badgenome said:
What is a fact is that if you are having to wring more and more money out of a stagnating audience, your industry is in trouble and annihilating first sale doctrine isn't going to save you. |
How is it ringing more money if the player base did not purchase your game new. If you are building a product and you are not getting paid why would you cater to the people who did not contribute to your hard earned work. Nobody is talking about getting rid of your First Sale doctrine but because of technology, your First Sale right has become a business that hurts the actual people that make your entertainment. If those people need to make a few dollars its not because of greed its because of need.
What I am stating is that their needs to be balance. The balance is broken and the people who make your entertainment is not getting paid. When it was just you selling to your friends, this actually helped the market because you made that friend a customer who would then purchase the next game instead of wait for you to complete it. Now, used games are such a big business that Stores actively push used games on consumers over new. Internet auction like Ebay and Craiglist make selling used games national. Amazon, Best Buy, Grocery stores you name it.
Developers make their money at retail. If retail is hurting their return, where do you think the money will come from. Its not like game developers have any other means to make money besides throwing on DLC or other methods to get paid.
In conclusion, the industry is in trouble and used games does have a huge impact on it. There will be change, and it could be for the good or bad but something will happen. I am not stating that getting rid of your first sale right will be it but things probably will be moving to digital much faster than anyone will like.
