The Business Side of Video (Space) Games EXCLUSIVELY ON IDLE THUMBS

[JonCole]

I made $300 one summer flipping games, you take advantage of used game sales + trade-in promotions. For instance, Blockbuster (this is how long ago this was) would be running a B2G1 sale on used games. Gamestop would be running a trade 2, get $5 additional trade credit. I buy 6 $10 games for $40, then I trade them all to Gamestop for $6 TIV each. $6 * 6 + $3 * 5 = $51.

 

There's also other stuff like catching games before their value adjusts, so there might be a game that inexplicably trades for $25 at a place because they never get it traded-in (and thus supply is low, so demand is high). Another place has it at a really low used price, because it's an unpopular game and never sells. People call it out on deal forums, then everyone grabs the cheap used game and trades it high before the retailers get word of it.

 

Anyways, this is a lot harder now that there are less used games retailers out there plus there tend to be more centralized, company-wide trade-in values that are difficult to game.

[Gaizokubanou]

Ah clever stuff.  Meanwhile I was surrounded by drug dealers and fake jersey ebay sellers :x

[tegan]

When I worked at Blockbuster as a teenager and could just instantly check the prices on anything I wanted, I would occasionally flip games to build up credit between there and EB Games. I think the best I ever did was some Hellboy game that cost ten dollars at Wal-Mart and was worth fourty in Blockbuster credit. The best I ever saw in the system was a surprisingly long period where 3D Dot Game Heroes was mistakenly tagged as being worth thirteen thousand dollars.

[Bjorn]

I'm surprised this hadn't come up here.  The parent company of Desura has filed for bankruptcy, and devs haven't been paid for Desura sales for months. 

[Badfinger]

I appreciate some of the concerns small, boutique developers have about the perils of a return policy, but for nearly 10 years now consumers have had no explicit power or recourse over their purchases except abstaining from purchasing. I hope Valve is serious and proactive about protecting small studios that make "Return Window" sized products, but consumers need and deserve the protection from an avalanche of garbage much more.

[Zeusthecat]

Too bad there's not some easy way for them to base their return window on a percentage of the game's total estimated time to complete. I'm not sure how that kind of thing would be estimated but it seems like it would be a better approach than just a standard 2 hour playtime window for all games.

[Badfinger]

Too bad there's not some easy way for them to base their return window on a percentage of the game's total estimated time to complete. I'm not sure how that kind of thing would be estimated but it seems like it would be a better approach than just a standard 2 hour playtime window for all games.

 

How would you do that if the next Civilization launched as a broken mess?

 

For that matter, forget the 2 hour window. What if you were one of the "less than 5%!" of people who got fucked on your Fez save after a patch and you were 12 hours in? I would want my money back immediately. I lost my New Vegas save 15 hours in because of a bug that corrupted my save, and was so annoyed I never got around to starting over. That's a broken, faulty experience that I think would be within my rights to request a refund for under a system that actually protected the consumer. I don't know that I personally would request that, but I'd be sympathetic to someone who did.

 

Devil's Advocate of my own Devil's Advocate, I can also see Bethesda pushing back on my request because their huge, complex games can't possibly be tested on every computer configuration and thus can't be guaranteed perfect. While this is a reality of development I understand and think they would have a leg to stand on, it doesn't mean it's actually right.

[Gaizokubanou]

How would you do that if the next Civilization launched as a broken mess?

 

Standard Civ game can last something between 4 ~ 10 hours on average so one could set up % based on a number in there somewhere?

 

As for bugs, severe ones like save file corruption in a long progression heavy game is always a strong case for complete refund.

 

So I still think this new system over and under protects.  Still a hugely positive change (beats the shit out of no refund).  Just that implementation feels bit too simple but then again that does have its own benefit (clarity of rules like for refund is critical for consumer trust) so hard to say.

[SecretAsianMan]

I'm sure that like all things Valve, it will be iterated on as time goes.  They had to start somewhere and while I think 2 hours is maybe a bit short in some cases (especially if the first 30+ minutes are cutscenes/tutorials/character creation), it beats nothing.  I do hope a balance or agreement can be struck for the games that are designed to be smaller so they don't get totally screwed.

 

What I'm wondering is will this eventually lead to the ability to resell a digital game.  Preferably in such a way that the developer gets a cut.  I know the idea has been proposed before but I feel like it's going to take someone who has a large enough platform and marketplace like Valve to make it viable.

[Bjorn]

What I'm wondering is will this eventually lead to the ability to resell a digital game.  Preferably in such a way that the developer gets a cut.  I know the idea has been proposed before but I feel like it's going to take someone who has a large enough platform and marketplace like Valve to make it viable.

 

I hope not.

 

As pro-consumer as I generally am, I've never been fully convinced that selling "used" digital games is a thing that should exist.  Steam already has such a powerful downward affect on prices as it is, giving users the ability to sell their library directly to one another would make that worse.  I'm afraid that would just end up not necessarily being to the long term benefit of anyone.  The vast majority of games on Steam likely have little to no real value if they were opened up to a "used" market.  All of the naturally occurring controls that dictate market prices don't exist on Steam.  There's no regional scarcity.  There's already an infinite supply.  There's almost no barrier to entry (even selling a game to Gamestop means you generally have to take the time to drive there).  Those three things mean that the only possible effect a "used" game system could have would be to drive average prices down significantly, and average developer income, even further down.

[Merus]

I think there's two other problems with it that Steam needs to address: games where the expected playtime is less than 2 hours (e.g. The Yawhg, Depression Quest), and the way this system interacts with trading cards (I've heard that developers have been seeing games being returned by players at the 1:59 mark after they've induced as many card drops as they can in that time).

[Professor Video Games]

They should let devs set the refund timer (increments of 30 minutes or something, make the number prominent at time of purchase) and also not have cards drop until after that point.

[Bjorn]

I think there's two other problems with it that Steam needs to address: games where the expected playtime is less than 2 hours (e.g. The Yawhg, Depression Quest), and the way this system interacts with trading cards (I've heard that developers have been seeing games being returned by players at the 1:59 mark after they've induced as many card drops as they can in that time).

 

I had assumed that would occur in no time, given how quickly people try to game anything that involves the Steam market.  Thankfully the solution is relatively easy, just make cards not marketable for the first X days after they have dropped, and then remove all cards associated with a game if it is refunded. 

[Merus]

I had assumed that would occur in no time, given how quickly people try to game anything that involves the Steam market.  Thankfully the solution is relatively easy, just make cards not marketable for the first X days after they have dropped, and then remove all cards associated with a game if it is refunded. 

 

This is probably a better solution than not dropping cards until the refund period is over.

 

I had to clarify because I was looking at that sentence and thinking, 'no, not dropping cards is what should happen' because it's an awful system.

[Zeusthecat]

So apparently Halo 5 won't have split screen co-op. That has to be one of the most bone headed decisions they could have made.

[Bjorn]

So apparently Halo 5 won't have split screen co-op. That has to be one of the most bone headed decisions they could have made.

 

Well that's just super dumb.

 

But I also thought it was dumb when Bungie didn't support split-screen co-op in Destiny. 

[N1njaSquirrel]

It kinda made sense in Destiny though, given that it is essentially an MMO. I also don't remember hearing many people kicking off about it, but then again I wasn't super tuned into Destiny news.

 

I also don't see how this is a dumb move, but then again I never played the split screen to begin with. I think their line of thinking is that it's added leg work to get it working that they probably didn't have time for, for a smaller pool of people who care about split screen, I guess?

[Ninety-Three]

I think there's two other problems with it that Steam needs to address: games where the expected playtime is less than 2 hours (e.g. The Yawhg, Depression Quest), and the way this system interacts with trading cards (I've heard that developers have been seeing games being returned by players at the 1:59 mark after they've induced as many card drops as they can in that time).

 

I've heard the trading card thing brought up a lot, can someone explain why it's a big deal? I know what Steam trading cards do, how they drop, and my experience tells me that you're lucky to sell them for twenty cents, so why do people care if someone games the refund system to get a few trading cards? Is it just that it slightly devalues them for everyone playing fair?

 

Also, isn't Depression Quest free?

[Dewar]

So apparently Halo 5 won't have split screen co-op. That has to be one of the most bone headed decisions they could have made.

 

Well, as none of my local friends who I've traditionally played Halo with have an Xbox One, this seals the deal on me being done with the new games in the series. I was hoping that the completely botched story line of Halo 4 was just a freak accident.

[Zeusthecat]

I also don't see how this is a dumb move, but then again I never played the split screen to begin with. I think their line of thinking is that it's added leg work to get it working that they probably didn't have time for, for a smaller pool of people who care about split screen, I guess?

 

Split screen co-op has been a defining feature of every Halo game. Any time I got together with friends in high school and college, it was almost a guarantee that we would jump on Halo at some point to do split screen campaign or multiplayer (it was also one of the few games that you could have 4 player split screen in Xbox Live multiplayer matches). I probably wouldn't have even played through half of the games if it weren't for split screen play.

 

What's especially weird is that I thought we were seeing a resurgence in split screen play with games like Diablo 3 and Borderlands THJC. Between this strange omission and the disaster that was the Master Chief Collection, I'm kind of starting to feel like without Bungie, Halo should just die.

[Bjorn]

It kinda made sense in Destiny though, given that it is essentially an MMO. I also don't remember hearing many people kicking off about it, but then again I wasn't super tuned into Destiny news.

 

I also don't see how this is a dumb move, but then again I never played the split screen to begin with. I think their line of thinking is that it's added leg work to get it working that they probably didn't have time for, for a smaller pool of people who care about split screen, I guess?

 

Local co-op is a big deal to me, since the vast majority of the co-op games I play are with the lady or our daughter.  Bungie had always been a staunch proponent of the importance of local play, so to see them ditch it was a real shame. 

 

I think a lot of people really underestimate how big of a pool of players want local co-op options.  Couples, people with kids, siblings, roommates, there are literally millions of gamers who want at least some games with local play options.  Local play almost disappeared during the 360/PS3 generation (seriously, we went a couple of years of having little to nothing to play and eventually bought a second 360 because of the dearth of local games).  In the last 5 years there's been a great resurgence of local play, including seeing an explosion of games with local play on the PC, a platform a lot of people always insisted didn't even need it.    Five years ago there were just a few dozen local play games on Steam, and now there are almost 500. 

[Merus]

Also, isn't Depression Quest free?

 

It is, but I was trying to think of other games on Steam that were short and notable. It's probably good to be thinking about how this affects the ecosystem because I've seen creators on Twitter reluctant to pursue getting onto Steam for their smaller games because of the refund thing.

 

I also saw an argument that the refund thing highlights how many games are being sold to people who don't want them these days, through bundles and such-like, and how a correction away from that is probably necessary.

[Henroid]

So apparently Halo 5 won't have split screen co-op. That has to be one of the most bone headed decisions they could have made.

From the company that tried to insist that a --fast-- internet connection was mandatory for their console? This is a surprise? You can expect Microsoft to try and find ways to push people into being online. This is one of them.

[Henroid]

Tale of Tales, the developers of Sunset, are closing down.

 

 Edit - Apparently Sunset only has 4000 sales, despite the Steam summer sale stuff. So they are just calling it quits.

[Bjorn]

That's a super fucking bummer that they are going away.  And I feel like a bad person, because I hadn't bought Sunset yet, so I'm one of the assholes who is a fan of their work who has chosen not to support them.

 

Their post about the closure is both extraordinarily open and heartbreaking.