As far as publishers are concerned, the single greatest cancer they face is the resale market. When a store sells a new game for £60, the publisher makes about £20, and the store gets between £15-20, depending on how they choose to price it. The rest is the cost of manufacturing and shipping. (These are rounded estimates, it varies)
Then, a week later, when someone trades that game in and the store resells it for $40, they get all of that, and the publisher gets nothing.
From their perspective, that’s basically theft, which is why they’ve been trying for decades to put a stop to it, which they can’t, or at least make more money from secondary sales by bundling single-use codes for “bonus” content that really should be part of the main game, which people who buy preowned will have to shell out extra for.
So that’s what getting rid of physical media is all about. If they get rid of the discs and cartridges, that market vanishes.
Please don’t mistake this explanation as an excuse. All of the platform holders have had the means to kill off the retail market and usher customers onto their digital storefronts for at least a decade. All they had to do was pass on even a fraction of the savings they make selling digitally, which cuts out the manufacturing, shipping, and retailer costs, onto the customer. But they haven’t. Games cost the same on the Playstation Store as they do on the Gamestop Shelf. Sometimes more!
They could have used the carrot, but pure greed means they’re now opting for the stick.
This is so much bigger than the secondary resale market, which is a small added bonus for them
The move from physical media; the price of computer components rising beyond reasonable levels; the locking down of hardware; the locking down of software distribution methods; the inevitability of de-anonymizing all Internet users…
The capitalist class has had enough of your criticism. We discovered their little criminal playground that preyed on children, we discovered how they hide their wealth without contributing back to society, we even discovered how government programs meant to “keep us safe” are used to exploit everyone on earth.
You think Sony ending physical discs is about video games? Brother it’s about the mind prison they’re designing to keep you in line while they fuck preteens on yachts until this whole planet burns to the ground
Dave’s not here man
So, like, don’t buy things that aren’t worth the cost, man.
Library memberships are free.
So many simps for valve who don’t understand how valve fucked us all 20 years ago.
Just remember if valve cared at fucking skill they could offer you a resellable license.
But yeah, fuck Windows, because reasons. Lemmy.txt
There is more than one benefit to ending physical media.
- The end of the resale market
- The end of paying for physical distribution.
- Pushing users toward online gaming so that they can pay for microtransactions.
- Live service games and seasons that require subscriptions.
- The sale of hardware that will allow them to charge more for consoles/Harddrives.
- Game streaming (which requires an internet connection, and allows them to gather information about users).
- Game streaming that requires a whole separate online subscription.
If you thought it was just about the resale market I have some public landmarks for sale.
G*mers spent two decades filling their digital libraries. Killing brick and mortar stores. Pirating games.
And now they complain about the lack of physical releases by a company they claim to hate?
🏴☠️
🫃
Gamestop has become TOO POWERFUL!
That power up rewards card was more powerful than we all thought I guess.
given who’s running that show these days, i wouldn’t shed a tear if they got run out of business.
They could have used the carrot, but pure greed means they’re now opting for the stick.
By raising the prices for all their games, raising them again for physical copies, and allowing the use of game key cards, Nintendo decided the carrot or stick alone just wasn’t profitable enough, and thus chose both.
That… uh… what?
Do you not understand the “carrot and stick” metaphor?
You listed three times Nintendo used the “stick” then claimed they opted to use both, I assume in an attempt to sound clever.
Does everyone on this platform have long covid or something, because these replies are really worrying!
Anyway, yeah, Nintendo suck ass, well done.
The $60 → $70 price increase was just Nintendo being greedy, so the metaphorical “carrot” in this context is raising the price of physical copies relative to digital copies to $80 to make them seem like a good deal in comparison (diminishing physical sales further as an excuse to get rid of them entirely), while the “stick” is the game key cards that take any meaning away from owning physical media in the first place.
In any case, disagreement is no reason to insult the intelligence of other users.
Please don’t mistake this explanation as an excuse.
Threadiverse does this often.
It even uses the “worth reading” system as an incorrect way of saying “I dis/agree.” Can’t wait for pylova to become the norm.trades that game in and the store resells it for $40, they get all of that, and the publisher gets nothing.
In some countries, resale laws exist to deter this. So this argument is kinda naught.
I’m new to Lemmy, so I literally don’t understand your first point, but-
In some countries, resale laws exist to deter this. So this argument is kinda naught.
I don’t see how. The only resale laws that I can find in the US, UK, Eu or even Japan refer to prohibiting Digital Resales. Even in Japan, publishers haven’t been able to prohibit the reselling of physical games.
So no, the point stands; Publishers want to get rid of physical media in order to push people onto digital licenses, which are more restrictive and non-transferable.
in Japan
US
UK
EU
don’t understand your first point
Upvotes & Downvotes in weighted aggregation mean “This is worth reading or not.” Many people still abuse this to mean “I [dis]like your comment/post.” Pylova forks already have reactions to express the latter, and maintaining the former. “You can upvote and like a comment too now!”
I have no idea where you’re getting your info, or if you’re somehow misunderstanding me, but literally everything you just said is wrong.
It is 100% legal to resell any physical media you own in all of those territories. If I buy a game on a disc, I can then do whatever the hell I like with that disc, including sell it back to the place that sold it to me, who can then sell it to somebody else.
This isn’t a matter of opinion we can debate, it’s clearly settled law. If you disagree, you’re wrong. End of discussion.
As for the whole upvote/downvote thing, I think I understand what you mean now, but in doing so I care even less as I was simply adding a point of clarification which you’re focusing way too much on in order to debate the virtues of differing platforms, which is both boring and tiring.
You’re a very frustrating entity to deal with.
Goodbye.
Ignorantia juris non excusat.
Get a lawyer here before you make yourself more ignorant than you’re.
You’re a very frustrating entity to deal with.
Welcome to the real worldwide chump. You either let governments oppress your freedoms, or liberate press. Either way, your raw arguments are naught. If you’re not rolling authoritarian heads
, you’re really wasting everyone’s time.Tells me to get a lawyer, then calls for the end of authoritarianism.
Check your carbon monoxide alarm, pal.
So what do you praxis‽ Reactionism‽
Steam very successfully destroyed the resale and lending of PC games and the same approach with digital rights management of downloads will do the same to the consoles.
Dude cdkeys were already a thing before steam. There wasn’t really ever a secondhand pc game market.
G*mers made their bed. And are now complaining that it smells like their shit.
I’m not convinced it wasn’t mostly dead before Steam, TBH. I mean I guess there was “lending” (read: copying), but there was never a “GameStop for PC games” the way there was for console games. And even the “lending” was somewhat curtailed by CD-keys and account registration before Steam existed.
Used games held the console market in balance. You knew if you didn’t like a game, you could trade it and get something back, or at least buy a cheap used copy if you weren’t sure on a title.
The PC game market is kept in balance by constant discounting and availability. You manage risk by saying “I’ll wait a few years and get it for $4.98 instead.”
The presence of secomdary sellers (Fanatical, Humble Bundle etc) and even distinct markets (GoG, itch, service games that sell through their own accounts) means Steam still doesn’t have the same market-defining power Sony will in a post-disc world.
Not 100%, you can share your (almost) whole digital Steam game library via family share. There are very few games that block this feature.
single-use codes and ‘activation’ were around and gaining traction before steam came about. but steam did help dig the hole and put the some of the nails in the coffin.
Steam very successfully destroyed the resale and lending of PC games
What?!
You think before Steam people could resell and loan PC games like console?!
Why just make shit up? You know Steam ain’t that old and people remember pre-Steam…
Right?
I think steam might be older than BrightCandle@lemmy.world…
You forgot the leading
and your username mention turned into a mailto link.
Fucking obviously…
Did people really just figure out their hate for discs was the hate for resellers and rentals?
Fucking hell man, next you’re gonna tell us they sell consoles at a lost to trap consumers in their ecosystem of expensive games and not out of the goodness of their heart.
If you just fucking realized this, it’s better than not.
But it doesn’t mean you should be listened to, because everyone that actually cares enough to string two thoughts together figured this out fucking years/decades ago.
