The $500 challenge.

[weemadando]

That's one of the things I'm looking at. But most video stores around here have a range of games that can best be described as "craptacular" with them still charging 12 bucks a night for Halo 3 as a "new release game" etc.

[Stark]

Said policies are meant to allow people to change their minds if they don't like the product, yet, in this scenario, it is being used to enjoy the product (full playthrough) and then obtain a full refund. So, in essence, you've paid nothing for a game you have enjoyed.

Holy shit, you have cracked it.

Amazingly, I also used an electric razor for 90 days (they laughably claimed it was effective, satisfaction guarantee = you can't lose) and then returned it. I paid nothing for a few months of crappy shaving! THE HORROR!

Of course, without a return policy there's no way I would have bought it, and most people never use return policies, which is why they exist. Just like Singularity.

Ando, if you don't have the time budget to play a game in a week, how is a video store going to help? EB is the best video store.

EDIT - 'moral compass' lol. How is something 'immoral' just because Oskuro doesn't like it?

[Oskuro]

What is this "spirit" of the rule bullshit?

Ok, go ahead and walk up to the store and ask them if the purpose of their return policy is to allow customers to weasel out of paying for their products.

We're not talking discount here, or reselling the old games, we're talking about not paying a dime for a game. It doesn't matter if the return policy is such that it allows for that, it is still morally reprehensible.

And so far the only argument I've seen against my point is that the specifics of said return policies allow for this exploit, which is not an argument, but a concession that you're exploiting an obviously unfair weakness in the system for your personal gain. That you are unable to understand why doing so is reprehensible has me really baffled, I bet you wouldn't have so much problem noticing the issue if the one being unfairly exploited through technical loopholes was you.


Oh, and the ones paying the price for all of this are not the end retailers, who do get a nice boost in user confidence, but the game developers who worked their ass off to make the game. Guess they don't deserve to be paid for the countless hours spent creating it, right? Since you can finish the game in a weekend it must mean all that time sunk in development was worthless and they should all be fired.

EDIT - Stark posted as I was writing this, but regardless, I explain why I think this is reprehensible above. How is something moral just because you can get away with it?

[General Zod]

Oh, and the ones paying the price for all of this are not the end retailers, who do get a nice boost in user confidence, but the game developers who worked their ass off to make the game. Guess they don't deserve to be paid for the countless hours spent creating it, right? Since you can finish the game in a weekend it must mean all that time sunk in development was worthless and they should all be fired.
[/i]

So your entire complaint is that it's immoral because the developers don't see a dime from it? Guess what, they don't see a dime from buying used games either, or when I take advantage of "buy 2 get 1 free" sales, so I guess that makes it immoral whenever I buy something used? Fuck off you hypocritical troglodyte.

[Stark]

By 'get away' you mean 'someone chooses to have a system in place that they profit from and are required by law to follow it as advertised', right? It's not some big scam just because you can't get your head around it. If you cruise in to EB and say 'yeah, didn't like it' or 'yeah, it's too short', they won't bat an eye, because it's the rules and the bean counters know they're making more money for having the policy anyway, just like all such money-back offers.

That's because they're smarter than you.

This whole 'morally reprehnsible' business is just sad. It is seriously a win-win situation. Can you outline any actual harm? You seem to think that this is somehow impacting game profitability (which shows an ignorance of supply chains, but anyway) when the publishers themselves enable it!

[JointStrikeFighter]

The best part is that having the return policy builds a shitload of brand loyalty in people like stark and I. I don't think I even own any games I didn't get from eb.

[Stark]

The best part is that having the return policy builds a shitload of brand loyalty in people like stark and I. I don't think I even own any games I didn't get from eb.

Not to mention people who don't know shit about games buying for family etc; why stress when you know they can return it? If you tell them it's a christmas gift they even extend the return window!

Turns out it's a cost / benefit situation, and EB is winning out regardless.

[weemadando]

Also it is not like EB are selling on consignment. They do a national purchase so the distributors, publishers and developers already have their pay. After that returning and reselling is all on their backs.

[Stark]

If you don't mind the derail, I'd like to hear from more people our age and situations (well, I don't have kids) and how this impacts their purchasing and playing. I don't really have much time to play games (even though my partner plays them as well, which makes it easier) so I don't buy nearly as many games as I used to. When things are slow at work I'll rent something like Singularity, but even games I like that I buy (like Star Ruler) I get essentially zero time to play unless they're multi.

Most of my limited playing time is spent on social games these days; things like Gears, Lasers Overhead, and splitscreen games with Sherry. The last single-player story game I played was Metro, because of the issues Ando talks about. Why the fuck would I want to spend my limited time at home with Sherry playing Final Fantasy Failure and ignoring her?

[Starglider]

The solution to people like Stark is to move games to the cable subscription model; you pay say $60/month for access to nearly all games for a platform (hot new releases would have an extra pay-to-play idiot tax), or you can get lots of 'selected titles' for free with constant unskippable obnoxious adds. Maybe a 'casual gaming' option, $30/month but limited game time. Of course you must have an Internet connection at all times or your games die, but hey, Ubisoft are already breaking gamers to that bit. I vote we make Australia the trial market for this shit.

[Stark]

The 'solution' to what? This just increases publisher profit and control of entertainment. Face it; you're just butthurt that these policies make sense (and make money) for the company involved.

The 'solution' to satisfaction gaurantees is to make it so nobody owns anything ever!

[Starglider]

The 'solution' to what? This just increases publisher profit and control of entertainment.

Exactly, so it's the business solution. What else did you think I meant?

The 'solution' to satisfaction gaurantees is to make it so nobody owns anything ever!

That is the ideal of course, to force people to rent IP rather than ever being able to own it. Then you can jack the price up and down, completely kill the second hand market, and play as many market segmentation games as you like to squeeze every last penny out of the consumer. Progress on this has been slow, but steady...

[Stark]

Ideal for... people like you. Not consumers. Draconian DRM (even when it works) just leads to increased piracy, so ... it's no more 'morally outrageous' than just selling boxes and offering similar policies.

At least nonsense like this will hopefully finally kill PC gaming.

[Starglider]

Ideal for... people like you.

What, you really believe I am on the board of directors of Ubisoft? That I actually work for Starforce, in a secret underground bunker where we develop ever more evil weapons of mass gamer annoyance?

I'm just tickled by the symmetry of the situation, you trying to screw games companies out of money and cover it with rationalisation bullshit, and them trying to do the exact same thing to you.

At least nonsense like this will hopefully finally kill PC gaming.

You somehow believe that MMORPGs aka the industry's biggest money train are not part of 'PC gaming'?

[Bakustra]

Ideal for... people like you.

What, you really believe I am on the board of directors of Ubisoft? That I actually work for Starforce, in a secret underground bunker where we develop ever more evil weapons of mass gamer annoyance?

I'm just tickled by the symmetry of the situation, you trying to screw games companies out of money and cover it with rationalisation bullshit, and them trying to do the exact same thing to you.

Okay, I'm curious. I'm not an Australian, but it seems to me you could use the exact same argument against libraries as screwing publishers and film studios out of money, since they do a very similar thing. After all, they only buy one or two copies and let people lend them out! Of course, now you'll come down on libraries as outmoded or something, because you love to "ironically" be an excuse for a human being rather than being one.

[JointStrikeFighter]

I'm just tickled by the symmetry of the situation, you trying to screw games companies out of money and cover it with rationalisation bullshit, and them trying to do the exact same thing to you.

What is with people continually ignoring the fact that the return policy fucking makes money. It is a corporate asset; not a liability.

[Vympel]

Heh. Since finishing Batman Arkham Asylum, I am now playing the original Resistance. Got it for cheap at an EB sale last year, haven't touched it since. Got Resistance 2 at the same time (also for cheap).

A $500 budget is a good idea. I think its worthwhile playing all your old games that you haven't played (personally I like to finish every game I own, but not everyone's like that) before considering buying a new one, which is what I'm trying to do now, but yeah, new releases that you really want to play and are going to be so much more engrossing (like say Fallout New Vegas next week) make it a bit difficult.

[General Zod]

(like say Fallout New Vegas next week) make it a bit difficult.

What? New Vegas doesn't come out until the 19th.

[weemadando]

If you don't mind the derail, I'd like to hear from more people our age and situations (well, I don't have kids) and how this impacts their purchasing and playing. I don't really have much time to play games (even though my partner plays them as well, which makes it easier) so I don't buy nearly as many games as I used to. When things are slow at work I'll rent something like Singularity, but even games I like that I buy (like Star Ruler) I get essentially zero time to play unless they're multi.

Most of my limited playing time is spent on social games these days; things like Gears, Lasers Overhead, and splitscreen games with Sherry. The last single-player story game I played was Metro, because of the issues Ando talks about. Why the fuck would I want to spend my limited time at home with Sherry playing Final Fantasy Failure and ignoring her?

In my case my wife hates watching games being played ans generally indulges only in Animal Crossing and the like. So jointly played games are few and far between. Also I am yet to meet any "gaming friends" who are happy to have a couch co-op session or similar here.

So my gaming is almost always solo and usually once everyone else has gone to bed. Because of the baby I might have to stop a game at any moment. So between these factors multiplayer adversarial is out and co-op is only viable with understanding friends who don't mind a half hour delay while I resettle a baby who has woken or similar.

Thus most of my purchasing is aimed at titles which have a good sp offering and won't fuck me out of a half hour of playtime if I am forced to quit at any given moment.

On the issue of impulse purchasing, much of it for me has always been the "oh great sale, I'll have time to play that one day." syndrome. I also tend to skip between multiple games because of my time constraints - I might have a newish title ready to go but after two bad nights where I don't get the chance then I may find myself just doing a match or two of a sports game or some arcade/indie or even going to an old favourite because I want a quick fix rather than wading into a new title.

[Stark]

Chairman ( a friend of mine down the road) recently had a baby, and he's gone from semi-nightly gaming sessions with a bunch of mates through the 'Chairman stands still and dies because he's run to the baby' to now rarely even getting time to get on.

SP-only story games seem a bad fit for short play periods though, especially on consoles with often checkpoint systems. Match-based stuff is easier (often 10-20m a go) like sport games, shooters, etc. World in Conflict was the shit for that, I wish they'd ported it.

[weemadando]

SP-only story games seem a bad fit for short play periods though, especially on consoles with often checkpoint systems. Match-based stuff is easier (often 10-20m a go) like sport games, shooters, etc. World in Conflict was the shit for that, I wish they'd ported it.

Some, like Red Dead Redemption have actually implemented a lot of this stuff properly, where pressing hte guide button will flat-out pause the game, regardless of if it's a cutscene or whatever. What shits me is when I have to run and fix something during a cutscene or other sequence and pressing start skips it entirely and I have to reload an earlier save to re-watch it, or if the pause isn't a real pause and the game keeps on going with me in an idle animation.

In terms of MP I play a bit of BFBC2 and TF2 here and there, but because of the limited play time I fall behind the curve really fast - in BC2 I'm still only 1 deep in the item unlocks, forget about weapons or levels... Special Ops in Modern Warfare 2 as well as some niche stuff like Ghost Recon, No One Lives Forever 2 etc have provided some good Co-op fun.

For short round stuff, I might look into World in Conflict as it's been a game that I've often looked at longingly and messed around with friend's copies. You can be sure that if it turns up on a Steam Sale or in a bargain bin somewhere for ridonkulous prices, it'll be picked up. And then I'll hassle you to run me through a bootcamp of "how to actually play the game, not how the tutorials say it works".

UFC 2010 has been getting a decent bash as it is one of the games with set timespans for everything, for the management stuff pre-fight through to the end of a fight is usually between 5 and 20 minutes depending on just how much is going on and especially on how the fight goes. What fucking bums me out is that Madden at some point in the past few years pulled out the "save mid-game" feature, so now if I have an amazing opening quarter in Madden and then something comes up, then I have to lose that progress and some great stats.

[The_Saint]

You're not the only one Anders, I don't have children but I rarely seem to have the time I once had (oh how I lament uni days). Occasionally I pick things up in EB and JB sales (eg Red Faction Guerilla) as well on the theory that some time I might get some time to work at it... I found the cheaper option was (after getting my hands on a winXP Acer eee-PC style desktop) was to to revisit all my older games that I hadn't completed and to trawl through the markets looking for "classics".... kinda lonely method as there's almost no multiplayer support/servers (excepting in Quake3 which will probably never die).

For about $200 I now have a couple of cubic metres of game boxes to work through from the past few years.

[Vympel]

(like say Fallout New Vegas next week) make it a bit difficult.

What? New Vegas doesn't come out until the 19th.

Damn. My mind made it seem closer than it really was.

[Darth Fanboy]

Do you not have an affordable equivalent of Gamefly down there?

[weemadando]

A few. They start at $23 per month for 1 game at a time. The issue that I have with most of these services is the lack of control that you have over what you get. But again, it might be worth further investigations.