Piracy vs. Used Re-sale? The real costs

[CirrusEpix]

In light of the recent issue's focus on the cost of game piracy, I would like to add a new point. The main arguement against stealing games is that the lost revenue will negatively impact the company who makes the games. If we can agree that this is true, than the arguement is, "Why should X company spend Y amount of money on creating a new game when they will only recieve a smaller fraction of Y back in return?"

In the arguement of game piracy, the spotlight often focuses on the individual who downloads single copies of the game. While this is ethically wrong, I feel that this is the WRONG PLACE TO LOOK. If game company X wants to sell more copies of their games and make more money, their largest target should be the game MONOPOLY Gamestop.

Consider this.

1. Your local Gamestop purchases 100 copies of New Game X.
2. They pay the retailer rate of $35-$40 for each copy.
3. Gamestop turns around and sells the game for $60. Making a profit.
4. Half of the 100 copies are sold back to Gamestop at $20 a copy.
5. Gamestop sells them as USED for $40.

Repeat steps 4 through 5 as many times as you want, but in fact, the only amount of money that is going to the original game maker is the retail sales price of the original 100 copies. After that, they will recieve NO MORE MONEY, no matter how many people buy and play their games. Gamestop and other game stores like them thrive not on new game sales, but used game sales. While at no point do I want to defend piracy, I do want to show that the loss of sales due to piracy to game companies is a INSIGNIFIGANT fraction of what is lost by having the major videogame retail outlet undermining the very industry it sells to.

Perhaps this is why the rising interest in Downloadable content.
1. no production costs (cost of disk, case, transportation, storage)
2. NO RESELLING! One owner per copy, PER SYSTEM!

 

[yonsito]

Don't forget to bring back your old car to the manufacturer when you want a new one. After all, they made it.

 

[Hellion25]

But on the plus side, the extra money that game stores earn through the resale of games can be put towards buying new stock. Theoretically of course

 

[t_rexaur]

Game companies already know that second hand sales is where they actually lose the most money, but of course I'm guessing what the game stores are doing is perfectly legal, so since companies can't stop second hand sales by asking pretty please, they can add on horrible features like DRM and proclaim it is to stop piracy.

It doesn't work though, just look at Spore. It was on the internet BEFORE it even came out, all DRM did was screw over regular people who maybe had to reinstall it for whatever reason.

 

[Signa]

And none of that is mentioning that anyone who does buy for keeps isn't going to feel the need to buy the game at full retail if they got it used. It's just shy of bootlegging. When I ..*ahem*... I feel obligated to buy the game if I like it. That is not the case if I buy it used. I own a real copy then, and buying it again for the sake of paying the people who made it isn't financially viable.

 

[Magugag]

I disagree. GameStop may be only buying a hundred copies and selling them over and over again, but torrents only need to start with one copy and that can be infinitely recirculated. Torrents are more efficient, cheaper, and don't require the hastle of getting up and going to a store.

The difference is that pirates do this for free, to a wider range of people, hence, pwning GameStop.

Agreed. Not to mention that Gamestop is recirculating completely legally with product that they have purchased and received the rights to distribute. Selling used games is more affordable to the consumer, makes money for the distributor who in turn goes back and buys more product from the manufacturer. Though this cuts money from the original manufacturer at times, it's good overall for the industry. Pirating, however, is blatant theft. Nobody makes any money off of it, no currency is recirculated into the industry, it's utterly immoral and completely illegal.

YES. I am a hardass about this! Run for the hills!

 

[Moonmover]

I don't believe there is a single Gamestop anywhere in Alabama. I buy my games from some old guy with a one-room shop next to the hair salon. I feel so wierd in forums like this....

However, on the note that I have no idea what you're talking about:

There is no moral problem with selling/buying used video games. I purchased the video game, yes? Yes. So it is my property, and I have a right to sell it to someone else if I don't want it anymore. It is then that person's property and he/she now has the right to sell it to someone else. It's called free trade.

 

[goodman528]

Yer, I also use filesharing to get some games. But if I think the multiplayer's worth it, or if there are significant after sales support like patches and file packs and mods, or if it's just of brilliant quality, and most importantly if it doesn't have unavoidably retarded anti piracy measures, then I do go and buy it. I even bought Max Payne after I've played through a pirate copy of it.

 

[Magugag]

*flees*

In all seriousness, I only pirate to sample games, and if I enjoyed it, I'd go out and buy it. If I didn't, well, that company didn't deserve my money anyway.
I'm personally all for this kind of pirating. Too bad humanity doesn't work that way.

YOU WILL BURN FOR YOUR TRANSGRESSIONS!

I don't even like pirating in this capacity, but I'm at least sympathetic as long as one truly goes out and buys the game if they like it. At sixty bucks a pop, well... A bad buy can really hurt these days. I might suggest renting as an alternative, but meh.

 

[CeeJay]

If you trade your games, you can pick up a new release at a fraction of the price.

If you couldn't trade, wouldn't publishers still lose sales?

 

[Dr Spaceman]

Agreed. Not to mention that Gamestop is recirculating completely legally with product that they have purchased and received the rights to distribute. Selling used games is more affordable to the consumer, makes money for the distributor who in turn goes back and buys more product from the manufacturer. Though this cuts money from the original manufacturer at times, it's good overall for the industry. Pirating, however, is blatant theft. Nobody makes any money off of it, no currency is recirculated into the industry, it's utterly immoral and completely illegal.

YES. I am a hardass about this! Run for the hills!

*flees*

In all seriousness, I only pirate to sample games, and if I enjoyed it, I'd go out and buy it. If I didn't, well, that company didn't deserve my money anyway.
I'm personally all for this kind of pirating. Too bad humanity doesn't work that way.

See, this is why game companies should be more persistent in offering demos. Now, whether or not you actually purchase a pirated game you enjoy (hey, no offense, but I've heard this rationalization before) but it seems like you really just want a taste before you buy. And I don't think that this is unreasonable. Video games are expensive, and plunking down $60 (or more) for a game when you just never know if you'll "click" with a game or not is kind of unfair.

This is why I'll tend to buy games only if they're made by a company with a proven track record, or the gamer buzz online really matches up with the kind of gamer that I am.

 

[Aardvark]

So is it OK to... say... eBay your old copy of a game?

If so, what's the difference between selling it to someone on eBay and selling it back to your local game retailer?

If not, then why not? And how would this differ from selling other items, say a toaster or a clock, second hand? In either case, the original manufacturer is not getting the money from a new sale, but someone new is getting the product.

Book publishers went through this same fight back at the start of last century and they lost then. If you own something, you have every right to sell it to whomever you feel. If the party you elect to offload your used wares to just happens to be a game reseller, they have every right to then sell that, with whatever markup they feel is necessary, to other people.

Any restrictions placed on this "Gray Market" are restrictions to the very fundamental principles behind Capitalism. If you don't like Capitalism, go move to Cuba or China, where you'll never be worried by them again.

 

[Magugag]

See, this is why game companies should be more persistent in offering demos. Now, whether or not you actually purchase a pirated game you enjoy (hey, no offense, but I've heard this rationalization before) but it seems like you really just want a taste before you buy. And I don't think that this is unreasonable. Video games are expensive, and plunking down $60 (or more) for a game when you just never know if you'll "click" with a game or not is kind of unfair.

This is why I'll tend to buy games only if they're made by a company with a proven track record, or the gamer buzz online really matches up with the kind of gamer that I am.

I one hundred percent agree with you. With the easy options for distribution of demos and the levels more or less already made to pick from, I don't see a lot of excuse not to offer up a demo. Reviews are fine and dandy, but in the end that's still another person telling you what to think rather than you playing the game and finding out how your truly feel about it.

 

[Dr Spaceman]

See, this is why game companies should be more persistent in offering demos. Now, whether or not you actually purchase a pirated game you enjoy (hey, no offense, but I've heard this rationalization before) but it seems like you really just want a taste before you buy. And I don't think that this is unreasonable. Video games are expensive, and plunking down $60 (or more) for a game when you just never know if you'll "click" with a game or not is kind of unfair.

This is why I'll tend to buy games only if they're made by a company with a proven track record, or the gamer buzz online really matches up with the kind of gamer that I am.

I'm all for demos but one thing I want to add to your thoughts is that demos aren't only so you can see if you'll like it. Demos also let you see if your computer can run it.

*pokes Crysis*

Anyway, I refuse to listen to gamer buzz anymore after I threw down $60 for Metroid Prime 3 and hated the thing (and I've played through the game several times, just to try and force myself to like it).

edit: Yeah, I know Crysis came with a demo, I just thought it would be a good example of that sort of sampling.

Yeah, definitely true. Anyone who's been a PC gamer for any length of time knows the abject frustration that stems from a new game ABSOLUTELY REFUSING to work well on your PC. Oh Neverwinter Nights 2, why do you run like so much shit?

Weirdly enough, I just purchased Metroid Prime 3 too (it's much cheaper now) and it actually pushed me to replay Twilight Princess. I guess I wanted to play a "advance through the adventure through the usage of items" type of game, but after a third of the way through Prime 3 all I could think about was throwing Zelda back in the Wii...

 

[DigitalSushi]

Agreed. Not to mention that Gamestop is recirculating completely legally with product that they have purchased and received the rights to distribute. Selling used games is more affordable to the consumer, makes money for the distributor who in turn goes back and buys more product from the manufacturer. Though this cuts money from the original manufacturer at times, it's good overall for the industry. Pirating, however, is blatant theft. Nobody makes any money off of it, no currency is recirculated into the industry, it's utterly immoral and completely illegal.

YES. I am a hardass about this! Run for the hills!

*flees*

In all seriousness, I only pirate to sample games, and if I enjoyed it, I'd go out and buy it. If I didn't, well, that company didn't deserve my money anyway.
I'm personally all for this kind of pirating. Too bad humanity doesn't work that way.

that is the reason Crytek's Crysis was so heavily pirated, people wanted to see if their system could handle the awesomeness.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Both are harmful, that much is unmistakable. Piracy, at this stage, can only be stalled it seems, as the enternal arms race between those who secure and those who break always seems to end if favor of those who break. The difficulty of properly tracking and prosecuting the crime makes it all but impossible to accomplish anything other than slow down the inevitable breaking of copy protection, and the draconian means being used today on PC games is almost certainly an annoyance I face routinely.

Reselling on the other hand is equally difficult to confront. Given that it's difficult to discern just what exactly you're buying when you purchase a game (the common, software as a product or software as a service problem), it's hard to say where the consumer's rights end and the developer/publisher's rights begin. If the software is indeed a product, logically I ought to be able to move said product from my possession to the possession of another for a fee in the same fashion I might trade in a car when I purchase a new one. If software is a service (most commonly seen in the form of MMO's, where you can often get the game client for free and you only pay for access to the service), then there are different implications at play. Because fo the lack of clarification on the subject, I side with the consumer's rights in this case. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, in a clear and meaningful way, the customer has the right to transfer possession of a game at any time for any reason in the same way they have the right to do the same with any other piece of property.

 

[Erana]

They own the lisences for the games...
But I think everyone here agrees, Down with Gamestop.
So why don't we all turn to the internet for our gaming needs, wether a torrent or Ebay?

Everyone wins!

 

[The_Prophet]

As I have said earlier, If gaming companies really care about losing x amount of money while they are gaining 100000x money then I seriously don't know what the f*ck is wrong with them.