Why is buying used games such a big deal nowadays?

[Michael-5]

Darc Requiem said:

Michael-5 said:

Like what SNES games in particular? I think Donkey Kong Country Competition, and Star Fox Weekend sold for $60 new, and I don't remember SF2 costing that much. Are you talking about the price of the game new, or used years later on eBay?

As for the market, you're 100% right, I forgot about the cost of cartridges.

IMO studios like EA have no right to complain about used games, especially when they block competition by having exclusive rights to NFL, Porsche and such. NFS games nowadays, are crap, and so are a lot of EA games. If you can't make a profit off them, it's because you're making crap, and you shouldn't be. When I read about games which didn't turn a profit, it's 9/10 times a reboot of an old franchise, an old established IP which relied on name to sell, a "clone" of another established game, or just a bad game in general. I never see a good new original game make a loss. Dead Space, Vanquish, Catherine...they all sold meh, and made money.

I got SF2 at launch it was the first 16Mb SNES cartridge. The going price was $69.99. The EB at my local mall had it for $77.99. Gouging bastards. As for PSIV it was $79.99 to 89.99 it was the first 24Mb Genesis game.

Okay, well these aren't the standard for SNES game prices, and it seems like it's corellated to larger capacity cartidges. However Stunt Race FX and Starfox were 2 of the later Super FX chip SNES games and they were $49.99 I recall.

Still regardless, even at $50, with inflation games were more expensive (ignoring the cost of DLC). However like some people said a lot of that cost went into manufactering costs, since cartridges cost over $20 a unit to make (more for higher capacity).

So, for arguements sake, if the revenue per game is the same now as it was in the past. Games in general sell better now because of a larger market, but also cost more to develop. So if devs are stuggling it's either because the cost to develop has increase much more then the gain in sales, or because devs aren't efficient and have excessive staff, or poorly managese expenses. I feel the former is the case because like I said, many small <150 staff studios are still capable of producing 9/10 games, which make a profit, even with low sales (Platinum Games, Atlus, Polyphony Digital).

So I don't see anything wrong with buying games used, especially for buying games you're not sure about, or games from large devs (like EA). It puts pressure on devs to make good games under a smaller budget (or bankruptcy), and competition is what's making our games better. We're weeding out the bad devs, or devs with poor marketing.

P.S. When you said SF2, I was thinking Star Fox 2....LOL.