Used games

[JohnnyDelRay]

Although used games make up a rather small proportion of my collection, I will say that it's allocated me a bit more money to spend on the games that I actually want to buy and own new, or on sale. Without them, I'm sure my spending and consideration would have to be cut down. And not even because I can't afford them, I can afford them just fine, but it's a bit of a budget allocation towards 'entertainment' which is really the hardest to justify.

One reason I am against culling used games however is the methods which will be used to enforce it. If your system dies, you will have to do a bit of migration in order to play on another system. Which is a small hassle really, but if something were to happen to your profile, you'd be in a bit of a mess...all those games useless until it gets sorted out. Another thing is lending games to friends, I mean you could do it like the kindle method of a trial period of 2 weeks or whatever, but honestly the fact that you can't lend a game to a friend would suck BIG time, as this is how I got into almost every franchise I play nowadays - trading between my brother, friends, his friends etc.

And I am so sick of the used car argument. Because yes, a car deteriorates over time. But hardly any other form of "media" does, unless you are talking about VHS and cassette tapes. We can lend DVDs, music, and games to each other now, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to in the future, it's not going to "cut into your sales" if someone wants to try it, but aren't going to unless they can try it first, you dolts. Well maybe they would, but not that many at $60-$100 a pop (in Australia). Even on "sale"

 

[wulf3n]

And I am so sick of the used car argument. Because yes, a car deteriorates over time.

I don't get why people think the "deterioration" response is valid.

The Idea behind the used car comparison is that they're both physical items wholly owned by the person that purchased them, which entitles the owner to resell if they wish.

Sure there are differences between a game and a car, but those differences are irrelevant with regards to the issue being discussed.

 

[Brotha Desmond]

I think that they both make valid points, but it feels like they are just demonizing the opposite parties.
Jim blames the publishers while Total biscuit blames the game companies.
My thoughts are I don't think that used sales damage publishers that much, but I'm willing to have a middle ground. Five dollar pass for used games.

 

[Snotnarok]

Used games are bad for pubs, we get that but then instead of punishing their customers by offering less, why don't they lower the price and give sales?
Yes shipping, packaging is different than Steam but games launch at $60 bucks, then you wait for a price drop and if it's popular? That doesn't happen, it just sells out and that's it...except there's the used copy, right there. For a better price.
And that used copy? Hell if I want to sell my physical copy of a game, I should be able to. Take the online out of it for used buyers fine because whatever that's a serial number sorta deal anyway (used to that with PC) but it's crazy to be told you can't sell something you own and bought.

Do something that offers customers a better deal, or give them reasons to keep coming back instead of hammering out a new game every freaking year. Valve launched TF2 and that's 6 years old now and it's still updated and still gets money, okay granted you can't sell TF2 but imagine if the console versions were allowed to update freely and they gave portions of the sales to MS and sony?
That would be just money being flung all around for a old ass game but instead it's blocked by strange policies and basically greed. CoD a new one comes out every year, same engine,same idea every time and it's 60 dollars for the game and then 60 dollars in map packs total same cycle every year.Why not just do new map packs since no one even bothers with the freaking single player, and if they want to keep that going expect used sales of that! When sales get stale, make a new game...as in a new engine ...that isn't the doom 3 engine modified from how many years ago?

 

[Souplex]

They are a good thing that I rarely use.

 

[FoolKiller]

Ea do well because EA make some of the best selling games on the market (Activision do as well but only the one game a year)

You do realize that the biggest money maker for Activision isn't actually Call of Duty, right?

And I love used games not because I don't want to support the game makers but because a lot of times I can't find a new copy. I have a huge backlog in one case and only got a PS3 a year ago. I can't find a lot of the games for it unless they're used.

 

[emeraldrafael]

I rather like used games. They're cheap ways to play games that otherwise would be too expensive to enjoy at full price when you're on a budget. I agree more with Jim than I do TB but then again i have friends who work in gamestop too and it bugs me when someone says gamestop is evil just cause they want to make money.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Almost every other game I own was bought used so, yeah, I like them

 

[Windcaler]

I dont think used games are a problem but I think companies solely based around the sale of used games are a problem. Im very much of the belief that when you buy a game you own all of it. You own the plastic and metal in a disk and you own the files contained within. That is your property and you have a right to do whatever you want with it. You can sell it, you can mod it, you can destroy it if you like. Its yours.

The problem comes when used games businesses get involved and actively push people to buy used instead of buying new. Basicly they are specialized pawn shops without the option to even pawn something. I dont think any of this would be a big issue if you could just return a game. You can get an exchange, generally for the same product, but you cant return one and you havnt been able to for years.

Now Im mostly a PC gamer and we havnt had the capability to return or sell games en mass for years but that in itself has diluted the idea of ownership. Instead we have DRM riddled digital distribution systems like STEAM, Origin, and Desura. Yes we get great sales with steam but I dont really like steam for a variety of reasons. We dont get such massive sales on other DD services, you get some but not nearly as many or as deep. Then theres the fact that you just cant get some games except on 1 and only 1 DD service. You can only get EA games off of origin, I can only get Valve games off of STEAM, last I checked I could only buy Bethesda games on STEAM, and theres no physical copies anymore. My brother went and bought a retail copy of Xcom for me last christmas (I loved the thoguht but its just an awful game when I compare it to the 1993 one) and it required steam. It didnt say anywhere on the box that I had to have steam to use it either. This just annoys me to no end and there really should be some kind of law against that kind of thing

Dont get me wrong here, Im not saying DD services are innately bad but they do have several shortcomings. If people want to accept those shortcomings, ok its their money and I have no right to tell them how to spend it. However, where are the physical copies for me? Maybe I dont want to sit there while my DSL connection downloads a 6 gb game for a couple of hours (as opposed to the 10-15 mins it takes to install Borderlands off the disk). Maybe I dont want to deal with a DD service because I dont agree with their business decisions. Maybe I think that a company is on a slow spiral toward bankruptcy and I dont want to be locked into a system where I cant get my games off of when it shuts down. At the end of the day I can take my physical copy of Morrowind or Dragon Age Origins and if I take care of it it'll always serve me but I cant control what goes on with a companies servers. For any reason, actually for no reason, Steam could close down my account and take away the ability to play games I purchased from them and thats a problem. If one day STEAM does something really really really wrong and I never want to do business with them again, Im stuck. I'll loose thousands of dollars worth of merchandise that Im supposed to own but dont really

One of the most frustrating parts about all this is my friends and I loan/borrow games a lot but I cant do that with my PC. If a friend comes over from a long day of work and we have dinner together when I see hes tired and needs to unwind I cant give him a disk and say "here man, try this out".

For all its faults, I still think PC gaming is superior in the sense that we have cheaper games, have a wider variety of games, and can customize our hardware to our own needs. However I would be a fool if I didnt speak out against the faults of the businesses that have locked down the PCs gaming market. PC used to be an open gaming platform, not so much since the rise of digital distribution where a few companies rule over us with their DRM disguised DD services.

At the end of the day we all have our different opinions and theyre all valid as long as theyre based on factual information. We dont have to like or agree with other peoples opinions. My opinion is used games have a place in this market and they always will. However its not used games thats the problem, its these pawn shops in disguise

 

[AD-Stu]

Another aspect that I don't think has been fully accounted for is the damage that getting rid of used games could do to new game sales - as in there's a subset (possibly a large subset) of people who buy games new specifically because they know they have the option to sell it back to the retailer a week later.

My brother is a console gamer, for example, and I know it's pretty common for him to buy a game new and then if it's not something he's likely to play again he'll trade it back in. If the option to trade back in didn't exist, there's a large number of games he either wouldn't buy at all, or would at least wait until the retail price came way down. Whether that would be made up for by titles that he'd be forced to buy new because second hand options didn't exist any more I don't know...

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

And I am so sick of the used car argument. Because yes, a car deteriorates over time.

I don't get why people think the "deterioration" response is valid.

The Idea behind the used car comparison is that they're both physical items wholly owned by the person that purchased them, which entitles the owner to resell if they wish.

Sure there are differences between a game and a car, but those differences are irrelevant with regards to the issue being discussed.

I agree wholeheartedly. But they don't want you to feel that you own what you pay for, they want full control over it. So you only get to use what a company allows you to, such as the words that come about like 'license', 'pass', I may have phrased a bit wrong because I was in a bit of a rush, but the reason I'm sick of the 'used car' argument is also because things that deteriorate we have been lending and selling since a long time ago. And also the same with things that don't. That's just the argument I used when people pull the stupid "it's not like a used car" card.

 

[FreakofNatur]

Problem: Used Games

Issues:
-Games are costly, retailers are pushing those used copies over new copies.
-"Anti-developer" in nature as the developers don't earn any money from such a transaction
-Intellectual property laws are inadequate to deal with such sensitive issues

My view:
Developers make good games and the retailers buy them. Most developers go through distribution platforms/retailers to "sell" their games. In truth, they have already sold the game to the retailers(for physical copies) and for digital platform, they benefit the most as there is no "used games" issue to deal with.

Most PC gamers are buying their copies digitally. Physical copies are more for consoles rather than for PC games. Look at your shop shelf. How many console games: PC games do you see?

For the console, used games are a necessity. Used games introduce. Used games advertise the company. Used games help the retailer and push their profits higher, making their distribution net expand(through higher profits). It's a necessity because it does not hurt the developer per se as the game has already been paid to the developer. If there are some kickback system for developers to receive royalties(paid from the retailer, not the consumer) it will make the transaction more fair because hey, AAA-quality games and game development in general costs a lot of money and we want our developers to be better off too.

(startrant)There is no analogy to support this as this is truly unique. Imagine making an analogy for a used spear to a used car. Totally different things; unnecessary for purpose of discussion. This is the escapist forums, not publicIRC1990. Every person on here has an inclination towards games, and using analogies don't help. Do explain your point in plain words. (/endrant)

The IP laws need to act as a fallback for DEVELOPERS, not the PUBLISHERS nor the RETAILERS. However the reality of "the law" is that IP law is treated as the U.S. interpretation of the law; seeing how megaupload was in New Zealand and still got hunted down by U.S. agents. Well, no hate, but looking at the political situation of the U.S from which we are dependent on - IP laws stilted towards the "big money" due to lobbying is more than likely to occur.

For that I am truly sad.

 

[Something Amyss]

Totalbiscuit is quite the gaming industry sycophant, and his arguments are lazy. A shame he's more into histrionics than discussion.

Used games hurt the industry quite a bit, If you go into a store they try and push the used games.

Even with the "pushing" of used games, there's no evidence of any harm done. In fact, games have remained damn healthy through the rise of Gamestop (the pusher in question), and the games industry is projecting huge growth on top of their existing growth.

This isn't just limited to games, retail across the board has to act like this otherwise someone else will open up a shop next door taking slightly less profit.

Actually, gaming gets a really poor markup compared to a good chunk of the rest of the market. "anyone who has worked in retail" should know that. Retailers are treated a lot better by other industries. One of the reasons the attempt to separate the new and used market is that it's hard to run a business on the kind of markup games have. There is no real business in trying to survive on that 2% markup on games, which is why most retailers use games to get people in the stores. The loss leader method doesn't just apply to games, but games are perhaps its most stark example of how things work. And still, loss leader methods rely on having something else with a high markup to offset it.

A game store doesn't have many options to work with here. And, quite frankly, if other products were treated this way, retail shops would be a colossal failure across the board.

 

[Racecarlock]

Right, so if I can't buy used anymore, can I get a refund directly from the publisher if the game sucks?

Seriously, am I buying games or playing god damn roulette? If you're not going to let me buy used, let me get a refund. Also, put some kind of lending system in place so I can let a friend play it for a bit.

I don't have infinite money to spend on games. If I did, I wouldn't be spending it on games, I would be getting roller coasters and carnival rides for the backyard. Or at the very least getting season passes for an amusement park. But I don't have infinite money, and games, used ones especially, are cheap. And they expose me to new franchises. Bought SR1 used, SR2 new, pre ordered the third.

Sorry I'm too nervous to spend half my weekly food budget plus 10 dollars on a game that might turn out to be total shit. But you are the guys that decide to put out review embargos and advertise your game with cinematic trailers instead of actual gameplay. I'm not playing keno here, I should be able to make more reliable bets. I should have some kind of safety net.

You know what the dominant genre is on this PC by far? Freeware. Know why? No risks. The biggest cost is hard drive space that I can free up if I don't like the game.

Is it really so hard to believe that I might want more value for my money? If I spend full price on a game, I should either be able to get a full refund or sell it used to at least cover my ass a little bit. Right now it's more like I'm betting on a horse race where most of the horses have asthma. I shouldn't feel like I'm entering a casino when I'm entering a game store.

So, know what? If you're going to block used games or illegalize used games, I'm just not going to buy the games in the first place. Oh, but then you'd probably blame freeware, indie games, and flash games. Claiming that they "Ripped off your game" and then suing them for copyright infringement and then I just give up.

 

[Entitled]

You can sell books, CDs, DVDs... why not games?

For the reasons that I just described above?

I just stated, that "games" are a form of information, and the difference information and property, is about as wide as the difference between bubblegum and objectivism.


If you disagree with any of that, then actually argue with my points, why do you think that information should be similar to property, instead of just repeating the inane question that "if you can sell [x] objects, then why not [y] intangible concepts as well?"

 

[Baldr]

Can someone tell me a good reason why the developer or anyone should earn from second hand sales?
Every other industry has second hand sales, so what's so different about games?

Not in every industry, only in the ones that sell physical products. Information is not a product, it's an abstract concept with no real scarcity, but potentially infinite access for everyone.


When you download a game, you are not getting "a copy", you are getting the permission to create a copy.

We might give it a certain artificial scarcity to give some distribution monopolies to the publisher, but why these monopolies should be granted in a way to semi-accurately mimick physical property, is not self-evident.

That's not how Europe works. If I buy something, it's mine, including licences.
So whether I got a copy of the game, or a licence to use the game, i'm allowed to sell it. And information is a product, just not a physical. Everything you sell is a product or a service. Since games are obviously not a service, it's a product.

You were asking for reasons why second hand sales SHOULD be controlled. Not legal statements for why it IS conrolled.

Europe can declare information to be a sellable product, and that won't make it so any more than if they would declare "faith in humanity" to be a sellable product, or the wetness of the ocean to be a separately sellable content, or fire on the top of a torch to be the property of the torch's holder, that they can move to another one's torch exactly once.

Information is different from property. Fundamentally. In it's very nature, it's something else. Products are defined by being physical.

When you have a milkshake, you can point at something and say "this is the milkshake".

When you have a story, there is nothing to point at, because "the story" doesn't even equal any of the copies that are made about it, but the very act of ideas and knowledge getting arranged in a particular pattern.

Intellectual property is different from the form the property is contained in, though.

If I buy a book, I have absolutely no ownership over the words within that book, and that is completely fair and how it should be. I have no ownership over that story. Can I still give that book to a friend for free? Yes. I absolutely can, because I own that book. I can absolutely sell that book and the information contained within. I cannot take that information out of the book and create a copy by myself and then sell that copy because that infringes copyright laws.

Why should games be any different?

If I have a disc with game information on it, that's no different from a book. The information the disc allows you to access is contained within that disc. It physically exists within that copy. That data is completely real. I can point at that disc or point at the file on my hard-drive and say, "This is the game." So why are games any different from a book?

I am totally within my rights to sell a copy of a game that I possess to someone else. I am not creating any additional copies of that game. I am not depriving the game company of a sale. I am simply disposing of my purchase to someone else. I no longer have any ownership of the game. I no longer have a copy. I have given my license to that service to someone else while depriving myself of the ability to play that game. Nothing has been lost to the game company.

Seriously, do you have to pay the author of a book every time you borrow a book from a library and read it? No, you don't, because that would be totally asinine and stupid. Intellectual property doesn't trump actual property rights.

A physical book is just that. It doesn't have to be supported by publisher once it leaves the shelf. Is there a typo? Can't fix that. There are no recalls. You see what you get. A game is not a physical entity per say. You can't tell what is in a game by looking at the disk. It has to be supported. Does it have multiplayer? The developers have to support servers too. It is a product and a service rolled into one.

But you can still pay for that service separately. In a lot of online games, you do pay for server support and the like. You still have to subscribe to use that game and access those servers. So the new owner does pay the companies in those cases.

Besides, if someone transfers a copy of a game to me, they have given up their right to access those services. They revoked their license to access those services and transferred it to me. If the game involves a subscription fee, I now pay that fee. If it doesn't require a subscription fee, then they haven't lost any money, because they weren't charging the original person either. The game companies are not providing an additional service to a new person who they were not providing those services to before. They are providing those services to the exact same number of people. Nothing has been lost.

Additionally, a whole ton of games aren't online or have no real need to be supported online. A lot of people never hook their consoles up to the internet. They never take advantage of those services. Should they still have to pay the game company for a used game?

Project $10 and the other pay for multiplayer was about that, if you bought a used game, then it would cost $10 for people to play multiplayer, while people who bought the game new got multiplayer free. It covered the service cost. And everyone complained and fought against that. I have no problems with used games. I have problems with the retailers, as long as they are out to undercut gamemakers, then I will not support used game sales.

 

[Baldr]

They are undercutting new game sales, for a matter of $1-$2. So instead of selling 2 or 3 games, they are selling 1 game to 2-3 people for that $1-$2 the customer saves, the publisher loses $8-$10. That adds up over thousands of sales. It is not economically helpful to anyone. Game develop lose money on projects and things that would be beneficial to players. Games would be cheaper. If you clearly don't see this, then there is something wrong.

But The publishers will not lower their prizes.... Why should they when they can get away with selling games for 60dollars? Don't come here and say that the publishers are some good guys that are looking after us. They are out to make money, they will make the most money if they sell their games for 60 dollars so they will keep selling games for 60 dollars

The publishers can't lower their prices. The retailers will undercut any sales price with a used copy. That point becomes economically beneficial at that point to keep the higher price. The reason the games stay at $60 is exactly because of the used games. Used games don't allow new games to depreciate in value.

 

[Baldr]

They are undercutting new game sales, for a matter of $1-$2. So instead of selling 2 or 3 games, they are selling 1 game to 2-3 people for that $1-$2 the customer saves, the publisher loses $8-$10. That adds up over thousands of sales. It is not economically helpful to anyone. Game develop lose money on projects and things that would be beneficial to players. Games would be cheaper. If you clearly don't see this, then there is something wrong.

But The publishers will not lower their prizes.... Why should they when they can get away with selling games for 60dollars? Don't come here and say that the publishers are some good guys that are looking after us. They are out to make money, they will make the most money if they sell their games for 60 dollars so they will keep selling games for 60 dollars

The publishers can't lower their prices. The retailers will undercut any sales price with a used copy. That point becomes economically beneficial at that point to keep the higher price. The reason the games stay at $60 is exactly because of the used games. Used games don't allow new games to depreciate in value.

If used games vanish, the publisher isn't just going to lower the prices out of the kindness of their heart. Without competition, there's zero reason to lower them. In fact, since players have no choice anymore, there's every reason to raise the prices, since there is no where else to buy them. You pay what they want, or you don't play at all. This is called a monopoly.

That is not true at all. Steam is good example of publishers lowering prices on games.

 

[Gameguy20100]

I will say it plainly used are not my problem because I don't care about them anymore.

but I will say this if you buy used because you cannot afford new games go ahead buy away you wont hear any complaints from me.

If you buy used to just spite the publisher then you're a prick.

my opinions end there.

 

[Entitled]

A CD, a DVD, and a Video Game are all the exact same thing: data encoded on a disk. They are all virtual information digitally coded. So why are video games the exception?

Books as physical objects don't need to be extensively regulated either, because they are actual scarce products to begin with. But the information in an e-book is not scarce in any way, it's noting like a book.

It's the same with movies and every other medium.

A CD, or a DVD, is an object.

"A video game" is the very idea of information being arranged in a certain way.

A copy of a game can be STORED on a DVD, that makes it easier to pretend that the game itself is the object, but once you have digital downloading, and installations, and simple data copying, the difference is becoming evident.

A disc with Bioshock on it, is an object that can be produced, sold, lost, or broken. But Bioshock itself is not an object, what we call "having the Bioshock game", just means "being in the state of knowing how to write your own data in a way to form Bioshock".