This is very funny. Some developers are actually too stupid to understand why used games exist in first place. It's because the game the costumer bought wasn't good for him, so he sold the games as used to recover a little money from the bad deal he made. Good games (And by good, I don't mean the games +90 in Metacritic) will never be sold.

What about rentals and Gamefly? We live in an evil world.

*watches Netflix on PS3*

Games are sold at ridiculously high inflated prices in today's world and it is understandable that the consumer is looking for a cheaper and better deal. If only the price of new games were considerably lower. The used games business would not be making as much money as it is. The current pricing of new games could be an issue.

Is $US 60 a justifiable price for every friggin standard issue of a game? Collector's and special editions are priced even higher.

The second hand market exists for people to save money, get rid of unwanted goods and for middlemen (pawn brokers) to make a lot of money.

But waiting can also backfire. Some games tend to go up in price relatively quickly due to limited print runs. I guess the best example right now would be Marvel vs Capcom 2. It's just from last-gen, and Gamestop still sells (and takes) PS2 games. Yet the game still routinely goes for above-retail prices in the used market. Waiting for the PS2 to be dead might not help either, in fact, that could further drive prices up, see Suikoden 2. (My getting a complete copy for $135 isn't too bad.) As for your other reasons, piracy has the whole legality problem, and if a friend doesn't have it, then you still do have one more route: rental. Be it Blockbuster or Gamefly, there's still a way to try out games.

As for the original post in the thread, no, the used market is not worse (or as bad) than piracy. Say that there are 4 people still interested in a game in 1 area. 2 people who had prior interest have traded in their copies. Now, these 4 people go to the store to buy the game. Assuming that price is important to all of them, the first 2 will get the used copies, and the second 2 will get new copies. Yes, this case results in a loss of 2 new sales at face value, but we don't know all the circumstances, some possibilities of which have already been posted in this thread. (Trading in to buy another new game, wouldn't have bought without resale, bad game, etc.) All we can say for certain is that no more than 2 sales were lost in this microeconomy, it may've been less based on sales reasons for the first 2 who traded them in.

Now piracy is a different problem. I'll keep the town setup the same as before, 2 used copies in stock at the local store. However, again, with price being important, they all download the game, instead of going to the local store. Said game sees 0 more sales, and the 2 used copies still sit there, waiting for another repeat of this scenario. Piracy has the problem of that it never runs out of stock. Hypothetically, if 1 billion people wanted to download something, they could. Conversely, if 100 million people want to buy something (allowing for 90% of piracy to be deadbeats who should be gone), then 100 million copies of this game need to physically exist. Needless to say, there won't be 100 million used copies convienently scattered around in exact distribution to where the people who want the games are. So some new sames must be made, which is something that piracy doesn't see.

Oh, and numonex, as for your post about pricing, yes, $60 is a justifiable price. Games can't maintain the $50 price forever, as the value of the dollar drops from inflation. Not to mention that back in the days, most N64 games ran $70, FF3 (6) and Chrono Trigger had new price tags of $80, Phantasy Star 4 saw prices of $90-100 depending on where you went, and Neo Geo games just blew those prices out of the water, starting at $150. So this means that even ignoring inflation, FF13 is cheaper than FF6 was at first release in the US. Sure, it stings in our wallet seeing the price go up, but that's because we've been getting spoiled these past few generations with cheap games. I'd love to see the price remain at $50, but as the cost of games goes up and the value of the dollar goes down, I can see why the price needed to go up.

1. They have to profit on something when their margins on consoles are so small and if it's legal by law and they pay taxes from it what's the problem ?

2. They already received it from first sale.

3. Ability to resell used game is only thing saving makers of average games from bancrupcy (how many people would buy crap games for full price if they couldn't resell them later ? )

4. If consumer agree to be ripped off with terrible price it's their fault. Last time i checked ebay is still working.

5. I can borrow a book from a friend why shouldn't I be able to borrow game from him ?

6. And yet some of the best games made those day have much smaller not overblown budgets - Uncharted 1&2, Mass Effect 2, Demon's Souls, Valkyria Chronicles, Heavy Rain, Wipeout HD, Street Fighter 4 and the list goes on.

That's kind of what happens when you sell a product you know.

People seem to forget the fact that all these games retailers rely on used games sales to exsist. Take away their used game market and they'll go bust, once that happens, there are no retailers to sell games, and the industry as a whole goes to pot. One day we'll have digital distribution for everything, but that's still a long way off.

The big retailers, Gamestop, GAME, Best Buy etc buy games at ~ $45 per copy for a $60 game. They simply couldn't afford to pay that, or order as many copies of games as they do currently, if there wasn't a used game market to bring them the money.

In my opinion if the publishers did somehow make the used game market illegal, they'd be cutting off their nose to spite their face. Sure enough, people would have to buy new games where all revenue goes to them, but theres no chance in hell retailers would sell the things at the non-exsistant profit margin they do currently.

Piracy doesn't benefit anyone in the games industry whatsoever, whereas the used game market does.

^ Ummm no that part's not true. There are plenty of retailers which don't sell used stuff and are perfectly able to order as many games as they need.

this is why I'm actually glad about something with EA involved.

The cerberus network is awesome because it rewards new game buyers. I believe if implemented wider it could help the industry.

 Not in the UK - and are those retailers video game only or do they sell a variety of media as well as video games? Cause if they've got other sources of revenue then er... that kind of proves my point.

 As far as I'm aware these stores pretty much lose money selling first hand software - once you include the costs of running the store, paying staff, taxes etc.