I won’t pretend to be Heavy Rain’s biggest fan. Looking back the game – to me at least – rode on the back of being a PlayStation 3 exclusive and something a little bit original rather than actually being very good: it wasn’t – the cynical might suggest it was actually a rather sub-standard ‘game’ wrapped up in then-fancy graphics and a twisty, turny plot that extends to, in 2011, very little replayability once you’ve seen a couple of the endings.
Which, naturally, is why you’ll find plenty of copies of games like Heavy Rain second hand, pre-owned, cheap, and also why you’ll find members of the development team getting rather excited about people not giving them money to play a copy of the game that someone else has already bought.
[drop]”We basically sold to date approximately two million units,” said Quantic Dream co-founder Guillaume de Fondaumiere recently. That’s pretty impressive figures (and goes some way to disprove my interpretations of the title) but it’s clearly not enough for the Frenchman. And he’s not happy about pre-owned copies. “We know from the trophy system that probably more than three million people bought this game and played it,” he said.We’ll ignore, for a while, the rather sweeping statement. “On my small level it’s a million people playing my game without giving me one cent. And my calculation is, as Quantic Dream, I lost between €5 and €10 million worth of royalties because of second hand gaming.”
Where de Fondaumiere’s argument (valid as it is, on some level) doesn’t entirely hold together is that just because three million people have played the game, it doesn’t mean that many have bought it in whatever form. His maths is sound enough – there’s a million people with trophies on top of the two million that bought the game new, but how many of those were playing it second hand? A million? Really?
No, I don’t think so. As some of the comments in our story pointed out, people could have (quite rightly) rented the game via a service like LoveFilm, or borrowed it from a friend. Do these people owe the developer anything? No – absolutely not. There are a dozen analogies I could fire off here, but they don’t matter – if someone borrows a game of mine (yes, mine) why would they feel the need to give the developer anything for the pleasure?
They don’t, and shouldn’t, and they never will. If they feel the desire to then go out and buy the game then – great – the developer (and publisher, and so on) get their cut, but I’m getting tired of the current trend of calling out gamers who buy pre-owned as if it’s some kind of subculture, something to be ashamed of.
As Brendan says in the comments of the original article, the second hand market is “one of the benefits of a open, free and democratic society” and he’s right. Why should we feel like we shouldn’t be buying pre-owned games? When I was a student, after getting my first ever overdraft just so I could purchase an N64, pre-owned was all I could afford. I’m now considerably older, but not hugely better off in terms of disposable income, and Star Fox for the 3DS was the first full price, brand new game I’ve bought for months.
I buy pre-owned sometimes because it’s cheaper – and I don’t give much of a consideration to developers when I do so.
Is that harsh? Not personally, because it’s my opinion that that particular copy of the game has already been sold. I don’t have the funds to splash out £45 on something that I might only play a couple of times and genuinely feel aggrieved to be doing so – Star Fox was a cert because I was a huge fan of the original (that I bought pre-owned for N64, too, for the record) and knew that I’d get my money’s worth – but that’s the exception rather than the rule.
According to Wikipedia, de Fondaumiere was President of the French video game trade body Association des Producteurs d’Oeuvres Multimédia (APOM) for three years and now sits as Chairman of the European Games Developer Federation. His knowledge and interests, I’d suggest, might well extend a little further than just the raw figures mentioned above, but I think his statement still points at the wrong target.
Regardless of the technicalities – at least the Quantic Dream head is rather more tactful than some on the matter. Blitz Games’ Andrew Oliver famously compared the sale of pre-owned to piracy. “The bigger problem on consoles now is the trading in of games,” he told Develop back in May last year. And who can forget our own article on the matter from Josh that drew considerable heat when he linked the two.
[drop2]Not that he’s the only one. “Piracy these days on PC is probably less problematic than second-hand sales on the Xbox,” said Lionhead’s Mike West, and David Braben referenced retailer GameStation when he said that “more than half their floor area is dedicated to pre-owned” and that the profits were “something as an industry we don’t see”.Braben has a point, and it’s here – rather than vilifying the gamers who keep you afloat – that things are most interesting. If a retailer (like GameStation) only stocks new games from the last few months and chooses to push pre-owned copies over new ones (the markup for the former is thought to be considerably higher) then do the buying public really have much choice?
I’ve seen this for myself – some high street retailers seem to prefer to have one or two racks per console for the latest, full price games and two or three (or even more) dedicated to second hand. When a potential customer is faced with this it’s obvious why Joe Public would opt for the cheaper, and yet often more profitable to the retailer, pre-owned game. Some shops have the top twenty on proud display and then hide the rest of the recent games in single file underneath, whilst alongside it are yards and yards of discounted second hand games.
To me, it’s this side of the industry that needs to discussed by the developers and publishers that are mentioned in this blog. Gamers shouldn’t be the target – that much is clear – rather the way that cheaper versions of games are pushed our way. The rental market is getting bigger (and I’ve just signed up for a LoveFilm account myself) but if publishers are to ensure they get the royalties they claim they’re entitled to then it’s not by calling out those that might otherwise pay full price.
De Fondaumiere does state that he thinks games are too expensive though – “I’ve always said that games are probably too expensive so there’s probably a right level here to find,” he said as part of the same interview, a major bugbear with customers, but still seems to think that the second hand market isn’t the “right approach” and thinks that “developers and certainly publishers and distributors should sit together and try to find a way to address [the pre-owned market].
“Because we’re basically all shooting ourselves in the foot here,” he said.
Sure, bring in your online passes and multiplayer bonuses, but don’t make us feel bad for paying a bit less for games we’re not sure about or simply don’t have the cash for. Locking games to just one player is deplorable (as I’ve said before) – there’s no question there – but when it’s linked to second hand games (or worse, pretended it’s not) I think back to when I was a student and wonder where on earth I’d be if publishers and developers were as bullish about the concept then as they are now.
The truth is that the pre-owned market is incredibly important to gamers and retailers, and it’s my opinion that publishers and developers have already found the answer in the form of online passes. That’s clearly not going to help single player games like Heavy Rain, but perhaps there’re other reasons why people didn’t hang onto the copies that they’d paid full price for anyway…
Update: Article updated with more from the original quote.
hazelam
“On my small level it’s a million people playing my game without giving me one cent.”
so this guy made the game single handedly did he?
yeah and i’m the queen of england.
and i was gonna say i hate to break it to him, but that would be untrue, it gives me great pleasure breaking it to him, that once somebody buys a copy, it’s their game, not yours.
that copy is then the property of that person.
if the game keeps getting sold on a fifty people end up playing that one copy, you still don’t have any say because it’s not yours any more.
he doesn’t like anybody profiting off “his game” but he’s saying he wants to make money off of my property?
what a hypocrite.
people talk about this sense of entitlement they say some gamers have.
well what about the publishers, they’re after something they have absolutely no right to.
sure people in his company made the game, though i doubt he had much to do with making it himself despite calling it “his game”, so i can see why he wants to see a return.
but his company got paid for every single preowned copy when it was new.doesn’t he care about the work people had to do to make the money they spent on “his game”
many of them do bloody hard work, some a lot harder than anybody your company ever hdid making the game, and doing far more important work.
but no, their rights aren’t as important as your profits, are they?
no, they’re just the poor schlubs that pay your frakking wages you pompous twat.
heedbaw
lol, see my reply on previous page to CC. If he lost 5-10 million on those million plays that weren’t bought then he made about 20 million on the ones that were properly bought.
colmshan1990
By law, a purchase or service is bought when the customer pays an agreed price for the use of object which is EXACTLY what the seller states. If it is not, the customer can return it as they received it for a refund. What a customer cannot do is say they don’t the terms of the deal they got, and change it after the fact.
And yet, they do. And always will.
If the seller says it’s a license for only one person to use it and not sell it on, then they are quite correct to ‘moan’, and have their ‘sense of entitlement’.
A middle ground will surely have to be reached, but a good compromise will make both sides unhappy…
And what was the rest of your comment about?
The people who buy the games do more important work than game developers? Undoubtedly correct, but what point does that sentence have? Are you saying that certain people have more rights when it comes to buying or selling products, simply because they have better jobs? It’s completely irrelevant, and nothing to do with the game developers, and why should it? As for it being his game? Are you really going to nitpick? Of course it’s ‘his’ game! Just like everybody else who had something to do with making it!
hazelam
my point is he seems to be of the opinion that the work his company did on the game means he owns it in perpetuity, and i’m pointing out that the people who buy the game worked hard to get the money to own the a copy of game.
why should he get to own it and the people who buy it don’t?
his reward for the work his staff did is their fair recompense, which is a cut of the sale of a new game.
the buyer reward for the work they did is money, which they can choose to spend on that game, and the recompense for spending that money is ownership of that copy of the game.
and to be blunt, frak the license.
the law supercedes any license.
LAW>license agreement.
we have rights and they cannot be taken away from us by any pissant little license.
although they’re never little.
some of them run to 20 thousand words.
there are novels shorter than that.
and they’re full of legal mumbo jumbo and circular language to say they can do this and that and if any of those things happen to be something they can’t actually do, they aren’t responsible.
they can say that software can only be used by one person at a time, that’s perfectly valid, but they have no legal basis for trying to prevent that person transferring ownership of that copy by any legal means, either selling it on, giving it away or lending it to a friend, in which case the transfer would be temporary.
and my nitpicking.
well that’s irritation at the typical management attitude that even though they barely do any real work they take all the bloody credit, not to mention a hell of a lot more money.
that’s not just a criticism of the gaming industry though, in most industries the people doing the real work making the product are nearly always the ones making the least money.
it’s all fucking backwards, and it pisses me off no end.
Sympozium
I’ve only ever bought new games that to me looked like ones that would last forever in a way… but yeah I tend to trade once I’m like *feck, bored…So industry getting robbed? can’t sell? no big deal make a fresh game than killing yourself with the same bloody tyoe of game….>_>
You know… everytime a new game is released I wonder if its actully worth it. So many games release with bugs and its ruins the experience because it may be rushed or devs can’t be arsed to finish this highly wonderful and much ancipated title, so profit and lack of care for there beloved fans!
I just don’t see why people would bother (tricked into) paying full-price for broken games, maybe the industry needs to wake up before charging customers than to shove codes and patchs down our Broadband poor ol throats.
Kevatron400
I only borrowed H.R. off a mate, so you could say I’m one in a million.
I enjoyed it, but I’m glad I didn’t buy it for 40 quid.
heedbaw
sorry Watchful, not CC. doh
AG2297
Retailers like GAME and Gamestation do have a lot of there space dedicated to pre-owned, but I’ve still never bought a pre-owned game or traded a game in (with one exception), I buy everything new. This is mainly because I tend to buy all my games online where it is cheaper and mostly new games (a few places do pre-owned online). I find it very rare that I’m presented with the option of a pre-owned copy and when I am the price doesn’t warrant it.
However, like you say in the article, Joe public probably wouldn’t know any of this and would go for the pre-owned.
cliffordkilleen
Developers seem to really want a slice of the pre-owned pie, so here’s some thoughts.
A gamer goes into GAME or GAMESTATION, etc. with a game he wishes to trade in. He gets money or credits from the retailer for his now pre-owned game. The retailer then sells the game pre-owned, with an admittedly often shocking mark-up. Therefore, the retailer spends money to acquire the product and then sells it on.
If the developers are really concerned that they are getting nothing out of this, shouldn’t they really be shelling out some cash at this stage as part of the pre-owned gathering process?
Hear me out. Imagine that developers approached every retailer and said ‘For every pre-owned game you buy back from a gamer, we will pay you 25% of what you give them, and in return, you must pay us 25% of the mark-up on the sell-on of said game’. The retailer can send the developer a monthly or quarterly bill, and the developer can vice versa be issued with a monthly or quarterly payment.
Since no retailer will buy a pre-owned game and then sell on at a loss, this makes sense for developers. Obviously, this presents issues for retailers, as they will be making less money.
The main point is, if developers aren’t spending money to buy-back their games, can they really complain about making no money from selling them on?
Also, on another point, some games are frankly dodgy titles, not AAA games like Uncharted, COD, Batman, etc. Frankly, if it’s not a day 1 purchase, I will just wait until they drop in price and buy new, which isn’t too long. In fact I have often gone into HMV and seen pre-owned games dearer that the new copies on the shelf beside them. Given the choice, and if the price was right, I would ALWAYS buy new, I just prefer games to be new. The point about selling games cheaper to begin with is very valid.
Anyway, rant over. Apologies for the length of this post.
cc_star
If the Heavy Rain team wanted to reduce trade-ins, online passes isn’t the way to do it, instead DLC & providing people a compelling reason to keep hold of it is the approach to take.
After spending presumably years making the game & all the ingredients that go into it, I’d have thought more episodic DLC would have been on the cards, sadly for fans of the game (AFAIK)only the taxidermist DLC was launched and the Heavy Rain Chronicles was canned, this lack of ongoing support presumably lead to people trading it in (just as people probably traded-in other games to buy new copies of Heavy Rain in the 1st place, which their representative seems to have forgotten) Lack of ongoing support also probably lead to a shortening of the long tail of sales that titles like Uncharted2/CoD/GT5/KZ2 & others benefit from.
In short I think Quantic need to look closer to home before pointing fingers at the every devs/pubs favourite punchbag – pre-owned.
The SRP of £40-£55 is a problem, in so much as people don’t think many games are worth that anymore, sure your FIFA’s/CoD/BFs/Assassin’s will sell year round and hold their value, but I rarely, if ever, buy single-player games for full whack and the majority of people seem to be doing the same.
the bottler
Good point. How many of copies of HR were bought using money made from trading in? If I couldn’t make money from selling my games on, then I would buy considerably fewer games, plus I’d be buried under a pile of games which I have no desire to play anymore, but someone else will.
ron_mcphatty
Pfft, some developers just like to throw their toys out of the pram. I think we should learn to ignore the ones who make arses of themselves and make a point of supporting those we really like. Vote with your wallets boys and girls!
bunimomike
Easily the smartest advice.
I recently bought and played Medal of Honour: Airborne. It was under a tenner. Would I have bought this at full RRP around launch time? Hell no! His comments still piss me off even now but it’s lovely to see almost all of the TSA community united in the fact that he’s pretty much got it wrong and needs to address things at the developmental level before turning the second-hand market into a witch hunt.
Devs need to learn that they can charge for services worth charging for and not to take the piss with anything else.
MW2 and Black Ops are still too expensive on the likes of Steam and I want to play the single player only. I know five people who want to do the same but devs and publishers don’t see the bigger picture. They are all to blame and, right now, they’re furiously trying to point fingers at the wrong part of the industry.
duff_em_up_dave
This is my first post after guesting on your site for the past few months. Here goes…
I very rarely buy a game secondhand. I like my games in mint condition, scratch-free, ocd. But then, I very rarely pay full price for a game either. Only occasionally will I pre-order a game and thats when it’s a game I know I’ll love.
For instance, the first second-hand games I bought were Infamous and Fallout 3, and I loved them both. But when Fallout3 GOTY was released I bought it brand new for £30 (full release price, I think), and sold my second-hand copy to a mate for a fiver.
I loved Infamous so much that I pre-ordered Infamous2 and have recently finished my first run-through.
The only other game I can recall buying secondhand was Deadspace. I would have pre-ordered Deadspace2 but was flatbroke at the time of release. However, 5 weeks after the release date, Amazon was flogging Deadspace2 brand new for £24. 5 weeks after the release!! Amazing I gathered the cash and bought it.
My point is this. I only have 2 mates with ps3’s and they play driving games and not much else. If I hadn’t bought those 3 games secondhand, I never would have seen or played them, nor would I have bought brand new versions of their sequels. Also, why pay £40 for a game when (most of the time) you can wait a few weeks & get it heavily discounted but still brand new.
I’m also of the opinion that if I buy something then I should be able to do with it whatever I like. Keep it, sell it, give it away, burn it, whatever. It is mine to do with as I please.
the bottler
Exactly. If he had his way when we’d finished with our games we’d either keep them (but don’t let anyone else anywhere near them), our send them to landfill!
Surely the more people that experience ‘his game’ the better.
This whole second-hand debate has gotten way out of control. No other industry requires you to pay the original manufacturer for something you bought second-hand.
A2J7C
In Portugal the retail price for the games is from 60€ to 70€, with the minimum salary of almost 500€, how do they think that people will buy new games???
Almost every people that is more aware of the video games market, buys games from the UK websites (wich is 45€ aprox. day 1) and sometimes pre-owned’s local in stores…
So, i only accept complains when they make something to this piece os sh*t of situation… Until then, i bought everything from the UK, even Pre-Owned’s!