Not many people are willing to dump 60 dollars on a game that they may not find fun or may only last them a couple of hours. I know I'm not, I purchase games almost exclusively on sale simply because I am no longer willing to pay exorbitant prices for them, much in the same way that I will not pay 10-12 dollars to see a movie in the theater (I go to the weekend morning matinees for 5.50).
The irony here of course is that by the logic that a pirated game is an automatic lost sale, the same applies for me buying a steeply discounted game. Because I did not purchase the game at release, the company "lost" money by me not doing so. The fact that I purchased it later at a different price doesn't even enter into the equation. Non-sequitur much?
The real joke here though, is the concept that a company that gives away its product will make no money off of that product. I'm fairly certain this concept has be grossly disproved thanks to the release of hundreds of free-to-play MMOs. Did SOE not just release a press statement saying that their sales went up by 700% during the few weeks after releasing DCUO as free-to-play?
There's also the subject of returns. No software is eligible for return or resale except for console games (and thanks to the bullshit the industry is pulling with cd-keys that is slowly evaporating). Say a game releases with significant launch problems, or say there is a specific problem which prevents your hardware from running that game. Congratulations, you now own a 60 dollar paper weight (that wont even do that). Instead of the company incurring financial loss due to shoddy product design, the end consumer now has to foot that loss.
While I'm on the subject of consumer returns, why don't game publishers offer buy back programs? Do we not have such a highly effective mail network in this day and age that we can ship an object for a few dollars halfway across the globe in three to five business days? Why can't a publisher buy and sell new and used games straight from their website and then mail them direct to door? This would effectively allow the publisher to control the used game market and cut out middle men like Gamestop, giving them a huge profit when it comes to resell of used games (since they're making exactly nothing on used games currently).
If the publishers want to cry about lost sales, then they need to stop funneling money into sleazy profiteers like Gamestop. Wake up pubs! This is the digital age. You don't have to go through Steam, or EA, or Direct 2 Drive, you can host your own digital distribution AND physical distribution services which will net you both increased revenue and allow you to control content.
Don't just stop there though, allow owners of digital copies to TRADE OR RESELL THOSE DIGITAL COPIES. Don't devalue digital versions of games when all we end users are buying anyway are CD-Keys (and don't even try to convince anyone that the physical copy is worth more because its physical, when you have to activate it on steam anyway.
