Used Games v. Piracy

[oplinger]

This is an issue that will never go away. Unfortunately the software companies will win this one in the end. It's not a matter of if, just when. Since the game resale industry has absolutely no method of countering this short of paying the $10 or whatever to buy online passes or the equivalent themselves and packaging them with the game for resale. It will also never cease due to the fact that people who buy resold games have no voice in the issue. If you refuse to buy the game, you only hurt the resale establishment and if you refuse to buy new, well, the developer didn't have your business to begin with so they are totally unaffected.

I do not agree with game companies doing this, personally, and here is why:

1) They have absolutely no right to say what I can and can't do with physical property that I legally purchased and made my own. If I want to resell it to recoup some of what I spent in order to either pay bills, get drunk, or buy another product, that is my right.

The right is all yours to do what you want with the physical copy. However the data, the multiplayer servers, the DLC, and what they decide to let you do with the data on your physical copy, is up to them. You agreed to deal with that when you bought it.

2) There are essentially no standards of quality in video game development. A development studio is equally capable of turning out gold and garbage, even within the same genre. As reviews are subjective opinion, few games release demos, and trailers only show you so much (that a marketing department has specially chosen to show you) buying a game is more often than not an act of faith to some degree. That said, there are essentially no retailers where you can return a game you are dissatisfied with due to piracy fears. Often the only recourse when you find yourself totally stuck with a game you are dissatisfied with is to sell it at a resale store. I think it is flat wrong for the games industry to expect me to buy a product that I am unable to return if I am unhappy and to force permanent ownership on me, then turn around and think they can limit what I can do with it after it is, by the standards they approve, irrevocably my property.

That's more akin to someone refusing your sale, not about you getting screwed. It's technically your property unless you got a warranty. Usually you don't get one from wal-mart, or some other retailer. So what you're asking to do is sell the product back to them. Piracy is a big reason for that, you're right. It's not about them trying to limit your rights. THey just don't want it back.

3) I sold a 1995 Chevrolet Beretta and purchased a used 2007 Ford 500. I can say beyond a single doubt that neither Ford nor Chevy saw a dime from either sale. Nor should they. The price they asked had been met and ownership had changed hands.

Cars are don't cost tag price to manufacture. Or even ship. It takes about half the tag price to get it to you, sometimes less. It's not a big problem for them. People tend to notice when you "pirate" a car anyway.

4) It's simply bullshit cash grabbing by the publishers. In a post above, oplinger mentioned the numbers of units needed to be sold in order to not only cover costs but turn a profit for all involved. He was correct. The thing is, a developer and publisher are aware of this fact. They print a certain number of their product and distribute them to various retailers in various regions based on projected sales figures in order to reach their target goal of units sold. A publisher isn't going to publish 5 million copies of a game if they only expect to sell 1 million.

They are aware of it, yes. Generally not in early development stages when they issue the budget for the game however. They still need to make the money back, and they hope they will, but they don't really project that this small stack of paper will sell X amount of units. That and they probably think the more money that goes into it, the better it will be. So...we can both kinda be right on that..I just wanted to clarify a tiny bit D:

The lesson of Atari and E.T. 30 years ago showed the industry early on what kind of problems that can cause. The point of all of this is, a resold game is one which has already been purchased at full price and the game companies have already profited from. They have really lost nothing. The assumption that a person buying a preowned copy of a game for, say, $30 rather than $60 robs them of a sale is just arrogant and wrong. This may be the case in a very small portion of resales, but in the majority of cases, it is due to the buyer not having the money to pay full price for a game to begin with so they buy on the cheap to have something to play. The other major factor is, the game may not be worth full price to begin with. There is a reason my local resale store had Duke Forever on release week. Before resellers became common, game companies were content with the full price sales they received on the initial purchase, now that they see a potential revenue stream there, it's a problem. As evidence of this, one need only consider that the game companies aren't trying to stamp out resale locations by only allowing the original buyer to access the full product and permanently blocking part of the game for future owners, they are selling the used buyer the blocked portion on the side to claw in more money.

It's potential customers, not actual customers. You're applying hind sight to the idea of future projections. If someone could not buy the game used at all, and he wanted the game, he could save up to buy the game new. Losing a potential customer is just like being robbed. That's kinda business law in everything. Wal-Mart wouldn't like to use a large portion of potential customers. Neither would Ferrari. It's something you generally try to min/max. You want all the customers you can get, losing a big portion just makes you feel bad.

As an aside, it is the publishers who generally mandate the implementation of this type of tactic. Most developers got their check from the original sale and are just glad someone else is enjoying the game they poured their blood, sweat, tears, and love into since the original owner wasn't anymore. Besides, why not just work harder developing a game I don't want to get rid of? My library is full of games I don't play anymore but would never sell. Better yet, make me some great DLC and enjoy the revenue from the purchaser of the used copy buying the DLC rather than receiving no money from the original owner who has moved on and won't spend the cash on DLC for a game they don't play.

They get their check from the initial sale, after the publisher, the retailer, and anyone in between takes their cut. The budget money for the game doesn't go into the devs profits either. They work just off of the money they get left over from sales. The publisher then gives them more money for the next game..so on and so on. It's a tad complicated, but devs really don't see that much money.

...The rest of that paragraph is fine...I think devs should work harder to make better products. But when it's a job...you want compensation, not just passion for your work. Just one of those things...

 

[Xanthious]

>> read my post's section of revenue streams. That's why. ...It's really the only reason why. Games just have no other way to make money...so they need the cut from used game sales.

Hold up a minute! You are saying that because they can't manage to run a profitable business they deserve to be paid multiple times over for the same product? Really? Really?!?

As I said in another thread publishers and developers are free to risk their own money on buying used games from consumers and reselling them if they feel they are truly being hurt by used game sales. They choose not to risk their money though but instead cry like entitled children about not getting something they never deserved in the first place in a cut of the secondhand sales as they were already paid once. People have to buy new games before there can ever be used games. Funny that.

Gamestop and the other used game sellers are the ones risking their own money and because of which are entitled to the entirety of the profits. The bottom line is that despite what differences you can point out between games and any other used product it does nothing to change the fact that they simply a used product and private citizens and businesses are free to do whatever the hell they want with products they buy with their own money even if it means reselling said item for profit. The publisher has no place in the transactions of private citizens or businesses.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

ok boiling this down to the basic point:
they don't get any money from your purchase, you don't get the whole game.
alot of the time the game will be available for first purchase cheaper later down the line.
in other words you don't have the money to buy new right off the bat? then you have to wait a bit to buy the whole game.

Why doesn't this apply to cars, music, movies, books, and anything else people sell on e-bay and amazon and even a garage sell.

Buy a car used, you shouldn't get radio
Buy a CD used you got no case
Buy a movie used they remove all the bonus crap
Buy a book used they replace the cover with a generic one

But wait they don't do this, only game companies who want to be treated like those I mentioned yet don't at the same time.

 

[Staskala]

Just because we do believe the same alternative solution to be a good solution doesn't change the disagreement over whether the used games trade practice is actually good or bad overall for the game makers.

You do not have a very strong argument that the used games sales actually improve total spending that reaches the game makers in a long enough time run, in fact, quite the opposite is more likely to be true instead.
You MIGHT be right (humans are not perfectly rational animals afterall), I'll grant you that, but it's by far not guaranteed, and not immediately obvious either. As for the actual math arguments against your position, see my previous posts.

Well, the hard part is quantifying all those "soft factors".
How many people buy the sequel new if they liked a game they bought used?
How many people see the used games market as insurance and how would its abolishment affect their behavior?
How important is playing a game on launch day and how many people could be coerced to do so?
How many satisfied used games customers engage in positive mouth-to-mouth propaganda and thus secure new customers?

In the end, all those factors are certainly present - that much I can guarantee, but how much they actually affect things in the games industry is something no study has ever looked into (at least to my knowledge).
But abolishing the used games market at this state brings very little gain. The people who buy used don't have the money or incentive to buy new, so they won't suddenly bring in the big cash to the new games market. I'm fairly certain that they are far more likely to turn to piracy (if they really want games they can't afford) or only sparingly buy new games. And again, there is a customer group that has only enough cash to buy new games if - and only if - they can later trade them in. Its size? See above.

So conclusively, the used games market has a use to the publisher, while it's abolishment has next to no positive effect.
That's why I say that in the end, the used games market is still a "good thing" for the publisher. There are "better" alternatives, but punishing people who buy used isn't one.

 

[Hijax]

All the people who says that no one gets pissed when you buy furniture, cars, etc used, i will just say: you better believe that if car manufacturers could make money on second-hand sales, they would get on that ***** ASAP.

Also, some people say that the money that people get for their used games go right into new games: you do realize GameStop keeps a sizeable share of that money, right? The money you get for your used game is(obviously) considerably less that what you pay for a new game, so for example:

Bob buys a game new for $60. He plays it, sells it back to gamestop for(say) $30(or something. i have no idea about the value of used games). Jimmy comes along and buys it for $40. Even if bob spends all those $30 on more games, that's still $30 that the publishers lose.

Also, why do you assume that all gamers have such small disposable incomes that every shred of extra money they make, is spent on games. A lot of people don't buy games based on when they can afford them, but when they're done with the previous one. I realize maybe some people do spend all their disposable income on games, not trying to judge them, just saying they don't make up the entire market.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Therefore I say to you, Feel free to explain the radical similarities you believe exists between buying used and pirating.

Both DO NOT directly contribute any cash to the game makers.

Both DO contribute to indirect potential losses of revenue for that game, by having some of the people that would have eventually purchased the game new to adopt this alternative, cheaper version that makes no money for the game makers.

Both also DO contribute to some degree to potential gains in revenue for that game (or at least that game company) through word of mouth advertising.

Not enough similarities for you ?

The only noteworthy differences are that with pirating, used game resellers make no profit from it, while end users get their games essentially at negligible costs, so there's a whole lot more of them around.

A dubious distinction goes to per-used-game-buyer DLC purchases which are allegedly much higher than per-pirate DLC purchases, since there's a chance that overall (as in, the grand total sum), pirates might actually spend more money on DLCs they don't manage to download than the combined mass of second-hand game purchasers - I don't even know if anybody ever tried to collect that sort of data at all.

I like how people act like all pirates don't buy their games, I can't tell you how many games I may have missed out on if it wasn't for me "evil" ways. Never would have tried Etrian Odyssey cause I hated those types of games, now I can't put it down; some with Monster Tale thought it was stupid now I love it and bought it new the next day I tried it. I don't know where this whole "all pirates don't buy their games" come from, cause my friends will call me a pirate but I own wwwwaaayyyyyyy more games then they all do.

Also if used game sales are like pirating how come the RIAA isn't attacking Blockbuster for loss of sales, I mean those guys will sue you to death if you pirate one movie. Funny how they don't seem to care (because it's legal in the US)

A couple of things here: One, admitting to piracy is a quick and easy way to get banned around here, so be careful. Two, the MPAA did go after blockbuster back in the 80's. They even managed to browbeat them into paying $80 or more per VHS tape that they bought for rental purposes, in order to give them a part of the revenue stream from rentals. That's why it was such a big deal back in the day when a tape came out priced for "sell through," because they were initially priced high for rental, and then six months or so down the road, the price dropped to $20 or $30, at which point people could actually buy the tapes, instead of renting them. Now, eventually people realized that the MPAA didn't have a leg to stand on in regards to requiring rental places to pay extra for the movies they rented out, which is why in the late 90s and early 2000s, there were so many mom and pop rental places; they could easily go to Walmart and pick up a couple of copies of the films they wanted to rent out, and rent them with no fear of consequence. Blockbuster, on the other hand, carried on with the rental priced tapes. For all I know, they still buy DVDs at jacked up prices.

 

[Tibike77]

A used Game buy bought a game someone else bought so it's still that one copy being sold and accounted for it's just in someone else's hands. A pirated game is a copy of that one game so multiple people get that one copy.
10,000 copies sold and 3,000 sold to gamestop and if those people bought those 3,000 games it's still 10,000 games being played. If someone pirates one of those copies more then 10,000 copies are being played.

A map is not the territory. It just represents it.
Similarly, a physical support of a game is not the game itself. The act of playing through the game is what the game represents, with the support it comes on being ever so slightly more than almost completely irrelevant.

How many times do you replay old games ? Sure, I bet you have a handful of favourites which you do replay every now and again (or at least some you tell yourself you'll get around to playing again), but for the most part, statistically speaking, once you finish a game and put it down for a while, you seldom replay it again.
What matters is numbers of people that play the game on one hand, and amount of cash the developer receives for a particular game.
In both the case of used games trades and piracy, the difference from a game maker's standpoint is negligible.

So in your eyes is buying a car second hand the same as grand theft auto?

Piracy is not theft, it's copyright infringement. And making a profit through software piracy is counterfeiting. Those three are all completely separate things, which only resemble eachother in case of software, but are blatantly and obviously different in case of manufactured goods.
So, no, you CAN NOT equate software piracy with grand theft auto ; at best, you can equate it with building yourself a much cheaper version of a car (that nevertheless works just as well as the original, if not better).

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

This is an issue that will never go away. Unfortunately the software companies will win this one in the end. It's not a matter of if, just when. Since the game resale industry has absolutely no method of countering this short of paying the $10 or whatever to buy online passes or the equivalent themselves and packaging them with the game for resale. It will also never cease due to the fact that people who buy resold games have no voice in the issue. If you refuse to buy the game, you only hurt the resale establishment and if you refuse to buy new, well, the developer didn't have your business to begin with so they are totally unaffected.

I do not agree with game companies doing this, personally, and here is why:

1) They have absolutely no right to say what I can and can't do with physical property that I legally purchased and made my own. If I want to resell it to recoup some of what I spent in order to either pay bills, get drunk, or buy another product, that is my right.

2) There are essentially no standards of quality in video game development. A development studio is equally capable of turning out gold and garbage, even within the same genre. As reviews are subjective opinion, few games release demos, and trailers only show you so much (that a marketing department has specially chosen to show you) buying a game is more often than not an act of faith to some degree. That said, there are essentially no retailers where you can return a game you are dissatisfied with due to piracy fears. Often the only recourse when you find yourself totally stuck with a game you are dissatisfied with is to sell it at a resale store. I think it is flat wrong for the games industry to expect me to buy a product that I am unable to return if I am unhappy and to force permanent ownership on me, then turn around and think they can limit what I can do with it after it is, by the standards they approve, irrevocably my property.

3) I sold a 1995 Chevrolet Beretta and purchased a used 2007 Ford 500. I can say beyond a single doubt that neither Ford nor Chevy saw a dime from either sale. Nor should they. The price they asked had been met and ownership had changed hands.

4) It's simply bullshit cash grabbing by the publishers. In a post above, oplinger mentioned the numbers of units needed to be sold in order to not only cover costs but turn a profit for all involved. He was correct. The thing is, a developer and publisher are aware of this fact. They print a certain number of their product and distribute them to various retailers in various regions based on projected sales figures in order to reach their target goal of units sold. A publisher isn't going to publish 5 million copies of a game if they only expect to sell 1 million. The lesson of Atari and E.T. 30 years ago showed the industry early on what kind of problems that can cause. The point of all of this is, a resold game is one which has already been purchased at full price and the game companies have already profited from. They have really lost nothing. The assumption that a person buying a preowned copy of a game for, say, $30 rather than $60 robs them of a sale is just arrogant and wrong. This may be the case in a very small portion of resales, but in the majority of cases, it is due to the buyer not having the money to pay full price for a game to begin with so they buy on the cheap to have something to play. The other major factor is, the game may not be worth full price to begin with. There is a reason my local resale store had Duke Forever on release week. Before resellers became common, game companies were content with the full price sales they received on the initial purchase, now that they see a potential revenue stream there, it's a problem. As evidence of this, one need only consider that the game companies aren't trying to stamp out resale locations by only allowing the original buyer to access the full product and permanently blocking part of the game for future owners, they are selling the used buyer the blocked portion on the side to claw in more money.

As an aside, it is the publishers who generally mandate the implementation of this type of tactic. Most developers got their check from the original sale and are just glad someone else is enjoying the game they poured their blood, sweat, tears, and love into since the original owner wasn't anymore. Besides, why not just work harder developing a game I don't want to get rid of? My library is full of games I don't play anymore but would never sell. Better yet, make me some great DLC and enjoy the revenue from the purchaser of the used copy buying the DLC rather than receiving no money from the original owner who has moved on and won't spend the cash on DLC for a game they don't play.

1. yes they do , no you didn't games are a digital property, and yes you can sell your copy's disc.
2. and? its called compiling your own preveiw.
3. a car is a physical property it can't be copied with out materials/time/machines/etc.
4. yes and no, this is a coping tactic to deal with the massive increase of resales thanks to huge corporate game stores like Gamestop.
overall you have no clue what your talking about.

1. And if devs lock data on a disc that needs a key to unlock via a online pass/day one dlc?
2. He has a point, I mean if I bought Final Fantasy 13 for 60 bucks instead of 20 I would have been pissed. Games don't show enough of what it is about or have a demo. Like Mass Effect 2, it didn't have a demo till like a few months after it came out.
3. And a game that removes advertised features after it has been bought and resold is no different?
4. And he has a point, a resold game is already purchased and accounted for, but publishers want to double dip in that "untapped" resource of money. Do you see Universal pulling this with Blockbuster?
I think it's you who doesn't get it man.

 

[oplinger]

>> read my post's section of revenue streams. That's why. ...It's really the only reason why. Games just have no other way to make money...so they need the cut from used game sales.

Hold up a minute! You are saying that because they can't manage to run a profitable business they deserve special treatment? Really? Really?!? As I said in another thread publishers and developers are free to risk their own money on buying used games from consumers and reselling them if they feel they are truly being hurt by used game sales. They choose not to risk their money though but instead cry like entitled children about not getting something they never deserved in the first place in a cut of the secondhand sales.

You obviously didn't read anything.

No, I said they have no other way to make money like other media. If games had concerts, or theaters, they wouldn't be bothered about it. They'd make money off of the ...shows I guess.

They are free to risk their money. In fact they do. Upwards of MILLIONS just to entertain you. However when you have 2 choices, buy new and give them a slice, or buy used and don't give them jack shit. Most people will decide not to give them jack shit. It's not about the quality of the game, or how well it's marketed. You just don't want to spend the money. You walk away for the same exact product, for a reduced price (sometimes significantly reduced.) They get nothing from you. And that risked money gets wasted. Investors don't invest, companies make no profit, game quality gets beaten and murdered in a dark alley, we complain about the quaity of games, stop gaming, gaming dies because no company is left to make games, because it's not profitable because consumers would rather buy cheap.

>> It's a cycle that we'd rather defend it seems.

Hell you know what? you don't even have to buy used. You can wait to buy it new when the price gets cut, and you still help them out, and make them look good to investors, and aren't slowly causing the doom of the industry.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

>> read my post's section of revenue streams. That's why. ...It's really the only reason why. Games just have no other way to make money...so they need the cut from used game sales.

Hold up a minute! You are saying that because they can't manage to run a profitable business they deserve special treatment? Really? Really?!? As I said in another thread publishers and developers are free to risk their own money on buying used games from consumers and reselling them if they feel they are truly being hurt by used game sales. They choose not to risk their money though but instead cry like entitled children about not getting something they never deserved in the first place in a cut of the secondhand sales.

You obviously didn't read anything.

No, I said they have no other way to make money like other media. If games had concerts, or theaters, they wouldn't be bothered about it. They'd make money off of the ...shows I guess.

They are free to risk their money. In fact they do. Upwards of MILLIONS just to entertain you. However when you have 2 choices, buy new and give them a slice, or buy used and don't give them jack shit. Most people will decide not to give them jack shit. It's not about the quality of the game, or how well it's marketed. You just don't want to spend the money. You walk away for the same exact product, for a reduced price (sometimes significantly reduced.) They get nothing from you. And that risked money gets wasted. Investors don't invest, companies make no profit, game quality gets beaten and murdered in a dark alley, we complain about the quaity of games, stop gaming, gaming dies because no company is left to make games, because it's not profitable because consumers would rather buy cheap.

>> It's a cycle that we'd rather defend it seems.

Hell you know what? you don't even have to buy used. You can wait to buy it new when the price gets cut, and you still help them out, and make them look good to investors, and aren't slowly causing the doom of the industry.

In any other industry, the publishers would realize that their profit margin is too high, and lower it a little bit in order to compete with the used market -- you know, economics 101. If people aren't buying your product at full price, but jump on it when the price drops, or when they can find it used, you're charging more than they're willing or able to pay. More than the consumers, the game companies are trying to fight the basic laws of economics.

Incidentally, the Humble Indie Bundle has taught me that there are quite a few great games being made outside of the traditional studio system, that don't rely on huge budgets and ridiculous DRM. If the industry crashed tomorrow, I'd probably laugh and start buying more indie games. At least those guys compete for my money, instead of trying to mug me for it.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

A used Game buy bought a game someone else bought so it's still that one copy being sold and accounted for it's just in someone else's hands. A pirated game is a copy of that one game so multiple people get that one copy.
10,000 copies sold and 3,000 sold to gamestop and if those people bought those 3,000 games it's still 10,000 games being played. If someone pirates one of those copies more then 10,000 copies are being played.

A map is not the territory. It just represents it.
Similarly, a physical support of a game is not the game itself. The act of playing through the game is what the game represents, with the support it comes on being ever so slightly more than almost completely irrelevant.

How many times do you replay old games ? Sure, I bet you have a handful of favourites which you do replay every now and again (or at least some you tell yourself you'll get around to playing again), but for the most part, statistically speaking, once you finish a game and put it down for a while, you seldom replay it again.
What matters is numbers of people that play the game on one hand, and amount of cash the developer receives for a particular game.
In both the case of used games trades and piracy, the difference from a game maker's standpoint is negligible.

So in your eyes is buying a car second hand the same as grand theft auto?

Piracy is not theft, it's copyright infringement. And making a profit through software piracy is counterfeiting. Those three are all completely separate things, which only resemble eachother in case of software, but are blatantly and obviously different in case of manufactured goods.
So, no, you CAN NOT equate software piracy with grand theft auto ; at best, you can equate it with building yourself a much cheaper version of a car (that nevertheless works just as well as the original, if not better).

The only games I sale are either

1. Ones so bad I couldn't look at them (X-Blade)
2. Ones I ended up having multiple copies of (La Pucile tactics)
3. When I can't even play them anymore (My N64 was stolen so I sold all my games to it)

I don't normally sale games period cause I like having my collection of games. And how many times I replay old games...I replayed Final Fantasy 5, 6 times so far. And I don't care from their stand point because if they keep pissing people who buy their games (I.e. the ones they make money off of) they will end up going under. Ok fine I won't use grand theft auto as an example.

I bought a car from Carmax last year, it was a 2010 honda with 400 miles for 17,000 dollars. The guy who sold it to me said it was more or less a new car and you know what Honda didn't see a cent from that sale, yet my car doesn't have ANY features removed from it. How is that for an example

Therefore I say to you, Feel free to explain the radical similarities you believe exists between buying used and pirating.

Both DO NOT directly contribute any cash to the game makers.

Both DO contribute to indirect potential losses of revenue for that game, by having some of the people that would have eventually purchased the game new to adopt this alternative, cheaper version that makes no money for the game makers.

Both also DO contribute to some degree to potential gains in revenue for that game (or at least that game company) through word of mouth advertising.

Not enough similarities for you ?

The only noteworthy differences are that with pirating, used game resellers make no profit from it, while end users get their games essentially at negligible costs, so there's a whole lot more of them around.

A dubious distinction goes to per-used-game-buyer DLC purchases which are allegedly much higher than per-pirate DLC purchases, since there's a chance that overall (as in, the grand total sum), pirates might actually spend more money on DLCs they don't manage to download than the combined mass of second-hand game purchasers - I don't even know if anybody ever tried to collect that sort of data at all.

I like how people act like all pirates don't buy their games, I can't tell you how many games I may have missed out on if it wasn't for me "evil" ways. Never would have tried Etrian Odyssey cause I hated those types of games, now I can't put it down; some with Monster Tale thought it was stupid now I love it and bought it new the next day I tried it. I don't know where this whole "all pirates don't buy their games" come from, cause my friends will call me a pirate but I own wwwwaaayyyyyyy more games then they all do.

Also if used game sales are like pirating how come the RIAA isn't attacking Blockbuster for loss of sales, I mean those guys will sue you to death if you pirate one movie. Funny how they don't seem to care (because it's legal in the US)

A couple of things here: One, admitting to piracy is a quick and easy way to get banned around here, so be careful. Two, the MPAA did go after blockbuster back in the 80's. They even managed to browbeat them into paying $80 or more per VHS tape that they bought for rental purposes, in order to give them a part of the revenue stream from rentals. That's why it was such a big deal back in the day when a tape came out priced for "sell through," because they were initially priced high for rental, and then six months or so down the road, the price dropped to $20 or $30, at which point people could actually buy the tapes, instead of renting them. Now, eventually people realized that the MPAA didn't have a leg to stand on in regards to requiring rental places to pay extra for the movies they rented out, which is why in the late 90s and early 2000s, there were so many mom and pop rental places; they could easily go to Walmart and pick up a couple of copies of the films they wanted to rent out, and rent them with no fear of consequence. Blockbuster, on the other hand, carried on with the rental priced tapes. For all I know, they still buy DVDs at jacked up prices.

Thanks for the education of correcting me , I rather read stuff like this to be honest at least I learn something new. And I'll admit to it, I could care less I'm just sick of the whole piracy==no buying games. I go to a gamestop and they can tell you I've spent a while lot of money on games (new and used), and I have no problem admitting to it when I can turn around and point to my collection of 70+ DS games I own, or my steam account with 150+ games on it.

 

[Frost27]

1. yes they do , no you didn't games are a digital property, and yes you can sell your copy's disc.

The software itself is a digital copy, which is contained on a physical disc, which I own. As I am not making, distributing, or reselling a "copy" of the original purchased version of the game, I am not in violation of the EULA. Reselling the disc containing their software, as it is mine, is my option.

2. and? its called compiling your own preveiw.

Yes, from marketing department approved previews and objective reviews, as I said above. The other option for a not yet released product would be to watch YouTube videos made on illegally obtained copies of the game, such as those out for Battlefield 3. I stand by my point.

3. a car is a physical property it can't be copied with out materials/time/machines/etc.

Yes, but when reselling a game, I am selling it to a place like gamestop or to another private individual intact and as purchased. The game also cannot be copied without materials/time/macinnes/etc. Either, and in neither the examples of the cars, nor the games is duplication taking place. I am only referring to full transfer of ownership without violation of copyright. Piracy isn't what I was referring to.

4. yes and no, this is a coping tactic to deal with the massive increase of resales thanks to huge corporate game stores like Gamestop.
overall you have no clue what your talking about.

Game resellers have been around for many years in the form of electronics retailers willing to risk capital on selling a used product, pawn shops, yard sales, etc. Gamestop, The used bin at EB Games, Gamers, etc. Have been around a long time. It's more likely that it is more of an issue now due to the games industry taking hits due to the economy like other industries coupled with the fact that the rise of services like PSN and XBLA make this sort of tactic possible. Nothing like this could hav been done prior to this console generation. Also, I take no offense at you feeling that I don't know what I'm talking about, I certainl don't expect everyone to agree.

 

[Rocket Taco]

The amount of support for this is surprising, and scary. If I buy a physical copy of a game, that copy is now my property, and I can do what I like with it. Keep it, sell it, burn it, eat the disc, etc. I can't think of a single product that has ever been the exception to that rule. I know at least in the US there's a legal precedent (yes, one involving copyrighted works) called the right of first sale that prevents exactly this sort of bullshit. Now, if I was a pirate, I wouldn't have a legal right to that copy, and then yeah, fight me.

I don't know why so many people are defending this position. I know my mounting enthusiasm for Rage evaporated the second I heard they were planning to screw used buyers, and I was planning on buying it NEW.

I don't care if they want to sell me DLC, expansions, etc, but they are not going to sell me parts of the base game when I already paid for it, especially when it's probably on the disc already. This expectation that the publisher is somehow entitled to money is ridiculous. In any other industry the businesses that can't survive die, but the entertainment industry somehow thinks it deserves to be protected, even if it means ignoring the law.

 

[oplinger]

>> read my post's section of revenue streams. That's why. ...It's really the only reason why. Games just have no other way to make money...so they need the cut from used game sales.

Hold up a minute! You are saying that because they can't manage to run a profitable business they deserve special treatment? Really? Really?!? As I said in another thread publishers and developers are free to risk their own money on buying used games from consumers and reselling them if they feel they are truly being hurt by used game sales. They choose not to risk their money though but instead cry like entitled children about not getting something they never deserved in the first place in a cut of the secondhand sales.

You obviously didn't read anything.

No, I said they have no other way to make money like other media. If games had concerts, or theaters, they wouldn't be bothered about it. They'd make money off of the ...shows I guess.

They are free to risk their money. In fact they do. Upwards of MILLIONS just to entertain you. However when you have 2 choices, buy new and give them a slice, or buy used and don't give them jack shit. Most people will decide not to give them jack shit. It's not about the quality of the game, or how well it's marketed. You just don't want to spend the money. You walk away for the same exact product, for a reduced price (sometimes significantly reduced.) They get nothing from you. And that risked money gets wasted. Investors don't invest, companies make no profit, game quality gets beaten and murdered in a dark alley, we complain about the quaity of games, stop gaming, gaming dies because no company is left to make games, because it's not profitable because consumers would rather buy cheap.

>> It's a cycle that we'd rather defend it seems.

Hell you know what? you don't even have to buy used. You can wait to buy it new when the price gets cut, and you still help them out, and make them look good to investors, and aren't slowly causing the doom of the industry.

In any other industry, the publishers would realize that their profit margin is too high, and lower it a little bit in order to compete with the used market -- you know, economics 101. If people aren't buying your product at full price, but jump on it when the price drops, or when they can find it used, you're charging more than they're willing or able to pay. More than the consumers, the game companies are trying to fight the basic laws of economics.

Incidentally, the Humble Indie Bundle has taught me that there are quite a few great games being made outside of the traditional studio system, that don't rely on huge budgets and ridiculous DRM. If the industry crashed tomorrow, I'd probably laugh and start buying more indie games. At least those guys compete for my money, instead of trying to mug me for it.

You mention econ 101, but you're missing a very important point I made in this very thread. ...Twice.

They spend..hell even 10 million on a game to get it out in a reasonable dev cycle so you're not paying employees for years and years and years, and end up using 20 million instead of 10 (this is all planned out you know.) Selling the game then, at 50 dollars a unit means you need to sell 200,000 units. Which happens in most AA titles. 200,000 is attainable.


25 million is a pretty average budget for a AAA title, at 50 dollars, that's 500,000 units. That's quite a bit for a game to sell. at 50 million, you need to sell a million copies just to break even. 1 million units makes it a blockbuster hit. So you have to make the best damn game ever, just to break even.

Lower budgets would be great, sometimes it's not possible. The economics are sound.

 

[Tibike77]

Well, the hard part is quantifying all those "soft factors".
How many people buy the sequel new if they liked a game they bought used?
How many people see the used games market as insurance and how would its abolishment affect their behavior?
How important is playing a game on launch day and how many people could be coerced to do so?
How many satisfied used games customers engage in positive mouth-to-mouth propaganda and thus secure new customers?
[...snip...]

And how are ANY of those arguments different when you replace "used games" with "pirated games" ?
THAT was the main idea all throughout this thread.

The people who buy used don't have the money or incentive to buy new, so they won't suddenly bring in the big cash to the new games market. I'm fairly certain that they are far more likely to turn to piracy (if they really want games they can't afford) or only sparingly buy new games.

They're not really bringing ANYTHING to the game makers now, when looking at overall cashflow, so it doesn't really matter whether they buy used or pirate.

In fact, it's BETTER FOR THE GAME MAKERS IF THEY PIRATE, because this means they can use more of their money ON NEW GAMES, as opposed to only using a small portion of them on new games, while the majority goes to used games instead.
The only problem is that publishers have a clear, established and undisputed legal framework to go after pirates, but that is not the case for used games resellers. If the law really realistically permitted software makers to go after "used software" resellers, they'd go after them far more fiercely than after software pirates. As it stands, all they can do is lightly "punish" the end-user that buys used.

The rest of your argument was already addressed before, and we actually agree on what at least one of the better solutions could be (publishers "taking over" the low-budget market away from used games through much earlier and much more drastic price cuts for online distribution, for instance).

 

[Xanthious]

>> read my post's section of revenue streams. That's why. ...It's really the only reason why. Games just have no other way to make money...so they need the cut from used game sales.

Hold up a minute! You are saying that because they can't manage to run a profitable business they deserve special treatment? Really? Really?!? As I said in another thread publishers and developers are free to risk their own money on buying used games from consumers and reselling them if they feel they are truly being hurt by used game sales. They choose not to risk their money though but instead cry like entitled children about not getting something they never deserved in the first place in a cut of the secondhand sales.

You obviously didn't read anything.

No, I said they have no other way to make money like other media. If games had concerts, or theaters, they wouldn't be bothered about it. They'd make money off of the ...shows I guess.

They are free to risk their money. In fact they do. Upwards of MILLIONS just to entertain you. However when you have 2 choices, buy new and give them a slice, or buy used and don't give them jack shit. Most people will decide not to give them jack shit. It's not about the quality of the game, or how well it's marketed. You just don't want to spend the money. You walk away for the same exact product, for a reduced price (sometimes significantly reduced.) They get nothing from you. And that risked money gets wasted. Investors don't invest, companies make no profit, game quality gets beaten and murdered in a dark alley, we complain about the quaity of games, stop gaming, gaming dies because no company is left to make games, because it's not profitable because consumers would rather buy cheap.

>> It's a cycle that we'd rather defend it seems.

Hell you know what? you don't even have to buy used. You can wait to buy it new when the price gets cut, and you still help them out, and make them look good to investors, and aren't slowly causing the doom of the industry.

If you want to argue you help the gaming industry overall by buying new games, fine I can get with that. Hell, if you want to argue that if you really care about gaming buying new is the right thing to do I can even get with that. However, arguing that because of their incompetence to run a profitable business publishers and developers should be legally entitled to a cut of secondhand sales is pure nonsense.

Speaking from a strictly business perspective they deserve fuck all from used game sales even if secondhand sales do negatively influence their bottom line. They invested their money to sell the product as new and were paid for it. After it is sold as new they are removed from the equation. And as I said before new games have to be sold before used games can even exist so if there is a massive market for used games it has to mean that new games aren't selling so bad.

Honestly I think the video game industry needs to fail at such an epic level it is practically scoured from the Earth before it can be properly rebuilt again. As long as companies like Activision, EA, Ubisoft, etc are the ones running the show the gaming industry will suffer.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

>> read my post's section of revenue streams. That's why. ...It's really the only reason why. Games just have no other way to make money...so they need the cut from used game sales.

Hold up a minute! You are saying that because they can't manage to run a profitable business they deserve special treatment? Really? Really?!? As I said in another thread publishers and developers are free to risk their own money on buying used games from consumers and reselling them if they feel they are truly being hurt by used game sales. They choose not to risk their money though but instead cry like entitled children about not getting something they never deserved in the first place in a cut of the secondhand sales.

You obviously didn't read anything.

No, I said they have no other way to make money like other media. If games had concerts, or theaters, they wouldn't be bothered about it. They'd make money off of the ...shows I guess.

They are free to risk their money. In fact they do. Upwards of MILLIONS just to entertain you. However when you have 2 choices, buy new and give them a slice, or buy used and don't give them jack shit. Most people will decide not to give them jack shit. It's not about the quality of the game, or how well it's marketed. You just don't want to spend the money. You walk away for the same exact product, for a reduced price (sometimes significantly reduced.) They get nothing from you. And that risked money gets wasted. Investors don't invest, companies make no profit, game quality gets beaten and murdered in a dark alley, we complain about the quaity of games, stop gaming, gaming dies because no company is left to make games, because it's not profitable because consumers would rather buy cheap.

>> It's a cycle that we'd rather defend it seems.

Hell you know what? you don't even have to buy used. You can wait to buy it new when the price gets cut, and you still help them out, and make them look good to investors, and aren't slowly causing the doom of the industry.

In any other industry, the publishers would realize that their profit margin is too high, and lower it a little bit in order to compete with the used market -- you know, economics 101. If people aren't buying your product at full price, but jump on it when the price drops, or when they can find it used, you're charging more than they're willing or able to pay. More than the consumers, the game companies are trying to fight the basic laws of economics.

Incidentally, the Humble Indie Bundle has taught me that there are quite a few great games being made outside of the traditional studio system, that don't rely on huge budgets and ridiculous DRM. If the industry crashed tomorrow, I'd probably laugh and start buying more indie games. At least those guys compete for my money, instead of trying to mug me for it.

You mention econ 101, but you're missing a very important point I made in this very thread. ...Twice.

They spend..hell even 10 million on a game to get it out in a reasonable dev cycle so you're not paying employees for years and years and years, and end up using 20 million instead of 10 (this is all planned out you know.) Selling the game then, at 50 dollars a unit means you need to sell 200,000 units. Which happens in most AA titles. 200,000 is attainable.


25 million is a pretty average budget for a AAA title, at 50 dollars, that's 500,000 units. That's quite a bit for a game to sell. at 50 million, you need to sell a million copies just to break even. 1 million units makes it a blockbuster hit. So you have to make the best damn game ever, just to break even.

Lower budgets would be great, sometimes it's not possible. The economics are sound.

If they have budget problems like that, econ 101 says they should go out of business, because they aren't turning a profit. And the price to make a AAA game has nothing on the price of a blockbuster movie; the only one to even come close was GTAIV, at $100 million -- roughly the cost of a mid-sized blockbuster. And I know, you're going to say something about alternate revenue streams, but the truth is, no matter what revenue stream you look at for films, they don't charge more than $25 per copy/viewing, and that's on the extreme expensive end. If film companies can turn a profit at $11 a ticket and $20 a DVD, game companies can afford to drop their prices lower than $60. Heck, as the various Steam sales have shown us, dropping prices raises their profits -- someone was quoting a figure a while back, where a game halved the price, and quadrupled the sales. The game companies are idiots if they think people have $60 to pay per game in this economy -- or any other one, really. That's a big chunk of change to anyone who lives in the real world.

 

[oplinger]

>> read my post's section of revenue streams. That's why. ...It's really the only reason why. Games just have no other way to make money...so they need the cut from used game sales.

Hold up a minute! You are saying that because they can't manage to run a profitable business they deserve special treatment? Really? Really?!? As I said in another thread publishers and developers are free to risk their own money on buying used games from consumers and reselling them if they feel they are truly being hurt by used game sales. They choose not to risk their money though but instead cry like entitled children about not getting something they never deserved in the first place in a cut of the secondhand sales.

You obviously didn't read anything.

No, I said they have no other way to make money like other media. If games had concerts, or theaters, they wouldn't be bothered about it. They'd make money off of the ...shows I guess.

They are free to risk their money. In fact they do. Upwards of MILLIONS just to entertain you. However when you have 2 choices, buy new and give them a slice, or buy used and don't give them jack shit. Most people will decide not to give them jack shit. It's not about the quality of the game, or how well it's marketed. You just don't want to spend the money. You walk away for the same exact product, for a reduced price (sometimes significantly reduced.) They get nothing from you. And that risked money gets wasted. Investors don't invest, companies make no profit, game quality gets beaten and murdered in a dark alley, we complain about the quaity of games, stop gaming, gaming dies because no company is left to make games, because it's not profitable because consumers would rather buy cheap.

>> It's a cycle that we'd rather defend it seems.

Hell you know what? you don't even have to buy used. You can wait to buy it new when the price gets cut, and you still help them out, and make them look good to investors, and aren't slowly causing the doom of the industry.

If you want to argue you help the gaming industry overall by buying new games, fine I can get with that. Hell, if you want to argue that if you really care about gaming buying new is the right thing to do I can even get with that. However, arguing that because of their incompetence to run a profitable business publishers and developers should be legally entitled to a cut of secondhand sales is pure nonsense.

Speaking from a strictly business perspective they deserve fuck all from used game sales even if secondhand sales do negatively influence their bottom line. They invested their money to sell the product as new and were paid for it. After it is sold as new they are removed from the equation. And as I said before new games have to be sold before used games can even exist so if there is a massive market for used games it has to mean that new games aren't selling so bad.

Honestly I think the video game industry needs to fail at such an epic level it is practically scoured from the Earth before it can be properly rebuilt again. As long as companies like Activision, EA, Ubisoft, etc are the ones running the show the gaming industry will suffer.

Then could you get behind the cost of the technology needed to make a game, the skills needed from employees to make a game, and the materials, marketing, deals with retailers, and time and effort put into making those games, all costs money?

I'm sure you could. That's what the budget is for... the stuff they need is becoming more expensive. And so they need more money. They could just...not develop new technology...and use some hobbyist they found on craigslist. The game wouldn't be all that great I'm sure.

How many of us do you think would take an overall and significant drop in every aspect of quality in our games? ..And still pay 50 bucks for it? They need to be a "profitable business" after all.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Used games are even worse then piracy! They are so evil they even cause global warming and terrorism!

Seriously people use your brain for even a fraction of a second and you might notice every consumer good has a used market yet only game publishers have the audacity to call it stealing form them.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

>> read my post's section of revenue streams. That's why. ...It's really the only reason why. Games just have no other way to make money...so they need the cut from used game sales.

Hold up a minute! You are saying that because they can't manage to run a profitable business they deserve special treatment? Really? Really?!? As I said in another thread publishers and developers are free to risk their own money on buying used games from consumers and reselling them if they feel they are truly being hurt by used game sales. They choose not to risk their money though but instead cry like entitled children about not getting something they never deserved in the first place in a cut of the secondhand sales.

You obviously didn't read anything.

No, I said they have no other way to make money like other media. If games had concerts, or theaters, they wouldn't be bothered about it. They'd make money off of the ...shows I guess.

They are free to risk their money. In fact they do. Upwards of MILLIONS just to entertain you. However when you have 2 choices, buy new and give them a slice, or buy used and don't give them jack shit. Most people will decide not to give them jack shit. It's not about the quality of the game, or how well it's marketed. You just don't want to spend the money. You walk away for the same exact product, for a reduced price (sometimes significantly reduced.) They get nothing from you. And that risked money gets wasted. Investors don't invest, companies make no profit, game quality gets beaten and murdered in a dark alley, we complain about the quaity of games, stop gaming, gaming dies because no company is left to make games, because it's not profitable because consumers would rather buy cheap.

>> It's a cycle that we'd rather defend it seems.

Hell you know what? you don't even have to buy used. You can wait to buy it new when the price gets cut, and you still help them out, and make them look good to investors, and aren't slowly causing the doom of the industry.

If you want to argue you help the gaming industry overall by buying new games, fine I can get with that. Hell, if you want to argue that if you really care about gaming buying new is the right thing to do I can even get with that. However, arguing that because of their incompetence to run a profitable business publishers and developers should be legally entitled to a cut of secondhand sales is pure nonsense.

Speaking from a strictly business perspective they deserve fuck all from used game sales even if secondhand sales do negatively influence their bottom line. They invested their money to sell the product as new and were paid for it. After it is sold as new they are removed from the equation. And as I said before new games have to be sold before used games can even exist so if there is a massive market for used games it has to mean that new games aren't selling so bad.

Honestly I think the video game industry needs to fail at such an epic level it is practically scoured from the Earth before it can be properly rebuilt again. As long as companies like Activision, EA, Ubisoft, etc are the ones running the show the gaming industry will suffer.

Unfortunately, two of the three survived the last crash. Although I'm starting to agree -- a crash would be good for the consumer at this point. It's not like the indie devs would be affected, and they tend to treat the consumer well. I love my AAA games, but I'd rather be treated as a valued customer by a company that makes a lower budget product than as a statistic by a company that spends millions. It doesn't matter what industry you're in, if you treat your customers like crap, you don't deserve their business. Gamers, unfortunately, seem to lack the requisite spine to say "wait a minute, I don't want to do business with a company that treats me like crap."