Beamer wrote on Jul 1, 2019, 07:22:
I wonder if there are any other product categories in which grown men dogpile on top of each other to demonstrate who cares least about a new release not necessarily aimed at them.

I dunno Beamer, are there other categories where a grown man vomits out his butthurt because people criticize something he likes?

RedEye9 wrote on Jan 5, 2019, 17:48:

Wallshadows wrote on Jan 5, 2019, 15:51:
Who is making it?

the lowest bidder

Fuck, not another Gearbox clusterfuck. When the fuck will Randy Pitchfork-tongue just go the fuck away?

CJ_Parker wrote on Jan 5, 2019, 17:15:

El Pit wrote on Jan 5, 2019, 16:28:
Please make it a game where we can actually FIGHT the aliens instead of constantly running away from them with the aliens magically finding you wherever you hide. Thank you very much, indeed.

But then it wouldn't be an Alien game anymore but just a random alien game.

Alien with the capital 'A' is all about the subtle, overwhelming horror that you can not see, hear or fight... until it's (almost) too late ("almost" being the case if your name is Ripley).

They wouldn't need the Alien brand if they wanted to make a random FPS where you shoot aliens in the nutsack. I'm not a huge fan of playing pussy hiding in the dark either but in case of Alien it is kind of a fictionally dictated necessity ya know.

Alien Isolation was a complete fucking waste of time. The Alien patrolled the map with military attention to detail while rubberbanded to the player's location. It sucked and didn't feel like a game you could win. I got stuck in a medical bay with no way to get out because the fucking alien just wouldn't go away.

All that potential ruined by a lazy implementation of the Alien itself.

Instead, they should have built a model for the Alien's behaviour which triggered off visual, sound and possibly smell cues. Something the players could understand and influence. Instead, we got a relentlessly patrolling line of site killer who hung around the player. To say Alien Isolation sucked is to understate the case.

Tavil wrote on Sep 24, 2018, 15:03:
This just makes me sick. This guy should be shamed, not rewarded.

Virgin alert!

DukeFNukem wrote on Aug 13, 2018, 08:37:

Wraith wrote on Aug 12, 2018, 13:08:

DukeFNukem wrote on Aug 11, 2018, 23:09:

Are you a developer? Is that why your putting this philosophical view forward? The laws of supply and demand don't ask the question of whether anything is "sustainable". The laws of supply and demand aren't moral laws that ensure justice or "equality" always prevail.

No, I'm a longtime gamer. And this has nothing to do with supply and demand. Thank you for playing.

Ummm, the article is not about supply and demand, you're right. It was a response to your comment about the sustainability of selling "used" games. For some odd reason you didn't quote that part. *sigh*. Funny thing is, your arguing against something that even Bethesda is now defending. The sale of "used" games. :)

That's not a supply and demand issue. I can only presume you don't get it.

Game Over. Thanks for playing though.

It's cute when you try and sound like me. Not particularly effective, but cute nonetheless.

Prez wrote on Aug 12, 2018, 22:57:

Wraith wrote on Aug 12, 2018, 19:23:

Prez wrote on Aug 12, 2018, 15:12:
Leave it to SMA to take the time to pen out a point-for-point rebuttal that systematically obliterates every fallacy in an argument. Bravo!

This tells me you don't really understand what a fallacy is.

Well simply put, the basis of your entire argument is a perfect illustration.

Shit dude, way to double-down on demonstrating your lack of understanding. You're definitely the comedy relief in this discussion.

Prez wrote on Aug 12, 2018, 15:12:
Leave it to SMA to take the time to pen out a point-for-point rebuttal that systematically obliterates every fallacy in an argument. Bravo!

This tells me you don't really understand what a fallacy is.

Scottish Martial Arts wrote on Aug 12, 2018, 14:33:

Wraith wrote on Aug 12, 2018, 13:14:
Apparently it is to you, because you completely failed to grasp the point.

No, I understand your argument just fine.

No, I'm afraid you really, really don't.

But given your response to my remarks, and your confusion of "Moral Hazard" with "Negative Externality" in a previous post, I do question how much you understand what you read.

Ho, ho. "Negative externality". Someone's read an economics textbook and now wants to play. You're talking nonsense.

There's multiple aspects to the moral hazard of allowing used games to participate in the marketplace including parasitical siphoning of resources by middlemen who don't actually provide any benefit. Your proposition is, frankly, absurd. The organised used games market produces exactly the same economic benefit to producers that piracy does. None. In fact, in both moral and economic turns there is absolutely no difference between buying a used game and simply pirating it.

Good I'm glad we're in agreement and I thank you for recapitulating what I just said.

Non sequitur. That's not recapitulation. Might wanna look that one up Sparky.

An author does not stand on a street corner selling photocopied manuscripts of his own book. He sells the publication rights to his work to a publisher, and collects a royalty based upon copies sold. The publisher in turn contracts a printer to actually physically print the books, and a distributor to get them to store shelves. A store in turn actually merchandises and sells the book to an end consumer. At each step along the way, people who are not the author make money on the production, distribution, and sale of an experience they had no hand in creating. This bears repeating: only the author created the experience contained within the book (with maybe an assist from an editor at the publisher) but many, many other people make money off of the sale of that experience.

This is where your somewhat pedestrian attempt at an argument goes off the rails. There are two main problems here.

A) You think book publication is a valid analogy. I've already explained why it's not, yet you persist in trying to conflate book publishing with game publishing.

B) At no stage did I argue that no other parties were involved in publishing a work, however in each case, those parties produce a net economic benefit to the author. Used game re-sellers do the opposite. They produce a negative economic benefit at the expense of the developer as "used" copies complete in the marketplace against real copies. They're a parasitical organism, pure and simple. If you have problems understanding why that's a bad thing, you may want to ask someone more forward thinking to explain it to you.

Additionally, in the United States at least, copyright law has evolved such that the aforementioned chain of companies and individuals are only entitled to the proceeds of the first sale of the media which contains the copyrighted experience.

Look, at this point, you're just embarrassing yourself. Copyright law has NOT evolved. The first sale doctrine is at least 150 years old and is clearly inadequate to the issues of dealing with large scale publishing of goods with an asymmetric development/reproduction cost.

In other words, our hypothetical author can and should enforce his copyright and the requirement that he be paid what he is contractually due, up until the point that a copy of his book is sold to a customer. Thereafter, the customer can lend that copy of the book to friends and family, donate it to a library, or sell it on the used book market, and copyright law (in the US) makes clear that the author cannot claim any money that results from that secondary sale.

Once again, the book analogy is invalid and I've already explained why.

Without enforcing that restriction, creators don't get paid.

Yes, they do. They get paid whatever they are contractually obligated to be paid when they negotiated their publication agreement.

Look, I realise you're not exactly playing with a full deck, but you might want to learn something about the subject you're discussing before you make a fool of yourself. Development teams get royalty credits on the basis of units sold. Not only that but the royalty RATE is dependent upon units sold. Used game sales plunder both of those returns and siphon off the proceeds to valueless entities who provide no benefit to anyone.

Typically, more well known and popular creators can command higher leverage, and therefore higher advances, royalties, etc., when negotiating such contracts. Very, very few creators earn 100% of the proceeds of their creation, and yet the developed world has been able to provide a livelihood for successful creators since the advent of the printing press.

Aside from stating the bleeding obvious, you're not actually supporting your argument and your own vaguely hand-waving counter-argument is replete with fallacies.

The fact that creators continue to exist does not mean no creators have been disadvantaged or sent broke by the used games market. Nor does the economics of book publishing constitute a valid analogy for the economics of game publishing.

You are confusing other parties having a claim on the proceeds of a sale (whether first sale or on the secondary used market) with the author or creator not being paid at all. The former is the reality, the latter is your fantasy. It would be nice from a creator's perspective if he were the only one to realize the proceeds of a sale, but it is neither necessary for him to make a living, nor how it works in practice.

You're confusing the economics of game development with the economics of book publishing, so you're really not in a position to make claims about my understanding.

But, creators do get paid. In the case of the copy of the Bethesda game in the OP, the secondary seller bought a new copy of the game at retail for the full retail price. Whatever royalty the developers are contractually obligated to receive for that sale, they will receive (unless their publisher tries to cheat them of royalty payments, but that's another issue entirely). By doctrine of first sale, the owner of that copy of the game can then legally sell the game on the secondary market.

Your argument is that creators get paid because the doctrine of first sale lets the game be sold a second time. Have you every tried to construct an actual argument? Try it, it'll be a novel experience for you.

Conceivably, a purchase on the secondary market could be considered a lost sale for the developer, but a secondary sale is only comparable to a first sale if they were to cost the same price. But games, and other media, on the secondary market always go for less than a sealed, new copy purchased at retail. That means the buyer in the secondary sale WAS NOT WILLING TO PAY FULL PRICE, and therefore cannot be considered a lost sale to the developer, at least not until time has passed and the game has been marked down at retail.

It means the buyer took advantage of the opportunity to not pay full price because the used games market gave them an option. That's the moral hazard you incoherent dipshit.

The regime which you are advocating, in which developers/creators can veto secondary sales of their work does not exist (at least in the US).

It does if you sell digital. Which is why digital storefronts are so damn popular. And it's no coincidence that GameSteal's stock price has plummeted in response to the ascendancy of digital storefronts.

Nor are creators cheated of what they are legally due by secondary sales:

Of course they are. You're just stuck in a rather limited "games are just books" mindset and lack the perception to understand the difference between the two.

secondary sales can only occur after the first sale has occurred, and creators are only entitled to the proceeds of the first sale.

As I've pointed out earlier, the cannibalization of DVD sales by used copies did receive some legislative attention.

Now, you can argue that creators deserve a bigger share of the proceeds of their sales, and I would probably agree with you. But it is absurd to argue that creators are the only ones that deserve any share: a lot of work that isn't creation goes into selling a created experience to a buyer, and that work has to be compensated too.

Christ, will you let go of this straw man? You're arguing against something I didn't say, so give it a rest. The problem is not that other parties are involved, it's that parasites are involved which provide no economic benefit to anyone but themselves.

And it is further absurd to argue that creators cannot make a living without receiving 100% of the proceeds of their sales, because the system you rail against is the one we've had for centuries, and yet a great many creators have made a living under it.

Non sequitur. The fact that the system has existed for centuries and that some have profited from it does nothing to undermine my argument.

You don't do this very often, do you.

HoSpanky wrote on Aug 12, 2018, 12:36:
Something tells me Wraith is an Indie dev whose game/games didn't sell well and he's absolutely sure it's down to people selling used copies.

This doesn't even begin to make sense.

Why would an Indie developer sell physical copies instead of digital? It requires more investment up front and you take a lower percentage from every sale.

No, I'm not an Indie developer. Obviously.

Scottish Martial Arts wrote on Aug 12, 2018, 11:29:
Dude, get over yourself: your argument isn't that fucking complicated or nuanced. Your argument just comes down to whether the purchase of media is the purchase of the media itself or the purchase of the contents of that media, i.e. the experience and/or ideas, and what that implies for reselling.

Apparently it is to you, because you completely failed to grasp the point.

To my mind, the purchase of media is primarily about the purchase of what the media contains, and this holds for "legacy" media like books and DVDs, just as much as it holds for video games.

The media is the mechanism for delivery. What you're actually purchasing is the experience. The only people who should - in both a moral and an economic sense - have the opportunity to sell that experience are those who invested the resources to create it.

Without enforcing that restriction, creators don't get paid. And when creators don't get paid, they go broke and stop creating. Does some light begin to dawn? Please tell me I don't have to break it down further.

The issue with your argument isn't that it's too nuanced: it's that it tries to make an unjustified distinction.

No, the primary issue is that people like yourself aren't smart enough to put long-term self-interest above short-term self-interest. You pretty much proved my point.

DukeFNukem wrote on Aug 11, 2018, 23:09:

Are you a developer? Is that why your putting this philosophical view forward? The laws of supply and demand don't ask the question of whether anything is "sustainable". The laws of supply and demand aren't moral laws that ensure justice or "equality" always prevail.

No, I'm a longtime gamer. And this has nothing to do with supply and demand. Thank you for playing.

KezClone wrote on Aug 11, 2018, 20:57:

This may be the stupidest post ever on Blues.

Oh, I don't know about that, because you're about to say...

Son, buy a used car lately? You expect us to only buy new and hang onto it forever?

Kid, do you know the difference between physical media and data?

Next time, might wanna do some of that unfashionable learnin' you keep hearing about before jumping in.

This comment was edited on Aug 12, 2018, 13:18.

FloorPie wrote on Aug 11, 2018, 20:22:

So was I stealing from developers when I bought NHL 17 (or 18 I forget) for $12 on the PS4 store the other week?

Did the developer/publisher get paid? Then no.

One benefit from digital stores is that I can buy "new games" a lot cheaper, a lot quicker than before. Much of that is do to competition for customers but when I don't own the media to be able play the game whenever, even say 10 years down the road, I want to be paying a lot less cash/credit for a game I may not have access to in the future (which in some cases is less than 5 years).

That's a separate issue. Digital storefronts can deliver cheaper games because the used games market isn't a concern and the distribution cost is practically zero. I'm not happy about tying DRM into digital storefronts, but CD Projekt/GOG give me hope.

Hell, you must absolutely fucking hate Humble Bundle.

Why would I? They usually create extra long tail sales and there's a chance the developers will get paid. Better than the used games market by a country mile.

This comment was edited on Aug 12, 2018, 13:19.

007Bistromath wrote on Aug 11, 2018, 20:22:
The expenses in print media are basically nothing. Paper is cheaper than plastic.

Two things. First, it costs to print, bind and transport books.

Second, I said it's asymmetrical and it is. To a staggering degree.

If Red Dead Redemption 2 costs 100 million+ to make and 86 cents to create the physical mediate then it becomes clear they need to ACTUALLY SELL a lot of copies to recoup that production cost and not have "used game resellers" siphon off profits while investing nothing themselves.

The used games market is a fiction where a "used game reseller" pretends they're "buying" a game by buying back the media and that this then gives them the right to resell the game and undercut the developer's copies on price.

The only people to blame for GameStop's disgusting business model gaining any traction is AAA publishers/developers themselves. With ludicrously bloated budgets that require millions of $60+ week one sales to break even, they can do nothing to appease their shareholders but shutter studios and find stupid things to blame.

Many publishers are awful and from what I've read, Bethesda seems to be a company known for inking agreements with small studios then delaying milestone payments so the studios go bankrupt and Bethesda can then buy up their IP for pennies on the dollar. I'm not defending them as I personally think they're morally bankrupt.

The problem though, is that it's the developers who suffer. Many of their agreements contain bonuses which are dependent upon sales numbers and - needless to say - those numbers don't include those stolen by "used games resellers".

The indie and even AA markets have never had a problem with used game sales because their games are already reasonably priced. AAA devs brazenly refuse to use price discrimination to milk the long tail, and they reap what they sow: bullshit.

Indie developers work off a much smaller development cost/distribution ratio and many of them are digital anyway. Just because a gamedev is triple-A, doesn't mean they shouldn't be entitled to recover their costs. If that philosophy gained traction, we'd never have titles like God of War or GTA V.

This comment was edited on Aug 12, 2018, 13:20.

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Aug 11, 2018, 18:54:
Wraith, I'm sorry, but you are mistaken. I understand you want the developers to get paid, we all do, but your line of reasoning is outside the laws of at least the USA, not sure about the rest of the world.

There's two primary issues here. The first is the failure of the legal system to catch up with the reality of digital content. I oppose software patents, but I believe developers should get paid.

The second is the dead-shit attitudes of idiot gamers who think there's a free lunch.

Used cars, used Audio CDs, used movie DVD/BluRays, used game DVD/Blurays/CDs, all of these things can legally be resold under First Sale Doctrine, despite whatever EULA crap they try to force down peoples' throats.

Used cars are physical. Used Audio CD's and DVD's are actually prohibited from being sold on the same shelf as the new item because it was recognized that doing so cannibalizes sales for the artist.

Whoever initially owned it and sold it to person A should not get paid AGAIN by person B, who buys it from person A. Full stop.

So you think people who sell copyrighted content shouldn't be able to sell it to multiple people? Really?

If people want to sell their media, I really don't care. And people selling or lending their copy of a game to someone else isn't really the issue.

The primary issue is the large-scale organised resale of "used" games. This siphons away dollars which rightfully belongs to the developers. Again, it's important to remember that a large percentage of the costs of manufacturing a game is to be found in putting together the data on the storage media. It's not the storage media itself.

Of course, Bethesda/Zenimax sure as shit want to be paid multiple times, but this should be challenged in court, and Bethesda/Zenimax should lose. Will they lose? I'm guessing they can toss a ton of money and lawyers at the case, so who knows, but the laws are clear.

It's a poor case and in this particular instance, I don't think they should actually win this one, but the used game market has been a parasitical drain on game development for years and someone really should've done something before now.

The law is a bit murkier for purely digital copies, but that is not relevant in this instance.

Reselling digital copies would kill the market completely, so I have no fear of that happening any time soon.

This comment was edited on Aug 12, 2018, 13:16.

Ozmodan wrote on Aug 11, 2018, 17:58:

Sorry your entire argument is rubbish. I do not know why you wasted your time, but consumer protection laws trump anything you said.

I'm afraid it doesn't. First sale doctrine doesn't trump the copyright holder's interests and in order to make use of a game, you have to copy it.

That's a technical point and I'm surprised the publishers haven't siezed on that. Not that I really care about them, but like I said - and the stupidity of gamers on this point is irritating - the used games market completely screws over the development teams.

Nucas wrote on Aug 11, 2018, 17:14:

we are discussing used game sales, which necessarily refers to physical media.

No, we're discussing used media sales which Gamesteal and others attempt to equate to selling a used game. The conflation of the two ideas is the problem here.

so how do you feel about libraries?

Libraries have nothing to do with the discussion and your failure to understand that is pretty much part of the problem.

People don't buy books for the paper, dude. They buy them for the ideas. Having seen those ideas, they are completely free to sell the book. Neither mutability of experience nor interactivity change that. If a board game company tried to pull the same shit, they'd be out of business in a week.

Books and board games are physical media and there's a considerable number of people who regard them as physical artifacts to be retained. Again, the value is encapsulated in the media as is much of the cost.

For games, the cost equation is asymmetrical. The media is worth nothing and the cost of making the game is the assemblage of data on the media.

Used games are a moral hazard which explicitly steals from development teams. Comprehending the nuances requires a brain, a set of ethics and long term vision.

Frankly, I'm astonished that Gamesteal has been able to get away with it. In my opinion, it's theft on a massive scale.

how do you feel about libraries

False equivalence. Libraries are bound by the fact that the value of a book is encapsulated in the media. You can't separate the two, whereas the digital download market has demonstrated that the media and the experience are two entirely different things.

This is why digital storefronts are so popular with publishers - because it annihilates the used games market.

I guess I am stupid. Please explain.

The media you buy a game on is just media and in the case of a CD, that media is worth less than a dollar.

When you buy a game you're paying for the experience. You can't then finish the game and turn around and sell that experience to someone else. That's copyright infringement and it's theft.

Let me see if I can make it clearer. If you buy a game, finish it and then sell it to a chain of 10 friends who each buy it and sell it in turn, then 10 people have played the game.

However the development team only gets credit for 1 copy. Nobody gives a shit about the publishers, but the used game market fucks over the development teams. These teams get paid based on royalties, but the used game market steals royalties.

Does Gamesteal really deserve to resell a game 10 times? Really? Do you think that kind of thing is sustainable.

Like I said, the nuances of this argument are too complex for most people because people are stupid. Over the long term this activity results in developers getting screwed.

But, of course, who gives a shit when you can get a game for $10 off!

Morons.