Agreed. I have two people I actualy like at my local Gamestop. The one that is full time is usually who I try to get. If there is two I stay in his line. He does not bug me about such things. He knows I will just tell him if I want anything else.

Why would you buy used ? Just wait till the game is under 20$ and grab it !

I already offered the solution above. The problem is oversaturation, not GameStop, not piracy, not Gamefly. The average gamer only buys like 4 games a year per console. They're not going to be buying Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, Prototype, Dante's Inferno, etc. no matter what the game publishers do. No matter what exclusive pre-order DLC GameStop includes with the games. The solution is to cut way back on the number of games (unprofitable games specifically) companies publish per year. That's going to mean a shitload of game developers getting laid off but you know what? That's a market correction. The average gamer doesn't want to spend a fortune on games and they will not spend a fortune on games. We're heading straight to a video game crash ala 1983/1984. Way too much oversaturation in this market. The game publishers will accomplish nothing but lose even more money if they go by what you suggest by pissing off the average gamer.

The real solution is to sharply cut back on (unprofitable) games. That's not something hardcore gamers want to hear but it needs to be done. It's a market correction for the oversaturation problem. Yes gamers aren't entitled to playing so many videogames but you are making an assumption that gamers are actually going to buy all these videogames if the incentives are there to buy new. No they are not. Hardcore gamers, some of them. Average gamers, no. In fact this plan would hurt the gaming industry's profitability. Average gamer says, "you know what? I'm not even gonna buy this game used because it doesn't have online. F that. What it's 6 months later and I can play online now? Who cares that game is old news" And then the hardcore gamer who trades in his games at GameStop is like, "huh why am I getting even less trade-in credit? Gamers are buying less used games so the value of used games is going down? Oh shit, I have even less trade-in credit now to buy new games!"

^^^One quick comment before I walk out of the door: Games older than six months still sell. Check out this site: www.vgchartz.com for proof.

A person that won't buy a new $60 copy of Halo 4 probably wouldn't buy the used copy for $54.99, either. Waiting 6 months to buy a used game so that they could play online? Would anybody??

And cutting back on non-profitabile games? Nobody designs a game to loose money. Nobody makes a movie or album to loose money, either. It's unpredictable. Bottom line, if gamers don't buy new, to developers, they didn't buy at all. And for that hardcore gamer that trades at Gamestop? They're part of the problem!!


-and I'm gone. Catch you guys later.

Ugh, god. The sooner Gamestop dies, the better. I'm doing my part (

Of course it's predictable. Let's take EA for example. They are a great example because they lose lots of money. They have a number of franchises that are guaranteed money makers (Madden and what not). And they have a number of franchises that are very risky (Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, Dante's Inferno). EA needs to stop oversaturating the market with risky games (games that you have no idea whether or not they are going to be successful) if they don't want to be losing freakin $1 billion dollars per year again.

I don't know how many times I have to say this. Average gamers are not going to pay $60 per game for every game they are interested in. Period. GameStop used sales, Ebay, Amazon Marketplace, Gamefly, Blockbuster, etc. are here to stay. And that's not going to change. Ever. I don't get why you think average gamers are going to magically become hardcore gamers all of a sudden if online play tokens were included with new games. They aren't going to care.

The gamers on this forum are so out of touch with the average gamer who owns a 360 or PS3. Gaming is not a major part of their life. They can actually live without online play for a moderately popular game. For something like Call of Duty, that's a different story.

Used game sales as they are, probably aren't even all that significant to begin with so I don't see whats the whole big deal people have with GameStop. Like you said, they are only like $5 cheaper at release. Used game sales are likely to be a lot more slanted towards old games. You know the dirt cheap used games they have in the GameStop bargain bin sections? Stuff like that. I can't imagine that $55 used games are going to sell a whole lot.

I don't know what it is about the gaming industry specifically that makes them think they are so special. You can buy used DVDs. You can buy used music CDs. Why should gaming be different?

Now I remember why I don't normally engage in forum debates......anyway, let's continue!

1.  It's not predictable.  Each of those guaranteed IP's started off as an unknown IP.  Beloved franchises like Mass Effect, Heavy Rain, Halo, and Metal Gear are big now.  At some point, somebody had to propose an idea and get a company to back that idea.  How many million seller new a franchises were made this generation?  Quite a few.  Nobody can guarantee that Assassins Creed will be big but Dark Void would not.  It's trial and error.  Always has been.  If all EA brought out was Madden and what not, EA wouldn't be around for long.  The games sell but they aren't big enough to sustain a company like EA.  If people buy used games (and like you I don't have the actual figures on how much a used game sells.  I just know that while companies are folding, Gamestop/EBGames continues to post record profits) that's money that isn't going to the company. 

2.  I'm not going to pay $10 for every game I'm interested in.  But the games that I think are worthy of my time, I am willing to make sacrifices to buy.  Gamefly, Ebay, Blockbuster (which is near bankrupt) etc. are here to stay.  I don't think that gamers will magically become hardcore.  But if people see that the only way to get the full experience is to pay the full price (like seeing a movie in 3D at a theater), more of them will do it.  Not all.  Just more.  More money for the developers.  If you can't afford to see a movie, you don't see the movie.  If you can't afford to play the game, you don't play the game.  It's the manufacturer's suggested retail price.  The experience costs $60.  Why get the full experience for a discount price?  If I could see Avatar second hand, for less money, and get the full experience, would it be the biggest movie ever?

3.  Casual gamers outside of the internet rent, buy, or buy used.  Just like the rest of us.  Casual gamers pay $50 for Xbox Live, too.  They play online.  If they can live without the online experience, good for them.  More power to 'em.  They don't miss out on anything. 

4.  A used game like Halo 3 (which I bought used on the day it came out!) can be returned for store credit.  Then, it can be sold again.  Gamestop pays $20 or something and sells it again for $54.  Then, they can buy it AGAIN and sell it AGAIN for $54.  As demand goes down, Gamestop will pay the customer less (for example, buy it for $15 and sell it again for $40).  In the end, that one game has been bought legitimately one time and sold and re-sold 3 times.  An extreme example?  Stand at the register of a Gamestop on a Saturday and see how many people return games with a "Used" sticker in the corner.  They'll get paid chump change for the game.  That game will sell for more than twice what Gamestop bought it for.  Meanwhile the developer gets credit for none of that.

5.  The movie/music industry wish they could do what the games industry does.  There are a thousand different DVD players.  There are a thousand different MP3/CD players.  There's only one Wii, PS3, or Xbox 360.  Pirating exists, but no where near what the movie/music industry is up against.  And they're trying to fight it.  They just can't.  Gaming has an advantage.  Gaming machines have reached a level of sophistication to where they CAN stop second hand sales.  What I mentioned (and still, it was just a suggestion mentioned in a thread on a gaming site and is in no way reality) is mild compared to what COULD be done.  Remember when every PS3 died about a month ago.  Yeah.  That's what we're up against.

So, bottom line:  People (myself included) do buy used games.  Used games mean that the developer gets nothing while the buyer gets a full experience.  Game makers have the tools to fight it.  If gamers refuse to buy a used game because they want the new game experience AND they don't buy the new game either, the only people losing out are the buyer and the used game seller.  The developer can either get a new game sale or miss out on a used game sell that they wouldn't have gotten a single dollar for, anyway.  Boobies rock.

I'm not saying do away with new IPs completely. But you shouldn't release too many. You need to have the right balance between profitable established IPs and new IPs/risky investments. Games like Dante's Inferno, Mirror's Edge and Dead Space, while considered quality games by many, are a drain on EA's resources. EA spent way more money on those games than they made. This is why EA had to lay off a whole bunch of people. The whole idea is to make your money with your established successful IPs and then use those funds to fund your more risky ventures.

People paid the bigger price for Avatar to get the full experience. But Avatar was this mega popular, mega hyped thing. It's not the Call of Dutys that are losing money for game publishers. It's the less popular games. Joe Gamer is not going to care about online play for oh I don't know Army of Two: The 40th Day enough to buy it brand new. If the game doesn't have online without having to shell out the $60, he's probably going to skip the game completely. I mean it's just Army of Two right? Who cares. That's how average gamers think.

Also at least by buying that game used, they're indirectly influencing the gamers who traded in/sold the games to actually buy more games brand new in the store. Because then they think, "yeah it's $60 but if I trade-it-in, I get $30 credit. Credit I can use to buy another game!" or "I can sell it on ebay for a nice sum and then use that money to fund most of my purchase for another game!" Gamestop and ebay (ebay moreso because the seller gets more of their money back) are indirectly supporting game publishers this way. If you can trade in/sell games for a good penny, you're going to have a lot more incentive to buy games. But with this initiative, second hand prices are gonna drop, trade-in values are gonna drop, which means that hardcore gamers will have less money to fund NEW game purchases!

Gamefly too also supports the industry. Gamefly has to buy the actual games from the publishers and I believe they pay the publishers licensing fees for renting. And honestly the cost of a Gamefly 2 games out subscription for a year is more than what the average gamer spends on new games per year anyway. Sure the Gamefly subscriber plays a lot more games than the average gamer. But the more games you play, the more games that Gamefly has to buy from the publisher to meet demand and the more they have to pay in licensing fees. So that's not necessarily a bad thing (particularly when these rental companies manage to stay afloat financially too in the process! Everybody wins).

Once again, about the whole $54 game thing, do people really pay $54 for used games? Come on. $5 savings ain't shit. Maybe I'm out of the loop because I rarely go to GameStop but I can't imagine that $54 used games would be popular unless they were out of stock for a new game and you were desperate enough to just get the used version available. That is an issue that can be corrected if GameStop ordered more new games to put in stock (thing is, GameStop has every reason in the world to purposely understock on the new games and force their $54 used games on you). Bottom line if GameStop is such a problem fo the game industry, why do they stock their games at GameStop? If GameStop wasn't a net positive contributor to the gaming industry, they wouldn't stock their games at GameStop. They'd stock their games elsewhere.

So dunno if anyone knows this but Gamestop does this thing called inventory (I know I just found this out yesterday!). It basically keeps track of every game a store gets and has. They have computers where it has all there inventory inside of it (who would have thunk it?). And when someone buys or trades in something it gets taken out or put on said computer. Now at the end of the day, week, month, year, (theoretically speaking of course) you can look and see how many 'used' games you sold (across all your chains) of Company X and pay a small percentage to them to keep them happy and stop trying to foil your plans for world domination. Then Company X can then divide that check amongst themselves.

Wouldn't the world be nicer with that?

I'm a buyer and seller of used games. Both from retailers and online. I'm more inclined to purchase DLC that is genuine extra material for a game if I've bought a game used because I've paid less for the main game so I figure I have more money for extra content.

So if Gamestop are going to start selling DLC to gamers does that mean they'll start selling PSPGo now that they've found an enduring revenue stream for DLC only hardware? Seems like a good idea for people with data limits on their internet, or slow internet speed to use someone else's internet connection to buy DLC.