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GameStop: We Want to be Devs' "Friend"
GameStop is not a popular entity among the developers at the 2009 DICE Summit.
Acclaim's David Perry dubbed it "Used GameStop" during his presentation Thursday. And a few snickers were audible during J. Paul Raines' address Friday morning. The GameStop COO is the first retailer to present at DICE.
The elephant in the room, says Raines, is whether used game hurt the sale of new releases. "No," he says. "Only 4 percent of GameStop's used game sales are current titles." Trading, instead, is used to test drive new genres and franchises, or as credits towards new game sales.
The preowned games market has been met with opposition by some game companies, as they don't see a penny from the sale of a used game. Meanwhile, GameStop is cashing in on used games, with around 42 percent of overall gross profits coming from the preowned business. Pacific Crest Securities recently estimated that GameStop's used game sales would amount to $2 billion this fiscal year, or over 20 percent of total annual revenues.
Raines defended GameStop's used business, saying that within the first 60 days of a game's release, some 14 percent of new game sales are funded by trade credits, and 70 percent of trade credits are applied towards the purchase of new game sales.
Without used games, says Raines, there would be a lot fewer new game sales.
Category specialists like GameStop drive consumption of videogames, he adds. "The per capita consumption is elevated in countries that have specialty shops; it is important to have advocates in these countries."
Raines also offered an array of statistics during his presentation:
- Among core game players, that 35 percent buy games at GameStop, 17 percent buy games at Best Buy, and 11 percent buy games at Walmart.
- Moms prefer GameStop, where 26 percent of them purchase games for themselves or others. Best Buy accounts for 22 percent of purchases and Walmart snags 16 percent of sales.
- Game consumer demographics are changing: 43 percent of game consumers are female; 47 percent are over the age of 30; 60 percent play games less than 15 hours a week; 63 percent are married; they play all genres; two in five new gamers are females; and nearly half of new gamers are 35 or older.
"We want to be the developer's friend, and the developer's supporter," says Raines. "We would like to support you in anyway we can and find a way to grow with you."
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Digital distribution and cheaper prices is the way to combat this. Steam is doing amazingly well. Left4Dead sold better than ever over steam when they decided themselves to lower the price. They have sales all the time. This is the model developers need to adopt to combat places like gamestop.
It is one thing to sell old hard to find or out of print games, but gamestop sells freshly released used games for 5 dollars less than brand new. This is 100% profitting them. The developer doesn't see any of that.
Whatever gamestop thinks, their practices hurt developers. Gamestop is not going to stop it as long as it is profitable though. Developers need to cut the middle man out. I can't blame this all on gamestop because they offer a service that is very helpful to people. Games are getting more expensive all the time. Without trade is values some new games would never get sold, but thats not to say I agree with it.
Just the other day I bought burnout paradise on 360 used for 17.99 at gamestop. Why?... because it was 17.99. I am not made of money. Most people aren't. The fact that Burnout Paradise is 20 dollars on PSN and 30 now dollars new for 360 (on disc) made my decision for me.
WTF - If developers cant be bothered to create their own point of sale then WTF r they complaining. It wouldn't take a genius to set up say ea/retail.com where I could go and buy the game from ea themselves. No..... ea CHOOSE to sell the game to gamestop who apply their parasitic markup & trade in policy.
I wish I could give my $60 straight to the developer. But they CHOOSE not to let me.
Spot on when will some of these game devs get it into their heads that most people trade back to put some cash up for their NEXT NEW TITLE !! the times i,ve been on the fence about getting a new title and just thought blow it ill trade back such and such to get it.
I don't prefer one over the other. One example is Fallout 3, i can pick up the boxed version (PC) for £20 new, but on Steam it's still £26.99. Likewise, i'd buy the £20 boxed version, but if the downloadable version was the same price then i'd purchase that version instead.
Downloadable games should be less expensive than the boxed product as there are less manufacturing involved i.e.no disc, no box, printed instructions, distribution, or shelf space costs.
One aspect of downloadable games i like is that titles are available at anytime, the title won't go out of print, unlike retail versions (Atlus take note). Therefore it's stops all the goon's on Ebay selling "rare" games.
Being a PC gamer, i'm surprised that PC games still get shelf space as most gamers on the platform would prefer to download the game. Plus it would help prevent piracy if all major PC games i.e. Fallout, Bioshock, COD 4, etc were available by download only on the PC platform.
Yet saying that, retail games will be here for sometime to come.
On a separate note, next consoles could change everything if they were based on digital download titles only, in other words disc-less.
But it would take a company with huge balls to pull off that move!
"But it would take a company with huge balls to pull off that move!"
I actually see MS AND Sony having enough balls to do this. MS introduced a broadband only system with a built in network card at a time when broadband penetration was terrible (a first for SUCCESSFUL consoles I'm looking at your dreamcast), and introduced some other things like a built in HDD, riping CDs, computer connectivity (most people don't know but the first xbox could be used as a media center extender without being modded, it was a disc released by MS themselves that would give the xbox that function). MS has been so aggresive with their online system, even now having digital distribution being one of their focuses, and having full retail xbox 1 games available via download. I see MS allowing full retail games soon for the 360 being available digitally as well as at retail only to fully embrace it with their next system. I don't know about going digital ONLY, but I do see both MS and Sony going in this direction.
Oh, and Sony put in a very pricey BluRay drive into their next system knowing all well that that could make or break the system, so I think both Sony and MS have shown they're willing to gamble a bit, and I'm hoping that with their next systems digital content is the main focus, and that they really embrace it.
Used audio tape/CD sales and used VHS/DVD sales go on in thousands of stores across the globe and have for decades. Why would game devs think they're media is somehow any different? That's the reality of the market. Move on.
While yes, I have notice EB/GS pushing second hand titles *extremely* hard, as a consumer used titles *do* have their place in my library. Many of my most prized titles were purchased used, in most cases because they were long out of print and/or for disco'd consoles. Would it be so hard to enforce restrictions, to allow used game sales, but only for discontinued titles?
how about their empoyees talking about pc gaming being fazed out last time I check pc gaming is still around and doing well!
how about dow 2 pre orders here is a nice link
http://kotaku.com/5136323/why-is-gamestop-no-longer-selling-dawn-of-war-...
I just love the ruturn polies and how they treat pc gamers, then they say we love gamers!!!! Oh wait I am wrong they love game devs. It's kinda hard to make money on pc games when they don't or never had a used game market!
Valve recently forwarded me this link regarding that rumor: http://www.gamestop.com/browse/search.aspx?N=0&Ntk=TitleKeyword&Ntx=mode...
here i have another link for you check out the comments, then after that read the commets people had to say about gamestop to the source.
http://kotaku.com/5157468/gamestop-coo-used-game-sales-dont-hurt-new-one...
here is another there is meny to choice from but here is just one
http://consumerist.com/5156709/when-the-economy-gets-tough-the-tough-pla...
I still feel dirty about shopping at EB/GS. Honestly, the mom & pop shop where I live (Gateway Gaming) is my favorite resource. Those guys are legit, and sell the games they love, new or used. We're not treated like criminals, or looked down upon because we're PC gamers. I implore everyone to find their local game store and support them. They may be a bit more expensive than EB/GS or Best Buy, but sometimes the service and the experience of chatting with (real) fellow gamers about our favorite hobby is worth the price of admission.
Yet again, I say:
as an ex employee, I just want to reiterate that they frown upon you when selling new. The Managers are told what their managers are told (and so on up the ladder): Sell used, not new.
We were supposed to push used over new in every instance possible, and not just a simple question, we needed to convince the customer.
It was sickening.
There's nothing illegal about selling used games, nothing unprincipled either. I work in the game industry myself and this is just the reality we have to face. The solution is to make games that people can't wait to play (that's much harder than it sounds of course). Still, I don't think its fair to try to make gamers feel guilty about buying used games. Instead developers should focus on making gamers feel good about buying new games. Especially smaller developers.
If you want to show support for a company (especially a smaller one), buy new and preorder. And if you want to save money and wait, go ahead and buy used and enjoy yourself.
Exactly. If people felt they were getting good enough value from new then this wouldn't be an issue.
Obviously they don't.
Just wait until big companies start to turn on consoles, I am not talking about small companies I am talking about really big companies. The nasdaq is not looking too healthy. Hardware companies such as IBM,AMD and INvidia don't make money on old hardware parts.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3587
I am sure alot of game devs are not too happy about the used game market! Keep leting your employee's say that pc gaming is dying or fazed out! we will see who will be fazed out!
check out this link does this show gamestop or EB games cares about game devs!
http://kotaku.com/5136323/why-is-gamestop-no-longer-selling-dawn-of-war-...
That picture clearly shows a Gamestop with two walls of PC games, I can honestly sy that I have no belief that such a gamestop exists today. At most us PC gamers get the a rack in the middle of the room.
That's the GameStop in Herald Square, NY. It has two levels; the ground level is for Sony and Nintendo systems, games and accessories. But the underground lower level is dedicated entirely to Xbox 360 and Games For Windows gear, and that particular back corner is wall-to-wall GfW games.
It furthermore shows only women and girls shopping there. Are we sure this picture isn't CG?