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

[Interference]

Here's a simple solution to used games, EA: make more games that people actually want to fucking KEEP.

 

[Hileo20]

The ironic thing about this is that it wont help their sells, it will severely hurt them. Personally, if I dont think a game is worth it I wont buy it until a while after, when I can get it used for cheaper.

Let's say the game is good. Ok, then I have reason to believe the developers know what they are doing, and I have a higher chance of buying their games in the future, actually when they are new.

Truly, I much rather buy games new, nice and shiny, manual and all, but either way, the video game store makes the same wage. Either way they get paid for one copy, all the re-sale is doing is allowing others to enjoy their games and increase exposure.

Finally, I guarantee there will be pirated versions of the coded games just like they do pc games in a matter of minutes after release. If they do have such a big problem with people buying used games, and pretend you no longer could buy used games, just wait to see the pirate rates skyrocket...

 

[Dys]

Well, interesting points made. I don't necessarily agree with them, but I doubt that's going to surprise you.

It didn't

This likely will surprise you, I actually agree with you. I hate that gamers are expected to pay $100+ for a game that you don't even own (I live in Australia, which essentially means that despite our dollar being somewhere in the region of 0.9USD, we're expected to pay an increase of some 60%) . You only own the right to use it. It does bother me a lot, however that's the direction the industry is taking and the majority are more than happy to mindlessly feed it money. Given the huge amount of money I've invested in gaming (PS3, xbox 360, wii, gaming laptop, older spec gaming desktop etc) it's surprising how little money I've spend on mainstream games in the past few years, simply because I'd rather rent games from the video store than buy them outright (which is, of course, equally as bad as buying/selling secondhand, I of course still maintain that I don't actually care about the welfare of the developers, and that it's the hypocrisy of those who try to justify sidestepping paying for games that irritate me).

While, in practice, I don't think that second hand game sales are any better for the devs/publishers[footnote]I include devs because even though it is often as you said, with publishers paying them a flat rate, there are other arrangements for payment where it is purely performance based, or where both the developing and publishing staff are a part of the same company[/footnote], the only real issue I have with it is a incredibly dodgy business practice that goes hand in hand with secondhand sales. If it was less dishonest, and less of a greedy way for retailers to make a quick buck (more like, say, the secondhand textbooks sales between students I mentioned before), I wouldn't be so outraged by it. I still wouldn't really rate it higher than piracy, as I'm of the opinion that both issues are blown well out of proportion, and that the positives of each potentially outweigh the negatives[footnote]This only applies to this industry, as people aren't going to buy a movie down the road because they want extra content, or to experience it with friends and it obviously isn't always the case, but I feel it could go a long way to helping games with a stronger focus on multiplayer lure pirates who want to game together.[/footnote]

 

[Wicky_42]

CDs are less easy to refute. ... At his point, I'll point out that while it doesn't give the developer/publisher any money profit from a garage sale, it is far less immoral than a company deliberately and regularly profiting from them. As a general rule though, I don't consider it any better than music/movie piracy, but I also don't see it as a problem for the industry.

Why is reselling your CD as bad as downloading a copy? Do you really think that passing an a single physical copy is anything like seeding thousands of downloads? Is so, then you havn't grasped what copyright laws are all about, and what the whole problem people have with piracy is.

Books are an interesting one, ... To be perfectly clear, it is still immoral to buy and sell second hand books like this, however it doesn't really harm the industry, I don't really consider it any better than downloading .pdfs. My attitude similar to my attitude towards video game piracy/sales, I don't really care so long as nobody tries to claim they are morally superior.

You said this a lot - that it is 'immoral' to resell your own property, and even more so to buy used items and resell them for profit. Why is it immoral? Nothing wrong with selling on what you don't need anymore - better than dumping it, allows those less well off to get some more life out of a product that they might not otherwise have been able to afford, part of the whole 'reduce, reuse, recycle' thing.

As to companies reselling used items and getting profit (gasp!), why is that any more immoral,really? We live in a capitalist society: people do work and gain money to spend. These companies are offering a service, taking a risk when they purchase the used product, storing it and cataloguing it until it is sold on. Sure, used games, as an example, are probably re-sold at greedy profit margins but again - capitalism, supply/demand, charging what people are prepared to pay.

That doesn't make ALL reselling "immoral" - not by a long shot.

Basically, I don't like this second-hand = piracy crap. If you want to go down that road, all shops are pirates - afterall, they buy at wholesale prices and then have the nerve to charge us more! And the producer sees none of that profit! Oh, but that's how it's meant to work? Well that's just 'immoral', taking advantage of all those people who can't get to wholesalers! And what about those smaller 24hr shops that add 10% MORE onto the price, just cos they're open later? Blatant piracy!

Of course, if food was digital farmers would cease to exist, as would world hunger, and pirates would be our saviours. It's almost like conventional rules about ownership don't apply to digital information...

 

[Sneaklemming]

Snip Snip Buying second hand games does not help the developers, it has even been contended that it's more damaging than piracy. Snip Snip My point is that it's not a black and white case of "buying is good, copying is bad", there are grey areas....

Developers make fuck all money from game sales anyway. They're paid a set wage by the publishers and if, if the game is a success, they might get some bonuses thrown in. The reason the whole kerfuffle between Activision and Infinity Ward is so bad is because IW have recieved jack shit recompense for making the best selling game in history, and the employees were counting on the promised bonuses to be at least some kind of 'Thank You' for making Activision so much money.

This is a very good way of thinking about it. But if used sales on games don't hurt developers directly then neither does piracy.

Developers don't get royalties. That sucks.

Hopefully we can move to a model where developers can directly sell their products via platforms like steam, or through the platform holders like microsoft.

Lets be honest, if the day when retail is coming to and end, so too is the day of Massive publishers - maybe... I'm not 110% about how developers get investment.

The bottom line here is that publishers are implementing policies that were for piracy (the CDkey in this case), for the purpose of stopping used game sales.

It makes you wonder how they could use the much more intrusive and developed DRM that exists out there to try and stop used sale games.

There hasn't been a used PC game market for years and years. Now we're at the point where you are hard pressed to find PC games in retail stores at all - because the majority of it is digital.

 

[Ranorak]

There is a massive difference in second hand gaming, and piracy.

In Second hand game selling, I ( the seller) no longer own the copy, but the buyer does.
The total number of users and been decreased by 1 and increased by one, thus remains equal.
In addition to this, the re-sell of a game brings money to the seller, which in turn can be spend in the market. Like he did before.

While in piracy the original owner still has a copy of the game. It makes a copy of the game and sells it.
The market gains a user, but didn't lose one. instead it gained another copy of the game. This reduces the share of legit games in comparison with illegal copies. And might potentially result in lose of purchase of the legal version. Also, the copier usually doesn't get paid, so there is also no chance the market gets more money.

There is a huge difference between pirate and second hand.
Anyone who claims otherwise is only looking at the sales directly to the store.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

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 now forsee car CD Keys.

 

[Tomany2]

if it is attached to your online profile, than you need to buy a new copy for each and every person on that console, and if it attached to the console, if the console stops working, there go all your games. either way, its a lose lose.

 

[robobengt]

I'll never understand the train of thought that goes "I need to buy everything every company ever does otherwise their children will starve! Won't somebody please think of the chiiiiildren!!!" which is exactly what you do if you compare re-selling old stuff with piracy.

If you have a product you want to sell, you do this while taking the reality of the market into account. You don't complain when someone finds a way, that's within the realm of all sensible law, to reduce the amount of profit you make. You deal with it. You make it work. I will never have any sympathy for people crying since noone wants to give them all their money anymore. Earn it. Don't try and change the way the world works just because you're lazy and used to getting everything you've ever pointed at.

 

[Dr. Danger]

You may own your copy of the game but you don't own the rights to it.

I agree with the OP in that second hand video games are another form of piracy. It certainly isn't illegal and I am in no way advocating the ban of games stores taking in used games but there is no denying that the two are similiar.

Perhaps, it would make more sense to just give your copy away rather than using it to make a profit.

And shame on all of you who agreed with the "clothing is like video games" nonsense. Clothing is a necessity, video games are entertainment.

 

[LordZ]

It didn't

This likely will surprise you, I actually agree with you. I hate that gamers are expected to pay $100+ for a game that you don't even own (I live in Australia, which essentially means that despite our dollar being somewhere in the region of 0.9USD, we're expected to pay an increase of some 60%) . You only own the right to use it. It does bother me a lot, however that's the direction the industry is taking and the majority are more than happy to mindlessly feed it money. Given the huge amount of money I've invested in gaming (PS3, xbox 360, wii, gaming laptop, older spec gaming desktop etc) it's surprising how little money I've spend on mainstream games in the past few years, simply because I'd rather rent games from the video store than buy them outright (which is, of course, equally as bad as buying/selling secondhand, I of course still maintain that I don't actually care about the welfare of the developers, and that it's the hypocrisy of those who try to justify sidestepping paying for games that irritate me).

While, in practice, I don't think that second hand game sales are any better for the devs/publishers, the only real issue I have with it is a incredibly dodgy business practice that goes hand in hand with secondhand sales. If it was less dishonest, and less of a greedy way for retailers to make a quick buck (more like, say, the secondhand textbooks sales between students I mentioned before), I wouldn't be so outraged by it. I still wouldn't really rate it higher than piracy, as I'm of the opinion that both issues are blown well out of proportion, and that the positives of each potentially outweigh the negatives

There's something seriously wrong with your sense of logic, if you think defending intellectual "property" is "taking the moral high road." I'd like to take a moment and turn that on its head. You see, it's much more beneficial to all mankind to say that intellectual property doesn't exist or, another way to phrase it, is that it belongs to everyone. This puts the needs of the many above the needs of the individual. It's impossible to call it wrong since it's nothing more than a shift in perspective. Property itself is an invention of man, it doesn't exist unless we all agree it exists. It's kind of like how money only holds value as long as we all give it value.

Anyhow, since the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, it's easy to see how the entire copyright and patent systems are completely unethical.

For the record, intellectual property can belong to everyone simultaneously, unlike physical property. I thought I'd mention it just in case you were thinking of arguing it.

Finally, there's an easy way to point out the flaw in your logic that used sales are immoral. According to your logic, not wanting to buy a game at all is more damaging and a far bigger crime than used sales and piracy combined. You see, with a used sale or piracy, you are at least expressing an interest in the product and would likely promote it to others. If you don't like the product, the opposite is more likely. So, not only does the business lose your sale, they potentially lose the sale to all of the people you expressed your dislike for the product to. See what I did there? I just used your very train of logic to turn everyone who doesn't buy the game into criminals. I could go further and prove than anyone who doesn't spend every dime they have buying the game over and over using your same logic but I think I've made my point.

 

[Sneaklemming]

if it is attached to your online profile, than you need to buy a new copy for each and every person on that console, and if it attached to the console, if the console stops working, there go all your games. either way, its a lose lose.

I imagine the idea is for it to be account based? Surely you just login as ur xbox live w/e and then you have the access you normally have.

Linking it to a console borders on illegal ^^ Honestly. Thats something worthy of rage.

 

[shadow skill]

You may own your copy of the game but you don't own the rights to it.

I agree with the OP in that second hand video games are another form of piracy. It certainly isn't illegal and I am in no way advocating the ban of games stores taking in used games but there is no denying that the two are similiar.

Perhaps, it would make more sense to just give your copy away rather than using it to make a profit.

And shame on all of you who agreed with the "clothing is like video games" nonsense. Clothing is a necessity, video games are entertainment.

The flaw in your last sentence is two fold. One you don't actually need clothing to live in most places on Earth where humans exist. Second living is in and of itself not a requirement, it is a want. Logically the value of any human's life is the same as any other object. It has no actual value beyond what we say it does. Because value metrics depend on that which is inherently subjective it is quite useless to argue that clothing is not like videogames because of an arbitrary designation of superior value for clothing on your part.

 

[Dr. Danger]

You may own your copy of the game but you don't own the rights to it.

I agree with the OP in that second hand video games are another form of piracy. It certainly isn't illegal and I am in no way advocating the ban of games stores taking in used games but there is no denying that the two are similiar.

Perhaps, it would make more sense to just give your copy away rather than using it to make a profit.

And shame on all of you who agreed with the "clothing is like video games" nonsense. Clothing is a necessity, video games are entertainment.

The flaw in your last sentence is two fold. One you don't actually need clothing to live in most places on Earth where humans exist. Second living is in and of itself not a requirement, it is a want. Logically the value of any human's life is the same as any other object. It has no actual value beyond what we say it does. Because value metrics depend on that which is inherently subjective it is quite useless to argue that clothing is not like videogames because of an arbitrary designation of superior value for clothing on your part.

Pseudo intellectual bollocks aside, do you live in such place where clothing isn't a necessity? Do you live in a place where warmth and protection is not required? If so, I would love to move that paradise.

Sorry to overlook your highly exaggerated response but clothing does not equal video games. No matter how much you want to sugar coat it with something I would expect from Chuck Palahniuk.

 

[Deadarm]

Lol if EA wants to cut off Game Stop (and the millions of cheap ass people like me who can rarely pay for a new game so we buy everything at Game Stop) EA would lose money and publicity.

 

[shadow skill]

You may own your copy of the game but you don't own the rights to it.

I agree with the OP in that second hand video games are another form of piracy. It certainly isn't illegal and I am in no way advocating the ban of games stores taking in used games but there is no denying that the two are similiar.

Perhaps, it would make more sense to just give your copy away rather than using it to make a profit.

And shame on all of you who agreed with the "clothing is like video games" nonsense. Clothing is a necessity, video games are entertainment.

The flaw in your last sentence is two fold. One you don't actually need clothing to live in most places on Earth where humans exist. Second living is in and of itself not a requirement, it is a want. Logically the value of any human's life is the same as any other object. It has no actual value beyond what we say it does. Because value metrics depend on that which is inherently subjective it is quite useless to argue that clothing is not like videogames because of an arbitrary designation of superior value for clothing on your part.

Pseudo intellectual bollocks aside, do you live in such place where clothing isn't a necessity? Do you live in a place where warmth and protection is not required? If so, I would love to move that paradise.

Sorry to overlook your highly exaggerated response but clothing does not equal video games. No matter how much you want to sugar coat it with something I would expect from Chuck Palahniuk.

Last time I checked you won't die if you don't have clothes in most climates on earth. There are still people that go around naked. You complain that what I said is "pseudo-intellectual" while telling other people to be ashamed for agreeing with a perfectly sound analogy because of a distinction that exists only in your head. It's not a paradise I live in, it is the real world that exists outside of your head. According to your logic the human race came into existence with clothes covering their body. Guess what, that didn't happen.

Furthermore has it never occurred to you that entertainment in all of its forms serves to relieve stress which is directly related to human health? So even in the world that exists in your head your own argument is worthless. Before I forget clothing and videogames are commodities as well so the problem with your last sentence is actually four fold (Counting stress relief as three.) rather than a mere two.

It's tiresome to see this same silly argument come up in all of its permutations whenever the subject of piracy comes up. Someone always comes along with some variation of the "Necessity vs. Luxury" argument and proceeds to try and take some sort of strange high ground.

 

[mattttherman3]

This will destroy rentals as we know it! Luckily I have friends who buy games blindly so I guess I'll just try it at their house

 

[shadow skill]

This will destroy rentals as we know it! Luckily I have friends who buy games blindly so I guess I'll just try it at their house

You r teh pirate!!!!!1oneeleven!

I really have to thank the other poster who brought up the fact that simply not buying the game has the same effect as piracy or used game sales. I really would love to know why publishers should not be able to compel people to buy their products.