A point of contraversy (part 1) - Buying a game used is as bad as pirating?

[Xanthious]

Out of curiosity, wouldn't big game companies that sell games used have to pay some sort of royalties FOR selling the game used? Or do all the profits go towards them?

Absolutely not. No more than a large used furniture store needs to. They are private entities conducting a private one on one transaction with the games original owner for the purchase of the game and then turn around and conduct another one on one transaction with the new buyer. This is no different than me selling my used game on craigslist except they do it on a larger scale. The publisher has no place in this process nor do they need to. If these publishers can't get by without a cut of the secondhand market maybe they need to go under or look at changing their business model. What they don't need to do is stick their hands out for money they are in no way entitled to.

 

[UnmotivatedSlacker]

i would say buying used is worse is worse owing to the fact that if u buy a game ur not going to want to buy it again while if u pirate a game u may feel obligated to buy the game at some point

Yes, all of those people who buy used cars, furniture, books and other used things are worse than pirates.

 

[LITE992]

No, it's not as bad as pirating. Pirating is stealing, while buying a game used is buying a game from a previous owner who bought it. You can say that money never reaches the publisher/dev, but they already got money for a new copy somebody already paid full price for. What they're doing is trying get the most money out of a single copy as possible.

 

[Plinglebob]

I apologise for not quoting people who have given various arguments for pre-owned, but reading through I just wanted to offer up these thoughts.

Piracy is worse - If someone pirates a game, they do it to try it out, because they arn't going to pay full price for it or they just enjoy pirating things. If the pirate plays and enjoys the game, there is then a possibility that they will buy the game new and so give money to the publisher. If someone buys it pre-owned, they are never (ok its highly unlikely) buy a new copy as they already own a copy so no money will ever go to the publisher.

The publisher made money when the person 1st bought it - By buying a used copy, you are buying a game with no renumeration to the developer/publisher. If the 2nd hand market wasn't available, you would have bought the game new or not at all. Buying it new would have meant more for the P/D and not buying it at all would have the same effect to them as you buying used.

Other industries have used markets - True, but, in the UK at least, there is a very clear distinction between the shops selling new and those selling used. For DVD's its mainly ex-rental or pawn shops, books are normally specialist 2nd hand stores or charity shops and for cars its normally independents or dealers linked with the car makers themselves. With games, both new and used are sold by the same shop often with used games being given more floor space and sold more agressivly meaning they are in direct competition. If someone opened a speciality 2nd hand games shop and the likes of Game were banned from/stopped the practice, I would guess more people would buy new.

Only people against it are those in the industry - Developers arn't a charity. While they may enjoy what they do, they are still in it to make money so they can make sequals/make new games/feed and clothe themselves.

They should reduce the cost of new games - Then Gamestop etc with just drop the price of used copies.

I should be allowed to do what I like with my property - Seeing as the rules re: game licencing/purchasing are murky at best, I'll just say that yes I agree, but remember you are still penalising the P/D.

But what if I get one in an offer - These offers are used by the stores to increase traffic and help shift stock that isn't moving. The P/D has received the full amount they'd get when the shop bought the copy in the 1st place.

What about rentals - When a rental shop buys a product, it is a special licence at and increased cost (for films I believe its in the region of £50 compared to £15 sale price) to compensate the film companies for any lost sales and its the same for games. Also, rentals are a calculatd risk on behalve of the publishers because a percentage of people who rent a game will then buy it because they enjoyed it.

But if companies keep rying to mess with used, soon I won't be able to buy used at all - Welcome to PC World. Unable to trade in for over a decade. You learn to live with it.

 

[Stu35]

See, the thing I don't get about this line of thinking is what's so special about the limit on the number of people using it? How does a consecutive line of ownership of a copy, with one original purchase that the Publisher saw a cut of, really differ in result from a simultaneous distribution of ownership, again seeded from that one original purchase (or leak or whatever, granted)?

Have you not answered your own question?

CONCURRENTLY - a Pirated game could be played by an infinite number of people, at the same time. Thus, the original purchase is the only one required if everyone is going to pirate it.

However, if a game is resold 2nd hand, that particular copy can only be played on One device at any given time.

So, I could sell my Game, and the person I sold it to could sell it on and so on, until (for example) 3 million people have played the game - but I can't play it once I've sold it.

However, I pirate it, and I can play it, as can the other 3 million people.

So, In Piracy, 1 copy legally bought can lead to millions playing, all at once.
In Re-sale, 1 copy legally bought leads to one person playing that copy (split screen multiplayer excepted of course), no more.

You see?

 

[WaruTaru]

Ok I'm going to be a little cruel here: You do not deserve to get paid twice for the same item. You may wish really, really hard but you dont have any legal right to double,triple or qaudruple payment

In fact I'm pretty sure there have been court cases already dealing with the the issue of 'licensing v selling' argument and they came out in favour of 'selling' side but damn if software companies dont keep on trying to override consumer rights and failing, just like books did, just like records did, just like movies did....

And retailers do? They profit multiple times for selling the same copy over and over.

Do point out a source for the "Licensing vs Selling". I'd love to read about it.

Musicians perform in live concerts for extra revenue. Books sell their license to movies and videogames. Movies make their moola from box office tickets and merchandising. What do video games get?

Musicians, authors and movie stars are individuals who can make millions from their creative art. Can you say the same for video games? Games keep you entertained for far longer than movies and music and books. But when you compare the list of millionaires, how many game-industry persons can you see?

No wonder Zynga is a rising star. Appeal to the lowest denominator for the win. Triple-A games be damned.

 

[orangeban]

Ok I'm going to be a little cruel here: You do not deserve to get paid twice for the same item. You may wish really, really hard but you dont have any legal right to double,triple or qaudruple payment

In fact I'm pretty sure there have been court cases already dealing with the the issue of 'licensing v selling' argument and they came out in favour of 'selling' side but damn if software companies dont keep on trying to override consumer rights and failing, just like books did, just like records did, just like movies did....

And retailers do? They profit multiple times for selling the same copy over and over.

Do point out a source for the "Licensing vs Selling". I'd love to read about it.

Musicians perform in live concerts for extra revenue. Books sell their license to movies and videogames. Movies make their moola from box office tickets and merchandising. What do video games get?

Musicians, authors and movie stars are individuals who can make millions from their creative art. Can you say the same for video games? Games keep you entertained for far longer than movies and music and books. But when you compare the list of millionaires, how many game-industry persons can you see?

No wonder Zynga is a rising star. Appeal to the lowest denominator for the win. Triple-A games be damned.

Videogames sell DLC and merchandising. And if gaming gets more mainstream then games could sell licenses to books and movies (this already sorta happens).

 

[KAPTAINmORGANnWo4life]

Because you're violating their copyright. You are reproducing their copyrighted material (1 song file becomes 10 song files) without their consent or license. You are allowed to do what you want with the one copy of their product you have bought, which includes sending it to a friend, but once you put it on the Internet and it gets downloaded X number of times, you're in violation of the contract that comes with the sale.

And part of it does come down to scale. Two people sharing hard copies of games won't (or at least haven't yet) become a focal point for companies, but thousands upon thousands of people getting their product for free does affect them in a very tangible way.

If scale is the problem, game shops are doing the same thing as pirates. They will push their used games much more aggressively because it makes them more profit. That means they will gladly leave the new copies on the shelves. If the retailer know how many gamers in his area is prone to trading in their old games for new ones, the retailer can lower the amount of new copies they order for each game because they can depend on the used games coming back to them for re-sell. The more trade-in gamers there are, the more the games returns to the retailer, and the more he can sell the same copy again and again. All of this at the cost of the developer pushing out less and less new copies. Make sense, doesn't it?

But the used games have already been sold legally to you, and you then sell the product to the game store. They're two separate transactions. All done through legal avenues. There is nothing wrong, legally or otherwise, with selling something you own.

Now if you want to talk about business model, maybe game stores should come to some sort of agreement as to used game sales and how they can strike a balance between their profits and the profits of the producers of the game, but as-is, this system of punishing consumers who are doing nothing wrong by locking-out portions of the product they're buying is wrong, and I'm shocked as to how many people are in favour of the basic concept of a transaction, or the even more basic concept of ownership, being undermined.

 

[Lord_Jaroh]

So by this logic right here public libraries are absolute bastions of unspeakable evil. Do you realize how many people "experienced the entertainment" (if that isn't industry spin I dont know what is. "experienced the entertainment", get out of here with that garbage) for free daily thanks to libraries? I can get books, movies, music, even art at my local library and never pay one red cent for it. Yet in the entire time libraries have been around I don't recall ever hearing the book or movie or music industry rail against them like over entitled children the way the game industry rails against a perfectly moral and legal second hand market.

Libraries still have to license the material, and probably pay a higher cost than what you pay at the book store. Money that comes from its town's citizens via taxes and such. So you've paid for the content already, as it never was free.

And what happens if you try to run a library from your own book collection? I'm pretty certain the publishers will start sending C&D letters to you.

The gaming industry has gotten far too greedy for it's own good and needs to die in a fire.

Really? Considering the state of the game industry and how small it really is, and how many studios and talented colleagues I've seen get laid off the past couple years. We're not making as much as you think we are, as we can certainly make better money in other industries.

But we're in this because we love it, being able to hear back from the fans that they played game X and Y and enjoyed it.

But not "I played your game and loved it, but I didn't pay for it because I'm cheap!"

So if you are trying to push the "it's an experience you are buying" crap on us, what happens if it is a poor experience? If it is a crappy movie, I can get my money back from the theatre. If it is terrible food I ate, I will usually get a free meal at a later date. If it is a crappy game, or a bug-filled game, what do I get?

Currently, I can try to sell it so that someone else might enjoy it, if they have different tastes than mine, and usually at a loss, to recover some of the over-inflated price you attatched to the experience. Under your rules, I would be stuck with said shitty experience, and more than likely not purchasing any further experiences from you in the future.

What do you offer to the people that bought Big Rigs? Or the people that bought Kane and Lynch (at full retail mind you)? What consolation do you offer the people that your publishing companies duped into parting with their money on day one due to their advertisements and paid off previews?

You need to change the way games are made and marketed before the system around used games will change. Future-proof your games and make them backwards compatable. Make me want to keep your game, and make me feel like I'm not ripped off when purchasing it. Make me not want to trade it in in the first place.

 

[Xanthious]

Ok I'm going to be a little cruel here: You do not deserve to get paid twice for the same item. You may wish really, really hard but you dont have any legal right to double,triple or qaudruple payment

In fact I'm pretty sure there have been court cases already dealing with the the issue of 'licensing v selling' argument and they came out in favour of 'selling' side but damn if software companies dont keep on trying to override consumer rights and failing, just like books did, just like records did, just like movies did....

And retailers do? They profit multiple times for selling the same copy over and over.

Retailers don't. Gamestop has to pay for each used game individually. Even if it comes back to the store after being sold as used they still have to buy it back. Publishers want to get paid multiple times for the game but only paying for it once. Gamestop is using their own money, not the publishers, to buy those used copies and if they don't sell Gamestop has to eat the loss on what they paid for the game, not the publisher. Those publishers and developers are free to go out and risk their own money by buying secondhand games from people and sell them used if they feel they are truly losing out so badly. However, they choose not to and as such deserve no money from what private citizens and businesses do with a product that the publisher and developer have already been paid for.

Musicians perform in live concerts for extra revenue. Books sell their license to movies and videogames. Movies make their moola from box office tickets and merchandising. What do video games get?

Musicians, authors and movie stars are individuals who can make millions from their creative art. Can you say the same for video games? Games keep you entertained for far longer than movies and music and books. But when you compare the list of millionaires, how many game-industry persons can you see?

It's not the consumers problem if they gaming industry can't run a profitable business. That's up the developers and publishers to worry about. The consumers shouldn't be the one paying for their incompetence in running a business. If their current business model is unsuccessful it's not the fault of a second hand market or piracy it's due to their own failures. They need to look within and stop trying to blame everyone but themselves.

As I said previously the video game industry in it's current form needs to be burned to ashes and rebuilt from the ground up. Gaming is driven by people who couldn't be paid to give a flying fuck about the actual games but worry solely on the bottom line and as a result the bottom line is the one thing that ends up suffering. Publishers like Activision Ubisoft and EA are a cancer to gaming and the sooner they go the way of the dinosaur the better gaming will be.

 

[cainx10a]

Ok I'm going to be a little cruel here: You do not deserve to get paid twice for the same item. You may wish really, really hard but you dont have any legal right to double,triple or qaudruple payment

In fact I'm pretty sure there have been court cases already dealing with the the issue of 'licensing v selling' argument and they came out in favour of 'selling' side but damn if software companies dont keep on trying to override consumer rights and failing, just like books did, just like records did, just like movies did....

And retailers do? They profit multiple times for selling the same copy over and over.

Do point out a source for the "Licensing vs Selling". I'd love to read about it.

Musicians perform in live concerts for extra revenue. Books sell their license to movies and videogames. Movies make their moola from box office tickets and merchandising. What do video games get?

Musicians, authors and movie stars are individuals who can make millions from their creative art. Can you say the same for video games? Games keep you entertained for far longer than movies and music and books. But when you compare the list of millionaires, how many game-industry persons can you see?

No wonder Zynga is a rising star. Appeal to the lowest denominator for the win. Triple-A games be damned.

^this.

Considering you are making a part 2, consider whether or not, using an analogy involving used car/books sales are actually in the same league as used video games sales.

[NOTE: NOT A CAR EXPERT IN THE LEAST)

You are talking about a new car which cost ten of thousands of dollars, which in its used format, may not be at its optimal performance, hence the new owner of the old will probably spend more money on it in the long run, often getting pieces from official traders for new tweaks here and there, a used book that again will not be in its best state, pages chewed on, a few doodles here and there, another page that smell funny, coffee spill, and hohoho, someone actually wrote a fanfic on the empty pages (yay?).

Then you have the Video Game. Sure, the disc may be scratched, but you are more often than not, getting the full experience. No funny smell, no extra costs, and hell, you can even make a little iso of it for backup purposes if you are one of those guys with a modded PSP who made some decent points of using backups instead of the real UMD, I think that work for modded xbox 360s and what's not (I supposed, I stay the fucked away from modding mine).

I still think those analogies are flawed, the video game industry, more specifically the software industry is different. It's not the same. If Gamestop see no problem in selling me a UMD, that shouldn't be sold (I am talking about a MGSeacewalker UMD from the Core Unit package) and do it anyway. Then something is a bit on the wrong side.

What's the point of game prices dropping too, if you are just going to buy a cheaper used copy where you can save $10. That doesn't make sense.

At the end of the day, I may be a big hypocrite, I am PC gamer first, a PSP gamer second, and 360 gamer third. I don't have a huge collection of games on my x360, and in no rush to see it increase, I primarily buy for the PC where there is NO used game market and where steam, once in a while may give us extremely huge discounts. But I love the game developers who make these games, maybe because I had more fun with them than sports at my shitty high school, but the least I can do, is return the favor by giving them my $$.

/adios

 

[Anah'ya]

...

I was tempted to stop reading when you brought up the comparison to data being transported over a network (hello, fellow Engineer, Security and Network Administrator here) and I am not going to bother formulating a reply to this one.

I didn't though, and I am not sure what to make of the rest of your reply.

My analogy here was that cars lose value, games do not. Thus the cut in a price by half and no money going back to the original car manufacturer, while the game is being re-sold in its first hand condition (the GAME, not the box) by someone who had no hand in creating it and cutting the developer from the profit of a first-hand sale.

This is me repeating myself.

Let's go look at your license argument. You know what the problem here is? The feeling of entitlement from players. As much as I appreciate the whole "I own something" notion and understand where people come from, this whole "I am entitled to this" thinking is ridiculous. Consumers on the gaming side are a greedy, entitled mass of people who seem to believe every developer and publisher with a wealth of successful titles to their names are trying to cheat them of their money and should bend over backwards and throw their creations at them with a cut in profit.

You don't cry at Adobe for selling you a license, and not an actual physical copy of Photoshop that you might even have to upgrade for another 200 bucks once the new version comes out. But you DO cry injustice when BioWare tells you that you have to pay some extra bucks to get the Cerberus network connection set up if you buy Mass Effect used.

Ugh.

Gamers are the most ungrateful and disrespectful bunch of consumers I have ever encountered.

 

[Yopaz]

Out of curiosity, wouldn't big game companies that sell games used have to pay some sort of royalties FOR selling the game used? Or do all the profits go towards them?

All profit to the company that sells it. That's the reason they are trying to limit the used sales as vigorously they are. Even when you buy a game new there's only 20-30% (I think) that actually goes to the developer, so they need to sell a lot of games before they make some actual profit. In theory though they should have to pay royalties due to the little note on every game these days claiming you buy the right to play the game, not the actual game. There has been no legal problems over used games so far so I guess they didn't have the law on their side in this matter.

OT: I would say the main difference between piracy and used sales is that used sales is legal. We're buying them for less than the price of new and the developer doesn't get any money from it. Production costs are huge so a less than flawless game wont bring in that much money,a decent game might be a loss for the company. We complain at the lack of innovation among those who create games, but would you take a risk if it meant you could lose most of your money and your job? It's dangerous to take risks so they stick with making games they know are popular. Making a new game form scratch wont benefit from existing popularity. If they knew that a game seemed exciting enough to make people interested and they knew it wasn't going to suffer from being sold when they were done playing it more innovation would come.

I might be wrong, but even if I am I still find it odd that retailer's get away with selling games like Duke Nukem Forever for 50-60 bucks at release and then buys them back at 20 because it turns out it sucked then sells it used at 40 bucks.

 

[feather240]

...

I was tempted to stop reading when you brought up the comparison to data being transported over a network (hello, fellow Engineer, Security and Network Administrator here) and I am not going to bother formulating a reply to this one.

I didn't though, and I am not sure what to make of the rest of your reply.

My analogy here was that cars lose value, games do not. Thus the cut in a price by half and no money going back to the original car manufacturer, while the game is being re-sold in its first hand condition (the GAME, not the box) by someone who had no hand in creating it and cutting the developer from the profit of a first-hand sale.

This is me repeating myself.

Let's go look at your license argument. You know what the problem here is? The feeling of entitlement from players. As much as I appreciate the whole "I own something" notion and understand where people come from, this whole "I am entitled to this" thinking is ridiculous. Consumers on the gaming side are a greedy, entitled mass of people who seem to believe every developer and publisher with a wealth of successful titles to their names are trying to cheat them of their money and should bend over backwards and throw their creations at them with a cut in profit.

You don't cry at Adobe for selling you a license, and not an actual physical copy of Photoshop that you might even have to upgrade for another 200 bucks once the new version comes out. But you DO cry injustice when BioWare tells you that you have to pay some extra bucks to get the Cerberus network connection set up if you buy Mass Effect used.

Ugh.

Gamers are the most ungrateful and disrespectful bunch of consumers I have ever encountered.

What about scratches on the disc from users and bit rot?

 

[WaruTaru]

Videogames sell DLC and merchandising. And if gaming gets more mainstream then games could sell licenses to books and movies (this already sorta happens).

DLC? I'll give you DLC:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/03/02/dragon-age-ii-dlc-already-this-is-silly/

What the link says. Do you want developers holding back content and release them as DLC? Thats right.

Mainstream gaming? Sure. Zynga, Angry Birds, Plants vs Zombies. EA even went out of their way to buy Popcap. That is where "mainstream" is.

Regarding books and movies. How many gamers actually went and buy a book or see a movie about the game they are playing? I certainly don't. I didn't even know some games have books until I Googled it 5 minutes ago. Don't even get me started on merchandising for games.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

My take: I'll buy games at whatever price I wish, with fuck all consideration to the company. I have no qualms about waiting several months to years to get games at $5 to $20.

 

[Sig-ma]

Independent studies have shown that companies actually only lose around 1% of their revenue from piracy. They lose a little more from used game sales but it is nowhere near what they make it out to be. The key point to remember is many games that are pirated or purchased used for a fraction of the price would not have been a sale for the company anyway-- which is what the game publishers are treating their statistics as.

They honestly believe every single person who pirated their game or purchased it used is a $60 sale they just lost. This isn't even remotely close to the truth. Your average gamer only purchases 3-5 new games per year. Most people who pirate or buy used end up with far more than that. Considering how game companies seem exempt from the quality control standards of many other industries, it is even less surprising. When people spend $60 for something such as Fallout: New Vegas and it doesn't even work properly or the experience is mostly ruined, people are more likely to sell their game to make up for their losses (essentially making the statement that the game was not worth what they paid for it).

The problem with roping off content or always-on requirements is it solves nothing. It only hurts people who legitimately purchased the game or simply can't afford to spend that kind of money on games that look interesting to them. The pirates will still crack the game within a week and it won't have any of those requirements-- often times it actually ends up running smoother. If you're going to charge people $10 for some sewers that were originally part of the game and then you pulled it out to increase your profits from the used sale crowd, all you're really doing is sending a bad message. Most (I'm going to go ahead and guess, 80-85%) of the people who buy the game used aren't going to bother with the $10 content.

I know a lot of people who don't have "always-on" internet and won't be able to play due to it. That's just wrong for a single-player game.

What's funny is if you've ever read the Masters of Doom it tells a story about John Carmack (the head of id Software) breaking into a building and stealing a bunch of computers. When he was asked if he'd do it again if he had never been caught, he said, "yes, definitely." Piracy indeed. Tim Willits is a smuck. With how the economy is and not as much free cash flowing around, companies are simply becoming too greedy. If they sold their products at a lower price and actually had decent quality control and focused on the game being fun rather than a generic clone of something we've seen a hundred times before, it would do much better.

Just look at the success of many indie games or the Nintendo Wii. Lower price points were a significant chunk of why they sold so well.

 

[WaruTaru]

But the used games have already been sold legally to you, and you then sell the product to the game store. They're two separate transactions. All done through legal avenues. There is nothing wrong, legally or otherwise, with selling something you own.

Now if you want to talk about business model, maybe game stores should come to some sort of agreement as to used game sales and how they can strike a balance between their profits and the profits of the producers of the game, but as-is, this system of punishing consumers who are doing nothing wrong by locking-out portions of the product they're buying is wrong, and I'm shocked as to how many people are in favour of the basic concept of a transaction, or the even more basic concept of ownership, being undermined.

Doesn't stop it from becoming a legal pirate. The value of an abstract entertainment media is the enjoyment factor. Once you've played a game, read a book, watched a movie or listened to a music, and you have had enough of it, you have exhausted the entertainment value of the media. These media are different from ownership because property ownership (cars, house) do not have entertainment value, and thus cannot be exhausted as such. Their use is infinite, so long as the property remains in good shape.

If game shops re-sell used game, each time someone buys the re-used version instead of a brand new version, they player exhausts the entertainment value of the game, and the game shop extinguishes interest in the game. The player will not buy a new copy to replace a broken one if they have already completed the game. A completed, broken game is not the same as a broken house, which you WILL replace.

With regards to the business model, read this http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/braben-calls-for-action-against-pre-owned-sales (A bit dated, but it still applies even today!)

 

[mirasiel]

Ok I'm going to be a little cruel here: You do not deserve to get paid twice for the same item. You may wish really, really hard but you dont have any legal right to double,triple or qaudruple payment

In fact I'm pretty sure there have been court cases already dealing with the the issue of 'licensing v selling' argument and they came out in favour of 'selling' side but damn if software companies dont keep on trying to override consumer rights and failing, just like books did, just like records did, just like movies did....

And retailers do? They profit multiple times for selling the same copy over and over.

Do point out a source for the "Licensing vs Selling". I'd love to read about it.

Musicians perform in live concerts for extra revenue. Books sell their license to movies and videogames. Movies make their moola from box office tickets and merchandising. What do video games get?

Musicians, authors and movie stars are individuals who can make millions from their creative art. Can you say the same for video games? Games keep you entertained for far longer than movies and music and books. But when you compare the list of millionaires, how many game-industry persons can you see?

No wonder Zynga is a rising star. Appeal to the lowest denominator for the win. Triple-A games be damned.

You dont seem to get that the retailers are doing something to earn being paid again, they have to BUY those used copies from people rather than just whinging that they deserve more money for not doing anything more.

Vernor v autodesk is one case that springs to mind (the case is still on-going with appeals) & microsoft v someone (though sadly microsoft basically fold like a house of cards when actually challeneg, probably because they knew that loss would be much worse than public humilation) .

To be blunt if triple a titles where actually worth the stupid prices they charged you wouldn't see 8 or 9 fucking copies of them 5 days after release, so please dont give me that shit about how triple-a games keep you entertained longer because if they did....there wouldn't be this issue about the 2nd hand market, no?

Cant have a 2nd hand market without the first hand buyers getting rid of their games.

 

[Lunamaria]

I almost never post but I wanted to let my mind out on a few of the points here.

Used games cannot be sold unless the disc is readable. Once the disc is readable you have the product: The Game. Data. Does. Not. Deteriorate. Data will stay data, unless you are a complete knob-head, install the game, break the disc and then delete the game on your HD.

I have games on DVD and CDs that have been in their cases and well looked after and some of them indeed no longer work. The lifespan on a DVD or CD can vary a lot, I know they are meant to last for at least thirty years but some don't. Getting a pre owned game does cut the length of your game lifespan a little even if its not a lot.

Now anyone who is bringing up physical objects as comparison. Cars are not a good one. At least here in the UK, you still get your car serviced and MOTed and when you do chances are you will get a few new parts put in. The manufacturer and the dealership will both still be making money from you, in the case of new and used cars. Its far better to think of games as houses.

When you get a house that has never been lived in you pay for that privilege, even if really it makes no difference. You pay at least £25,000 extra for a house no one has lived in. Even if you repaint the house so it looks like brand new again, that value is never coming back. The privilege of being the first to live there is gone. Take a note though, building developers don't get money from secondary sales. Its the same with games, at least it used to be. Think of it as a shrinkwrap charge, that is what you are paying for. The smell of a new game.

This is what game developers and publishers should be doing. Rather than limiting their game, they want to be selling bonuses. The good way of doing this is good quality DLC, since they are getting all the money from it and having cheaper copies of the game floating around could actually help those sales. Then later game of the year versions that help further new game sales with that DLC already in it.

Some games have done it another good way, actually giving you something else to go with the the shrinkwrap charge. Giving free DLC to those one to buy the game new. If second hand owners want to do it they have to pay extra, taking it roughly up to full price, Bioware has been doing this. I am aware you could count this as limiting the game. I just see this and the example above acceptable ways of dealing with the issue as far as I am concerned. But then I am mostly a PC gamer and buy maybe four games a year. Some games, like the new Ace Combat I will buy brand new. Others I will get in the sales or preowned.

Maybe its just me, but unwrapping a brand new copy of Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 or Civilisation V and getting that fresh plastic smell, it has excitement. When I pick up a copy of Metal Gear Solid 2 or GTA V used, its still fun to play for the first time. It isn't however the same, something undefinable is lost. At least that is what I feel, maybe I am crazy.

If developers put forwards some sort of tax for shops to resell video games. Then carboot sales are where people will go to pick up games.