controversy over used games

Recommended Videos

FolkLikePanda

New member
Apr 15, 2009
1,710
0
0
Way I see it, if its pre-owned then the original user wasn't too happy with the game so in a way it's saying to to developers "You should have made it better". Also to be pre-owned it's got be purchased anyway so the game developers must of gotten there money.
 

Cynical skeptic

New member
Apr 19, 2010
799
0
0
Karim Saad said:
Counterfeit products are not even close to used items, there's more to it than "see the money" or not.
Please, elaborate. Its something no one really does from your side of the issue.

invalid elaborations: legality, morality. Both are utterly subjective and subject to change at the whims of those in power.
 

AcacianLeaves

New member
Sep 28, 2009
1,197
0
0
Karim Saad said:
AcacianLeaves said:
When you buy a game used, you are not supporting the video game industry.
When I buy a game new, I'm not supporting it either. I'm just spending for amusement. I don't factor companies in my life choices. If something is important enough for me (and people), they'll pay for it. Like when a good game comes out, I'll pay 80$can for the special edition. Otherwise, I'll buy it for 15$ somewhere and the company doesn't get my money.

I swear there are several of you getting paid for bullshitting like that on here.

Sometimes, you pay through the nose for shit like FF13 and sometimes you get a great game for 10$. That's the market, that's life.
That doesn't mean it isn't a real problem. I like to put some thought into where I spend my money, because believe it or not it does actually matter. I'm not saying I never buy used, but the price has to be sufficiently different for me to knowingly turn my back on an industry that I'd like to see succeed.

If the price difference is less than $5, I'll go for the new one and chalk it up to getting a product that I know the history of and feel good that I've bypassed the pawn shop. If it's more than $10 I'll go with my budget and probably grab it used.

It's the $1-3 differences that really bother me.
 

Gindil

New member
Nov 28, 2009
1,621
0
0
Cynical skeptic said:
For starters, car manufacturers don't complain about used cars because they still make money from them. Dealerships have to ensure a car is at a certain level of repair before it can be sold. To do this, they must buy replacement parts... from the manufacturer. Then, for more serious maintenance and every repair, the manufacturer also must supply parts. This is the reason cars produced today are such shoddy piles of shit, to ensure a steady cash flow.
Agreed. Pure BS anyway.

Ever since the fall of sun records, most of the money in music is in concerts and concert merchandise. Reproductions of studio recordings, whether they're sold legally or distributed freely (funny how "legal" and "free" have become antonyms), their purpose is to advertise the concerts. With the advent of the internet, the only acts that need the resources of large labels are the worthless throwaway mainstream acts who, without extreme levels of media exposure, simply would not stand out in any real form. Your lil' Waynes, your Cyruses (both of them), your Beibers, all of country music in it's current form, etc etc etc.
Something to look into would be the Creative Commons license music. And Trent Reznor is still successful as an indie.

As for film... most of the money is in cinema. Studios get a decent cut of rentals, too. If renters sell their rental copies, studio gets a flat cut of that. Meaning they're getting paid on every level of large scale distribution.
The film industry needs a lot of shaking up. The problem is that they're huge monopolists that "control" everything. Oddly enough, Googletalks just came out with a great new study on copyright infringement that shows how they can capitalize on new movies instead of believe for a second that they can stop people from "piracy.

The video game industry is complaining so hard right now because they have nothing comparable to cinema, concerts, or maintenance. That and shitty corprations like gamestop (who are the only real problem here, but no one can say that without being sued for slander) are posting record profits and opening a new store every 30 seconds, while the actual video game industry is shutting down houses and laying off hundreds of employees.

The video game industry's sole source of revenue (DLC income doesn't even come close to rating) is retail sales. Like someone else correctly pointed out, games are an experience. The disc (or cartridge) is simply a transport mechanism. This is where people get confused and start spouting circular semantic bullshit. Paying to see a movie or doesn't mean you own the film reels. Paying to see a concert doesn't mean you own the band. Concerts and (decent) cinema are unique unduplicable experiences. The industry has been, since the dawn of the industry, fielding and researching various ways to prevent duplication of the experiences they provide, so as to prevent unscrupulous retail giants from pocketing revenue that should've by all rights gone to someone who actually contributed something to the creation of a video game.
Somehow, I truly feel that Gamefly's success disagrees with you.

Also, while music is becoming more free, people are paying for access to their favorite band. As others have figured out:


You can compete with free. DRM doesn't really cut it. Experiences such as Steam (that still continues to become more successful every day) or Free to Play models are competing with the single player experience. And of course, AAA titles continue to make ungodly amounts of money. What starts to break down is how you're supposed to stop the spread of shared files. That isn't going to happen. Perhaps, a little more price differentiation can help more people pay for games (legally) or other reasons to buy. Those are but a few suggestions I can think of offhand.

Just imagine the if someone invented a way to instantly duplicate food. Imagine how massive the food service industry's reaction would be. It'd likely become illegal to even build such a device.
I don't eat at McDonald's and I can cook hamburgers. Doesn't mean fast food is going anywhere. ;)
 

AcacianLeaves

New member
Sep 28, 2009
1,197
0
0
Sebenko said:
AcacianLeaves said:
Sebenko said:
AcacianLeaves said:
When you buy a game used, you are not supporting the video game industry. It's as simple as that.
Meh. Seem to me that it's an industry full of dicks.
Because they want to make money for the product that they spent 5 years working 70 hour weeks for?
No, because they keep coming up with bullshit reasons for us to pay more. DLC, "Online passes", I hate all of it. And DRM. Why should I buy a game at all if it's just going to fuck me over with awkward DRM?
It's not like you 'pay more' for nothing with DLC. You pay for new content, and often registering your product gets you DLC free anyway. I think that consumers make a much bigger issue out of DRM than there actually is. Maybe it's because I use digital distribution for all my PC game purchases, but I've almost never run into any problem with DRM.

Those just seem like flimsy reasons to be okay with screwing over a whole industry to me.
 

Cynical skeptic

New member
Apr 19, 2010
799
0
0
Gindil said:
Somehow, I truly feel that Gamefly's success disagrees with you.
Gamefly isn't the video game industry, though. Its under zero obligation to kick any sort of proceeds towards anyone who makes video games.
I don't eat at McDonald's and I can cook hamburgers. Doesn't mean fast food is going anywhere. ;)
you still have to buy the meat and spend time cooking. I was thinking more along the lines of "push button, receive bacon."
 

Treefingers

New member
Aug 1, 2008
1,071
0
0
shootthebandit said:
i really dont see the problem here its like a second hand car, you sell the game to the store they give you part exchange and someone else gets a cheap game. everyone is a winner, the seller, the retailer and the buyer are all happy
EXACTLY.

I can buy second hand games. I can also buy second hand DVDs, cars, furniture, clothes, computers, consoles, houses, guitars, books, anything.

I won't pirate, but game companies need to quit their bitching. Anyone who disagrees is a wanker just trying to take some kind of moral high ground, but actually just talking out their ass.
 

icame

New member
Aug 4, 2010
2,649
0
0
Yes the person has bought a product, yes it was originally new, yes people will do this whether its allowed at gamestop, eb games etc or not. But the fact of the matter is when someone buys a used game, the creator see's no money. Just like when someone pirates the game.
 

Lawyer105

New member
Apr 15, 2009
599
0
0
Ironic Pirate said:
Especially not for a six hour game with shitty multiplayer. I am not paying ten dollars for an hour of entertainment. Never.
Yeah, but price is irrelevant here. There's no excuse for MW2 to exist AT ALL, so the price just doesn't come into it! :D
 

veloper

New member
Jan 20, 2009
4,597
0
0
Garak73 said:
Still, a used market with only Gamestop is better than no used market at all.
Aslong as there are gamers there will always be an interest for used games. Cut out the middleman, don't get ripped off.
 

Cynical skeptic

New member
Apr 19, 2010
799
0
0
Garak73 said:
Careful, your hatred of Gamestop is showing. It just looks to me like you have a vendetta against GameStop and that is affecting your judgement. Hey, I think Gamestop rips people off too. In my town they already put Play N Trade and Game Crazy out of business. Still, a used market with only Gamestop is better than no used market at all.
It doesn't matter how I feel about gamestop. Pricing used games to compete with new games is the same thing as paying a bum to fight himself to the death. Unless the bum is exceedingly stupid and greedy, he'll realize theres no good ending to your offer.
Why do you compare New games with used games but then when you compare DVDs you compare used DVDs to the cinema? You are being dishonest here. Why didn't you compare used DVDs to new DVDs?
Well, you just seem generally confused. My fault, as I did skip something pretty important.

All the real money in film is in cinemas. Home video sales are just gravy. The video game industry's only viable source of income is sales of new copies. May they be digital or physical. Thus, they are comparable.

Also, "dishonest?" I am genuinely confused by that word's placement.
Garak73 said:
That's your choice. If you wanna sell your used games on eBay, at a garage sale, to a used game store, give them to the Goodwill or pawn them off. Of course, if the EULA makes reselling your used game illegal, you won't be able to do any of that.

It isn't about the method used to resell your games. Besides, there are alot of buyers who don't have the patience to wait for an auction to end or for Amazon to ship their game to them. For those people, Gamestop is a convenience.
Yea... paying +$20 for "convenience" isn't a good deal for anyone. Gamestop shouldn't exist. But they do, because they bought out all of their competition.
 

Dys

New member
Sep 10, 2008
2,343
0
0
shootthebandit said:
i really dont see the problem here its like a second hand car
Eugh. Look, I don't give two fucks about big game publishers and I'll buy and sell second hand as I see fit, if they want to charge reasonably[footnote]Australian games cost up to $110 at release, which is like $105 US...[/footnote] then I'll consider changing my ways.

But to compare the selling of games to the sale of cars is straight up wrong. Are you aware that many high end cars are sold at a loss? While this is far from the case for a great many cars, it certainly emphasizes my point that car companies make more money from maintenence (and often branding) than they do from the initial sale of the cars. If the sale of used cars was abolished, a great many car companies would go broke. It's a similar story with consoles (I'm sure we're all aware that the wii was the only current console sold at a profit on release), Sony and Microsoft would PREFER you to trade in unused consoles!

It's slightly different with games, it's more like someone selling a book or dvd second hand. Which is fine, really, those industries don't suffer for it, neither do games, but they don't thrive on it the way the auto industry does from car sales.

Garak73 said:
Of course, if the EULA makes reselling your used game illegal, you won't be able to do any of that.
Unless you come from a country where you are required to agree to the EULA before exchanging money for the product, it's completely powerless[footnote]This is true almost everywhere in the world[/footnote]. I can't sell you a hotdog and then demand as a condition of use you may not eat it.

Garak73 said:
The customer might as well be pirating the game.
BS. You cannot equate buying a car used to grand theft auto just like you can't equate buying used games to theft. How much it costs to make a product is irrelevant.
Why not? If you can equate the selling of a game second hand to the selling of a car second hand, you're clearly not making equal comparisons, so why whould anyone arguing with you?
 

Cynical skeptic

New member
Apr 19, 2010
799
0
0
Dys said:
It's slightly different with games, it's more like someone selling a book or dvd second hand. Which is fine, really, those industries don't suffer for it, neither do games, but they don't thrive on it the way the auto industry does from car sales.
Well, actually film and print don't suffer much from the used market because most of the money in film comes from cinema.

Books are extremely low cost ventures. The author typically writes the book on his own dime, the publisher then prints out a few thousand copies for pennies a piece, then sells them for >$24.99 for hardcover, then <$14.99 for paperback. People who buy hardcover usually keep their hardcovers, people who buy paperback usually abuse them to a point where they can't really be resold, making used books less than desirable. Libraries... don't even get me started.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
24,759
0
0
Lawyer105 said:
I don't really agree with those either. I simply don't see why some 2-bit middleman should be making cash out of somebody ELSE'S hard work, because too many people are too cheap to pay full price.
So you feel that same way about used car salesmen?

As above. The 'physical product' is largely irrelevant. If I wrote it over with junk data, you'd be annoyed, right? Because it's the EXPERIENCE, the game / music that you're interested in.
I'd be annoyed if they took the engine out of my car, too.

If you buy something second hand, the original maker gets nothing, and some twit in the middle gets cash for doing almost nothing.
The original maker already got something. Why should they get paid twice for the same product?

This encourages the artist / creator to either:
a) stop making stuff; or
b) charge higher prices for it, so they can make decent money off the original sales.
Which is why people in decades prior stopped making art and/or charged so much more.

Oh, right, that didn't happen. It's a modern construct that crumbles before scrutiny.

I'm not going to pretend that original distributors are perfect, or that their sales model couldn't be improved... but all second hand buyers seem totally convinced that they're completely guilt free, and that it's the evil corporations dun-dun-dun that are totally at fault.
Since this only became an issue when corporations decided their profit margins, while successful, weren't high enough, really...This wasn't a problem until corporate greed blew out of proportion.