Does the pre-owned and used market kill the gaming industry?

[Foxi4]

Like I said, bootlegging with a slightly more limited supply.

Botlegging involves the creation of additional copies, used sales don't.

There are differences here Veho, you can;'t pretend they don't exist.

Not only Rydian is right, the authors of the program already recieved their share whenever a used game is bought.

People treat Software as if it was a sandwich - it is not quite so. Person A bought Game/Program, a certain part of the money goes to the developer who in turn gives the purchaser the right to utilize said Game/Program. Then, Person A sold it to the store which in turn sold it to Person B. Person A relinquishes his or her license to use the Software in question in favour of Person B. Moreover, it's not entirely certain whether Person B, or C, or D would even *buy* the game in the first place if he had to buy it for the full price.

You can't pay the developer two times for the same license. A license is not expandable, it's not like a sandwich that can be eaten only once - it can have multiple subsequent users, like a car or a house. When you buy a house, do you have it demolished and have a new one built on the plot? No, you look for a house that gives you the best balance of Quality and Price - if you wanted to build a house from scratch, you'd likely just buy an empty plot of land.

Not to mention that some companies give DLC which works only on video games that were purchased new and registered, effectively crippling the copy DLC-wise for the users which may buy it pre-owned later on, which is *perpostrous* and *unfair*.

 

[Veho]

There are differences between a lawnmower and a video game, yet you pretend those don't exist.

The biggest point of content here is that you claim a video game on a DVD is more similar to a brick than to a video game sold over Steam, because a tangible storage makes it subject to different standards than digital download, while I maintain a video game is the same product regardless of the method of distribution. Can this be settled in any way short of pistols at dawn?

You can't pay the developer two times for the same license. A license is not expandable

You can't have two people on one licence. That's not how licences work. The licence is non-transferrable. You can relinquish it. But you can't transfer it.

 

[Foxi4]

There are differences between a lawnmower and a video game, yet you pretend those don't exist.

The biggest point of content here is that you claim a video game on a DVD is more similar to a brick than to a video game sold over Steam, because a tangible storage makes it subject to different standards than digital download, while I maintain a video game is the same product regardless of the method of distribution. Can this be settled in any way short of pistols at dawn?

You can't pay the developer two times for the same license. A license is not expandable

You can't have two people on one licence. That's not how licences work. The licence is non-transferrable. You can relinquish it. But you can't transfer it.

...and all of a sudden I agree with Veho.

The method of sales is irrelevant - effectively the End-User buys a license to use given Software. The medium on which the software is held is completely outside of the argument and only affects the end price of the product. In fact, I believe that introducing a "Resale/Pre-owned" system into Digital Distribution would be beneficial.

Person A doesn't feel like playing a given game anymore and "sells" it to the store for a given ammount of Virtual Currency for which he or she may purchase other games *or* chooses to exchange games with a different user, or give the game to a different user as a gift. It only makes sense to exchange goods digitally the same way we distribute them when the medium is physical.

 

[Rydian]

There are differences between a lawnmower and a video game, yet you pretend those don't exist.

I was speaking of them in terms of a good for sale, where many of the differences do not come into play. For example a dildo and a toilet brush are certainly not the same object, but they are sold under the same laws and assumptions.

You know, the same sort of concept as a metaphor. Comparing two different objects on the basis of what relationships and aspects they share.

The biggest point of content here is that you claim a video game on a DVD is more similar to a brick than to a video game sold over Steam, because a tangible storage makes it subject to different standards than digital download

Yes, I'm claiming there's a difference between goods and services.

There is a concrete difference, and I have shown that it has been recognized for years and even the law notes the differences.

Since your argument hinges on this difference not existing, then of course we can't agree.

 

[Veho]

I was speaking of them in terms of a good for sale, where many of the differences do not come into play. For example a dildo and a toilet brush are certainly not the same object, but they are sold under the same laws and assumptions.

But they still share more similarities than either of them shares with a video game.

Yes, I'm claiming there's a difference between goods and services.
There is a concrete difference, and I have shown that it has been recognized for years and even the law notes the differences.
Since your argument hinges on this difference not existing, then of course we can't agree.

And I'm saying that since games are licenced, not sold, the whole "goods/services" thing goes out the window. Since you keep repeating there's no such thing as a software licence, yes, it is true we can't agree.

 

[Foxi4]

I was speaking of them in terms of a good for sale, where many of the differences do not come into play. For example a dildo and a toilet brush are certainly not the same object, but they are sold under the same laws and assumptions.

But they still share more similarities than either of them shares with a video game.

Yes, I'm claiming there's a difference between goods and services.
There is a concrete difference, and I have shown that it has been recognized for years and even the law notes the differences.
Since your argument hinges on this difference not existing, then of course we can't agree.

And I'm saying that since games are licenced, not sold, the whole "goods/services" thing goes out the window. Since you keep repeating there's no such thing as a software licence, yes, it is true we can't agree.

Veho is right. You can poses a license for a given piece of software and no longer poses the medium it was stored on, and that alone still entitles you to use said software. If I for example buy a Windows DVD and have the license to prove it, I can shatter the DVD into fine dust and I'm still entitled to have Windows in this form or another - for example in ISO format or... just installed already. I have the license for the Software, thus I own it. Software is not physical - only the medium it is stored on might be.

Digital Distribution is only a service when you consider it as means of medium delivery, in this case barebones software with no physical medium.

 

[kthnxshwn]

It's good that we have Foxi4 around to tell us who is right and who is wrong.

 

[Foxi4]

It's good that we have Foxi4 around to tell us who is right and who is wrong.

It's really not that hard to determine who is right and who is wrong when the issue at hand is controlled via a fixed variable, in this case the license. It's not a matter of personal feeling but a matter of understanding of the law and the license itself. Your snarky comment doesn't change a thing.

 

[Sappoide]

What really kills the game industry is piracy. One that buys an used game could buy a new game sooner or later.

 

[Foxi4]

What really kills the game industry is piracy. One that buys an used game could buy a new game sooner or later.

One that pirates games could buy a new game sooner or later too. The only people who make money on pre-owned copies are the store owners, you do realize that? Moreover, piracy in general is a really small fraction of the market, especially when it comes to console games which require modifications to boot pirated copies.

 

[Sappoide]

What really kills the game industry is piracy. One that buys an used game could buy a new game sooner or later.

One that pirates games could buy a new game sooner or later too. The only people who make money on pre-owned copies are the store owners, you do realize that? Moreover, piracy in general is a really small fraction of the market, especially when it comes to console games which require modifications to boot pirated copies.

Piracy depends from the gaming platform it's done, if a modification is simple to do like on NDS or PC there's a good amount of users who pirate. I think that if someone use to pirate games, then continues to do it, besides a pirated game costs 0 and it's always more convenient than buy an original copy of a game.

 

[Foxi4]

What really kills the game industry is piracy. One that buys an used game could buy a new game sooner or later.

One that pirates games could buy a new game sooner or later too. The only people who make money on pre-owned copies are the store owners, you do realize that? Moreover, piracy in general is a really small fraction of the market, especially when it comes to console games which require modifications to boot pirated copies.

Piracy depends from the gaming platform it's done, if a modification is simple to do like on NDS or PC there's a good amount of users who pirate. I think that if someone use to pirate games, then continues to do it, besides a pirated game costs 0 and it's always more convenient than buy an original copy of a game.

You're forgetting about the huge masses of people who pirate games to test them out and then buy original games, not to mention buying games for their collector's value solely. Moreover, certain Anti-Piracy techniques limit the functionality of a pirated copy greatly - for example DS users may not for the most part use DSiEnhanced features despite the fact that their hardware supports it simply because the flashcart doesn't boot in that mode. Moreover, a person who ONLY pirates games as you said likely wouldn't buy any if there was no way to do so - that person wouldn't buy the console in question at all. Your argument really isn't a good one, sorry.

 

[MelodieOctavia]

Does the used game market HURT the gaming industry? Absolutely. The same could be said about every other industry. Used cars, DVDs, CDs, electronics, etc...

The sale of used goods has been around much much MUCH longer than the invention of video games. In fact, it has been around longer than even the invention of monetary currency.

Has any industry died from the sale of used stuff? No. They may have suffered heavily from making something TOO well, so that people rarely buy a new one (ladders), but nothing has actually died from it.

As said previously, A used game market relies on a new game market. There needs to be a NEW game for there to be a USED one.

 

[kthnxshwn]

It's good that we have Foxi4 around to tell us who is right and who is wrong.

It's really not that hard to determine who is right and who is wrong when the issue at hand is controlled via a fixed variable, in this case the license. It's not a matter of personal feeling but a matter of understanding of the law and the license itself. Your snarky comment doesn't change a thing.

I'm glad you were there to make it clear for everyone. Thank you for your diligent service.

 

[Sappoide]

What really kills the game industry is piracy. One that buys an used game could buy a new game sooner or later.

One that pirates games could buy a new game sooner or later too. The only people who make money on pre-owned copies are the store owners, you do realize that? Moreover, piracy in general is a really small fraction of the market, especially when it comes to console games which require modifications to boot pirated copies.

Piracy depends from the gaming platform it's done, if a modification is simple to do like on NDS or PC there's a good amount of users who pirate. I think that if someone use to pirate games, then continues to do it, besides a pirated game costs 0 and it's always more convenient than buy an original copy of a game.

You're forgetting about the huge masses of people who pirate games to test them out and then buy original games, not to mention buying games for their collector's value solely. Moreover, certain Anti-Piracy techniques limit the functionality of a pirated copy greatly - for example DS users may not for the most part use DSiEnhanced features despite the fact that their hardware supports it simply because the flashcart doesn't boot in that mode. Moreover, a person who ONLY pirates games as you said likely wouldn't buy any if there was no way to do so - that person wouldn't buy the console in question at all. Your argument really isn't a good one, sorry.

It will be quite an huge mass but the only people I know in real life only pirates to play for free, it's sad but no one of them cares about buying a game and if they can't play a game because it's unhackable they simply don't play it until it's hacked. One can buy a wii and don't buy a single game for it since there's the softmod.

 

[Just Another Gamer]

What really kills the game industry is piracy. One that buys an used game could buy a new game sooner or later.

No it doesn't. That type of idiotic claim is only made by the big companies so they can make more money but when in truth piracy probably only causes minimal losses to the industry otherwise there will be no new consoles like the 3DS or the Vita since the DS and PSP were hacked and had their games pirated yet they still sold very well. Whenever I see someone say stuff like this all I see is corporate brainwashing working on making people hate pirates and worship the big companies.

 

[Rydian]

I was speaking of them in terms of a good for sale, where many of the differences do not come into play. For example a dildo and a toilet brush are certainly not the same object, but they are sold under the same laws and assumptions.

But they still share more similarities than either of them shares with a video game.

(Non-electric) dildos and toilet brushes aren't exactly marvels of modern technology so they don't share much in common in the terms of involving protected IP, which is why I used a lawnmower for my first comparison (since a lawnmower more involved technology in the form of machinations and intellectual work that is legally protected in some form).

And I'm saying that since games are licenced, not sold, the whole "goods/services" thing goes out the window. Since you keep repeating there's no such thing as a software licence, yes, it is true we can't agree.

I've never said there's not a software license. Two things have been stated in this thread.

1 - They are inherently goods.

2 - Software licenses often try to impose limits that may or may not be held up in court. This was mostly posted by others, not myself (but I pointed out, as usual, that licenses themselves recognize that the law might find them invalid).

Honestly, I give up here. Any further postings would be me simply repeating myself and linking the same sort of sources.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

tl;dr.

But here's an interesting article:

If second-hand/pre-owned/used game sales continue unabated, our industry will "cannibalise" itself, Silicon Knights boss Denis Dyack believes.

"It used to be that game makers could rely on sales "tails". That is, a game would sell in decent quantities weeks, months past launch."

"Now there is no tail," Dyack told GamesIndustry International.

"Literally, you will get most of your sales within three months of launch, which has created this really unhealthy extreme where you have to sell it really fast and then you have to do anything else to get money," he added, referencing DLC.

Dyack said he'd "argue that used games actually increase the cost of games" as a result.

He'd also argue "that used games are cannibalising the industry".

"If developers and publishers don't see revenue from that, it's not a matter of, 'Hey, we're trying to increase the price of games to consumers, and we want more.' We're just trying to survive as an industry," he said.


"Looking towards next generation, people once again are saying we're going to have development costs that are two or three times what they were last generation ... I don't think as an industry we can afford $300 million budgets."

"If used games continue the way that they are, it's going to cannibalise - there's not going to be an industry."

The upshot of all this will be, as many predict, the removal of a middle-tier of games. Consider that blockbuster game development budgets will rise again next generation. Then consider who will be able to bet that kind of cash.

"On the top side of the triple-A, highly-funded titles, you have $100 million games," Dyack continued. "Looking towards next generation, people once again are saying we're going to have development costs that are two or three times of what they were last generation. I cannot see how that economy is going to continue.

"I don't think as an industry we can afford $300 million budgets. Some games can, don't get me wrong - for a game like Call of Duty, if they had a $100 million budget, or whatever their budget is, they can afford it. That's not the industry, that's sort of a one-off.

"But what is everyone else going do?"

Silicon Knights is best known for superb GameCube game Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (2002 - 9/10 Eurogamer).

It's been down hill since then. The studio's next solo effort, the ambitious, expensive and long in development Too Human, flopped (2008 - 6/10 Eurogamer). What was to be an Xbox 360 trilogy slipped into obscurity. Whether we'll ever see another Too Human game remains to be seen.

Dyack said we should keep an eye on the 14th May court case with Epic Games, which concerns the alleged lack of Unreal Engine 3 support Silicon Knights received while Epic made Gears of War.

The last game to come from Silicon Knights was the dreary X-Men: Destiny (2011 - 5/10 Eurogamer).

Weeks later, more than half the studio's workforce was laid off, leaving a compact, full-time team of 40 people.

Source

Such wise words from the people who made such quality games as Too Human and X-Men Destiny. I'm sure that the used game industry caused your downfall and not those two excellent games.

 

[Tigran]

Interesting...Nintendo seems to have no problem selling their games "YEARS" after they've been released.

 

[Qtis]

Interesting...Nintendo seems to have no problem selling their games "YEARS" after they've been released.

Nintendo is also probably the only developer whose games don't drop in prices after time passes. That's one of the reasons I see people sharing/buying used games (and piracy if you will). I actually bought my first Wii games about 8 months after buying the console since I had Wii Sports + about 10 games from a friend. I did buy a second Wiimote and Nunchuk a few months afterwards

What I see odd is that people are willing to get a console modded (for example a PS3 /w 3.55 CFW) and stay on that firmware for the sake of piracy (and in my example not for homebrew). They can play games of the HDD, but they miss out on newer games which require a higher OFW. Guess what they do? Buy the games and leave them on a shelf to wait for a new CFW/patches for the games.

Also an interesting feature for games is that the cycle of churning out titles has become shorter. I've just checked my game collection and I have quite a few CoD, NFS, etc. games. Most of them I bought for about £10-15, but buying them new (when most people start playing them) could cost easily £60. Per game. Per 6 months or so. Not that every game needs to be bought new, but online is usually the reason for such games. Why not make more content for the older games and then keep the servers running. Closing down servers for older games makes sure that people will never buy the games since the reason for buying them isn't there anymore... :I