Why is buying used games such a big deal nowadays?

[Michael-5]

DJEVOLVE said:

UMMMMMM NO!

It was never this massive. Game stops earnings have never been seen in the gaming market. Plus Piracy. So not sure where you are getting your info but I lived in the 80's, you couldn't get used games. You had to buy new. If you where lucky you could. Plus the cost has went way up.

Duh, GameStops earnings were a lot smaller back in the day, before they bought Electronic Boutique, for a number of reasons. Smaller video game market, rental video game market, and competition (EB was a separate chain, plus Microplay and other chains). Now Gamestop owns the gaming market.

Remember the original Gameboy only sold 118 million units over 12 years. That's 10 million a year on average. GBA sold 80 in 3/4 years, and DS sold 150 in 7. PS3/360/Wii combined will sell about 300 million units, SNES/Genesis/TurboGraphix didn't even hit 100 million combined. The market is A LOT bigger now.

Also, YES piracy, a much bigger problem on PS1 and PS2 then it was on PS3 and probably now. PSP and DS were a lot easier to pirate then 3DS and Vita

So why the whining about buying games used now? Yes it's a more competetive market, but just like cars, this just means we see a lot less crap around (remember the crap on Atari 2600?).