I entirely agree with the consensus that this buisness model is never goinig to work.
Firstly, getting hold of games at competitive prices is practically impossible - selling PC games is a massive buisness and plenty of people can get things cheaper than you can ever do. By accepting no profit at all, you might just about stay competitive, but only just. Secondly, think about your target market. Before putting any effort into this find out who exactly would buy from you.
A typical gamer? Why wouldn't they go to the shops and buy a real copy, or buy from the many online places that already sell games to download? Given that they'd also be trusting you (a complete stranger) with their CD key (wouldn't you be suspicious that you were using the same one more than once?), they'd expect it to be massively cheaper than buying elsewhere. A £3 saving isn't going to cut it. Plus, how do they get the game? By breaking the law and downloading it illegally? You can't encourage that or you'd be shut down in no time (even if you don't already get complaints for selling keys seperately).
Someone who already has the game but has lost the key? They won't spend masses on buying a potentially questionable CD key from you when they could go to the shops for it, or get a free replacement. Plus, this is a tiny number of people anyway.
Someone who's otherwise a pirate and has downloaded the game but wants to "go legal"? You're no good, because they're still breaking the law by downloading the game illegally. A pirate who can't get it to work without buying your key (or decides he wants to play online?) - pirates are used to getting something for nothing, they won't pay much online to a random stranger.
Essentially, trying to set up a website like this would make you look like a scam artist, even if you're not, you'd be shut down in no time, and no one would buy anything from you anyway. In short I think it would be pretty much a complete failure. Whatever you do don't waste money buying stock (which after all you'd have to do - if you want to offer a range of games, and you think you can get good "bulk" prices, I imagine you'd be talking about spending hundreds or thousands of pounds)
People shouldn't be giving personal insults - but on the last two, they're right. I don't see how you could do this without encouraging piracy (ie. downloading a game somewhere - you having a copy of the game lying around doesn't change anything), plus I too am convinced that the idea will fail. It's not the feedback you wanted, but it is feedback, and I strongly suggest you take it into account!
Firstly, getting hold of games at competitive prices is practically impossible - selling PC games is a massive buisness and plenty of people can get things cheaper than you can ever do. By accepting no profit at all, you might just about stay competitive, but only just. Secondly, think about your target market. Before putting any effort into this find out who exactly would buy from you.
A typical gamer? Why wouldn't they go to the shops and buy a real copy, or buy from the many online places that already sell games to download? Given that they'd also be trusting you (a complete stranger) with their CD key (wouldn't you be suspicious that you were using the same one more than once?), they'd expect it to be massively cheaper than buying elsewhere. A £3 saving isn't going to cut it. Plus, how do they get the game? By breaking the law and downloading it illegally? You can't encourage that or you'd be shut down in no time (even if you don't already get complaints for selling keys seperately).
Someone who already has the game but has lost the key? They won't spend masses on buying a potentially questionable CD key from you when they could go to the shops for it, or get a free replacement. Plus, this is a tiny number of people anyway.
Someone who's otherwise a pirate and has downloaded the game but wants to "go legal"? You're no good, because they're still breaking the law by downloading the game illegally. A pirate who can't get it to work without buying your key (or decides he wants to play online?) - pirates are used to getting something for nothing, they won't pay much online to a random stranger.
Essentially, trying to set up a website like this would make you look like a scam artist, even if you're not, you'd be shut down in no time, and no one would buy anything from you anyway. In short I think it would be pretty much a complete failure. Whatever you do don't waste money buying stock (which after all you'd have to do - if you want to offer a range of games, and you think you can get good "bulk" prices, I imagine you'd be talking about spending hundreds or thousands of pounds)
AdladUK said:
People shouldn't be giving personal insults - but on the last two, they're right. I don't see how you could do this without encouraging piracy (ie. downloading a game somewhere - you having a copy of the game lying around doesn't change anything), plus I too am convinced that the idea will fail. It's not the feedback you wanted, but it is feedback, and I strongly suggest you take it into account!
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See what i just did i used the edit button to add this rather then make a whole new post
