Before you read this you might want to know that I'm tired of publishers complaining about how the used games market is hurting their sales. To this kind of talk I say, "Man up, bitches! If your game isn't selling new, then maybe it's because you didn't sell the concept well enough for it to be bought new. Either that, or your concept sucks! Come up with something new and appealing and build hype for it! If a game doesn't sell you have no one to blame but yourselves!"

Now as to my solution, if you really think the used game market is hurting publisher's profits, then lobby for legislation to hurt the profitability of used game sales. My suggestion is to make a law saying that games, used or otherwise, must be sold in their original boxes. On those boxes there would be 4 blank spaces. Every time a store sells a game, they would be required by law to mark one of those spaces with a stamp. Once all four spaces are stamped, it cannot be sold again to or from a store. This means that the consumer cannot resell such a game except on websites like Ebay or in a yard sale or a similar setting. This also means that consumers would be more inclined to buy new, so the publishers make more money, and since the retailers make money for sales regardless of the source of their games sold, the retailers have little to complain about. The only people that would complain about such a policy are the consumers.

But let's face reality, nobody would go for something like this and I'll tell you why: the retailers like making lots of money at the expense of others' fortunes, the consumers don't want to be stuck with things they'll never be able to get rid of, and the publishers need an extra scapegoat or two and they can't afford to seem like they're biting the hand that feeds them. Basically what I'm saying is that the whole argument is just a pointless bukkake scene between the publishers, the retailers, and common sense, and the consumers watching the film are either pitying the publishers or defending the retailers, but they're not the ones being exploited and jizzed upon. Simply put, the whole argument is baseless, senseless, and pointless.

To the publishers: just because someone else is making more money than you make off of a product you already sold doesn't mean that they have to give you any of that money, they're not copying your product, they're selling it, a thing they can do as many times as they please.

To the retailers: just because you make more money through used game sales doesn't mean you can use aggressive tactics to discourage people from buying new, in fact you should encourage the purchasing of new games because there's no absolute way to guarantee the quality of used games, and if you sell something that fails without warning the consumer of the possibility of failure you will be dealing with lawsuits aplenty.

Finally, to the consumers: shame on you for perpetuating such a stupid argument upon which neither side is clearly in the right. Have I made myself clear?

Please don't try to get the government involved, the last thing we need is more gov't intervention in the market.

It sucks for publishers but suck it up and find a solution. Online passes seem to be becoming the norm and that's probably a good start for fixing the issue.

@ RolStoppable: I know substance is important, that's one of the things that makes something appealing. But if you don't generate interest in something, only a few people will buy it in the first place. It happened to most of Double Fine's catalog. It happened to a countless number of games, What do you think the term "cult classic" means? It doesn't mean that it's played by cultists; it means that the few people that bought it liked it enough to want to see more.

@ Marks: If you'd read the whole thing you would understand that the plan was a hypothetical and designed with the express purpose of causing dissatisfaction. Not quite a joke, but I was hoping to invoke a reaction, so people would realize how stupid the argument actually was from both points of view.

You're making things too complicated.
Just make the games unplayable after 1 week after purchase. Problem solved.

While I dont think we shouldnt be able to sell what we own. I think the opinion of some publishers/developers is defendable. Intellectual property is a different market then everything else. Its not something that provide any advantages if you purchase it new.

I am not sure I understood what you're trying to say.

I think the solution is much simpler ...

People choose to sell their games back to these retailers to recover a portion of what they spent on the software, and they buy games used to save a small portion of the purchase price, to make the cost of playing videogames more affordable. If videogame publishers focused on digital distribution, past the savings from cutting out the retailers onto the consumer, and lowered their prices in general under the assumption that what they lost in the price of a single copy would be made up in volume sales, they would probably see higher revenues.

To put numbers to this ...

Suppose a publisher's revenue off of a game is $25 to $30, with the game console manufacturer taking about $10 to $15, and the retailer taking the remainder. If you can get the console manufacturer on board to reducing their cut to $5 to $7.50 and you sold the game for $20 to $25 online you would probably see 2 to 4 times the sales on the same game; and decimate the market for used games.

The best way to help with used games sales and not hurt consumers or retailers (besides gamestop) is to have regular price drops on games at known intervals. Something like release price is 60 for 1-3 months depending on demand. Than a 10 or 20 dollar price drop keep that price for 1-3 months, and than drop price again 10-20 dollars. Consmers win as they get the games for the prices they want, pubs/devs still get their cut since games are bought new, and retailers still get a cut as games will be bought from them. It will hurt gamestop as any used copy they bought when the price was 60 has a chance of not being sold until the retail price drops so they may loose money. well thats the just of it at least.

I think the same number of people would wait. People already wait for price drops on games, they just wait for a used version to become available. The numbers could be adjusted slightly. A lot of gamers i know prefer to get the game within the first month of release or they usually dont get it. I dont have the time to look up data but perhaos someone could look and see what the legs on games are like after 1-3 months of release and if they are being outpaced by used games sales it would be a good idea to just drop the price of a new game. I personaly only buy maybe 1-2 games full price all year. The rest are bought used or on sale at steam/amazon.

The other option is for pubs to just not sell new games to Gamestop. I wouldn't. Why rely on them when you have wal mart kmart target and best buy all across america. Just cut gamestop out of the equation and simply do not let them sell your games new to just be brought back to be put up for sale against new games. Pubs can't stop gamestop from selling used games but as far as i know they dont have to sell them their games to sell new.