A point of contraversy (part 1) - Buying a game used is as bad as pirating?

[Lord_Jaroh]

snip

Yes. It is. But only for one reason:

When buying a new car, you purchase the vehicle in a prime condition. When buying the car used, you get the same vehicle, and if the car has been on the road for 5 to 10 years already, its parts have been subjected to some wear and tear.

The same can be applied to any other used purchase. Clothes, shoes, furniture, you name it.

Now when you buy a game we lose the "used" bit of it. It has the exact same value as if you had purchased it new. So, how to solve this?

Do what the Publishers are doing right now. Cut the content of the game, whether with a 10 dollar online pass, by giving DLC for free with a new purchase, but require another 10 bucks for a used copy ... or by cutting the Single Player.

I say good on them.

... Don't go throwing the "But Games are not physical objects!" argument at me. This is a "last resort" argument used by people who want to defend their claim to cheap (or free) stuff with claws and teeth.

But if you buy a game used you are also getting "wear and tear", albeit of a different sort:

Go onto Rock Band Online and tell me if you can find a matchup to play online. Tell me if people are still playing Resistance 1 online. Do people still play Super Mario World? Can I still buy Freelancer new?

Buying new allows you to be a part of the "in" crowd and playing the game now. Waiting, means you get it at a cheaper price, but you also lose out on the popularity point. You can also scratch/lose a cd, just like real physical objects and you would be less inclined to purchase it again brand new if you already did so.

Game publishers should be looking at making games cheaper, so that people feel less ripped off when they buy a dud. Game Developers should be looking to make their games forwards compatable and backwards compatable. Reward me for buying a game and following a series. Make me want to follow you, wherever you go.

If games cost $10-$20, people would be less inclined to trade them in as they wouldn't get anything for it, so to speak. As well, you would sell far more of them as they would be in impulse buy territory. If you produce DLC later and continue adding to a game, people would be less likely to trade in games (look at Rock Band compared with Capcom. One does it right, the other one does it poorly).

I do not have to pay a pittance to the maker of a used book, a used car, a used movie, a used anything. Why do game makers feel they need special consideration?

There is a reason you are "loosing" money to used game sales: Your games are not worth what they are charging new! Maybe you should fix that instead of blaming gamers for looking for a deal.

 

[Wicky_42]

...

This is fundamentally wrong. The reason why is: with piracy, there is no giving up of physical copy from someone else.

Imaging the situation:

Person A buys game full price.. plays it for a while, then a new game comes out so he sells his game and uses the money to fund the newer game. Later, Person B then buys the first game second hand as they couldn't afford the game at retail. Person B may enjoy the game or may trade it in later to help fund another second hand game.

Ownership of the original game is transferred. The $60 has already been paid for that game, the fact that several people played it one after the other is not a problem. Person A can only play the game again by acquiring a new copy.

In the case of a pirated copy, there is no limit to the amount of people who can play the game from a single $60 concurrently (and that's assuming that the pirated copy was purchased in the first place). There is no need to purchase more copies and the game developer suffers as legitimate potential purchases are being lost.

See, the thing I don't get about this line of thinking is what's so special about the limit on the number of people using it? How does a consecutive line of ownership of a copy, with one original purchase that the Publisher saw a cut of, really differ in result from a simultaneous distribution of ownership, again seeded from that one original purchase (or leak or whatever, granted)? Is it the scale that you find opposable? In which case, you start sounding like the music industry protesting against radio broadcasts allowing countless people to listen for free, or the like movie industry on home video recording allowing anyone with the equipment to tape and re-watch films for free. Lots of talk about piracy and the destruction of industries then, but that didn't exactly happen.

I'm not arguing pro-piracy or anything here, I'm just pointing out that your line of argument seems to assume something sacrosanct about a distinct, physical article that the industry itself tacitly admits has zero value with regard to the software contained on it by way of their licensing system.

 

[KAPTAINmORGANnWo4life]

I love how some people are so used to getting fucked, they're letting the developers choose the positions now. This is the only medium where it's feasible to sell a product in an incomplete state, or block-off content in the final product, and it's no longer being opposed.

If used games are so bad, what about if you were to buy a game off of a friend? Or purchasing a copy off of EBay? Should we stop sharing games with each other because developers aren't being paid at a 1:1 ratio of people to games?

Once someone has bought a game, or anything for that matter, they're the legal owner of that item. Not the copyright, not the trademark, not the rights to reproduce that product, that specific item. The game disc you bought is no longer Publisher X's property, and is no longer under Retailer Y's inventory, but is your property. You are allowed to buy or sell your property through legal avenues, and if you choose to sell your game for store currency, there is nothing wrong with that.

Then tell me why is it illegal to share games and music. For free. Its my game/music. If I choose to share it with the world, its my right to do so, no? Moreover I am not even profiting from it. What is wrong with that scenario?

Because you're violating their copyright. You are reproducing their copyrighted material (1 song file becomes 10 song files) without their consent or license. You are allowed to do what you want with the one copy of their product you have bought, which includes sending it to a friend, but once you put it on the Internet and it gets downloaded X number of times, you're in violation of the contract that comes with the sale.

And part of it does come down to scale. Two people sharing hard copies of games won't (or at least haven't yet) become a focal point for companies, but thousands upon thousands of people getting their product for free does affect them in a very tangible way.

 

[TheDarkestDerp]

Help me understand this:

The publisher of the game has sold X copies to Retailer Y for price Z. Retailer Y sells the games, and gets a certain amount of those traded back because they didn't like it or whatever. After that, they prop it up in the used games section for resale at a lesser price.

Retailer Y will get a little more money out of the purchase because they don't have to throw out a game. But the amount of X copies sold, and with that the Z Price, isn't changed is it? It's not that with every single purchase a little of that money has to be put into an envelope and sent to the publisher, right? So how does selling used games hurt the publisher like piracy does?

This is not me trolling or whatever, I'm just curious if my train of logic works or not.

AGREED entirely. Everybody involved in production has already made their cut, so the 2nd hand shoppe's not hurting anybody. It's akin to suing a person for holding a yard-sale, in my book. The price reduction is on wear and tear to a used game already counted as sold in the units from the source and it's not hurting anybody's business...

 

[ThriKreen]

Buy it or don't touch it. No one is entitled to entertainment for free. If you want free entertainment, go take a walk in the woods.

Exactly.

As devs, we sell not just a game but an experience to you. While hopefully said entertainment experience would be enjoyable, good or bad, we can't take that experience away from you if you decide to sell the game (or movie, or book). Unlike physical items which degrade from wear and tear and age, the content itself does not. Sure the disc or book might get damaged, or you lose out on the manual and such, but the important part is the content itself which will never degrade.

That's why it's justified in a way to count used and pirated copies as lost sales even if the person would not have bought it in the first place. You've now experienced the entertainment, without reimbursing the creators - kinda like reading the movie summary on Wikipedia ("Oh, so HE's Luke's father!").

Seriously this bizzare idea that Publishers are getting paid on an individual sale-by-sale level boggles my mind.

Used sales DO hurt the developer, not just for lack of money returned, but also in metrics on how many copies have been sold. Obviously a game store won't tell the publisher how many used copies are sold, as the publisher would demand a portion of the sales. But if a studio sells 250,000, but an extra 500,000 end up playing the game due to the lower cost of used sales, it creates a skewed perspective that 33% of actual player base bought the game. And that could result in a studio getting less funding from a publisher for their next game, under the image the game did not sell.

That's where the "if I liked the pirated/used copy, I'll buy the next one" support line kind of dies: if you don't support the developer NOW, there might not BE a chance for a sequel.

Rentals get around this because the publishers (should) get reports on how often a particular game is rented and pay for it at a reduced cost of course, which adds up over time to be more than the game itself (hopefully), so it's not a one off purchase. Same goes for LAN/net cafe shops.

Now, I support the notion that games should be cheaper. As we saw with Valve's L4D sale awhile back, a drop in price to $10 or $20 from $40 resulted in an increase of 1000% in sales or something. But there are certain stigmas with games in the $20 or less price being indie, shovel ware or bargain bin and not worth playing. We need to get away from that image.

 

[captainwolfos]

Riddle me this:

If a person buys a game brand new, and decides for whatever reason that s/he doesn't like or want to play it anymore, what should this person do with said game?

The logical answer to this is to sell the game, or trade it in to a game store like Gamestation, where it will be marked up as second hand and sold again. Developers and publishers will not get money for the second hand sale, but the store will, allowing it to live to sell games another day.

Another thing the person could do is throw the game away. The game is shipped off to a landfill and buried in a hole and sealed over, never to see the light of day again. Noone gets money for this, and the earth just died a little more.

I did have some other point that I was going to make on this, but as always I forgot what I was writing midway through typing the preceding. Oh well. Maybe it'll come to me.

Seriously; what else can you -do- with a game that you don't want to play with anymore? There's only so many CD clocks a person can use.

That's my two cents, anyway. I'm totally in favour of second-hand games.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Games lose their value, most do anyway. Would you pay full price for an Xbox or PS1 game? I doubt. Or what about full price for a game that was released 1 year ago? No you wouldnt.

What if i rent from Blockbusters or Lovefilm/Netflicks.....should i have to pay an extra fee on top of the rental fee as well?

With this whole free stuff if you buy brand new thing happening, their is no need for extra charges. Make your game better, longer and more interesting and people will buy it new. If your gonna make it only 8 hours to complete, then release it at a budget price because no one will buy it full price.

 

[Paularius]

Pirates buy games then share them for free.
Resellers buy people's games for a fraction of their value than sells them for triple the price they paid.
Neither results in any direct revenue for the developer.

Errf. Why cant people get it into there heads that for a game to be pre owned it means someone had to buy that game brand new. The devs have already recived money for that copy of the game. Its not like pre owned games magiclly appear out of space and havnt given any profit back to the devs before.

And frankly im sickened by the attack on the game stores just for giving gamers the option to sell back some of there games they baught but didnt enjoy and selling those used games at a discount for those who cant afford the brand new copies.
God forbid someone is actually on the side of the gamers and not the money grabbing devs who will limit parts of games to be sold as day 1 dlc and only use gamers as a source of income.

 

[WaruTaru]

The day I want to play a game, but don't want to buy it brand new, and I can't because of some stupid second-hand mechanic placed on by the developer because they think their somehow entitled to more, is the day I will happily pirated said game without the slightlest bit of guilt or remorse.

Once a game is sold, it is no longer the publishers property. Just like once a shop sells a game, it is no longer their property. It's mine, and I'll do what I want with MY property.

If you disagree, answer this: why buy a used game if you can download it for free? You aren't supporting the developers/publishers with your act of kindness. If its not worth buying new, its not worth buying at all. Save your money and do something else with it instead. And if you liked the game you downloaded? Show your support by buying the developer's next new game. By doing that, you are getting two games worth of content for the price of one new game, yes?

I actually like that logic. If developers/publishers think it's so wrong to buy used, then pirate it. If they hate game shops that much, than either way works out the same for them. If game shops are that horrible, why don't we help the publishers out?

Everypony, let's get back at those evil game shops by pirating games!!! We'll teach those greedy bastards a lesson. I'm going to support developers and publishers by pirating games!!

Back OT: Buying a used game is not as bad as pirating, it's not bad at all. One's perfectly legal/moral and the other isn't. It's simply greed on the developers/publishers side.

I think it may somewhat be illegal to remove content from used games. Selling faulty goods and extortion. They're forcing you to pay money to use something that you've already brought and which otherwise doesn't cost an additional fee. It's like buying a train ticket from point A to point C, but getting kicked off the train at point B because the train driver feels he's not getting paid enough dollars per hour.

And who sold you that faulty game? Oh right, the game shop. Go get 'em tiger. That is a wonderful idea indeed. Remove parts from the game and force the players to buy "replacement parts" and watch the retailers get sued for selling games with missing content.

 

[Xanthious]

That's why it's justified in a way to count used and pirated copies as lost sales even if the person would not have bought it in the first place. You've now experienced the entertainment, without reimbursing the creators - kinda like reading the movie summary on Wikipedia ("Oh, so HE's Luke's father!")

First off allow me to express my total and utter disbelief another person connected to the gaming industry somehow is opposed to used sales. It's right up there with my total shock and disbelief at waking up and seeing the sun managed to rise again this morning. Moving on though . . .

So by this logic right here public libraries are absolute bastions of unspeakable evil. Do you realize how many people "experienced the entertainment" (if that isn't industry spin I dont know what is. "experienced the entertainment" lol, get out of here with that garbage) for free daily thanks to libraries? I'd wager millions upon millions of people get books, movies, entire runs of television shows, music, even art at libraries almost every day and never pay one red cent for it. Yet in the entire time libraries have been around I don't recall ever hearing the book or movie or music industry rail against them like over entitled children the way the game industry rails against an equally moral and legal second hand market. Guess books, movies, tv shows, art, and music just aren't "selling the experience" eh?

The gaming industry has gotten far too greedy for it's own good and needs to die in a fire.

 

[WaruTaru]

This is fundamentally wrong. The reason why is: with piracy, there is no giving up of physical copy from someone else.

Imaging the situation:

Person A buys game full price.. plays it for a while, then a new game comes out so he sells his game and uses the money to fund the newer game. Later, Person B then buys the first game second hand as they couldn't afford the game at retail. Person B may enjoy the game or may trade it in later to help fund another second hand game.

Ownership of the original game is transferred. The $60 has already been paid for that game, the fact that several people played it one after the other is not a problem. Person A can only play the game again by acquiring a new copy.

In the case of a pirated copy, there is no limit to the amount of people who can play the game from a single $60 concurrently (and that's assuming that the pirated copy was purchased in the first place). There is no need to purchase more copies and the game developer suffers as legitimate potential purchases are being lost.

I am the proud owner of several Second Hand games, games which as attested to earlier have Sequels which I purchased at full price on release day. I have no problem scouring my local 2nd hand game shop for gems. What I don't agree with is large stores offering 2nd hand and full price versions of the same game on the same shelves when the game has only recently been released. 2nd hand games should be sold when the full price game has had a chance to sell.

There is nothing wrong with the trade of any items you own; games, books, CDs, Movies.. Trade in second hand goods is morally fine. Money changed hands for the original product, only one person is using it.

In essence, the developers are still not seeing the cash, and the retailers are profiting multiple times from one copy. It does not matter how the game changed hands. What matters is that they are still being denied sales of one new copy for each used copy sold. The only difference with piracy is that the pirates do it better, and cheaper. I would go so far as to say those game shops are pirates hiding behind legal technicalities. From a developer's point of view, there is no difference.

 

[KRbertsproduck5]

I dont think used games are bad at all. If anything its a cry for devs to make better games that people will not want to sell.

 

[Tibike77]

I fail to see any significant differences between the following scenarios:
a) loaning a game to a friend
b) buying an used game
c) downloading a pirated copy of the game
In all instances, nobody involved in making or publishing the game gets any money.

Whether this makes buying used or loaning to a friend as "evil" as piracy, or that makes piracy as acceptable as buying used or loaning from a friend, that's a different story, which shall not be discussed for obvious reasons.

 

[mirasiel]

Rentals get around this because the publishers (should) get reports on how often a particular game is rented and pay for it at a reduced cost of course, which adds up over time to be more than the game itself (hopefully), so it's not a one off purchase. Same goes for LAN/net cafe shops.

It is a one off fee for a rental game bought by a store, its just higher than normal, at least thats the way it works with film.

I am 99% certain that this is right but I dont know about LAN cafes and the like.

 

[mirasiel]

-snip-

So not like a book but rather like a film then?

As I post this I realised your suspended but my point stands, games are not special exemption from the law as far as 2nd hand sales go.

 

[WaruTaru]

Because you're violating their copyright. You are reproducing their copyrighted material (1 song file becomes 10 song files) without their consent or license. You are allowed to do what you want with the one copy of their product you have bought, which includes sending it to a friend, but once you put it on the Internet and it gets downloaded X number of times, you're in violation of the contract that comes with the sale.

And part of it does come down to scale. Two people sharing hard copies of games won't (or at least haven't yet) become a focal point for companies, but thousands upon thousands of people getting their product for free does affect them in a very tangible way.

If scale is the problem, game shops are doing the same thing as pirates. They will push their used games much more aggressively because it makes them more profit. That means they will gladly leave the new copies on the shelves. If the retailer know how many gamers in his area is prone to trading in their old games for new ones, the retailer can lower the amount of new copies they order for each game because they can depend on the used games coming back to them for re-sell. The more trade-in gamers there are, the more the games returns to the retailer, and the more he can sell the same copy again and again. All of this at the cost of the developer pushing out less and less new copies. Make sense, doesn't it?

 

[ace_of_something]

No, because it's legal.

What the games industry needs to focus on is tracking and working on property laws like say USED CARS have where they still get a cut of the profits when it's sold used from a licensed dealer.

Rather than fighting it like it's some form of piracy. You know what that does? It makes me not buy the game at all.

 

[Morbissus]

I bought Fallout3 used, no money for Betheseda. I then bought every DLC for it, 50$ bucks for Betheseda. I don't see how money gained from DLC on both new & used games is not evening the profit & profit loss margin. If DLC sales isn't enough then work something out with game exclusive stores like Gamestop or Best Buy (not game exclusive but, they sale used games)to make a % for saling an item with their name. Of course the chances of dragons erupting from the earth seems more likely.