They are going a bit to far lately..Renting games is illegal over here now don't let the used game market be stopped aswell... I mean 80% of my games are used copies =p;

And the main counterpoint would be: What kind of value will a place like Best Buy or Walmart give you for a used game? Oh, right, nothing. Gamestop is a specialty retailer selling one thing, video games, and their pre-owned business works well not only for them, but for the customers as well. Could you make more selling them online through eBay and the like? Sure, but then you have the hassle of processing the payment, dealing with shipping, possibility of shady transactions, etc. Or, instead, I can drive 10 minutes to Gamestop with a newer game, get my $30-35 in credit for it (instead of the $35-40 I'd likely get for it selling it online) and have half a game paid off. Gamestop isn't Walmart of Best Buy where they have big ticket items liek appliances to allow them to take a hit on new game prices, and the used games ARE their bottom line. And in terms of the amount of effort I'd have to put in to make that extra $5-10 dollars selling a game on the internet, I'd much rather just go to Gamestop and shell out 5 more bucks to have it in my hand that day instead of theoretically getting it a week later when my online transaction has possibly completed itself.

By this same token, should all pawn shops also be shut down? I'm sure jewelers would prefer to sell brand new jewelry to everyone worldwide every time a relationship goes downhill. Not to mention the used video games, guns, electronics, CD, and DVDs. I'd bet Sony would prefer everyone buy a new $500 stereo setup, and not get it for 1/5 that price from a pawn shop.

At the end of the day good content sells, despite the used market. Make something good and fun and awesome and you will be rolling in the $$$

Some interesting points in the thread. I could be mistaken but it seems like the core four 'agreements' or as close as you'll get in a thread are:

1) games due to their nature 'age' faster than books/movies and therefore don't hold their price or repeat value to the same extent (i.e you pay full price today for a book written twenty years ago or even hundreds of years ago, this is not the way with games). This applies to good games vs bad and particularly games without online MP. Also genuinely poor/unliked games will be ditched pretty fast and that's what you get for making a poor game.

2) used games are therefore even more prevalent than with books/movies and are just a fact of life that developers need to accept. Good games will help but they'll still age fast. MP helps - but pls don't make everything MP as that won't work either! Good SP games still have a lot of value to those that like them, just make 'em good.

3) used games / new games need to be clearly separated and perhaps even a limit of when games can be taken back and termed 'used'. Also 'pre-owned' must be clearly marked as such.

4) DLC and content you unlock over time would help. I think Burnout is a great example of this BTW - I know so many people who hung onto the game as they wanted the free DLC coming and felt the game was still 'alive' in a sense. It also got others to buy the game much later than normal by slowly building the attractiveness of the game.

Seems like a fair bunch of points the majority have made.

The interesting one for me is the good/bad game dynamic. No-one wants to hang onto a game that is bad, nor give more money to the developers - and nor should they.

A good game however, particularly SP, shouldn't be punished by being played, then offloaded quickly because the SP is complete and hurt ongoing full price sales. This is the one that worries me. I do see pre-owned hurting SP games (which I prefer to MP) and the industry response is obvious (make the focus MP over SP) and developers turning away from big, expensive SP experiences.

In canada, Future Shop (owned by BB) accepts used games for trade in. As does blockbuster video. Their trade in values are somewhat better than EB's.

It looks like Froggy's point just got undercut.  Clearly Gamestop is following the monopoly strategy to success (buy or destroy competition so consumers will accept jacked up prices and crap service).

I'm largely going to stay out of this argument.  But I will just say that one reason online distributed games cost the same as other brick and mortar copies and other games completely is so that retailers don't get undercut and have a bitch.

Oh, I fully understand that.

With that said, why are developers looking out for retailers over consumers? Oh, that's right, money. They don't seem to have a problem screwing the consumer and helping retailers when it helps them financially.

Yet they bitch when the consumers get a leg up by using retailers through a different method...

Really, I can't believe anyone would defend this attitude. Sure, Gamestop charges too much for some used games. I fully acknowledge that and GS will not get a dime from me in situations like that. Also, selling used materials as new is illegal in pretty much every country I know of so that company should be reported on ethical grounds. Still, at the end of the day, Gamestop and their ilk provide a valuable service to consumers in an industry that often forgets they serve the customer by putting out redundant, short, offline games that offer little value for our $60 buy-in price. If developers don't like that, they can go fuck themselves. Period.

But thats just it.  I care about gaming retail.  In my country, I could download one game a month and stay below my download cap.  The download itself could take days.

Not to mention the self-defeating nature of this particular part of your argument.  If developers undercut retail and retail disappears, so does your right to sell your game, and buy your new games second hand.

Why do you believe the used market will die if new retail slows? If anything, it will flourish.

Anyway, my point isn't that DLC games should be cheaper... I'm fine with developers looking out for new retailers by keeping DLC prices in line with retail. What I'm not okay with is developers looking out for new retailers and then bitching about used retailers eating into their hypothetical profits.

They can't have their cake and eat it, too. You take the good with the bad whenever a new business model pops up. Attempting to squash the "bad" - especially when it hurts consumers - reeks of short-sightedness and immature business practices. Unless you actually agreed with the RIAA and their shenanigans of the late 90s.