale goes to the developer, and everyone else in the chain plays for free.

jonknee 11y ago
> As for reselling games, that would seriously hurt developers. A single game could be resold 100s of times, but only the first sale goes to the developer, and everyone else in the chain plays for free. Video games have been resold since video games were invented and there still continue to be new titles.
- Houshalter 11y ago
  And it has always hurt developers. Games could be cheaper or have larger budgets without Gamestop taking such a huge cut. The worrying thing about digital is it could be vastly easier to trade used games. There is no worrying about scratched discs, and you don't get pennies on the dollar for the trade. You could just play used games endlessly without ever spending more than an initial investment.
  - rangibaby 11y ago
    They are already cheap and have AAA games have budgets comparable to mid-tier Hollywood movies. Not being able to sell something you bought seems strange to me.
    - Houshalter 11y ago
      I said cheaper and larger. And that goes especially for smaller games. PC indie games would probably hurt the worst from this. Since I imagine there are far more used copies floating around than people actually playing them. When supply is greater than demand, the price goes towards zero. It's not really strange, it's been this way for years. When have you ever been able to sell software you downloaded? Neither Apple or Google let you sell used apps, steam has never allowed used game sales, etc. And it makes way more sense this way. You are not buying a physical object that took labor and resources to produce. A physical object that would go to waste otherwise. You are buying a bunch of bits which can be copied endlessly. There's no depreciation over time, no downside to buying used over new. No personal attachment to a specific object when you can just download it again when you want to play it. No middlemen to take a cut out of the trade so that you can just buy and sell it at exactly the same price.
      - rangibaby 11y ago
        That should work both ways then. Games are $60 digital or physical, by your logic they should be way cheaper digital. Game studios can't have it both ways.
        Houshalter 11y ago
        As I said, they are. Games made for PC are way cheaper and have way more/better sales. The reason multi-platform games aren't cheaper on PC, is because Gamestop or console makers have contracts that prevent it. If you put your game on PC at a lower price, they will stop selling it.
  - fulafel 11y ago
    Maximising developer income != maximising utility.
    - Houshalter 11y ago
      Well actually it kind of is. Developer income determines the number, budget, and price of games made. If you want more, better, cheaper games, then you basically need to maximize the amount of money developers can get from those games. Money fuels these furnaces.
habitue 11y ago
This is called the doctrine of first sale, and it's been fine for physical products since forever. (The maker of the chair only makes money on the first sale of the chair, everyone else plays for "free") If you're going to say " But information products don't degrade", I'll note that a product degrading is not a condition of the first sale doctrine. You can sell your mint condition Mickey Mantle card, without giving a cut to Tops
- Houshalter 11y ago
  Well chairs really are different than software. Most of the value of a chair comes from the labor and resources put into producing it. Software takes 0 effort and 0 resources to produce more copies. All of the cost comes from the initial development. The actual disks or bandwidth for downloads costs pennies. So when you sell a chair, you aren't decreasing the quality of future chairs in any way. Fewer chairs bought, just means there will be fewer chairs made the next year. Maybe a single chair maker will lose his job. Which sucks for him. But he really isn't needed because the world doesn't need more chairs. With software, less demand means less quality. When you get less sales, then the budget for the next video game will be less and less. Fewer niche games will be made because the budget gets too small to support them. Even though the demand is theoretically there - there are enough gamers willing to spend money on such a game to support it. The problem is it creates a free rider problem where no one wants to be the one to pay for it, when they can just free ride off of used games and not spend a dime. Second, the very important difference is time sensitivity. Games get the majority of their sales in the first month, and it slowly declines after that. If everyone sells used, then all of the sales after the first month don't matter. So the vast majority of their income is lost.

jonknee 11y ago

> As for reselling games, that would seriously hurt developers. A single game could be resold 100s of times, but only the first sale goes to the developer, and everyone else in the chain plays for free. Video games have been resold since video games were invented and there still continue to be new titles.

Houshalter 11y ago
And it has always hurt developers. Games could be cheaper or have larger budgets without Gamestop taking such a huge cut. The worrying thing about digital is it could be vastly easier to trade used games. There is no worrying about scratched discs, and you don't get pennies on the dollar for the trade. You could just play used games endlessly without ever spending more than an initial investment.
- rangibaby 11y ago
  They are already cheap and have AAA games have budgets comparable to mid-tier Hollywood movies. Not being able to sell something you bought seems strange to me.
  - Houshalter 11y ago
    I said cheaper and larger. And that goes especially for smaller games. PC indie games would probably hurt the worst from this. Since I imagine there are far more used copies floating around than people actually playing them. When supply is greater than demand, the price goes towards zero. It's not really strange, it's been this way for years. When have you ever been able to sell software you downloaded? Neither Apple or Google let you sell used apps, steam has never allowed used game sales, etc. And it makes way more sense this way. You are not buying a physical object that took labor and resources to produce. A physical object that would go to waste otherwise. You are buying a bunch of bits which can be copied endlessly. There's no depreciation over time, no downside to buying used over new. No personal attachment to a specific object when you can just download it again when you want to play it. No middlemen to take a cut out of the trade so that you can just buy and sell it at exactly the same price.
    - rangibaby 11y ago
      That should work both ways then. Games are $60 digital or physical, by your logic they should be way cheaper digital. Game studios can't have it both ways.
      - Houshalter 11y ago
        As I said, they are. Games made for PC are way cheaper and have way more/better sales. The reason multi-platform games aren't cheaper on PC, is because Gamestop or console makers have contracts that prevent it. If you put your game on PC at a lower price, they will stop selling it.
- fulafel 11y ago
  Maximising developer income != maximising utility.
  - Houshalter 11y ago
    Well actually it kind of is. Developer income determines the number, budget, and price of games made. If you want more, better, cheaper games, then you basically need to maximize the amount of money developers can get from those games. Money fuels these furnaces.

habitue 11y ago

This is called the doctrine of first sale, and it's been fine for physical products since forever. (The maker of the chair only makes money on the first sale of the chair, everyone else plays for "free") If you're going to say " But information products don't degrade", I'll note that a product degrading is not a condition of the first sale doctrine. You can sell your mint condition Mickey Mantle card, without giving a cut to Tops

Houshalter 11y ago
Well chairs really are different than software. Most of the value of a chair comes from the labor and resources put into producing it. Software takes 0 effort and 0 resources to produce more copies. All of the cost comes from the initial development. The actual disks or bandwidth for downloads costs pennies. So when you sell a chair, you aren't decreasing the quality of future chairs in any way. Fewer chairs bought, just means there will be fewer chairs made the next year. Maybe a single chair maker will lose his job. Which sucks for him. But he really isn't needed because the world doesn't need more chairs. With software, less demand means less quality. When you get less sales, then the budget for the next video game will be less and less. Fewer niche games will be made because the budget gets too small to support them. Even though the demand is theoretically there - there are enough gamers willing to spend money on such a game to support it. The problem is it creates a free rider problem where no one wants to be the one to pay for it, when they can just free ride off of used games and not spend a dime. Second, the very important difference is time sensitivity. Games get the majority of their sales in the first month, and it slowly declines after that. If everyone sells used, then all of the sales after the first month don't matter. So the vast majority of their income is lost.