Rent-to-Own for PC Games

[evilneko]

So I was heading home the other day, and I saw a delivery truck for one of those Rent-to-Own places drive by while I waited at a light. You know the type of place: rent an appliance or piece of furniture, if you keep it (and keep paying) long enough, eventually it's yours. Seeing such a truck is not an uncommon occurrence to be sure, but for some reason it sparked an idea.

 

What if we treated computer games the same way? What might be the the pros and cons of such a business model, for all involved? What's the optimal pricing model for rent-to-own games?

 

The benefits to consumers are obvious: They get access to cheaper games. They get to demo full games for a small fee and don't have to risk spending 40-50 bucks on a flop. (Far Cry, for example--I absolutely loved the demo. The full game, when I finally got it, was huge, huge let-down.) Hardcore gamers who can finish a title in a matter of hours get their budgets stretched exponentially, enabling them to rent and play more games.

 

Rent-to-own comes with a price though: generally when you purchase things this way, you end up paying more in the end than you would have if you went to a store and bought the item outright. This would be the obvious drawback for consumers renting games. Another drawback might be lack of a printed manual until purchase, since the merchant probably wouldn't want a renter to lose it, and potentially damaged media if done through brick-and-mortar shops or mail.

 

For publishers, they'd gain a slew of impulse buys, bulk license sales to middlemen, entice the late-adopters who typically wait for the price to come down, and even potentially tap the absolutely huge casual gamer market. The potential for new sales is, IMO, staggering.

 

Publishers would be naturally afraid of piracy. To this I say, FEH! Piracy is a foregone conclusion and should not prevent a viable business model coming to fruition. And let's not forget that the availability of cheap, easily obtained full-version games has the potential to actually reduce piracy. (That old saying, "Can't compete with free" ? Not true.) Not only that, no self-respecting pirate waits til release anyway! Piracy being notoriously difficult to measure (also, how do you know that torrented copy came from a rental and not your factory, hmmm?) it'd be hard to make a case for rental policies being responsible for any uptick anyway. The remaining hurdle would likely be paying lawyers to re-write EULAs to take renting into account. Again, FEH I say, such costs (lawyers and pirates) are negligible compared to the revenue potential.

 

As to distribution and Digital Restrictions Management, Steam has the framework already in place to make a rental scheme work. And since "they're gonna pirate my game!" is a foregone conclusion anyway, it shouldn't weigh that heavily on the decision. Besides, which is worse for the publisher: the guy who pays five bucks to rent a title and then cracks it, or the guy who pays nothing and obtains the title anyway? At least the renter paid something.

 

What other cons might publishers be thinking of? Hard core gamers that rent for a week or two and end up never paying full price because they finish the game too soon (or on the flipside, fickle gamers who rent and lose interest)? The DRM arms-race nightmare to ensure rented-and-returned games no longer function? Just plain can't-be-arsed?

 

Distributors stand to gain too, of course. Imagine Netflix adding PC games to their library.

 

What of pricing? What would be a reasonable rate for renting PC games as opposed to buying?

 

Back when I used to rent console games, prices ranged from a buck for a one-day rental in the good ol' days to four bucks for a two or three day rental some time after the third-gen consoles (PSX, 3DO) started coming out. I'd say a PC game would be worth paying more per rental period for, but the rental period for a PC game should be longer. As always, new releases would be more expensive. I think it'd be fair at a price point of 5-10$ for a 5-day rental. Renew your rental five or six times, and it's yours to keep. If you decide early you want to keep it, you'd have the option to pay off the remainder at any time.

 

I think it'd work out pretty well for all involved.

[Vagrant0]

It wouldn't work since it would be a step above the current "pay to play until we decide to cut the service which the DRM requires" method used by game companies. Game companies also rely on a large portion of their sales due to impulse buyers... It's why they spend so much money skewing reviews, buying ad space, and flooding you with sneak peaks about that game. The last game I actually bought was FO3, pretty much everything else is on a sort of rental contract in one way or another. Edited May 27, 2010 by Vagrant0

[LHammonds]

Nope. There was already an excellent system of delivery I think Apogee game out with where 1 episode was free but to continue the story/levels, you had to buy the full game. I'm talking about a full game experience episode...not crippleware, not adware, not nagware. Simply try the game before you buy it. The 1st I remember was Monster Bash.

 

However, this assumes that the games being developed are quality games that people would pay for to continue playing rather than the scenario Vagrant0 mentioned which was the impulse buyers that buy games before they know if it is any good or not.

 

I much rather see game makers get paid for cranking out quality work rather than gimmicks that create one-time sells to many people that later regret their decision.

 

LHammonds