Do you think reseller sites (such as G2A) have a negative impact on developers?
No because Steam is a DRM so the only source the game commes from are the devs itself so if they sell the game to cheap is it simple a missunderstanding from the market. Basicly every market works like this i dont understand why games should be different there
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, I kind of understand what you mean but I don't think every market work like that. You don't even got to go too far to find an example. Take the retail games being reselled. I buy the game, I play the game and I sell it to another person. Two users would be playing the same game, while the developer got his money for one selled copy. That's kind of a negative impact on him, or at leats, a more obvious one.
It dones't apply to digital games since only one user would actually enjoy the key (I mean, DRM keys).
Comment has been collapsed.
yeah but we talk about steam , origin or Uplay Keys or? The resellers dont sell Hardcopys so because of the DRM i dont see a problem there the dev recived the money he wantet , so its the devs fail if he want more money at the end. DayZ is a good example they have absolut no problems with resellers because they dont sell the game cheap
Comment has been collapsed.
But you forget, the second one would never have bought it anyway. So it doesn't have a negative impact. But it might trigger, if he/she enjoys the game, to buy the next release.
And you get money, you might spend on an other game. That you otherwise wouldn't have.
So it's not that obvious what the impacts are.
Comment has been collapsed.
"Family Share" << It is there on steam it works pretty much the same as giving the game to your friend after you complete playing it.. well even better you can keep the game in both accounts but you can't play the games on two accounts at the same time, i find it as the same idea, so i don't think that it would give a negative impact if he is fine with it :/
Comment has been collapsed.
This isn't really the same in my opinion. If family share isn't there, people can just use one pc for gaming for the entire family, since you can't play games at the same time anyway. If you buy a game and then sell it to someone else, it's different then allowing for example your brother to play it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, it's more like the one who is buying the game is actually your PC (your account) and not you as a human being. It's like renting a game forever more like actually owning it xD.
Comment has been collapsed.
That's actually true. You buy a license to play the game, but you don't own it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well i was talking about re-giving the game not re-selling it but if we are talking about reselling the games , Just ask yourself this question where do the codes come from ... ? The devs ofc , so it doesn't have any negative impact since the sellers have bought it for the price that The devs has put ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
Maybe the poll should have had more options. The devs (publishers, actually) use bundles to get visibility and some revenue. Ideally though, they would like to control the availability of those bundle sales both in terms of time and quantity. Resellers (and trade, to a lesser degree) break that mechanism. That's the core of the issue, the way I see it. Should publishers have absolute control over those keys? Frankly, I don't think so. Would such control allow better bundles? Probably. But the bundle model's sustainability in the long term is questionable, anyway.
Comment has been collapsed.
I agree, but if I'm not wrong when a game gets bundled it has the authorization of the developer (right?). So, having a negative impact on the developer or not... that's something he/they kind of chose before.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, the bundle websites contacts the devs and pay them upfront for the keys. So I'm pretty sure the devs (or the publisher at least, that in this case owns the rights of this sorta of things) knows about it and gave the authorization.
Comment has been collapsed.
I would refer to publishers rather then devs, even though they're often the same entity with indie games. This said, yes, bundles are regulated by contracts and money always changes hands. My point is publishers entering bundles wish such bundles wouldn't create a big supply of cheap keys that potentially lasts for years and generates no additional revenue for them.
Let's say a pub sells beer for 4€. They decide to have a Friday night where beer is just 1€. Lots of people will come, some will become new customers, some will come back with their friends, some will realized they really like the beer or the place or the bartender...
The pub would generate income, but probably operate at a loss for that night. It might still be very well worth it all in all.
Now imagine that some of the people who show up on that night managed to stock up a lot of beer and hung outside that pub selling the same beer for 2€, making that 1€ of profit for themselves. The pub manager wouldn't be so happy, would he? He probably wouldn't run the one night special if he knew this would happen. But is there anything inherently illegal or wrong in buying beer, saving it and reselling it at a prremium to willing buyers? Hard to say there is.
I'm not taking sides here, but I think this explains the publishers/devs' perspective on this issue.
Comment has been collapsed.
in all honesty if the developer sells a key for any reason, the end user pays money, those keys shouldn't be in any danger of getting revoked. That's kind of goes against consumer protection laws in almost any area of the world which tries to protect their consumers.. It would be like someone selling you a product you haven't used, then coming into your home and taking back that product because you haven't used it.
Stolen keys, or ones bought using stolen credit cards should be fully revoked, those bought legally from a bundle site should no for any reason.
Any dev that thinks it's a good idea to scam their customers this way deserves to cease their operations.
Also this question you ask has a wide spectrum of smaller issues.. Ultimately G2A isn't really a good site in that it easily allows people to buy and sell stolen keys or keys purchased with stolen credit cards
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes, it's pretty clear that buying and selling games with stolen keys/credit cards are bad for developers. All those games should be revoked. What I am asking here is the impact of the games sold under "normal" circumstances: Someone bought the game with his own money, and now decides to sell it to another person through any reseller site. I see no harm in that, but some developers are complaining about that having a negative impact too.
Comment has been collapsed.
if someone already legally purchased the game, they should have a right to do whatever they want with the game.
legally selling the game (not talking about buying russian keys for pennies on the dollar) and then revoking that game later on just because, is wrong, even invalidating the key is wrong, and I'm pretty certain it's illegal.. It's one thing to invalidate keys which were sent to a bundle site but never purchased, it's something completely different to invalid keys which someone legally purchased.
If this becomes wide spread I could see some lawsuits coming about, since it's illegal and violates numerous consumer protection laws.
Comment has been collapsed.
Someone buys a key using a stolen credit card, sells the key on a reseller site, and someone else buys it "legitimately" from there. The real owner of the card disputes the charges, gets the transaction reversed, and steam cancels the key. Everyone loses out there, except the thief, who is "out of the loop" thanks to the reseller site...
http://blog.indiegamestand.com/featured-articles/steam-key-reselling-killing-little-guys/
Personally, I think another problem is the profiteering and devaluation of keys/games by people who split bundles to sell/give away, or obtain games only to get cards to sell...
Comment has been collapsed.
I think the devaluation comes from the developer agreeing to bundle the game for 5c profit.
Comment has been collapsed.
The devaluation comes from people buying the bundles in massive quantities in order to resell. Effectively turning a temporary discount into a permanent reduction of base value.
Comment has been collapsed.
It's still the developers decision. They and the bundler set the price. The 3rd party just buys whats on offer and believes it is under valued.
It's a free market. If the developer wants to sell it for 5c they can't be annoyed when people buy it. Once they've brought it. It's there's to do what they like with.
Unless of course the developer wants to stipulate an expiry date. But that needs to be advertised before the sale not after as it obviously changes the value of the purchase.
Comment has been collapsed.
Unless of course the developer wants to stipulate an expiry date
Which is exactly what a bundle is? A limited time offer at a super low price.
Comment has been collapsed.
well I said LEGALLY, buying a game with a stolen credit card isn't legal and should very well see that game be invalidated or revoked, buying a game from a legit source, using a legal payment method should never see the keys get invalidated or revoked.
As for the profiteering and devaluation.. most bundle sites have a limit on the amount of bundles one person can buy, think it's like 30 bundles or something like that (with Indie Gala) Also the Developer knows fully well what they are in store for when putting their game on a bundle site.
So if they don't want people buying to sell or trade later, they shouldn't bundle the game. Certainly shouldn't revoke or make expired keys which were legally purchased. That's shady and I'm pretty sure against the law, as a person paid for a product they were never allowed to use. I'm not sure on the exact language but I'll suspect a developer intentionally revoking and invalidating keys which were legally purchased can bring about a lawsuit or at the very least some BBB complaints against the developer.
If it becomes wide spread enough I can very well see some legal ramifications coming about..
Comment has been collapsed.
Not one of those things one decides by their gut feeling ... statistics +
case studies on concrete examples or the damage "never happened".
Comment has been collapsed.
Love it that in the article you linked they mention pages like shop.ubi.com as seller but they don't dare to put Steam on it :D So G2A can be the top :P
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, because, what's steam? Nobody knows Steam!! xD
Comment has been collapsed.
Many people, including me don't have the luck to live in a country where income is that great that you can buy games full priced. If there were no bundles, or steam sales, I could not afford to buy games for all the games I would like to support. Piracy is not an option. G2A, and sites like that allow me, and others with low income to buy games that we like,and still support the developer, but much closer to a price range that can be afforded by our wallet. No, I'm not a cheapskate, thank you. If my income would be better (living in a country where a normal wage allows for buying games full priced) then I would not use these sites. Just my 2 cents in the discussion :)
Comment has been collapsed.
I understand you soooo much... What really "has an impact" is setting the same region for countries with different minimum wages (and the differences can be really big.. Take Spain where I am: About 750€. Take Germany: About 1500€.
Comment has been collapsed.
Shout out to Spain! Went there on my honeymoon (Lloret de Mar), man it was nice. But to stay on topic, sadly, game companies can't have regional pricing, that would take too much trouble and would be quickly a problem for any company trying to invent a system like this. Sales, bundles, and key resells are OK, as long as there is no fraud, or any other bad activities involved.
Comment has been collapsed.
I hope you enjoyed your honeymoon here :D. Spain is a nice place to visit, but not to live. Right now, having that "minimum wage" of 750€ is more like an utopia than any other thing. 0€ in my pocket right now.
Comment has been collapsed.
Still better than Portugal and some other countries. Try living with ~500€ and by yourself, knowing that 250€- 400€ of that money is likely to go into bills/rent. Not including food costs and fuel. It is literally impossible to live with that much money by yourself, you won't have money to buy things you want, you will literally be working for "survival" and have little to no enjoyment over life.
Games here are overpriced, they have the same price tags as countries with good minimum wage. I have a friend who went to France a few months ago and is living there now, he says games there are overall cheaper on release when compared to here, and that the prices are often changed there, which is something we lack here. We have games from like 1-2 years ago nearly at full price. There are Destiny copies without any dlc going for 60€ in stores, which is the same price as buying the legendary edition (literally GOTY edition).
Another example is that he saw the new star wars game there for ps4 at 49.99€ like 1.5 months after release. Game here is still priced 59.99€ or higher, which is BS.
This is one of the main reasons why i buy exclusives only for consoles, most of my purchases go towards pc gaming since its cheaper due to key resellers. I'm really crossing my fingers that console gaming ends soon, i dislike it this generation, previous generation was great, this one is bad which leads me to think that the next one will also be bad. (by console gaming ending i meant, the rivalry, this is cancerous and needs to go away for us to enjoy gaming experience without much worries)
My opinion about key resellers, i really don't mind them. See it like this, with the current looks of the gaming industry, should we really care that some of these developers obtain more money from sales? I don't go eye to eye with this, the gaming industry is cancerous as of late, with very few GOOD examples of gaming developers putting some care into their products and clients. These very few examples of a good gaming industry is what diserves to get more income towards their sales. Greedy ass developers whining about resellers don't diserve crap, which is why i support key resellers for the moment. It's like the lesser of 2 devils, you have the greedy one and the one that sounds like a "thief" who supports the client to some extent by giving them a better deal.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yep, the whole picture is kind of a mess right now. Don't know what is going to happen but I think that, in a few years, we all are going to say "hey, remember those big sales in Steam with games under 5$? Oh, and what about bundles and such? goooood old times".
Anyway, I don't agree with the end of console gaming. If PC (or similar, like Steam Machines and such) is going to rule just like that prepare for an increase in the price of everything related xD.
Comment has been collapsed.
Germany's minimum wage is far less than 1500€. About 1200€ i think. And there are a large crowd who deal with it. There are unregulated jobs areas too which often enough earn less. Rarely an open topic but poverty is spreading in germany too. Its just a much different base to begin with.
Comment has been collapsed.
I was just using the first number I found in google, but yeah, I believe that. Actually, Spain's minimum wage is 655€. The first one was incorrect, sorry. I didn't spend much time checking that xD. Anyway, take the unemployment rate if you want. 5-6% in Germany? 21% or so in Spain. Believe me, you don't want to be here xD.
Comment has been collapsed.
At least those unemployment numbers in Spain are probably more honest than Germany. They use all kind of tricks to muddle the numbers here.
Realistically there are probably 15% unemployed.
http://finanzmarktwelt.de/die-tatsaechliche-arbeitslosenquote-in-deutschland-eine-erwiderung-10749/
Edit:
There's only been a minimum wage in Germany since 2015. Previously companies could pay you next to nothing without fear of repercussions.
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't think it should harm them. Of course there are cases where it is bought using stolen creditcards or something, but if they keys are obtained legally, the devs got paid for the keys. It's not like suddenly there are more copies of the game then that they sold.
Comment has been collapsed.
Those are mostly my thoughts regarding that. I mean, let's say I buy a game for 10$ and let's suppose the developer gets 100% of it, which would be 10$. I decide not to activate it in my account and sell it via G2A for, I don't know, 5$. This third person does the same and sells it for 6$. The fourth one finally activates the key. The developer would have the initial 10$ and only one person would be using the key.
Let's say now I just activate my 10$ game in my account. No reselling. The developer would get 10$ too.
It should be like that, but I get the feeling I'm missing something here (I don't know what it could be) as some developers complain about the system.
Comment has been collapsed.
Except that is hardly how it ever happens. A more realistic example: the game is normally $10, you purchase it for $2 in a limited time bundle (way cheaper than it has ever been in a standard sale), wait for the bundle to expire and then sell the key for $4. The developer never gets $10, they only get your $2. And since this practice has become commonplace, no one ever pays the developer $10 because they can count on resellers always stocking up.
This suddenly devalues the product in a way the developer never intended, as they were originally only sacrificing profit for exposure for a limited time. The grey market removes this time limit and skews the values of games in general.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, your scenario is way more realistic, but you forget something: developer authorized that bundle, and he get 2$ for his 10$ game because he actually wanted it that way. As I said in other comment, that was something he chose before, and the outcome of that decision was under his control.
Put it that way if you want, but he is still getting 2$ (the amount he wanted) and only one person is using that game. No matter if it is your 2$ scenario or the 10$ I wrote. The devaluation of the product happens in any of those cases, ot at least that's what I think.
Comment has been collapsed.
Except for the whole "limited time" thing that I even put in bold text.
Comment has been collapsed.
Then put a specific numbered limit on how many can be sold at that price. Example: 1000 keys. After that, game is full price. If all 1000 keys are bought by resellers legitimately, and someone else buys from the reseller, in the end someone still buys from the Dev (transitive property) , so what harm is there?
Comment has been collapsed.
Then put a specific numbered limit on how many can be sold at that price.
This. And a limit on how many can be bought by one person / IP / CC / PayPal account etc.
Comment has been collapsed.
So here's my question: why think we should be bound by the intentions of sellers? Yes, they intended it to be available for a limited time. But what makes what they intended something I should uphold?
In other situations it seems we wouldn't think it was. For instance, say you found out that the author of your favorite novel intended it not to be read on certain religious holidays (she being very devout). Are you doing something wrong if you use the book when you want? Usually I think we'd say "No. I bought it, and it's now my property to do with as I like, whatever your intentions when selling it to me." I can come up with a whole of other examples.
My point is just that it isn't clear to me why what sellers intend should determine what is moral for purchasers to do. What do you think?
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, your example is flawed. You are comparing a strictly moral argument to a financial one. In your example, reading or not reading on certain days does not affect the author financially. You already paid for their intellectual property, when to use said property is a personal moral choice.
There's no reason to create a separate example in the first place. Your example may seem applicable, but it's a tangential moral quandary. The actual comparison to the topic would be an identical situation of purchasing the author's books in massive quantities during a limited time sale and then devaluing the base price by selling those books under market rate once the sale ends.
"As long as it profits me personally, I don't care about anyone else," is a stance you are perfectly welcome to take. However, don't pretend it isn't a legal grey area and don't be surprised that the majority of a civilized society would disapprove morally. Sure, you got a game cheap today or will make an easy buck reselling tomorrow. But the truth is, grey market trends like this are almost always worse for the consumer in the long term.
Comment has been collapsed.
First, I think you're confused about what I'm doing. I'm not saying the case I presented is anything like the software reselling case. (Look carefully, you'll see I didn't make a claim like that.) I'm presenting it as a counterexample to a principle you seemed to be implicitly appealing to in your reasoning.
The principle is roughly this: if a creator doesn't intend their work to be used in a certain way, then we shouldn't use it in that way.
You may not have intended to rely on that principle. But you looked like you did when you cited as a reason not to do a thing that the creator intends us not to do it and then didn't give any further argument. I made it quite clear that this is what I was addressing: my very first sentence said so ("why think we should be bound by the intentions of sellers?"), and I reiterated it in my second-to-last. My little scenario is a perfectly serviceable counterexample to that principle.
Second, I also never said anything like "As long as it profits me personally, I don't care about anyone else." Nothing I said even suggested that. If you are going to make crude straw men of even your polite interlocutors then we won't be able to have a productive, rational discussion (which would be a shame, as it seems you have some interesting thoughts).
Comment has been collapsed.
It's only straw man to you because, as you admit, we are talking about two different things.
To solely address your question, which you posed to my misinterpreted post, why should we be bound by the intentions of sellers?
There are entire industries devoted to the protection and utilization of intellectual property. Most of the time, by buying a product from an authorized seller, you are agreeing to IP regulations put forth by property bodies and enforced by justice systems. In other instances, you are merely under the governmental laws pertaining to IPs and their respective holders. In those cases it is usually quite clear, you are legally obligated to be bound by the intentions of sellers. Going against said intentions can result in discontinued product support, to court prosecution, or to nothing at all-- it depends case by case.
Today, digital merchandise is still in a "wild west" of sorts, but the details are being hammered out. So the onus is, as you put forth, on personal morality. There is currently little legal recourse in response to this grey market, which is why it is a hot topic at developer conferences. Regulation is being formulated because reselling skews market value and is severely damaging to small developers. The way it affects the market is unprecedented because digital property doesn't have the limitations of physical product reselling (which generally has a small impact on the market at large). So for the time being, it is up to the individual user: profit in the short term vs. cost in the long term. You're free to use or sell a product in any way you want, just as the IP owner is free to defend how their property is used or sold and/or collaborate with other market forces to regulate the market altogether.
Comment has been collapsed.
Umm...no. It's a straw man because it's an inaccurate portrayal of the position I took. That's what a straw man is, regardless of what we're each talking about.
And your answer doesn't seem quite right: where I'm bound by law I'm bound to do what the law says WHETHER OR NOT it's the intention of the seller. The intention of the seller has no role in the reasoning there; I go straight from 'X is illegal' to 'I oughtn't do X' (possibly stopping in the middle to assure myself the law is just). And I know of no law that obliges me to obey creator intention IN GENERAL.
For instance, in the book case, if the seller's intention was that I burn the book when I'm finished with it to prevent there being any secondary market then I'm clearly NOT legally obliged to comply with their wishes. And it isn't clear to me that I am morally obliged to do so either. So it really seems like it's the just laws, not the creator intentions, that are providing the real moral restrictions.
To be clear, this isn't me suggesting we should just do whatever we want, or that the grey market is a great thing. It's me trying to understand your case for it being morally wrong. I'm arguing that creator intention can't be the reason because that doesn't make sense. Here's an alternate suggestion: creator intentions are pretty much irrelevant, but we shouldn't resell discounted games in large numbers because it's unjust.
Comment has been collapsed.
Okay?
In my original post:
This suddenly devalues the product in a way the developer never intended, as they were originally only sacrificing profit for exposure for a limited time. The grey market removes this time limit and skews the values of games in general.
The developer's intention isn't my argument, it's the effect on the market. I think it is financially wrong to support the grey market, as it will cost all consumers in the end. I also believe it is morally wrong to realize this end result and continue to engage in reselling for personal gain (whether through profit or simply buying cheaper games). My only concern about going against a seller's intentions is when it negatively affects the market and consumers in general. In your book example: I am fine if you don't burn the book after reading, but I am against the idea of you reselling it in massive quantities that will disrupt book sales and raise prices and restrictions for other consumers.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ok, that clears some things up for me. Thanks.
So then I wonder this: at what point does arbitrage, or really any sort of reselling economic behavior, cross over the moral threshold into being morally wrong? But we needn't discuss that right now.
Comment has been collapsed.
By the way, I sent you a friend request on Steam. I find it's often easier to have a friendly talk about stuff like this over chat, and I'd like to if you're up for it.
Comment has been collapsed.
why think we should be bound by the intentions of sellers?Because the bundle that you bought these keys on has it's Terms of Use. When purchasing you agreed on them and they do say that keys are for personal use, cannot be resold or used commercially. You agreed on TOS when buying. You are legally bound to fullfill your part of the agreement the same way the store is to fullfill theirs. If you buy a DVD movie, with private licence - is it ok for you to use it in paid rental or to perform public screening with it? By your definitions you should be able to do whatever you like with it - after all you bought it. Heck, why stop on public screening - let's RIP it and upload to PirateBay - it's fine, after all you paid for it - you have right to do so!
Comment has been collapsed.
First, I didn't give a definition of anything. So, pretty clearly, nothing follows "by my definition." I don't know what you're talking about there.
Second, nor did I say anything that implied one could do whatever one wanted with one's property. In fact, if you actually read the above discussion, you'll note I suggest you can't.
You've concocted a position for me out of thin air, friend. So, before you get all worked up, I'd suggest you actually do go read over my convo. with doctorofjournalism.
Comment has been collapsed.
What you're missing is that developers sell games cheaper than the initial $10 on many occasions, or give them away "for free" as hardware promos (actually: provide them to hardware manufacturer for greatly reduced price).
That changes the math to:
Developer puts $10 game on sale at 75% off. You buy game for $2.5. You deecide not to activate it in my account and sell it via G2A for, I don't know, 5$. This third person does the same and sells it for 6$. The fourth one finally activates the key.
Developer sees 2.5$, Middleman 1 (you) sees 2.5$, middleman 2 sees $1, for a total revenue of $6 on the same key.
Developer gets annoyed because they lose $3.5 between supplier (themselves) and consumer (the last guy who finally activates the key).
Edit: beaten by 2 seconds :/ grr.
Comment has been collapsed.
add to calculation that G2A takes big % of middleman profit. So after a few middlemas it looks more like developer who put their time and effort into developing a product sees 2.5$ revenue. Moiddlemans 1-4 who put no effort into the game, just spent few minutes buying it and listing it see 3-4$ profit divided between them, but in total among them still more than 2.5$ seen by dev and G2A who also put no effort into game itself at all see another 3$ profit. In the end people who had nothing to do with working on the product earn 3.times more on it than people who actually invested years of their life into developing it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Eh, I tried to keep things simple by leaving out the middleman-to-the-middlemen that is G2A.
From developer/publisher point of view they don't care that much where the difference between their sell price and the actual consumer's buy price disappears to, just that that difference doesn't end up on their own bank account...
Comment has been collapsed.
The only thing I can imagine is devs not being to sell a game at full or higher than previously sold price.
Let's assume a game costs $10, but was bought (to sell) for $2 during discount and it's not in discount at present.
Someone wants to buy the game now and is not patient to wait for a discount, checks that it's $10. Checks other sites and finds it for $5 from a person who bought it during the sale. Now this guy would think "I am saving 50%" and buys it. In this case, the devs would have got $10 for it but they only managed to make $2.
Two people beat me to it XD
Comment has been collapsed.
It's a flea market, so it won't really hurt them up until a point. When most people buy on the flea market instead of the regular one, then it hurts them a lot, yes. We are not there yet, but since G2A is free to spend a good part of its otherwise almost extortion-level of profits on aggressive marketing and bribing influential internet personalities coughPewdiepiecough it can grow to the point where indies can close the shop or where large ones band together and shut it down (so the grey market can bask in the glory of martyrdom before registering another fake address and starting over under a new name).
Also, don't forget: the one-dollar key bought from G2A? It costs 40 cents to list it and they took another 35 from the sale (it's the minimum cut, otherwise it is 35 cents + percentage), leaving the seller 25% of the money, about 2-5 cents in total profit from the bundle he gut from, where about 10-20 cents of his money went to the developer. So in extremes the developer got 10 cents, the seller got 15, G2A got 75. And I'd just like to point out that Bethesda's and Valve's name were dragged through the mud when they offered the same deal for paid mods.
Comment has been collapsed.
that's the problem here - hypocrisy - when Valve bring out paid mods (not that I was in favor, I was extremelly against it) everyone lose their moind, because it means they will have to pay for something that they used to get for free. And they bring up % argument to justify that the problem they see is not that mods are being paid for but how little developer gets. but at the same time if using G2A or Kinguin means they get to savo money, spend less - they no longer care that it means developer gets much lower % of income because of this. If something is benefiting me personally, it's good no matter how immoral it is. If something is costing me more even oif it's the same thing, it's wrong!
Comment has been collapsed.
Exactly. Same thought process as, "the government should school my kids, police my streets, and put out my fires. But I don't want to pay any damn taxes!"
Comment has been collapsed.
esports =/= everyone
Pewdiepie has a larger viewer base than random DOTA2 teams, particularly among kids. Though that doesn't excuse said teams for publicly being endorsed by shady "businessmen", but that happens in regular sports as well so it was probably unavoidable.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think you underestimate the exposure e-sports provide. It's beyond and above the what 20million subs pewdiepie has?
Comment has been collapsed.
The whole esports scene, yeah, probably. Individual teams exposure though? Not likely.
Comment has been collapsed.
That individual team counts for the whole scene when they play in the dota world championship final (or w/e it's called). Not to mention that g2a probably sponsors all the top 10 teams from every single esports category. I remember seeing parts of the dota championship lat year and I think almost all the teams had g2a logos on their shirts. So yeah esports exposure is way past what pewdiepie provides.
Oh that's probably what I forgot to mention... it's not just random dota teams, it's most of the best teams.
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm not really into watching esports so I'll take your word for it. Still, I find G2A getting support from popular and "mainstream" youtubers such as Pewdiepie pretty alarming.
Comment has been collapsed.
What OriginalMuffin said. Many players and streamers are sponsored by them (they have money to burn, just look at the cut they make on each sell to see where it is from) and in return they expect people to advertise them, like any sponsor does. Not to mention that many sponsored people have their own old ref links that can get you 5% or so discounts.
Comment has been collapsed.
Like I said in my earlier post, they pretty much do the same thing than regular sports teams. Competition and shady practices are sadly often found together. A popular youtuber (maybe the most popular, actually) is a different thing. The viewer base is way wider. It's like a TV show telling housewives to buy their cleaning supplies directly from the russian mafia. If you have more info about this whole Pewdiepie+G2A thing I'd like to hear more about it.
Comment has been collapsed.
No, if they want full price for their game, maybe they should only sell it for full price then.
Comment has been collapsed.
Cool, you have my permission.
But I will regret it later and write an angry blog post about you.
Comment has been collapsed.
Exactly my thoughts. Once they sell a key to someone (no matter for what price), they have done their sale and should not complain anymore. If they want to complain about G2A, they should also not put it in bundles or on sale, since they want to get full price from it.
Comment has been collapsed.
The thing is - at the end, you as the customer lose because of Grey Market sites. The more popular they get the more aware devs/publishers get and less likely they are to offer big sales. Dev/pub may decide to put the game on big sale on Steam for a short amount of time - it boosts the sales, gives some extra money, lure customers into buying other products from franchise, create whispered marketing (you buy game cheaply, tell your friends how awesome it is, they buy it later on on higher price because of your recomendation). The more people use Grey Market sites thou the less likely we'll see big sales.
Hypothethically let's assume everybody on Steam becomes aware of reseller sites. Then after game goes on sale noone ever will buy it again unless it gets at least the same %sale. Everyone will just go to G2A and buy resold games bought during this sale. After each sale devs willl see game no longer selling at all, because everyone buys on G2A, so they decide to never do big sales again. It's ofc hypothethical extreme example, but nonetheless the more people use these sites the smaller normal official sales become. The smaller these become the less likely devs/pubs are to make good sales/promos. We will never ereached the hypothethical scenario, but even middleground cases already hurt us overall. Not to mention obvious case that as a customer you have full protection when buying officially and small or none protection when buying resold copy.
Comment has been collapsed.
That's a really good explanation. But... let's use your example and think further. The moment developers stop doing big sales (in that hypothethical scenario) there would be no more keys to resell on sites like G2A. I mean, we all know most of those games reselled are bought during the sales, so...
Does it mean that buying in reseller sites actually... hurts reseller sites? Should we contact Nolan to film all this???
Comment has been collapsed.
it does but far less that it hurts developers. Developing a reseller platform, good and professional one, hiring support for it, promoting and advertising it costs less than developing a single AAA game. So the game developer invests mucyh more compared to reseller that will not resell just game of this developer/publisher but will resell thousands of titles from hundreds of publishers/devs. Thus reseller risk of being hurt by his actions is way smaller than the risk of single dev/publisher. Even if few of them would stop doing sales - he still have hundreds of others to profit on. And before all of them would stop doing any sales they would all be bankrupt anyway.
Comment has been collapsed.
Got a question for you. Other than physical quantity, what about this differs from physical goods? Kinguin/G2A etc are just like Gamestop or Ebay.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, if for example you resell your copy of your game I can see more clearly the negative impact on the developer: two people (or more) playing the same game while only one paid it. Regarding digital games, only one person (library, whatever) would be able to play the game no matter how many of them resell it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Quite a few differences. Let's take book as counterexample - after book is finished by author he's done with it - it's not like he will be rewriting chapter 7 because people didn't like it. After book is printed it's also done with - picture at page 34 is shitty? too bad, it's already printed. With book as well as most physical goods author and publisher take tim and expenses only prior to release - then they wait for profit and either succeed or not. With game - after the game is finished the work and expenses do not stop. If game features multiplayer it need servers, servers cost money. Game wil be patched several times - so devs continue working as well. In the time person A resells game to B, B to C, C to D - 4 people playing through the game while only one paid for it they all continue to benefit from continuous work and/or expenses of people working on patches, paying for servers, yet only one of them actualy paid these people anything.
Another example, as games nowadays are not physical products but rather licenses - you buy a DVD of Highschool Musical XXV. It's personal-use only DVD - is it ok to feature it in rental service or do public screening of it? No. So why if you buy a game in place that specifically mentions it's for personal use, should not be resold for profit or used commercially - it is ok to resell it?
And another another example ;) Do you think we should allow selling Steam Accounts in Trade Section? It is against TOS to sell accounts, I know, but since it's ok to break Store XYZ TOS sayig that product is for personal and not commercial use or shouldn't be resold, why wouldn't it be ok to break Steam TOS and allow trading Steam Accounts? The game you bought in store is yours - you should be allowed to do with it what you want, you paid for it. The account you are selling is also yours, you paid for the games that are on it, why should you not be able to sell it?
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't think you interpreted my post correctly. I was asking what you thought about the differences between digital and physical games. As NeoJ says above, for physical games, only one copy needs to be bought, then it can be resold a million times at Gamestop or Ebay. I'd argue this is worse than reselling digital games on G2A. At least in that case, one copy is bought, and only one copy can be redeemed.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ahh, ok - well in that case I am also aainst in general - I would not buy in places like GameStop etc (well we don't have GameStop in Poland, but nonetheless). Ofc there are cases when you almost have to buy used copy - old titles that never got digitalized, were not released in years, ran out of stock etc, but going to GameStop to buy a brand new game is imho immoral.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ok, we've talked about all this a lot, but now the real question is: considering we can't clearly see the impact of reselled games on developers, what intentions do they have complaining about this? Why bother that much? Why complain about something that's not having an impact? That's what I really don't understand, and the fact that it is coming from small indie developers far from bigger companies trying to take down a grey market.
Comment has been collapsed.
Who do you think this grey market affects the most?
Comment has been collapsed.
But that's what I can't understand, what's the difference for a developer? Someone bought his game in the official market (I repeat, we are not talking about exploits and stolen credit cards/keys) and the developer got his money from the official market in the first place. What the user does with his key has no effect on the developer (or I just can't see it), the only bad thing that actually happens to him is the fact that someone else is getting profit from his work (which is actually bad and the main reason I don't buy games from resellers), but it's not like the developer is losing money due to it.
Comment has been collapsed.
- Small indie devs are at much higher risk of it happening - much more indie games end up in bundles than AAA games thus much more indie games are accessible cheaply and then being able to be resold for profit.
- Unlike big AAA publishers for many indie devs lost profit may mean their livehood. Big AAA publisher CEO has his salary. He earns it monthly no matter what. He has investors that cover majority of companies investments. If 20% of his games end up in grey market it hurts the company but is not personal for him. Investors will get few % less cut, he gets few % less bonus, but he has to judge whether effort put into fighting it and bad PR of it is worth the losses. Small indie developer invests his own money and his family wellbeing depends on the return of the investment. If 10% of his product purchases end up being bought from grey market the cost is no longer divided between hundreds of employers, all investors etc - it means his family has 20% less money to spend on rent, food, vacations for their kids etc. It becomes his personal loss thus he's much more eager to fight against it.
- A lot of big companies while losing a little bit to grey market also earn thanks to it. Big reseller sites like Kinguin or G2A sponsor things like esport events, esport teams, gaming events and conventions, big streamers, youtubers etc. Indie devs usually don't end up with their games becoming esports, while they are featured in streams and on YT they do not sponsor streamers/YTbers to promote their new products, simply because they don't have enough money to use on marketing, indie games are much less likely to be showcased on big gaming events/trades/conventions etc. So for big publishers while on one hand they suffer because of grey market they also gets money and exposure thanks to it. Indies only suffer and get nothing in return.
Comment has been collapsed.
I understand all that, but not exactly what I am asking. To be in the grey market, someone must have bought his game in the first place from the official market, so, that 10% sales from the grey market you mention was also 10% sales from the official market in the first place. Do you know what I mean? If there are 50 game keys of his game in the grey market, 50 games would have been bought before during a sale or whatever (authorized by the developer).
I'm really stuck and going round in circles right now xD.
Comment has been collapsed.
yes, but let's say you put your game on sale on official market for 18 days per year at 50% sale (let's imagine there's no Valve taking it's cut, just whatever customer pays goes to you for simpler calculations), other days it's at full price. You sell your game for 20$ and on sale day you sell 1000 copies. Without a sale you usually sell 100 copies per day. Without grey market it would mean that in a year you sell 18000 copies of 50% discount game and 34700 copies of 100% sale game. In total it gives 52700 customers that were willing to buy your game in a year time earning you grand total of 874000$. Now imagine everyone on the planet are aware of grey market. Resellers buy enough copies during sales that noone buy your game off-sale. Let's say our grey market site takes 25% of sale price as their profit. You earn 527000$ instead of 874000$ just becauase of your 50% sale. The game is sold on G2A for 12$ and 34700 people who didn't buy game on sales buyit there instead of store/waiting on another sale. G2A or other relseller. Total Value of G2A sales is 416400$, G2A earns 104100$ from their cuts, resellers together earn 312300$ after G2A cuts. All in all not only were your earnings 1/3 smaller because of grey market but also the website that did nothing, dedicated no time at all to develop your game earned 1/5th of your total yearly earnings from your game only. And they continue doing so for hundreds of other games - earning 20-30 times more than you working your ass off developing a game while they in this time do nothing, just be a middleman for your product.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes, it's really unlucky that they can do that, but as he said, the developer already sold those copies and earned money for them. Also, you know who enables gray market? People who buy there. If people stopped doing that those shady markets would die off pretty soon.
And sometimes people forget that some sales would never been made for the full price. And I mean, NEVER.
Example: If I don't have money, I'm not going to buy it until the huge sale, so it's the same for developer to sell it today to person X who will sell it to me later (with a small cut for their service), or to sell it for the same price in 30 days to me, I'm not going to give them more than I have, so they will earn the same amount whoever buys it directly from them. And that's IF I as a player don't simply pirate their game.
(I'm not pirating games nor using those shady websites, so this is just an example)
Comment has been collapsed.
Ofc it's people who enables grey market. But does it mean noone should be doing anything? (Ofc I'm not saying doing stupid things like these hurting fair users, but other things - like stop accepting Grey Market stores as sponsors of teams, esport events or gaming events in general for example). The same way - what enables drug-smugling gangs, mafia that kills thousands of people in blody way in America? Drug Users. Or Drug Laws. If there were no rohibition or noone would be doing drugs - there would be no drug-related organised crime. Does it mean we should let oranised crime do as they please? Because we use argument "wel, people should stop doing drugs, then there will be no drug crime"? I don't think so.
And I totally agree with your futher example - I myself almost never buy AAA games at release for one ;) BUT there's a difference. There are people who will never buy at price XX and there are people who may buy or not at price XX. But if G2A offers the later ones game at 50% of XX they will go there even if otherwise they would be willing to pay full price, but who likes to spend more? This is devaluating the game, the bigger grey market becomes the more devaluated each game becomes after each sale. So from your or mine perspective, people who don't buy on grey market it makes things worse for us, because publishers are less likely to give us this nice sale we are waiting for to purchase XYZ, because this sale will devaluate XYZ.
Comment has been collapsed.
The more i read this thread the more confused i get about this issue.
I read a thread the other day (on NeoGAF i think), where an authorized retailer said that he sold keys directly to G2A. The low prices they get are justified when a pub didn't reach the "necessary" pre-order numbers for a certain region, they sell the game at discount.
Most indie/store are not against G2A itself but the ebay like store it allows; the reason for this is when keys are bought from small stores and a few weeks later a chageback is issued. After this the store has 2 options: either cancel the key or just "ignore it". If they cancel the key they might "hurt" someone that legitly bought the game from the reseller, this action could lead to bad press and as such they avoid this situation. On neoGAF there was a small store where chargebacks cost were like almost 10% of the revenue they earn.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, it's so confusing...and this is just the tip of the iceberg. The whole market is about to change, so many holes.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yet to read everything in this thread, but the answer for me is simply no. If the keys have been purchased legitimately or given out by the developer then I see no reason for anyone to complain. If there is a problem, it's on those who allow them to be obtained at a discounted price or free in the first place.
Additional note: I do not purchase games from grey markets.
Comment has been collapsed.
and as you put it so simply solution from dev perspective should be simple as well - I don't put any games on sale anymore, because when I intend to do a promotional 3day 75% sale I don't intend for my game to be worth 25% of it's price forever. In short run (buying one cheaper copy) it profits you - you bought it for ess monies. In bigger picture - it hurts you, because less and less publishers are willing to give you big sales, feature their good games in bundles etc - because it more and more means not just short period of big exposure, smaller earns, but instead t means short period of big exposure, smaller earns and long perion of no exposure still shitty earns.
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't understand the argument. If you sold 5k keys at X amount, why should it matter if they are used now or 10 years later? You still got paid for those keys in the first place. They are assuming that if someone buys a spare from a reseller/trader than it would be a lost sale, but there is no proof since you cannot show that the person would have bought a copy from the dev at their price.
Just because someone is willing to buy/trade for a game at a certain price does not mean they are willing to buy it from the dev at another.
Comment has been collapsed.
It's not as simple. Let's imagine you're a farmer, you grow potatoes, you usually sell them for 1$/kg, you usually sell 5000 kg/month earning you 5000$ a month. A company comes to you saying hey man - we want to make a potato festival - we will make potato pancakes, french chips, brigh up a lot of tourists, we want to buy 50000 kg of potatoes from you but we will pay just 0.5$ for kg. You sign an agreement that all 50000kg will be used for event purposes, cannot be resold etc. For you, where growing 1kg cost you 0.35$ of samplings + work/equipment etc it's much lower income per 1kg, but overall it means this month you will earn 4 times as much as you would so you agree. But what happens? Itturns out the company only uses 5000 kg for the event and 45000kg is sold to local vendors for 0.45$, they just easilly earned 5k$ on you, but for you it means that for next months you won't be able to sell your potatoes, because all the vendors in the area are selling them for 0.55$, who will pay 1$ for yours then? And they can afford it - after all growing potatoes costed you not only 0.35$ for sapling, but also work of your employers, cost of your equipment, taxes for your land and so on and on. For them it costed them just 0.45$ per kg, no growing cost, so they can afford selling them for 0.55$.
Comment has been collapsed.
"but for you it means that for next months you won't be able to sell your potatoes, because all the vendors in the area are selling them for 0.55$, who will pay 1$ for yours then?"
I think I finally got it. It was all about using potatoes as an example! That makes sense. It's more like the aftermath than the fact itself. That's it, that's what I was looking for and coudln't figure it out by myself. I'll go with this theory.
Comment has been collapsed.
cannot be resold
And there is where I fundamentally disagree with you. While I understand software licenses work in a "rental In Perpetuum" I do not believe that should be the case. If I buy something, I expect to own it indefinitely and not with a bunch of caveats that can be altered at the IP owners whim.
To the rest of your argument, to that I say that it is just bad business on the part of the farmer. If you cannot compete, then that is on you. Lots of peeps believe the "build it and they will come" adage but that is not true. Good is not good enough anymore. Unless you are special snowflake (e.g. Thomas Was Alone, Stardew) you have to face the reality that there are a ton of equally good or even better games out there for someone to buy. If you are unable to sell your average game to the world, that is on you and if you took up bundles as a means of making money, then you must understand the consequences of such actions.
Comment has been collapsed.
If contract says something cannot be resold or used for purposes that will potentially hurt my own business or profit my competition I may decide to agree on much lower price. If on the other hand I know that my potatoes can be sold by local vendors I will not agree on such a low price, instead I will set price that while profitable for ending customer will not be profitable for potential reseller. The reason many devs/publisher agree on bundle promos is that contracts say keys cannot be resold. Otherwise you'd have bundles 2-3 times more expensive, comparable to combined price of featured games going on steam sale. but yeah - then you could argue that I paid I can do whatever I want with my goods.
Comment has been collapsed.
Man, you live in a really nice country. If someone here came to a farmer and offered to buy everything they made, even if they openly told him they are going to re-sell it for a higher price in another town, the farmer would happily accept if he can not transport the goods himself to that town. After all, he+s avoiding the risk of not selling part of the goods and losing profits, or waiting for a month to sell everything and so on. Also, if 0.5 per kg is too little, he can refuse to sell.
Comment has been collapsed.
naah, I just gave it as hypothethical example, not real life one ;) Games luckily are not like potatoes - if you don't sell 100 games this week it doesn't mean all leftovers will rot for example ;p Also selling digital games needs no transportation nor storage - making such a business even more profitable than our hypothethical potato business, because you're taking no costs at all.
Also the thing is that is 0.5$ enough or too little is dependant in this case. If it means supplying only end custoers who are willing to buy just now it is profitable. But if it means you will not be able to sell to future customers for non-discounted price, because now your competition is selling it cheaper as they didn't take your costs it's no longer profitable.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well how much of an impact nobody really knows unless you get the sale figures from such sites and match them against the sale of there keys but even then it would still be off as you would need to know which keys where sold to who.
It does have an impact though that i can agree on,because it does lead to loss profit of some sort.As that person who bought from the site is not paying there cut from the publisher someone else did.
While some may argue they already got there cut they did from the first person.Now this new buyer is not giving them a cut.If these sites did not exist they would have to buy from legit sources therefore getting there cut from the person who can not find it cheaper in grey markets but still has to have the game.
Same with piracy sure not all who do that would buy it,but some will get tired of waiting for a crack or if can not be and do not wait to wait will buy it.So it does lead to lost sales the same way grey markets could but how much can be debated forever.
Still to price is not a valid reason to do either.The way i see it if you can not afford the game from a legit seller then maybe it times for a new hobby or to wait till the price is what you can afford.This is just how i feel though so nobody has to agree.
Now the question is how many of them would have bought it from legit prices for more or just simply never bought it at a higher price who knows.Still in the end it still leads to lost sales and so on.Though that is not the biggest reason i am against them but that is not what this topic was about so i will not share my thoughts on that.
In the end i can see why they do not like it,but is it enough to make a big deal of just based on profit alone that i am not sure of,but as i said i have other reasons that i do not like this market then just that but i want to stay on topic.
Comment has been collapsed.
It's just a big publicity stunt.
If it wasn't for cheap games a lot less people would buy stuff. As for the prices themselves? Well, if you put your game on sale for 5€ it's your own fault if you don't break even. It's your business, your responsibilty.
Also, if you don't want your keys floating around the amrket just sell it on steam, origin or whatever.
Once you sold your product the customer can do whatever they want with it. No EULA can prevent that.
If your product isn't good enough to generate sufficient income than maybe you're at fault.
Stop looking for someone to blame. It reminds of the dwindling CD sales and the Media moguls trying to put the blame on filesharing (which of course isn't blameless) and making fictitious numbers for lost revenue. As if they are entitled to constantly rising sales numbers and larger profits every year.
Remember the resistance to Apple's push into MP3 downloads or channels on youtube? Now they can't embrace it enough.
Edit: The dev/publisher already made a profit when they sold the key the first time. If they didn't, well whose fault is that? Certainly not the customers. As for reselling? Well, if they really wanted to, they could make their own marketplaces.
Comment has been collapsed.
Sorry for being a bit offtopic, but to people defending G2A and similar: have fun reading: http://blog.indiegamestand.com/featured-articles/steam-key-reselling-killing-little-guys/
Quotes: "Here’s how the scam works: You get a bunch of stolen credit card numbers and then go to a legit Steam key reseller site and use the stolen info to buy the digital codes. You grab as many codes as you can and then go over to one of these gray market resellers and turn your keys into real money since you bought them with stolen cards. Meanwhile, the website and/or developer that you purchased the key from gets a credit card chargeback or other dispute 30-60 days later."
"I estimate it’s directly cost us well over $12k and that’s just in raw chargeback fees and developer payouts (for refunded/scammed sales) – not counting the hours of ongoing development time that we’ve wasted on this problem."
True, not everything on G2A is stolen. But don't be so sure "I don't harm anyone".
Comment has been collapsed.
Why say that this is a problem with resellers and not rather locate the problem in our low-security credit card systems that allow the initial fraudulent purchases? It strikes me as odd to say the secondary market is to blame and not the fraud.
You know, people do the same thing with physical merchandise all the time. But, interestingly, I never hear people claiming that allowing the reselling of electronics is to blame. When people pull the same stunt with electronic equipment the blame is laid with the fraud, not the existence of a secondary market in electronics.
Comment has been collapsed.
On an unrelated note, I love your avatar. That art was done by one of my favorite comic artists of all time.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, I'll probably will be changing it soon. Next month, next cover to use :D
Comment has been collapsed.
Maybe you'll get lucky and Maleev will keep doing the covers. How's Cloonan's Punnisher, by the way?
Comment has been collapsed.
Didn't checked it yet, actually :(
Having to import comics kinda sucks, I forget when new issues are out...
Comment has been collapsed.
They have the same impact traders do. Grey Market is the same as trading.
Comment has been collapsed.
To me, it seems like maybe you aren't asking the right question. If I'm not mistaken (I'm not an economist) a secondary market for a product will almost always hurt the primary seller of that product in the following sense: it will decrease the market price of the product. Eliminate the secondary market and the initial sale price that can be charged would rise.
So the question probably shouldn't be does the secondary market in game keys hurt the developer. It does, in the sense discussed above. Here are two further questions that seem more interesting:
Is the harm done outweighed by anything else?
(A secondary market likely also brings the devs some benefit, as others have said above. It increases the player pool, and so also the buzz. Etc. Are they all things considered hurt by it, or just hurt in one regard? Or is the main issue widespread fraud, and does that outweigh any gains?)
Is the harm done to developers in some way immoral or unreasonable?
(It strikes me that we'd not even be asking this question for most physical merchandise. If a book publisher said the secondary market was hurting them we would not take their complaint seriously. We assume that if we buy books we have the right to resell them when we're done with them. Why the difference here? That's not a loaded question, just something it would be interesting to have an answer to.
Or, if this is really a question about systematic fraud, is it right to blame the secondary market and not some other element of the process that permits the fraud?)
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm still surprised how people differentiate the secondary markets in digital from basically the rest of the markets in the world. "If you buy games from unauthorized resellers you're hurting the dev! Oh what's that? You bought a pre-owned copy of some game from gamestop? That's fine... that doesn't hurt the dev at all."
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm with you. Though not everyone is thus inconsistent. The Penny Arcade guys (or at least one of them) have made a point of not using resellers like Gamestop.
(Also, I suppose that position would be fair if your main worry was about fraud rather than just a secondary market in-general.)
Comment has been collapsed.
It's because the two things are actually totally different. A key won't give you a product, it gives you a license to use the product for an undisclosed amount of time. And licenses in almost all cases cannot be transferred/sold. Games without activation codes (ye good ol' days) as disk versions were actual products like, for example,a toaster. If you bought the toaster before, you can sell it. But if you paid your neighbour a sum to use their toaster any time you want and you sell said toaster, you are not really selling "your" toaster. (And this toaster's case, you can get arrested for theft. Thankfully, digital products are not in this category. Yet.) Or tell a friend to use the toaster in your place, to make it a more apt parallel.
Comment has been collapsed.
Your analogy made me laugh. There's one difference though. You wouldn't pay your neighbor the full value of the toaster just to use it would you? I payed $60 for the physical copy of the game, I payed $60 for the digital copy. I should have the same rights over both copies. Since I don't... let's start some riots about how devs dare charge full price for basically renting their digital copy. Oh and yeah let's ignore the fact that the production cost of physical copies has been eliminated with digital copies and just complain that some digital copies didn't bring in as much profit as they should have. Poor devs :( Now let me repeat this. I understand entirely that making games isn't easy... I'm just getting sick of this "pity the devs" attitude that's being promoted.
Comment has been collapsed.
In our case, you would, because that is the only way for you to get access to a toaster, because the toaster manufacturers decided that they pull out from the conventional stores permanently.
By the way, the production cost of the disks was next to zero. The money is lost on development (remember how Activision blew ONE HUNDRED MILLION dollars on Destiny?) and on fees. With disk, the storage and distribution fees as it went from the wholesaler to the retailer and maybe finally the resellers. Consoles have distribution fees as well… and royalty fees, digital download fees, patching fees. PC has distribution fees too, and a smaller buyer base. PC versions could be a lot cheaper (the distribution and other fees are in the 30-50% range, not 50-70% or more) and used to be a lot cheaper, but then publishers realised they could charge the same and people will still buy.
Comment has been collapsed.
PC versions could be cheaper but they're not... and that's the whole point. They still charge the same because people will still buy so they should count the secondary market as a way to "even the odds" and stop complaining about it. As a consumer I don't complain that I should have gotten the game cheaper, in return I expect the manufacturer to not complain that they should have gotten more money from the product sold.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yep, in that case the secondary market could help…
…but they cannot sell something cheaper than they got, and when you see a key cheaper on G2A than on any site ever had the game, you can pretty much be sure that it was gotten as it "fell off a truck".
Plus this whole deal is not about the publishers that make a few ten or hundred million yearly. But people who sell games for 2-10 dollars and hope that it reaches 5-10k sales so they get some profits counting the time and money they put into making it. Since the indie market is almost as oversaturated as in the mid-90s, many indies try to stand out by getting into bundles, because it is a guaranteed yet small profit (they get about 10-50 cents per key). The problem is that these keys then end up on a new market, and it means that their promition ended up people not buying their game because they rather give the money to the secondary market. Don't forget: G2A takes the vast majority of the money on the sales it makes, so any time an indie decides to take the 10-50 cents for a bundle, they also risk stuffing at least 75 cents into G2A's pocket (at least).
This is also we see nowadays the same games appear over and over again in bundles and very few new entering, because the ones in the secondary market circulation pretty much need to be in bundles to get any money.
Comment has been collapsed.
I may be underestimating the time it takes to get a indie game going but this is how I look at it. If that $2 game reaches 10k sales that's $20000. That's basically $385/week before tax (and I'm not sure everyone declares that income). Maybe more focus should be put in making something good that you can sell for a higher price and in higher quantities. There's 125million users on steam... I think it's pretty safe to say that you'll get more then 10k sales if you get your game on there... with the amount of trash that comes out of steam I can't imagine a good game not getting the nod.
Comment has been collapsed.
That's $20,000. $10,000 of that goes to Steam directly. You also had to pay to get it into the store. If you have a publisher, they paid that fee but take $4,000-$8,000 of the remaining money, assuming they were nice and didn't use the standard contract saying you need to reach a certain amount (about $10-$25k) in revenue (not counting the full sale but what remains after Valve's cut) before they start sharing the income in increasing steps, starting with 5-10%. So, suddenly, you need to wait until the sales reach 5-10k pieces sold before you see a single cent, and you have to live somehow until that time, which may or may not ever come but if it comes it may take over two years.
IF the publisher actually pays. Because the indie scene is full of publishers that use a little creative accounting to say your game never made enough money to reach the state where you get your cut.
And we are still in the side of the fence where I'm talking about the better of these publishers.
The other route is getting your game self-published. Good luck handling the marketing, promotions, accounting all by yourself. Or get someone to do it, but you have to pay them from your own pocket until the game starts making profit. Which, again, may never come.
Yeah, sometimes you make a Binding of Isaac or VVVVVV level hit, but one of these happen in like ten thousand. Maybe even more.
No wonder many people try the cheap cash-in games method, eh? :)
Comment has been collapsed.
See that's the problem. It's not as much as "try the cheap cash-in" method as it is succeeding in it. If those shit games make ANY money at all... why are devs so against self publishing? If you put effort into your game you'll get plenty of buyers from the 125 million users on steam. Getting greenlit on steam is a very easy task. Yes it will take time to get money from steam (which takes time even with publishers) but at the same time you're eliminating the publisher and probably making way more money.
Comment has been collapsed.
Because most probably tried and realised why these shady low-life publishers can still exist. Because publishing your own game only sounds easy. In reality without a publisher, you most likely will never make a single cent not in profit but in revenue. When I say cash-in games, don't picture some unkempt Eastern European mobster swimming in money, imagine somebody getting maybe a few hundred bucks, but with a roughly one-week investment.
Valve's 750 million profit isn't made on skimming the store fees on these people, they get it from their own market and the AAA sales. They only wanted to be nice towards the indies by opening up the store but haven't had the faintest idea on what that will bring along. (Which… seems to be the case for all their major decisions lately. And by lately, I mean in the past 4-5 years.) And now, they just don't care any more, so the swamp pretty much swallowed up most of the folk they were meant to help.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think you're a bit too pessimistic about how well a decently thought out game would do on steam. Let me pull something up from the other conversation we're having here ^^ "nobody would pay $2-5 dollars on a game unless they knew about it". I'm sure steam's taking a nice big chunk for that but they do have featured games. That's how I get my wishlist games that I used to instantly buy when I had the money (before the chance to win them here became available ^^). Point is if the game's not in any bundle you'll have to buy it off steam and if it's featured there's a decent chance a lot of people will know about it. Anyway lemme point you at what I said in that other conversation. If you want to regulate the secondary market, regulate the bundle sites.
Comment has been collapsed.
There are entire groups dedicated to finding great games on Steam that nobody ever heard about/have abysmal sales. Heck, some of those one-dollar, seemingly cheap bad games are actually enjoyable but nobody plays them. The problem is not just an oversaturated market – it's nice that Steam has a feature that shows random titles on your main page, but it a) prioritises the recently released AAA stuff and b) with over a dozen new games released daily, it is a drop in the ocean with lottery level chances of bumping into something good you never heard of… and you clicking on it – but also that even if people get games, they rarely play them. I lost count of how many winner profiles I met just on this site who had thousands of hours in CS:GO/TF2/Dota 2 and only card-farming times in the other 90-99% of their library. (And some of them were not even Russian.) SO even if a game seemingly has sales, there is still a chance that nobody actually knows about it because they just got it for a +1 in the collection.
Comment has been collapsed.
"So, a guy buys a key, he obviously doesn't activate it and he just sell it to a third human being. Is there any kind of negative impact on the developer in that operation? What do you think?"
Once the Dev sells a key(s), its is out of their hands and really non of their business. They have been paid and the transaction is over.
This is assuming there is not theft from the buyer.
Comment has been collapsed.
Some people don't see it that way. They seem to feel that it is our obligation as consumers to ensure the publisher's/dev's continuing financial health and prosperity ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, without "our" money they will not make sequels for our beloved games :)
Comment has been collapsed.
If they make good games and behave responsibly when it comes to giving out free keys for promotional purposes (youtubers, twitchers, games sites etc.) they will earn enough money or backers for kickstarting etc.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think that people shouldn't be allowed to sell promo. keys that they got for free.
Comment has been collapsed.
It's unethical. Wether it's against any agreements depends on the country and agreement made. But it's the publishers/dev's responsibiltiy to not give away to many for promotional purposes or take measures to prevent it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Tbh I don't think it's a matter of "killing the little guy" anymore. Most devs nowadays get funded before they even go to work on a game... be it through kickstarter, fund me websites or even early access. I can't really say I care about a dev not making as much money as they could have/wanted considering they already got $50000 ahead of even making a functional game. The number is just a random figure to make my point. Yes there are still cases where people use their own money on a gamble but that's the minority. So are chargeback issues though.
Comment has been collapsed.
Very, very few devs get funded, especially crowdfunded. There are what, maybe four, five hundred or so games like that a year? And Steam releases three hundred monthly. Or even more. Indie game making is not about crowdfunding, it is still about trying to find a small publisher that won't completely fuck you over (which is almost as impossible as finding an honest politician). Then praying that the game sells to the point where the publisher starts sending you some money.
Or just slap something together, add a "Simulator" in the name, try to make it as bad to reach meme status, and cash in. Because the coin has two sides, and there are many scammy little weasel "developers" out there too.
Comment has been collapsed.
Steam releases 300 monthly... I can't really call those games. Out of all the garbage that gets released on steam maybe you'll find a couple of titles that show some effort put in them. Some of the shit on steam is probably done in 2 weeks and then dumped on steam with a $5 tag. I'm not saying making games is easy, I'm saying that making games isn't as hard as it used to be. The whole poor dev mentality hasn't changed though. Most of those little guys made a second game and a third and whatnot. They must have made some money to keep doing it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yep, this is why I said the coin has two sides. Cash-in developers are about as much of a problem as getting a genuine indie game stand out in the sea of shit that gets released all the time. And not just on Steam; even sites we may classify as more reputable like Big Fish Games have the same problem, although there you need to at least achieve some degree of quality to get released. I'd say coinplay.io as well, but they also have a fine selection of lowest-grade mass-produced unimaginative indie junk.
Still, probably Steam and many of the fake-voted Greenlight crap take the cake.
Most of those little guys made a second game and a third and whatnot. They must have made some money to keep doing it.
Don't bet on it. many business are losing money on the first release. And the second. And maybe even the fifth. Same can be said where you are not doing products but think in years. A simple grocery store may need 3-4 years to start making actual profits. This is why it is extremely difficult to be an entrepreneur, because you need patience and still luck to start making money eventually. Large quick successes like facebook are one in ten million.
Comment has been collapsed.
I can accept that. On the other hand, as you said yourself, all companies go through that crawling in the mud period and there's always secondary markets to give you that push towards bankruptcy. I don't see much noise being made about other secondary markets (thrift stores, pawn shops etc)... yet almost everyone complains about the digital gaming secondary market. And it's always the same thing "those are stolen key". I get it, there's credit card fraud but it's not a common occurrence it's a very low percentage. Free keys from reviews? As far as I'm concerned those keys weren't meant to bring in cash to begin with. The only big issue I would see is key generators actually being a thing.
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh, there is plenty about those. In some countries they are flat-out illegal. Sometimes these are tolerated to the point until they don't start to get organised in G2A manner, but to give you an example close to me, the capital a few years ago made a crackdown on similar flea markets and closed them down permanently because they really started to hurt business in the neighbourhood (plus attracted a lot of low-lives and pickpockets… like how G2A attracts scammers and credit card thieves).
Comment has been collapsed.
I could be wrong but I don't think pawn shops and thrift stores are illegal in any country o.o
Comment has been collapsed.
Could be in the sense that they are state-monopoly. Second hand shops are a thing, but they also pay taxes, fees, obey regulations, and their products have to pass some degree of quality testing in the sense that they have to give 3-12 months warranty on everything. And by have to give, I don't mean they ask additional fees to ensure you are getting a working product.
Comment has been collapsed.
But it still does the same thing as the digital secondary market. Regarding the working product... It's a "sold as is" policy in most thrift stores (I buy plenty of crap from thrift stores to know that ^^). Regardless that was probably directed at the g2a shield crap. I personally don't use g2a but kinguin also has it's "shield" that I never use. However I did read that you still get refunds even without the shield when games get revoked. Prove you had it and you get your refund (granted it probably is a bit more of a hassle). Most people don't mention that without being asked... they just mention that their game got revoked.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes, it does the same thing. the problem is not completely their existence –, although their practise is anything but user-friendly (in reality they skin you, the buyer, then skin the seller as well; but the beauty is in how they do it in a way that leaves both of you satisfied). The issue is, to go along with your analogy, reaching the point where the pawn shop is larger than the stores around it and nobody buying certain products anywhere but there. In this case, would you blame the manufacturers of said product just abandoning the market altogether if they see that even though they ship many units, somehow they get little to no money from sales?
Comment has been collapsed.
I wouldn't blame them at all since that's the logical thing to do. Maybe people should change their perspective a bit though. The cheap keys come from bundles for the most part... doesn't that make the bundle sites the real issue? No bundle sites... no cheap keys for the secondary markets... no customers there. Sure you'll be left with the credit card frauds but those markets won't survive with just that. Aren't bundle sites just as harmful if not even more then the secondary markets since they're basically the suppliers for the secondary market?
Comment has been collapsed.
Bundle sites themselves, no. Bundles nowadays are the best route for a game to get recognition. Nobody would buy a random 2-5 dollar game in the store unless they already know about it. But they would buy a bundle and maybe even play said game eventually. Bundles are an old and accepted way of selling not so hot products, and media companies have been doing this for ages with good success rates. (Although the funny thing is that personalised internet television would totally destroy this business model there, so films are actually slowly reaching the state where this practise gets outdated and needs to be changed. Still, for games it is working wonderfully for their intended purpose.)
There is some trouble with it though, since bundles are way too cheap and people start to demand them to stay this cheap or even cheaper. Many products were devalued to the point that it can only sell in bundles and nothing more any more.
But that… that is an entirely different thing. Something that is still not properly researched upon.
Comment has been collapsed.
Publicity or not they're still the source for most of the secondary market's merchandise. To regulate the secondary markets you should regulate the bundle sites. Stop allowing people to buy more then 1 bundle and put more effort into making sure it stays that way. But that's not going to happen because the bundle sites wouldn't be making as much money anymore. See where I'm getting with this?
Comment has been collapsed.
Hence I said not properly searched upon. There are sites here and there that only allow one bundle per person. Some implemented region restrictions. Right now, neither of them work better or worse, so there is no data to tell what would be the best course of action.
Comment has been collapsed.
I haven't read it yet but IndieGameStand recently published an article on this very subject
Comment has been collapsed.
It is an interesting article, but also cute for this sentence: "If anyone at Valve is reading this, I would love to have some sort of backend API tool where I could input stolen codes and hurt the hackers’ reps on whatever marketplace they are using to resell keys."
I mean, by now, most of us know how valve operates in this regard. 'Do we lose money on it? | Yes: Add a two-week escrow on it; No: Don't care, bye.'
Comment has been collapsed.
If you are an indie developer, you don't have the resources to make your games known, and apparently bundles are a good idea to solve this. However, a lot of folk buy these bundles in order to make profit out of them and you end up selling the product for 0.05 - 0.3$ / copy and then the sales stall Same with poor regions - you either lock the crap out of the game, or unhonest folk from wealthy regions will try to make profit out of this (even so there are some people on g2a which require buyer to use VPN for activation). That's pretty much what I got from people on gamasutra who had their games in bundles (and are especially upset on indiegala). I'd much prefer to spam forums and chats than to sell a game I worked 1 year and a half alone (and it's not yet finished) for 30cents...
Comment has been collapsed.
They sometimes do. For example, a couple of months back I bought a key from GMG (it was defined as a beta key by steam) which I'm 90% the developer gave for free for reviews and the like. That means GMG stole the 4 bucks which would have gone to the dev.
Comment has been collapsed.
Grey Market always has its own high risk and problems to customers, but cheaper price is still a better bait than monster sale !
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, I've been thinking and reading about something for some months and I'm not quite sure what to think.
It looks like some developers complain about reseller sites such as G2A (here is an example: https://medium.com/@mode7games/the-key-masters-reselling-and-the-games-industry-6bb01a6a4963#.e475r0dv1), but I'm not quite sure what to think. Some of them claim it has a big negative impact on their work, while others don't seem to care. I've never bought in any of those sites, and I think I never will, but I'm kind of curious about how the market grows.
Of course, this is not about stealing keys and selling them in the market. I'm talking about the standard procedure of buying a key and selling it later. We are not talking about reselling retail games either, which has a more obvious negative impact on the developer.
So, a guy buys a key, he obviously doesn't activate it and he just sell it to a third human being. Is there any kind of negative impact on the developer in that operation? What do you think?
Comment has been collapsed.