Poll: Buying Used Games is just as Bad as Pirating

[Ironic Pirate]

If they started charging less money, (ie $40 instead of sixty) I would be three times as likely to buy the game new. Of the three new games I bought in my lifetime, two were on sale/only cost $40.

Also, Downloadable games avoid the used game market, so there is a way to bypass that, whereas a game is pretty much going to be pirated no matter what. In terms of industry damage piracy is worse because while used game might encourage lower priced (yay!) or bonus codes with new versions of a game, piracy encourages self-destructive security measures that might make people not buy a game.

 

[Mandal0re]

Used games are a massive scam in the UK at the moment. Buy a new game finish it return it after a week lose ten pounds of its value, the game shop charge two pounds less than a new copy this is pure profit. You are essentially paying twice for the same product. I have never pirated but am considering it if game prices continue to rise unabated.

Please industry stop pushing me to be a criminal by your stupid pricing policies and the fact that games depreciate in value faster than a car doesn't help either. Seriously does a disc become more unsaleable the more you "drive" it?

This rationale is incredibly flawed. First of all your complaining about a shop that does trade ins NOT giving you the full value(or something close to the full value)of a new title that has been played. Why would they? And how does this equate to you getting a bad deal? If your done with a game and all its going to do is sit on your shelf collecting dust then surely getting back all of its value bar £10 is a good thing? What are you expecting,the shop to give you back the full value of the game and say 'here you go mate,hope you enjoyed playing that game for free'. And as for them selling pre owned games for more than they paid for them why would they not? If a shop didnt sell stock for more than it paid for it then it would go out of business pretty fucking quick.

And as for prices rising the prices of damn near everything are rising,its called inflation,and as far as big mainstream titles are concerned its called increasing production costs.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I have to say, since I got Steam I've bought SO many more games than before it, mainly because I very rarely buy games near the release date, although I'll happily buy 'new' games a few weeks or months down the line.

Take the new Batman for example, no way am I paying £30-40 for a new PC game, even tho it's got great reviews, however, it unexpectedly showed up in some great offers recently, under £10 on Games for Windows Live, and about £13 on Steam packaged with Just Cause 1.

This seems the sensible option, I'm not paying Gamestop or GAME £20 to put a price sticker on the front of someone else's game and put it on a shelf, and I'm not paying the full price expected on release. I'm also not pirating it.

For me, £10, £15 for the better titles is about the sweet spot for me to buy, stopping me both pirating or going to the preowned section.

I'm not saying 'all games should be £10', just saying I'm happy to hold out a few weeks or so for the kind of discounts it brings me, and I don't have the hassle of dodgy torrents bringing me unworking isos and cracks and keygens that don't work.

I oughta say I'm not anti piracy either, I've got no problem with pirating old PS1/PS2 games, as I know I'll never find them new, and stuff like Katamari Damacy didn't even get a UK release.

EDIT: Batman Arkham Asylum is sooooo worth the money! I hate stealth games and the stealth sections are even fun somehow, and the game over screens are a highlight instead of an irritant.

 

[richasr]

In fact its even worse financially but better economically. [sub]I know what those words mean so I can use them.[/sub]

Pirating is free and detracts one sale from the Devs. But with used games, your money goes to someone else (which is morally the right thing.)

To say pirating is hurting the industry more than used games is to be wrong. Because the only argument against Pirating is that it hurts the industry. Otherwise you shouldn't care what people do with their lives, used games are just as bad.

Providing the option to download a game for free, while it must have been bought somewhere originally, detracts more potential sales from the developers and publishers, with it being possible to download unlimited iterations of the same game.

Second hand trading means the game is being sold at a discounted price with the money going to the retailer and not the developer. The more a second hand game is sold on, the less it's value (that's how you'd think it works most of the time), therefore there is less chance of losing potential customers.

I hate for that to sound condescending in any way, but Pirating can create so many copies of the same game, that in a way, only one cracked version ever need to appear on the Internet or in the boot of a car.

 

[Deleted]

I disagree for the same reason that I would disagree that "renting" games hurts it as well. Compare the three cases. In pirating, there is no "initial purchase". Used games(for the most part) and games rented out have been bought for a certain price already, and are just being passed around now. There is an initial portion of money that is passed around when used and rented games are initially purchased that doesn't happen when you pirate a game.

Pirated games do have an initial purchase but, its not worth mentioning because millions play on one bought copy.

 

[Caliostro]

I've pointed out this hypocrisy before.

The whole problem with piracy is that the developers get jack squat out of it. Pretty much the exact same as used sales.

 

[Xcelsior]

Used games are a massive scam in the UK at the moment. Buy a new game finish it return it after a week lose ten pounds of its value

I say consider yourself lucky if you only lost 10 pounds off of the value. My cousin got forza 3 when it came out for 40 quid and didn't like it much, so he took it back the next day and they gave him 20 pounds for it. That's why I've never bothered trading any of my games in because of the return I get on them, I don't want to be making a profit but at least make it worthwhile to trade in.

 

[Eekaida]

The Devs are just bitching. They made *one* copy of a game, the get paid *once* - that's fair. If they want to be petty, why don't they say that gamers lending their old (sometimes discontinued) games to their friends is also tantamount to pirating?

All my uni friends gathered on the weekend bayonetta came out and played it together at a friends - so are all the ones who played it, but didn't buy it themselves pirates? Are three people stealing if they play Brawl with a friend who bought it?

Its like saying that used bookstores hurt the publishing industry, and charity shops hurt the clothing industry. If you don't want it to be passed on, don't make a finite product. Pirates are theives, but if you've paid for something legally its your property to sell on as you see fit.

 

[tsb247]

If you buy it used from a friend who bought it full price, that's still one sale of $60 to the developer, just $10 to a friend. Either way, with used games, somebody had to buy them first, then sell them for cheap. The company still gets money, no? They just don't get the money of two sales.

But it works with pirating too. Someone had to buy the game and put it online so that's one sale too. Though of course when one guy distributes a pirated game, millions can get it, when a used game may only see at most 20 gamers in its lifetime.

The thing is, you just proved your original argument to be false here. If someone has to buy the game originally for it to be a used game, then the company that created it will see at least one sale. With pirating, a single copy can be copied again and again resulting a thousands, if not millions of copies, from a single purchase. The result in loss from piracy is still much larger.

I would be willing to bet that a used game would see maybe 4 players/owners tops uless everyone that played the game hated it enough to return it to the store or sell it off again. I, for one, do not return the games I buy. If I get bored with them, I just shelve them for a while until I feel like playing them again.

Piracy is far worse, and there is no good way to justify it.

 

[Doug]

I would say used games aren't as bad as pirating, because they don't create a theoritically infinite number of copies from the same disc. Still bad for the developers, like, and I don't normally buy used unless its an old game thats not in print anymore.

 

[ParkourMcGhee]

Yep, both are equally big targets in the eyes of the big devs. Thus Ubisofts DRM and EA's Project 10 Dollar.

I buy used myself. Mainly because A. I have no money and B. I have no money.

That's the only reason. If the big companies want my custom, then the only way is to reduce prices, because I just cannot afford new games at the current price.

And it doesn't help that now PC games are rising to the prices of new console games.

 

[Signa]

I don't understand how so many people are saying that piracy is worse than second hand sales. Is no one looking at the potential of money handed to a dev? In second hand sales, a sale of a game is 100% confirmed. A person wanted it, and that person bought it. It shouldn't matter if it's legal or if that copy was bought once before, 2 people are playing 1 copy of the game. After that second sale is confirmed, that is a solid loss of money a dev could have made if the price was right. With piracy, there is no guarantee that the pirate would have bought the game if they couldn't pirate it, nor is there a guarantee that the pirate would not have bought the game after playing it. You can guarantee that the used game customer will not be paying the dev for their fun at a later time. Ultimately, 100% of used sales are a loss to the dev while piracy can fluctuate and the definition of a loss can change drastically depending on the circumstances.

Keep in mind I'm auguring strictly from a "which is worse" line of logic. I really don't believe that all players should pay for the games they play ever just because some one else made it. I just keep seeing all these weak arguments saying that Used: 1 sale = 20 plays, Piracy: 1 sale = 2,000,000 plays, lame car analogies, and the definition of what is worse is dictated by what is legal and what is not.

Bottom line: There has been at least one person on this forum at some point in time who has admitted to piracy and then proceeded to buy the game which gave the devs money. I'd like to see the post of the person who bought a used game and then felt they needed to buy a new copy so that the devs got money too. Piracy may be more rampant and uncontrolled, but there is no way to accurately asses the actual damage it does. The same can not be said for use game sales.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

If you buy it used from a friend who bought it full price, that's still one sale of $60 to the developer, just $10 to a friend. Either way, with used games, somebody had to buy them first, then sell them for cheap. The company still gets money, no? They just don't get the money of two sales.

But it works with pirating too. Someone had to buy the game and put it online so that's one sale too. Though of course when one guy distributes a pirated game, millions can get it, when a used game may only see at most 20 gamers in its lifetime.

wait wait whattttttt

20 gamers?

jesus christ that must be one horrible ass game to be bought again and again and resold by that many people, if its getting traded around that much, you might as well call it the village whore game because there is something wrong with a game that gets bought and sold that many times

seriously, probably 5 times if that, no where NEAR 20

pirating is much worse, are you trying to tell me i can't sell my car now because it is used? that it should be worthless and mine till the very end?

There is no market for stolen cars so you can't say used is bad. You can't compare physical products to data!

Also I don't know anything about the travel history of an average used game so that was pulled out of my ass.

uh...there is this thing..called chop shops? they are actually a huge underground market...believe me, its big, i unfortunately know someone who knows how it works.

fair enough, just saying it hardly gets traded that much, on AVERAGE, 2-3 times i'd say, i asked a friend who worked their once and the only time it got traded around 5-6 times was if it was a really new game

 

[Keepitclean]

Query: Do you also believe that buying a used car is the same as stealing one?

Pirating is free and detracts one sale from the Devs.

False - or at least, not always true. People could (and do) pirate games they never intended to buy in the first place, thus losing the developers nothing. Examples of this might be people with GBA/NDS emulators on the PC when they don't actually own the applicable handheld, but I would wager money that the vast number of PC gaming pirates never intended to pay for a copy in the first place.

I agree with you 100%. Most people I know that use torrents and such download music that they otehrwise wouldn't have ever bought. This is GOOD for the artist becuae it gets them noticed and people are more likely to come to their shows (where most artists make most of their money these days).

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I buy new, unless the used price is REALLY, REALLY good.

ex- I bought Batman: AA for under $20.

 

[DustyDrB]

Well, I've bought exactly one game new. I usually get my games on eBay and don't bid over $25. If you're persistent, it works and you save.

 

[veloper]

I don't get people who buy new games and then sell them. Why not just rent then?

And if you do get bored with a game, why not simply trade it for another game from a friend with no money changing hands?

Used is in no way bad like piracy, but in shops it just doesn't make any sense.

 

[CincoDeMayo]

If the big companies want my custom, then the only way is to reduce prices, because I just cannot afford new games at the current price.

Who can? Today's prices are insanely high. 60-70? is not affordable, especially when the target group of consumers is young people. We either have very little money, or no money at all. Shaving just 10? would do a lot, and I think that games would sell much better than they do today if they actually did lower the prices a little.

Edit: Oh shit, topic!

I buy used games unless they're pc games with online capability (I'd hate if someone registered the game and then returned it). I don't see why used games would be a problem, someone wasn't satisfied with a product and can offer it for a better price than that of the stores. Everybody wins, right? By at least buying a used game the company gets money from one unit, instead of getting zero money because of piracy.

 

[Marsell]

I always try to buy used, unless its something new like heartgold