The Industry wasn't going to die before... that's just... silly.

That's not a benefit, reducing prices is a benefit  to the consumer, something you've bought that has little deprecation or little loss in value over time is a benefit. 

Like I said before, the biggest losers will be the day one or early purchasers who wants to sell on their games , places like Game in the UK or Gamestop in the US will just give a lower trade in price.

I cant blame the developers for wanting a percentage of the profits from used games. Amazon, best buy and gamestop all buy used games now for pennies on the dollar and developers see none of those profits, furthermore shops with lots of used games in stock don't order new versions which further reduces the companies profits. 

So lets make this blunt if users are forced to buy new they will be more likely to spend their money wisely meaning crappy games are far less likely to be successful making developers give us better games for our money.

The game industry isn't anywhere close to dying (unless you are really jaded with gaming). If anything the gaming market is oversaturated. It's soooo oversaturated that you have indie developers practically giving their games away on Steam, XBL Indie Games, Amazon, etc. for peanuts (80 MS pts for Breath of Death VII is amazing for the consumer but I truly feel that if they charged 400 MS pts for that game, it would be a fair price for a few hour quality jrpg experience. If a full-length quality sprite-based jrpg on the DS goes for like $30-40, I'd say $5 is a fair price for a quality few hour sprite-based jrpg. Just because it's made by amateurs, doesn't mean it sucks. It's great.

In retail most devs are nervous about straying from the $60 price tag ($50 for the Wii, $30-40 for DS and PSP) because low price is often perceived as low quality (look at Deadly Premonition and their $20 debut price tag. I wouldn't be surprised if game reviewers psychologically expected a crappy game for that low debut price and that expectation colored their perception of the game). But in a true free market sense, many of these games are not worth the price tag and that's why they sell like crap. The gaming industry needs to change up the price structure (just like Indie devs have. Though I personally feel that some of the indies are selling themselves a bit short. I felt the Breath of Death VII guys could get away with charging more personally. It's all about maintaining that right balance. Setting price "just right" to maximize revenue. If demand is low and your price is high, you need to lower your price. If demand is high and your price is low, and I'm your customer, I'd totally like have your babies. But you are crazy to financially screw yourself out of more money like that.

And when it comes to the quality of gaming today, yeah sure sometimes I'll try a game and I don't like it but if that's the case, I just send that game back in the mail to the rental distribution centre (or whatever they call those). And then try a new game. No big deal. There is no shortage of quality games out there to play. It's all about seeking them out and seeing what's good out there.

Like sure it would be a drag if EA went out of business (yeah they are evil but their EA Sports stuff is good and they have lots of great IPs outside sports) but EA does not equal the gaming industry. We as gamers can easily move on without EA. All those key guys employed at EA will just move on to another studio and create some more kickass games. The economy blows but even then, people with in-demand game development skills are going to be able to find new work in their field and bring us more kickass games. Maybe not as much kickass games as before but that's ok because the market is already oversaturated with so many new games anyway. There is more than enough money in this industry to sustain a healthy gaming future. Some studios close down, that's life. But there's more than enough consumer dollars floating around out there to ensure that the key creative and talented individuals of gaming will continue to make great games somewhere at another company if need be.

*edit* Bah, that reply box that pops up on top of the thread is annoying because it dissapears if you view another tab on your browser.

I said cd-keys were evil? What I said was that arguments against PC gaming, such as cd-keys, are now being accepted on consoles. Product keys and DRM for other software (such as Adobe products or something) can be a different beast though :P

Bummer about Steam currencies, but I'm not from Europe.

I brought up Valve because you had mentioned TF2 and Left4Dead which get a lot of support from Valve without charging the customers. Sure, not every developer/publisher will support their games as well as Valve and can obviously charge a price for their DLC and such. However, when I hear complaining that sports game series ____ has been losing popularity where the only huge change between the latest iteration and last year's is a roster update or the Xth shooter of the year will charge a high price for a mere map pack, I'm supposed to completely agree that they should start charging for even more things?

Will they be forced to spend their money more wisely?  Or be forced to spend their money more based on reputation?

It's just going to strangle out the small time publishers... who often create the best stuff out their.

I mean, think of Atlus a fe years ago for example.

Not yet, but it's getting critical and you know it.

Then just don't sell it at all or if the game isn't worth it for you at full price, wait a bit and buy it original for half the price and then keep it.

Uh... no it's not.   Also, this will only hurt.

While this is not good ... the other option that some of these companies may take is to seek legislation to prohibit game resales -- making a game purchase a license to play purchase.

I think the on-line repay is not a bad thing in that regard.

Mike from Morgantown