As has certainly been said before - If Pachter says it, it must be false.

First off, just a quick look at those numbers is a sure sign that he's pulling stuff out of his ass. I, and I'm sure many/most of you, have walked into Gamestops before and seen piles of games that aren't even two month old yet. Also, I'm sure we have all seen dozens or hundreds of games still on sale not just two months after release but even years after. And just how many of the games that don't make it that long would stay on shelves even longer if they weren't available used, I wonder.

Frankly, the only argument about the plus side of the used market is that some people use that money to buy new games. But not all of them do. And let's be honest, Gamestop is designed to sell used games. They are going to push you towards their used section as hard as possible, even to the point where they now come out and tell people you can essentially rent games for 7 days at a time by just putting the full value down up front and continuously rotating your games. With such tactics it's wholly possible, perhaps even likely, that a lot of dollars go toward used products when they would have otherwise gone to new ones. The guy who trades a bunch of games in to buy the new ones may have had to live with fewer games, but the people who couldn't pick through his old collection are going to pick up the slack. With the middle man cut out, it's even possible that more games in total would be sold by publishers because Gamestop couldn't take their inflated cut.

Now, I'm not saying we should end used sales. If that happened to games it could extend to much mroe expensive items like houses and cars, and that would be devastating. However, to a publisher used game sales are just as bad as piracy, period. Any virtue the used market displays actually can be attributed to the pirate market as well. Even Microsoft admits that today's pirates are often tomorrow's customers and have on record stated "If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else" (Jeff Raikes, Pres MS Business Division, 3/16/07).

People that area against reselling of games are retarded. If you dont believe that people should be able to sell the things they own you dont believe in the benefits of ownership. Shit....I only buy new games, because thats what I like to do, but if there was a law banning the reselling of games I would rent and bootleg for the rest of my life.

I dont shop at or like gamestop. I dont like how they offer shit trade in values for games amongst a number of other things. I dont ever buy used games unless completely necessary. Publishers bitching about people buying new games need to shut up and work on making games at a worthwhile value for the customer.

"Pachter also revealed that the used game sales sector of the market now accounts for around 100 million units per year in the U.S. alone. That equates to around one-third of all games sold and provides a revenue stream of around $2 billion annually."

That's still 100 million that the developers do not see a penny of. When it comes to the developer seeing money from the game there is no different than piracy. If anything by some is considered more abhorrent because now a middle man is making cash of the game. Where as piracy middle men don't make money.

Personally I don't care. So many of these companies were born on the PC or followed the PC gaming at birth. Back then piracy was just as rampant(just untracked) and these companies managed to over come piracy loss just from raw sales.

In the end money gain from resale or piracy doesn't make enough of difference. If you could stop both 100% companies won't be making much more than they are now.

How can used games be bad for the industry? Videogaming is thriving, it's growing, and used game sales are increasing as well along with it. It's just a natural part of any industry with physical ownership. Somehow used furniture, used vehicles, used houses, used everything manages to co-exist within an industry of new and used sales. Why would it only be damaging for videogames and not other industries?

If anything the existence of used games keep the publishers in check and makes them second guess decisions they make. If you want to know why 1/3 of all game sales are used though, it's because the perception to 33% of people is that buying new is too expensive. This is where you keep publishers second guessing whether their pricing model is really acceptable when other comparable forms of entertainment like movies and music range from $10-$20 typically. Gaming is well out of reach, and used game prices help those unwilling to shell out what they feel is too much for something they only kinda want. It's easy to shell out new for that game you must have. However, how do you get someone to make an impulse buy on a $60 game? Not as easy as the $10 CD or $15 DVD purchase at your local Target and Walmart.

Whatever. It's called replay value. Developers should include it in their games if they don't want people to sell/trade them. You get what you give and if you give a game that's fun for 6 hours with no incentive to play it again then you'll get kids trading that shit in. Period.

Whether or not used games are hurting the industry, a person should be allowed to buy and sell used games. Same goes for movies, books, and music.

They're excellent - they encourage developers to make high quality, long lasting games that people don't want to sell. It also lets you identify the devs that are incapable of doing this (the ones who blame 2nd hand sales for poor company performance)

Used games hurt the publishers, but help the game industry with doing it.

Used games sales are almost nonexistent in PC gaming, not only because of piracy, but because these types of games, manager games, MMOs, Sims, RTS, and so on.
You don't "play through" these games in an afternoon, you experience them for months, and even years. You won't sell your copy of The Sims, because if you like it, you will find new points of interest in it, even after years.

Therefore, used games sales will hurt those publishers the most, who release 5-10 hours long cinematic games instead of proper sandboxes for infinite entertainment.

Natural selection FTW!!!

They hurt the industry and it will only get worse as more retailers get into the act.

Used games are okay, but certain practices from places like Gamestop are bad for the industry. Trying to convince people to buy it used for $5 less when they ask for a copy of a recent release is shady business practice.