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Green098 said:
I never gave second hand games much thought, but renting games makes a far bigger impact both ways (the renter and the creator). Purchase the game once then make thousands off it by lending it to people for money which none goes to the actual creator of the game. That's always felt wrong to me, it's basically just earning money off someone elses hard work. And there is obviously a case for this, it's why it is illegal to rent video games in Japan. |
You can't rent videogames in Japan because of piracy
http://kotaku.com/5914749/why-you-cant-rent-games-in-japan
However, instead of renting original copies of the games, most stores would bypass the copy protection and make their own bootleg copies to rent out—not to mention also selling that cracking software as well. These rental copies, now sans any and all copy protection were then copied ad infinitum by customers.
Thus in 1984, to stop the rampant piracy, game companies along with the Recording Industry Association of Japan and the Compact Disc & Video Rental Commerce Trade Association of Japan successfully lobbied and changed the Japanese Copyright Act. With this revision, video game rental was de-facto banned in Japan.
Legitimate rental businesses buy special versions on the games (those marked not for resale) to rent out which cost a whole lot more than buying the game outright. Ofcourse this can be abused, but it is illegal to rent out retail copies. In the end it is still far less destructive than piracy. You can only rent it out to one person at a time, while one pirated copy can be downloaded by many people from day 1.
Second hand copies are pretty harmless too. They aren't available from day 1, still cost a lot close after release, and provide value for those selling / trading their games in to fund new games. Next to keeping foot traffic going to stores where people can buy other game accessoires and get exposed to new systems and games.
