Tag: retail

Gaming Podcast 134: Do You Want Me To Feel It?Gaming Podcast 134: Do You Want Me To Feel It?

August 11, 2009August 11, 2009| schommerschommer| 0 Comment| 9:21 pm

This weeks gaming flashback? Scorched Earth, a great artillery style title. We’re also taking a historic look back at the game innovations developed by Don Daglow. Of course it’s not a full news week without some actual news! This weeks news includes:

  • podcast-200x200Walmart Pushing New Madden Game
  • Bestbuy takes on Gamestop
  • Halo 2 and Halo 3: ODST possibly coming to Games on Demand
  • Nintendo not happy with E3 briefing
  • Nintendo Even baffled by Vitality Sensor
  • WoW Rumor: Two new playable classes in next expansion

This weeks community feedback was epically cool, we’re continuing the questions this week by asking: What game would you invent using the Wii balance board and vitality sensor? Do you have some ideas to solve Nintendo’s problem?

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Trading Used Games, Like Fraud?Trading Used Games, Like Fraud?

November 1, 2008November 1, 2008| schommerschommer| 0 Comment| 11:38 am

David Braben, founder of Frontier Developments, says retail outlets that buy and sell pre-owned games are “essentially defrauding the industry.” Although multiplayer gaming might not be a huge threat, the single player experience in games may die out because gamers play the game quickly and resell it back to places like GameStop for others to buy.

Developers don’t get a dime when a game goes traded, many gamers will “share” the single player experience with a single copy of the game by reselling it over and over. The end result, retail outlets make a good penny for marking up old games while developers see nothing. This is really how game retail outlets survive because the margins on video games is so damn low.

The story has been heard before, developers want a piece of the action so they’re taking steps to entice people to keep the game with renewed downloadable content on old games; you can’t experience the new content without keeping the game around longer. In the world of low margin games, high cost development and short-lived story lines the solutions to this problem aren’t exactly obvious.

Braben’s idea of a solution is to offer two versions of the game, a not for resale/rental version at a high price, say $160, and a low priced version that cannot be shared (heavily DRM’ed?) for $50. In essence, gamers would no longer be able to trade in games because the idea of spending double for a game so you can resell it makes no sense to most gamers (including myself.)

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