While I may not have read all of the replies, I think I can speak for most gamers when I say, used games wouldn't be such a problem if the games had, what was that term now... Ah, yes! Lasting Appeal.
For example; Lost Planet 2. Bought new, got bored, traded in and got a copy of San Andreas on the PC instead. Now, I dunno about you, but I buy used because they play as well as, or in some cases better than the newer games, and I can ask people if the damn game is any good.
That being said, why should I pay more for GTA IV when San Andreas is almost universally regarded, so far as I can tell, as the better game? The problem, to me, isn't used sales, it's the devs settling on mediocrety, on safety, on what works and not trying to make the kind of game that you'll want to keep for years to come. Case in point? I still have my original copy of Gran Turismo, and I still play it, albeit via emulator nowadays, because I don't trust the PS3 to not wreck it and the PS2 won't read the disc anymore, while my PS1 kicked the bucket a while ago.
That, to me, is lasting appeal. A game I still play as often as I play its full-HD successor, and while what constitutes lasting appeal may differ between gamers, perhaps the fact that my local game shop still has Modern Warfare 2 used priced higher than Black Ops used, with the former harder to find than the latter used should say something about the lasting appeal of those games, if only to supply an example of "lasting appeal"
I say to the devs, don't waste assloads of money trying to secure more first-hand sales through low moves such as one-time codes. If the game was good enough to be kept off a gamer's trade-in list for some time then that's the mark of a good game, so give yourselves a pat on the back and repeat. It's simple; you don't need a one time code or lots of DLC if the game is good enough that the code will only be needed once, that is if the game grows enough on someone for he or she to not want to trade it in for some other game.
I say, don't give us more of the same every time, but I'm not saying constant revolutions to the genre, I'm just suggesting the money and resources spent on the crap Sony and a lot of devs are pulling nowadays would be better spent making a game that is going to stay on a gamer's shelf for years to come, and not for poor trade-in value, but for the fact that the guy who bought it is going to enjoy the game for years to come, no matter how far technology marches on
Lemme put it another way. I usually play a certain brand spanking new console game a few hours a week. I completed Ace Combat: Squadron Leader in a day, then went right back through the campaign because the story was that god-damn well written. I've clocked more hours on that old PS2 game than I clocked on H.A.W.X. and its sequel combined, and that wasn't because of the graphics, it was because the game was nearly flawless in its execution and it had an incredibly well-written story, to the point that I actually gave a damn when Alvin H. Davenport crashed his plane into the stadium because he waited for the evacuation to complete so that there would be no civilian casualties, despite probably losing the ability to bail out in the process of doing so.
Now, in HAWX 2, when your squad leader and one of your squad mates get nuked by way of orbital laser, I was long the lines of "Meh". I traded in HAWX because it wasn't good enough to net a place on the long-term shelf. I still have that old Ace Combat, and all the PS1/2 ace combats on that shelf because they're games that were good enough to make me want to keep them for years.
