Puppythief said:
My girlfriend found a copy of Morrowind recently, and has been talking about it near constantly---it's been years since I played it and thinking about it again, I've started to look into getting a copy for myself on PC (I used to have the xbox version). It's not at my local Gamestop, or Babbages, whatever, and the copy online I've found isn't the GOTY edition.
I realized something.
Of all the places I can purchase this game, not one benefits the developers at all. If all the copies circulated are used, only gamestop or whoever's on ebay gets any money.
It would be like scavenging a super-duper-mart instead of buying from raiders, just getting the torrent. :/
Am I just a jaded pirate?
As people have pointed out it's on Steam.
That said, it's not piracy to buy a used copy, I feel it's the right of the consumer to both sell and purchuse things second hand. I know the gaming industry doesn't like it, but I happen to disagree with them on this one. What's more buying used games is in no way illegal despite the best efforts of the games industry.
That said, if your concerned about developers not getting money, don't be. Actual piracy might be wrong, but don't let the industry BS you into saying you victimize the people who make the games. That is generally speaking a lie.
The people who get victimized by piracy, and potentially lose profits to used game sales are producers, not developers. In general how things work is a producer decides they want to turn their money into more money, and that selling a video game is a way to do this. They go to a developer with a game idea OR simply a pile of money and the directive "make a game that will generate more money than I am investing in it". The developers then give a price, which is the development budget. The cost of materials is typically pretty minimal for games compared to budgets, we're talking tens of millions of dollars in many cases. The cost of computers and office space is nothing compared to that, the bulk of the money is human resources.... or what people are going to be paid. A 50 million dollar development budget basically means that the developers asked for, and received, 50 million dollars to pay themselves to make the game over a couple of years.
When a game is released, the devs have already been paid, they have seen all the money they are going to get for that title. All the returns go to the guys that invested the money and paid the developers.
Now there *IS* an exception in cases where a game developer will instead approach a producer or bank and request a loan. They have a game idea, and think it will make money, so they borrow the money they want to pay themselves to make it, and then release the game as their own publisher hoping to make enough money to pay off the loan and interest, with anything in excess of that being additional profit. In this case as well though they have already been paid.
Like anything investments are risky, a game that fails winds up hurting the producer, it only affects the developers in of them being seen as a bad investment risk. If say a developer pays itself 50 million dollars for a game, and then doesn't produce the game they took the money for, there isn't a whole heck of a lot the producer can actually do since the developers lived off of that money, and it was after all a failed investment. Things like "Duke Nukem Forever" are an example of this, there was no way to get the money invested in the game back, because the guys making the game spent it paying themselves.
The point here is that it hurts the industry, but not in the way that tends to be promoted. Developers are simply a more sympathetic victim than giant moneybag producers who could probably care less about the product, and only the returns.
One of the reasons why I am so anti-industry when it comes to piracy, is not because I think piracy is right (it's not), but because I think the methods they want to use to combat it impact consumers negatively, when the industry is already one making multiple billions of dollars. Chasing the pirates in the face of those pirates is penny pinching and not worth the inconveinence to me. It's pure greed from people that are already making tons of money. The same is true of things like used game sales and the secondhand market (which we are discussing), these guys are making billions of dollars, and they pretty much want to make things more expensive for you and take away control of your property so they can make even more money.
Right now things are pretty well balanced, piracy is not a good thing, but the industry is arguably being worse. What's more we're not even close to facing the risk of video games becoming a generalyl bad investment because of those things. It's about maximizing profits and gouging consumers, not about keeping the industry alive. Companies DO go out of business, but that's how it is with any industry.
The point of all this rambling and explanation (I've read a lot about how all this works through the years, magazines and websites have done articles on it, I think even Game Informer has done it a few times) is that you shouldn't even feel remotely guilty about buying a used game, anymore than you would about buying something at a Yard Sale or Flea Market. I mean sure, if you buy your kid a toy truck at a yard sale, your technically costing say TONKA the money it would have made if you bought it new, but then again your only buying it beause the price is right, and weren't going to spend $50 on it anyway.
In this case in paticular, your buying an old game, unless you for some reason think the guy selling it to you broke into a warehouse and put it on the market, I personally don't think you should have even the slightest moral qualm. The game WAS paid for, the company received money for that specific product you have in your hands. All arguements about liscencing seem to be obtuse arguements fueled by greed. In cases of people STEALING (getting something for nothing) I can see why they need to seriously argue the intllectual property angle, but in cases of someone simply selling a paid for product? I personally don't see why games should be any differant than anything else overall.
