It's not that they get money from the used game sale directly, but the seller gets credit or cash that can be used to buy another game.

Not if the architect/designer has patented the design.  You'd be free to sell your house on to someone else though.

Yes and the pirate keeps all his money thus allwinng him to buy more games right?

vlad321 the game is manufactured on the disc I didn't burn it onto one. I comes in a box with a manual. When I sell the game used I'm selling all that as well. Although the game can exist in a pure digital format. To legally play the game you need the disc. When I buy the game I have the right to use what is on it. When I sell it I'm selling my right to use it. To call me a pirate for selling something that I paid to have the rights to is ridiculous. Now I bought flower on psn. I can never sell the game. I was able to re download it when I had to get my ps3 fixed and that cost me nothing more. If a disc of mine were to break then that would be it. I'd have to buy the game again. Now I only paid 9.99 for flower while I spent 60 for some games I later resold for for 15. The developer still got money from when I bought it in the first place had the game been better I might have kept it or the person who bought it used from me might have wanted it sooner. A used market can show the replay value of a game piracy does not. If the developer sees the game selling for $29.99 used all over when they still want to sell it for $60 that's a sign to them that they aren't offering enough in that game for it to be $60 in the eyes of the consumer. They can lower the price. Maybe to $19.99 to try and get rid of the rest of the stock and prevent a further loss. Maybe offer a special edition with more features on it. Maybe offer some dlc so people hold onto it for longer. Used games is a way for the developer to see what the market has to say about the game. Piracy doesn't do this. Developers see people spending on the used games. They don't see pirates spending at all. They have to work for consumers dollars. We don't just give them to them.
They stopped manufacturing marvel vs capcom 2. Before the game was down loadable on xbl and psn the used copies were selling for more than the original price. They could have made more discs then and made money selling more copies of the game. They choose not to and waited several years before putting it online now why should people pay the developer for a used copy of the game when they aren't even manufacturing anymore? According to you they should be paid over and over for it. Yet they didn't even make more copies when they already had the demand for it. Why should they get paid over and over? and for games where there is more copies then demand why should people pay $60 just because they say? If the don't make it worth that people won't pay it. You can try to compare to pirates all you like but there is a difference between paying market price and making an illegal copy of the game. One respects the manufactures right to create the game the other disregards it entirely.

What about a place like Gamefly where you can buy something after renting it? Does the game company make money of the purchase as well because Gamefly has to replace the rental copy? Always wondered about that.

True, this one is the worst... but it is really far far off from the others. I doubt anyone will have arguments for this to be legal.

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c0rd said:

I've noticed that many people attack others that buy used games, because their money is not contributing anything to the game developer. 

I'm just wondering, why is no blame put on those that sell the games? If I buy Muramasa for $50, and sell it 2 weeks later for $30 (to someone who then keeps it), who contributed more to the developer?

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People that buy used games are not at fault, they buy their games in a shop (or ebay, but since there are shops, for them it's the same).

Where there is a problem (imho) is when a shop makes a profit out of reselling, because that profit is money people were willing to put thowards a game purchase that the developper did not recieve.

When you buy on ebay, every one either breaks even or loses a small portion of the game's value, it would be akin to renting without a license.

One could have a gaming budget of 100$ for the year and a rollover on games, he'd probably get to fully play 10-20 games in the year and most of the profit would go to the post office. He did not contribute much to the industry.

When you buy in a store, you are willing to pay an amount close to the full price (about 70_80% in france) and when you resell you get something like 30_40%, the margin does not bennefit the industry.

This is also akin to renting, but the customer pays much more, and a company makes a large profit. The customer did not contribute much to the industry.

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Khuutra said:

Well, we still have to judge relative to current moralistic understanding. It would be one thing to try to judge another time period, but it's fine to pass judgment on our own.

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There is the Pirate party in europe, they have a seat at the EU. They are anti copyright.

I say this because if there is ever enough of them elected, copyright would fall and piracy as in video game dl would become legal in europe. These are subjective ethics, and it just happends that the subject of piracy is actuality.

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Zucas said:
Vlad- now I'm actually surprised because there is a very strong argument for the case of Used games being even worse than pirating. Actually something you said to disagree with... and that is how many people it can affect. Piracy is pretty big right now but it will never be mainstream enough to get the mainstream involved in it. Aren't going to see mom and pop downloading games through torrents and whatnot. But used games are sold in stores where they buy the new games. They aren't going to see the moral difference and thus used games can be largely mainstream where EVERY gamer does it... something piracy could never achieve. Even more so as Best Buy and Toys R Us are looking to enter the used game market.

This is actually the argument publishers are using that even though piracy hurts the affects of used games will hurt even worse given the mainstream appeal ability they have. That is why I still consider used games to be a very very close problem to that of piracy. Just the deal is that piracy is immoral and illegal while used games are protected by the system and against rights to take it away. Meaning you got to find another way to fight it.

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Usually the used market refers to items that loose physical integrity, so there is a limit to how much they can be recycled. DVDs can be scratched and all, but you'd think the average customer would not play freesby with them all day long and try to avoid harming them, one reason is that they would either loose replayability or resell capacity. This means that used games are a field where the turnover is probably much higher than say for books. This is also due to the price of the items. You won't find much resell market for Starcraft 1 or Diablo 2 since they are below 10$ new.... this just makes the used game market more of a problem as it targets only the highly profitable section of the industry.

here's a little game:




Imagine a small communoty, say town XYZ with a population of 100, far off from other towns, so that's it's quite independent. There aren't many gamers there, just about 6 boys in their teens. Their total wealth is 120$ (20 each)


The town shop decides to sell games and used games. LegendofBooBoo comes out, great game, 60$. Boy A buys the game.


1) They all pitched in 10$ , boy A copies the game for his 5 friends and they all have fun playing.
_ Developper made 50$ the store clerk made 10$. all the kids have fun.
_ all kids are left with 10$ each.


2) Boy A borrowed 40$, he plays the game, sells it back for 40$ (it just came out, so high value), reimburses his friends and then an other friend buys the used game for 50$, plays it, sells it back for 30$, and an other at 40 sell at 20... 30-10... 20 and the game scratches and can't be resold.
_ Developper made 50$, the store clerk made 50$.
_ Kid F has 20$ all other kids have 0$. Kid F didn't get to play the game.

3) The store doesn't do used games and Kids are against copyright infridgement.
_ Developper makes 0$.
_ no one can play the game (not enough money), kids buy candy instead and get fat.



LegendofBooboo2 comes out.... which scenario has the developper make more profit??

Well, none, because the market is a much larger place than one town. The demographics change drastically when going from a large group of people, to a small group of people. But  Iunderstand whay you are trying to do...so I will play along...scenario 3!!!!! lol