Why is there debate about used games?

[LITE992]

My argument has always been that the game was bought new at some point, and that now the game has been sold from one owner to a new one.

Ok, two people have played one legitimate copy of the game, BUT two people are not playing at the same time, as one person has sold the copy to someone else.

The developers/publishers miss the last point massively. A pirated game is one that has been bought legitmately once but has been copied and can be played by many other people simultaneously. A used game cannot. When you sell your game, you can't play that copy anymore. Only the new owner can, until they sell it to someone else.

With a used game: One person bought it. One person is playing it.
With a pirated game: One person bought it. An unlimited number of people are playing it.

 

[targren]

You buy a game used, that's a game that's NOT being sold new. That's a lost sale. How is this shit so complicated for some people?

By your logic, if I said "Hm. GTA IV was a crap game, so I think I'm going to take a pass on GTA V," that's the same as piracy, because it's a lost sale.

Clearly, your metric is horribly flawed.

 

[Baralak]

My argument has always been that the game was bought new at some point, and that now the game has been sold from one owner to a new one.

Ok, two people have played one legitimate copy of the game, BUT two people are not playing at the same time, as one person has sold the copy to someone else.

The developers/publishers miss the last point massively. A pirated game is one that has been bought legitmately once but has been copied and can be played by many other people simultaneously. A used game cannot. When you sell your game, you can't play that copy anymore. Only the new owner can, until they sell it to someone else.

With a used game: One person bought it. One person is playing it.
With a pirated game: One person bought it. An unlimited number of people are playing it.

That's also a very good point.

 

[everythingbeeps]

You buy a game used, that's a game that's NOT being sold new. That's a lost sale. How is this shit so complicated for some people?

By your logic, if I said "Hm. GTA IV was a crap game, so I think I'm going to take a pass on GTA V," that's the same as piracy, because it's a lost sale.

Clearly, your metric is horribly flawed.

Only if you grossly misunderstand what logic actually is. Which you do. Like, really badly.

 

[Shpongled]

All this doesn't change the fact that the end result for the developer is exactly the same. I pirate, i get to play the game, developer recieves nothing. You buy second-hand, you get to play the game, developer recieves nothing.

Just to reiterate, i have nothing against buying used games.

My point is that what the developer or publisher recieves is not your concern. You are not responsible for the continued existence of EA games. Once you have ownership of something you can do what you want with it.

What is so logical about a company claiming they should be compensated for the sale of things they don't own anymore?

I'm not disagreeing with you on that point. This is what i'm saying:

The usual criticism made against people who pirate is that they're reaping the benefits of playing the game without actually paying the creators of the game any money, thus compromising the future of the developer. After all, if no one pays the deveveloper for the product they made then the developers won't have the money to go producing more games. The same principle applies to buying second hand games.

All i'm saying that it's hypocritical to criticise a pirate on the basis that you're denying the developer money if you yourself buy second hand, as either way the developer is not recieving profits.

If you want to criticise pirates for breaking the law, or for denying Gamestop money, then fair enough, that would be legitimate, but if you're criticising them on the basis that the developer recieves nothing, then you're also morally obliged to be critical to ward those who buy second hand games, as the end result is identical.

Just to reiterate a 3rd time, i'm not criticising the used game market or those who buy them, you're well within your rights, just don't go moaning at pirates when your favourite developer sinks because they have no more money, you were just as much the cause of it as pirates.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Escapists, please help me understand something: why are people arguing that used games are bad? like any other product, you pay money for them, then they are yours, and you can do what you want with them.

Because propaganda is a very powerful tool, you might have noticed that every dev and their granny came out with a public statement that used games are "putting them out of business", "worse then piracy", "killing the industry", "raped baby jesus", ... so on and so forth.

Well it doesn't take long before the mindless monkey masses start to repeat after them.

 

[Saxnot]

Simply put: People don't have much of a choice.

It is the publishers right to make that game require whatever code/extra cash that they want. Is it fair? No. Does it screw over the used game buyer? yes. Welcome to life. Life isn't fair, and life is an exercise in getting screwed.

I feel that's a bit of a negative way of looking at things, but all right. That doesn't mean we shouldn't call companies out when they're trying to screw us, and try to stop them from doing so, does it?

Because admitting that would mean that they would start to feel guilty for buying used games, or when they pirate. When in reality, you should be able to admit it and then turn around and say: Well, books have been sold used for as long as there have been books, that didn't kill the publishing companies, so used sales are alright. People are always trying to self-justify their own actions. I'd say at least 40% of human behavior can be explained by that.

I'm not disagreeing with you on that point. This is what i'm saying:

The usual criticism made against people who pirate is that they're reaping the benefits of playing the game without actually paying the creators of the game any money, thus compromising the future of the developer. After all, if no one pays the deveveloper for the product they made then the developers won't have the money to go producing more games. The same principle applies to buying second hand games.

All i'm saying that it's hypocritical to criticise a pirate on the basis that you're denying the developer money if you yourself buy second hand, as either way the developer is not recieving profits.

If you want to criticise pirates for breaking the law, or for denying Gamestop money, then fair enough, that would be legitimate, but if you're criticising them on the basis that the developer recieves nothing, then you're also morally obliged to be critical to ward those who buy second hand games, as the end result is identical.

Just to reiterate a 3rd time, i'm not criticising the used game market or those who buy them, you're well within your rights, just don't go moaning at pirates when your favourite developer sinks because they have no more money, you were just as much the cause of it as pirates.

I understand what you both are saying. If you buy a used game instead of a new game you are (possibly, let's not pretend anyone can say this is or is not so with 100% accuracy) consting the developers money.

Why do you think people take the developer's point of view then? It confuses me that nobody cares for the theoretical loss of car sales from a second-hand car, but when games are involved, people feel publishers should be protected from the economy they operate in?

Regardless of the above, would you agree with me that whole argument that publishers should be compensated for used games basically comes down to them trying to guilt-trip us into paying extra for what used to be free?

 

[targren]

You buy a game used, that's a game that's NOT being sold new. That's a lost sale. How is this shit so complicated for some people?

By your logic, if I said "Hm. GTA IV was a crap game, so I think I'm going to take a pass on GTA V," that's the same as piracy, because it's a lost sale.

Clearly, your metric is horribly flawed.

Only if you grossly misunderstand what logic actually is. Which you do. Like, really badly.

Except that I do. If piracy and buying a used game are equivalent for no other reason than developer.income = 0, then my not buying a game because I don't want it is just as equivalent, because developer.income = 0.

Clearly the fact that I don't even play the game doesn't matter, because with a used game sale, ONE person (the buyer) plays the used game, where as a pirated game, MANY people play the downloaded game. So you've already eliminated that metric from consideration.

Nice ad hom, but the logic error is, alas, your own.

 

[Vegosiux]

Just because YOU have a philosophy of "used or bust", that means EVERYONE has it?

I'm pretty sure that rule will also make him buy a new and not used ME3 copy, I'm surprised you missed that.

 

[Saxnot]

Escapists, please help me understand something: why are people arguing that used games are bad? like any other product, you pay money for them, then they are yours, and you can do what you want with them.

Because propaganda is a very powerful tool, you might have noticed that every dev and their granny came out with a public statement that used games are "putting them out of business", "worse then piracy", "killing the industry", "raped baby jesus", ... so on and so forth.

Well it doesn't take long before the mindless monkey masses start to repeat after them.

really? just 'people are stupid'?

one would think that when companies are clearly trying to con you into paying extra for something that used to be free, people would try and stand up to that. Just out of self-interest, if nothing else.

 

[Magnicon]

Or are you suggesting that 100% of used-game buyers would just give up games entirely rather than buy new? That the publishers would gain NOTHING by the dissolution of the used game market?

Again, it's not anywhere near that simple. One major point of this is that the used game market improves awareness of products massively, which increases future sales. This has been proven endlessly.

The fact of the matter is that its extremely likely that the studios would actually LOSE profits long term if the used game market ended. For many more reasons then the one I mentioned. This information has been readily available for a long time.

 

[targren]

really? just 'people are stupid'?

one would think that when companies are clearly trying to con you into paying extra for something that used to be free, people would try and stand up to that. Just out of self-interest, if nothing else.

Pretty much. Or rather, 'willfully stupid and self-delusional.' Propaganda can only work in a 1-sided relationship, when the ones putting it out have all of the power, and the ones believing it do so because they've convinced themselves that the other actually does care about them, so to them, they're not "shilling," they're "defending a friend." This is true whether it's a government, a corporation, or a religious institution. They're emotionally invested (which is kind of sad in itself, when that investment is in a faceless group of suits only interested in getting into their wallets) and so they convince themselves that it goes both ways.

(Edited for clarification. Damn site is getting slow. The new ZP must be up...)

 

[Something Amyss]

Because admitting that would mean that they would start to feel guilty for buying used games, or when they pirate.

Or, more likely because the logic has large holes in it. Like so:

If piracy and buying a used game are equivalent for no other reason than developer.income = 0, then my not buying a game because I don't want it is just as equivalent, because developer.income = 0.

Merci.

really? just 'people are stupid'?

I would have taken "people are followers" from that, but if you want to go with stupid, Godspeed.

one would think that when companies are clearly trying to con you into paying extra for something that used to be free, people would try and stand up to that. Just out of self-interest, if nothing else.

That's kind of the beauty of propaganda. It often persuades you to do something against your best interests.

 

[daubie]

The video game industry needs to have a biiiiiiig conference with Game Stop.
Game Stop does just as much damage to the industry as piracy does, and it could be rectified even easier. Too bad they'll never make any compromises for the better of us all.

 

[Saxnot]

You buy a game used, that's a game that's NOT being sold new. That's a lost sale. How is this shit so complicated for some people?

By your logic, if I said "Hm. GTA IV was a crap game, so I think I'm going to take a pass on GTA V," that's the same as piracy, because it's a lost sale.

Clearly, your metric is horribly flawed.

Only if you grossly misunderstand what logic actually is. Which you do. Like, really badly.

Except that I do. If piracy and buying a used game are equivalent for no other reason than developer.income = 0, then my not buying a game because I don't want it is just as equivalent, because developer.income = 0.

Clearly the fact that I don't even play the game doesn't matter, because with a used game sale, ONE person (the buyer) plays the used game, where as a pirated game, MANY people play the downloaded game. So you've already eliminated that metric from consideration.

Nice ad hom, but the logic error is, alas, your own.

presumably, the difference would be that you are paying for a used game, and as such have comitted to buying it. if you just don't want a game the possibility of you buying it is rather nebulous.

that said, it points out the ridicoulesness of saying a used or pirated game is equal to a lost sale. so long as there is no money being payed, it's all speculation whether or not somone would buy this game new/legally

 

[Raesvelg]

A few generic rebuttals:

"It's been proven that used game sales are good for the new game market"

- Proven by whom, exactly? Whenever someone trots this out, and usually accompanies it with a 'It's on the internet! You can read it yourself! It must be true!!!', I twitch a little. Technically, no, it hasn't been proven either way, because it's something that's inordinately difficult to actually prove unless we, for example, ban the sale of used games for a period of, oh, one year, and track new games sales during that same period.

What's "on the internetz!" is typically just a raft of anecdotal evidence, i.e. people who come out and say "Well, I bought game X used, and that made me spend X amount of money on DLC and other new games in the series!".

Incidentally, posts like that actually reinforce the industry perception that day 1 DLC is a good thing; you liked the game, you got the DLC. Win for the industry.

But anecdotal evidence is not proof, by any stretch of the imagination. Unless we can test things in a market situation where there are no alternatives to buying new.

"I bought the game, so it's mine now! I'm free to do whatever I want with it!"

- Absolutely true. You are indeed free to do whatever you want with the game you purchased. And the company that made that game is free to do whatever they want to attempt to induce you to buy it new. From the relatively benign Day 1 DLC, to the rather obnoxious online pass, these fall within the same rough concept as, say, a non-transferable warranty on a new item purchase, which is hardly uncommon.

"The games industry is just greedy! They have to learn to adapt!"

- They're no greedier than any other industry, in truth. And they areadapting; the adaptations are what you're complaining about.

The game industry finds itself in a bit of a pickle, all things considered. Development costs go up as the hardware become increasingly sophisticated, so games either have to sell more copies, or cost more money.

Now, there are people who lay the claim that if the games were better and/or cheaper, they'd sell more copies new.

These people are idiots.

These are the same people who say that games would not be pirated if they were just better/cheaper/whatever. Which is equally idiotic.

If I offer you the choice between an ounce of gold for $2000 new, $1900 from Bob over here which is pretty much as good as new, or free but illegal from Steve over there on the corner, you're going to rapidly divide people into three categories; people who like to buy things new, people who like to save a little money, and people who don't think they'll get caught for breaking the law.

It doesn't really matter what the price of the original object in question is; various indie developers have long since proven that even if you put something on sale for a penny, people will still pirate the shit out of it. The same holds true for used game sales, and are particularly true for games that are actually, y'know, good.

 

[Magnicon]

The video game industry needs to have a biiiiiiig conference with Game Stop.
Game Stop does just as much damage to the industry as piracy does, and it could be rectified even easier. Too bad they'll never make any compromises for the better of us all.

Sigh. This is getting old. Game Stop does ZERO damage to the industry. Same with piracy. Where did you get your information from? Do you just believe whatever the big corporations tell you? Do some research and stop spreading misinformation.

*SNIP*
It doesn't really matter what the price of the original object in question is; various indie developers have long since proven that even if you put something on sale for a penny, people will still pirate the shit out of it.

Oh good lord the ignorance. Virtually everything you said in your post is 100% incorrect. However, since I have to assume you don't care to be informed based on what individual random people tell you, I'll just provide you with a couple links you may find interesting based on that last "point".

Here is an article of independent game developers explaining why piracy is good.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/118/1184550p1.html

Here is an article about Louis CK(admittedly ignorant on how piracy works) doing an experiment by offering a stand up special for next to nothing.
http://m.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/funny-money-louis-ck-earns-1-million-in-12-days-with-5-video-20111227-1pb6g.html

 

[Taerdin]

Developers don't usually see a cut of new sales either guys. It's hilarious how many people get this wrong. The publisher funds the project, they pay for the development, and pay the developers. The reason they do this is to make money off the product actually selling. By the time the game hits the shelf, the developers have already been paid.

Now in the case of self published games that's obviously different, and some times there is SOME profit share. But in most cases it is only the publisher who sees money from the new game sales, and the publisher usually has little to do with the actual making of that game.

That's not to say that new sales do not help developers. It does make it more likely for them to be supported by that publisher again, and possibly make a sequel. But they don't see a direct benefit from the sales in most cases. That is to say, if you think 10 cents of your purchase goes directly into the pocket of Pauly the AI programmer then no, that is not how it works ~90% of the time

So if your argument as a consumer against used sales is that you want to support people who made the game that you love, then you are wrong. You are merely supporting the people who fund those people, which might indirectly help the people that made the game in the future.

 

[Something Amyss]

Or rather, 'willfully stupid and self-delusional.' Propaganda can only work in a 1-sided relationship, when the ones putting it out have all of the power, and the ones believing it do so because they've convinced themselves that the other actually does care about them, so to them, they're not "shilling," they're "defending a friend."

Or, in this case, they might even be defending themselves. Remember, the argument is "The used games market is going to stop us from making the games you love!"

And they think "Oh no, my games are gonna go away because of used sales!"

(Edited for clarification. Damn site is getting slow. The new ZP must be up...)

Site slows down at noon regardless because people start looking for it.

 

[Fishyash]

I haven't really read too much of the thread, but this quote here is probably the best way I can explain my point.

Yes, a used game was originally bought new. But think about the person who buys that game used. They're NOT buying it new. THAT is a lost sale. It's not about the number of actual copies of a game. It's about the number of times a game is "bought". There might be 1 million copies of a game "sold", but those 1 million copies might be traded in and resold 3 million times. Those are sales effectively "lost".

The "lost sale" is potential, not tangible. Until you can prove to me there is a 100% chance that if the game wasn't available used, that the customer would buy it new, it isn't a lost sale.

Since you are talking about potential, why don't you factor in the potential chance that if someone enjoyed the game they bought new, they potentially bought the sequel of the game new on release day.

Don't get me wrong, I consider it rather scummy that gamestop is able to exploit the used games market to bring a ridiculous profit by pretty much reselling the same product multiple times. Retailers like gamestop pretty much dominate the video games retail industry because they do this. The worst thing about it is that you could easily get a better deal for used games (for both the buyer and seller) on car-boot sales or eBay.

However, one more thing I want to say is, why are there so many used games? Why is used games a problem in the first place? Maybe if there were more developers making games that people wanted to keep, it wouldn't be such a problem?