Actually, I had another bit of news that didnt come from the east and that was the Company of Heroes beta. But even the title of said news bored me so much my eyes apparently glided right over it! (I actually assumed you'd have it)

Anyway I really enjoyed this weeks show and urge anyone who has something to add to the topic to please post here so I can read it on the show.

The fact is while I am quite stubborn in my views I am in no way an expert on it and would appreciate the input from people who come from a different angle.

What do u guys then think about what we were saying about

1) preowned games
2) Kotick destroying gaming from the inside
3) is mirror's edge 2 dead? (the answer is NO! dammit)

1) Pre-Owned Games:

I think they are more important for those people who are looking to buy some of the more borderline purchases - the sort of 6-7/10 rated games. You don't want to pay full price so getting rid of some of other 6-7/10 games you have that you have completed makes it a bit more desirable. That said, the price of games tend to plummet a month or two after release these days so it doesn't seem as relevant as it was in the past.

I tend to have gotten rid of most of my games via trade in when I get a new console.

2) Bobby Kotick

He is a typical business man. That said he knows very little about what is right for the games industry in the long term. He is crushing innovation in favour of chasing the bottom line profit, which works well in the short term but as the Tony Hawks franchise showed there is only so many times you can update the series before people get bored of it. The fact that Activision seem intent on releasing more and more Call of Duty games in one form or another spells doom for the franchise which may not be a bad thing.

The thing is, he is not alone and at least he has the balls to actually be up front about what he is doing as opposed to other publishers that try to hide behind the guise of being innovators when it is clearly not the case.

3) No it's not dead.

Enjoyed the podcast guys
It's funny hearing people talk about the cost of XBLA games that last only 4-5 hours. A lot of full price games are of a similar length these days and can be 4 times the price. Sure they may have a few nice extras that the XBLA games may lack, but I still think they're decent value at around £10.

The pre-owned games situation is getting ever worse. I stepped into my local Game store the other day and struggled to find the incredibly small new games section hidden away at the back of the store

That question wasn't mine btw Silent

The old arcade games we used to buy at 400 / 800 points are light years away, in terms of quality, from some of the titles were currently being asked for 1200 points for so, in general, I'm not too bothered by the price. There are some titles, however, that don't deserve the new price point.

Kotick is a shrewd businessman but his inability to truly understand the products he is peddling, and thus spot potential future goldmines, as well as lack of empathy with his customers will perhaps be his undoing. To topple Activision you'd have to topple Warcraft, so I think its future is pretty secure for now.

I'd say Mirror's Edge is as good as dead. If it comes back, for a sequel, it won't be in a form that you'll like.

I haven't listened to the show yet but will barge in anyway

While I agree that that the 1200 (£10) point games of today are far beyond the 400/800 pointers of early XBL, I do think it is important to remember the quality of games that you can get for a tenner at retail Spud plug here. I dont really the quality matching up. And if I remember correctly most games sell half their ltds at a discounted price so there are a lot of buyers who will see them as expensive, myself included.

Mirrors Edge is dead, it was a flop at full price, flop at discunt price and got quite a bit of advertising. There's no point spending good money after bad.

Activision-Blizzard are not a profitable company even taking the WOW money machine into account, nor is EA or any of the larger publishers (not 100% on this). In the end all we will have is the mega-publishers able to fund giant projects and advertising like Halo and MW2 and the self publishing microdev. Similar to the movie industry and natural evolution of industry it seems.

Thanks guys for another packed show & for featuring my question regarding game length, I found both your comments very enlightening with great shouts for Uncharted & Batman in this regard

Dits I thought you sounded a bit tired by the end, need a third or fourth guest to share the load? Also thanks Silent for the shoutout, didn't even ask this week


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Great episode guys. One request MORE TALK ABOUT GACKT!!

Catching up on my 'casts. I've listen to 85% of the show so far, good stuff.

Re Used Games:

The problem is that video game culture has now found itself in a terminal cycle that is already showing signs of a crash. Gamers now expect to be able to buy a game on day one, play it for a week, and trade it in for another game two weeks later. This is creating an environment where expensive HD games need to be big hits, or have an amazing first weekend, in order to break even. It is very similar to the blockbuster summer movie, where everything is geared towards the opening weekend. Games that don't establish themselves in the first two weeks flood the used market, and get massively discounted in store. Take Alpha Protocol which can now be picked up new for £15 just 3 months after release.

Stores like HMV, Argos and ASDA are adopting trade-in schemes to make money, but they wouldn't do it if there wasn't such a demand now for trading in games.

I know why gamers feel the need to play games a soon as they come out: the growth of multiplayer games (which become unplayable after a few weeks due to lack of players) and the tendency for the industry to have major PR pushes feeds the "I want" monster. I feel it, and suffer from it as well. However, we are all contributing to the contracting of the industry and moving its focus toward fewer big budget games and digital aftersales/delivery methods.

The big publishers are hoping that digital distribution will solve their losses from trading, but you only have to look at Steam, XBM, PSN, and AppStore to see that it too is imperfect. There have been a number of complaints that games only sell well on Steam when heavily discounted, likewise on the AppStore, and that revenues are extremely small unless you get volume sales.

The combination of trading-in, falling digital distribution revenues, and day one pressures are all driving down prices whilst the technology and costs are going up. The net result, I think, can already be seen with far fewer big budget projects this year, and a lot less risk taking. We are not going to see an Xbox720 or PS4 anytime soon because the development costs for its games would be far too higher risk for publishers/studios. We all have to face up to a future where we are going to get fewer "autumn blockbusters" and more, smaller, lower-budget bite sized and casual games.