buying used games is stupid

[Avalanche91]

why yes. if you're buying used games for 53$ your doing it wrong.

if you buy used for say....25$ then whats the big issue.

What is it with people all of the sudden wanting to support the big faceless soulless corporations because they say we're taking their money? Buying used is and has always been part of the standard economy. Just because think they deserve have a share in used products, doesn't mean they do.

 

[Gizmo1990]

We people in europe may have a better deal on used games but new games come out cheaper in America. New releases on consoles are £40. Thats about $64 I think.

 

[Dr Jones]

Do car makers sell less cars because people buy used cars? No.

Yes, actually. I'm quite sure the used car's resale won't benefit the manufacturer in any way.

 

[Zhukov]

I'm sure many intelligent and insightful things will be said in this thread that have not already been said in the million or so previous debates regarding used games.

 

[viranimus]

Well basically not much I can add that hasnt been said already but I will leave this little gem.

The "Gaming industry" exceeds well beyond that of the developer and the publisher which make up hundreds out of the tens of thousands that make up the industry as a whole. Its stupid to think that anything good or even right could possibly come from getting more money to already obscenely profitable publishers.

I wish people would quit trying to throw themselves under a bus to defend a corporation that has no appreciation for what their customers do for them.

 

[Arina Love]

i actually never sell my games, one reason is i like my collection, second reason there is no game stop here or any company that deals with used games for that matter. But i only have collection attachment to my J-RPGs and Bioware games, i wouldn't mind to sell everything else, i don't play.

 

[JemothSkarii]

I try to buy new whenever I can, I'll look on eBay and such before I go to EB. Only time I buy pre-owned is if the game is rare, old, or I'm just in a somewhat spontaneous mood and REALLY want the game NAOW. However I do trade in old games if they have one of those 'bonus trade-in credit' things since my local EB is really good to me.

 

[Bvenged]

I used to buy used only if the price was significantly different. If it's within £10 I don't bother, but as of this week I am never selling a game again to those scumbags. I am an oldschool, hardcore gamer of 13 years (at 5 years old I used to watch my father play Rainbow Six and control the keys, I still play his copies of Rollercoaster tycoon & Doom I) and I have played almost every AAA title released for the past decade. My Top 10 games are 50/50 with games from the 90's.

Yesterday I fancied playing something different. I stood up, walked over to my games shelf - 360 titles ; and my jaw dropped.

[sub]I'd sold all but two of my console games. Only a few straggling PC games remain.[/sub]

I was appalled, I had sold most of my games to buy a few second hand, then sell them to buy a fewer amount more... the cycle repeated until I had just a couple of pounds of credit, which I'd thrown into a pre-order of BF3. I have to go there now on Friday to collect it and I feel like I've committed a crime against myself. I was caught out by this new idea of trade-in a few years ago; now I will never do it again.

I have decided to start my games collection all over again. I now own Halo Reach, GoW3 and I've got BF3 & Skyrim on pre-order. I am a reformed gamer.

 

[Substitute Troll]

I will never sell my games, I can give away/sell duplicates but I'll never get rid of my collection.

I have about 150 games. Yea, that's how nerd I am. Though most of them are somewhere in the basement...

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Kids nowadays don't like to keep their games and build a collection, they game, sell and trade games on a regular basis. Shops like gamestop are taking advantage of this circular cycle to rip off the costumer. Charging 50$ multiple times on a single copy.

Is it really worth buying a used copy of la noire, deus ex or resistance 3 for 53$? Remember that not a single penny goes to the developers and you're only making gamestop richer.

You guys have several options that are better, imo, like Amazon or other on-line shops. For example European consumers can go to Amazon.co.uk a buy deus ex for 15,99 pounds, that's 25 dollars!
The limited edition of dark souls costs 43?, any physical shop near me wont sell it for less than 60/70?(new or used).

And I'm sure that, regardless of what country you live in, you can find better and more economic solutions on-line.

I think that used games can be a good thing, for example I just bought msg2 and msg3 for 15?, but when it comes to recent ip's I think you should search for options that not only benefit your wallet but also contribute to the industry.

See here's the thing champ, when money is tight and people have real things to spend money on like mortgages, basic family needs such as food and bills for their utilities then the used game market (or used anything market) becames your best fucking friend. Wanna play MW3 but can't afford the price new, display some patience and buy it used. Cheap internet importing is also an option, obviously, but sometimes we like to support the local businesses that employ our fellows as well as the developers of our favourite games.

Games I'm a fan of, Mass Effect for instance, basically became new only purchases after I test ran ME1 on a mate's Xbox, not only did I buy Mass Effect, brand new, but also a brand spanking new Xbox 360 Elite to play it on. Mass Effect 2, brand new one week after launch. Mass Effect 3 has been preordered as the most obscenely expensive edition I could find. It's basically my spending, pre done.

We all do our part for the developers, but they're not the only ones who want to make a living, and until someone tells me what Games or EB do is against the law or somehow leading to the onset of the Caliphate, Communism or becoming a member of the Greens Party, then I'll keep being a favoured customer or theirs.

Do car makers sell less cars because people buy used cars? No.

Yes, actually. I'm quite sure the used car's resale won't benefit the manufacturer in any way.

Not so, some modern cars (luxury brands such as BMW particularly) require specialist equipment and training to work on them. Also I find while most folks will buy any brand from almost any dealer, they tend to take them to manufacturers service centres for their repairs and upkeep. So no they make no money off the sale of the car a second time (unless its sold or traded back to them for a newer model) but will make money of parts, and servicing fees.

 

[HardkorSB]

Kids nowadays don't like to keep their games and build a collection, they game, sell and trade games on a regular basis. Shops like gamestop are taking advantage of this circular cycle to rip off the costumer. Charging 50$ multiple times on a single copy.

Is it really worth buying a used copy of la noire, deus ex or resistance 3 for 53$? Remember that not a single penny goes to the developers and you're only making gamestop richer.

You guys have several options that are better, imo, like Amazon or other on-line shops. For example European consumers can go to Amazon.co.uk a buy deus ex for 15,99 pounds, that's 25 dollars!
The limited edition of dark souls costs 43?, any physical shop near me wont sell it for less than 60/70?(new or used).

And I'm sure that, regardless of what country you live in, you can find better and more economic solutions on-line.

I think that used games can be a good thing, for example I just bought msg2 and msg3 for 15?, but when it comes to recent ip's I think you should search for options that not only benefit your wallet but also contribute to the industry.

I have 10 games in my "library" so far and I've paid less than £100 for them. If I were to buy them new, the cost would be around £300. The only new game I have is Mortal Kombat, but only because it came as a bonus with my xbox.
I also buy mainly used clothes instead of new ones because I don't want to spend £20 on a t-shirt and £80 on a jacket. I don't mind the fact that someone else was wearing it before me. 90 minutes in the washing machine and it's all good
Thanks to that, I've managed to save up £2000 over the last 5 months.

In short, used things are awesome and you have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

my point is the fact that they could've had 1 million extra sales, but lost those to the used market. It was simply an example of how the used market is costing devs a lot of money.

By that kind of dodgy accounting they could also claim that it costs them money when people lend games for friends to play. Or have their friends around and let them play the game. A friend lent my brother Assassin's Creed II just recently; both my brother and I played it. Did we just cost Ubisoft two purchases?

 

[Deathninja19]

Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain lost between 5 and 10 million euro's to used sales (ref: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-12-used-market-cost-heavy-rain-1m-sales). Seriously, think about it. That's a huge loss and in the end it will only bite us gamers in the butt as the smaller devs won't be able to overcome these losses.

He said that after the game sold 2 million copies. Which turned a profit for them. And if the "loss" of 1 million sales caused him to "lose" 5-10 million euros, then he must have gained 10-20 million, correct?

Oh yeah and don't forget there is no way to judge how many used copies were actually sold so that x number of millions is just a number that David Cage pulled out of his arse, of topic Cage is such a pretentious twat half the things he says is pure bullshit.

 

[StarCecil]

Wahtever.

Annnnnnd that's how the First Sale Doctrine works. Look it up. No other form of media needs money when it comes to second hand sales in order to survive. In fact, how has gaming got this far, considering we've had second hand sales from the word-go, if they are such a problem?

Well, it may just be me but I have a feeling the second hand game sales has definitely grown in the past couple of years. I don't know what it's like in the US, but where I live (Europe) the used sales market has grown substantially in the past 5 years. I honestly can't remember there being a substantial used sales market more than 5 years ago. Especially not as big as it has now become.

Either way, I stick to my point that if I have to choose who to give my money to, I'd rather choose the developer than some gamestore.

Well maybe used game sales would decrease if the fuckers stopped hiking up the price of new games. I refuse to pay $120+ for a video game. They were only $80-$100 a couple of years ago.

Where in God's name do you pay that much? Wherever you are, it's a bad, evil place.

OT: I don't give a rat's ass about the developer when it comes to paying for something. I buy a game new if I really, really want it. If not, there is no compelling reason for me to not buy it used for cheaper.

Case in point: I bought Heavy Rain, Dragon Age: Origins, and the Sims 3 new. I bought Medal of Honor, Modern Warfare 2, and Resident Evil 5 used. I wanted the first three. I wanted the second three for cheap.

There is no reason why I should have to pay full price for those second three, no matter how much the developers want me to.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Wahtever.

Annnnnnd that's how the First Sale Doctrine works. Look it up. No other form of media needs money when it comes to second hand sales in order to survive. In fact, how has gaming got this far, considering we've had second hand sales from the word-go, if they are such a problem?

Well, it may just be me but I have a feeling the second hand game sales has definitely grown in the past couple of years. I don't know what it's like in the US, but where I live (Europe) the used sales market has grown substantially in the past 5 years. I honestly can't remember there being a substantial used sales market more than 5 years ago. Especially not as big as it has now become.

Either way, I stick to my point that if I have to choose who to give my money to, I'd rather choose the developer than some gamestore.

Well maybe used game sales would decrease if the fuckers stopped hiking up the price of new games. I refuse to pay $120+ for a video game. They were only $80-$100 a couple of years ago.

Where in God's name do you pay that much? Wherever you are, it's a bad, evil place.

NZ, and Australia pay nearly the same amount.

We are not bad places, the publishers can go fuck themselves. They want to start having more new purchases from me? Make the games cheaper. Though interestingly BF3 is only around $80 at most retailers, which is nice.

Though look at the RRP of some games and tell me the companies aren't greedy bastards:
http://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/PS3/Ratchet-and-Clank-All-4-One/10514496/?nt=1

 

[krazykidd]

Do car makers sell less cars because people buy used cars? No.

People who sell used games need the money to buy new games. They probably wouldn't have bought the game in the first place if they knew they couldn't sell it again.

I have a local game stop that have about 20 copies of DNF used, and about 15 of fable 3 used to prove the contrary.

.....you can buy used from Amazon too. And you act like supporting GameStop is a bad thing. I've went there for years, they have never treated me badly as a customer.

I have , not going back there again ever.
OT: OP is right , imo, but it wont change anything. People will by used because they can.

 

[Gamblerjoe]

As the son of a small business owner and a former small business owner myself I see things from a slightly different point of view. When I make a purchase I think about where my money is going. I like to help out the right people and help them thrive.

When It comes to video games, I know how brutal the VG industry is, and I realize that with the current status quo, it is difficult to make money, which is why samey games keep getting made. Maybe I cant change things by myself, but Id rather still do what I think is the right thing. I don't pirate games, and I don't buy used games. We like to think of the publishers as monstrous greedy companies with a license to print money, but that's just human pathology we use to excuse our actions. In reality, if they could make their money back on games that weren't shooters, we would see a much more diverse market.

Also, in the U.S. we put the dollar sign in front of the number.