Game developer: Pre-owned games are worse than piracy

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Awesome, instead of buying second hand now I will just pirate instead.

p.s I actually use steam and am happy to pay and keep my games forever :)
 
Oh no Yukka is going to have to save for one more month to get his game. What ever will he do?! America needs to learn that sometimes you don't get everything NOW NOW NOW.

This isn't an article about instant gratification nor does that have anything to do with this discussion. The problem here is that if you add a month between every game you purchase when you average 1 game per month. You've lost 50% annual sales to that customer. The only way to justify that is if you can actually recuperate that loss in charges for used game sales. Which in my opinion is unlikely, because people don't buy used games because they have a lot of extra money they're trying to not give to game publishers.
 
I'm a bit baffled by all this. I buy and sell pre-viewed or "used" DVD's on-line all the time. Amazon is set-up to enable people to do that easily. So what's the problem? They're my DVD's, I bought them, so I can sell them, can't I? Like anything else I legally own. What's so special about video games?
 
What is their problem? You've bought the game so they've got their income from it - what does it matter if you sell it on? Where will this end? Will we no longer be able to sell on other items soon, eg. CDs, DVDs, mobile phones, laptops, etc.?

Not satisfied with reaping profits from selling it once, they're wanting further income from the same item from subsequent trades!

I think this is despicable! What other area of retail tries to get further income from something that they've already sold?
 
do not write (code) while high

There's no denying

false premise: I deny it.

Skipping commercials on TV isn't piracy- or theft either.

but just how bad is it?

It's as evil as libraries are to book sales. Car rentals destroyed the auto industry and not gross mismanagement? Or was it those nefarious taxis?


Citing statistics

From such "credible" people as Business Software Alliance? with their PFA numbers? [Pulled From Air: the not-crude version]. Eighty quadragillionbazillion dollars lost this week to elven teen piracy!


that suggest games are traded as many as four times

How dare people believe in equity! Would you prefer your games had ZERO value? And therefore zero sales?

:rolleyes:

DRM equals NO sale
 
Can you imagine if everything was like this? If used car owners had to pay $5,000 fee to drive? This is GREED plain and simple. I am already considering not buying products like this. Why in hell would I want to pay a large fee to buy something that I end up stuck with? If you think you're going to be able to trade in games or resell them when people who buy them will be forced to pay an additional fee, THINK AGAIN... why buy used and pay a fee when you can just buy it new? And those who couldn't afford the new prices won't buy one used and pay a fee... this won't solve anything. It's greedy and rotten, everything I have come to expect from EA and companies like it.
 
These are the excessively rich folks who always buy a new car every year!
 
I wonder how much the used car business is hurting the auto makers, or used bikes or used cloths or used lawnmowers or used computers or used everything on ebay. How come I can sell anything I've ever bought except software. Think about it! Get out of my pockets multi-million dollar game companies!
 
I love pre-owned games, I do not condone Piracy but I can sure see why people do it, everything cost so much and I'm saying this as a student in the UK.

I spend £4-£8 (£1.50 being 1 bus ride for 2.5miles, sometimes I walk) on bus fares weekly, £10-£12 on lunch and dinner weekly, nessessity expenses such as new clothes could be around £10-40 (infrequent) and gaming companies expect me to be able to give them £19.99-£49.99 on a new video game. Well I can tell them where to stick it.

I buy pre-owned all the time most of the games are 1-2 years old anyhow whats the big deal? I do buy new games if they're reasonably priced or I really want them. What about the people who just lend their games to friends? subjecting them to? Didn't think so... because developers can't do anything about it but get cheaper!!
 
I have to agree somewhat with most people here that used games really don't hurt the company that much. My NES and SNES Genesis days all of us borrowed or shared our games between us and if a game really kept us interested we ended up buying it ourselves or our parents. It could end up hurting sales instead of helping time will tell. Gamestop among others might actually have to lower their used game prices in order to keep it viable as people that are informed or aware won't pay such a high price on a used game.

EA hopefully will do this for the PC market. I imagine people being able to pirate an EA game then pay ten bucks and play online. This might actually increase sales somewhat for PC. I'm personally not a huge EA game buyer or player since most of the titles are uninteresting to me. Command and Conquer 4 was a failure in my eyes and I'm a big fan of rts and the series in general. If they had this policy in place already and some of their games such as C&C4 were halfway decent I would have spent the ten dollars without a second thought.

I'm not a young gamer anymore as I have five children a wife three cars a house and bills out the yin yang. This doesn't mean I don't spend as much time gaming all it means I plan ahead my time scheduled as well as what game I actually purchase because fifty or more dollars can be used for something else. I have bought quite a few games but the truth is pirated copies are the new demos. Download a title play it if it even runs or works without multiple patches and if it's quality I buy it. I've done this with many titles and it works well for my situation.

EA should be wary of putting this kind of charge through on consoles as it's a bigger profit than PC and if it backfires they can miss out on millions potentially. Do it on the PC first get the kinks out first and wait and see for six months to a year then when you have some more information to base your predictions apply it or don't to consoles.
 
Wow, I'm not getting this one at all. Implying that the buying and selling of pre-owned games is "worse than piracy" is akin to saying this is an illegal activity. It also ignores the basic principles of supply and demand. If your title is only worth $40 used and you are trying to get $60 new, then you, the publisher, are simply charging too high a price for the benefit of a limited warranty that protects the user against, say, a cracked disc, or one-time-use codes that let the new owner do something the used owner can't. It's selling a physical product with protected code that lets one owner at a time play it.

I don't hear the furniture industry crying out that the sale of used couches at flea markets, garage sales, and second-hand stores is killing them.

The auto industry has never banned the sale of used cars, but, again, when one buys a used car for less than the cost of a new one, one also gives up a good deal of warranty and hand-holding that the new-car buyer received.

Now, granted, I'm a naive PS3 owner, but I sure have never seen anyone selling any product that lets me crack a PS3 DVD game and make free copies of it to sell to my friends for $5 each. We've also sold old titles bought at full price new, at an expected loss to buy other titles. So what? If the game publishers want to sell only new games, then match or undercut the used titles' pricing. Anyone with half a brain will pay the same or a small amount more for something new at almost the same price.

The entertainment industry is the only one I know of that wants to sell something and still have it. If that's the case, then fine, let's make it fair - I bought a copy of Superman on VHS decades ago. If the majority of my money was paid for licensing a single-use copy and a small amount for the physical medium, then how could I sell it to buy a laser disc, then sell a laser disc to buy a DVD and finally sell the DVD to buy a Blu-Ray of it? I did not see the studios trying to help me out there by making it cheap for me to upgrade what was essentially a single-unlimited-use license of their intellectual property. But if so, then the studio ought to offer me a near-zero-cost trade up program, say $1-$2 of media cost per trade up, at most, so that I can keep seeing the movie I never really completely owned (just a license to watch it as much as I want on one player at one time) in the most state of the art manner possible.

The entertainment industry wants it one way - theirs. And they want you to pay top dollar for minimal product. Gosh, maybe that's why people find piracy so attractive after all...
 
hello ...

used game can't really hurt the industry because:

1 - most hardcore gamers would pre-order & keep their copy
2 - some less sure would rent or play a demo then buy a game new
3 - the one selling a second hand game would certainly go buy a new game, otherwise would wait far longer
4 - the one buying one second hand game may become a fan of a franchise & pre-order future releases

So piracy may hurt any industry, assuming the 1 owning illegally something was going to buy that item in the first place, 2nd hand purchase looks more like a "manque a gagner" so to all developers & publishers, do your job right & stop going after our hard earn money.

cheers!
 
Its painful seeing all you people over seas whining about how much a game costs over there... On release date a game down here in Australia is anywhere from $80 up. and you are all whining about 40 pounds. Gaming is incredibly expensive over here and pre-owned games are the only way many people are able to continue gaming.
 
Its painful seeing all you people over seas whining about how much a game costs over there... On release date a game down here in Australia is anywhere from $80 up. and you are all whining about 40 pounds. Gaming is incredibly expensive over here and pre-owned games are the only way many people are able to continue gaming.

You have to take exchange rates into account there. Well not when it comes to Americans because they actually pay less than the UK (Average game being $49.99-£59.99 which is about £29.99-£34.99)
 
well, i'd just like to say that the cost of some games, because it just seems like they are priced as console games and not quantity games, just doesn't justify the price. I mean seriously when a game developer charges $40 for a game like Nier or Skate3 when they've released the same content, on the same engine, with the same graphic's as their previous game is totally unjustified. That kind of a game i'd buy pre-owened. I feel its on the company to make high quality games so people will be inspired to own their own copy. Because game purchase is completely based on pride. If a game is really good your gonna be proud to own a copy. These days kids can just download games by torrent and burn them to disk within 5hrs of the games release. I have both consoles and my xbox360 is hacked due to microsoft's useless customer care and repair service, but i still got my final fantasy 13 on my ps3. Why because i love the franchise, i love square soft, i know they make good games, so i wasn't worried or troubled shelling out $75 buying it. Which is how much it bloody cost here in Kenya and when i can find a copy of heavy rain i will buy it full retail. Because i'd be proud to own these games.
 
So that's that then. Motion carried virtually unanimously. Andrew Oliver is a ****.
 
This is just crazy. Ok, first games, then movies, music, cars, houses, t.v..... If i buy a new t.v and then sell it a few years later, should Sony get a little of the money for the t.v? Should Ford get some of the money for my old car i sell. If i build you a house and you sell it, are you going to give me some more money? This is just crazy. Wake up people. If they keep pushing, homebrew will be the way to go and everyone wins. happy gaming.
 
what is the big deal with buying pre owned games. trading old or used stuff have been done for ages. - we trade our old cars, furnitures, appliances, jewelries and no one dare mind The point is when we buy especially expensive things we ought to get our hard earned money's worth.
 
like how it was broken down. you'll buy new, used and pay a fee or pirate it. i plead the 5th on my chosen methods. the cut and dry of it is people are going to do what they want regardless. ea had better hope it doesn't affect their sales to much while they are trying to make more money. if they sell 2 million copies, and a few get traded around, it's still 2 million people using the ea games and servers. whether or not the game was used when who ever gets, it shouldn't matter. the previous own payed for the full use and when it's passed down the line, the new owner should have the use also. think about this one people. if you buy a used car, would you like to pay a dealership/company to activate the engine/tranny? no when you buy it, you expect it all. well i do unless something is broken when i get it. i think it might help to lower prices.... joking of course. they are just as greedy and the next guy and more money is more money right/wrong doesn't matter. lastly, you give people enough time they'll figure out ways around it. i say, let your wallet do the talking.
 
i can understand the companys don't want lose money but they must remember who are there biggest consu mer gamers of the age of 10(or younger) to 30something (or older) not everybody has cash to buy every game they want.so if i can buy it later for cheaper......man it is my f........ money!!!!!
 
One thing most people will side with is the fact that most "online" games qon't be sold. Most second-hand stores don't allow trade-ins of games that allow online play as CD keys, passcodes, registration, ect. of the product is limited to one person (while CD keys are not, they're easy to keep by the previous owner making it useless to the new owner as they don't have exclusive rights to it). This may effect more console based games that are just plug and play such as Madden, but it won't have any effect on an actual online game.

Those who buy used games typically will buy single player games used.
 
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