One of the founders of Quantic Dream, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, has been discussing the impact of pre-owned copies of Heavy Rain, describing the pre-owned market as one of the main problems in the gaming industry.
“I can take just one example of Heavy Rain. We basically sold to date approximately two million units, we know from the trophy system that probably more than three million people bought this game and played it.
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.”
Whilst it’s easy to sympathise with Quantic Dream when GAME, Tesco and many others can make millions by simply buying old games and placing them back on shelves, they would be foolish not to cash in. Second hand record, DVD and book shops have been running this business model for years.
The debate continues..
Source: GamesIndustry.Biz
Awayze
Oh get over it. My game, if I want to eBay a game I will. This goes for every product. You don’t see Apple complaining everytime someone buys a second hand iPhone of eBay instead of straight from the Apple Store.
Kevling
No, but on the other hand, they get a 30% cut on any apps that second-hand purchaser goes on to make…
Cerberus64
As does the developer of the PS3 game when the Second Hand Purchaser buys DLC.
Kevling
Yes, the single piece of Heavy Rain DLC is directly comparable with every single app ever released on the iPhone ;)
tantalus_blank
It’s like the damn piracy argument. These guys do incredibly simplified calculations using ridiculous assumptions and then try and get sympathy when the number comes out suitably ridiculous. Shut the hell up Guillaume, get your head out of your ass and accept it’s something every other kind of artist has to deal with
MrTwP
What i don’t get is why do they try to screw the consumers instead of the retail, the ones who are actually making the profit.
Watchful
Read the full interview over at GI.biz. He talks about wanting to work with retail to come to some workable solution and even agrees that one of the problems may be that games need to be cheaper at retail.
Hardly anti-consumer. A couple of headline-worthy paragraphs do not come close to covering the whole discussion.
tatoemonkey
quantic dream they made one good game now they keep finding ways to go on about it…………….its like an actor from the 70s or something who wasnt that good but in one thing they were famous for
DirtyHabit
….Looking at you Burt Reynolds! :D
tatoemonkey
lol love it!
Watchful
If you read the full interview you’ll find that much of it isn’t about Heavy Rain. They talk to him about a wide number of issues due to his role as chairman of the European Games Developer Federation.
The pre-owned question is just the small part that made it through the news filter on sites other than GI.biz.
kivi95
Actually they have done 2great games.
rSp8
What about the people who rented it or borrowed it off a mate? I’m sure they must contribute to a big percentage of that 1 million people who didn’t buy it new…
nofi
“we know from the trophy system that probably more than three million people bought this game”
No. No you don’t.
I could play it on multiple profiles. On multiple machines. Hell, I could have run around Glasgow sticking the game into every PS3 I could find and unlocking a Trophy or two.
Bizarre, bizarre train of thought.
Kev
It must be galling to think you could have made more money from a product but why should intellectual property or artistic endevours be any different from any other product?
If I buy a car, or a computer, or a paperback book I don’t see endless articles with quotes from Ford, Dell, or Penguin moaning about people selling their purchases on second-hand.
In any case, the way that technology is going this may become an obsolete argument. I already have a Kindle so don’t buy paperbacks any more and can’t sell on their digital equivalents. And gaming will follow the same path. The next generation of consoles may only play downloaded content or act as portals to servers.
I really wish they would shut up. They are beginning to sound like spoiled children.
Tuffcub
I would love to sit down with a publisher/developer and ask them to explain why they think they deserve the money, ask them all the questions which never get asked (like why a pre-owned user playing online takes up any extra resources compared to the orginal owners, who’s online costs were factored in to the original cost of he game), but it’s never going to happen.
hazelam
industry in general has been running this model for centuries.
i’d like to remind this guy that once somebody buys a copy of the game, it’s their property, it’ no longer belongs to the publisher.
at that point the publisher has zero claim on it, so long as the owner stays within the law.
it pisses me off no end that these publisher think they deserve to profit from my property.
they’re quick to attack pirates, and they’re right to do so, the pirates disregard the publishers rights, specifically their copyright, but then they think nothing of violating our rights.
it shows they don’t care about the law, they just care about their profits.
at the very least, it’s hypocritical.
at worst, criminal.
Tuffcub
“i’d like to remind this guy that once somebody buys a copy of the game, it’s their property, it’ no longer belongs to the publisher.”
Try reading the small print in the manual. You are incorrect.
Severn2j
They haven’t lost €5 and €10 million at all, they just didn’t make that amount. There is a big difference.
Tuffcub
Such logical and sensible thinking will not be tolerated!