Poll: Buying Used Games is just as Bad as Pirating

[KeyMaster45]

I don't like buying used. I once bought a used game and it kept freezing up one me when I tried playing it.

That was when I decided that I like buying new better.

This is why I don't buy used. Buying a used game is buying a game with the invisible "Buyer Beware" sticker attached to it. I, however, see nothing wrong with buying a used video game. It is the same as if I went and bought a used book, movie, or car. Do you hear any of those industries crying about second hand sales?

While I can't deny that devs do end up losing out on money due to second hand sales think of the millions of books that are sold as second hand each year and the money each author and publishing company misses out on when someone purchases those. If you seek and end to used video game sales then you may as well rev up the campaign machine to end all second hand sales in the world and start burning down flea markets

 

[lacktheknack]

With used games, if the devs sell fifteen thousand copies, then there are fifteen thousand copies in circulation.

With pirating, if they sell fifteen thousand, there's twenty thousand in circulation.

 

[StriderShinryu]

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.

I see what you're getting at, but I think you're overreaching a little. If I walk into a game store and willingly purchase Game X used for $20 that in no way shape or form means I would buy Game X new for $40. If I've decided my baseline value for a certain game is $20 then I'm not going to pay $40 for it and there really isn't a potential sale unless the retail price of the game itself goes down, but that's another issue entirely.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

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.

well the used game, can only be used one at a time, therefore who ever sold it, has to buy another copy if they want to play ever again, and as a lot of people on here put, they only buy games used when its a really good deal, or if the game is old enough where you can't buy it new, and im sure like me, if i buy a game used and i really like it, im going to keep that developer in mind next time i see a game by them, therefore more money towards them

most pirates i know, are the cheapest bastards around, in which they almost never buy games, they figure out any way possible to get new games for nothing, therefore i consider them much worse

and those supposedly 'weak' arguements, are better than anything piracy can put up for an arguement, its illegal, and no better then straight up stealing the game from the store in a hard copy

and i'd like to point out what you said above, you said "if the price was right" in which most people even admitted on here, if the price had been a bit lower, they would have bought new all the time, but thats not possible being the general crowd of appeal is young people with no money from school/cars/etc...

if i could pay the developer straight up for a used copy of their game, of course i would buy it from them, as would everyone else here, but that is not possible obviously since they dont retail their own games, in which many games now a days (more or less for console) are counter attacking this buy having new release DLC included and what not for buying new

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I don't like buying used. I once bought a used game and it kept freezing up one me when I tried playing it.

That was when I decided that I like buying new better.

This is why I don't buy used. Buying a used game is buying a game with the invisible "Buyer Beware" sticker attached to it. I, however, see nothing wrong with buying a used video game. It is the same as if I went and bought a used book, movie, or car. Do you hear any of those industries crying about second hand sales?

While I can't deny that devs do end up losing out on money due to second hand sales think of the millions of books that are sold as second hand each year and the money each author and publishing company misses out on when someone purchases those. If you seek and end to used video game sales then you may as well rev up the campaign machine to end all second hand sales in the world and start burning down flea markets

i understand both your qualms here, but nearly every game place i know has a 30 day garuntee/warranty on it, so if the game isn't working right, then you can take it in for a new copy or store credit equal to that price, therefore that arguement is null

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Yup, this is true.

Which is why I have to laugh everytime some guy says he bought this game because the devs deserved the money, but he bought it used.

Before I buy a used game, im gonna pirate it. Otherwise, its just my money going to gamespot. And fuck gamespot dude.

i believe you mean 'gamestop'...

am i correct?

 

[Odd Water]

I never really stopped to think about how buying a used game from a store hurt the market. I always try to get a used copy first when I try to buy a game. Reason is for most games they cost about 60 dollars and I can play them in less then 10 hours and never play them again, weather they are really good or not just sometimes not worth playing through again. Like Batman Arkam Asylum or Half Life games, they are really good, but playing through once is all I need. There is no change playing a second time, nothing new or different to the story or experience. Replay value is whats most important to me and frankly most games don't have it. There are some games that keep me going for really long times, like Oblivion, Borderlands, or some RPGs that take like 50 hours or more to go through once let alone extremely different story paths one can do. These I'll buy new because if I'm going to have them and play them so long I don't want a used copy with scratches and glitches. But otherwise I just can't justify paying out a load for something I will only play one time. If I can get it used and cheaper then I will.

 

[peanutch]

I actually have pirated a few games. My xbox 360 died, and i downloaded torrents for the xbox games i owned on pc. I did buy the games new for xbox, but did not see the point in buying them again. It is still pirating, but the devs got their money from me.

 

[Ziadaine_v1legacy]

I'll buy used if its old enough or is new and no scratches etc. The current price of the average game here being $100AU is a (in the nicest terms) fucking rip-off. I'm glad I'm personal friends with a game store owner, 10% Discount goes a LOOOOOONG way with games.

 

[dochmbi]

Buying used is a legalized form of piracy. I just bought Fable 2 used and borrowed the xbox 360 of my cousin, then sold the game right away and ta-da, I just played Fable 2 without paying a dime.

 

[Heraklitus]

One is illegal the other isn't.

 

[Sayvara]

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.

To answer the OP: is buying used games worse than pirating?

My not so subtle nor humble opinion: Hell no!

When you buy a game... you (usually) buy two things:

1) A hardcopy of the game
2) A license to use the game.

As with any other thing you own, both the hardcopy and the license is yours to pass on, or to sell, to other people. Sure, the property rights to the game still belong to the copyright holder... but the license to use it is mine, bought and paid for. Of course I shall be able to transfer that.

I have no sympathy for pirates... they are leeching scumbags who deserve all the heat they can get. But once I bought and paid for my license, it's my property and I can do whatever the heck I want with it (within the limits of the law), and the copyright holder can't say otherwise.

/S

 

[KeyMaster45]

I don't like buying used. I once bought a used game and it kept freezing up one me when I tried playing it.

That was when I decided that I like buying new better.

This is why I don't buy used. Buying a used game is buying a game with the invisible "Buyer Beware" sticker attached to it. I, however, see nothing wrong with buying a used video game. It is the same as if I went and bought a used book, movie, or car. Do you hear any of those industries crying about second hand sales?

While I can't deny that devs do end up losing out on money due to second hand sales think of the millions of books that are sold as second hand each year and the money each author and publishing company misses out on when someone purchases those. If you seek and end to used video game sales then you may as well rev up the campaign machine to end all second hand sales in the world and start burning down flea markets

i understand both your qualms here, but nearly every game place i know has a 30 day garuntee/warranty on it, so if the game isn't working right, then you can take it in for a new copy or store credit equal to that price, therefore that arguement is null

Actually no it doesn't make my argument null, and its rather shortsighted of you not to think through the return process. Getting a game that's so fucked up it doesn't function is a damned nuisance. When I buy a game I have no desire to trek back up to the mall and return the damn thing. It is a waste of time and gas, and if they don't have any other copies of that particular game that is in stock used I get my money back and still end up buying a new copy of it (depending on if its still in production I may end up not having a copy at all by the end of it). So in the end I may as well have bought new in the first place, thus saving myself the time and gas I wasted to go return the used copy.

Do I still buy used? Of course I do, sometimes there is no choice if a game is too old. (even on the internet those new copies you find its not the dev making money off those at that point)

 

[Aeiluindae]

I don't have enough disposable income to buy new games. There's almost no way I can justify spending 70 dollars to buy a new game without knowing a lot about it. I still like playing games, and if there was an awesome game I found, I would buy it. So, for me, playing a game used or pirated is the only way I can be sure that a game is worth paying money for. If I didn't pirate, I wouldn't buy games at all. As it is now, I will buy a few. My piracy actually gains the industry a few sales they might not have had otherwise.

 

[Deleted]

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.

Haha, I know I did. My *new* argument is that there is no difference to the developer. Of course the economy benefits when money is being traded for games but Devs have no reason to cry.

 

[Artina89]

I usually buy used games as I am a uni student and there is no way I can just throw £40-£50 around, I wouldn't want to anyway, even if I could just spend £40 on a whim. As for whether buying used games is worse than pirating, my answer is no. Its like what most people have being saying, a used game has already been bought once, therefore, the devs have seen the money from one sale and theres a finite number that will be in circulation as "used games", whereas in pirating, an unlimited number of copies can be forged, with only the person who has pirated it, seeing any money from it.

 

[Keshihead]

The majority of my game purchases are used from my local game shops, or through the play.com PlayTrade scheme. Like some of the other posters in this thread, my mentality is 'Why pay full price for a game when you can get a used copy for a fraction of the price?'. As for potentially getting a bad copy of a game that doesn't work, most (if not all) game stores now have disc cleaning machines that restore discs to brand-new condition, and they run every pre-owned game they get through said machine. I've had some really good bargains lately, such as 3 PS2 games for £5 (you never know what treasures you might find on the store shelves!), and a selection of great Wii games for peanuts, such as Red Steel and No More Heroes for £5 each.

 

[Apackof12Ninjas]

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.

Saying that used games hurt the industry is like saying you are hurting me because you are not sending me money every month. Technically, it's true, but when common sense is applied one quickly sees it's a load of bull...

First and foremost, ANY luxury item industry WILL have a second hand market. Books, cars, DVDs, CDs, clothes, jewelry, etc. This is basic economics. I would like to hear one good reason why gaming should be exempt from the basic economic processes that every other market is subject to?

The very fact that publishers are whining about second-hand sales is about as justified as me whining about me losing profits because you aren't mailing me money. True, but that doesn't mean I have any right to that money and no matter how much I whine about it, that won't change.

The gaming industry is easily the most spoiled and over-entitled entertainment industry in the world.

Quoted for truth