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I fear this will go unseen because of the Derka Derka Derkaing overshadowing it.

But good article.  I have little to no opinion on the subject, unfortunately.

Yea, I should've posted mine second. Errrrrrr.

I thought of that, but I'm just a humble site admin.

Fuck Madden.

Oh right, I do have ONE opinion.

Fuck Madden.

Eh, if you're a sports fan, there's really no choice. I hate to say it, but:

I love EA.

As for the rest of the article, I didn't understand a word of it. I also just woke up, so give me some time..

Video game publishers know what's going on with the buying and selling of used games. They would like to stop it if they could but unfortunately there's the doctrine of first sale that's preventhing them from doing so though I'm sure to them and the other major copyright holders that's just a temporary impediment to their eventual rewriting of copyright laws to their complete liking.

If we assume the finance guys at the video game publishers are not idiots then we have to assume they know how much money they are losing from the secondary resale market and have determined that at the moment the money they are losing is less than what they would lose in money and reseller "goodwill" if they radically changed their pricing model. Remember that at the moment video game publishers need companies like EB, GS, Wal-Mart, etc. to get their games to the consumers. Pissing off the resellers would not be a great strategic move on their part, at least not until electronic delivery is ubiquitous. If EB & GS need to resell used games to be able to eek out a profit, well, that's a sacrifice the game publishers are willing to make, for now. At some point in the future if used game sales continue to increase the publishers may be forced to change their pricing strategy and/or how they deal with their resellers but for now everything is presumably copasetic.

Ubiquitous digital distribution.

At least then the profits are being lost directly to people who use the product even if they are pirates (thus still accumulating mind share and fanbase).  At this point I see physical packaging and storage of digital media as nothing but a leech on the worlds resources.

</manifesto>

 :dead_horse:

I read the article 3 times (yes three) and this is the line that stuck in my head.  This begs to ask: Why are people selling their original versions back after such a short period of time?

While I agree that the secondary market is an injustice to the hardworking people that make these games, it's as unavoidable as the sale of used anything.  Being that I tend to be morbidly interested in human behavior, I wondered what it would be about new games and/or the generation of new gamers that had them flocking to obtain the latest titles only to sell them back in 2 weeks.  Now I'm sure that a portion of this may be due to a secondary rental market (i.e. Blockbustrer buys 20, rents them for a couple weeks and sells off all but 2 or 3), but the majority is due to lack of prolonged interest.  Do people have such a short attention span that they bore with games this quickly?  Are gamers now such gluttons for content that they devour it as fast as possible only to spit it out on a new customer? What's at the root of the issue here?  My knee-jerk guess is that it's either consumerism at its finest or a showing of disappointment.  I know I've held onto every game that I had some affection for and could possibly blame this on the annual versions rendering the game even more disposable.  The fact remains that we see this behavior with other titles.  It just got me to thinking...

On a side note, why can't they make an American football sim as good as the sims for other sports? <*cough* Championship Manager, Diamond Mind Baseball, etc.*cough*>

Because EA owns American Football.  And EA hates gamers.


Schild, very enlightening article, thanks.

I don't do pre-owned, except with automobiles. And porn. Hand me down porn is like Christmas.

I didn't even know where to buy preowned. I get all games via THE INNNNNTERNET.

Same here, but I will never get a pre-owned auto again if I can help it.

Mandatory broadband? No thanks, I've had broadband for only two years of my life, and will probably not have it again after next year when I move into the hinterlands. Digital distro sounds great to people with broadband, sure. It's screwing everyone else I have issues with.

Obligatory fuck Madden. bb2k,b.

As far as trade-ins, for most of my gaming friends, who are primarily console gamers, it's simply the Way It Is. New game comes out, you take in 3 or 5 old games and buy the new one.

I like to save my old games, so I've never done so, but I probably should trade in a bunch of games I didn't like and won't play again (I'm looking at you, Fable).

I do agree with the bit about games just being too expensive. I don't mind dropping $50 on a game I know will kick ass eight ways to sunday (I'm looking at you, GTA:SA). However, for most titles, I'm uncomfortable dropping $30, even. And that's where the big distro channels fuck me (and you), an EB/GS merger will only make it worse, since occasionally one or the other might have an older title the other doesn't. It's no slight on folks making the games, I do want them to get paid...I just can't afford more than a couple games a year at full price, and I find shallow games like Doom3 or HL2 charging $55 pretty ludicrous.

In the most recent case, I'm talking about Silent Storm. Cool game, just didn't fit in the budget at full price. Waited for it to hit the bargain bin, and it didn't, it just disappeared. Now I can buy it used on Amazon for $30. That's not happening. I only hope for a jewel case version someday.

After all these years of gaming...I'm becoming a jewel-case shopper. Only the good titles will get bread from me, everything else is bargain bin or bust.

Bring back Front Page, beyotch?

I always read up on games before I buy them, so that I can be pretty damn certain if I'm going to get my moneys wort or not. By paying $50 for a game which is crap you're supporting crap games, and leting them know that they can get away with it. Since the overall quality is pretty fucking low I'd hate to see it geting even worse.

Preowned for me on just about anything possible. Cars, furniture...I don't care. Especially music gear (hey, sometimes you'll get a little mojo in that deal as well!).

As for games: Usually if I like a game, I'm going to like it A LOT. Enough to rush through in 3 or 4 days (I'm mainly speaking about story based games here. Things like sports, racing, fighting, or Tony Hawk are another story). I don't see a $50 value for 3 days of entertainment, so I'll buy a preowned copy if it's available.

I'll also sell them once I'm done....As much as I may have liked them, I don't hold any kind of sentimental value to them. Nor am I collector. And if I don't like a game (which I'll know within 30 mins of playing), it'll be back at the shop within the week.

So why don't I rent instead?

Most of time the games are gone, and when I buy/sell preowned, I'm usually only losing a few dollars compared to renting. That, and I'm impatient.  

Anyways.....So what if the game industry's hard working folks are losing money here? That's not my problem. I have my own cash to worry about. Everyone does..

$50 for 3 days of enjoyment is pretty damn good in my book, most games aren't fun for more than 10 minutes anymore though. Just going to the cinema here costs like $8 and that's like 2 hours of enjoyment. Of course you can't 100% look at in that way since for example kebab pizza, which is the holy grail of food, costs about $7 and only lasts like 20 minutes while still often being better than a trip to the cinema. Anyway, I'm geting slightly off topic here but $50 for 3 days ration of enjoyment isn't that bad imo :P

Freebirds?

aka. Chipolte, Qdoba, Moes, Willy's, Barbaritos, Flying Burro

aka Southside San Antone  :-P

Lots of things to say, I'll try to list them numerically.

1) Games cost too much. Across the board. They cost too much to make, they cost to much to buy as a consumer, and they cost too much to a retailer to sit on the shelf for more than 2 weeks.
2) EB merging with Gamestop SHOULD, in theory, be a good thing, because they SHOULD have almost if not more purchasing power than Wal-Mart does, meaning they should be able to really beat the shit out of Wal-Mart on pricing. I mean like 10% or more. But they won't, because they won't have to. It'll mean their margins on new shit will be much, much lower, but their prices will remain the same, which is generally better than Wal-Mart on new shit.
3) #1 is a truism because the amount of enjoyment most games will give a gamer is too short. The games are disposable, for the most part. A single-player, non-sports game? Might get a month out of my casual gameplay time at best. Sports games have to be cyclical because of the changing rosters of major sports today. However, these games are charging way too much for nothing more than a roster update and some new theory about how to make the game play more like its real-life counterpart. First-Person Football is the first new feature that really made it worthwhile to get a new game, and that was 2 iterations ago. Very little new under the sun on these sports titles, and not nearly enough to justify the $50 price tag.
4) Madden sucks, EA sucks, fuck you both.
5)The "hardcore" (otherwise known as early adopters by marketers) are the ones driving the industry's dollar bus. They buy the game on release, thus they make the INDUSTRY (i.e. publishers) almost all of the money in this market. The industry is totally focused on those first two weeks of sales and damn the rest. I'm not even sure which is the tail and which is the dog in the current scenario, because I see each side chasing the other. But just like MMOG raids, the % of people who will buy a $50 on release day as compared to those who wait for a cheaper price is probably very small. But again, those are the sales the industry lusts after. Well, that and the Wal-Mart/Best Buy dollars, which is a totally different market altogether. Mostly.
6) Cheaper prices would sell more games, but the retailer margins per unit would be lower. I'm almost entirely positive that the retailers would fight lower pricing schemes behind closed doors, even though they see how many more sales they get from the lower-priced pre-owned bins.

The people that are really losing out on preowneds, besides the industry itself? The developers. They see fuckall of that money. The publishers, quite frankly, deserve to get fucked on pre-owneds, because they have pretty much let the industry get bent over this barrel. I'm looking at you, EA. You fuck developers over with subsistence royalties, shitty milestone money and pubilshing deals that don't even allow the dev team enough budget to patch the fucking thing properly (HEY BATTLEFIELD 1942-2-Vietnam! HOW'S THAT QA GOING?!).  Meanwhile, you turn a blind eye to EB/Gamestop's sale of used games. Legally, sure, there isn't a damn thing they can do about it, just like record companies can't do dick to used CD stores. But realistically, EA could certainly strong-arm EB/Gamestop about it, threatening the withholding of blockbuster titles like Madden 2006. Shame on EB and Gamestop for basing their profit projections so heavily on used games, because it also hurts the industry. It hurts the industry because it perpetuates the shitty pricing scheme and quick-hit investment mentality that leaves the development teams of successful games, like Troika or Westwood, unable to pay their bills. All of that means development teams are underfunded across the board, which means companies are going out of business and we have less people making fucking games.

Direct distribution is certainly one avenue for change. But you got to make that shit work. No Phantoms, I mean shit that works. The Phantom is a great idea, but none of it is going to help if the shit is either buggy or has no games worth playing. And no matter what you do, digital distro doesn't satisfy the casual purchaser's need for something tangible, something to hold onto when they think about a game.

I bought a pre-owned XBOx, big big mistake. First of all, it only cost like $30 bucks less. Second of all, it didn't work, I had to return it, and the frustration was worth more than $30 right there. Third of all, it came with a terrible 3rd party controller. Was a waste of time and money.

My favorite part was learning about the "D" in the EB computer.  Now the main reason I have to go by EB is that one girl with the big tits and peeking thong.

I forgot to mention that I will almost never buy a new game, simply because I just don't have the money to blow on a game I won't play that long. MMOG's I can make an exception for if I've played them. Console games. Fuck no. $50? The only new console games I've bought have been Fable (not a bad expense, as I got $15 back in trade when I bought WoW and I liked it) and Resident Evil 4, which was well worth it. All the others? Pre-owned. I even bought my X-Box and my wife's Gamecube pre-owned, and have had no problems with either.

Remember, I'm not saying that preowned isn't worth it for the customer. I'm saying it's doing more harm than pirates.

I only buy new games and consoles these days.  It's not worth the hassle to me when something doesn't work, and I have this delusion that I am rewarding the right people.  It's bad enough trying to get a blue CDROM to boot in a PS2 (Save the Homeland), the scratches just make me more angry.  Also my preowned Xbox was a piece of shit.  Not that the factory-fresh replacement Xbox is some fantastical game unicorn, but at least it doesn't have dirty disk errors.

That's why I don't rent, and I rarely buy pre-owned.  I'm sick as shit of getting home, opening the box to find the CD scratched to fucking hell and back.

But pre-owned is such a solid and recognizable thing. We need nebulous threats. Pirates are like terrorists, they are everywhere and nowhere, and will never go away so long as the status quo remains such. Thus we can battle them as long as we want.

Shit, good television shows do more harm to the gaming industry than pirates.

Touche.

I rarely buy recent games preowned, only ancient and hard to find stuff.

It doesn't have to be ancient to be hard to find, thanks to the dual colossal distro channels. If they take something off the shelf...good luck finding it.

Thus my earlier comment about not being able to find Silent Storm, a fairly recent game, outside Amazon.com's used program (and I'm not paying $30 for used title).

What is one to do when trying to find a truly out of print title like the Alien Crossfire expansion for SMAC? I even tried downloading the abandonware (the right solution imo, Firaxis wouldn't help me), but it didn't install correctly and borked my SMAC.

I'm jonesing for some madden

They have drugs for that.

From reading Schild's post I can divine that he has some personal knowledge of how an EB/GS works behind the scenes. 
For myself, as a former star on the parabolic career arc of the EBGames management team, I can attest to the fact that what Schild's saying is correct.


Every day, the loyal and well-drssed staff at your local EB/GS is brow beat with their sales numbers for the previous day, then threatened bystaple remover to the jugular with termination if they don't sell XXX numbers of used games the following shift.  The XXX usually equates to a target figure of 3/4 of daily total sales.

Where I live (in southern/central California) the majority of my day was spent processing used games for credit.  I'd say... 70%?... of these games were stolen from another retail store, bought for 5 bucks a stack at the local swap meet, or used as beaver pelts when trading for big wampum (a.k.a crank, or whatever flavor of meth you like) with the bag whore that lives next to your mobile home.  Nothing like processing 17 "used" games so that the fine young gentleman with the tear drop tattoo and bulging backpack can buy a 30$ pre-paid cell phone card which EBGames just happens to place right next to the register.   
Those cards are handy.  If you don't have a phone it lets you hook it up via 3 way calling to your homey up in County so he can tell you about the lyrics he's been writing, while talking to his babies momma about his release date.  (Bonus Question: There's only one way to generate a land line phone bill of over 1000$ in a months time, can you guess what it is?)


To recap: the retail outlets are in the process of marginalizing the sale of new games.  Especially new PC games.  The profit margin (when compared to the trade-in system scam) is much too small.  Plus, the big brains in the Star Chamber know that the "average American" doesn't have the means to buy a computer powerful enough to run the caliber of game being released today.  Actually they don't have the means to own a PC at all.  Hence rise of the console, and the parallel evolution of the consoles to be more and more PC like.


Should we be concerned?  Hell yes we should.  We as PC gamers are riding an inner tube down the slope of our niche market, and at the bottom of our crevass it will be very dark indeed.         


P.S. - As much as I lurk here I only have a handful (3?) of posts on this board.  My very first post in these hallowed halls earned me a PM from Schild asking if I could see my way clear to, you know, give him a free copy or three of Windwaker.  For my polite denial I didn't even get a "thanks anyway" response.  /sadf. 
Point being I don't work for EB/GS or anything related to the video game industry any longer so requests for free products need not be submitted. kk

I don't remember and I apologize. Those people don't give so much as oxygen.

Cheddar just pointed out I might have been drunk. It's entirely possible.

My money is on drunk too.

Usually, schild is good on the PMs. That post count doesn't come from the forums.

HEAYEARGH. It was for the promotional copies of the Windwaker remake from the april fools joke in EGM (because I'm a tool).

Considering when that was though, there's a good chance I was drunk.

When was it, when you were awake?

Yarrrr, you've got a quick tongue on you.

That'll be $2 for the roleplaying show. Which you could have saved if you had an f13.edge card.

So, did you actually assault any of the Madden fanbois last night? We had speculation during our football draft that you might attempt to insert a Madden box into one of the more unruly types.

Glad to hear it.  I've got a few builders you can talk to next time you're buying a house. ;)

I am resigned to the fact that I will never be able to afford a house in this lifetime, so I don't bother considering whether to purchase new or used. The housing market in this area is fucking insane.

It's getting to be that way all over, so don't be blue.  The median price of a house was just announced as being $260k-ish.

Around here that gets you ~2800 sq ft from a 'mid range' builder on a 1/2 acre with a few nice upgrades.  I'd hate to see the shack you'd buy on the coasts.

In San Francisco that might get you a condemned house in a bad neighborhood.  Even where I live (other side of the bay) it's more like $500k for anything you'd want to live in.

Schild that post came off a little more shit-tay then I meant to sound, sorry.

Thanks for apologizing.  And obviously it didn't stop me from coming here and reading the forums.


Anyway.  Yea buying homes.  Holy shit.  The current insano value of realestate and such is the unspoken .com boom of this decade.  One of my best buddies bought a house for 350k four years ago.  Just appraised at 800k-ish he tells me this weekend.  Caveat this is in California, and near the coast too boot, where everything is insano.

I make the average for my region and can't afford to buy anything but a ghetto house. Hell, just renting is way too expensive, in my town with no industry or job base outside walmart. It leads to folks having so many roommates it's like being back in college again. The housing bubble is insane.

My girlfriend was weeding her book section, which has real-estate stuff in it. At one point she had a cart of books that made me physically ill: "How to Flip Properties for Quick Cash" "How to Get More Than Your House is Worth", etc. It's become (or has been for some time, more accurately), a market for sellers to assrape buyers. I have no idea why the market bears it, though, unless it's just so pervasive nobody has a choice (folks do need a place to live, after all, and renting is wastefull as all hell).

That's why I'm looking for undeveloped land, in the long run it's cheaper to do it myself. Lots of work involved with that, though.

Undeveloped land is certainly the way to go if you can either a) work at home, b) don't mind commuting 1-2 hours to work, or c) you are already retired.

I'd love to buy some land somewhere here in Colorado, but since I work in downtown Denver it'd be a hell of a drive every day. Any affordable land around here is quite a distance away. Right now I live 15 mins away from work (on back roads) so I don't feel like I spend the vast majority of my day either working or driving.

I live in the middle of NY state, tons of undeveloped, or at least agricultural, land. That's why I'm going that route. Right now it's all about saving for a fat downpayment to avoid insurance and bad rates. The rub is the amount of hard work involved in building a house, because I don't make shit for money (I'm not really complaining, though, I love where I work). I'm also looking for something situated on bedrock with lodgepole pines, that might put it out to an hour commute in a worst case scenario. But for my own private acreage that rivals the best adirondack camps...it's worth it imo.

I so don't want to live in the city I work in, which has no real positive benefits outside cable and food delivery, two things I can definitely live without just fine, given the upsides.

I'd guess that the low interest rates are what drive up real estate prices.  More people are looking at getting fixed-rate mortgages for really good rates and are willing to bite the bullet and move out of that ratty apartment or older/smaller home.  Demand goes up, prices go up... and more homes are built.  Of course they are all shitty, two-story rubber-stamp floorplans on 1/4 acre in a subdivision, but a new house can be had in my area for $100k if you are not too picky.

From someone who had a custom home built: don't do it.  If you have the free time and like hard work, you might be fine building it yourself.  At least do your research first.

Yes and yes. I don't make much money, but I also only work 35 hrs/wk with decent vacation/holidays. Also used to do a lot of manual labor, road construction, unloading trucks, roofing, etc. I'm looking at a half-stone, half-timber cabin as the main idea, details depending on the plot of land.

I really don't want to, but there's no alternative. I have no interest in living on a 1/4 acre of land surrounded by suburbanites.

Low interest rates may be a factor, but I still feel it's mostly real estate speculators and flippers. Can't even rent a shoddy apartment in the slum I live in for less than $500/mo, which is why I'm staying in my crappy $400/mo apartment. And just to head it off - I don't want to hear how cheap that is compared to LA or Frisco or whatever. I lived in both those cities, paying at least $1200/mo in rent, I know what fair rent should be for the economy of where I live. I'd also make 3x as much salary in a large metro ;)

Used games. Devil. All that. :roll:

Sounds like you have your football tucked.  Good luck.  My dad built his new house in his spare time, got some help from friends.  Turned out pretty good, really.

I hate used games and the undead leeches that push them on an unsuspecting public.  I should go to EB and shove several used games, and a service plan, up the employees' asses... but not the big-tit one with the thong.

You're much nicer about rerailing than I am.

Anyhow, I buy new just about always.  Maybe it's just because I make enough money or am superficial enough but I'd rather pay 5-10 dollars more for something that I know hasn't been abused by some greasy handed 13 year old.  Part of me also, if I know I'm going to like the game, wants to pay the developers.   I want them to make more of these games.  I want them to know that I voted with my wallet and picked their product.  If I'm going in with the mindset to buy used, I might as well just warez it.  Because I know I really don't give a shit about the game in that instance.  Sometimes, I know I got hoodwinked.  But that's just me bemoaning the fact I yet again bought something in a genre I know I don't like or got coerced into playing another bad MMORPG with my friends.

But really, most of it comes to I don't want to pay for something someone else has befouled.  I will not buy a used car.  I don't care about the $6K I just lost driving it off the lot.   No one's ass has been in my car seat for the past 3 years, and I like knowing that. I did buy a used house, but mainly because any new housing developments would have me living halfway to either Phoenix or the Mexican border.  I like living where there's available broadband and a mall nearby.

Of course, there's times when you just can't avoid used.  Some games are just impossible to find new. Then I don't feel bad and I don't mind that what I'm getting is someone's leftovers.

Heh. That describes me to a T.

I won't buy a used game unless I'm saving at least $20. I also refuse to bring in old games to trade in unless they are giving me $15 - $20 for it. If all they want to offer me is $5, it can sit on my shelf and collect dust.

A good example of what pisses me off: I like console wrestling games, I admit it. They are great for multiplayer hillarity when friends are over. The latest one from THQ came out last November. The reviews weren't great so I rented it. It wasn't good enough to warrent paying full price for, so I decided I'd wait and get it used down the road. Last I checked (EBGames) - they are still trying to get $55+ Cdn for a used copy. Fuck that shit.

What pisses me off the most, is that I know it will stay $55 till the day they release the next version.

Oh, and unless it's a quarter the price or has a hell of a warranty included, buying a used console = dumb.

Pre-owned consoles come with good warranties. But, they are barely any cheaper, and if they do fail the aggravation just isn't worth it. The ONLY reason I got a pre-owned XBox was that all the normal ones were out of stock at the time.

Heh- I spent a very entertaining New Year's Eve with some friends playing rasslin' games on the X-Box. My wife and I had an epic battle that would have been over MUCH sooner if either of us knew WTF the controls did  :-D

The last New Years eve I played a game, it was Serious Sam. We played from start to finish in one sitting. I Bought a brand new copy just for that evening. Afterwards, I think it was thrown away with the liquor. Moral: If you don't buy used liquor, don't buy used games.

I rarely get to buy console games; $50 a pop for something that keeps me busy for at *most* a week is a bit pricey.  That's why I like renting--$6 for a 5-day rental, and that's probably all the gameplay I'll ever get out of it anyway.

I will buy a used game every now, usually something disposable.  Case in point:  I picked up "Celebrity Deathmatch" for a few bucks, got a few hours of brainless chuckles out of it, gave it away to somene else. $10 is my limit for used; if it's more than that it's not worth it.

"God of War" is actually the only new game I've purchased since Christmas, come to think of it...

I'll disagree with $50 for 3 days of fun being worth it.  There's nothing fundamentally different from games a year old that cost $20 to the ones that are brand new.  The graphics are only marginally better, and the gameplay pretty much the same.  Resident Evil 4 is the most I've paid for a game in a long time, but even then I waited until it came down some (I bought it at < $40).  Aside from that, there are plenty of other games I can play for far less; I enjoy playing poker with my friends, and the poker set cost something like $10.  I assure you I get more than 3 days of fun out of that set.

There are people who can't stand not having things day of release of course, and more power to them.  I am happy that their money is funding the advancement of the industry for my benefit.  If the margin is there to keep prices up high, I guess go for it; that's just good business.  The reselling market has got to be hitting them in the pocket though, since almost all the console games I buy are used.  There's no reason not to; they're cheaper, and they work 95% of the time.  Whenever they don't, I just take them back.  When they often cost half as much as a new title... what's the point?  Give me a reason not to.

I just bought a very small house for $288K. That is, without going into technical details I can't translate the terminology to, I sealed the deal, set the loan and interest, but won't move in/start paying before the 1st of october. In the months I've been a houseowner, without technically owning a house (and thus not paying) the value of my house has risen $32K...
Crazy.


Used games? Won't have 'em. I only buy new stuff.

Crazy Hanzii, you should look into that for a business :p

I paid 1250/mo to live in fucking Boulder, CO.  I wish it had been Frisco.

Frisco in the early 90's, in my example. And not 'Frisco, but a small suburb in East Bay, close to scenic and crime-free Oakland. Behind a row of warehouses.

I can't imagine what rent in the city was like.

Madden sold 1.7million copies.




Sigh.

Damn, that's pathetic. The new Madden this year is by all accounts almost the same as last year.

I own one version of Madden, GC 2002 (?), I got on EBay. If there was ever a game you don't have to get on the day it comes out, Madden is it. They change so little from version to version, being 3 years behind barely matters unless you are a nut who has to have the latest roster or you'll just die.

(http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/34463/2/Sheep.jpg)

Unfortunately, there really isn't much of an option. If you want to play today's football, you have to buy one with the latest roster updates. In the days when buying a sports game on the PC was a good thing, you could usually get updated rosters from some sites for the previous year's game. But on consoles? No luv. About the only thing you can do is find somebody who is insane enough to rate all the new players, print out their roster ratings, and input every new player and roster move into the custom rosters on new games. Yes, that's patentedly ridiculous, something I used to do for baseball games back in the day, but on a console... /shudder.

Most people play sports games to play through the current season. Thus EA has them by the balls.

Bet that was a big reason that EA went afer the NFL.  The next big madden killer was going to be NFL 2k6 where you can just DL new rosters.

I agree with the sentiment about EA's ball-clutching.

I won't be playing a football game for several years, apparently. Hopefully Visual Concepts/2k Games puts out /something/ good before the NFL license is unlocked again (if ever...).

I mean, I suck at football, but it's fun as hell. You guys just kick my ass too hard ;) It's all moot now, and I'll be over 40 before I see another football video game :(

I have decided that I will play NCAA 2k5 for a couple of years. There are no named players, so the roster updates don't mean shit. The gameplay is as good as Madden, and it is fun to start your own college, recruit players, and build a program from the ground up. I believe that there is a new version out this year, but I don't need it. The old one works fine for me.

The next console football game I will buy will be for the X360. If/when I buy one.

Jade Empire @ EB (http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/243602.asp)

New: $19.99
Used: $26.99

Err...huh?

More Madden 06 fun: It shows up as a 'bestseller' @ EB's Xbox 360 shop, the only game on the list (the other two items are the $600 and $700 360 bundles....).

That happens sometimes when new games get discounted.  No idea why, but I saw the same thing when I picked up a copy of Metal Gear 3. 

Holy shit a $700 bundle? WTF? God, these bundles are really out of control. It probably comes with $100 of strategy guides...

$19.99 for this masterpiece? I just got around to finishing it....it's worth more than that. Put up another GotY nomination for BioWare.

A - Active
D - Discontinued
R - Recalled

I don't recall seeing any other letter. Nothing in large numbers at least. Most Atlus games go D before the month they release is over. Riviera for GBA? D already. I have a copy on hold and its been there for 2 weeks because if I let it go I won't see another. Ever.

I think Stella Deus went D the day it came out. Or maybe that was Makai Kingdom.

God damn EB.  Where do I need to be buying my shit?  I'm tired of supporting those shitlipped assprobes.

EB/Gamestop need to have more shelf space imo, so they can stop fucking with the industry at large. There should be old archive shelves with 20 aisles of classics and old crap.

Am I to understand that each of the erudite h4rdc0rz here buy all of their games from EB or GS?  Watch out for the man-sized turd I'll be leaving in each store's preorder-box corner.

I only buy stuff I feel like preordering/is limited edition from there. Also, I preorder an asston for the demos and then cancel them the day the game comes in. With Fry's near me, I've no reason to shop anywhere else. Ever. Again.

Is Fry's that place with the blue rounded triangle logo?  I think there is one near me.  I thought they sold washing machines.  I'll drop by on the way home today... assuming I remember where it is.

Even with the paucity of PC games, they (EB) have the best selection.

Actually, there's only one place to buy pc games in town: walmart. The mall in the next city over has a circuit city, best buy is around the corner from the mall (both cc and bb have crappy selections).

For the record, I am neither erudite nor h4rdc0rz.  :-P :cry:

Supreme Ruler 2010 was listed as D in the Edmonton EB computers for weeks before it was released. And on the day of release. And the weeks after release. It may still be for all I know; I bought it elsewhere.

Personally, I'll probably be semi retired in about 8 years (Army pension ftw).  I'm looking at picking up a house way the hell up in the upper peninsula of Michigan, probably around Marquette.  There are no jobs there, but then you can actually buy a decent home for around 60K, and I can easily afford to live on half pay (which I hope to make E-8 by the time I retire) for life up there while supplementing my income with rinky dink part time jobs or some chincy internet business.

Retired at 42?  Fuck yeah, bitches.

That sounds like a plan, BG. I just passed a house I had my eye on for around ten years when I went up to my mother's place Sunday for the family bbq. It's listed pretty high, $147k evaluated at $110k, and it's got no land (1 acre). But it's in a great spot in the country, close to friends and family, and it's friggin' HUGE. The horns of a dilemma and whatnot. It's also way more than I can afford, the eval price would be pushing my piddly library salary (though I should be getting a promotion next year, it's still piddly compared to housing/cost of living). We also just found out BRAC isn't shutting our labs down (yay!) but they are actually expanding which will really spike housing in the next couple years (boo!).

Oh, and it's chintzy (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=chintzy). :)

Awesome.  You should start a chintzy online game sales racket so I don't have to endure retail outlets anymore.

You mean federal pensions can't be underfunded and liquidated in bankruptcy?  ;)  I've got to get me a government job so I can play more games!

Or hey, if I play my cards right maybe I can slide into a GS job after I retire and get that pension in addition to my Army pension.

And then I will destroy you all.

Having done a tour in the service I can say that the man will have EARNED his relative peace & quiet by 42.
Though it does get a bit easier once you hit E7 or so, provided one doesn't decide to go some form of officer.

Older noncom switch to officers know they are getting shafted by the academy nutjobs unlike the academy kids who just have this haunted look in their eyes till O-3 or so...

Why does the Army put a lieutenant in every infantry platoon?  Somebody has to take off their gas mask first.

What's the difference between a private (E-2) and a lieutenant?  The private has been promoted once.

But I will confirm that the best CO's I've ever had went through OCS after enlisted active duty.  Head and shoulders better than any West Point grad I've ever served under.  They have the same disease that Warrant Officers do; they've seen how the system works from the bottom and know how it can be played.  They don't micromanage, they let their senior NCO's do most of the heavy lifting, who will more than likely get the job done, by hook or by crook.

My last first sergeant was a master of that shit.  He'd get supplies all over the place from his various little connections.  We never asked how he did it (and neither did our commander), and he never told us, but sweet Jesus was that man ever the epitome of midnight requisitioning.  This was the guy that sent us out to the Air Force's AO with stencils and paint because we needed a generator.  We just rolled up to an area that was fairly inconspicuous and did a quick touchup on it.  Hook it up to the deuce and a half, and drive right back through the gates while waving at the SP's.  Beautiful.