Crytek Backpeddles Furiously on Used Game Sales Ban Suggestion
Last week, Crytek’s director of creative development, Rasmus Hojengaard, was keen to kill the used games market, blaming it for much lower profits than it otherwise would have had, “From a business perspective that would be absolutely awesome. It’s weird that [second-hand] is still allowed because it doesn’t work like that in any other software industries, so it would be great if they could somehow fix that issue as well.” Of course, piracy got a pretty strong mention, too. That went down like a lead balloon with gamers, creating a backlash that the company couldn’t ignore.
So, backpedalling furiously, Hojengaard later tried to make out that it was all a “joke”. Seriously, he did: “My comment made in the interview released on the 24th of April, touching upon ‘blocking sales of used games’, was not intended to be taken seriously nor representative of the opinion of Crytek”. He doesn’t elaborate further, to explain exactly how and why those words were said. So, what do you think, dear reader?
There have in fact, been rumours going round for several weeks of DRM measures to prevent gamers from using second-hand games on the Xbox 720 & PlayStation 4. This prevents the resale of games and cheaper access to often very expensive games, which in turn, threatens the bricks and mortar stores, which are the main businesses who profit from such sales.
So, how exactly do you quantify these “losses”? Oddly, this is never explained by such people, yet they “know”.
As creatives who put years of work into making each game, it’s understandable that Hojengaard and his team would want to maximise sales. But the blocking of used games isn’t a notion that sits well with consumers, and it’s equally understandable that Crytek doesn’t want to annoy gamers.
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