*Used Games?*

[ZenfoldorVGI]

mirgro said:

Brand spanking new.

Basicallt I buy them new for the same reason I don't pirate. I actually want to support the developer by giving them money, not swindling them out of it. Though, it seems piracy may have less of an afect on sales than even used games if some statistics from the US and Dutch governmens can be taken seriously, so an even better reason not to buy used.

The difference is, with piracy, no money changes hands, and thus the economy suffers. With used games, people in the game industry profit, including gamestop and their employees and the gamers themselves who buy and sell used games. When the flow of money increases, it actually STIMULATES the gaming economy, when no money at all changes hands, period, this causes the economy to stagnate. That is why piracy is illegal. There is an entirely seperate reason why buying and selling used games is legal, but pretty much, I'm just explained to you why piracy is bad for gaming, and the buying and selling of used games is arugable.

Morality aside, most of the people in the videogame industry don't develop or publish games. They are the gamers who buy and sell used and new games, and the employees of the brick and morter, or online stores who sell them, or the people who make VGChartz here, or the millions of reporters and programmers who live their life and make their money off of the industry. Without the buying and selling of used games, people would invitably turn to piracy or just not play those games at all, and thus stagnate, rather than stiumlate the economy.

Another thing to note, piracy is illegal, while buying and selling used games is encouraged by many within the industry. The "talent" as it were gets top billing, but overall, they are only a small part of the gaming economy, and thus should only be considered as a small piece of the pie in any argument concerning the nature and business of our industry. These people can program and perform simple math, but when it comes to economics and instury, they are probably just as ignorant as the common gamer.

SURE Sony wants to make more money off of every copy of Gran Turismo they sell, even if they make milions of dollars profit, but that extra money they would make, if they destroyed used games, would come at a cost to someone else. IE, the gamer who wanted to sell the game after he beat it, the employee of gamestop who is now fired because the game is no longer avaialble used, or the gamer who never plays the game at all, because the price is too high for their pocketbook.

When you take used games sales out of the equasion, you reduce game sales, this is a fact. Overall, sales of your game, and the amount of people who play your game will be reduced. This is the tradeoff for the publisher to make more money off of the game, that less people will be able to play it, that less money will be injected, and spread throughout the gaming economy, and that less stimulation will occour as a result. This will inevitably lead to more profits for the most successful companies(Nintendo) and less profit for the failing companies who live off word of mouth to begin with.

The only way this business model has been mildly successful is to replace "used games" with consistant deals on "new games" via DLC, as with Steam. However, now you really are rearranging the gaming economy and causing one of our only brick and morter stores to vastly reduce its size. On top of that, you are still losing sales that were once there due to the used game industry, and you are still stacking the profits in the hands of a few companies, and you are still having all of those issues I've mentioned earlier.

Sure, the industry can survive without used games, however, it will come at the expense of gamers, and people who work in the game industry who don't make games. It will also make the game industry less healthy as a whole, and it will probably reduce your selection of the games as well. You worry about the short money, and that's something only Microsoft seems to understand this generation. You do business, in an effort to continue doing business, not an effort to screw somebody over. That's just good business practice.