People act like these businesses haven’t done the math already. They did the math and people who think like we do are in such an extreme minority that even if every single physical game user boycotts entirely, they’ll still be making more money than they were before. It’s why mobile games embraced chasing whales at the cost of the quality of experience for the casual player. Fortnite was going to be an actual paid game beyond it’s current implementation, but that got dropped entirely for the free-to-play pay-for-skins cash-cow it became. If it’s profitable, they don’t give a damn if it sucks for most people.
We are in a stage of capitalism in which all available markets are saturated, and now to continue increasing profits year on year the only way to make that happen is to cater to wealthier customers who can afford the price increase that offsets the loss of the poorer customers.
But don’t they miss out the impact of second hand games? Not only does it allow people who may have never bought the game to play it and potentially buy DLC, but it also influences future conversions in which they’ll be more likely to buy the next installment day one brand new.
Who’s to say how much of resi 8 and 9s success is due to people being able to get into the franchise on the cheap and become hardcore fans?
Aside from attaching DLC to the purchase, a used-game buyer is “supporting” Capcom as much as a pirate is. It’s even worse than a pirate because a lot of pirates would have never bought the game anyway but a used game buyer clearly signals a willingness to spend money on the product. Just, yknow, less money. Turning a dude who would pay $40 for your thing into a dude who’d pay $60 is a lot easier than turning a dude who’d never pay a dime above $0.
For a console storefront operator like Sony, there’s more nuance because “Sony games” and “exclusives” aren’t direct value generators. The value they generate is in getting “give sony money for monthly subs and non-sony games machines” in customer’s living rooms. Taking the losses inherent in physical/used copies makes financial sense if it drives platform dominance. For Capcom, who doesn’t operate a storefront or platform, it’s just about how many sales, how much money per sale (changed by platform fees, disc manufacturing costs, and DLC postpurchases). A used game without DLC is $0 for capcom but is a sale. That’s worse than a pirate being $0 for capcom but would maybe have been a sale.
People act like these businesses haven’t done the math already. They did the math and people who think like we do are in such an extreme minority that even if every single physical game user boycotts entirely, they’ll still be making more money than they were before. It’s why mobile games embraced chasing whales at the cost of the quality of experience for the casual player. Fortnite was going to be an actual paid game beyond it’s current implementation, but that got dropped entirely for the free-to-play pay-for-skins cash-cow it became. If it’s profitable, they don’t give a damn if it sucks for most people.
We are in a stage of capitalism in which all available markets are saturated, and now to continue increasing profits year on year the only way to make that happen is to cater to wealthier customers who can afford the price increase that offsets the loss of the poorer customers.
But don’t they miss out the impact of second hand games? Not only does it allow people who may have never bought the game to play it and potentially buy DLC, but it also influences future conversions in which they’ll be more likely to buy the next installment day one brand new.
Who’s to say how much of resi 8 and 9s success is due to people being able to get into the franchise on the cheap and become hardcore fans?
Aside from attaching DLC to the purchase, a used-game buyer is “supporting” Capcom as much as a pirate is. It’s even worse than a pirate because a lot of pirates would have never bought the game anyway but a used game buyer clearly signals a willingness to spend money on the product. Just, yknow, less money. Turning a dude who would pay $40 for your thing into a dude who’d pay $60 is a lot easier than turning a dude who’d never pay a dime above $0.
I think there’s a bit more nuance than that to be honest
For a console storefront operator like Sony, there’s more nuance because “Sony games” and “exclusives” aren’t direct value generators. The value they generate is in getting “give sony money for monthly subs and non-sony games machines” in customer’s living rooms. Taking the losses inherent in physical/used copies makes financial sense if it drives platform dominance. For Capcom, who doesn’t operate a storefront or platform, it’s just about how many sales, how much money per sale (changed by platform fees, disc manufacturing costs, and DLC postpurchases). A used game without DLC is $0 for capcom but is a sale. That’s worse than a pirate being $0 for capcom but would maybe have been a sale.