For those of you that don’t know I cruise a lot of gaming sites when trawling for podcast fodder. Normally anything I find gets worked into Wonderpod in some shape or form. A story like the one I am about to post for you is generally ignored right from the start. Because it is yet another whiny developer bitching and crying about used game sales. In the case of this specific Eurogamer article some of the quotes were just to good to pass up.

David Braben is boss over at Frontier Developments, creator of such thrilling titles as Kinectimals.  His thoughts on how used games sales are destroying the industry have to be some of the silliest yet. That is saying something given how stupid most attacks on used game sales are.  His basic premise and I am paraphrasing here is that good single player games are being killed off by used sales.  Because retailers never reorder more stock after the initial launch amount.  Retailers have no need to order more because they can just sell all the trade ins. Now I haven’t been in GameStop in a while, but just from casual observation I don’t recall that being the case.  Most of the time if the used and new price is close I will go with a new copy. Since its never been monkeyed with.  Whether or not retailers are reordering, his other statements are what made me stop to write about it. Like this gem.

“It’s killing single player games in particular, because they will get pre-owned, and it means your day one sales are it, making them super high risk. I mean, the idea of a game selling out used to be a good thing, but nowadays, those people who buy it on day one may well finish it and return it.”

I think that is true to a certain extent, but as usual he isn’t giving gamers enough credit. I can’t even begin to tell you the number of games I have held onto because of the excellent single player.  In lull periods or times when I am short on cash. I will dig through my library and play games that I really like again. I was just playing Just Cause 2 a second time for that very reason. So while his point is kind of valid, It doesn’t paint a complete picture of the way gamers behave in my mind.  This next quote was just killed me.

“People will say ‘Oh well, I paid all this money and it’s mine to do with as I will’, but the problem is that’s what’s keeping the retail price up – prices would have come down long ago if the industry was getting a share of the resells.

“Developers and publishers need that revenue to be able to keep doing high production value games, and so we keep seeing fewer and fewer of them.”

How the hell do I even respond to this?  Look, I am not completely anti-corporate publisher, but this has to be one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. Even if  game developers/publisher were getting a cut of used sales the price would not drop from it’s current sixty dollar price area. It might not go up beyond that because they wouldn’t have even a lame excuse for raising prices.  I highly doubt car prices would drop a dime if  used car sales suddenly disappeared. It’s the same bloody thing with video games.  That doesn’t even cover people selling them on auction sites like Ebay.  How does he intend to control that aspect of used sales?  I probably shouldn’t give them any ideas.  Here is the last  quote and one that isn’t even close to true in my damaged mind.

“The fundamental nature of it is of a story-based game, and from a design point of view, the story itself doesn’t lend itself very well to being a multiplayer game other than as a tacked-on affair, which we’ve seen with quite a few games, and it’s not generally worked,” he explained.”

Now this is only part of the quote. Feel free to read the rest in the linked story. He was talking about why a game from his studio got shelved, but that piece of the quote is really all I care about.  What in the blue hell does story have to do with multiplayer? Generally all you use from the single player is the maps and characters for multiplayer.  Not many gamers give a screeching shit about the story while playing online. They just want to crush noobs and spill drivel over a headset.  COD MW1, Halo Reach and Black Ops, all had excellent stories and weren’t hurt at all by the multiplayer aspects. Granted those games were designed to be mulitplayer along with a single player experience. Which makes his example of tacked on multiplayer, even more hilarious and easy to explain.

There are two reasons games like Bioshock 2 etc  tacked on multiplayer to a game that didn’t need it. Money and this perception that the gamer hive mind requires multiplayer in everything.  The fact that it’s easier to sell DLC map packs and other crap in a multiplayer format, explains the money aspect nicely. The second reason is pretty self explanatory in my mind.  Sorry Mister Braben, but used games haven’t killed off the single player experience or single player only games. Hell Skyrim by itself pretty much proved that.  My personal guess is it was the butler with a pipe wrench stuck in the maid that did it. My real reason for the dwindling number of single player games would require an entire new post