Used Games are simply another form of Piracy (THQ joins EA to stop the used games market)

[shadow skill]

-HUUURR-

The one and only point this person has spent hours quibbling over, is thus: Entertainment is a consumable commodity which consumption does not outright destroy or noticeably damage. Thus, it is unique, and therefor subject to different rules than any other commodity.

My attempts at explaining this were simply met with quibbles. The only mistake I made the was validating the quibbles of an insufferable pedant. After so much quibbling, I simply stopped arguing with him, and instead used his points to support my own. Which they do.

Oh please you predicated your entire argument in two threads on the idea that in the case of games what is being resold is identical unlike a car or some other object. Myself and others have pointed out to you in both threads that this assertion on your part is false because the storage media degrades over time which eventually leads to data loss, which of course means that the item being resold is not truly identical.

-HUUURR-

The one and only point this person has spent hours quibbling over, is thus: Entertainment is a consumable commodity which consumption does not outright destroy or noticeably damage. Thus, it is unique, and therefor subject to different rules than any other commodity.

My attempts at explaining this were simply met with quibbles. The only mistake I made the was validating the quibbles of an insufferable pedant. After so much quibbling, I simply stopped arguing with him, and instead used his points to support my own. Which they do.

You know from a book publisher's point of view the guy who goes to a bookstore and sits down and reads a book in it's entirety or in part and then walks out without buying a copy is the same as the person who gets a book from a friend and reads it. Someone who read the material without paying for it. What do you not see? A big deal made out of it where books are printed with special invisible ink requiring a goddamn decoder ring!

They don't care because it doesn't cost $60,000,000 to write a fucking book. They get thousands upon thousands of manuscripts daily which they either reject or accept at their leisure.

You think that doesn't happen for game publishers? You think that doesn't happen for any kind of publisher? The cost of games vs. books is irrelevant as the "loss" would still be there for both types of publishers who have operating costs in their respective businesses.

... are you okay? I think I either broke you or you quoted the wrong post...

No I quoted the right post, read more carefully.

 

[cjneon]

publishers don't care about 1:1 used games sales (ie ebay, to your friends etc) because theres no profit made by any party

they care about retailers, ie game sell me fifa 10 for £39.99, i then trade it for £15, they then resell it for £25-30, the publishers care about the double profit made by the retailers.

I can understand this, simple answer is that us the consumers need to stop being morons and getting ripped off by the retailers on trade values, selling thru ebay or play is much better or direct to your friends.

 

[Cody211282]

It's not another form of Piracy.

Second hand marketing has been around for ages, and nobody has complained about them before. We have all been OK with second hand stores for clothing, buying used Television sets, flea markets, the works. But now, because video game publishers say it's hurting the industry, it's suddenly wrong?

Fuck no, it's not wrong.

You're missing the point.

Used games are causing the same kind of damage as piracy is.

No he didn't.

Just because wars and hurricanes can cause equal destruction, they are both therefore the same?

His point is, piracy means the game makers never get to see money. After the game has been purchased however, it is legal to sell it forward. Just like a bicycle or a car. Because that particular copy has become the property of the buyer when it left the store.

Piracy means illegally acquiring a product.

Second-hand sales means legally acquiring a used product, which cannot afterwards be used by the original purchaser. The creator of said product has been paid for his work.

The basic legalese here is the same, no matter if we are talking of cars, TVs, or video games.

What the big game publishers and whatnot are doing is equating lost potential profit with stealing. And that is just stupid. You don't see Nokia blaming cell-phone repairs and second-hand sales for the failiures of their products, or inability to meet market expectations, which both contribute to losses in comparison to potential profit.

you nailed it right on the head and I couldn't have said it any better myself.

 

[conflictofinterests]

Oh, this thread again. People being surprised about big companies taking action to make more money.

 

[Sovereignty]

You know, maybe I'm missing something here.

But this worries me not for the obvious reasons both sides of this argument have pointed out...

But what happens in 5 years when the company isn't PRODUCING the damn game!?

I tried to buy a new copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8... They don't sell them. I contacted KOEI. They told me tough luck. I went on Ebay, and bought one.

Hell, try tracking down a new copy of Tribes: Aerial Assault.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I do like the other thing EA are doing however. Well I think it is EA. What they are doing(or whoever it is) you get free DLC for buying your game first hand but if you buy it second hand you have to pay for DLC I think is a fair system if you ask me.

 

[shadow skill]

Oh, this thread again. People being surprised about big companies taking action to make more money.

What surprises me is the people who buy into this stupid argument, not the corporations taking this position.

 

[Limzz]

I kinda agree. Stores like Game Stop are making pure profit off the game companies' hard work.

 

[Druyn]

I see... So buying a used car is simply another form of stealing? Guess car dealerships are out of luck then... I mean, if they even had any left with the recession and all.

Seriously, make up your minds... "Stealing a game is the same as stealing a TV. You would steal the TV, wo why the game?"
Then "Buying used games is just another form of stealing?"

So logically, isnt buying anything used a form of stealing now? No cars, no electronics, no board games, toys, puzzles, tools, machinery. Fuck, technically even houses.

 

[Ravenkliff]

The difference is, one pirated game can be downloaded by six thousand people and all of them play it at once. If I sell a game to someone over Ebay, I lose that game and they gain it. Thus they still have one user per person playing it.

 

[WorldCritic]

Again, this is retarded. Nice EA.

 

[crypt-creature]

And that way brought us where? As both piracy rates and re-sell/trade-in buisness grows i dont see loads of better games comming out. On the contrary, publishers care more and more about money made rather than quality of product just to fill the gaps (or plain greed, or other economical variables that end-user is usually not concerned abour or aware of).
Its a circle of insanity that does no good.


Companies have right to see second hand game buisness as bad, because they get a crap out of it. Its the bottom line for all the fuss.

Same time, plenty of people appear to be so concerned with the fact that they wont get 'full' game (as in without all the DLC) from the used game they bought. Want something to come with all the features? Buy retail. You cant afford it? Tough life, you dont need to it surive or you canb live with a product lacking some features.
You only have right to complain if you buy a retail product from a licensed retailer. Anything else is your own risk and your own fault.

Of course it's insanity. But that is business these days, more insanity and less logic because they are oh so concerned about the mighty $$.
Which is fine, we all need $$. But it's not easy, and usually takes a while. Companies want instant success and results, which usually doesn't do that well in the long run.

Yes, they have a right to dislike second-hand outlets. But they might be going about it in a way that is probably not a good idea or great solution, more a temporary fix.

Yes, the people so concerned with DLC either need to buy the game new or live with buying a used copy and having some features cut.
My point was if more companies follow EA, the games selling their selves on extra DLC better have that content up or be able to be accessed for the rest of eternity.
That and... I'd hope that they wouldn't intentionally shaft people to try and make them pay more for the DLC than the actual game (like, buy the product and it's short and generally lacking in features. But wait! Pay Company X more money and you can have more content that probably should have been in included in the disc anyway! We just wanted to make sure you'd buy our product before we gave you anything good... that we're making you pay extra for!)

Personally, there are plenty of games that I wish would just come with the game and not try to advertise the DLC so much. Which might be part of the problem, in the packaging companies are putting too much focus on the extra DLC (like the game is nothing without it.... and if that's true for a game, then it's just a crap game) and it aggravates people. DLC is a nice perk, not a necessity (I've seen some games where it comes off as such).
On the one hand, it gets people to buy the game for extra DLC goodies. On the other, for those who don't want/can't afford/don't have the means to get the content... it's pretty annoying. It can make consumers feel cheated out of their money.

 

[DancePuppets]

Second-hand sales means legally acquiring a used product, which cannot afterwards be used by the original purchaser. The creator of said product has been paid for his work.

The publisher has been paid once and yet two people have played the game for that money. Piracy is simply that on a larger scale, and usually gets more money from pirates who later bought the game.

A car manufacturer manufactures one car.

It goes to a taxi driver, who drives people around in it for a year.

It then gets sold to a family of 4.

Three years later, a college kid buys it out to sqeeze out the last few dozen k miles out from it.

One car. Manufacturer got paid once. The store got paid once.

Several people used it.

Explain to me how this is car piracy.

I just like the idea of car piracy! It sounds fun!

 

[shadow skill]

-derp-

So are you planning on saying something relevant to that post or not?

As far as media degradation, it isn't an issue. Time and time again you and people like you have said it takes 2-25 years (nice spread) for disc media to degrade. Which renders the entire point utterly irrelevant to the issue at hand. As the large retail chains who prompted this thread, either do not accept at all, or only pay pennies for games once they passed 2 years of age.

To make this relevant to cars, as thats the example you like to beat off, a large dealer chain would have to enact a business model built around people buying cars for full price, driving them once, then selling it back to the dealer for a credit of 10% of what they paid towards another used car operated in exactly the same way. They would also have to somehow turn a profit from this business model. Would you buy into this business model? No, because that would be fucking stupid and no one else would either. Because cars, are not, consumable in any way, shape, or form. They steadily degrade, becoming worse and worse and worse. They may even still function even after bluebook declares they have no value. But their degradation is a steady slope.

Digital media does not degrade the way any other commodity does. Digital media is exactly as functional as the day it was printed onto a disc until one day, it isn't. But that day does not coincide in any way, shape, or form, with use. Its a completely flat line at "100% functional" until, bam, "0% functional."

Oh, this thread again. People being surprised about big companies taking action to make more money.

What surprises me is the people who buy into this stupid argument, not the corporations taking this position.

Like I said to you before, this is retail chains vs publishers/developers. And you're squarely on the side of the force that contributes the absolute least.

This isn't retail chains vs developers. It is publishers vs. the used game market. Any retail chain that comes into existence in large part because of used game sales only does so as a side effect of the market forces involved. Why do you think that the actions of the publishers are not actually against the retail chains (They keep driving business towards the likes of Gamestop as it is.) and are instead against the consumers who make up the used game market?

Saying that digital media does not degrade doesn't make any sense because the storage media the information has to live on to actually do anything does degrade over time. Such degradation does not even present itself in the form of an all or nothing scenario all the time. Discs that become damaged over the course of their use may simply cause parts of a game to not work like they did at first. You may encounter a glitch in a particular scene that you did not before because of an error produced by wear on the storage media. Hard drives for example may build up bad sectors over time, or even begin to silently lose data just because of what happens to the drive physically. (Solid State drives.)

 

[shadow skill]

You know, maybe I'm missing something here.

But this worries me not for the obvious reasons both sides of this argument have pointed out...

But what happens in 5 years when the company isn't PRODUCING the damn game!?

I tried to buy a new copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8... They don't sell them. I contacted KOEI. They told me tough luck. I went on Ebay, and bought one.

Hell, try tracking down a new copy of Tribes: Aerial Assault.

I don't understand the logic behind paying some **** when a ps2 modchip (+torrent) will likely be cheaper and more effective.

Provided you can follow directions...

This isn't retail chains vs developers. It is publishers vs. the used game market.

OHH! ... Well damned, here I thought the only reason any publisher cared about "used games" were places like gamestop and their "used game scam" and they don't give anything resembling a shit about the actual "used game" market.

OH WAIT, BECAUSE IT FUCKING IS, HOLY SHIT!

So no answer for why these publishers continue to drive sales towards corporations like Gamestop, or why all of the actions taken have been designed to make selling a game used by any means less than worth it for the consumer?

 

[shadow skill]

You know, maybe I'm missing something here.

But this worries me not for the obvious reasons both sides of this argument have pointed out...

But what happens in 5 years when the company isn't PRODUCING the damn game!?

I tried to buy a new copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8... They don't sell them. I contacted KOEI. They told me tough luck. I went on Ebay, and bought one.

Hell, try tracking down a new copy of Tribes: Aerial Assault.

I don't understand the logic behind paying some **** when a ps2 modchip (+torrent) will likely be cheaper and more effective.

Provided you can follow directions...

This isn't retail chains vs developers. It is publishers vs. the used game market.

OHH! ... Well damned, here I thought the only reason any publisher cared about "used games" were places like gamestop and their "used game scam" and they don't give anything resembling a shit about the actual "used game" market.

OH WAIT, BECAUSE IT FUCKING IS, HOLY SHIT!

So no answer for why these publishers continue to drive sales towards corporations like Gamestop, or why all of the actions taken have been designed to make selling a game used by any means less than worth it for the consumer?

What choice do they have beyond retail? Thus: no answer. How do you undermine practices which undermine you without affecting those that engage in similar practices? Thus: no answer.

Digital distribution isn't ready, publishers don't have the capital to start large chains, collateral damage is unavoidable.

Simple shit, dawg. (retard speak used in hopes of further driving home how simple this shit be, yo)

Conversely, I want to know how publishers convinced retail chains to carry games preloaded with and requiring steam.

It's actually not that hard, or a strategy unknown to them. It's called entering the market directly. Gamestop happens to be a large company the simplest way to handle the "problem" of used game sales is to simply enter the market and compete with Gamestop which would force them to give up their practices of scamming customers on used games. Trying to destroy the market itself won't actually get rid of Gamestop because these same publishers still keep driving business towards them. If they want to actually hurt Gamestop they need to compete with them directly and stop driving business towards them. Stop giving them special pre-order deals, etc.

That you are too brain dead to realize this is not the fault of anyone but yourself. The movie industry bitched and moaned when VHS came out. Fast forward a few decades and most of the money they make actually comes from rentals! Do you honestly believe that these huge publishers do not have the capital to enter into the used game market? They don't have to use retail chains that they have built themselves. They could easily approach an existing retail chain and make a deal with them, and start driving business towards the chains associated with them.

 

[Nick Holmgren]

Major exception is that unlike bicycles and other things you don't by games anymore. You pay for the license to them most of the time. Almost every PC game has this policy and has had it for years. If a console game has the same policy on it then resale of that license is illegal as it is not the physical disc but an agreement between you and the company you have paid for with another agreement between the company and the retailer that they may broker this deal and possibly profit form it within certain guidelines.