penny arcade equates used games to piracy

[Ironic Pirate]

Damn it! The used games people are still contributing to the industry! Maybe not the creative part, but without stores like gamespot, the industry would be far worse off.

If a band is paid a release for their album, but aren't paid per album sold, and you buy the album, buy your logic, you might as well have stolen it because the band didn't get any money for it.

And with used games, guess what, it's used. Know what that means? Someone used, IE bought it. Piracy gets no many too anyone, whereas used games, both initially gave money to the company, AND continue to contribute to the industry every time they're sold. Because believe it or not, Gamestop does help games.

 

[Mr.Pandah]

Alls I hear is a lot of whine. Lets be honest folks, if the Used game is significantly cheaper than the New game, do you really give two shits if the publisher sees the money? I sure don't. Thats the way the world works. If the publishers don't like it, stick the blame on Gamestop's trade-in policies, not on the customers.

Its their own damn fault for not predicting something like this. Not ours.

 

[smashmaniac64]

buying a used game is no different than buying used anything, so if buying used games is piracy does that mean we should just shut down gamestops, ebays, most auctions, and pawn shops

 

[XT inc]

tough luck on used games, whats next Ikea bitching about not getting cuts from garage sales.

Gaming used to be about the fun now its everything a publisher can do to step on our necks, bust our nuts and make us their ***** for trying to enjoy games. God I hate what these companies have turned into with a burning passion.

 

[Gazisultima]

The problem is not used games. The problem is Gamestop.

Gamestop has 22% of the video game market in the US (Target, Best Buy and Walmart have 50% between them). It operates on a bizarre but highly profitable business model that, unlike other media chains, pushes new and used merchandise to the same consumer at the same time, thus undercutting the natural price curve of new games. It has enough market share and hardcore cachet that no publisher can afford to say no to them, so they've resorted to a guerrilla war via DLC, online sales and OnLive.

The only other major media store that asks customers, "Do you want to buy used?" is Amazon. They too are beating traditional stores to a pulp. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Hmm, retailers in the UK don't seem to have this problem. They're more like the types of people who just glance indifferently at the game when the scan it, bag it up, and say "there you go". They don't try and sell you used games, though obviously the option to buy used is there, they certainly don't shove used down your throat, like you're saying Gamestop does.

So basically, publishers, and the retailers are all as greedy as each other. Perfect. We as consumers, are stuck right in the middle of that.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

I don't buy used or pirate. I don't like the idea of buying a used game, simply because I don't trust them and the people who sell them. I don't want to waste 35 bucks on a game just to find out it doesn't work and then go back and find out that the game I want isn't in stock now. So now I got 35 dollars and no game, back at square 1.

Even then, most the time, they'll stick that same game that I just returned back on the self, usually after just cleaning it a little bit.

As for pirating, I just don't plain like that art and wouldn't touch it with a ten foot poll. Too much gaming politics for my taste.

 

[fullbleed]

Selling a CD you bought isn't illegal and no one objects to it, but making copies and selling them is, rightly, illegal. The same should applies to DVDs, books and should apply to games, reselling a single game is perfectly fine both morally and legally and is completely not relatable to piracy. Making multiple copies of said game and selling them, however, is wrong and is piracy.

It's the same principle with cars, reselling a car is fine but making a replica of said car and selling that is illegal in so many ways.

Games developers need to stop bitching.

edit: and in any case, its the old "see a band live" argument. someone who may not previously have bought a game due the price tag will now buy a game, love it and buy the next one brand new. Like me, I wouldn't have bought mass effect from amazon because it cost too much for me at the time, so I bought it second hand and loved it. I then pre-ordered mass effect 2 as soon as I could, i may not have if second hands games were illegal.

Too bloody right, is it wrong to lend games as well? Publishers try to demonise anything that wont give them money. I borrowed STALKER from a friend once and spent 70+ hours playing it until he demanded i give it back, I then went and imediately bought the game so I could keep playing.

Plus while it doesn't give money to the publishers, it is giving money to the game retailers which is a good thing as they deserve our money as well and supports the economy.

 

[demoman_chaos]

My take is very simple, it saves me money to buy used. Big gaming companies bickering about used game sales is like Mr. Rockafeller bickering because your friend borrowed $30 from you instead of taking out a loan from one of his billion-dollar global banks.

I buy certain games new, but only from developers I know I will be getting a quality product from (like Polyphony Digital, Naughty Dog, TaleWorlds, etc.). If I won't be getting my money's worth when buying it new, I will wait until I can get it for a price I agree with.

 

[TPiddy]

Yeah I understand that, I was referring to the two posters above me who used the "well someone else bought it already, so devs already got money from it" argument.

I don't consider buying used games or cars stealing per se, but it does prevent money from a new purchase from getting to the manufacturer. Gamestop marks up trade-ins by 200%. That's an insane amount of profit, none of which is going back to the developers. Would you mark up a used car by 200%? I don't think anyone in their right mind would buy it if you did.

Obviously not... but a car, arguably the second largest purchase one makes in their life, is a far different animal than entertainment. I agree that the Gamestop 'new game skimming' is what is killing sales, but, people are stupid enough to buy it used to save that $5. The price only reflects what the market will bear.

 

[Legion]

By that logic if my car breaks down I shouldn't get myself a nice little car for £1000 to get me going to work. I should fork out £5000 for a brand new one so as not to affect the market.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

For fuck sake. Used is not equal to piracy. They don't own the game once you've bought it and once you own it you can play it, sell it or insert it rectally and they can't do a thing about it. When you copy the game you have copied the game and have broken the copyright they had on their product. There is a big difference between selling your game and copying it and putting it up for download.

Can we get past this already?

 

[Kagim]

That's what sticking around in the game industry for too long does to people... Actually, that's what sticking around MONEY for too long does to people. MONEY, MONEY, MORE MORE MORE

Seriously, the game industry of today is:

Bullshit, the game industry was ALWAYS about money. It was never about anything else. You think the people who re-purposed radar equipment to make some of the original games did it out of the kindness of there heart and desire to bring joy to the world, or because they thought they could make money.

Do you think Atari, Magnavox, and Mattel made there original consoles because they truly just wanted to bring the joy of video games to kids around the country , or because they wanted to make money.

Do you think Nintendo decided to move away from making playing cards to Italian plumbers because they were looking out for children everywhere that wanted to rescue a princess from a monkey that kept throwing fucking barrels at you? Or because they wanted to make money.

Do you think all the silly anti-copy protection like needing the manual, code wheels and booklets were packaged with old computer games as some elaborate joke because back in the day companies loved it when you installed there programs on multiple computers?

It has ALWAYS been about money. Money money money.

- no innovation

Knee jerk response with little to no evidence or proof. Most people who say this only site one or two games, ignoring the games that come out that are unique. Or in most cases just are not unique in the way THEY want them to be unique, even if what they want isn't unique at all.

- disappointing games

Apparently not according to the millions of people who buy games every single day.

- short games of bad value

Rarely do my games have less the 20+ hours of playtime before multiplayer. I actually research the games i buy so i tend to only buy games i know I will like.

- usually no demos

Total bullshit.

- SPENDING MORE MONEY AND MARKETING THAN ON DEVELOPMENT OF THE FUCKING GAMES

Hmm...

If it costs me $30 of raw materials to make a chair but $45 to take out an advertisement is the quality of my product diminished due to this?

Is the quality of my chair better if the ad only cost me $15?

If because George down the street made a chair that cost $60 to make but spent $6000 to market the chair does that mean every last person in the world who makes chairs spends that kind of budget.

If i pay more money for the same quality of materials to make my chair does the quality of the chair go up despite the end product is the same, just more costly to me?

And they're surprised people don't want to shell out 50 - 60 ? for SHIT? Wow yeah, those ugly pre-owning pirates!!

While I agree that people who buy and sell used games are not in the wrong to say games are all shit as you seem to be blanketly saying i find just as stupid of a statement.

 

[CLime]

First off, the OP somewhat misquotes the PA newspost that sparked this debate.

If I am purchasing games in order to reward their creators, and to ensure that more of these ingenious contraptions are produced, I honestly can't figure out how buying a used game was any better than piracy. From the the perspective of a developer, they are almost certainly synonymous.

Emphasis mine. He's not saying that buying used is equivalent to piracy across the board, just that they have equivalent benefits to the developer (i.e. none).

That said, I still don't support with this proposition, much as I respect and admire PA and its creators.

You could claim that because someone knows they can resell a game they are more willing to pay the new price but I would argue that the amount is negligible compared to the amount a publisher doesn't get when someone purchases used instead of new.

Disagree. When someone buys a new game with the intent of selling it later, they're open to paying $5-10 more than they would otherwise on the sticker price. It may seem hard to believe that even taking a single dollar off the price would influence sales in any meaningful way, but it can and does. There's a reason why some people go apeshit when the price of gas fluctuates by a few cents. There is a significant number of people out there who do not need to hold on to games after beating them, and are willing to pay $50 but not $60 for a new game.

Similarly, there is a nontrivial faction who are only willing to pay $50 or $55, but like to hold on to their games. These people wouldn't buy the game at all if they couldn't buy it used, so the publisher does not lose out on any potential revenue when this group buys used.

People who take a very strict and narrow view of the used game market like to say that every dollar spent on a used game is a dollar lost by the industry, but that's very far from true. Rather than the number of used game buyers multiplied by the price of the game, a more accurate representation of the net loss by the industry would be this:

[(# of people who buy the game at full price) + (# of people who buy the game at full price only because can resell it) - (# of people who buy used) + (# of people who are both unwilling to resell and unwilling to pay full price)] * full price

In other words, the industry loses money only from people who both buy used and would have paid full price for the game otherwise, while gaining money from people who would not be buying games if they were unable to resell them later. It's still a net loss, but it's a smaller one that a lot of naysayers make it out to be. And this totally ignores the cross elasticity of demand for things like sequels and DLC, which the extra consumers are more likely to buy than they would be without being able to buy and sell used games.

Indeed, the most important thing about this model is that the number of people who get to play the game is significantly larger than it would be if there were no secondary market. The big winner here is not GameStop, but the consumer. This is how the system is supposed to work.

And if publishers want to create more incentive to buy new, good for them. That's how the market should work, with companies fighting to offer a better experience, rather than just shutting down a system that benefits the customer.

 

[burke462]

Its nothing to do with piracy in any way.

I can buy any other product second hand, a house, a car,books,cds,dvds,phones so a second hand game is not any different.

 

[oktalist]

I'm a developer and I'm sick of my money-grubbing competitors laying claim to some kind of elevated status or entitlement, and their rabid fanboys gleefully sacrificing their own rights on the altar of their chosen developer-gods. There's a thing in capitalism called competition. Its role is to regulate prices and stimulate innovation. If you seek to stifle competition, you may be helping a few of the bigger publishers, but you are harming the game industry as a whole.

When you buy a game, you are buying the right to resell it. By definition, and in actuality, the price of the game includes the cost to the developer of you having that right.

The logic that, if an action can be made to resemble a lost sale by looking at it in a certain way, then it must be morally wrong, is a fallacy. The interests of the developer do not trump the interests of the consumer. Do not fall into the publishers' trap of helping them to gain a greater stranglehold over the industry to the detriment of everyone else. They do not need your help. None of the people who actually work on the games will see any more money as a result of you swallowing their employers' bullshit.

In the real world, people have the right to resell products that they have bought. If that means that someone gets a bit less money than they might otherwise have got, that's just tough. The used games market is in competition with the new games market. Competition is good. It creates better games.

 

[tehroc]

Personally, I think things are pretty much working fine the way they are. Developers make money off of new purchases when people buy them at stores, stores make money and stay in business by selling the games that get traded in. And another thing, what about all this speculation that games might one day only become available through download? Apparently, Gamestop has tried to come up with a way to remain relevant if that happens,

The developers make money whether the game sells at the game store or not. Retail outlets buy games by wholesale and resell them to the public. Every game that is shipped has been payed for either outright or by credit. Publishers just want to be able to double and perhaps triple dip all sales. I'd guess they'd equate the Library as piracy since I can borrow any book and not spend a dime towards publishers, but that's right, the library owns the books and can do whatever they choose to with them. Game retailers could do the exact same thing because they own the product that sits in their warehouses, not the publisher.

When you buy the game from the store, you only benefit the store, not the developers. They got paid as soon as the game was shipped from their publisher.

 

[sabercrusader]

And where did this sudden hatred of used games come from, anyways? I don't remember people debating this a year ago.

it came up when the higher ups in game devs noticed a penny missing from their paycheck and they figured out it was used games.

OT:this is my point of view, if the game looks worth buying new, i will buy new but the fact is, most games nowadays aren't worth buying new.The game devs are whining about something that is thier own fault, if they made better games OR cut down the price of new game about $15 or $20 then more people would buy new...........that's all i have to say about that.

 

[migo]

I think this depends. If a new game costs $45 and the used one costs $42, then buying used pretty much is worse than piracy, you were willing to spend the money on the game at full price, but saved a few bucks and all the profit went to someone else. In the case of buying a used game at $20 when the new one is $45 though it's quite different - if you're going that much under you're not necessarily willing to pay new prices.

What the devs should do is something like this.

Leave new retail copies at the price they are now ($60), and simultaneously offer digital downloads at half price ($30). This gives purchasers a choice, buy a physical copy at $60 and then re-sell it for a fraction of that, or buy at $30 and have no ability to re-sell. Most people would choose $30, so there won't be very many used copies floating around to begin with, and if someone buys retail at $60 and then wants to sell used, they'd have to sell at $25 or less for someone to be willing to buy it.

6 months after release, the game goes down to $20, and people who were waiting before might buy now, this would be roughly equivalent to buying a game used for $20 after a few months, but the money still goes to the developers.

2 years after release, drop the game to $10 for a digital download, at this point, there really is no value in re-selling.

5 years after release, the game goes to $5 for digital download. At this point it would be impossible anyway to buy the game new, so used is the only option, and most people won't buy games that old anyway, but it still serves as trickle income.

Steam has the right idea overall - offer downloads at a discount compared to retail and also offer regular sales so people who want a better deal can wait for it. If you want the game right away you pay a bit more, if you want to wait and see what the reviews are like, you might not get in right away but you save a bit of money.

If the games are online or have an online component this also improves value. If people stop playing and some of them sell their game used, then eventually the online community will disappear, but if everyone has a digital copy they can't get rid of, there's always a potential community to play with if interest spikes again.

Of course what devs would really like is for everyone to pay $60 for the game, but that's something they definitely won't get. The only way they'll deal with used games is to use predatory pricing.