Frontier Developments boss David Braben has hit out at pre-owned games, saying that retailers' focus on second-hand games is "killing singleplayer games."
Speaking to Gamasutra, the Elite creator said the dominance of pre-owned at retail meant publishers were loath to greenlight games without multiplayer components because they would be traded in quickly, and argued that second-hand sales were to blame for the high price of new games.
"When you think about it brutally, if you look at just core gamer games, pre-owned has really killed [them]," he said. "In some cases, it's killed them dead. I know publishers who have stopped games in development because most shops won't re-order stock after initial release, because they rely on churn from the re-sales.
"It's killing singleplayer games in particular, because they will get pre-owned, and it means your day-one sales are it, making them super high-risk. I mean, the idea of a game selling out used to be a good thing, but nowadays, those people who buy it on day one may well finish it and return it."
Braben goes on to dismiss the argument that gamers can do what they want with their own games, arguing that pre-owned is keeping the price of new games up, because publishers know sales will tail off sharply once a game hits the pre-owned racks.
He calls on retailers to share the proceeds of pre-owned sales - something several indies recently expressed willingness to do, but only in exchange for lower trade prices. Retailers contest that pre-owned is a necessary evil because the margins on new games are so small; Braben is having none of it.
"Prices would have come down a long time ago if the industry was getting a share [of pre-owned]," he said. "Developers and publishers need that revenue to be able to keep doing high production value games, and we keep seeing fewer and fewer of them."
It's an issue that's particularly close to Braben's heart given that The Outsider, a resolutely singleplayer experience, is currently in limbo. Last year it was reported that the game had been cancelled; Braben denied that, but admitted 17 staff had been laid off.
"The fundamental nature of it is of a story-based game," he said, "and from a design point of view, the story itself doesn't lend itself very well to being a multiplayer game other than as a tacked-on affair, which we've seen with quite a few games and it's not generally worked.
"It just becomes a higher and higher risk... But justifying that is much harder at the moment."
Source: Gamasutra
Comments
5One word David. Skyrim.
It's sold 10 million copies and it's still selling. Shops will re-order stock of games that continue to sell. That I can still buy a new copy of Call of Duty 4 and Grand Theft Auto 4 is testament to that.
I also dismiss your argument that new prices would have come down were it not for the evil of pre-owned. Look at MW3. It launched at a stupidly high price, and stayed there, because people were buying it. Publishers will charge whatever they can get away with. By extension, so will retailers.
I think if this thing about prices coming down if it weren't for re-sales is true, then it can be proven quite quickly by improving the availability of downloadable content on consoles. Put new releases up for download on my XBox at a significantly cheaper than full retail price (say, £30) and I'll happily buy them. Make that price reduce over time and I'll keep buying.
At the moment the newest releases for the Games on Demand section on XBL are from about halfway through last year, and they cost more than those games do in the shops now. I know not everyone wants to download full games, but a significant number of people probably would.
I think mixed digital and physical releases carries little of the benefit of cost-cutting, so they're unlikely to want everyone buy their digital versions now they've gone to the expense of producing physical versions.
@mesonw
Edit: just read mesonw's post below
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I agree with Jon B, atleast match the average launch price of titles and get more titles up and more people would be open to downloading games.
You can't blame retailer focus, their remit is to make money. Getting them to share the wealth is asking quite a bit too; those independents probably care about the gaming industry more than the larger corporations. Not to mention the logistics of getting everybody on board, agreeing terms, etc etc.
The alternative to sharing used game profits is to prevent used games altogether. How? Law? Tricky to get into place let alone enforce on a user-by-user basis of trading games.
A digital only release at a lower price point sounds like it should please those most important parties in this equation: the platform holders, publishers, developers and gamers. Poor old Mr Retailer might be left out in the cold however - which will please those blaming retail for the problem. The hurdle to this is everyone having speedy internet access. It may be 2012 but there are millions who don't have the necessary bandwidth to reliably download an entire game inside of a week. In the meantime we have online services that complement the physical sales, yet sadly the nature of mixed releases appears to mean that prices for the digital option remain as high if not higher than what physical copies (even new) are available for. This must surely be because there is no benefit to a digital release if there is still a physical version to fund the release of beside it.
The way I see it is that publishers have to take that bold first step of releasing a digital only game at that lower price.
The combination of a higher profit margin per copy sold, plus zero re-sell loss through used games (and maybe a better defence against piracy?), should neatly offset the slightly reduced internet-connected-only audience and the lower price tag.