The plight/blight of second hand games

Imagine this if you would: You walk into your local branch of Game Ltd wanting to buy Gears of War 2. You see it behind the counter in its brand new shiny box wrapped lovingly in shrink wrap and the price says £45. You look to your left and see that for £5 cheaper you can buy it second hand. What is your decision?

I'm a gamer, I love video games to pieces. I'm also fond of saving a bit of money but my overriding love is for video games and the industry which creates them. Because of this I urge you to not buy second hand games.

"Why on earth not?" I hear you silently ask. Well consider this: When you buy a copy of a new game your money is going to many different people. A simple breakdown (many thanks to fairplay-campaign.co.uk for these figures) is that for a £40 game your money get split:

- £9 to Sony/MS/Nintendo for hardware licensing costs (this is bad but I'll talk about why another time)

- £5.12 VAT (15%)

- £13.31 to the retailer (40% standard mark-up) which leaves

- £12.75 to the publisher/developer.

Now in many cases we can just say that goes to the publisher as, like musicians, developers are paid an up-front advance and only earn royalties once that has been recouped. Of that £12.75 which the publisher gets you can then factor in the cost of manufacture & delivery. Lets be arbitrary and say that takes us to £11 per game.

£11 per game, and most, if not all, of that is going to the publishers. Here's a fact: 95% of games released loose money. So at this point unless you have a worldwide hit like GTA4 (earned $500,000,000 in its first week which, using our calculation and after the $100 million it cost in development, puts $47.3 million into the hands of RockStar minus a percentage to Take Two as distributor) the developers are earning zero royalties.

OK so why shouldn't you buy second hand? I know I took the long way round but the fact of the matter is that when you take your copy of, say, Gears of War 2 back for trade-in, Game Ltd will give you £18 (accurate as of 9th Jan 2009), they will then re-sell it for £30. Now they've already earned £13 off the first purchase so anything they get over your trade in value is pure profit. None of that money goes to the coders, voice actors, musicians, artists etc. who created the game (let alone the temp who was making the tea). All this for a £5 saving? I think not.

I love gaming, I love the games industry, I love saving £5 on anything (it usually means I can use that money to buy some food whilst I'm out shopping) but with developers shutting down left right and centre I refuse to be a party to that. Since October 23rd I have bought Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Dead Space, Mirrors Edge, Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour, all at full price 'costing' me £30 over second hand prices... To do my part in keeping the industry going (as opposed to keeping Game Ltd in business) I think that is more than worth it and when I can start downloading entire console games to my hard drive and cut out the retailer I'll jump right in (I do already use Steam for PC games).

Do your part to support the games industry and let the retailers earn their money the honest retail way - through normal, one time mark-ups. Trade games with friends and friends of friends, sell them on ebay (you'll probably get more than if you traded it in and someone will be able to a) pay less and b) not give yet MORE money to Game) and hell, if you're anything like me you'll also save your waistline by not buying that fast food meal.

Next week: Why I couldn't work at a game store.

Why I couldn't work in a game store.

I have been thinking recently about a change of career. This has been largely prompted by being made redundant in my current job, sure, but I'd like to be involved in an industry which I care about and the video/computer game industry is just that. I tell you this because it lead me to think "how do I get into the games industry?" Now the main jobs in the industry involves coding which is not a skill I have and I'm not sure many games developers or publishers need billing analysts. The next thing I thought of was journalism which is notoriously hard to get into and writing doesn't exactly pay the bills unless you are very good or very lucky. In a moment of desperation I thought "I could work at a game store" and then considered what that would mean. This is how we get to the point of this post.

The fact is I am not a salesman. I'd much rather not sell you a product than sell you a bad one and I don't have the competitive drive succeed in such endeavours. In fact, I'm more of a customer service person; I'd want you to go away with a game you thoroughly enjoy and will have a positive impact in your life. Now if someone were to come into my store and ask me "what games should I buy for my Wii" I couldn't, in all honesty, suggest they buy anything other than Resident Evil 4, No More Heroes, Zelda and Trauma Center. I haven't even played them but I understand them to be the bulk of the few 'good games' on the Wii.

Worse would come when someone asked me if we had any copies of, say, Medal of Honor: Airborne. At which point I would probably lie and tell them to buy CoD: 4 and when they are outraged and claim that I'm just trying to sell them a more expensive game I would have to point out that I was just trying to sell them a decent game instead of letting them buy a steaming pile of rabbit droppings (that's either one big bunneh or enough rabbits to make you reconsider Night of the Lepus as a valid horror movie).

Then of course there is the second-hand game trade. As I've previously posted I am dead against most aspects of the way the second hand trade works and as I understand it Game and Gamestation encourage their employees to push the second hand sale.

All of this is a shame as I think I'd enjoy certain aspects of the job. I have, in the past, ended up chatting to Game employees for a decent length of time when they realise I'm an enthusiastic gamer who loves to talk about games as much as I love to play them.

I'd really love to work in a game store (lack of pay and weekend work aside) but sadly unless I can find an independent store with a sense of morality I don't think it's going to happen. Unless of course I start my own shop, which would be awesome as I'd be like a hub for all your gaming needs. Games, PC components, tabletop gaming systems, CCGs... a veritable hive of geeky/nerdy commerce. For the moment I'll have to make do with being involved in the industry through playing games and this blog. I hope this counts as a loss to the industry.