That's physical damage though, in which case you could just take it back and swap it if it didn't work properly. Scratches on the disc do not affect the graphics, sound and gameplay of the game. Scratches on a car could mean it requires a new pain job to avoid rust.

The money which goes into second hand sales also goes to the developers, in an indirect way.

Why? Because some of the people who buy games first hand know that they can get money later by reselling their games. This gives them money to buy new games, and helps them justify the expense of $/€ 50-60 on a new game.

So much like the car market, the second hand market supports the first hand market.

On the other hand, it is true that developers are trying to stop the second hand market. I'm just not sure how successful they will be at keeping their prices unchanged even after denying their customers the option of reselling games. Also, games suffer very little degradation from use, unlike books and obviously cars. This increases the value of second hand games and decreases the value of first hand games, so there's a negative effect on developers from this specific factor.

You can do research and still end up with a game you don't like. Among both people I know and the internet, I found nobody who didn't like Chrono Trigger. Yet it bored me to tears.

The alternative would be for customers to never take a chance on a game and only buy games they are absolutely sure of. That would be worse than used sales though.

very true, i always check preowned disks before buying them, it is the best and hassle free way to go

I wish I'd done the same with my last but one car. Rusty heap of shit...

It is possible that the person buying a used copy of the game might have bought it new if it wasn’t available used; but it is also possible that the person who sold it as a used copy wouldn’t have bought it if they couldn’t sell it. In other words, the the loss of sales from the used game market is hardly 1 to 1.

Now the solution is to go in the direction that few/no companies are willing to and to encourage digital distribution by passing the savings onto the consumer. If you’re no longer paying the distribution and manufacturing costs, no longer paying for localized marketing, and you don’t need to cover the retailer mark-up you can easily afford to sell a game for (roughly) 1/2 price. With the reduction in cost the game seller no longer feels the need to recover spent money, the game buyer no longer feels the need to save money on a title, and they both would buy "new" copies of the game.

Second hand market has been around forever. They aren't losing money.
It's just product changing hands and some middlemen made money off it.

Retailers are middlemen that sell you the product in the first place. They took a dip, too.

They can compete with secondhand market easily by selling at lower price or try other things such as including a bonus item for new purchases.

Exactly... but what they seem to be doing is attempting a re-education of gamers to accept a decrease in their rights while keeping game prices unchanged. They do this via progressively more restrictive DRM (a few years ago you got unlimited installations, today you get 15 installs, in a year you get 5 installs, then 3, etc.).

They may not succeed entirely, but it's probably better for their profits than immediately doing it the way you proposed.

I for one do not agree with what they're doing, which is why, for example, I wouldn't buy a game on Steam at full price. I like Steam and its convenience, but this doesn't mean I'm willing to accept a non-resellable item for the same price. I do this as a matter of principle by the way, because I don't resell my games (or at least I haven't done so yet).

I'm surprised Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft haven't all pushed for second hand game / software sales to be deemed illegal purely on that point. It wouldn't surprise me at all for it to happen within the next 5 years.

With the current glut of games I often see new release games drop to half price within 2-3 months, makes me wonder how the market can survive. I'm expecting another video games crash like back in the 80s.

there is a monetary transaction which means the buy is willing to pay for the product. Therefore it is worse than piracy for the industry.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have a second hand market... just no commerces in it.

Books have a lifespan due to usage and public libraries are a perfect example of copyright infringement made legal....