Murdo and I don’t particularly agree on trade-ins, I will trade in and buy pre-owned without thinking twice, whereas, Murdo always has a long, hard think about the publishers and developers before trading in a game. Then we remembered that our good friend, Colin, was a trade-in aficionado, so to speak. So, we let him join in the debate, and what we found was… well, this.
Murdo: Times are hard, for both consumers and publishers. We’ve got one of the biggest booms in trading-in for years and some of the biggest companies fighting against it. The likes of EA, and even Sony, are being battled against by hordes of gamers and their right to buy and play second-hand. But maybe, the gamers are to blame for the battle? I certainly agree with the companies anyway.
Blair: I know the companies want to make money from trade-ins and I know that having online unlock codes is the only way to do that, but I’ll still buy a pre-owned game if it’s cheaper (although, I do prefer new games) and I’d definitely trade in one of my own games to make up the cash for a new one. If I can’t afford the latest game and I can trade in a game that I’m not going to play anymore, I will. I’d never trade in a game that I really love, I’ll always keep them in my collection.
Murdo: Ahh, online passes. That annoying bit of paper inside some of the latest games. The companies are right in what they are doing with it, though. The revenue of each copy of a game that is sold should eventually feed back to the developers. They’ve spent hours building and testing the worlds we play in so why shouldn’t we pay a little extra as a way of saying thanks. You’ve already saved quite a bit buying second-hand.
Colin: I do agree that the companies should try and earn some money back on pre-owned sales and trade-ins, perhaps with DLC rather than completely removing features. If removing features is the way companies want to go I think it is fairer on the consumer if they get a chance to try the aspects of the game they will miss out. By this I mean that features, like online multiplayer, will become inactive after a period of time unless a code is entered or a pass is purchased. The gamer will still then have to pay to fully experience the game but have had a taste of what they are missing out on.
Blair: Do you really save enough by buying second hand to justify paying to play online, though? I like the idea of the online ‘locking’ after an hour or so; but people would exploit this by opting for the cheaper, pre-owned games when they aren’t too fussed about the multiplayer, perhaps only wanting to try it out. I just like trading in games to make up some money for another game, can you really fault that?
Colin: This system may be exploited but I feel it is much fairer on the consumer and the publisher will still make money off of the used purchases. I personally don’t fault anyone who trades in or buys used, almost all my games are bought that way. It allows me to play new releases for a price I can afford, if the game is good enough then I will pay to play online. However, if I get to try the features I’m missing then I’m more likely to pay to unlock them.
Murdo: This would be a great way to pull some money from the pre-owned market. Digital titles like Battlefield: 1943 have already used this system as a demo and it certainly helped me to decide whether I wanted the game or not. With certain features blocked off, the most likely being online, an hour given to test it out would be very beneficial for both sides. Some people who wouldn’t have unlocked everything might then decide to after trying the features but I fear this could be exploited greatly, especially with disc-based games. EA’s use of their ID in online games could help to prevent this though.
Blair: I like the things you get in the new boxes, such as DLC, which you might miss out on with pre-owned games, but online passes are just a hassle. The idea of having a ‘trial’ before you give money to the people who made the game is good, but it’s just like downloading a multiplayer trial from the PlayStation Store or Xbox Live Marketplace rather than having the complete game, which in the end, you paid for.
Murdo: The entire reason I love buying new is the chance to receive extras or special editions. Unfortunately, my dream of a shop selling only the extras, such as the postcards or figurines, from special editions hasn’t come true yet, but these are the things that add to the experience. If a big game has a special edition, I want it. Looking around just now, I can see my new Modern Warfare 2 night vision goggles, Captain Soap figurine, Pandora’s Box from God of War and more. These are just not offered with second hand games and make the whole thing that little bit more special. It doesn’t have to be as extravagant as these though, with the extra characters in ModNation Racers swaying me enough to one retailer. Second hand doesn’t make the same impact on me.
Blair: I love Special Editions, too. Figurines and everything rule, I wouldn’t buy pre-owned if these weren’t included and I would never trade these in. In fact, I once saw the Fallout 3 Collector’s edition (with lunchbox and bobblehead) pre-owned. I felt sick… and tempted to buy it.
Murdo: I would’ve!
Blair: I didn’t have the money…
Colin: I like special editions and the extras you get with them but I would much rather buy the game for a cheaper price. I have no problems trading in special editions either, if I’m not going to get the use out of them then I may aswell trade-in to get something I will play.
Murdo: Well apart from disowning Colin, I think we’ve done well here. None of us will be changing our ways any time soon but maybe we’ve made an impact on you. Next time you pick up that game in GAME, have a good think about what you’re buying into. Without the companies, we’d have nothing to play in the first place.
Blair: Anyway, while Colin and Murdo are bickering about trading Special Editions, we’ll pass it over to you. What do you think about trading in games and online passes?
Danza Di Fuoco
I trade games for credit on newer games do you really believe I wouldn’t care about what the publisher and dev studio went through? Only games that I’m excited for and have brought the previous game would be purchased new as with Yakuza 3,Demons Soul, Littlebigplanet and Uncharted etc etc. In fact the quality of some third party titles are terrible in gameplay and hours and shouldn’t be full price.
The one 3rd party games that comes to mind is Fifa, PES and the underated odd japanese/WRPG game those are just awesome.
aerobes
Bit of an odd one this, I trade away pretty much everything (helps hugely from a financial PoV and when I’m done, I’m done) but buy at least 90% of games brand new.
I never usually have more than 4 or 5 games on the shelf, I mean, only one disc fits in the machine at a time and while I typically just play for fun, If I keep switching between games I find myself losing an edge off my gaming ability.
The only games I have older than this generation are (I think, there might be others unintentionally gathering dust somewhere) Final Fantasy VII (PS1), Fantavision (PS2), Super Mario World (SNES), Killer Instinct Gold (N64), Tetris (GB) and Medal of Honor (PS1). Out of that bunch, I’ve only intentionally hung onto FFVII and Mario just because they’re amazing and it felt silly trading them for next to nothing.
YOURMUMANDME
I think that it’s greedy publishers that are to blame. £40 for anything is expensive and when they release any old crap for a quick bit of cash of course there will be trade-ins and big pre-owned sales.
So bottom-line, less shit games and bigger cuts on prices is the only way around it without insulting gamers
moshi
Out of the 30 games i have purchased over the year just 3 of them have launch day buys the rest second hand and out of them i have only kept 12. No point in them just sitting there never to be played again when they can go to more gaming goodness
hazelam
i think the publishers like to make outrageous claims to support their actions, most people wont buy preowned just to save a few quid, i will hardly ever buy a new game preowned, you know what i mean, new out not unused.
and games i wont buy new on principal i’ll usually wait till there’s a significant decrease in price.
and trade ins definitely benefit the industry, especially the publishers with their yearly identikit games, ironically they seem to be the same publishers who are spearheading these anti preowned initiatives.
if preowned sales are having an impact on a publishers new game, you have to wonder, why are so many people trading that game in so quickly?
the big issue for me is when they take out important parts of the games for preowned buyers, because most of the preowned titles i buy aren’t new, some may be years old, the online passes may not affect me directly much because by the time i buy the game preowned the wultiplayer will most likely be dead anyway.
but i still refuse to buy any game that features anything like the online pass, because i absolutely refuse to support that kind of thing, the reason, i know they won’t stop there, we’ve already had mark rein, who recently proved himself to be a bit of a douchebag, suggesting that the end game bosses should be dlc that preowned buyer have to pay for.
and don’t tell me activision would never do anything like that.
i don’t want steam style totalitarian drm for console games where a game is tied forever to a single user.
i can play games from 20 years ago because they weren’t locked to a single user forever, 20 years from now, a lot of games from now will be absolutely impossible to play because of drm designed to combat preowned sales, because face it, they know drm doesn’t stop piracy, they’d have to be as thick as three short planks to think it does.
there will be great swathes of this industry’s history lost because of greed.
could you imagine if nobody could read Shakespeare now because only the original owner of a copy of his plays could read or perform it?
that would be a tragedy.
that’s why i cannot stand most of these anti preowned schemes these greedy publishers have dreamed up.
reward new owners, that’s fine, but don’t destroy the history of this industry, you could call it an art form, some titles fit that description i think, for the sake of greed.
that’s my two pence worth.
bunimomike
Hit Enter twice to space out the paragraphs.
This reply makes me want to look away. Sorry. :-( I like reading your replies too. I just feel my eyes constantly trying to get away from the text as it’s hard on the them to track the flow of the words.
hazelam
i’ll bear that in mind.
i’m sure i tried double spacing it like that and it not working, but that may have been on another website.
hazelam
hey it does work here. :)
bunimomike
It didn’t used to work but nofi fixed it a while back. I see a few folks using the old fullstop-in-between method still. I did that as it was all butted up together. Mucho ugly! However, with the paragraph formatting back to it’s best, a double Enter (no, not double entry!) does the job.
W00t and, indeed, yay! :-)
E8_BALL_
They’ve spent hours building and testing the worlds we play in so why shouldn’t we pay a little extra as a way of saying thanks.
unless their like 2K, how do a half-arsed job on a particular platform
cough mafia
cough rdr. R*
hazelam
i think the publishers like to make outrageous claims to support their actions, most people wont buy preowned just to save a few quid, i will hardly ever buy a new game preowned, you know what i mean, new out not unused.
and games i wont buy new on principal i’ll usually wait till there’s a significant decrease in price.
and trade ins definitely benefit the industry, especially the publishers with their yearly identikit games, ironically they seem to be the same publishers who are spearheading these anti preowned initiatives.
if preowned sales are having an impact on a publishers new game, you have to wonder, why are so many people trading that game in so quickly?
the big issue for me is when they take out important parts of the games for preowned buyers, because most of the preowned titles i buy aren’t new, some may be years old, the online passes may not affect me directly much because by the time i buy the game preowned the wultiplayer will most likely be dead anyway.
but i still refuse to buy any game that features anything like the online pass, because i absolutely refuse to support that kind of thing, the reason, i know they won’t stop there, we’ve already had mark rein, who recently proved himself to be a bit of a douchebag, suggesting that the end game bosses should be dlc that preowned buyer have to pay for.
and don’t tell me activision would never do anything like that.
i don’t want steam style totalitarian drm for console games where a game is tied forever to a single user.
i can play games from 20 years ago because they weren’t locked to a single user forever, 20 years from now, a lot of games from now will be absolutely impossible to play because of drm designed to combat preowned sales, because face it, they know drm doesn’t stop piracy, they’d have to be as thick as three short planks to think it does.
there will be great swathes of this industry’s history lost because of greed.
could you imagine if nobody could read Shakespeare now because only the original owner of a copy of his plays could read or perform it?
that would be a tragedy.
that’s why i cannot stand most of these anti preowned schemes these greedy publishers have dreamed up.
reward new owners, that’s fine, but don’t destroy the history of this industry, you could call it an art form, some titles fit that description i think, for the sake of greed.
that’s my two pence worth.
hope that’s a little easier on the eyes, i kind of miss my wallotext™ though. :)
english was never my strongest subject at school, me and punctuuation have no truck with each other.
bunimomike
Awesome! *tips hat* I read it all the way through! Honest, guv’nor.
I feel like the publishers are floundering and looking for reasons to monetise everything. To a certain degree that makes absolute sense, but with this situation (that we’re starting to lean towards all-too-quickly) it really feels like they’re taking the piss. :-(
solidsteven
i only trade games in if i think they are crap, and saves me money