Are used games killing the market?

[famousringo]

.jayderyu said:
I love the hypocrasy of this thread, as Soriku said earlier :)

"don't pirate games becuase you don't give money to the publishers." then hapilly buy used games. Which don't give money to the publishers :D ROFLMAO
If we continue on this line of thought how it hurts the industry. Well it works like this. BB, GS... find that their "new" titles aren't selling as much. So they reduce their next order. This reduced order means less sales to the publisher. pretty simple isn't it. Like piracy. If people pirate result in less new sales, which reduces the number of orders done.

I do however agree with Bodhesatva and this general train of thought. Piracy, used games are irrelvant if the audiance is large enough.

 

There is a huge difference between buying used games and pirating games.

If you buy a used game, the overall supply of that game remains the same, while the number of available new and used copies of the game on the market goes down by one. Because of this increased scarcity, the market value of the game will increase, and if enough used copies get bought, consumers will be forced to buy a new copy. Before this point is reached, sales of new copies will increase anyway, as the difference between new and used prices gets smaller and more purchasers decide the discount isn't worth a slightly inferior product.

If you pirate the game, you increase the effective supply of that game by one by publishing your own copy. The number of new and used copies available on the market remains the same. If enough copies of the game are pirated, the market is flooded with cheap copies of the game and the value of legal copies drops down as illegal copies become readily available. Few people would choose to buy new if an illegal copy can be conveniently had for 1/10th the price.

This is just economics, and is completely aside from any moral or legal questions of the equivalence of piracy and used goods.