UFC 'confirmed our suspicions' on pre-owned games - THQ

[wraggster]

UFC Undisputed 2010's charges for second-hand users have confirmed THQ's suspicions over pre-owned game sales, THQ CEO, Brian Farrell has said.

Speaking to trade mag MCV, Farrell said that UFC's model - which had new users entering an in-box voucher code to play online, and second-hand purchases having to pay a fee - proved that "a lot" of people are buying second-hand.

"What we saw when we did the online charge for the second purchaser of UFC was we found a pretty good attach rate - it confirmed our suspicion that there are a lot of people participating in used games," he said.

"It is one of those things of how much money could you have made if it wasn't for piracy or used games? It's a tough question because you don't know."

The THQ boss said he's currently working with Gamestop in the US and Game in UK to help solve the loss in revenue from pre-owned games, stressing that "we understand their business models".

He said: "Retail is now thinking about how they can participate in DLC and some of these second user charges that we're doing. We are not trying to push retail aside. We just need to monetise because it is our investment.

"We will work with retail but it needs to be more give and take."

Smackdown vs. Raw 2011's set to adopt a similar model to UFC, with the game's director claiming that pre-owned gamers cheat developers.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS

[saint24]

main reason people buy preowned games is not many people can afford to buy a game at between £40-£50 that only lasts around 10 hours gameplay thats why not many people buy games like gears of war or call of duty preowned you get hundreds of hours gameplay online and they usually buy new because they think its worth it.
high prices killed cd sales and they still do it for downloads like itunes or napster etc and they wonder why people turn to piracy, lower the prices and it wont happen and they will make more profit. unfortunately none of the companys see that.

[Qmark]

It's even simpler than that:

"This game sucks. Maybe the online play doesn't suck so bad."
"That sucks, too. Maybe I can trade this in at gamestop."
[...]
"Hey, Used IFC for cheap!"
"This game sucks. Maybe the online play doesn't suck so bad."
"Oh man! They want me to play money for online play?!? Okay, I guess..."
"Online play sucks, too! At least I can trade it in at gamestop."
[...]
"Hey, Used IFC for cheap!"
"This game sucks. Maybe the online play doesn't suck so bad."
"Oh man! They want me to play money for online play?!? "
"To hell with that! At least I can trade it in at gamestop."
[...]
"Hey, Used IFC for cheap!"
"This game sucks. Maybe the online play doesn't suck so bad."
"Oh man! They want me to play money for online play?!? Okay, I guess..."
"Online play sucks, too! At least I can trade it in at gamestop."
[repeat]

[saint24]

lol yeah ufc does suck - big time

[hodey]

They are always going to say used games sales hurt developers (boo-hoo...sniff).....That simply is not true. Piracy is what hurts developers (and the what they mean by developers, they mean corperate wallets, not the programmers), but piracy is an intangable number none can agree on, so the only solid money solution is re-sellers. Profits for a game are made in the first 3-6 months of the games release. After that, unless it is a huge blockbuster, not much more trckles in. I dont know about you, but I don't want to wait a year for a game to be cheaper (like I usually do -I am not a Pirate, but I am broke) pay a reasonable price, like $15 -$20, only to have antothe $10 tacked on, just because the Man feels like his wallet ain't fat enough.

[hodey]

....and before i get flammed, the boo hoo was aimed at the comment, not the programmers, I always support programers, espically the indy ones. Without them, we wouldn't be playing games