Green Man to sell pre-owned digital games

Very odd. Would love to hear more about how it'll work.

Posted:3 years ago

What even constitutes "2nd hand" in the digital world? Do you send it on with packets missing? :)

Very very odd!

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Antony Cain on 21st January 2010 11:48am

Posted:3 years ago

Presumably you play the game, and when you finish you give up your license to play it. Fair enough - but surely a publisher would rather just the 2nd buyer buys at full price, not at a discount. And does the first buyer get some money back?!

Posted:3 years ago

If that's the case they'll probably be snapped up the instant they're available, with very few people even bothering to look in the "1st hand" section. There's no risk of CD scratches or the like and it's cheaper! Surely it can't be that straight forward

Posted:3 years ago

"Significant royalties" aren't going to be the same as the original publisher margins. As a consumer I'd prefer to see the initial purchase price dropped and buy direct rather than have the option of buying digital content 'second hand'. I don't even know what that means really. Why would anyone buy anything new if they get the same thing 'second hand' for less money? Let's have cheaper games in the first place that sell more units and stop trying to reinvent, for digital products, what's become a very flawed boxed product market.

I do think though that if a retailer can add value somehow to a purchase then the publishers/format holders should support it. I think a future where I can only buy PS3 games from the Sony dashboard would be a bleak one. Online digital retailers can add value through marketing, promotion, brand and so on.

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Jason Avent on 21st January 2010 12:06pm

Posted:3 years ago

Interesting idea. Our PC games use serial numbers which tie in to your ranking on the leaderboards & multiplayer accounts as do many others I asume. If you took on a serial number used before then you'd take on their account and have all that baggage which would ruin the experience. You would need to sell new serial numbers. I think in practice it makes more sense to only sell new copies, but possibly let people trade in and deactivate their account for some sort of points they can use to purchase other games but at full price. As discussed above any 2nd hand games at lower prices are going to sell before new purchases so what is in it for the publisher. I would want the same royalty on a 2nd hand game as a new one. If Green Man wants to take a hit on the price for a trade in, its up to them :)

Posted:3 years ago

Jason: Spot on.

Posted:3 years ago

I feel confuse... we are talking about digital downloads... "second hand serial numbers".... why just to sell it cheaper and to expend the online publisher money on marketing. I believe there is plenty of other solution for pushing the sales: quality free to play games. Or trading with digital assets, that is worthy for players.

Posted:3 years ago

I feel like there is some sleight of hand being performed here. Consumers will always take the second hand version if it is identical to the original, which it will be. This is going to reduce publisher revenue, isn't it? DD games already scale their price over time, so this can only equate to LESS money in the system. This is why Microsoft use points instead of cash. It locks the money into the system.

Posted:3 years ago

As Iain points out, the second hand game is not identical to the original, if only because of the leaderboards, etc. Moreover, with any verification system that has a limited number of installs (as EA tried with Spore) you aren't actually getting the same thing, you are getting a more limited version because you won't be able to install it as many times. That's dependent on the system used, of course.

Even without some form of 'damage' involved in the resale, I disagree with the general point that people will buy used before new, mostly because availability is the driving factor. I doubt I'll check with Green Man before I buy Plants vs. Zombies from Steam because Steam is already on my desktop. Granted, with digital distribution, everyone can get 'to the store', but that only if they know the store exists. I hope Green Man has a huge marketing budget, otherwise, they'll never get the traffic needed to get people to sell them the games in the first place.

@Iain, in the current system, publishers/devs get nothing from second hand sales, and at least in the US, the legal principle of 'fair use' supports that. So, your real option is do you try to work with them to get something, or do you get nothing? Depending on other factors (tech, market, or other), you might decide something is better than nothing.

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Lucien Parsons on 21st January 2010 3:34pm

Posted:3 years ago

Forgive me for being a little naïve, but surely the licenses are non-transferrable?
Take Steam for example? How would it be possible to remove a purchased game from an account without contacting Valve themselves? And as Valve are the digital publishers, surely they wouldn't be willing to give up the possibility of gaining a new customer at full price?

Or have I got the wrong end of the digital stick?

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Chris Wallace on 22nd January 2010 4:42am

Posted:3 years ago

This store wouldn't be needed if publishers (I'm looking at you, Sony, with the PSP Go) just decreased the price a significant amount off the bat.
Just look at the music industry; their sales were plummeting, so they started selling digital downloads at $10 USD for a CD. In the U.S., a new CD goes for between $16 and $19. That is a huge difference, and it is one that makes it so no one would care about reselling their old CDs.

The difference is that retailers take 20% of the top retail value with games and 50% of CDs. But games are also more expensive to manufacture, as there is a larger case, more insert materials, a more expensive disc, and there is a higher manufacturing cost due to having to switch to Blu-ray or DVD.

If Sony and Microsoft would price their digital games at a discount of 20-25%, that would at least help alleviate some costs to the consumer and they'll be less likely to care about reselling their downloaded games.

Digital downloads were said to help decrease the price of games right away, as there is a smaller portion going to manufacturing and retailers, but companies, like Sony, are trying to sell digital copies of PSP games at $40 when retailers have them for sale at $25 or less.

Green Man won't woek out, but it will help show the industry that a $60 USD Xbox game should be available for download at $50 or less on day one.

Posted:3 years ago

Bizarre...

We'll see how this actually works out..

Posted:3 years ago

This is going absolutely nowhere. Companies have to approve of the licenses being transferred, but one of the caveats of digital distribution - other than cutting out the middleman of packaging and shipping - is that games can't be traded into companies like Gamestop. Sony and Microsoft are charging premium prices for digital content and calling it a "convenience" tax, and people expect them to sign off on something like this, when they technically own the rights to even purchased games, and can revoke those licenses at will?

Anyone who thinks this is the next Good Old Games is fooling themselves. This requires first party participation, and of the three biggest first parties - Valve, Microsoft and Sony - I only see Valve THINKING about this. And if they do go for it, it makes more sense to do the system themselves than it does for someone else to do it for them.

Posted:3 years ago

The reason digital versions of boxed games aren't cheaper is because of pressure from the high street retailers. If Sony or anyone started selling digital versions for a lot less ( taking off the overheads for physical distribution and the retailers percentage ) then why would you want a physical copy ? The high street retailer would stop stocking their games. Until digital distribution has taken off it'll stay like that. And the longer it stays like that, the longer it will take digital distribution to take off. etc. etc.

Posted:3 years ago

I suppose we will all just have to "watch this space"

Posted:3 years ago

Would be good for Steam to come into this. Have a few games that I purchased and havn't played in a while that I would like to sell. One way it could work would be that Steam (Valve) offer to buy the license keys back for Steam Credit, then resell the key at the full price. The Steam Credit would only be able to be spent at the Steam store, meaning the money still stays within Steam/Valve. I would, personally, love this service. And I think it would also benefit Steam/Valve since they wouldn't have to buy as many License Keys, since they can just resell them.

Posted:3 years ago