I love used games. They are one way how residents of third world countries like mine can benefit from the rich countries (or is it? o_o).

What is a fact is that if you are having to wring more and more money out of a stagnating audience, your industry is in trouble and annihilating first sale doctrine isn't going to save you.

You do not see DLC on IOS and Android because there is no point.  You either have free to play where you unlock content as you go along and pay for it or its like Angry Birds where they keep releasing stuff and you can purchase it for cheap.  Its a totally diffrent buisness model.  There isn't studios spending millions on bringing you Last of US type of games on those devices so the overhead in making games is much less.

Problems:

1. Anyone who sees games running at 60-70 dollars a whack day one as a Impulse Buy is either really rich.. or living on another world.. I mean the reality is.. with prices going up on Gas, Food, Services, Bills, Taxes and just about everything else.. I do not see games as a impulse buy.. because I have to live on a budget as I think most people do or should... I do have a list I keep.. and when I can afford to get a game.. I get it.. if it goes on sale.. and I have enough I get it.. plain and simple. (And before you insult me.. understand this.. I work in the construction field.. a rarity apparently.. so no it's not that I don't have a job.. I have one.. I work 8-15 hour days.. and yet still cannot afford to call a game an impulse buy...)

2. The reality is.. as I said before.. once you buy a game.. you need to have rights to that game all rights.. including trading and selling.. I mean could you imagine if you bought a work of art.. kept it for awhile.. decided it did not fit your house.. so you choose to sell it.. only to have the artist come back and ask you for a part of that money??  Or worse yet you find out if you ever sell it.. him or his family..descendents could come back and ask you for part of it?? Or how about if a studio told you everytime you sold their movie you had to give them a cut of what you make?? (No I am not talking Amazon.. I am talking you as a person) And how would you feel if the studio said.. okay.. if you sell it.. we make at least 15 dollars off your sale?? (There is really nothing to say this was not part of the agreement) 

3. In actuality.. the Industry themselves put themselves in this situation where they are Damned if they do.. Damned if they don't on new IP's.. Gamers want new IP's.. and sometimes companies do make them.. but the thing is.. they hardly ever get as much marketing as the Call of Duties and other established franchises.. so esentially speaking  it is then up to the public to get the word out... and sometimes no matter how many reviews or how many people try to get the word out... it still gets overlooked... and as thus the company dumps the New IP.. and just continues to push the  more popular franchises... 

4. In addition since number three happens so often.. it is actually the the reason.. (At least one of them) Of why the Used Game Market has become so big. Continued Franchises... and essentially the fact that there are a lot of new games that only amount to updates.

5. The More games went on the Internet the more likely you were to see Micro Tranactions.. DLC etc.. (Not to mention by all rights and purposes less than finished games/or buggy releases) 

6. Game companies are to blame... Developers and what not.. they wanted newer and newer technology... they in turn got it.. knowing the costs were going to go up.. but they still wanted it.. (And yes I understand gamers wanted it as well and asked for it.. so the reality is.. it's shared responsibility on this one) . The Companies wanted to be like Hollywood.. so to speak.. they got their wish.. the problem is.. they have not learned what Hollywood has.. and that's that sometimes you either need to focus on less projects.. to make them the best they can be.. and to cut down on total cost to the company.. not to mention most likely give gamers something you are going to have to pry from their cold deadhands to get(AKA a classic) (Which yes would inspire a lot of microtranactions but would also most likely shrink the used game market.. think less titles.. equals smaller market.. and if they are as good as I stated... you would not want to trade them in would you??) Or that they need someway to balance the budget on a game.. even if said game takes more time to create... Gamers have patience and are willing to wait.. 

7. And for the love of God.. in this Age of DLC... etc.. can someone please explain to me why EA (For Instance)  can't just make one physical copy of a game.. (At 60 bucks) and just have online updates that cost anywhere from 20-30 dollars a year... to make it say.. from Maddens 15 to Maddens 16 with updated rosters.. graphics.. and playbooks.. since most of the time that seems to be all that gets done for the most part anyway?? I mean really?? 

How is it ringing more money if the player base did not purchase your game new.  If you are building a product and you are not getting paid why would you cater to the people who did not contribute to your hard earned work.  Nobody is talking about getting rid of your First Sale doctrine but because of technology, your First Sale right has become a business that hurts the actual people that make your entertainment.  If those people need to make a few dollars its not because of greed its because of need.

What I am stating is that their needs to be balance.  The balance is broken and the people who make your entertainment is not getting paid.  When it was just you selling to your friends, this actually helped the market because you made that friend a customer who would then purchase the next game instead of wait for you to complete it.  Now, used games are such a big business that Stores actively push used games on consumers over new.  Internet auction like Ebay and Craiglist make selling used games national.  Amazon, Best Buy, Grocery stores you name it.

Developers make their money at retail.  If retail is hurting their return, where do you think the money will come from.  Its not like game developers have any other means to make money besides throwing on DLC or other methods to get paid.

In conclusion, the industry is in trouble and used games does have a huge impact on it.  There will be change, and it could be for the good or bad but something will happen.  I am not stating that getting rid of your first sale right will be it but things probably will be moving to digital much faster than anyone will like.

You do also have proof proof, if you're interested http://www.joystiq.com/2012/08/06/gamestop-70-of-trade-in-credit-spent-on-new-games/

Because people do buy the game new. Where do you think used games come from? By using paid DLC to close the gaps in your business model you are taking it out on the people who buy your game new as much as you are on the people who bought it used, ergo you are trying to wring more money out of people who were already your paying customers. Of course, paid DLC doesn't exist because of used games but to make more money, period. The day used games die, paid DLC will continue. If paid DLC ever goes away it will be because it ceased to be profitable, not because developers are no longer "needy".

No, it's because they are using a business model that has ceased to work. (See: Mark Cerny at GDC on the $50 Million Game) Turns out you can only keep doubling your budgets for so long... who knew?

How about from the glorious digital "future" which is already here, today, right now? Digital distribution is not a new thing. It is available on every single console. With so many digital success stories to look at and draw lessons from, if publishers, developers, and platform holders can't get together and make it work, that is their problem and not the consumer's.

I appreciate seeing different perspective on a topic like this. All your points are understandable and valid.

For me personally, a 60 dollar game is an impulse buy but I think we are looking at the word impulse differently. I would usually wait for 20-30 dollar price point, but if something really grabs me, I will fork out 60 bucks for it on day 1. Games are absolutely the worst investment you can make as the price tanks faster than Felix Baumgartner falling out of the sky. You literally have to wait 3 months and get it at half the price point... Publishers know this and they abuse the enthusasm gamers have towards their favorite gaming franchises to take 60 dollars out of their pocket on day 1. This race for day 1 sales is whats hurting the industry and gamers as we are paying a price premium for something that really isn't worth as much in the long run... 

Another point you've made is about artists and musicians not asking for more money after purchase...yeah they don't do that but pretty much every other entertainment medium has many different sources of income. Musicians tour, movies get a theater release, dvd release and television release all of which make them revenue. Gaming industry really doesn't have multiple avenues to generate revenue. Arcades are long gone... Their alternate revenue sources are the things we tend to hate...witheld DLC, stringing gamers along with more content...

Like the industry is a fucking mess when you think about it... Top game development is purely driven by the bottom line and gounging the most money possible from enthusiastic gamers on day 1 who see their investment depriciate unless they trade/sell it within a few months of purchase. This trade ends up hurting the publishers sales in the long run. Its actually a cycle that there is no end to...

If not for used games and renting and sharing there is NO way I ever would have been able to enjoy games growing up. Despite my efforts to "kill" gaming in the 90s it survived poor me and has been rewarded by someone who spends hundreds of dollars a year on new games.

If I do get a used game nowadays (which is rare) it is generally well after release when it is dirt cheap and otherwise I would never have purchased it. It is not a lost sale to me, it is a chance to convince me to try a game I would not if used/renting/sharing did not exist.

I played Uncharted 1 at a friends and did not care for it and left the series alone for years. After Uncharted 3 came out I decided to rent Uncharted 2 and found I liked it a great deal more than 1. So, when I see Naughty Dog has a new IP in Last of Us I bought it (waiting on it to finally get here in the mail) NEW as I trusted them as a developer. Without that experience I would likely have waited or never tried Last of Us.

There is an end to it, but it requires publishers to accept that the blockbuster model has run its course. To take one (perhaps not representative, but still interesting) example, Deadly Premonition is a game which spent about as long in development as Final Fantasy Versus XIII has so far, was scrapped once, is a Japanese survival horror game with PS2 graphics and completely subpar gameplay, and sold most of its copies for $20 US at retail. And it is considered a success, while Resident Evil 6 ships 5 million and Tomb Raider ships 3 million right out of the gate and are considered disappointments. We have seen/are seeing the developers of games like Dead Space, Dead Rising, Splinter Cell, and countless others state their intentions to go after the Call of Duty audience or lament that no one likes their genre. Well, enough people apparently liked stealth games for Splinter Cell to get a shitload of sequels and survive as a franchise for over a decade now. Why is it now that all games have to meld into one amorphous blob of indeterminate genre all chasing the same dollar, and how many of these focus-grouped-to-death AAA games have to flop before the industry realizes that when you make a game for everyone you may end up making it for no one?

More importantly, who decided that every fucking game has to cost tens of millions of dollars to make? If you can't afford to make games that cost this much, then you can't afford to make games that cost this much. GAEMZ ENDUSTRIE STAHP