Why Game Developers Should Shut Up About Used Games

Ssquared22 writes "It may feel like a rip-off to some, but you've got to admit that paying $30 for Gears of War 2 sure beats paying $60! Game publishers and developers may not like it, but people are going to trade in used games for new games and those old games will be sold back to other people. There's nothing game developers can do to stop them, and companies like Gamestop continue to laugh all the way to the bank. In an article at Crispy Gamer, David Thomas dissects one of the most critical issues in gaming today: used games and merchants (online and brick-and-mortar) who specialize in this 'sleight of hand.'"

Re:They can stop it: Installs locked to hardware.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Also as far as i know... If you buy a game on steam, its locked to your account and name and you can not resell it.

The used game market is going to die when digital distribution takes over.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[Lemming Mark]

Worked for me. I bought Halo 1 & 2 second hand, bought Halo 3 new when it was old and therefore cheap anyhow. Paid full whack for Halo Wars and probably will for OSDT and Halo: Reach, so long as the reviews indicate they're up to quality. For franchises I'm less fond of but nevertheless enjoy (e.g. GoW, L4D) I might wait to get the game second hand. If I had to buy *everything* new, I'd buy fewer games and wouldn't be inclined to "try out" franchises.

Another example of a slightly different nature: I bought Assassin's Creed and Crackdown even though some reviews were a bit lukewarm. I wouldn't pay full price for a lukewarm game. Assassin's Creed was sufficiently interesting that I'd like to know where the story goes, making me *more* inclined to buy the sequel, if the reviews are reasonable.

It's like the old argument against piracy - but even more so. A game bought second hand is not necessarily a lost sale, since a) the game might not be *worth* full price to the purchaser b) we don't have infinite money to spend on games. They should concentrate on ways to pull people into a franchise so that they *want* to buy new.

Gamestop blows

[furby076]

I can't stand places like gamestop. $60 game (brand new). They buy it back for $10 to $15. They resell it at $55. No wonder they are laughing all the way to the bank - they are ripping off their consumers.

Craigslist/Ebay and other similar sites is the way to buy used games.

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[gandhi_2]

Arbitrage in action. [wikipedia.org] Gotta love it!

Re:They can stop it: Installs locked to hardware.

[SCPRedMage]

Inaccurate.

When you purchase game content on XBox Live, the purchase is tied to both the gamertag AND the console. Both can use the content freely. That is, you can use the content with that gamertag, regardless of console, and you can use it with that console, regardless of gamertag.

To make this a little clearer, if you take your gamertag to a friend's system, while you are signed in to that gamertag, you'll be able to use any content you've ever purchased while signed in to that gamertag. Conversely, if a friend brings their gamertag over to your system, they will be able to play not only the content purchased with their gamertag, but the content purchased on that system, but only while using THAT system.

Re:They can stop it: Installs locked to hardware.

[Jonathan_S]

Microsoft already addresses this issue by allowing you to Download your gamertag to only one Xbox 360 at a time. So if you go to your friends house you can DL your gamertag and all of your "Xbox live arcade games" can now be played on your friends xbox. Of course your home Xbox will now not be able to play them until you redownload your gamertag to your Xbox 360.

Sort of. Microsoft ties a download to both your gamertag and your specific xbox.

Log in as your gamertag and you can play the game from any console, like you said.
But on the game's "home" console any gamertag can play it, even if your gamertag isn't there. (And once a year Microsoft will let you adjust the "home" console for your downloads; or they'll do it automatically for an RMA replacement console)

Re:Gamestop blows

[Sethb]

You might also want to check out Goozex [goozex.com]. You trade your games to other gamers for points there. If a game is 500 points, you get all 500 points, and Goozex.com gets a buck on each transaction. It's not perfect, as you'll sometimes have to wait a few days/weeks to get the game you want, or for someone to want your game, but there's not a middleman making $30 off each used game transaction.

(Yes, that's my referral code in the Goozex link) :)

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[Hott of the World]

Its a tough business. If I were to go to a gamestop right now look at the used game section, besides the multitude of last years sports games, I see tons of games that tried to "take a chance" and fail. Of course, I only want the ones that were the best of the system.The ones made by companies who know their stuff are hard to find, and when you finally do, they cost 60-80% of a new game.

A company can do a re-issue of older titles for a used price and make a killing. They all do it, and it works well.

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[freyyr890]

I'm not sure if this is an attempt at humor or not, but I'm tending towards "or not" because of the Insightful mod.

You seem to have a very skewed definition of capitalism. All capitalism is a market where resources (capital) are invested in a product in the hope that others will find it worthwhile enough to trade for more resources (money). "Intelligent thought" as you put it is the capitalists' best ally: he WANTS his customers to be happy at the price point that makes him the most money. If his products - in this case games - are too expensive, he will reduce his pricing to hit the most profitable point on the curve where expenses are most minimal and sales the highest. It's a self-interest game, certainly, but it's a self interest game that helps the customer.

Re:The Law

[dltaylor]

Like there are any.

The Demopublican Party in the US is owned by its largest contributors, not the voters. Both wings of the party are, therefore, fully invested in "preserving intellectual property rights".

Since, unlike places where your vote might count (Germany, for instance, with proportional representation in the Bundestag), the Demopublican Party has managed to set up gerrymandered districts across the US to be sure that no new party can obtain a significant presence in any legislature, nor can enough independent legislators be elected to have significant input to the process.

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[shutdown -p now]

The only way to _create_ a market in a setting where naturally there would be no market, is to criminalize DIY copying so only one single state-approved monopolist (almost sounds like the Stalin/Lenin fella came up with this BS)

The "fella" that largely came up with the original Copyright Clause in the U.S. Constitution is James Madison, aka "Father of the Bill of Rights". I'd say you should pick your parallels better.

Steam

[danieltdp]

That's why I hate steam. Try yourself to sell a used game that is curently registered in your steam account (like Half Life 2)....

Re:Great advertising for new versions!

[kristjansson]

I think you should bear in mind that

• James Madison, the "Father of the Bill of Rights", was vehemently anti Bill of Rights. The reason for that was that he did not want future generations to believe that the Bill of Rights was an enumeration of the rights and liberties of individuals and their home states, as opposed to the Constitution being a firm boundary of the powers of the Federal Government. He conceded after over a year, and he had the 9th Amendment in mind before any of the other proposed Amendments. To give you an idea of how well that worked for us, when Robert Bork was asked in confirmation hearings to place him on the Supreme Court, he referred to the 9th Amendment as an "ink blot on the Constitution." Thankfully, he did not get confirmed to the Court, but most Justices are averse to referencing Amendment 9 in their findings anyway. Sorry, I'm digressing...
• The patent and copyright provisions originally in the Constitution granted an exclusive monopoly on distribution for 17 years from the time the patent was granted, after which, the work in question fell into the public domain. The trade off for the creator was almost two decades of head start, in exchange for protection from other people attempting to derive a profit immediately from said creator's work. Compare and contrast with current American copyright law, DMCA, etc.

Long and short, the current copyright and patent systems are at best the perverted and distorted afterbirth of what Madison wrote in the first place, and trying to pretend that Madison was in favor of writing the Bill of Rights in the first place is patently false.

Re:Why isn't anyone asking the REAL question?

[v(*_*)vvvv]

They don't have to, they aren't being forced to. They are just getting the game at a certain price and selling it at the MSRP for maximum profit.

No. They are being forced to. The laws in the States allow vertical price fixing.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb274/is_18_12/ai_n29408649/ [findarticles.com]

ebay is fighting this US law.
http://www.stoth.com/2009/05/20/ebay-and-ftc-push-congress-over-retail-price-fixing/ [stoth.com]

It really is unfair to consumers. And that is why I am surprised no one is asking the question. I am also surprised at the number of people who believe what they'd want us to believe.

Re:time out

[thetoadwarrior]

This is incorrect. Mark Rein, from Epic, has been a very vocal opponent to used games and Epic are developers not publishers.

Re:time out

[Samah]

Developers aren't the problem. People keep saying 'developers' in this thread when they mean 'publishers'. Developers write code and debug physics engines, they don't set prices or worry about second tier markets.

FINALLY someone gets it. I'm a "developer" because I design, code, and debug software. I have absolutely no say when it comes to pricing and all that rubbish.
Everyone please mod this story "publishers" and "!developers".