As I said many times, if it were not for the DRM and 24 hour check up I would buy a Xbone. We preordered ours about an hour ago, day one edition.I voted with my dollars, Microsoft listened and now we're going to have both consoles on launch day.
That being said, nothing is stopping anyone from going fully digital and not having to deal with discs. From what I have read, all of the games on the Xbone will be offered via digital download as well as on discs. So if you don't want a disc, don't buy one. There's no reason either side should be trying to force their desired format on the other. Now collectors and digital enthusiasts should both be happy.
Also, there is no reason that the Xbox cannot have the family share plan with digital titles.
As I said many times, if it were not for the DRM and 24 hour check up I would buy a Xbone. We preordered ours about an hour ago, day one edition.I voted with my dollars, Microsoft listened and now we're going to have both consoles on launch day.
That being said, nothing is stopping anyone from going fully digital and not having to deal with discs. From what I have read, all of the games on the Xbone will be offered via digital download as well as on discs. So if you don't want a disc, don't buy one. There's no reason either side should be trying to force their desired format on the other. Now collectors and digital enthusiasts should both be happy.
Also, there is no reason that the Xbox cannot have the family share plan with digital titles.
It's not simple. They took it off at the expense of their best features.
Discs now have the advantage, again. No one's going to buy digital if they can't sell them AND can't share them. Family share was the incentive. Now that it's gone - if there's a possibility one of my friends might want to play a game, I'm buying a disc. So that loses devs money if I buy used, or rent a game instead of buying digital to share.
It's not simple. They took it off at the expense of their best features.
Discs now have the advantage, again. No one's going to buy digital if they can't sell them AND can't share them. Family share was the incentive. Now that it's gone - if there's a possibility one of my friends might want to play a game, I'm buying a disc. So that loses devs money if I buy used, or rent a game instead of buying digital to share.
How is being able to share digital copies of games helping the developers? If anything it's preventing more people from buying their games. And for that matter, how is allowing discs preventing Microsoft from allowing all digitally downloaded content to be shared in the "Family plan"? Or use of the cloud for larger gaming worlds?!?
If you're playing a game and your buddy wants to play it with you, he has to go out and buy the game or download it digitally. Which also makes the developers money.
If you rent the game from Gamefly or Redbox, they buy those games just like you normally would. This does not take money away from the developers. In fact, in this economy when most people can't shell out 59.99 every time a new game comes out, Gamefly and Redbox are the only way some of your friends may ever get to play with you at all. In my family's case, we usually buy what we rent, which is quite popular and many I spoke to have said they would have never bought the title without renting it first. So, how exactly are the developers losing money when Redbox alone is buying multiple copies of the games to fill their over 38k kiosks?
Honestly it sounds to me that the people bitching about losing the shared library are angry that they are going to have to actually buy all of the games they want to play, instead of 1 out of 10 in your "Family" having to buy it and the rest of them leeching off of him.
Honestly it sounds to me that the people bitching about losing the shared library are angry that they are going to have to actually buy all of the games they want to play, instead of 1 out of 10 in your "Family" having to buy it and the rest of them leeching off of him.
Close....We're a 2 box household. So we buy several games twice - all MP that we play together. And some single player games where we can't agree on who will wait to get their turn.
I was looking forward to not having to do that. I wouldn't exactly call that "leeching" but...your words. *shrug*
I can share my kindle books with my family and I can share my iTunes with my family. I felt like the XB family share plan was akin to those types of features.
Close....We're a 2 box household. So we buy several games twice - all MP that we play together. And some single player games where we can't agree on who will wait to get their turn.
I was under the impression that multiplayer wouldn't be able to be shared. As for single player in the same house, we're a multibox house as well and it's as simple as handing my son,daughter,wife the disc.
TDrag27 wrote:
I was looking forward to not having to do that. I wouldn't exactly call that "leeching" but...your words. *shrug*
Not my words, been used quite a bit when talking about the share plan. I don't see any reason why they have to disable the share plan for digital titles. Honestly there's no reason for it. Digitally downloaded games will follow the same format they would have under the shared plan, they know you own them and they cannot be resold. To me it seems like Microsoft 's cancelation of the family share plan is the same as them taking their ball and going home. Since people didn't want the draconian DRM they wont give you the shiny new feature they attempted to use to obfuscate the cash grab.
TDrag27 wrote:
I can share my kindle books with my family and I can share my iTunes with my family. I felt like the XB family share plan was akin to those types of features.
Again I think that there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to share your digitally downloaded games with your family as promised. PS3 users have been able to do this for well over a year now. At first it was with 5 other PS3's now it's with 2.I really don't understand why people are acting like this feature was anything new, and why Sony didn't slam Microsoft over thier claims on being the console of the "Future".
There's no ownership issues with digital downloads, even though it does screw the developers out of the cash they have been bitching about for years now. Seriously the family share plan would have taken ten times the amount out of the developers pockets than the used game markets ever did. I wouldn't at all be suprised if that's the real reason behind the turn around.
It was already said that multi player games/co-op games could be shared with 2 people playing based on the dev's choices. I suppose the point is moot now but, honestly this is a huge step back and I'm really sad to see MS cave in the sight of progression. Without online checks you can't have the family sharing or online librarys.
Even more sad is that devs suffer to reap the benefits of the used game market while places like Gamestop bend you over and give you $7 for a game that costs you $60 a few months before. Either way, the console market clearly wasn't ready for the world of Steam or digital distribution. At least not in the full blown way MS was aiming for.
New ideas and change are stupid. It's easier to cast things aside before even seeing it in action I guess. So yeah, we're now left with 2 systems that are nearly identical with one another. PSXBOX4ONE.
Azure where can you show that retail companies (like Gamefly or Redbox) are buying their games from the publishers at retail cost? PC manufacturers like Dell and HP do not buy copies of Windows OS at retail cost, they get it at wholesale (which their cost is not disclosed) then use that as a way to maximize their profit by selling it at retail or close to prices.
If you ever lose your copy of your recovery disk, the only choices you have is to go buy it retail at a store or contact the PC manufacturer and buy a retail liscense from them...
Azure where can you show that retail companies (like Gamefly or Redbox) are buying their games from the publishers at retail cost? PC manufacturers like Dell and HP do not buy copies of Windows OS at retail cost, they get it at wholesale (which their cost is not disclosed) then use that as a way to maximize their profit by selling it at retail or close to prices.
If you ever lose your copy of your recovery disk, the only choices you have is to go buy it retail at a store or contact the PC manufacturer and buy a retail liscense from them...
I have spoken to the customer service department at Gamefly about this issue quite a few times when faced with low availability of very desirable titles and I have been told multiple times that the company buys the titles retail. I honestly can't understand how someone thinks that enabling online sharing at a 1-10 ratio is going to make developers more money than all 10 people having to buy their own copies of the titles, rental, used or retail...the latter obviously favors the developers.
Even if they bought the games at a discount the developers are still making money from those sales than they would if people didn't have the rental/used game option. Face it, without rentals/used games there would be far less gamers than there are now. People simply wouldn't be able to afford the hobby. It's better to get a smaller profit for your product selling it at wholesale than allowing it to sit on the shelves collecting dust. Or forcing someone to buy full retail priced games and only be able to buy one every few months instead of Gamefly/Redbox buying thousands of copies of every game that is released. Ever plunk down $60 dollars for a title, get it home and it's garbage?Yeah me too...and I would much rather not end up with another Superman 64.
Again, if you don't like the fact Microsoft took away the family share option, don't buy it. Cancel your preorder and vote with your wallet like the rest of us did.
Again, if you don't like the fact Microsoft took away the family share option, don't buy it. Cancel your preorder and vote with your wallet like the rest of us did.
That's not quite correct. You don't vote with your wallet by pre-ordering. It shows intent but no cash exchange occurs. It's an extremely volitile voting system. People who voted no to pre-ordering an XB1 for any reason should now show some real fortitude by continuing to vote no. The smartest choice is to hold off until just after official release.
Again, if you don't like the fact Microsoft took away the family share option, don't buy it. Cancel your preorder and vote with your wallet like the rest of us did.
That's not quite correct. You don't vote with your wallet by pre-ordering. It shows intent but no cash exchange occurs. It's an extremely volitile voting system. People who voted no to pre-ordering an XB1 for any reason should now show some real fortitude by continuing to vote no. The smartest choice is to hold off until just after official release.
I'm still not buying an Xbone or a PS4. This is mostly due to the fact that I've lost interest in consoles about 2 years ago, if you remember my moan-blogs at the time. I've seriously considered buying in on one of the two systems, but the climate would have seen me in the PS4 camp if I hadn't come to the conclusion that staying with the PC is ultimately the better option.
Cash on hand has actually very little to do with it. If I want to buy a donner-kebab with my last three €, I'm going to buy a donner-kebab and screw the wise things I could've bought instead. For me, all that matters is the fun me, myself and I will get from a gaming-purchase. Both the Xbone and the PS4 have precious little to offer if you compare that to a gaming-pc with a Steam/Origin/Square Store (In order of importance and features) configuration. Exclusive titles never really turned my opinion to one company or the other, nor did that ever make me feel that I had made the right choice in platforms. Eventually, those games become available universally anyway, so what's the point in having a console-exclusive other than showing that you can piss further than the other guys? Yeah, that's right. There's no point.
If you guys really want progress, I advise a PC with Steam. Opt in on the Beta-plan and be a front-runner in everything you feel that was stolen from you by the unwashed masses. Unless you people suddenly feel that progress isn't worth it anymore if that's what it takes.
But if I buy a used game from a shop or friend the developers get no money?
I don't know how big the rental market is in the USA but here in the UK it is now almost none existence the only rental company is in liquidation.
So the only money developers are making in the UK is when an individual buys the game retail.
But if this drm turn around thing works for more people I suppose the devs will still make money as there will be more X1 players
I see the digital share/10 friends thing similar to the rental situation for generating money for developers. And I'm not sure, but I've seen no one mention it yet. Quite weird.
People see a new title and go out and rent it first and then IF they like it, they go buy themselves a copy...(what a concept) now play along and listen...
Under what WAS proposed, 1 bought and 10 shared a slot on a list that ONLY ONE could occupy at any given moment. So yeah OWNER and ONE ON LIST could play multiplayer, but all 10 had a shot at giving it a look over, but only ONE AT A TIME, and if it's a good MP they're gonna get their own copy for unrestricted access anyway.
The shared friends list had the potential to put a copy in many many hands and if it was good enough, generate a lot of sales from where I sit without a rental fee...
And of course it would have cut way down on the used market raping the customer while NOT contributing to the developers at all...
If indeed this was all done based on projected lost sales, how far fetched is a cut in price?
More likely to be package deals at the same price but sooner than normal. Digital downloads may be introduced with a $1 reduction for example or more than likely include in-game bonus content that isn't on the disc. It'll be things that the big retailers won't gripe about intil it is too fucking late for them to do anything.
this 1-10 strawman isn't true. You're only going to play games you're interested in playing. I don't care if a friend of mine shares a sports game - I'm not going to even try it. You wouldn't be playing more games than you would already have playing used or rented. And neither of those options give MS or devs any more money as it is. Not to mention only one person of the 10 could have been using the share at a time.
In the US we still have a couple small video stores that rent games, but our two biggest game renters are Red Box and Gamefly. Red Box is a vending machine that you rent games or movies from, and Gamefly is a mail order rental service; you list games you want to rent indefinitely and as they become available you receive one from your list at a time until you mail it back. Its exactly like Netflix, if you guys have Netflix over there. We also have the occasional Blockbuster to rent from, too. Game rentals are a portion of the game market, and statistics show gamers who rent first are more likely to buy later, than ones who buy on a whim.
In the US we still have a couple small video stores that rent games, but our two biggest game renters are Red Box and Gamefly. Red Box is a vending machine that you rent games or movies from, and Gamefly is a mail order rental service; you list games you want to rent indefinitely and as they become available you receive one from your list at a time until you mail it back. Its exactly like Netflix, if you guys have Netflix over there. We also have the occasional Blockbuster to rent from, too. Game rentals are a portion of the game market, and statistics show gamers who rent first are more likely to buy later, than ones who buy on a whim.
In the US we still have a couple small video stores that rent games, but our two biggest game renters are Red Box and Gamefly. Red Box is a vending machine that you rent games or movies from, and Gamefly is a mail order rental service; you list games you want to rent indefinitely and as they become available you receive one from your list at a time until you mail it back. Its exactly like Netflix, if you guys have Netflix over there. We also have the occasional Blockbuster to rent from, too. Game rentals are a portion of the game market, and statistics show gamers who rent first are more likely to buy later, than ones who buy on a whim.
Do they?
I know for this family it's true. We have been members of Gamefly since 2004 and have been buying our games from them unless it was a title that we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt we would love or wanted the collector's edition of.
We've bought well over 100 titles from Gamefly in the last 9 years and without being able to try before we buy, it would have not even been half that number. Hell the last 3 Christmases for my son were almost completely Gamefly purchases. So for us, yes we are much more likely to buy if we can rent first.
buying titles from Gamefly that have been bought and rented out to hundreds of people first isn't doing the devs any favors. When you buy from them you're not buying a new retail copy, so it's pretty moot other than the first sale. It's the same to the devs if you had just stolen the disc from someone.
buying titles from Gamefly that have been bought and rented out to hundreds of people first isn't doing the devs any favors. When you buy from them you're not buying a new retail copy, so it's pretty moot other than the first sale. It's the same to the devs if you had just stolen the disc from someone.
When I buy "Rented" copies of games from Gamefly, 99% of the time I'm the first and only person who has rented it as I have a 4 game plan and usually get them on launch day. It's a unused RETAIL copy of the game. I get the case, the books and all of the inserts paraphernalia that originally came with it. It isn't a wholesale copy like you get with your PC. If you looked through my collection of games you'd never know the difference, other than the fact that I keep all of the original sleeves in the cases...don't ask me why...couldn't tell ya honestly.
Also, so what if 20 people try it before I buy it. If it were not for Gamefly myself along with MANY others (obviously...I mean..they did change the policy) would never buy the game without being able to rent and try it first. So your argument is that developers will make more money if the rental companies were gone, and never bought the thousands of copies of some games and hundreds of others. Instead just leave them in the warehouse, where I'll eventually buy it because I have no other choices?
Sadly it doesn't work like that bro. If I can't try it and have to shell out 60 bucks for a game, I might buy 5 games a year. Where as with Gamefly I have been known to buy that many in a month. Again I stress, obviously I'm far from the only one.
buying titles from Gamefly that have been bought and rented out to hundreds of people first isn't doing the devs any favors. When you buy from them you're not buying a new retail copy, so it's pretty moot other than the first sale. It's the same to the devs if you had just stolen the disc from someone.
You're an idiot.
If I buy from the rental company they replace it. A disc bought.
If I rent and then buy from Wal-mart, gee, it's still another disc bought.
YOu really should THINK before yyou knee jerk refute for your jollies...
buying titles from Gamefly that have been bought and rented out to hundreds of people first isn't doing the devs any favors. When you buy from them you're not buying a new retail copy, so it's pretty moot other than the first sale. It's the same to the devs if you had just stolen the disc from someone.
You're an idiot.
If I buy from the rental company they replace it. A disc bought.
If I rent and then buy from Wal-mart, gee, it's still another disc bought.
YOu really should THINK before yyou knee jerk refute for your jollies...
Ignore list is getting longer...
In the future, please just ignore without telling folks they're on the list. Same thing here, guys: let's keep it clean. The kitten might get punched soon.
buying titles from Gamefly that have been bought and rented out to hundreds of people first isn't doing the devs any favors. When you buy from them you're not buying a new retail copy, so it's pretty moot other than the first sale. It's the same to the devs if you had just stolen the disc from someone.
You're an idiot.
If I buy from the rental company they replace it. A disc bought.
If I rent and then buy from Wal-mart, gee, it's still another disc bought.
YOu really should THINK before yyou knee jerk refute for your jollies...
Ignore list is getting longer...
In the future, please just ignore without telling folks they're on the list. Same thing here, guys: let's keep it clean. The kitten might get punched soon.
buying titles from Gamefly that have been bought and rented out to hundreds of people first isn't doing the devs any favors. When you buy from them you're not buying a new retail copy, so it's pretty moot other than the first sale. It's the same to the devs if you had just stolen the disc from someone.
If I buy from the rental company they replace it. A disc bought.
If I rent and then buy from Wal-mart, gee, it's still another disc bought.
It's no different than if you tried Halo 5 on your friend's share, and then bought. It's a zero change for them. Except in the mean time Gamefly gets a subscription fee.
buying titles from Gamefly that have been bought and rented out to hundreds of people first isn't doing the devs any favors. When you buy from them you're not buying a new retail copy, so it's pretty moot other than the first sale. It's the same to the devs if you had just stolen the disc from someone.
If I buy from the rental company they replace it. A disc bought.
If I rent and then buy from Wal-mart, gee, it's still another disc bought.
It's no different than if you tried Halo 5 on your friend's share, and then bought. It's a zero change for them. Except in the mean time Gamefly gets a subscription fee.
So NOW, you don't even bother to read your own arguement, you just plow forward?
If gamefly buys a copy, that's one, I rent it and like it, and then I buy a copy, from them, Wla-mart, or Freaking microsoft store, that's copy number two bought. And YES, even if I buy it from gamefly, they REPLACE it and it's STILL copy number two bought.
You're a damn troll, who's only apparent reason for existence is to post links, and argue your position, except when you don't wanna bother with your own quoted comments, but keep going anyway. And you had the nerve earlier to ask someone if THEY read the article. Wow!
Hmm, no Challenger here, I do own a Dodge though...and two Jeeps, and a Ford, and three Harley's
Except in the mean time Gamefly gets a subscription fee.
Oh no! You mean we're creating jobs....like the ones in the Gamefly warehouse here in my hometown?!?!? WOW what the hell was I thinking!?!?!?
Holy hamburgers Shadow....I mean seriously. You have not offered a single reason for not having a rental/used game market other than you buy your games digitally and think that everyone else should too and that it somehow takes money from the developers hands when rental companies are buying copies of the games by the ass load.
Instead of bitching and moaning about the second hand/rental market that has actually increased sales, what the devs need to do is fix how they go about making games. Instead of hiring 100's of coders to work on the game only to lay 99% of them off after the game launches. Just look at Trion the makers of Rift and Defiance for example who laid off the bulk of the work force since once the game was designed and released, they didn't need hundreds of high earning developers to run maintenance on the servers and work on expansions.
The industry itself is the problem and biting the hand that feeds it will not solve anything.
Oh no! You mean we're creating jobs....like the ones in the Gamefly warehouse here in my hometown?!?!? WOW what the hell was I thinking!?!?!?
Hate to say it but this industry, the used games and rentals, are going to die unless they innovate and change. It is the way of the future. People can fight against it but we are moving away from the physical to the digital. The music industry has done this. The publishing industry is well on its way. Even college text books are moving to an online digital format. Gamefly could become the Netflix of gaming. You can get a digital copy of the game but not immediately at release. Maybe many months after release. And if they want to be able to offer these games they have to work out deal with the publishers of those games. I personally don't buy a ton of games but when I do I buy a new copy just because I want to support the developer. If I don't like the price I just wait until the price drops and then buy.
I thought what MS was doing was trying to move the industry forward. It was probably to big of leap too soon. It doesn't matter because eventually we will pulled in to this new reality. Maybe not in 6 months but probably in the near future.
I thought what MS was doing was trying to move the industry forward. It was probably to big of leap too soon. It doesn't matter because eventually we will pulled in to this new reality. Maybe not in 6 months but probably in the near future.
Sadly it most likely will happen, because as is apparent in most of these responses most simply don't understand the industries that are being destroyed for sheer laziness. Nor, does anyone seem to care. They must be evil corporations, because they make money off of used games! OH NOES!!!!!
Forget that people actually support families working at these places. Fuck them, the developers who hire hundreds of overworked underpaid code monkeys only to fire them upon the game's completion deserve that money!!! I mean they only got the money for the product off of the initial sale....why shouldn't they get a cut every time it's sold!?!?! I mean...that's their game dammit!!!
Seriously people....I mean...*sigh*. Doesn't matter anyway, I'm just crazy and will get flamed/ignored anyway. I am honestly starting to wonder why the hell I bother responding/posting at all.
As I said many times, if it were not for the DRM and 24 hour check up I would buy a Xbone. We preordered ours about an hour ago, day one edition.I voted with my dollars, Microsoft listened and now we're going to have both consoles on launch day.
That being said, nothing is stopping anyone from going fully digital and not having to deal with discs. From what I have read, all of the games on the Xbone will be offered via digital download as well as on discs. So if you don't want a disc, don't buy one. There's no reason either side should be trying to force their desired format on the other. Now collectors and digital enthusiasts should both be happy.
Also, there is no reason that the Xbox cannot have the family share plan with digital titles.
It's not simple. They took it off at the expense of their best features.
Discs now have the advantage, again. No one's going to buy digital if they can't sell them AND can't share them. Family share was the incentive. Now that it's gone - if there's a possibility one of my friends might want to play a game, I'm buying a disc. So that loses devs money if I buy used, or rent a game instead of buying digital to share.
How is being able to share digital copies of games helping the developers? If anything it's preventing more people from buying their games. And for that matter, how is allowing discs preventing Microsoft from allowing all digitally downloaded content to be shared in the "Family plan"? Or use of the cloud for larger gaming worlds?!?
If you're playing a game and your buddy wants to play it with you, he has to go out and buy the game or download it digitally. Which also makes the developers money.
If you rent the game from Gamefly or Redbox, they buy those games just like you normally would. This does not take money away from the developers. In fact, in this economy when most people can't shell out 59.99 every time a new game comes out, Gamefly and Redbox are the only way some of your friends may ever get to play with you at all. In my family's case, we usually buy what we rent, which is quite popular and many I spoke to have said they would have never bought the title without renting it first. So, how exactly are the developers losing money when Redbox alone is buying multiple copies of the games to fill their over 38k kiosks?
Honestly it sounds to me that the people bitching about losing the shared library are angry that they are going to have to actually buy all of the games they want to play, instead of 1 out of 10 in your "Family" having to buy it and the rest of them leeching off of him.
Close....We're a 2 box household. So we buy several games twice - all MP that we play together. And some single player games where we can't agree on who will wait to get their turn.
I was looking forward to not having to do that. I wouldn't exactly call that "leeching" but...your words. *shrug*
I can share my kindle books with my family and I can share my iTunes with my family. I felt like the XB family share plan was akin to those types of features.
I was under the impression that multiplayer wouldn't be able to be shared. As for single player in the same house, we're a multibox house as well and it's as simple as handing my son,daughter,wife the disc.
Not my words, been used quite a bit when talking about the share plan. I don't see any reason why they have to disable the share plan for digital titles. Honestly there's no reason for it. Digitally downloaded games will follow the same format they would have under the shared plan, they know you own them and they cannot be resold. To me it seems like Microsoft 's cancelation of the family share plan is the same as them taking their ball and going home. Since people didn't want the draconian DRM they wont give you the shiny new feature they attempted to use to obfuscate the cash grab.
Again I think that there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to share your digitally downloaded games with your family as promised. PS3 users have been able to do this for well over a year now. At first it was with 5 other PS3's now it's with 2.I really don't understand why people are acting like this feature was anything new, and why Sony didn't slam Microsoft over thier claims on being the console of the "Future".
There's no ownership issues with digital downloads, even though it does screw the developers out of the cash they have been bitching about for years now. Seriously the family share plan would have taken ten times the amount out of the developers pockets than the used game markets ever did. I wouldn't at all be suprised if that's the real reason behind the turn around.
http://www.dorkly.com/article/52521/don-mattricks-first-draft-of-the-xbo...
I needed that.
It was already said that multi player games/co-op games could be shared with 2 people playing based on the dev's choices. I suppose the point is moot now but, honestly this is a huge step back and I'm really sad to see MS cave in the sight of progression. Without online checks you can't have the family sharing or online librarys.
Even more sad is that devs suffer to reap the benefits of the used game market while places like Gamestop bend you over and give you $7 for a game that costs you $60 a few months before. Either way, the console market clearly wasn't ready for the world of Steam or digital distribution. At least not in the full blown way MS was aiming for.
New ideas and change are stupid. It's easier to cast things aside before even seeing it in action I guess. So yeah, we're now left with 2 systems that are nearly identical with one another. PSXBOX4ONE.
/shrug
Azure where can you show that retail companies (like Gamefly or Redbox) are buying their games from the publishers at retail cost? PC manufacturers like Dell and HP do not buy copies of Windows OS at retail cost, they get it at wholesale (which their cost is not disclosed) then use that as a way to maximize their profit by selling it at retail or close to prices.
If you ever lose your copy of your recovery disk, the only choices you have is to go buy it retail at a store or contact the PC manufacturer and buy a retail liscense from them...
I have spoken to the customer service department at Gamefly about this issue quite a few times when faced with low availability of very desirable titles and I have been told multiple times that the company buys the titles retail. I honestly can't understand how someone thinks that enabling online sharing at a 1-10 ratio is going to make developers more money than all 10 people having to buy their own copies of the titles, rental, used or retail...the latter obviously favors the developers.
Even if they bought the games at a discount the developers are still making money from those sales than they would if people didn't have the rental/used game option. Face it, without rentals/used games there would be far less gamers than there are now. People simply wouldn't be able to afford the hobby. It's better to get a smaller profit for your product selling it at wholesale than allowing it to sit on the shelves collecting dust. Or forcing someone to buy full retail priced games and only be able to buy one every few months instead of Gamefly/Redbox buying thousands of copies of every game that is released. Ever plunk down $60 dollars for a title, get it home and it's garbage?Yeah me too...and I would much rather not end up with another Superman 64.
Again, if you don't like the fact Microsoft took away the family share option, don't buy it. Cancel your preorder and vote with your wallet like the rest of us did.
I'm still not buying an Xbone or a PS4. This is mostly due to the fact that I've lost interest in consoles about 2 years ago, if you remember my moan-blogs at the time. I've seriously considered buying in on one of the two systems, but the climate would have seen me in the PS4 camp if I hadn't come to the conclusion that staying with the PC is ultimately the better option.
Cash on hand has actually very little to do with it. If I want to buy a donner-kebab with my last three €, I'm going to buy a donner-kebab and screw the wise things I could've bought instead. For me, all that matters is the fun me, myself and I will get from a gaming-purchase. Both the Xbone and the PS4 have precious little to offer if you compare that to a gaming-pc with a Steam/Origin/Square Store (In order of importance and features) configuration. Exclusive titles never really turned my opinion to one company or the other, nor did that ever make me feel that I had made the right choice in platforms. Eventually, those games become available universally anyway, so what's the point in having a console-exclusive other than showing that you can piss further than the other guys? Yeah, that's right. There's no point.
If you guys really want progress, I advise a PC with Steam. Opt in on the Beta-plan and be a front-runner in everything you feel that was stolen from you by the unwashed masses. Unless you people suddenly feel that progress isn't worth it anymore if that's what it takes.
I see the digital share/10 friends thing similar to the rental situation for generating money for developers. And I'm not sure, but I've seen no one mention it yet. Quite weird.
People see a new title and go out and rent it first and then IF they like it, they go buy themselves a copy...(what a concept) now play along and listen...
Under what WAS proposed, 1 bought and 10 shared a slot on a list that ONLY ONE could occupy at any given moment. So yeah OWNER and ONE ON LIST could play multiplayer, but all 10 had a shot at giving it a look over, but only ONE AT A TIME, and if it's a good MP they're gonna get their own copy for unrestricted access anyway.
The shared friends list had the potential to put a copy in many many hands and if it was good enough, generate a lot of sales from where I sit without a rental fee...
And of course it would have cut way down on the used market raping the customer while NOT contributing to the developers at all...
SO, who's benefiting now?
If indeed this was all done based on projected lost sales, how far fetched is a cut in price?
this 1-10 strawman isn't true. You're only going to play games you're interested in playing. I don't care if a friend of mine shares a sports game - I'm not going to even try it. You wouldn't be playing more games than you would already have playing used or rented. And neither of those options give MS or devs any more money as it is. Not to mention only one person of the 10 could have been using the share at a time.
Do they?
I know for this family it's true. We have been members of Gamefly since 2004 and have been buying our games from them unless it was a title that we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt we would love or wanted the collector's edition of.
We've bought well over 100 titles from Gamefly in the last 9 years and without being able to try before we buy, it would have not even been half that number. Hell the last 3 Christmases for my son were almost completely Gamefly purchases. So for us, yes we are much more likely to buy if we can rent first.
buying titles from Gamefly that have been bought and rented out to hundreds of people first isn't doing the devs any favors. When you buy from them you're not buying a new retail copy, so it's pretty moot other than the first sale. It's the same to the devs if you had just stolen the disc from someone.
When I buy "Rented" copies of games from Gamefly, 99% of the time I'm the first and only person who has rented it as I have a 4 game plan and usually get them on launch day. It's a unused RETAIL copy of the game. I get the case, the books and all of the inserts paraphernalia that originally came with it. It isn't a wholesale copy like you get with your PC. If you looked through my collection of games you'd never know the difference, other than the fact that I keep all of the original sleeves in the cases...don't ask me why...couldn't tell ya honestly.
Also, so what if 20 people try it before I buy it. If it were not for Gamefly myself along with MANY others (obviously...I mean..they did change the policy) would never buy the game without being able to rent and try it first. So your argument is that developers will make more money if the rental companies were gone, and never bought the thousands of copies of some games and hundreds of others. Instead just leave them in the warehouse, where I'll eventually buy it because I have no other choices?
Sadly it doesn't work like that bro. If I can't try it and have to shell out 60 bucks for a game, I might buy 5 games a year. Where as with Gamefly I have been known to buy that many in a month. Again I stress, obviously I'm far from the only one.
You're an idiot.
If I buy from the rental company they replace it. A disc bought.
If I rent and then buy from Wal-mart, gee, it's still another disc bought.
YOu really should THINK before yyou knee jerk refute for your jollies...
Ignore list is getting longer...
In the future, please just ignore without telling folks they're on the list. Same thing here, guys: let's keep it clean. The kitten might get punched soon.
It's no different than if you tried Halo 5 on your friend's share, and then bought. It's a zero change for them. Except in the mean time Gamefly gets a subscription fee.
So NOW, you don't even bother to read your own arguement, you just plow forward?
If gamefly buys a copy, that's one, I rent it and like it, and then I buy a copy, from them, Wla-mart, or Freaking microsoft store, that's copy number two bought. And YES, even if I buy it from gamefly, they REPLACE it and it's STILL copy number two bought.
You're a damn troll, who's only apparent reason for existence is to post links, and argue your position, except when you don't wanna bother with your own quoted comments, but keep going anyway. And you had the nerve earlier to ask someone if THEY read the article. Wow!
Hmm, no Challenger here, I do own a Dodge though...and two Jeeps, and a Ford, and three Harley's
Oh no! You mean we're creating jobs....like the ones in the Gamefly warehouse here in my hometown?!?!? WOW what the hell was I thinking!?!?!?
Holy hamburgers Shadow....I mean seriously. You have not offered a single reason for not having a rental/used game market other than you buy your games digitally and think that everyone else should too and that it somehow takes money from the developers hands when rental companies are buying copies of the games by the ass load.
Instead of bitching and moaning about the second hand/rental market that has actually increased sales, what the devs need to do is fix how they go about making games. Instead of hiring 100's of coders to work on the game only to lay 99% of them off after the game launches. Just look at Trion the makers of Rift and Defiance for example who laid off the bulk of the work force since once the game was designed and released, they didn't need hundreds of high earning developers to run maintenance on the servers and work on expansions.
The industry itself is the problem and biting the hand that feeds it will not solve anything.
Hate to say it but this industry, the used games and rentals, are going to die unless they innovate and change. It is the way of the future. People can fight against it but we are moving away from the physical to the digital. The music industry has done this. The publishing industry is well on its way. Even college text books are moving to an online digital format. Gamefly could become the Netflix of gaming. You can get a digital copy of the game but not immediately at release. Maybe many months after release. And if they want to be able to offer these games they have to work out deal with the publishers of those games. I personally don't buy a ton of games but when I do I buy a new copy just because I want to support the developer. If I don't like the price I just wait until the price drops and then buy.
I thought what MS was doing was trying to move the industry forward. It was probably to big of leap too soon. It doesn't matter because eventually we will pulled in to this new reality. Maybe not in 6 months but probably in the near future.
Sadly it most likely will happen, because as is apparent in most of these responses most simply don't understand the industries that are being destroyed for sheer laziness. Nor, does anyone seem to care. They must be evil corporations, because they make money off of used games! OH NOES!!!!!
Forget that people actually support families working at these places. Fuck them, the developers who hire hundreds of overworked underpaid code monkeys only to fire them upon the game's completion deserve that money!!! I mean they only got the money for the product off of the initial sale....why shouldn't they get a cut every time it's sold!?!?! I mean...that's their game dammit!!!
Seriously people....I mean...*sigh*. Doesn't matter anyway, I'm just crazy and will get flamed/ignored anyway. I am honestly starting to wonder why the hell I bother responding/posting at all.