c0rd said:
GTA IV didn't have short replayability in your opinion, but obviously not to many others. It may not even be a game worth playing through once, to people who were disappointed by the game. Losing sales to used games is the price you pay for dissatisfied customers. Games like CoD and Mario Kart probably do have many used sales, due to the games' sheer popularity. However, these are far outnumbered by people who actually want to keep the games. That's why they're still selling so strongly to this day. Look at how the games have held their value (on ebay, half.com or other sites) - Mario Kart is still around $35-40 used (only $5-10 less than Amazon), while GTA IV (360) is down to about $10. If you look at it this way, you'll notice the "bad" games (in gamers' perspectives) are the ones that get hurt by used sales, because so many new buyers wanted to get rid of their copy in order to buy another game, hopefully one worth keeping. Some exceptions are how games like CoD drop in value when their sequels replace them, because people no longer need of the previous game. They also drop in value (as do other multiplayer games like Gears) due to things like map packs being tied to online accounts, which later come with new copies (Game of the Year editions). As a customer, this is more to my liking. It punishes the companies that pump out sequels (killing off older CoD's), games that are bad / low replayability / don't meet expectations (GTA IV), because the used games market adjusts its price to compensate for these things. Instead of sucking up and spoon-feeding money to all of these developers (no matter how crappy the games may be), why not make them fight for your money? These losses will eventually drive them to make better games, to creativity, so we'll benefit in the end. (edit: I guess this is assuming you agree with what the market decides)
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And it's still a fact that the used sales market is huge and that you can get all kinds of games there, whether a game is good or not.
In the end even if you can decide which developer is worth supporting, there will always be people how do the complete opposite.
