The used game 'debate'

Soren Johnson, the programmer behind Civilization 3 and now designer for EA Maxis (he worked on Spore), has spoken up in his blog about this whole used games 'debate'.

Similar to the piracy thing (dreadful as it is to compare the two), at least some small portion of developers in the industry feel used gaming is hurting and/or killing their profits. Johnson is a smart man, though, and sees both sides of the matter. He writes:

"I certainly agree with many of the arguments - the less money developers get from sales of their games, the harder it is for them to take risks further down the road, let alone stay in business. Nonetheless, a few words should be said in defense of used games."

His first main point is we need to stop hating on GameStop, at least quite so much. Looking at the bigger picture, he says the used gaming sector directly affects the health of the 'new' gaming sector. GameStop is kind of like the evil sibling I want to love, so this works for me.

Next is 'market segmentation'. I don't really dig on this language too much, but in plain English, it seems to be the idea of selling the same thing at multiple price points. This happens in most other industries and segments of each (i.e. matinee movies, for one example) and is important for maximizing revenue (which ties in with the first point). It also helps keep more customers in the loop, decreases piracy, and makes them more likely to buy games new where before they may never have. Which leads into the third part...

More gamers. A larger community is the result here, fueled by and fueling the word of mouth system. And don't forget downloadable content (DLC)! While someone may buy your game used, with no real profit going to you, they might take that saved money and put at least some of it towards DLC. When you think of it this way, you'd have to be cracked not to embrace it. Sure you could argue banning used sales would force everyone to pay you more money bla bla bla, but I doubt it would be as effective as that. Especially when you have release schedules like we do this autumn...

Interestingly, he notes companies like Epic and EA will be offering bonuses to customers who buy the game new, where those who buy used will have to pay extra for certain features, bonuses, etc. It's definitely going to be intriguing watching the industry evolve over the next five years or so...

And finally, used games, he states, increase the perceived value of new games. Basically by offering games at a lower price, we see new games as worth the difference. I would say the 'launch day' thing is certainly a factor in this; there's a certain excitement to be found in pre-ordering and/or buying a game you've been waiting like crazy for on launch day.

On a related note, he feels strongly digital versions of games need to be cheaper than their physical counterparts, if only because they cannot be resold. So, in short, the option to resell increases the perceived value of the game to the buyer.

Digitally available games have no excuse anyway, in my opinion -- there's a lot of money saved on the company's part as there are no manufacturing costs. Well okay, I take that back. It's a nice idea in theory, but on the part of the publisher, there's a conflict of interest. Their job is to maximize sales, and if the digital versions are priced much lower, it's likely more people will shift to buying the game that way, leading to a huge drop in retail sales. Overall then, and long-term, this is potentially detrimental to the publisher, sales-wise. But I put faith in the free market and if that's more efficient (digital distribution) and what most people want at some point, then that's what we'll do. Of course people will always enjoy a physical product, so we'll see how the balance works out...

Johnson ends off with this:

(Of course, the real answer may be to ditch sales altogether for a free-to-play, service-oriented approach, but that’s a different story altogether…)