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strunge on 22 February 2010
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Kenryoku_Maxis said:
twesterm said:
Kenryoku_Maxis said:
First off, many games can only be bought pre-owned now adays. From older games on 'dead' systems to games that publishers just quit making because they deem them 'not popular enough to make a profit'.

Second of all, not everyone can afford to spend $40-75 dollars on a brand new game when it first comes out, only to find a publisher stops making the game 3 months later and it never goes down to the $20-30 range they can afford. SO these people HAVE to buy the game second hand because....that's the only place they can find it.

If publishers want to complain about used games, they should make more copies of the games available to the public and at a better cost. The only way to combat used games is to beat them at their own game. Especially now adays with game cost RISING, developers have no reason to be complaining about people buying used games. And if they are going to complain about development costs and use that as their excuse for raising the costs of games and only releasing them to limited venues, they shouldn't be making games on HD systems in the first place.

So skewed...

  1. I think pretty much everyone assumes this conversation doesn't apply to dead systems.
  2. Used games are generally $5 less in America, I don't know what they are in Australia but I'm assuming they're close to that.  The games that fall in the $20-30 ranged have had a price reduction and sell for that much new.
  3. They should make more available?  They make plenty available in almost every case.  I know places like Gamestop try to artificially make them seem limited, but then just go to another store and you can find the game.  Yeah, it's harder to find games that aren't produced anymore, but that's because those games aren't in high demand anymore.  Or do you want publishers to still print 5-10 year old PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube games because that is just plain stupid.

I really don't get where you're saying games are released in such limited quantities unless you shop only at Gamestop and never preorder I guess.  And then, well, I won't call you stupid for failing to preorder the game in that case, but, man, if you're constantly not able to find new games because you think enough aren't produced then you should either preorder or look at another store.

Look, I know you've taken upon yourself to defend the rights of game developers for whatever reason, but not all games are equal and not all games can be obtained easily.  Sometimes they either need to be obtained used for a myriad of reasons and yes, there are a host of games that either get limited releases or don't even get full releases at launch, causing them to be rare from the start.  Sure, you can go find a million copies of Dragon Age or Mass Effect 2 right now, but try and find a new copy of WarioWare Touched!, Dragon Quest V or Pinball Hall of Fame, The Williams Collection.  Yeah, they're not only out of print, but went out of print less than 6 months of their release.  I'm not even going to go into even older games such as Suikoden II, Pikmin 2 or Zone of Enders 2.

Aside from the obvious examples of games going out of print, there's the examples of people just waiting for a game to get cheaper.  And there's no crime against this.  As has been stated in this thread, developers can encourage people to buy a game new, which they are with DLC and exclusive content for people who buy it new.  But when a developer cuts the game soon after it drops off from its initial $40-60 price point, there's no alternative than it to be immediately put into the 'used' category and people have to buy it used.  If developers are so angry at people buying used games, developers should instead give people more incentives to buying a new game for longer periods.  Like SquareEnix is with Dragon Quest IX and Nintendo with Pokemon (both allowing people to download content once aq week for up to a year).

nobody is saying it is a crime to buy it cheaper, so that is irrelevant point number one.  charging a licensing fee like other software to use the product in no way makes buying it used a crime, it means a second hand buyer has to buy a second licensing fee since the first user has used the original. 

or perhaps you simply utilize your own advice and if playing video games is too expensive for you you should get a new hobby like checkers where you can buy a board for $5 and never have to spend another dime again.