Why is buying used games such a big deal nowadays?

[Michael-5]

Birimbau said:

Michael-5 said:
Games are also in general selling better then they used to. Before the PS2 era it was unheard of to see a 3rd party game break 10 million units sold, now games like CoD sell 20 million annually.

Also the jump to next gen isn't that big, it's a 9x jump where the jump between 6th and 7th gen was 25x, and before that, even larger. Next gen games are still largely based on the same engines current gen games are based on, so there is a lot more recycling with code.

Games are more expensive, they cost millions to make and require hundreds-thousands of people to develop now. Before games didn't cost more than 50 thousand  and required small teams(12-50 people).

To an extent, that's true, but small studios with a little over 100 people can still produce excellent games. e.g. Polyphony Digital with Gran Turismo, and Platinum Studios with Vanquish.

However there were also less games on the market before, with less studios producing games, which sold less copies on average.

I don't think the problem is that studio's need x sales to make a profit. I think the problem is, we have too many studios which produce sub-par games. Yes the quality of the average video game has gone up, but that's what happens with more competition. Studios shouldn't be complaining that the competition is too much. Like an athlete, they should either work harder/more efficiently to achieve better results (better games), or give up, and try something else.