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

[William Dickbringer]

It's not another form of Piracy.

Second hand marketing has been around for ages, and nobody has complained about them before. We have all been OK with second hand stores for clothing, buying used Television sets, flea markets, the works. But now, because video game publishers say it's hurting the industry, it's suddenly wrong?

Fuck no, it's not wrong.

If I'm tired of something I own, something I either can't get enjoyment out of, or something if it's something I want to replace with something better, should I simply have to throw that thing away? Why can't I make a profit and sell it to someone else who needs it? Am I a bad person for helping someone acquire something they want for an even cheaper price than at the store? No, I'm not. I'm a good person for giving someone that opportunity.

I applaud you good sir I agree with this post

 

[shadow skill]

I didn't gloss over that. My point is that contrary to the idea that rentals harmed the movie industry it actually has ended up helping them.

Only after film studios sued the ever loving shit out of rental chains, forcing them to either buy rental licenses at ten times retail per copy, or hand over half of all proceeds.

Studios wanted to end renting completely, but rental chains had more money (logically) to spend in defense of their very existence than studios had to spend on theoretically increasing revenue.
So, what you're not understanding, why renting is utterly irrelevant to the issue of used games, why there will be no "happy happy sunshine sparkle revenue agreement" is there will be no costly legal battle (that will likely end more than one publisher) against the "used game" model of massive video game retailers. Not even mentioning how publishers benefit in the exact same way from rental chains as film dios.

Except that isn't exactly what happened. Because of First sale doctrine the people who opened up rental chains already had the right to rent out the movies purchased from the film studios. The studios deciding to get on board really meant very little in the end. Unless they decided to stop selling copies of their products to people these other folks were still going to be able to rake in huge amounts of cash. The reason that whole mess is relevant to this issue with video games is that resale is legal in the US because of first sale doctrine. The game publishers are never going to get rid of this market, so they should take a lesson from the movie studios and figure out how to turn used game sales into profit for themselves. All of this bs that they are trying to pull isn't actually going to get rid of the used game market. In the end they are just going to lose out on money that they could earn by entering the market.

EA might occasionally get ten dollars from a used Madden but anyone who sells a copy used is going to walk away with what amounts to a hundred percent profit. Gamestop will still in all likelihood print money with their scam, and even if they go under individuals will still resell games with ease.

 

[asinann]

Second-hand sales means legally acquiring a used product, which cannot afterwards be used by the original purchaser. The creator of said product has been paid for his work.

The publisher has been paid once and yet two people have played the game for that money. Piracy is simply that on a larger scale, and usually gets more money from pirates who later bought the game.

A car manufacturer manufactures one car.

It goes to a taxi driver, who drives people around in it for a year.

It then gets sold to a family of 4.

Three years later, a college kid buys it out to sqeeze out the last few dozen k miles out from it.

One car. Manufacturer got paid once. The store got paid once.

Several people used it.

Explain to me how this is car piracy.

I'm not saying it is. But applied to games, legal people and publishers believe that it is.

No, only publishers think of it that way. The courts have already spoken on the subject and said that once you have paid for the game, it is YOURS. As long as you no longer have it, you can sell it or give it away should you choose to.

 

[spartan231490]

this is crap. in piracy, one person buys the game, and severl people own it. with used games sales, one person buys it, one person owns it, next thing u know they will try to convince me that used car sales are as bad as stealing a car. explative!

 

[Kimarous]

Isn't this just about their sports games? If so, then I think EA has finally realized that their cash-cow sports franchises have minimal differences between them, meaning that one could essentially buy an older version with a slightly different roster. To me, limiting the resale of such games just seems like an unusually shrewd move on their part.

 

[thisguywithhair]

someone already paid for said game.

they shouldn't care.

The same logic can be applied for piracy. It hurts arguably hurts the industry more, because it's actual consumers, not bored kids with a torrent client, who are getting the games.

That is so far off the mark it is not even funny. When I trade in one copy of a game one copy is sold. When I pirate a game for illegal downloads, hundreds of copies are stolen.

 

[ArmoredCavalry]

No, only publishers think of it that way. The courts have already spoken on the subject and said that once you have paid for the game, it is YOURS. As long as you no longer have it, you can sell it or give it away should you choose to.

Now if only Steam believed this... -_-

I hate the fact that PC games are one of the few products that you can buy, but not sell... The vast majority of products, if they turn out horrible, you can get your money back. PC games? Nope!

But yes... people are so horrible for buying used games.... (sarcasm)

 

[micky]

the difference between pirated games on the computer and in real life is one person can sell the same thing over and over and over again.

 

[thenoblitt]

nope not piracy at all, someone builds a house some guy buys it then you buy it from that guy is that piracy? according to you it is, just cause you aren't buying the game straight from the source does no make it piracy unless the original guy stole it

 

[DarthVanitas]

Nothing is wrong with buying used games. Once the game is bought, the owner can do what they please with it. It needs to stay this way. *Looks at EA with fists raised*

 

[Wicky_42]

I hate that PC games aren't returnable. DVDs are just as easy to make copies of, and yet I can return them (I think? Is that still the case?) without lying about whether they worked or not, heh. The absence of demos for many of the new releases, no returns, unreliable/bribed/shallow reviews, morally criminalising used game sales... it's almost like they are tacitly encouraging straightforward piracy - I mean, there's less strings attached (well, until ISPs turn snitch - then you'd better hope that you've not infringed any copyright for at least the last 7 years :S...)

 

[Mikkaddo]

someone already paid for said game.

they shouldn't care.

The same logic can be applied for piracy. It hurts arguably hurts the industry more, because it's actual consumers, not bored kids with a torrent client, who are getting the games.

He's got a point rokkolpo, the point is the company wants to keep getting their money. They get NOTHING if a game is sold used. Gamestop or [local gamestore or chain here] gets paid, but the studio that made it gets NOTHING. The company sees used game sales as a problem because currently ther'es no way FOR the company to get paid for them.

I think however, if we set up some simple rules like say . . . 20% of a used game's current price is paid to the studio (or new studio whoever bought out who) then we might see a sharp decline in that dissension. I'm not saying simple as the same word as easy. It would likely be difficult to pull this off, not to mention the fact that game companies would want the price of used games to likely skyrocket to up their profit margin

 

[Chibz]

I don't know what you guys are talking about when you mention used game stores buying games for $5 store credit and selling them for $45-50. The only used store I frequently visit buys a game from you for exactly half of what they sell it for. Sometimes they'll mark you down a few bucks if they need to do any work on making a CD playable. Most wii games bought for $20 by them, sold for $40? On, I forgot to mention. This isn't "store credit". They hand you solid cash. Unless you're trading in, then they "remove" the tax.

Secondly, in response to being able to return games (or not)... I HAVE returned games that were unpackaged (and I even tried to install them) because my computer was unable to run it. Couldn't even install it. Not even space. That's how old that computer was when I was a kid.

Personally, if I am no longer able to buy used games ever again, I WILL pirate almost everything.

 

[unoleian]

So, wait, one person can buy a game, and make it available to an infinite number of people at all times, while someone else can buy a game, and when they sell it, make it available to only one other person until they sell it themselves, and these two scenarios are somehow the same?
...
*brain pops*

 

[shadow skill]

-snip-

Excuse me, but why should the producers of content need to compete with retail? Retail should be happy to even have shit to sell. All this "first sale doctrine" bullshit does is give middlemen extensive rights to fleece the shit out of people who actually create something real.

I also like your revisionist history. Very cute stuff.

What revisionist history? The supreme court reaffirmed the lower court's ruling that the people renting out copies of movies purchased from the film studios had the right to do so. Just because you don't understand this does not make it revisionist. Content producers should enter into markets that may be profitable because they do not necessarily have the right to dictate the price of any given item. Regardless of whether or not they hold copyright or patents for the item. If they had that power under all circumstances they would effectively become the distributor themselves. At that point there would be no room for retailers outside of the publishers themselves. The movie industry developed a pricing plan that took into account these rental outfits and they benefit from it very much. There is no reason why Game publishers cannot do the same thing (I.E. figure out how to turn used game sales into guaranteed profit.) for used games.

 

[Saint_Zvlkx]

No. It's like saying that buying a used book is stealing the author's work.

 

[Bravo Company]

Because that particular copy has become the property of the buyer when it left the store.

Except, it hasn't.

If the game became entirely the property of the buyer when it left the store then piracy couldn't be illegal.

I could go home with the game I own, to the PC I own and use that PC to make 500 copies of the game that I own onto discs that I own.
And, as I owned everything involved their production, those 500 copies of the game would be entirely my property. I could then resell those 500 copies can make a tidy profit. Which would be entirely legal as I would entirely own everything I was selling.

you're wrong of course, you own the game, you don't own the copy right. Those are two separate and very different things and conflating them like that just muddles the issue. Under the law, EULA or no EULA, you own that disk and can do anything you want with it as long as it doesn't break any laws (in this case copyright infringement, meaning you can make back ups under fair use.)

Yes, you own the disc, of course you do, you just don't own the data on the disc.
If you blanked out the data on the disc first, you'd obviously be perfectly with-in your rights to resell it. The question only arises when you try and sell the disc with the data still on it.
Of course, as pointed out, some publishers do explicitly give you the right to resell if you don't retain any copies and, even if they didn't, the courts still support it.

But the point still stands, that even though you own the physical presence of the data, you don't own the data itself and, as such, you don't intrinsically own the right to resell it.

you mean just like the stores own the physical presence of the data and not the data itself? Retailers don't pay some special fee for the right to redistribute the games, it stands to reason I have to same right of ownership.

The store you bought it from never had to agree to the EULA though, they are selling an unused product, once you have installed it you signed that contract saying you don't own any of it, your just licensed to use it.

In no way am I saying that I support what EA is doing, but when you've signed that EULA you don't own the game.