The reason games got worse because of the game trading industry is absurd. That's a terrible excuse because it's been going on since day one. It's like saying the quality of books got worse because of used book stores made money buying and re selling and the writer and publishers did not get a cut. Again a bad reason from the gaming industry.
That's the worst comparison I've ever heard. Games cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop, plus they have pay for their sometimes 200+ sized teams working on one game, pay for advertising, pay to actually make a physical copy of the game. Then what happens? A handful of people buy the game at full price, and all that money goes to the devs, this is good. Less then a week later there are tons of used copies of games on the shelves that start being sold. More people buy used then new, go into any gamestops records and you will prove that without a shadow of a doubt, including games that have been out for less then a week. Not a single dime of used games sales go to devs.
How much does it cost for 1-2 people maybe even a small team of people to write a book. Basically nothing, especially if they don't get paid until after they've finished the book and it's hit the shelves.
Meanwhile you have to pay every single employee for the 2-5 years it takes to develop a AAA title game. See the obvious discrepancy there?
Which will bring me to EoD post.
Xeno, I think the problem with big title games has nothing to do with the used selling.
They want more money. They make lamer n lamer games to appeal to wider audiences. They hype it up with super awesome graphics (which I care nothing for) and boring story lines that a 2 year old could follow.
They want more money, because they don't make nearly what they should be from the game. If every single person bought their game new in the first 6 months of its release, we'd be having a whole different discussion. But that is not the case, and I've worked in the industry long enough to see it first hand.
It costs money to develop a game with everything you're talking about, money they honestly do not have. Which brings me to the next point.
They continue to reuse things that have worked in the past rather than trying now innovated ideas. How many cookie cutter halos and CoDs do we need?
They continue to reuse things because they know it works, and its cheap to reuse the same engine over and over, the same game mechanics over and over. It adds nearly nothing to development costs to add onto a cookie cutter game franchise and stupid consumers buy it. Feeding into the mindset "Well this is how we'll make profit"
Innovation from big developers is dead, I'm officially declaring this (obviously my opinion). To innovate a brand new idea or IP is extremely costly from a AAA dev and if the profit margin on it is low (which it is), then why would you even bother wasting the resources? They wont, they'll stick with the formula that works.
If the dev's were able to sell their entire stock of a game at "New" full price, they'd have WAY more money to actually innovate and take risks on games. Right now they don't want to take risks.
This is why the indie game scene has blown up exponentially in the last couple years, smaller dev teams with less time restrictions, less risks they have to worry about, these are the people making truly innovative and new games on small budgets raking in massive profits.. why? Because they've gone full digital distribution. Nearly all profits from game sales go directly to them, allowing them to make more games, take more risks, and produce better over all quality products.
AAA devs do not have this luxury anymore, hence why we have a million CoD clones on consoles its literally the most profitable thing they can get away with producing. This is also why we are seeing crap tons of DLC, big devs are trying their hardest to recoup as much of the dev cost as possible while still making a large enough profit to produce their next game, which is likely to be another cookie cutter game just so they keep themselves afloat.
Console gaming for me died ~3 years into Xbox360 and PS3s life cycle. Nearly any good game that is released for either console almost inevitably makes it's way to the PC. Quite frankly neither company has any exclusives that I want to play, so it's utterly worthless for me to get either of the new systems.
But hey, my opinion, my two cents.
Totalbiscuit does a far better rant on the subject then I ever could, and he's got more credibility then I ever will.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G_f8YBy39M
I highly highly highly recommend watching his video in its entirety then come back her and tell me whether or not you still hold the exact opinions you currently do. Not saying that you'll do a full 360 and be like "Oh yeah you're right, used games are bad for the industry" but maybe you'll have a better understanding as to why, and you're position may change a bit. I'm interested to know if it does change any opinions. And if it doesn't, well then it doesn't, not really much more you can do on the subject of opinions.
