I found myself siding with D. Jaffe, until I came across your article and the pretty interesting arguments within the comments. If Jaffe feels as if he isn’t being fairly being given his share, then why doesn’t he take it up with his publisher, Sony? Their the one he signed the three-game deal with, not GameStop. I’m all for making money, but David Jaffe’s signed a contract, if he doesn’t feel as if the contract represent’s his best interests, re-negotiate. If all else fails, sue, but until then TSFU.

This is hilarious. You’re obviously an analyst on all this right? You have so much more experience than a developer who has spent almost two decades developing games for a living, correct? You know what it’s like to sink millions into a game in hopes of people liking it, buying it, and hanging onto it? I severely hope you’re not a GS employee with your head up your ass.

For anyone who’s still paying attention to this thread (I see a few late stragglers coming by in the referrer log) I thought the following would be of interest:

Apparently analyst Ben Schachter of Broapoint AmTech has chimed in on the whole digital-distribution-will-kill-GameStop argument to say that he doesn’t expect GS to be impacted by it until 2017 at the earliest:

GameStop Not Significantly Impacted by Digital Until 2017, says Analyst – Industry Gamers

“There is little doubt that over time more and more media content will be delivered digitally to the home. However, the question of the timing of this trend is critically important as it relates to GME’s stock. In our view, it is unlikely that digital downloads will have any meaningful impact to GME’s business this console cycle (which we think will run through at least 2014). Technologically, full game downloads to a console are feasible already (and there is already a small library of full-games available on Xbox Live), but limited hard drive space (we estimate approximately 70% of current-generation consoles have no hard drives) and bandwidth limitations (full games can be 20GB+) create significant barriers,” Schachter pointed out. “These barriers will obviously change over time, but the timing of the replacement cycle is key. Even if one assumes that by 2014 all new consoles have capabilities that eliminate storage and bandwidth concerns (which we believe is unlikely), it will still take several more years before these consoles have significant household penetration.”

He continued, “We also note that consumers attribute a value to having a hard/physical product that can be sold, traded, and is portable. GME’s own study put the residual value of physical game disc at approximately $10-20 dollars vs. a download-only version of a game. Bears believe many of the issues that have impacted the music industry over the past few years will eventually hit the video game business. In our view, a key issue that is often lost in the discussion over digital distribution of video games is its impact on the ability of game publishers to market their games at physical retail locations. The retail channel remains critical to the sales experience for games.

Jaffe’s threat of the industry going fully digital in five years if GameStop doesn’t cut them in on the profits from used game sales is wishful thinking at best.

I have no doubt that digital distribution will eventually become the norm at some point in time so long as the Internet providers don’t kill the incentive by putting ridiculous bandwidth caps on their customers, but it’s going to take a long time to get there. When that day comes GameStop will either have to adapt or die and I’m not particularly concerned with which route they go. The point remains that using digital distribution as a threat against them is laughable for the time being.

But Les, now I don’t know where to send my money!

It’s gone now, Zilch. Added to the spam filter.

Thanks for the trenchant comment, How to lose weight.  I guess the Pakistani’s are masters at that.  Where shall I send money?

Oh god, the entitlement jamboree is still trundling along. ;P

@Les

“That’s irrelevant to whether or not developers are entitled to a cut of used game sales. As are the next two paragraphs you write.”

It’s not about a cut of used game sales.

Are DVD Empire a bricks-and-mortar retailer? No? Also irrelevant then.

I don’t know why you find retailers having a better bargaining position than their suppliers “hard to believe”, it’s hardly all that secret or controversial.

Anyway bored of this now.

elwedriddsche:  Poke around on the internet.  There are some hard to find, but interesting mods for TMP.  I believe I still have all of them and can probably send you some links (or the files) if you need them.

swordsbane, got both games.

Interestingly enough, the Stardock one needs a single-used activation code to download updates and mine wasn’t used yet. Dumb luck and a case in point of making a resale difficult even now.

Now on to find the time to actually play the games. I think I’ll use a VM for TMP, because it wants to install some Win 9x/ME stuff that I don’t want to pollute my systems with.

Sins looks similar to GalCiv, which means it’ll take me forever to learn and I’ll get my virtual butt kicked all along the way.

Also, Clarke’s arguments are completely absurd. As if being logical fallacies wasn’t enough, they’re factual fallacies as well.

“No, but I can see that you’re convinced that you know better than ppl who’ve worked in games for years, so stepping back. gg”

“I don’t presume to, but I’m assuming DJaffe has better data on how well the publisher/retailer relationship is working out.”

There is precious little evidence that anyone working in the industry has the slightest clue about their industry. Which is pretty much the entire point with stuff like this, or Mike Capps’ idiocy, or Cliffy B’s, or dude from Crytek. EA, Activision, Vivendi—the biggest names in Western gaming have all proven to be headed by complete nimrods who are all but insulated from the people ultimately paying their salaries.

Really. Do you not remember how long we had to bitch about co-op not being added, and all the resulting retard justifications for why it wasn’t (WAH, MAKING GAMES IS HARD, I WANT FREE MONEY) before they started to listen? All the while every game under the sun had a mandatory yet completely vestigial vs. multiplayer mode that was going to see tumbleweeds two weeks after release.

On top of that, it doesn’t even add up with what developers like to tell us about their own jobs. Crunch time, which they havent truly fixed because for lack of actual talent most of them base their sense of self-worth on working harder, not smarter? Yeah, apparently that leaves tons of time for reflection and analysis of their business.