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Geek Culture / Developers don't like you selling your games. Discuss

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Toasty Fresh
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 12:26
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I've noticed this discussion pop up in quite a few gaming sites and magazines. Apparently a lot of developers are starting to get ticked off that people are selling and buying their games preowned, and the developer gets zilch profits. Obviously this doesn't happen with Steam games.

Honestly I reckon they're barking up the wrong tree. If they're so annoyed by gamers selling their games when they get tired of them, then why don't they make games with better replay value or longer campaigns?

There are a lot of intelligent people around here, post what you think. It's certainly an interesting topic.
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Quik
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 12:52
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well it is illegal to sell the games, since it says usually on the disc even "only for private use" and "not for resale" or something like that, menaing u cannot let another friend play ur game (same with music and movies, apparantly it is illegal to let a friend watch ur movie or music...) and u cannot sell it further

however all of this has been done for AGES, so really what the heck are they arguing about? i doubt they've never done it themselves =P


[Q]uik, Quiker than most
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Metal Devil123
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 13:00
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Quote: "menaing u cannot let another friend play ur game (same with music and movies, apparantly it is illegal to let a friend watch ur movie or music...)"

I think that is private usage. If you use the movie to show it in a theater, then it's illegal, but if you want to watch a movei with your family, it doesen't mean that every singel person has to buy their copy. It's like it would be illegal for you to watch the movie over 2 times.

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Mnemonix
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 13:31
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Quote: "well it is illegal to sell the games, since it says usually on the disc even "only for private use" and "not for resale" or something like that, menaing u cannot let another friend play ur game (same with music and movies, apparantly it is illegal to let a friend watch ur movie or music...) and u cannot sell it further"


I'm pretty sure that this is not enforceable in a court of law. There was a big case with autodesk trying to sue somebody for re-selling their maya licence and it went to court. The court basically said "They bought it, then can sell it. Owned. GTFO"

I think if you buy something, its yours to do what you want with.

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Quik
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 13:38
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Quote: "
I think if you buy something, its yours to do what you want with."


i do defintly agree with you there. I mean, people sell this stuff all the time at 2 swedish very popular webbsites: www.tradera.se and www.blocket.se for example, and it is never a problem :S personally, if someone bought my game and sold it further i wouldnt give a damn, as long as the costumer is happy and as long as they enjoy my creation :S they are just being darn greedy >.>


what is happening? first Crytek wants to charge us for Demos and now this?

soon theyre gonna charge us for every hour played.


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SikaSina Games
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 13:51
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Quote: ""not for resale""


That means the disc itself or in stores which aren't licensed to sell them. Stores like GAME, HMV and Gamestation over here are licensed to trade games, and the developers usually sign the agreement.

Quote: "I think if you buy something, its yours to do what you want with."


I'm sure a lot of people have tried a disc hack of their favourite Playstation 2 game? I duplicated my copy of Jak 3 and it worked...for a few days . Besides, copy hacks are useless anyway since they don't last as long as the normal discs since the discs used for PS2 games are no ordinary ones. I never do the copy hacks now since my Jak 3 game's crashing all the time now so yeah.

Quote: "apparantly it is illegal to let a friend watch ur movie or music..."


Wow, I'm gonna get prosecuted for a lot of tuff:

-I lent my copy of SAW III 4 times (with the single DVD of course, no duplicates) to my friends each time.

-I lent Call of Duty 4 to my friend 5 months ago and just lent it to them again.

-I lent Mass Effect and Dead Space to them 2 months ago and got them back.

-I lent my friend 3 of my Linkin Park albums.

-I lent my friend my Immersion album by Pendulum.

-I lent two of my friends a half each (like 1,2 and 3 for one, and the rest for the other) of my Armoured Core series.

-I'm sad enough to take pictures of Shawnee Smith with the SAW II and SAW III DVDs on my PC.

-I 'ripped' the SAW III film onto my PC.

-I 'ripped' some quotes from SAW II and III into MP3 tones for my phone.

-I'm planning to sell my Xbox 360 soon along with my old ATi 4550 card for the new 360 Elite Slim.

If they were illegal, would I still be here? I think I' would've been locked up by now, and everyone knows about everything there. So if developers are getting steamed up about buying and selling pre-owned copies, they're getting angry over themselves since they agreed to the bloody license.

-SSG

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The Slayer
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 14:11 Edited at: 19th Jun 2010 14:12
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Quote: "I think if you buy something, its yours to do what you want with."

Well, not exactly, ya know? There are still copyrights.

Quote: "personally, if someone bought my game and sold it further i wouldnt give a damn,"

Hum, would you still say that if one person would buy your game and make thousands of copy's to give to others or sell them for HIS profit? Then all YOUR hard work would be done for 1 sold copy, while a thousand (or more) people would play it??
You would be better of just giving your game away for free then, wouldn't you?

cheers

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Toasty Fresh
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 16:10
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I'm guessing the copyrights are so pathetically stupid that nobody takes it seriously enough to enforce it.
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Michael P
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 16:20
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I don't see why we shouldn't be able to resell games. I can see their argument but I can resell everything else I own so...

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Image All
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 17:48 Edited at: 19th Jun 2010 17:49
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Quote: "Hum, would you still say that if one person would buy your game and make thousands of copy's to give to others or sell them for HIS profit? Then all YOUR hard work would be done for 1 sold copy, while a thousand (or more) people would play it??"

i don't think he's talking about making illegal copies, rather that he wouldn't care if 1 official copy of his game was sold, and then that same copy kept getting resold to other people, so that the person who sold it no longer owns a copy.


Remember those old guys? They made epic renders, I think one of them was called DaVinci, and all they used was MS Paint. Sometimes it's just skill....
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Quik
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 18:19
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Quote: "Hum, would you still say that if one person would buy your game and make thousands of copy's to give to others or sell them for HIS profit?"


that is another subject, what i meant if someone bought ONE DISC, and sold THAT DISC further it doesnt matter, i STILL GET A PROFIT ON IT, and MORE PEOPLE GET TO ENJOY THE GAME.

now then, most companies claim to make the games for people to enjoy, and this definitly proves them only to be greedy >.>


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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 18:43
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What's wrong with selling a game you've bought? I've sold the odd game to another person before, I don't get to play it anymore, I've given up that ability and given it to somebody else in trade for a bit of cash. Also, I don't get a profit because I end up getting less money than I paid for it, so I've made a loss, which I think is fair as I got to play the game. Why should it be any different to selling a sofa?

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Metal Devil123
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 19:18
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Pirating and selling forward or lenting to friends are different things. Pirating is obviously illegal. Selling forward, well... I think it's legal, but don't really know. If you sell the copy you have and that means that you don't have any copies after selling. Now lenting to a friend is pefectly fine. And also what I said above about the movie stuff, that your friends can't see your movies. And the same thing goes to games and music. If your friend comes to your house and you have a sister or brother listening to music, then should you say: It's illegal, put it off. He doesen't own hte rights to ever hear this music.

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The Slayer
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 19:23 Edited at: 19th Jun 2010 19:25
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Quote: "What's wrong with selling a game you've bought?"

I'm not saying it is wrong to sell a game that you've bought. I was just trying to explain how a game developper would think. If you sell a game that you've made, wouldn't you want to get as much profit as possible out of it?

Cheers

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Hobgoblin Lord
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 19:29
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if you could not sell or lend your games that would put things like gamefly, blockbuster etc out of business. You are allowed, at least in the US to transfer license of media to another party as long as you no longer have a copy, installation etc.

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Quik
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 20:04 Edited at: 19th Jun 2010 20:09
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Quote: "I'm not saying it is wrong to sell a game that you've bought. I was just trying to explain how a game developper would think. If you sell a game that you've made, wouldn't you want to get as much profit as possible out of it? "


no, let me put it like this: I wanna be a proffesional game developer in the 3d place, menaing ill make the 3d models to a game, why? when i can be like a doctor and earn 4 times the price or just go to a store and make profit there with no school education needed?

i want to make games for people to ENJOY, i dont give a CRAP about the MONEY I MAKE, and i do not see how people that MAKES GAMES FOR PEOPLE TO ENJOY could possibly be so caring about money that selling a copy further to a friend or just selling it could be so much of a big deal.
if you only make games to make money i had say you chose the wrong job.
Making games should both be fun, and be for making others have fun with what you made, we live in the year of 2010, meaning more and more INDIE COMPANIES are emerging now if i may ask: how many of those are trying to prevent pirating?
how many of those are actually charging the full price?
and how many of those are just making the game for money?

now let me tell you this: the makers of Zeno Clash found a torrent of their game, and all they asked for was: please, if you download this game buy it afterwards to support us!

thats all they said, they didnt demand it shut down, they only wanted us to buy it to SUPPORT THEM, and if they cared that much they would demand it shut down

BIG COMPANIES GOTTA STEP OUT TO THE REAL WORLD.

oh and here is the full comment from the creators:
Quote: "I'm one of the developers of Zeno Clash. I would appreciate you read this if you are about to download this file.

Zeno Clash is an independently funded game by a very small and sacrificed group of people. The only way in which we can continue making games like this (or a sequel) is to have good sales.

I am aware that at this moment there is still no demo of the game, but we are working on one which will be available soon.

We cannot do anything to stop piracy of the game (and honestly don't intend to do so) but if you are downloading because you wish to try before you buy, I would ask that you purchase the game (and support the independent game development scene) if you enjoy it. We plan on updating Zeno Clash with DLC and continuing support for the game long after it's release.

Thanks for taking the time to read this... hopefully it will make a difference.

Carlos Bordeu
ACE Team"


edit: now i know i stepped to much into piracy but i believe the point iam making goes for the on topic aswell pretty much.


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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 20:11
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Quote: "If you sell a game that you've made, wouldn't you want to get as much profit as possible out of it?"


I'm going to say yes. But I would never want to feel like I'm stick my middle finger up at all of my fans, instead I'd understand they're free to exchange their games and that my duty is not to say, "oi, buy a new comp, not pre-owned, so I get the money!" but to design my game for replay value and to not only make my players feel as though it's worth the full price, but also, that they want to keep a copy.


There are a few games, even from the current generation, that makes me not want to sell them. Halo 3 and The Lost Odyssey are two. I still play Halo 3 multiplayer and it really is good fun - especially when you're playing against a friend, it manages to bring out your competitive nature.

Lost Odyssey on the other-hand has really good storytelling and to me is a gem of a game. It's difficult, but it stays on my shelf like a good book.


Would my opinion change if I was actually a game developer? I'm not sure, but as a writer, I know that if I get published that a lot of people reading it might have bought it second hand, but I'd hope that my books are of such a value that my initial readers think, "I'm keeping that on my shelf, because I want to read it again." I'd rather not go on a rampage about how I'm shortcut on money because people buy books second hand.

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IanM
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 21:25
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Luckily, us in the UK, and people in the US are protected by the first sale doctrine - that basically says that the copyright owner has every right to sell or not to whoever they want, but after that, they have no rights at all, except for the standard copyright infringement stuff.

So, if I am sold a CD or DVD with a game on it, and after playing it I want to sell it on, I am quite within my rights to do so, as long as I uninstall the game before doing so.

That games companies are trying to get a cut of the second-hand market is despicable - none of the car companies try that, neither do any of the electronics companies, but because games are stored on a shiny piece of plastic, some games companies seem to believe that they are different. The same applies to video and music producers too.

If someone doesn't want to sell to me then fine, but as soon as they do, then they can hand over the goods, take my money, and then butt out of my business.

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Libervurto
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Posted: 19th Jun 2010 22:37
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I think this is totally ridiculous and money grabbing. Once you sell something you relinquish ownership of it. How can they sell a game and then dictate what you do with it afterwards?
Copying media is illegal because you are reproducing a product without licence. Selling the original product or lending it to a friend doesn't involve any piracy so I don't see how they can claim any loss of profits. If the media isn't being copied it should be treated the same as any other commodity.

I wonder what the laws are for buying other people's art and then holding a exhibition where people have to pay to enter. Is that illegal?

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Lonnehart
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Posted: 20th Jun 2010 00:11
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I'll take a shot in the dark here. If you lend out or sell your own game/move to another person, the company loses profit because they could've made money off of that other person buying a NEW copy of the game from them as opposed to buying/borrowing the used copy from you. And it must be happening so much (in their eyes) that their profits are taking a hit.

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Accoun
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Posted: 20th Jun 2010 00:58 Edited at: 20th Jun 2010 00:59
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Yeah, but it's a bit like with piracy: they say they've lost money because 3 of your friends borrowed their game from you but it cannot be told if they would buy the game anyway...

And buying used games became my prime source for them on console some time ago...

Make games, not war.
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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 20th Jun 2010 01:02
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Quote: "If you lend out or sell your own game/move to another person, the company loses profit because they could've made money off of that other person buying a NEW copy of the game from them as opposed to buying/borrowing the used copy from you. And it must be happening so much (in their eyes) that their profits are taking a hit."


Alternatively, I'm sure IKEA could get more profit if people didn't buy furniture second hand, but that's not the way it works. It's how trade works, you buy a product, you're also able to sell that product to somebody else. A video game is still a product and it's sold to you. Profits are based on first sale and well, if they're not getting enough first sales, then they need to find out why their consumers are not willing to pay the price they're charging and solve the issue. In other words, do consumers feel they're getting their money's worth? I know there are games I'll gladly pay £40 for, but other games, I'm happy to wait for it either to go down in price or get a second hand copy.

Anyway they're not 'losing' profit, it's just they're not gaining it.

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