buying used games = piracy

I just bought AVP, Borderlands, & Prototype, brand new from a Target for 10 bucks each. Now, how much of that does the Developer get? Does that make me a legitimate customer, even though I didn't pay full price? I am sure Target made something off the sale, so how much does the game company get?

Yep, which is what I meant by my post above. That will equal piracy soon enough.
 
When games go on clearance like that, is the developer already paid for the game and Target is just cutting it's losses, or does the publisher get a % AFTER the sale?
 
When games go on clearance like that, is the developer already paid for the game and Target is just cutting it's losses, or does the publisher get a % AFTER the sale?
Many games are distributed on a "sale or return" basis, that means the retailers have very limited risk. Any unsold stick is ultimately returned to the publisher and the retailer is refunded - the only "loss" for the retailer is having their shelf space taken up for a time by something that didn't sell. So when the prices are cut, either: the retailer alone cuts the price and accepts reduced profit, or more likely there is an agreement in place with the publisher or distributor to each take reduced cut. Some unsold stock will eventually be re distributed through alternative retailers and those bargain bin online prices.
 
This is such a BS argument. If buying used items equals piracy then we should shut down every single second hand store in the nation. We need to jail everyone that buys antiques and burn everything in our attics and storage buildings after we decide to get rid of them.
 
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I own a game studio which will publish its first games this year. We do not see our games as products we're selling, we see ourselves as selling a service. We develop games, you pay for us doing so. This way we don't have to care about DRM (expensive and futile) or second-hand sales (even if we were planning non-digital sales).

To treat video games as a physical product is just wrong. We don't care how many people have shared copies with others, as long as they'll mostly be playing our games, and paying us to develop more of them :)

You can categorize your games as a service just as soon as you and Bobby Kotick start distributing your personal mobile numbers and email addresses with each copy sold so that way if I am unhappy with your "service" I can contact you both direct to bitch and moan about all the bugs and then demand you address the problems or issue a refund.

Until that day happens, I am going to treat software I have paid for as my personal belonging which I will do with as a I wish, including sell, give away, burn, etc.
 
Sorry, this is asinine. Ford doesn't get their panties all in a twist because jim jimmy jim jim joe bob bought his focus from the used car lot. In fact, quite a large number of people ONLY buy used cars, and a selling point for some vehicles is that they maintain a high resale value.

If you don't like the idea that a product can be resold, for the love of Pete, get out of the production business. No other industry feels so entitled the way the video game industry does.
 
i can't tell if this is a joke or troll or shill OP.

that PA post was made nearly a month ago. And now it's being linked as if he just said it?
 
Sorry, this is asinine. Ford doesn't get their panties all in a twist because jim jimmy jim jim joe bob bought his focus from the used car lot. In fact, quite a large number of people ONLY buy used cars, and a selling point for some vehicles is that they maintain a high resale value.

If you don't like the idea that a product can be resold, for the love of Pete, get out of the production business. No other industry feels so entitled the way the video game industry does.

You can't treat video gamesthe same way as cars. The reason why Ford doesn't care about a person buying a used Ford is because cars have a shelf life. Sooner or later your car will break down. This is a fact of life, and nothing you can do can prevent this. Now, you can keep the car in good condition, but part replacements, service, etc., will most likely have a percentage of the profit going back to Ford. And sooner or later your car will just die, regardless of how well you kept it up.

Video games on the other hand have an indefinite shelf life. Yes, you have proprietary hardware, but that can be emulated, and proprietary software mediums, but those can be transferred.

You can, however, relate used video game sales to used movie, music, and book sales though. And if you think it's only the video game industry which is uptight about this, guess again. The MPAA hates used movie sales. The RIAA hates used music sales. The AAP hates used book sales.

I'm not talking about whether or not they are right nor wrong, But the fact remains that the video game industry isn't alone in disliking used sales, and if any of the above groups had their way, sales of used games/movies/music/books/etc would be illegal.
 
Yeah good point Fail regarding the car analogy.

Yeah I believe that, that Patcher guy said something like "Lending a game equates to piracy" or something!? - Not sure.

Anyway after hearing that I promptly told my neighbour that they can never borrow *any* of my tools and my gf that she will now have to buy a car instead of using mine.

Patcher's words of wisdom: http://www.gametrailers.com/game/pach-attack/12619
 
You can't treat video gamesthe same way as cars. The reason why Ford doesn't care about a person buying a used Ford is because cars have a shelf life. Sooner or later your car will break down. This is a fact of life, and nothing you can do can prevent this. Now, you can keep the car in good condition, but part replacements, service, etc., will most likely have a percentage of the profit going back to Ford. And sooner or later your car will just die, regardless of how well you kept it up.

Video games on the other hand have an indefinite shelf life. Yes, you have proprietary hardware, but that can be emulated, and proprietary software mediums, but those can be transferred.

You can, however, relate used video game sales to used movie, music, and book sales though. And if you think it's only the video game industry which is uptight about this, guess again. The MPAA hates used movie sales. The RIAA hates used music sales. The AAP hates used book sales.

I'm not talking about whether or not they are right nor wrong, But the fact remains that the video game industry isn't alone in disliking used sales, and if any of the above groups had their way, sales of used games/movies/music/books/etc would be illegal.


o rly?

so apparently video games never break and neither do music CDs/tracks/mp3s, movies/dvds/blurays, or hard/paper copy books.

huh. what world you live in?
'cause i've had plenty of books fall apart on me.
or dvds stop working.
or cds fade away into neverland.
 
Of course they want people to believe that - just like GM would like people to believe the are licensing thier cars, and Samsung would like people to believe they are licensing their TVs and monitors. The only difference is that the software industry has managed to convince people that, in their case, it is true, and have been able to do something about it with DRM. Just because they want it to be that way doesn't mean that's the way it ought to be. Why should they be the only industry that gets to control thier product in perpetuity?

You needed to take my statement in the context of my entire post.

Basically game companies have there agenda, you should have your agenda. Sometimes these overlap and both parties benefit, other times they don't. Game companies are a business, they do not owe gamers anything. Just like you as a consumer do not owe game companies anything. Game companies will push there agenda, it doesn't mean you as the consumer need to blindly accept it.

For the people who do advocate in favor of game companies over consumers, can you think of the reverse? Do you think game companies really care about the woes of consumers? Imagine you've purchased every COD to date, but your cash strapped at the release of say the newest one and ask good old Activision to help you out financially with maybe a discount. (and hey you've spent time on forums hyping the series, and telling people buy all the DLCs, don't buy it used, don't pirate it, whatever) Would they care at all? Likewise why should you care about the welfare of game companies? Why should consumers go out of there way and/or spend out of there pocket to help these businesses?
 
So what if I buy a game used? There are games out there I wouldn't ever pay full price for and the used market gives me an opportunity to spend according to how I feel which I believe ads more flexibility to me as a consumer. Who knows, maybe I'll eat my own words and enjoy the game and take away a greater appreciation for the developer. It's far better than not playing the game at all and allowing my opinion on the developer to further deteriorate. The mongers in the industry are making decent strides at elimination the used market by forcing second hand owners to purchase new keys to activate content which sucks, but certainly does look like the future. In the meantime, the idiot who wrote the article can eat it.

A lot of responses in this thread gave me a good chuckle. Especially the ones about burning homes and such. :p
 
I kind of agrew with PA on this one, *Shrug* Doesn't matter, second hand market including rentals and used sales will be gone completely in within a few years when DD becomes the only way to get games.

For what its worth, enjoy buying used games and using rental services while you can. /nojoke

and then REAL piracy will increase of the DD, because the rug will have been pulled out from under legit consumers who won't pay overinflated prices, but trade, borrow, and buy used.
 
They're not the same but they are logically equivalent in that the outcome of the two are equal.

I don't think this is strictly true, as I posted before, the money people make from selling their used games mostly goes back in to buying new games. Put another way some of the sales made for games are only possible because the price has been offset by older games being passed on.

In some way with second hand sales money is being passed back up the chain to the developers, it's not a full price sale, but then there's no guarantee that someone would buy a full price game if used sales were unavailable.

You can't treat video gamesthe same way as cars. The reason why Ford doesn't care about a person buying a used Ford is because cars have a shelf life.

Somewhat disagree with this actually, cars can last a very long time, they suffer degradation but can be serviced to be kept in good condition. Games on physical media also degrade and can easily be damaged beyond use and easily lost. Even digital services may not last forever.

To add to this old games can become next to useless, there's a lot of problems running very old games on modern operating systems and hardware, the older it gets the more problems you tend to run into. Things like emulators can help sometimes but you can't rely on unofficial support for every game.
 
This isn't about intellectual property anymore. It's about grabbing money. People one one side don't want to fork over their money and people on the other side want to rip it from the people's wallets.

Is sharing a video game wrong also? If I invite my friend over to play it with me, will they want me to pay extra to allow a second player to play? I have a feeling things will get as bad as with the music industry and suing over people HEARING your ringtones.

Honestly though, from a business standpoint, companies across all media have adopted a strategy not of adapting to the demands of the consumers, but jamming a business model down their throats. Hiding their artificial morals and the law to perpetuate an obsolete cash machine is no way to run a business. In fact, it only fuels a demand for black markets and piracy. That, my friends, can be far worse than buying used games.

BTW, I don't support piracy in any way. I also don't support wasting things. If I have a game on my shelf that I haven't played in years, I'll hand it off to someone else (or sell it) and spread the wealth.
 
I would love to see a study done on this. Maybe have Gamestop release it's numbers regarding the amount of people who both sold them a used game and bought a new game on the same day.

It wouldn't be perfect because obviously some people will sell their used games weeks or even months in advance of a the new title they are interested in coming out, and not everyone uses gamestop to sell their used games... but it would still give some initial statistics to show how much the used game market on average funds the new game market. Honestly, if a person who sells his used games EVER buys a new title after word, then you can make an argument that the sale of the used game has helped fund the purchase of the new title.

Maybe even add in a little POS questionnaire. Something to the effect of "If you hadn't been able to sell your used game today, would you have still purchased this new title?". Again, there is a margin for error here (people lying, employees entering "no" without asking the question), but again it offers actual data from which you can start to see the trends rather than random speculation and wild assumptions.

Companies want to make arbitrary statements about losing sales assuming that every used game sale or pirated game is lost revenue. That assumes that ever person who bought that used game or downloaded that pirated game would have bought it new if those options hadn't been available to them, which usually isn't the case in my experience. Anything I've ever bought used was because I wasn't willing to pay full price for it. If I couldn't buy it used, then I wouldn't have bought it at all. Id' be willing to wager that most people look at it the same way.


Hey maybe we should make a community pool of games. So instead of buying a game for myself I buy it for the Society of Game Players or something. So it becomes commune property or suchlike.

Now when as the caretaker of this game I feel as if I should pass on this game to the next party, I hit the society pages, and find the next person willing to maintain and take care of this title. They pay a transfer fee to me covering transport to them based on the worth of the product (newer games and rare games need better handling). Thus I transfer the product to the next owner after receiving the fee. Though ownership remains with the library.

So, Communism then? That's essentially what you are describing here.
 
So, Communism then? That's essentially what you are describing here.

Yes it's exactly like communism. Except your income still goes into your bank account, you own all your stuff and its just a theoretical ploy to kill the game industry's evil capitalist evilish plot. But you could send the games in red envelopes with che whatever his face on the envelope if you wished. Actually instead of it being a gamers "commune" (or community) it could be a cult for the worship of the gods of gaming. We could all wear colored robes based on if we used AMD (red) Nvidia (green) or Blue (intel). Then there would be the leading link with the deity which would be an AI program on a PIII that would have 0.001% chance every year of telling us the "message from the gods" to kill people/ourselves. Then it would be a Theocracy.
 
I don't understand why they are so upset about it. People have been buying and selling games since the Atari days.
 
I don't understand why they are so upset about it. People have been buying and selling games since the Atari days.

It's quite simple. Companies are in business to make money. When you buy a used game, the retail store gets the money, and none of that goes to the publisher. Thus, they look at it that if there are 200,000 people who play their game, but they only see 10,000 sales, they see it as they lost 190,000 sales due to used games.

Remember, they are not charities. They exist to provide entertainment to their customers. If you can't afford it, you're not their customer. You play for the privilege to be entertained from someone else's hardwork and time. It's not a consumers god-given right to play a game.

Customers naturally want to pay as little as possible. Businesses naturally want to make as much money as possible. The free market should determine what this equilibrium is. But piracy, used games, etc., all offset this by providing alternatives which go against the free market. Laws are set up by governments to typically help the free market by preventing theft, copyright infringement, etc.

But regardless of how much they sell a game for or consumers buy games for, companies have costs. Many newer games cost millions of dollars. The people behind the games, from the programmers, writers, artists, musicians, etc., don't work for free. Often times, the price for the talent can be quite high.

It's a flawed business model that they're using. They're basing it of the accepted norm of how physical products are sold, but games, movies, music, etc., are not physical, but manifestations of ideas. Sooner or later, someone will come out with a more appropriate model which can generate more money. Now, you may ask why doesn't a company adapt, but you have to understand, companies tend to be risk adverse.

Sadly, the better business model may or may not be beneficial to consumers. For music, it's proven to be. But people tend not to buy games as collections of 15+, unlike music. Digital Distribution though, at this point in time, will be the future, regardless of if you want it to be or not. This is partly because it will prevent used game sales and rentals. Also, it's significantly cheaper from a business point of view. Although for the consumer, this will most likely mean fewer game purchases per year because the cost will be higher. But remember, if you buy or rent games, you are not their customer, regardless of if you've played the game or not.
 
I simply buy the highest quality titles or buy games when they are cheap. There are a few titles that I can't wait to play and will buy at full price but most others I will wait for. I never have been into the habit of buying used games though or selling the games I have for that matter. Once I buy a game I typically keep it forever.
 
Oh, I understand why they don't like it, but have they only started making a big stink about it relatively recently? Maybe I was just to young to realize it, but I don't remember them getting upset about it during the NES/SNES days.
 
You can categorize your games as a service just as soon as you and Bobby Kotick start distributing your personal mobile numbers and email addresses with each copy sold so that way if I am unhappy with your "service" I can contact you both direct to bitch and moan about all the bugs and then demand you address the problems or issue a refund.

Until that day happens, I am going to treat software I have paid for as my personal belonging which I will do with as a I wish, including sell, give away, burn, etc.

No, you don't get the many faces of what 'offering a service' can be. In the case of software there is not and can never be value in the software itself as it can be duplicated indefinitely at virtually no cost. That means that the value is not in the process of duplicating the software but in creating it. Creating software takes hundreds if not thousands of hours of work multiplied by a team of people. That's not something you can duplicate at virtually zero cost.

Creating software is what is being offered and what is being paid for. Just that it isn't custom software, but a specific product which is being offered. And really, things have always been this way, few just have noticed it. That's why from MSFT to Adobe copyright infringement has been largely ignored. It was until XP that MSFT put it some really annoying DRM. Adobe still doesn't care about who uses their software illegally, PS CS5 is a snap to use without paying for it. Adobe realizes that the more people use their products illegally, the more will pay for them. Simply because it has become the golden standard in photo editing and other areas. It's smart business.

Similarly, if a video game is being played illegally a lot it means that the game has a lot of market and mind share and thus that it's more likely to be bought than competitor's games.

That's the whole thing with second-hand games as well. What you're buying is not the software, but the convenience of having the software on a shiny disc inside a handy box with perhaps a manual and such. That's the value of the whole proposal. Software is worthless in many senses :)
 
It's quite simple. Companies are in business to make money. When you buy a used game, the retail store gets the money, and none of that goes to the publisher. Thus, they look at it that if there are 200,000 people who play their game, but they only see 10,000 sales, they see it as they lost 190,000 sales due to used games.

Remember, they are not charities. They exist to provide entertainment to their customers. If you can't afford it, you're not their customer. You play for the privilege to be entertained from someone else's hardwork and time. It's not a consumers god-given right to play a game.

Customers naturally want to pay as little as possible. Businesses naturally want to make as much money as possible. The free market should determine what this equilibrium is. But piracy, used games, etc., all offset this by providing alternatives which go against the free market. Laws are set up by governments to typically help the free market by preventing theft, copyright infringement, etc.

But regardless of how much they sell a game for or consumers buy games for, companies have costs. Many newer games cost millions of dollars. The people behind the games, from the programmers, writers, artists, musicians, etc., don't work for free. Often times, the price for the talent can be quite high.

It's a flawed business model that they're using. They're basing it of the accepted norm of how physical products are sold, but games, movies, music, etc., are not physical, but manifestations of ideas. Sooner or later, someone will come out with a more appropriate model which can generate more money. Now, you may ask why doesn't a company adapt, but you have to understand, companies tend to be risk adverse.

Sadly, the better business model may or may not be beneficial to consumers. For music, it's proven to be. But people tend not to buy games as collections of 15+, unlike music. Digital Distribution though, at this point in time, will be the future, regardless of if you want it to be or not. This is partly because it will prevent used game sales and rentals. Also, it's significantly cheaper from a business point of view. Although for the consumer, this will most likely mean fewer game purchases per year because the cost will be higher. But remember, if you buy or rent games, you are not their customer, regardless of if you've played the game or not.

If they are using a flawed business model, I don't see why the end user needs to change what they've been doing since...the creation of copyright.

I see many similarities between the real estate market pre-bust and the video game industry right now. They are idiots looking for a quick buck, and when they can't find it, they'll run loops and tricks and screw people over to get the money. In the end though, the end user will ALWAYS be the one having to bail their sorry asses out.

So excuse us if we can't accept nor understand a continuation of a failed business practice. The fault does not lie within the end user.
 
It's quite simple. Companies are in business to make money. When you buy a used game, the retail store gets the money, and none of that goes to the publisher. Thus, they look at it that if there are 200,000 people who play their game, but they only see 10,000 sales, they see it as they lost 190,000 sales due to used games.

Your example makes no sense, they would have made 200,000 in initial sales irrespective. At some point those 200,000 used copies would have been bought new, they do not appear out of thin air as used copies :rolleyes:

What they are complaining about is a flawed rationale that they should have made 400,000 because 200,000 people sold their used copies on to another person.
 
Here's the problem with all of this. Capitalism is based on a free market system of goods being exchanged. Games are goods that are being exchanged. This kind of crap is allowing the corporations to make laws instead of the government, and it isn't free market capitalism.

You can give me all the crap you want about businesses needing to make money, but some do it the legal way, while the IP crazy companies are doing it the Al Capone way.
 
No, you don't get the many faces of what 'offering a service' can be. In the case of software there is not and can never be value in the software itself as it can be duplicated indefinitely at virtually no cost. That means that the value is not in the process of duplicating the software but in creating it. Creating software takes hundreds if not thousands of hours of work multiplied by a team of people. That's not something you can duplicate at virtually zero cost.

Creating software is what is being offered and what is being paid for. Just that it isn't custom software, but a specific product which is being offered. And really, things have always been this way, few just have noticed it. That's why from MSFT to Adobe copyright infringement has been largely ignored. It was until XP that MSFT put it some really annoying DRM. Adobe still doesn't care about who uses their software illegally, PS CS5 is a snap to use without paying for it. Adobe realizes that the more people use their products illegally, the more will pay for them. Simply because it has become the golden standard in photo editing and other areas. It's smart business.

Similarly, if a video game is being played illegally a lot it means that the game has a lot of market and mind share and thus that it's more likely to be bought than competitor's games.

That's the whole thing with second-hand games as well. What you're buying is not the software, but the convenience of having the software on a shiny disc inside a handy box with perhaps a manual and such. That's the value of the whole proposal. Software is worthless in many senses :)

That is your bias and subjective rationalization to justify why you think you are entitled to screw every last cent that you can out of consumers.

What I am paying for is the final code which has been produced by a developer, nothing more and nothing less. The fact that this code is incorporeal is irrelevant, it is notionally a good for which I am imparting my hard earned money in exchange for.

There is no ongoing relationship to justify the assertion that you are providing a service, similarly the end consumer has absolutely zero say in how the service is rendered, what the ultimate goal is to be achieved, or how the consumers personal preferences or requirements are taken into account. Similarly, there are no means by which a consumer can seek redress in relation to shit house "service" ordinarily shoveled out by software developers in the form of bug ridden software or an absence of post development support.

That is why games are distinguishable from custom software, if a developer is retained to produce a specific piece of code, the customer has significant say in the development of the software and the support offered in relation to it. In reality what they receive is both a good and service.

To simply excuse the absence of all those features of "service" relationships on the basis that video games are somehow different from every other industry is exactly the sort of behavior which does not endear yourselves to your customer base.

Ultimately the industry will only have itself to blame when it collapses in on itself thanks to these sorts of greedy practices.

Edit: what the video game industry is trying to achieve is an absolute perversion of sale and consumer laws which have been existence for several hundred years. If they choose to produce a good or item for sale to the market at large then what they are selling is a good, not a service. To assert otherwise is asinine and at odds with basic concepts of commerce. Will not stop them from trying though.
 
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Btw, Software is always tested before shrinkwrapped. That means everyone is a criminal according to this bullshit.
 
Your example makes no sense, they would have made 200,000 in initial sales irrespective. At some point those 200,000 used copies would have been bought new, they do not appear out of thin air as used copies :rolleyes:

What they are complaining about is a flawed rationale that they should have made 400,000 because 200,000 people sold their used copies on to another person.

For the most part, video game companies can see who bought their game new and who bought the game used. Game Stop keeps records. Amazon keeps records. And if the game is played online, most likely they'll be able to count the amount of people playing the game.

Thus, if they see they've only sold 10,000 games, but 200,000 people have played the game, they lost sales to used games. Those 190,000 people who played the game? None of them paid for it, at least in terms directed towards the developer.
 
If they are using a flawed business model, I don't see why the end user needs to change what they've been doing since...the creation of copyright.

I see many similarities between the real estate market pre-bust and the video game industry right now. They are idiots looking for a quick buck, and when they can't find it, they'll run loops and tricks and screw people over to get the money. In the end though, the end user will ALWAYS be the one having to bail their sorry asses out.

So excuse us if we can't accept nor understand a continuation of a failed business practice. The fault does not lie within the end user.

You're right. The fault does not lie with the end user in this case. The developers see it lying with with Game Stop, Amazon, etc.

In the end though, it's going to effect the end user regardless. Because of the greed of companies such as Game Stop and Amazon, video game companies are going to switch over to Digital Distribution (which will pretty much end Game Stop unless they change their business model), which means in the end, consumers are going to be paying more, and playing fewer games.
 
For the most part, video game companies can see who bought their game new and who bought the game used. Game Stop keeps records. Amazon keeps records. And if the game is played online, most likely they'll be able to count the amount of people playing the game.

Thus, if they see they've only sold 10,000 games, but 200,000 people have played the game, they lost sales to used games. Those 190,000 people who played the game? None of them paid for it, at least in terms directed towards the developer.

If you mean the same 10,000 original copies passing through the hands of 200,000 subsequent unique users then I take the point you are trying to make, but the example is still far fetched hyperbole (as if a single copy is going to be resold 20 times over) and again does not answer the question of why the gaming industry should be treated any differently from every other industry with second hand markets.

As it is, they already generate substantial revenue from secondary sales thanks to their nickel and diming dlc strategies.
 
You're right. The fault does not lie with the end user in this case. The developers see it lying with with Game Stop, Amazon, etc.

In the end though, it's going to effect the end user regardless. Because of the greed of companies such as Game Stop and Amazon, video game companies are going to switch over to Digital Distribution (which will pretty much end Game Stop unless they change their business model), which means in the end, consumers are going to be paying more, and playing fewer games.

Welcome to the PC market where they destroyed second hand sales years ago. Funny thing though, they still bitch and whine that they do not make enough money. :rolleyes:
 
Edit: what the video game industry is trying to achieve is an absolute perversion of sale and consumer laws which have been existence for several hundred years. If they choose to produce a good or item for sale to the market at large then what they are selling is a good, not a service. To assert otherwise is asinine and at odds with basic concepts of commerce. Will not stop them from trying though.

What the video gam industry is doing is the same as the RIAA. Doing stupid shit they think is right because "they are the experts" and then blaming everyone but themselves for their poorer than expected returns. It must be piracy/used games/bad lunar cycle rather then they don't understand their audience, charged over what something is worse and didn't really bother finnishing it, but then charged more then before for it. You can't set up $100m productions if they are not sustainable and then bitch and moan how its someone elses fault. Remember only 20% of all games break even, for ever single sucessful game theres going to be 4 financial failures. If you spend $1m on your lemonade stand thats going to realistically sell 1000 cups a day youre going to fill you are going to find it hard to recoup your $1m. If you charge people 1000$ a cup, less people are going to buy it.
The pricing model will definately need some work if you buy a product whose resale value after puchase is 0 the product has dropped quite considerably in value, and so the price should drop too. But it won't. People don't have unlimited budgets, and if someone spends 60$ a month on games, and you charge 30$ for games, theyll buy 2. If you sell 60$ games, theyll buy 1. Or something I need sleep.
 
Exactly, every restriction they add lowers the value of the product, if you want to tell me that the only way I can use product X (a game or console say) is to license it under terms I have no control over, and which are entirely one-sided and can be changed at a whim (for instance by patching away features or simply locking me out entirely), then the value of said product isn't $300 or $60, it's maybe %20-50% of that, out of the gate.

If you then refuse to provide said 'service' at the equilibrium, you're fueling the basic conditions of a grey/black market (piracy). You can then argue till your face is blue that it's illegal/immoral, but nevertheless, by not providing the product the market wants, you're facilitating the very thing you fear the most.

This is where game companies are now. They feel like they can provide their products way above a price point we as consumers are happy with, and they do this by a combination of technical and legal means. This can happen because tech makes it possible, and the legal system has been shifted into 'might makes right' by IP lobbyists and their bought and paid for politicians.

Another point about resales are (and this came up in the latest Feedback), take a game like Dead Space for instance. It wasn't a great seller originally, but it's been gaining momentum in the second hand market and by dropping in price to a point where people are comfortable with the risk-vs-reward ratio of investing their money. Now, what'll happen with Dead Space 2? I think it'll sell much better. Why? Because used games (among other things) allowed the franchise to gain mind share. Cut that off, and you risk a situation where even more new franchises will be still born, meaning even higher risk when doing something "not Moder Warfare". Who would that benefit? No one.

It's a clusterfuck of shortsightedness and greed.
 
I don't understand why they are so upset about it. People have been buying and selling games since the Atari days.

Well, that's computerized games...

I'm sure this pre-dates computers, electricity, etc...

Hell, I bet someone was moaning about this back before Jesus and even the wheel!

Even in caveman times, If someone was trying to give you two sticks of wood for making fire in exchange for some of your woolly mammoth grub and you just went ahead and got pre-lit second-hand fire from someone else and kept all your mammoth grub to yourself...

Well, I bet they were pissed!

"Unga!!! Unga bunga!!!!"
 
If you payed for it, it's not stealing


/thread

Your statement is flawed. If someone steals an item, and you purchase it from them, regardless of if you are aware of if it was stolen or not, you're still held accountable by the law.

Besides, the original article the PA article was based off of never stated that used games were stealing. All they did was just say if you buy the game used, be prepared not to be able to play the game online. Other game companies are following suit.

The premise basically is, if you didn't pay me any money for the item I created, I don't owe you **** when it comes to support. Businesses cater towards their customers, and regardless of if you have the game, if you didn't pay the creators, you're not their customer.
 
Your statement is flawed. If someone steals an item, and you purchase it from them, regardless of if you are aware of if it was stolen or not, you're still held accountable by the law.

Besides, the original article the PA article was based off of never stated that used games were stealing. All they did was just say if you buy the game used, be prepared not to be able to play the game online. Other game companies are following suit.

The premise basically is, if you didn't pay me any money for the item I created, I don't owe you **** when it comes to support. Businesses cater towards their customers, and regardless of if you have the game, if you didn't pay the creators, you're not their customer.

Yes, and? You're still not a thief.

edit: Not to mention different countries have different laws, USA is not the only country in the world.
 
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