Regarding first bolded statement: isn't this precisely what Nintendo is disproving as we speak? We've got women and the elderly playing games.

Which tells us that these people will play games, they just don't like the games that had previously been offered to them. Which, again, means the problem is the fault of video game companies. If women are willing to play (as clearly evidenced by recent events), but hadn't been playing up until recently, it's clearly the fault of video game companies. They could have expanded their audience, but no one did. The "limited audience," as you put it, is a problem caused by gaming companies themselves. No one is forcing this "limited audience" on them, and they could make a different type of game that appealed to broader audiences at any time they wanted.

As to the second bolded: it is not actually their perogative, and I'll have to assume you do not undersand IP law. There are actual consumer rights that are legal and ratified, which means that none of these "end user" agreements are enforcable and are just pieces of paper used to bully consumers (and no one ever tries to take these to court, by the way). Of course, they could just make the ending to the game unplayable unless you pay 10$ online: that doesn't require any sort of EULA and is completely legal.

As a side note, EULAs are enforcable in the specific case where you connect directly to a company's servers. So, for example, MMOs have enforcable EULAs: not because they have the right to stop you from reselling it, but because they have the right to stop you from using their servers.

If games aren't so expensive, people wouldn't buy used games and wouldn't bother to sell their games.

That's why I usually buy them on sale.

It's also easier to sell a $19.99 game than something priced at $59.99, don't you think?

Especially those 20-in-1 games :)

i go to ebay and buy my games and plus amazon has really good ones. craigslist is the sh@t with games check the flea market u can get really good used stolen games their cheap and plus u can use ur haggle skillz and then sell it on ebay and craigs or even gstop

I want to repeat this for emphasis. Kn mentioned that games are different than other mediums because they have a "very limited audience," using his terms.

It's important to note that we are learning right now -- as we watch here at VGChartz -- the expansion of video games into demographics like women over 40, young girls and the elderly.

Which means that KN's own example, that he had used as evidence for his point, is in fact tremendously good evidence against it. If video games have traditionally had a "very limited audience," which I'd actually agree they have, this has purely been the fault of video game companies themselves. It isn't as if video games have some inherent property that automatically causes a small audience, the limited audience has been a consequence of the choices video game companies have made. It would be like the music industry only making heavy metal music, and then insisting that their financial woes are a consequence of a "limited audience."

The whole reason the appeal of video games had previously been limited is because video game companies didn't know how to approach a larger audience, not because a larger audience couldn't exist. That is, in its very purest form, a failure of business practice.

I own 5 Wii games. One is Wii Sports, which came together with the Wii. I bought SSBB for 60€ (such a ripoff, but you can't really get it cheaper in my country. that was around 80-90$when I bought it). A month or little more ago I bought SMG, MP3 and TP used for 65€. I don't regret buying them.

I love the hypocrasy of this thread, as Soriku said earlier :)

"don't pirate games becuase you don't give money to the publishers." then hapilly buy used games. Which don't give money to the publishers :D ROFLMAO
If we continue on this line of thought how it hurts the industry. Well it works like this. BB, GS... find that their "new" titles aren't selling as much. So they reduce their next order. This reduced order means less sales to the publisher. pretty simple isn't it. Like piracy. If people pirate result in less new sales, which reduces the number of orders done.

I do however agree with Bodhesatva and this general train of thought. Piracy, used games are irrelvant if the audiance is large enough.

I remember back in the days of megadrive buying MK2 for £50 which would have worked out to $90 or so, as were quite a few of the popular games in the UK at the time.

So the prices arent more expensive now, they just happen to still occupy the more expensive end of the media (as oppose to music/film etc).

i never buy used games. I just buy new games that are on sale

Most used games are off some $5 from a new copy......Yet people still buy them. Of course price is a factor, but $5 isnt going to brake anyones bank account.

cheapassgamer.com always has the best deals when shopping for new games on sale