Otherwise, if they remade Ruby and Sapphire for 5th gen, I’d have to get THREE games just to get everything I wanted and that’s just a ridiculous, blatant money-grabbing scheme. Not to mention it makes me mad that they don’t include the ability to rematch Gym Leaders in the first set of versions. That’s a feature I really enjoy and it seems so simple to implement, so I feel like there’s no excuse NOT to put it in. They just want me to spend as much money as humanly possible and when I can’t get games very often, it gets to the point where I have to either not get the entire Pokemon experience or get almost entirely Pokemon games.

A console companion game would be a nice addition, but I won’t die if they don’t release one, since Battle Revolution was a bit disappointing and I’m a bit doubtful about Nintendo’s ability and willingness to make a good non-main series Pokemon game at this point. As for the 3DS issue, I’m ambivalent; I’m surprised they didn’t include SOME 3D capability but I’m a bit glad it wasn’t 3DS exclusive. The sheer number of versions they release already forces fans to spend too much money and I know a lot of people who wouldn’t be able to play the games because they couldn’t have bought a 3DS just for Pokemon.

And I have to agree with you. I’ve been waiting for them to announce Grey and the Ruby/Sapphire remakes, but so far it’s just been these spin-off games that’re all kinda disappointing.

See, I don’t know where you’re getting that from. If I buy a game directly FROM the publisher (say, using Origin or the EA Store), that’s the only time I’m a [direct] customer of a game company. If I go into Walmart, Target or Gamestop, I am buying something THEY bought from EA.

What a lot of people forget as well is just because you’re buying a used copy of a game with an online pass, you’re not forever locked out from that content!

But you the customer are punished for not being the first owner of the game, despite you paying what they market has decided the game is now worth. If you buy a game for $30, it’s because that’s what the market now values that game as: $30.

Think of it this way: If EA sells 2 copies of Mass Effect to Gamestop for a price of $50…and Gamestop, in turns, sell them to customers for $60, EA makes $100 (not $120) and Gamestop makes $20. If Gamestop buys the games back 4 weeks later for $30 each and sells them for $50 used, Gamestop makes $40 more after subtracting their buyback costs. EA makes $0. A month later, Gamestop now offers $20 trade-in value and sells used Mass Effect copies for $40. After costs, Gamestop makes $40 again on 2 copies. EA makes $0.

So 2 months after from the release date, Gamestop has sold SIX copies of the game because the demand is there to both buy and sell the game. The rapid price drop and constant selling indicates buyers do not want to keep the game long, so that’s probably indicative of a mediocre/poor quality title. In other words, players WANT to sell the game quickly to get the most money out of it, because they know the longer they wait, the more used copies that will accumulate in the market (and lower the buyback price). Meanwhile, EA has only sold TWO copies it knows of.

If EA really wanted to sell more NEW COPIES of the game, it would lower prices appropriately and quickly. If supplies and demand say Mass Effect is only worth $50 four weeks after launch and $40 eight weeks after release, why is EA still trying to sell the game new for $60 two months later? If EA lowered the new price to $40 new, they would have sold FOUR additional copies at $30-40 each, for $140 in revenue (if they sold the games to Gamestop for $30-40/each). Instead, EA refuses to drop its prices and allows the used market to dominate sales and dictate prices.

What EA wants to do is charge each player $10 who buys it used to get the experience the original owners had. With this plan, on 2 game sales and 4 online pass sales, EA has generated at most $140 in revenue (IF players even wanted to buy the online pass).

Meanwhile, if they had lowered pricing $10 every 4 weeks after release, they would have generated $240 at a minimum in revenue and sold 6 copies of the game (+ all the extra from online DLC all owners can potentially access).

Gamestop and other used game sellers would be screwed if these publishers lowered the pricing as quickly as they really should: If EA lowered the price by MSRP $10 every 4 weeks, Gamestop would have to do the same. However, a gamer who bought a game for $60 at launch wouldn’t take $20 for it in trade 4 weeks later (that would be a ripoff! A game is 4 weeks old and has lost 66% of its value?) — but in order for Gamestop to keep its $20 profit margin, it would have to drop the trade-in value from $30 to $20 on brand new games (so it could sell them for $40). And by Week #8, the buyback price would be $10 (so it could sell them for $30). What you would see is more and more people holding onto their games because the trade-in value is far too low. Used game sales would dwindle not because demand isn’t there, but because buyers don’t want to lose a bunch of money on a game bought 4 weeks earlier regardless of how “meh” it may be. And do you honestly believe Gamestop would take a 50% hit on its profit margin and make at most $10/game to keep the used games flowing in? Would they buy back a used game for $30 if they had to sell it at $40 (within a 4 week window!) because the brand-new version is $50? No way.

It’s common knowledge the vast majority of game sales happen within the first month or two of a game’s release, much like most movie ticket sales happen during opening weekend. Instead of punishing customers who buy the game used 6-12 months after release, why not lower the new game price to match the demand on a monthly basis? Hell, look at Battlefield 3 – it’s STILL $40 new and that game came out 4 months ago. The game received less than stellar reviews and despite selling millions of copies, it never turned out as big as EA hoped. But it’s STILL $40 new at the lowest end. BF3 should have been $40 by the end of December. But did EA want to lower that price? Nope. Because they saw it as a $60 game. Who knows how many lost game sales it saw because of that…..and who knows how many people passed on the used version as well because they’d have to pay an extra $10 to play online.

Online passes are game companies’ lazy and customer-punishing ways of getting a buck. These companies whining the most could solve their own problems by selling new copies of the game at fair pricing adjusted to what the market says the game is worth at any moment, but every company thinks every AAA game is worth $60 even six to twelve months later.

TL;DR – Game companies would make more money by lowering prices of brand-new copies quickly after launch than they would off online passes (and hurt used game giants in the process, like they want)…..but they don’t want to because they’re retarded.

The one thing I DO want to say is that I think companies should pay attention to what consumers want, not what will get them the most money in the short term. Because the whole issue with SOPA/PIPA has shown that people turn to piracy when they feel like games are too expensive or don’t like/trust the publishers. I’m definitely not trying to justify piracy (I used to pirate some old games, but I stopped a couple years ago) but I DO think that publishers need to be more aware of what customers think, since I do feel games can be too expensive in some cases and companies shouldn’t punish consumers for trying to get them cheaper as long as it’s legal. …I think I lost my train of thought somewhere in there so that didn’t come out quite as well as I’d hoped.

Consumers buying and selling used games is not bad, and is a necessity and a right of first sale ownership. Not only do I believe this, but I know Joe does too, and the rights thing is fact. You should absolutely be able to sell or give away a game or lend a game to a friend if you are done with it and someone else would like it. The thing about Amazon’s Marketplace and eBay are that those are consumer-to-consumer sales. The issue with GameStop (and probably BestBuy in the future) is the sheer amount of profit they are making by giving you bottom-dollar for your once-beloved games and turning around selling it at juuuuuuuust under New MSRP for any given title. If anybody who isn’t as active in the gaming community like us is at a GameStop counter requesting a game, and the person working tells them they can get it $5 cheaper if they buy it used, what do you think they’re going to choose? Of COURSE they’re going to choose the cheaper one, because A) They probably don’t care about the industry or who is getting the money and B) They probably don’t even get how the system works. So here you have a $60 game someone was willing to buy, suddenly being offered the same exact game for $55 from basically a back-alley salesman, and now suddenly there’s $60 that the company who made the game they’re going home to enjoy for hours is never going to see.

…Are you guys seeing what I’m saying at all?

Now, don’t misunderstand… I don’t like this Online Passes thing either. I see what they’re doing it, and why they’re doing it, and why it’s bad in a multitude of ways versus what ways it’s positive for the company… and it doesn’t balance out. It’s going to break consumer-corporation trust and people are going to lash out in the opposite direction. Do the companies have a RIGHT to do the Online Passes route? Absolutely, but that doesn’t mean they should. Gamers aren’t going to happily stomach the passes; They’re going to rant and rave and not buy things and pirate and etc… and 75% of them would be completely in the right in doing so. Between the international issues brought up by des, the legacy issues brought up by a few of you, and Andrew’s point about not punishing the consumer… They are all good points! And I don’t think Joe is arguing any of them, either.

I think Sebastian above said it best, to be honest: “The publisher should be fighting with the retailer, not with the consumer.” I think the absolute best course of action he game industry can pursue is to take their issues up with GameStop. I’m not sure what legally would be on their side since I’m not a lawyer, but with all the suits constantly flying against GameStop anyways I’m sure they’d have plenty of valid legs to stand on.

On the topic of “well it’s not fair to not get a game just because I can’t afford it,” though… really? This attitude both toward used games and piracy alike is exactly what Joe’s article was talking about. The kind of mindset of young gamers in this way seriously blows my mind. Andrew, you think the closet full of games just magically happened? It didn’t. It’s mine and Joe’s entire lives’ collections consolidated into an epic thing of epicness. However, if you didn’t think that plenty of hard work and effort went into being able to afford all of it, you’re sorely mistaken. I’ve been working since I was 14 (not full-time until my twenties but yeah), so you’ll understand if I get a bit crochety if someone implies that my life’s collection was just handed to me on a silver platter. I was never rich, my family never very well off, mostly living paycheck-to-paycheck with very rare exceptions. These days Joe and I keep a much tighter budget for games (except around Christmas when I get carried away and buy him way more fighting games than necessary!) because by next year we want to be debt-free and saving for a house. So guess what? If a game I want comes out, and there’s no extra money in the budget for that month, I don’t buy it. Plain and simple. I don’t somehow think that I’m still entitled to play it and go pirate it – I wait until I can afford it.

*ahem* I got a little off-topic and I do apologize. The point of everything I’ve written here, and I hope you’ll understand now, is that the point of this article wasn’t to attack those of you worried about how anti-piracy measures are going to effect legacy gaming, international gaming, and the other myriad of valid concerns; Those are obviously completely justified worries, and are ones that I think the entire gaming community shares right now. This article was solely about the whiny entitled gamer crowd that doesn’t like to pay full price for anything and mostly just pirates and then bitches about anti-piracy, and is throwing a bitchfit about the new measures being discussed because of those reasons.

Thank you all and have a lovely day.

If game developers want to make a profit off of used sales, then punishing the people they’re trying to entertain isn’t the way to do it. The consumers aren’t making a profit off of used games is all I’m saying.