Used Games are simply another form of Piracy (THQ joins EA to stop the used games market)

[Runding]

I don't know why people are so freaked out by EA's decision to add online codes.

EA is still going to offer used game buyers a DLC for $10 to get the online code.

Also, I absolutely guaranty that Gamestop is still going to be happy to give some poor schmuck $15-$20 for a game he/she just paid $60 for a few weeks ago... They will still report massive profits even if they have to lower their selling prices to account for online play... I mean, it'd be a real shame if they had to charge $45 instead of $55 on your new game that you just received $15 for- That's still a $25-$30 profit for the mathematically challenged.

There will be no changes in how the industry operates, period.

 

[The Dark Umbra]

It just shows how greedy the game industry is. You don't see car manufactures saying used cars are hurting business(and if they do call me out on it lol). If they made games cheaper maybe we would be newer games more often.

 

[seventy7l]

Somebody already said a person paid for the game but equal distribution is the thing here.
Piracy:1 game is transferred to several people.
Used Games have a 1:1 ratio one person buys it and gets rid of it somebody else buys it,That doesn't mean a sale is lost for the company somebody had already bought it.

 

[Snarky Username]

I don't know why people are so freaked out by EA's decision to add online codes.

EA is still going to offer used game buyers a DLC for $10 to get the online code.

Also, I absolutely guaranty that Gamestop is still going to be happy to give some poor schmuck $15-$20 for a game he/she just paid $60 for a few weeks ago... They will still report massive profits even if they have to lower their selling prices to account for online play... I mean, it'd be a real shame if they had to charge $45 instead of $55 on your new game that you just received $15 for- That's still a $25-$30 profit for the mathematically challenged.

There will be no changes in how the industry operates, period.

But charging $10 for a game that you just payed for to play it is just stupid. That's like selling a car for $1000 then selling the keys for $250.

The fact is that EA are all acting like toddlers over the fact that they can't gouge every single dime out of their consumers and they'll probably lose more profits to the people who decide not to buy their games at all compared to the people who buy them new instead of used.

 

[crypt-creature]

Its buisness. Consumers can esily show companies that the games are bad/unfinished, but re-selling/pirating games is not really the way to do it. From publisher/developer point of view there is no real difference in income whenever you buy used or download from internet., and that is the reason i dont see how it is more fair to buy a used one rather than download it from teh webs.

The difference i see publishers are voicing lately is in the fact that people are ready to pay as much a retail price -5$ + 3-4 days of wait to get the product the publishers dont make money off. It is, like it or not, companies duty to make sure they do make money off their products and it is more complicated than just end users liking or not liking said game.

Five year old game for previous gen console system is not the issue that is reason for all that noise. Its new games. Seems like lots of nowadays gamers have an odd sense they deserve to play all the released games and only pay for the ones they do enjoy. Thats not really how world works, sorry to disappoint.

Unfortunately, re-selling and pirating has become the way to 'stick it' to game companies and show them that their products suck or aren't worth what they're asking for them.
Another problem is, companies don't seem to want to listen to their consumers unless they are speaking with their money.
Both sides are failing at communication, and it doesn't seem that they are trying very hard to correct the problem.

But the end users are the ones that will be paying for the game and are the ones who are going to like it or hate it, so making money is dependent on those people. If they don't like your game, all the magazines and ads they paid to get people to buy said game are worthless. A company also has to be reasonable, or else they will fail at their own market. Many companies aren't being reasonable, they think that they can make all the rules and the consumers will have to stick to those rules.
It's more complicated than a companies duty to make money off their titles.

But five year old games matter with these new games, because more new games are adding strictly DLC as a bonus or incentive to buy the game. In 5 years if a company goes under or stops supporting a previous game, the DLC is worthless for the people that still play or who buy a copy of that game.
I can't go out and physically rent a copy of a new game, because there is no store in the area within a reasonable distance to do that. I am not going to download a game online, or send out to rent a game through some mysterious company that I can't go and deal with directly (somehow).
I do have the right to try/play every game I want and buy what I like, I don't have to pay for a game and pray that the demo wasn't the best part or that the magazine fluffed up the content of the game.
The world is changing to make it so that you have to buy the game now, or basically just not play it. That might be how the world works at the moment, but it's not working very well.

 

[armaina]

This isint the case with games tho. You still get the same game, with same features, same gameplay time. Nothing changes, the game wont become shorter or less playable because its used and the only person that benfits from such sale is the guy you bought it form. No the devs, not the publisher, noone in the actual game industry.

Now why is it worst than piracy? Because you spend money on the game but the game industry doesnt get this money. You just give it to some random guy .

Clearly you've never purchased a used game before in your life. If you had, you would have realised that used games often have issues such as, lost books, lost covers, being re-cased, the risk of damaged disks, or other aspects that retract from it's value. Also, you can't compare it to appliances, as those have movable parts that do wear over time. It's the same as used DVDs, unless you think that's some horrid crime as well.

And hey, what about the re-sale of rare items or collectibles, the likes of which often have huge markups from their initial price and their value depends entirely on their condition. And going back to games, what is any player supposed to do about an old game they've never played before that is out of print that isn't digitally distributed. I would have never been able to play System Shock 2 had I not found a used copy of the game, would you rather I simply pirate the game instead of purchasing a physical, legitimate copy of the game, of which is there is only a limited amount?

Used games are not pirating nor are they as bad as pirating because that limits the amount of people that have that game to only the people with physical copies, all copies that were paid and accounted for (one would hope) before they changed hands at a later time. The companies were already paid for it, so that should be that. The cost of used games shouldn't be given to the publishing companies at all. That's about as stupid as say... car companies should get a cut of your profits if you sell your car that you've already completely paid off.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

The problem, I believe, isn't that Johnny sells his used copy to Jimmy. The problem is that large multi-national companies are actively encouraging Johnny to sell his used to them so they can sell the game again to Jimmy.
The problem is that large companies like Game, EB Games, Gamestop and their like are promoting their customers to sell their used games back to them so that they can get even more money out of games they've already sold.

Sadly, we end-users are the ones who get shafted.

 

[Scorp123]

The way I see it piracy doesn't cost anything and the devoelopers get noting.Used games are cheper than new games and the seller gets the money not the developers so it makes sense that they would say it's another form of piracy,in both cases they don't get anything.

 

[Sovvolf]

The publishers do still own the data and can do what they want with it.

Not exactly, they can do what they want with it sure enough, unless of course they want to sell it. When you sell or trade an item you must abide by the rules set down by TSI (well in the Europe you do) if you don't abide by those rules, your probably going to get your product pulled off the shelf. The customers have rights when buying a product, no matter how big EA is, they cannot legally take away those rights from the customer.

 

[oppp7]

Yes they are. I'd give my whole view of the situation but I don't trust the people on here not to flame me.

 

[Stannett]

I think samurai is highlighting a point that isn't getting a lot of thought here (though i admit i only got halfway through the thread and decided to "Skip to the end!". Second hand markets provide cheaper products for those customers who were never excited or interested enough to buy the game full price. Many games I own I would have never have bought for £40 because i dont really deem them worth it. For example Killzone 2. I played the original and thought it crap. Then the 2nd one comes out and being bored one day and needing something to play i picked up a copy for £7 or so. I was never going to purchase Killzone 2, and yet i could get hooked in enough that i would be excited about the next Killzone and buy outright. I won't so far as i think the game is very poor in places but it could happen in other cases. As a result the company could potentially gain future sales from a copy they've made money on and from a person who would never have bought the product if there was no used market.

On the contrary the Piracy market probably does include a fair whack of people who would (or could) purchase the game at full price. Just check how many torrent seeders and leechers there are after a major pc sales release. This therefore has a much more damaging effect upon the economics of the Game industry. Although potentially it could encourage players to buy future products in the same way as a second hand game I'll admit.

Anyway i just see used markets as opening up products to people who have limited interest and wouldn't buy full whack. Although this is running off my view where i won't buy a second hand game unless its around a tenner, dont see the point of getting a second hand game for anything more as original copies will dip to these prices anyway.

 

[Zetsubou-Sama]

Used copies: Someone already paid the price that one copy costs, studios get the money for that one copy. Another person buys that copy. Not piracy because someone already paid that copy in question so the money for that one copy is paid.

If anything this is stealing the Retailers of their "used" market by developers. Which is the only way some people can buy games. (A video game is everything but cheap)

 

[Mr. In-between]

My heart is bleeding red, white & blue patriot blood for the poor, abused American developers who are being so grievously swindled out of their hard-earned money because so many of you sick, twisted bastards think that it's acceptable to pay full price for a product and then sell your copy of that product to another individual when you have grown tired of it.

HAVE YOU NO SHAME?

 

[Asehujiko]

The ironic thing is that removing used game purchases would probably hurt the industry more.I'm sure there's millions of people worldwide who,like myself,use trade ins as a means of funding new game purchases.I know that if I couldn't resell old games then I would buy a lot less games

The ironic thing is you actually believe that.

Removing the aftermarket would allow sane pricing of video games.

That's not how capitalism works. Monopoly=higher prices.

Cracked.com had an article about what would happen if the internet suddenly was to disappear and this image from that is very appropriate:

 

[armaina]

Clearly you don't understand what "game" means. Most of what you described is peripheral shit that no one but the extremely anal cares about. If the physical surface of the media is damaged enough to impact gameplay, then it simply isn't accepted as a trade-in.

If you're buying used games off amazon/ebay without pictures from every angle and a description of what exactly is missing, what the hell is wrong with you? Are you stupid or something?

I do understand what 'game' means, I just know that with many old games, sometimes having that book makes a huge difference in understanding the game play and other features. Plus, I have a bit of a collector mentality so yes, I do care about the condition of the original packaging as well as the extra bits. But the point is, a used game will not always be in the same exact condition of a new game.

And I'm sure many people here can account for purchasing a used game, only to find out later after opening it that the disk does not look very good. So, you'd think it would prevent trade in, but you will always run into people that don't properly check for disk quality. I myself have not had this problem, but I've also been buying used games for a long time, I tend to get most of them from a single, local chain.

 

[Zacharine]

Optical media doesn't degrade fast enough for the value of the data stored therein to be impacted in any real form.

Define "in any real form".

Able to impact play before system itself no longer functions.

See any PC game manufactured before 2000.

We have PCs. The games referenced above are stopping to function from the original CDs.

Also, I have an old Playstation back from 1995.

Several of my games, good ones at that, are no longer playing due to data degradation.

You sir, are wrong, or at the very least have a very skewed idea of what the life-time of a gaming system actually is.

Wow, way to be extremely vague and anecdotal.

Also, the data doesn't degrade, the surface does. Please, try again. This is funny.

Since you make a universal claim, any single case to the contrary is enough to show your position to be wrong.

I have done so.

Perhaps you would also like to read these:

http://fht.byu.edu/prev_workshops/workshop07/papers/3/Digital-Preservation.pdf

http://cool.conservation-us.org/bytopic/electronic-records/electronic-storage-media/critiss.html

http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/sec4.html

Also, way to understand optical data storage: sufficient damage to the coating layers may change its optical properties enough to bend the laser away from proper data sectors. Damage to the aluminum at the core may make it lose it's reflectivity and thus readability with laser. Damage to the dye or the dye layer is damage diretly to the data stored within it.

Hence, data degrades, because it is no longer identical to the original set of data (assuming the original data would not degrade also, and thus would be in perfect state for comparison).

Hence, physical degradation directly leads to data degradation, or inability to properly read said data: either way the result is holes in extractable data.

Now that I've made my point and trounced yours (no data degradation occurs in optical meadia, in meaningful time periods), perhaps you'd like to either rethink your stance, or present some further arguments or evidence.

 

[omega 616]

Again. I disagree.
Second hand clothes, toasters, cars dont have same value as a second hand game. Used clothes may be in some way damaged, have bleached colors, wont last for as long etc. There is a valid reason why those things are that much cheaper than brand new. All those things just arent as good as they would be if bought new from shop. You pay less for a flaw in performance/usability.

I have to disagree with this slightly, if you buy a car then decide to sell it back, after driving off the forecourt, he won't give you the same amount you paid for it. Everything depreciates, unless it's great art or wine.

There is a difference between piracy and second hand trading, piracy is copying the original multiple times then selling them. Second hand trading is selling the only copy you have for less than you bought it, usually.

Why do game devs/publishers hate us? We must all be masochists.

 

[Runding]

The problem, I believe, isn't that Johnny sells his used copy to Jimmy. The problem is that large multi-national companies are actively encouraging Johnny to sell his used to them so they can sell the game again to Jimmy.
The problem is that large companies like Game, EB Games, Gamestop and their like are promoting their customers to sell their used games back to them so that they can get even more money out of games they've already sold.

Sadly, we end-users are the ones who get shafted.

This is exactly the problem. Why are so many people upset with EA but ok with Gamestop gouging their customers by giving 25% of the purchase price to the seller and reselling the games for almost full price?

If anything, one would need to expect that the game devs/publishers will eventually need to strike back.