Re: EA's "Project 10 Dollars"



"The alMIGHTY N" <natlee75@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:e06345f8-98b4-41a5-a280-939e18746bc0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Feb 23, 2:17 pm, Doug Jacobs <djac...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Morgan <nos...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> What I'm saying is that GameStop and merchants like them shouldn't be
>> the ones benefitting from it.

> Agree 100% with that.

So, used car, book, CD and DVD stores should be paying the
manufacturer/publisher for each item they sell? And why exactly?

Content creators should indeed be financially compensated for each
person that enjoys their work. When you purchase a book, CD or DVD,
your goal is not to purchase the physical materials themselves but the
intellectual property that is delivered via those physical materials.

Cars are a different matter. When you buy a car, you're purchasing it
specifically for the physical object. Further, the cost of a car is
actually reflected in the price whereas the cost of a video game
really has little bearing on the price of the video game. A lot of
what you're paying for is the quality of the actual physical materials
- the "object" in a video game transaction is essentially irrelevant.

When the item was originally purchased, the manufacturer/publisher were
paid in full for that specific item.

If someone decides to sell off an item he's no longer using to a neighbor,
or even a second hand store, why should the manufacturer/publisher get
more money for that item?

Because the worth of the transaction doesn't revolve around the item
itself. With a physical product like a car, you're paying for the
object itself and the cost/profit of the item is tied directly into
the item itself. For the most part, manufacturers can measure the cost/
profit of a single individual car. They sold it for $30,000 to the
dealer. The dealer sells it to the consumer for $35,000. You're paying
for the design, of course, but you're mostly paying for the materials
and the physical labor put into that individual unit.

With video games, you're not *really* buying the disc or the
cartridge. You're buying the content that's stored on that item. It's
almost meaningless to calculate a cost/profit on an individual item
because the effort really wasn't put into an individual unit but into
an intangible intellectual property that just happens to be copied on
millions of individual units.

The transaction did not involve the producer so
why should they get more money?

And what if it's just 2 individuals involved here? Why expect the buyer
of a single book, CD, or whatever, to deal with the extra overhead of
paying more money to the original producer of the item?

From a practical perspective, you really can't deal with the little
individual cases like this. A company like GameStop or Best Buy,
however, should be tasked with paying some sort of percentage to the
publishers, however.

Libraries pay royalties to publishers and they're not even in the
business of making money off the delivery of the content. Why
shouldn't game publishers get something from companies who are making
fistfuls of cash off *their* work?

> Same over here with Game then, I'm always amassed that anyone would get
> a used copy when it's only ?4-?5 cheaper than a sealed new one. But > I'm
> a bit OCD with my game and DVD boxes.

In most circumstances it doesn't make sense to buy a used game if it's
only $5 less than the new one.

For you. There are plenty of people for whom a savings of $5 is a big
deal. If it wasn't, GameStop wouldn't be pulling in over $2 billion
each year and the publishers and developers wouldn't be so up in arms
about all of this.

Most of the time I wait Gamestop to have
one of its sales then only stick to the older titles that have dropped to
$20-30 used. Gamestop's pricing is based on game popularity and
availability. For instance, prices on used copies of sports games tend to
drop pretty quickly because the stores end up awash in these titles, even
as the same games new are still close to full price. On the opposite end
of the spectrum if a game is rare or hard to find, the used price will
remain quite high. The PS3 RPG, Valkyria was such a title. New it was
$30, but you could never find it. Used, it was $55, and you STILL
couldn't find it.

Also don't forget Gamestop's Edge card which gives you 10% off all used
games - and it stacks with other sales. So even if I buy a used game
at $55, I get another $5.50 off with the card dropping the price to
$49.50, compared to $60 new. Combined with other sales, it's possible to
get the price down to about $34 for a title that's selling $60 for a new
copy.

There's nothing special or genius about that strategy. You have to pay
for the Edge card first of all and all of the benefits are towards
used games where they're already pulling in a near 50% profit
margin... giving you 10% off the price still leaves them with about
40% profit *and* means you're buying it from them instead of from a
competitor *AND* means you're buying the more profitable used copy
instead of the less profitable new copy.

It's like when Walt Disney was giving away passes to the theme parks
for everyone on their birthday last year... it seems like they're
giving up quite a bit but in reality they're making a lot of money:
most people are coming from somewhere else so they're going to stay
there for multiple days (and many will stay in the Disney hotels so
there's some money)... if it's a birthday, likely you'll be there with
your family or friends who will be buying you lots of stuff to
celebrate so there's money from the souvenirs, the snacks and the
meals (plus alcohol if you're an adult so that's extra ka-ching right
there).

>> Maybe if GameStop, Best Buy, Amazon, et al were willing to send even a
>> small portion of the profit over to the publishers, there would be
>> less conflict.

> True.

But there's not reason for them to do this. And anyways, I doubt it would
appease them. It would just make them greedier for more.

Hardly. In all likelihood, it would be an acceptable compromise to a
touchy situation. The publishers get a cut of the action, GameStop
continues being able to do what they do, the consumers save some
money. Everyone still comes out on top. It's the greed of GameStop and
other corporate middle men that's at the heart of the problem.

If anything, this whole mess was caused by the publishers' greed in the
first place. Their insistance on pricing games at $50 and $60 this
generation is just ridiculous. If prices were lower - say $30-40 for a new
game - I think it wouldn't just increase sales of new games, but would
DECREASE sales of used games.

First of all, games weren't even $30-40 the *previous* generation.
Second, the cost of game development went *up* with the new generation
of hardware and especially the need to deal with HD. So tell me how it
makes any sense to *drop* the price of games. Cost of goods goes *UP*
with time, not down.


All good points


You sound like your last name should be Wal-mart...

--
It's not broken. It's...advanced.

.

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