runic knight said:
I find two flaws here. First is that you on one hand claim prices for used games should be much lower, yet say that the product received doesn't depreciate and as such it is a bad thing for Used games to be sold at just under new price. A bit of clarity there might be needed.
A fair question. In this sense, I'm talking about "fairness." People like to point out that publishers downing on used sales are being unfair. I also like to point out that it is, in fact, unfair of publishers to stick on this $60 price point and expect people not to find (legal) methods to bypass it.
But in this instance, I'm talking about the fact that used sellers have no
tangible reason to charge what they do for used games. They do it simply because they can. They have no reason to charge anything that "just a teensy bit less than new." If we're going to point fingers at anybody as being unnecessarily greedy, it's these folks.
Now, obviously, I agree that the product itself isn't different (as it stands now). I fully recognize the conflict between the realities of software (no depreciation) and the financial problems posed by used sales of software (unfair competition). That's why I'm in support of publishers finding ways to ensure that new products in fact have
more value than used products. This allows both markets to exist in the same way that other (real) goods have managed -- there is a difference in price
and in the inherent value of the product. This allows for the necessary price difference, but without having to appeal (as I did earlier) to a simple sense of "fairness."
Secondly, you often make the claim about the competition between new and used sales, but in a somewhat disingenuous way. When someone is reselling, they are not making a profit, they are mitigating a loss.
Not quite. When someone is reselling,
they have already made their money on the first sale. Then they buy it back at a fraction of the price and sell it at a profit
again. There's nothing illegal about this double-dipping, but "loss" in no way enters the picture for the reseller.
Now, used sales are (in a way) about the first
buyer recovering some of the remaining value of the original product. Even in these cases, the buyer often acts as though it's a "loss" for each dollar lower than the price they paid -- this is why so many people are mystified when they have to sell a house for less than they paid for it in order to move it. People often forget that in
using the product, they not only "got (at least some) of their money's worth," so to speak, but they also consumed some of the value of that product. (See above for how this issue can be resolved with games).
So the question becomes is the reselling costing them another sale? I don't think so.
It can, in a very real way. If Gamestop buys X copies, the publisher sends them X copies. Gamestop then sells those X copies. Let's say they then buy
all of them back and resell them (for sake of a simplified example). They've now sold X+X copies. If even a
handful of those people would have bought it new had X+X copies been available to begin with, those are "lost sales." Of course, they're nearly impossible to measure, but it's clear to see it can happen.
To me, though, that's not the issue. It's the unfair competition, and the artificial inflation of used game prices. Why should Gamestop be allowed to charge $55 for a game that cost them maybe $20 in store credit? Simple answer: Because we let them. And why should publishers
not be allowed to add single-use codes to their games in order to ensure that a new copy
has more inherent value than a used copy, so as to incentivize new buyers?
After all, the publisher serves
its customers. Used buyers are not directly the customers of the publisher. They're the customers of the person/store they're buying from. The publishers obligation is to increase the value-per-dollar for its own customers first. If the "convenience" of online distribution is one of the services they want to offer, I say that's within their rights. I also think that single-use codes are a fair way (as long as the content those codes provide is balanced within the scope of the game).
Resale exists as a byproduct of selling something with tangible form. You take that form away, and of course you will kill the resale. But I really don't think that is a good thing. There are as many people said before benefit to hard copies and resale. While I certainly do not find fault with anyone who likes digital sales (I enjoy steam myself), there is still appeal in hard copy and certainly purpose in reselling.
I agree. Resale can contribute to later new sales. But, of course, there are also those people who only ever buy used -- since, as it stands, the product remains the same. It is better to create the same two-tiered market every other product enjoys, so that there is a real, measurable reason to buy new (and also still the price break of buying used). But publishers certainly can't be expected to structure their entire business plan in a way that mostly benefits used sellers.
The answer, as is almost always the case, is somewhere in the middle. We're not there yet.
