Given the nature of a game disc, if you can't tell that it's defective within the first 30 days of ownership, there is no way it is defective.
DreamCatcher's warranty also covers accidental damage. If I scratch or break the disc six months from now, I can get a new one at no charge (except postage).
Edit: PS: My car was purchased used and is still covered under the manufacturer's warranty.
Some manufacturers (Hyundai for one) don't let you transfer the 10-year, 100,000-mile powertrain warranty, and others will only transfer the warranty if you pay a fee ($50 to $100, usually). You still don't get the full benefit of the warranty since it runs from the original purchase (a five-year warranty doesn't give you 5 full years if the previous owner bought it four years ago).
I still don't think it's right for a company to offer used products alongside new ones, regardless of its current legality. I don't think it's fair to artists/creators in general to lose sales to the second hand market directly from a first hand retailer.
But they already profited from the first sale! Creators have no right to benefit over and over again from resale of a single item. If I make one widget*, I expect to make 1 widget's worth of profit. However, if I'm making software, I'm suddenly entitled to get a fraction of every resale forever and ever? Every used game has already earned the creator 1 new game's worth of profit. If they lose out on resales, then too bad. They've already profited, and that's all they should expect.
Just because Gamestop presents its used items in the best possible light doesn't give creators new rights. If the item is more attractive in its used form, then the buyer will choose it instead. I wouldn't, but I appreciate having that choice.
No other industry gives resale revenue back to the creator. Software is just like any other retail item (except possibly for its ease of duplication, but that's not relevant here) -- there's nothing special about it that deserves rewriting decades of established legal precedent.
*We lawyers love using widgets as placeholders for any imaginable manufactured item. It shows up way too frequently in legal hypotheticals.
But they already profited from the first sale! Creators have no right to benefit over and over again from resale of a single item. If I make one widget*, I expect to make 1 widget's worth of profit. However, if I'm making software, I'm suddenly entitled to get a fraction of every resale forever and ever? Every used game has already earned the creator 1 new game's worth of profit. If they lose out on resales, then too bad. They've already profited, and that's all they should expect.
Just because Gamestop presents its used items in the best possible light doesn't give creators new rights. If the item is more attractive in its used form, then the buyer will choose it instead. I wouldn't, but I appreciate having that choice.
No other industry gives resale revenue back to the creator. Software is just like any other retail item (except possibly for its ease of duplication, but that's not relevant here) -- there's nothing special about it that deserves rewriting decades of established legal precedent.
Theoretically, they could create one copy of a game that is then purchased and played and traded back to Gamestop and resold 50 times over, and they will have only received the initial value of the game for those 50 people that all got a turn at owning it, I don't know, something about that just seems wrong to me.
What seems to be making this issue complicated is that GameStop often sells used games that are in near pristine condition. If new games were always mint and used games were always disheveled, then it wouldn't be as much of an issue.
I think the reason why people complain so much about GameStop selling so many used games is because they're successful at it. Pawn shops in general aren't widely well known for making money hand over fist. Whatever GameStop is doing, they're making money at it. If they weren't so successful (as they indeed once were not,) people won't care so much because people wouldn't blame them for eating into the sales numbers of new games.
Really, what I wonder is why do people sell games to GameStop for crap prices and then complain about the value being so low? Why do people trade in games at all if the trade in value sucks so bad? It seems to me that GameStop would stop making so much money on used games if PEOPLE STOP SELLING GAMES TO THEM.
Really, what I wonder is why do people sell games to GameStop for crap prices and then complain about the value being so low? Why do people trade in games at all if the trade in value sucks so bad? It seems to me that GameStop would stop making so much money on used games if PEOPLE STOP SELLING GAMES TO THEM.
Agreed, but usually laziness wins out over common sense/frugality for most people.
Agreed, but usually laziness wins out over common sense/frugality for most people.
How is it laziness to buy something for 50 bucks, sell it back for 25 and have nothing to show for it instead of keeping it and accumulating a reasonably sized game library?
edit: It seems to me that GameStop makes alot of money because a lot of people are foolish with their money by selling back perfectly good games for cheap. I'm not sure I can fault them for that.
GameStop takes used games for pennies and sells them for a third of the full retail price. They're a very twisted company.
That's not twisted, that's good business sense. If people are willing to sell their games for that little to GameStop, and other people are willing to buy used games for that money, I can't really see anything wrong with that from GameStop's perspective.
The problem lies with people selling their used games for far too little to GameStop. They could most likely get far more for their games if they sold them on eBay or something, but for most people, that would be too much trouble, since you'd have to set up an auction, keep track of it and send the game to the winner of that auction. While with GameStop, you can just walk in, hand over your old games and buy new ones at the same time.
How is it laziness to buy something for 50 bucks, sell it back for 25 and have nothing to show for it instead of keeping it and accumulating a reasonably sized game library?
edit: It seems to me that GameStop makes alot of money because a lot of people are foolish with their money by selling back perfectly good games for cheap. I'm not sure I can fault them for that.
Because you'd make alot more money most of the time if you sold it on ebay.
When I worked at the used bookstore, we bought some books from people, but really what usually happened is they brought ten boxes of ripped apart books and we could maybe buy one for a few cents and that's it.
Most of the books we got were for trades though. We had a trade that was, you bring us two books, you get one of the same value. That is, if the two books you brought had "9.99" on the back, you could get one with "9.99" on the back.
Or you could sell your two books for maybe 50 cents each and get the book you wanted for maybe five dollars. So people didn't do that.
I thought this store was awesome. It's horrible to think of books sitting on shelves, unread. And I found some gems, I remember finding an old favourite's children book of Ian, about a dog called "What-a-mess", I think. Found some gaming books, too.
I'm sure people could have sold their books on ebay and made more... if they had found someone to buy them. I traded some stuff in myself because I knew I wouldn't get buyers right away, plus this way I got a book we had that I wanted.
Anyways, by the standards I've read in this thread, all of that is as wrong as GameStop. But I think bringing together people who want to sell and people who want to buy has been a job for centuries. What about real estate agents? What about anyone who buys from producers and sells to stores?
GameStop might have terrible business practice and treat the consumers and employees both terribly, but I can't say I have anything against the concept of how they make their money.
But they already profited from the first sale! Creators have no right to benefit over and over again from resale of a single item. If I make one widget*, I expect to make 1 widget's worth of profit. However, if I'm making software, I'm suddenly entitled to get a fraction of every resale forever and ever? Every used game has already earned the creator 1 new game's worth of profit. If they lose out on resales, then too bad. They've already profited, and that's all they should expect.
So if only one copy of a game gets sold first-hand, and gets sold second-hand a million times... that's totally legit. Agree/Disagree?
It doesn't matter either way. This will be remembered as the brief period in human history where software and IP in general were considered products instead of services.
Sure. That situation would suck for the creator as much as it is unlikely, but so it goes.
Far as your prediction goes, I sure hope not. Big companies circumventing the principles of first sale and fair use by using legalese to say they never actually sold you anything are a bad development that ideally ought to be smacked down somehow.
At the danger of getting entrenched in a gross battle of ideology, it'd be cool if folks realized that what's bad for the creator is generally bad for the audience. We didn't get into this business to get rich and we don't work weekends for the extra pay (because there is none). If somebody plays our game, we should see a little somethin' for the effort. Because the onus is on us to give what we make value -- and a system that allows IP and creations to have real value (and stay valuable over the life of the game) is what will allow new games to come out, better games to get made, and the industry to grow.
Robert's right -- in the next five years games will continue to grow as a service and not a product. And it will be up to creators to make sure that service, offering interactive entertainment, is one worth paying for.
So if only one copy of a game gets sold first-hand, and gets sold second-hand a million times... that's totally legit. Agree/Disagree?
It doesn't matter either way. This will be remembered as the brief period in human history where software and IP in general were considered products instead of services.
Is it really different to someone handing down their old clothes, or selling old furniture? With disc games, the data may stay the same, but the condition of the case and readability of the game (due to scratches etc) will innevitably decrease.
But my policy on used games is: Avoid them unless the price is significantly cheaper (£20 off) or the game is very difficult to track down new.
Given the price difference towards launch (at most, about £5) it hardly seems worth it to buy 2cnd hand. But devs in general could do much more to persuade people. I think TTG do an excellent job (even though used game sales are probably minimal, given the delay between digital and hard copies). But others could do alot. Things like single use codes for DLC, or extras (which some companies do already), or even something like in Animal crossing on GC, where you would get certain items sent to you if that was the first time the game had been used (still no idea how that worked. The GC must have overwritten part of the disc or something).
I actually don't have a problem with selling your games to friends or bringing them to Goodwill or selling them to an INDEPENDENT game shop. I don't know if anyone (especially the international folks) is familiar with Amoeba Music on the boards, but it's a GIANT indie record shop that is a rare/new music Mecca in California. There's one on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, one here in SF and one over in Berkeley. Amoeba buys and sells used music and (in my opinion) is great thing, culturally, to the music business. Why Lady Gaga might be a little grumpy that she's not seeing some coin on a resell of her latest album, I'm sure she'd be happy with Amoeba's mission to support struggling artists, donate vigorously to non-profits, create a cultural center around music by having weekly concerts and create what is essentially a museum of music history -- anything ever made can be found at Amoeba and it's truly an enthusiasts destination. It is the Smithsonian of recorded music and it just so happens that you can buy the stuff inside.
This is not what Gamestop is.
What I take issue is the proliferation and institution of Gamestop's resale policies across the globe. I have no problem with you selling your games on eBay or to your friends. I do take issue with what has essentially become a billion dollar chain of pawnshops that have given nothing back to the gaming culture. You can't go to Gamestop and find a treasured copy of Full Throttle. They don't support indie developers. You have to be a multi-million dollar publisher and beg-borrow and deal for shelf space. You're not giving Gamestop an exclusive pre-order bonus or DLC content? You're not getting advertised in store and we'll see what we can do about facing your game forward on the wall.
When a corporation grows to a size where it can dictate that level of content creation and truly determine whether someone's product lives or dies at retail, I think we can all agree that it's no good for anyone (and that's not even taking into account selling the same copy of Halo a bajillion times to GET that big). I'm all for capitalism and Gamestop has the right to make money, but you also have a responsibility to be fair, which is why we regulate businesses from cars to cheese.
Saying Gamestop sucks and is bad for the industry isn't saying you don't have the right to do what you want with your games. It's about the privatized exchange of goods vs the institutionalized profiteering of unfair resale. If I were you, I'd just swap them with a buddy or get a bunch more loot for them on eBay anyway.
Things like single use codes for DLC, or extras (which some companies do already), or even something like in Animal crossing on GC, where you would get certain items sent to you if that was the first time the game had been used (still no idea how that worked. The GC must have overwritten part of the disc or something).
As for the Animal Crossing thing, the game came with its own memory card, as it took up almost an entire small memory card by itself (the small memory cards were 59 "blocks", and Animal Crossing would take between 58 and 61 blocks, according to the back of the game case.) Incidentally, you could actually copy the data from that memory card onto other memory cards, unlike the game's save games themselves.
As for the debate of this thread, I feel it is very unfortunate that the companies don't see any money from the used games of a national chain, as I am sure they can afford to give at least a little bit of money per used game. I can see small scale pawn or used game shops not giving any money, as they usually barely make any money, but from a billion dollar company that makes most of their money off of that, it is not good, nor fair.
I think it's not about second-hand things anymore, though. It's more akin to how Blockbuster gets to censor movies before they're even made, because movies want to be sold there so they're made to match their criteria. It's harming the industry because of the way it disrespects everything there is about it. I don't think the problem here is the fact that they sell pre-owned games, it's with their business practice in general.
But devs in general could do much more to persuade people. I think TTG do an excellent job (even though used game sales are probably minimal, given the delay between digital and hard copies). But others could do alot. Things like single use codes for DLC, or extras (which some companies do already), or even something like in Animal crossing on GC, where you would get certain items sent to you if that was the first time the game had been used (still no idea how that worked. The GC must have overwritten part of the disc or something).
Single use DLC codes etc. is just the first step towards a much more drastic solution. How long will it be before the disc only contains a demo, and you have to use a one-time code to download the rest of the game? I mean, we've already seen this begin to happen, Mass Effect 2's substantial amount of free bonus content, as well as Alan Wake shipping with a code to download the entire first DLC episode free.
Publishers/developers will continue to do things like this, and in much more substantial ways as it is warranted in order to keep new purchases more incentivized than GameStop's dirt cheap used sales.
Add this in to what Sean said about GameStop nearly requiring publishers to offer "GameStop exclusives" in order to attain any decent shelf space, and there are plenty of reasons to be upset with the way GameStop does business.
I think it's not about second-hand things anymore, though. It's more akin to how Blockbuster gets to censor movies before they're even made, because movies want to be sold there so they're made to match their criteria. It's harming the industry because of the way it disrespects everything there is about it. I don't think the problem here is the fact that they sell pre-owned games, it's with their business practice in general.
Oh, I guess I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have. Yeah, I agree that that is not good either. It's a travesty that that is happening, and it is unfair to small developers. Smaller developers don't have the budget to make one for each pre-order. It also begs the question: How much of that causes the price to rise for each game? I hope it is not going to cause game prices to sky-rocket. I feel that that fear probably not warranted, but it is another thing to throw onto the table.
EDIT: Did you notice that I repeated myself several times there? I just did.
Avistew -- yeah, I hope I was clear about that. I love second hand things. Probably to a fault. But I don't think Gamestop has the same revelry for quality game hand-me-downs as a used book shop has for a first edition Hemingway.
If I were you, I'd just swap them with a buddy or get a bunch more loot for them on eBay anyway.
or KEEP them. Why do people sell their games back at all?
I still say GameStop's profit margin hinges almost entirely on the foolish spending habits of people with either no common sense and/or who are easily bored.
Just a quick thought, i'm in a hurry, as this debatte reminds me of:
The only reason i'm getting the DVDs of the games is that i want to be sure that i always can start up the games, no matter if i do have a working internet connection or if changed my system x-times already.
I wouldn't do so if there would be no copy protection, still i wouldn't put the games online for free download. What i'm thinking about is, wouldn't it make sense driving on two rails here? Maybe handing out a copy protected games for new customers and giving copy protection free copies to those who are known and already bought a large part of the portfolio for instance? Ideally there would be no copy protection at all. This plus fair prices, interesting products, campaigns and i don't see a reason why you should get your games elsewhere.
Oh and just for the record, i guess a large part of the people aren't working for getting rich, instead they are quite happy having a job at all in order to feed their families.
or KEEP them. Why do people sell their games back at all?
I still say GameStop's profit margin hinges almost entirely on the foolish spending habits of people with either no common sense and/or who are easily bored.
You know I'm with you. It wasn't 'till I turned 16 did I realised it was dumb of me to sell my games. One day I opened up my gaming cabinet and saw like 6 games to choose from. Now I take more than 4 draws for games to look through.
or KEEP them. Why do people sell their games back at all?
Personally, when I hurt for money, games are the first thing to go. What else? I'm not going to stop eating or leave in the streets. Makes perfect sense to me to get rid of the non-essential, 100% luxury items like games first.
And considering they gather dust if you're not going to reuse them...
But I agree with you to some extent, now instead I just buy a lot less of them.
I can't imagine you'd get very much money for used games, especially given the low prices that used game stores sell them for.
I pretty much always sold my games as a teenager, usually almost the price I got them, a couple of time I actually made a profit. (I also bought them second hand). You just need to do it directly, not through someone.
I also did that for movies.
I sold my mother's games, too, that was a kind of "pocket money". She's never interested in playing them a second time, so she'd just dump them on me to make room on her shelves for new ones and I could keep any money I made from selling them. She buys all her games new and only plays them once, so they were always in perfect condition.
I've never sold a game in a store. I agree you don't make any money. Internet or face to face is the way to go. Face-to-face you can also do trade, or buy several games together, which is pretty much the same thing.
I think going to a store is what people do when they have tons of games to sell at once and want it done over with fast. Or maybe when they want to get a new game right away, and in a store they know they'll have more choice. I'm not quite sure. Be it music, movies or games (video or otherwise) I pretty much never go to stores. The only thing I've been to a store for was books, because I could trade them and worked there.
You don't always make much money, and it's a lot of work. I had a whole system going on, I was buying the envelopes for shipping in bulk, the packing bubble thing to wrap things in, the packing tape. I walked to the post office pretty much everyday to ship whatever I had sold (oh, I almost forgot, I sold a lot of manga this way too. Always bought the manga first hand, with the intention to keep it, but often got sick with a series, or it was getting too long, or I was interested in another series that I couldn't afford if I kept reading the old one.)
Then I needed to warn people of what I had shipped and give them the tracking numbers (if they had requested tracking) and so on. It would have been cheaper not to buy anything at all, that's for sure, but if I had kept everything, well I wouldn't have bought half of what I did (always resold stuff for more than half what I had spent on them). For games, I realise that since I bought them second hand to begin with, it didn't make a difference. For other stuff though, the money I got when selling them went into more new stuff.
Now I don't do that anymore, but I'm much more selective. I don't even buy manga at all anymore. I buy maybe a DVD a year, if that. As for games, well I pretty much only get the telltale stuff. And yes, the fact that they come with a DVD I might sell if I need to in a few years does play a part.
I don't know, even if you get a few cents, it's still better than getting nothing at all and having useless junk that takes up room. And if you're not going to replay a game, then that's all it is.
I guess I've always been a bit of a packrat then. I don't even sell my used textbooks anymore because I would prefer to own a book for $300 than rent it for $150. Same thing goes for games. I'm far more likely to give a game to a friend then to sell it for the same reason.
I guess I've always been a bit of a packrat then. I don't even sell my used textbooks anymore because I would prefer to own a book for $300 than rent it for $150. Same thing goes for games. I'm far more likely to give a game to a friend then to sell it for the same reason.
I followed you until the end. If you're willing to give things away, that doesn't sound like a pack rat to me. What do you mean by that, you want to be sure they get a good home or something?
I'd always go to friends first, although usually for trades of some sort. I used to be materialistic (that's how I called the "pack rat" thing. Because I liked material things.) about books and stuff like that. Games never applied due to their lower value, though.
What I mean is that at the time, I could get a (new) manga volume for 5 euros. It didn't last long but had a very high re-usability, as I typically re-read a whole series every time a new volume came out (every three months), sometimes even more. Still for 5 euros I could buy a (new) paperback novel. That would make about a day to a week worth of reading, depending on size and style, and had a high re-usability as I can't think of many books I've read once only.
Then I could get a (new) DVD for 10-15 euros, and while it would only be a few hours long, I was almost sure to watch it more than once.
Or, if I wanted games, I could spend 50-60 euros and get one new, or 20-30 euros and get it second hand. It would either be very short, or be long but also boring so I wouldn't finish it. The average use would be once, because for every game I replayed once or more, there would be many, many games I never even finished.
When you reach that point, really, not only do you buy less games than the rest, bu you sell them as much as you can. From my point of view, the rest wasn't as much worth selling, because I'd get less money out of them if I sold them, and more value out of them if I didn't sell them.
After moving across continent though, even my love for books has faded. I had to leave everything behind, or close, and while it was very hard at the time, I stopped caring afterwards, and now I wonder why I ever cared? Why did I care about the item book, when I should have cared about the contents only?
So I'm definitely less of a pack rat. And the way I see it, something is of value to me only if I'm sure I'm going to use it at some point. If not, its value is zero, unless I sell it.
Even if I think I might use it someday at some point, it's probably worth selling it now, and re-buying it in a few years if I really want it, when it has lost some value anyways.
I'm still "materialistic" to some extent though. For instance, I don't go to the (movie) theatre, because for the price of a DVD I go back home with nothing in my hands. Not worth it.
Now, the play theatre, that's something different altogether, because the interaction with the actors is something you wouldn't get if you just bought a recording of it. But the way I see it, in the movie theatre the only differences are that you can't skip the commercials and you can't pause to go pee. Oh, and other people are sure to ruin your experience in some way. So you usually don't even get to see/hear the whole movie.
Comments
Sure seems like it! If the game was just released, then yeah, there may have been only one owner, but I've seen some messed up used discs in my day.
Some manufacturers (Hyundai for one) don't let you transfer the 10-year, 100,000-mile powertrain warranty, and others will only transfer the warranty if you pay a fee ($50 to $100, usually). You still don't get the full benefit of the warranty since it runs from the original purchase (a five-year warranty doesn't give you 5 full years if the previous owner bought it four years ago).
But they already profited from the first sale! Creators have no right to benefit over and over again from resale of a single item. If I make one widget*, I expect to make 1 widget's worth of profit. However, if I'm making software, I'm suddenly entitled to get a fraction of every resale forever and ever? Every used game has already earned the creator 1 new game's worth of profit. If they lose out on resales, then too bad. They've already profited, and that's all they should expect.
Just because Gamestop presents its used items in the best possible light doesn't give creators new rights. If the item is more attractive in its used form, then the buyer will choose it instead. I wouldn't, but I appreciate having that choice.
No other industry gives resale revenue back to the creator. Software is just like any other retail item (except possibly for its ease of duplication, but that's not relevant here) -- there's nothing special about it that deserves rewriting decades of established legal precedent.
*We lawyers love using widgets as placeholders for any imaginable manufactured item. It shows up way too frequently in legal hypotheticals.
Theoretically, they could create one copy of a game that is then purchased and played and traded back to Gamestop and resold 50 times over, and they will have only received the initial value of the game for those 50 people that all got a turn at owning it, I don't know, something about that just seems wrong to me.
I think the reason why people complain so much about GameStop selling so many used games is because they're successful at it. Pawn shops in general aren't widely well known for making money hand over fist. Whatever GameStop is doing, they're making money at it. If they weren't so successful (as they indeed once were not,) people won't care so much because people wouldn't blame them for eating into the sales numbers of new games.
Really, what I wonder is why do people sell games to GameStop for crap prices and then complain about the value being so low? Why do people trade in games at all if the trade in value sucks so bad? It seems to me that GameStop would stop making so much money on used games if PEOPLE STOP SELLING GAMES TO THEM.
Agreed, but usually laziness wins out over common sense/frugality for most people.
How is it laziness to buy something for 50 bucks, sell it back for 25 and have nothing to show for it instead of keeping it and accumulating a reasonably sized game library?
edit: It seems to me that GameStop makes alot of money because a lot of people are foolish with their money by selling back perfectly good games for cheap. I'm not sure I can fault them for that.
The problem lies with people selling their used games for far too little to GameStop. They could most likely get far more for their games if they sold them on eBay or something, but for most people, that would be too much trouble, since you'd have to set up an auction, keep track of it and send the game to the winner of that auction. While with GameStop, you can just walk in, hand over your old games and buy new ones at the same time.
Most of the books we got were for trades though. We had a trade that was, you bring us two books, you get one of the same value. That is, if the two books you brought had "9.99" on the back, you could get one with "9.99" on the back.
Or you could sell your two books for maybe 50 cents each and get the book you wanted for maybe five dollars. So people didn't do that.
I thought this store was awesome. It's horrible to think of books sitting on shelves, unread. And I found some gems, I remember finding an old favourite's children book of Ian, about a dog called "What-a-mess", I think. Found some gaming books, too.
I'm sure people could have sold their books on ebay and made more... if they had found someone to buy them. I traded some stuff in myself because I knew I wouldn't get buyers right away, plus this way I got a book we had that I wanted.
Anyways, by the standards I've read in this thread, all of that is as wrong as GameStop. But I think bringing together people who want to sell and people who want to buy has been a job for centuries. What about real estate agents? What about anyone who buys from producers and sells to stores?
GameStop might have terrible business practice and treat the consumers and employees both terribly, but I can't say I have anything against the concept of how they make their money.
Aw, that's really sweet. Does he know it was made into an animated series too? It was on TV when I was a kid.
Oh, that's great! I'll show it to him, I don't think he knew that.
Sounds more like a debugger or a cheatingtool to me. :O)
So if only one copy of a game gets sold first-hand, and gets sold second-hand a million times... that's totally legit. Agree/Disagree?
It doesn't matter either way. This will be remembered as the brief period in human history where software and IP in general were considered products instead of services.
Far as your prediction goes, I sure hope not. Big companies circumventing the principles of first sale and fair use by using legalese to say they never actually sold you anything are a bad development that ideally ought to be smacked down somehow.
For those of us with a code of ethics informed by but not limited to the word of law, it is nothing short of a tragedy.
Robert's right -- in the next five years games will continue to grow as a service and not a product. And it will be up to creators to make sure that service, offering interactive entertainment, is one worth paying for.
Is it really different to someone handing down their old clothes, or selling old furniture? With disc games, the data may stay the same, but the condition of the case and readability of the game (due to scratches etc) will innevitably decrease.
But my policy on used games is: Avoid them unless the price is significantly cheaper (£20 off) or the game is very difficult to track down new.
Given the price difference towards launch (at most, about £5) it hardly seems worth it to buy 2cnd hand. But devs in general could do much more to persuade people. I think TTG do an excellent job (even though used game sales are probably minimal, given the delay between digital and hard copies). But others could do alot. Things like single use codes for DLC, or extras (which some companies do already), or even something like in Animal crossing on GC, where you would get certain items sent to you if that was the first time the game had been used (still no idea how that worked. The GC must have overwritten part of the disc or something).
This is not what Gamestop is.
What I take issue is the proliferation and institution of Gamestop's resale policies across the globe. I have no problem with you selling your games on eBay or to your friends. I do take issue with what has essentially become a billion dollar chain of pawnshops that have given nothing back to the gaming culture. You can't go to Gamestop and find a treasured copy of Full Throttle. They don't support indie developers. You have to be a multi-million dollar publisher and beg-borrow and deal for shelf space. You're not giving Gamestop an exclusive pre-order bonus or DLC content? You're not getting advertised in store and we'll see what we can do about facing your game forward on the wall.
When a corporation grows to a size where it can dictate that level of content creation and truly determine whether someone's product lives or dies at retail, I think we can all agree that it's no good for anyone (and that's not even taking into account selling the same copy of Halo a bajillion times to GET that big). I'm all for capitalism and Gamestop has the right to make money, but you also have a responsibility to be fair, which is why we regulate businesses from cars to cheese.
Saying Gamestop sucks and is bad for the industry isn't saying you don't have the right to do what you want with your games. It's about the privatized exchange of goods vs the institutionalized profiteering of unfair resale. If I were you, I'd just swap them with a buddy or get a bunch more loot for them on eBay anyway.
As for the Animal Crossing thing, the game came with its own memory card, as it took up almost an entire small memory card by itself (the small memory cards were 59 "blocks", and Animal Crossing would take between 58 and 61 blocks, according to the back of the game case.) Incidentally, you could actually copy the data from that memory card onto other memory cards, unlike the game's save games themselves.
As for the debate of this thread, I feel it is very unfortunate that the companies don't see any money from the used games of a national chain, as I am sure they can afford to give at least a little bit of money per used game. I can see small scale pawn or used game shops not giving any money, as they usually barely make any money, but from a billion dollar company that makes most of their money off of that, it is not good, nor fair.
Single use DLC codes etc. is just the first step towards a much more drastic solution. How long will it be before the disc only contains a demo, and you have to use a one-time code to download the rest of the game? I mean, we've already seen this begin to happen, Mass Effect 2's substantial amount of free bonus content, as well as Alan Wake shipping with a code to download the entire first DLC episode free.
Publishers/developers will continue to do things like this, and in much more substantial ways as it is warranted in order to keep new purchases more incentivized than GameStop's dirt cheap used sales.
Add this in to what Sean said about GameStop nearly requiring publishers to offer "GameStop exclusives" in order to attain any decent shelf space, and there are plenty of reasons to be upset with the way GameStop does business.
Oh, I guess I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have. Yeah, I agree that that is not good either. It's a travesty that that is happening, and it is unfair to small developers. Smaller developers don't have the budget to make one for each pre-order. It also begs the question: How much of that causes the price to rise for each game? I hope it is not going to cause game prices to sky-rocket. I feel that that fear probably not warranted, but it is another thing to throw onto the table.
EDIT: Did you notice that I repeated myself several times there? I just did.
Much like the music stuff corperations do, although I have no idea how they spread it amongst artists, producers etc.
or KEEP them. Why do people sell their games back at all?
I still say GameStop's profit margin hinges almost entirely on the foolish spending habits of people with either no common sense and/or who are easily bored.
The only reason i'm getting the DVDs of the games is that i want to be sure that i always can start up the games, no matter if i do have a working internet connection or if changed my system x-times already.
I wouldn't do so if there would be no copy protection, still i wouldn't put the games online for free download. What i'm thinking about is, wouldn't it make sense driving on two rails here? Maybe handing out a copy protected games for new customers and giving copy protection free copies to those who are known and already bought a large part of the portfolio for instance? Ideally there would be no copy protection at all. This plus fair prices, interesting products, campaigns and i don't see a reason why you should get your games elsewhere.
Oh and just for the record, i guess a large part of the people aren't working for getting rich, instead they are quite happy having a job at all in order to feed their families.
You know I'm with you. It wasn't 'till I turned 16 did I realised it was dumb of me to sell my games. One day I opened up my gaming cabinet and saw like 6 games to choose from. Now I take more than 4 draws for games to look through.
Greatest basketball game of all time. OF ALL TIME.
Personally, when I hurt for money, games are the first thing to go. What else? I'm not going to stop eating or leave in the streets. Makes perfect sense to me to get rid of the non-essential, 100% luxury items like games first.
And considering they gather dust if you're not going to reuse them...
But I agree with you to some extent, now instead I just buy a lot less of them.
I pretty much always sold my games as a teenager, usually almost the price I got them, a couple of time I actually made a profit. (I also bought them second hand). You just need to do it directly, not through someone.
I also did that for movies.
I sold my mother's games, too, that was a kind of "pocket money". She's never interested in playing them a second time, so she'd just dump them on me to make room on her shelves for new ones and I could keep any money I made from selling them. She buys all her games new and only plays them once, so they were always in perfect condition.
I've never sold a game in a store. I agree you don't make any money. Internet or face to face is the way to go. Face-to-face you can also do trade, or buy several games together, which is pretty much the same thing.
I think going to a store is what people do when they have tons of games to sell at once and want it done over with fast. Or maybe when they want to get a new game right away, and in a store they know they'll have more choice. I'm not quite sure. Be it music, movies or games (video or otherwise) I pretty much never go to stores. The only thing I've been to a store for was books, because I could trade them and worked there.
You don't always make much money, and it's a lot of work. I had a whole system going on, I was buying the envelopes for shipping in bulk, the packing bubble thing to wrap things in, the packing tape. I walked to the post office pretty much everyday to ship whatever I had sold (oh, I almost forgot, I sold a lot of manga this way too. Always bought the manga first hand, with the intention to keep it, but often got sick with a series, or it was getting too long, or I was interested in another series that I couldn't afford if I kept reading the old one.)
Then I needed to warn people of what I had shipped and give them the tracking numbers (if they had requested tracking) and so on. It would have been cheaper not to buy anything at all, that's for sure, but if I had kept everything, well I wouldn't have bought half of what I did (always resold stuff for more than half what I had spent on them). For games, I realise that since I bought them second hand to begin with, it didn't make a difference. For other stuff though, the money I got when selling them went into more new stuff.
Now I don't do that anymore, but I'm much more selective. I don't even buy manga at all anymore. I buy maybe a DVD a year, if that. As for games, well I pretty much only get the telltale stuff. And yes, the fact that they come with a DVD I might sell if I need to in a few years does play a part.
I don't know, even if you get a few cents, it's still better than getting nothing at all and having useless junk that takes up room. And if you're not going to replay a game, then that's all it is.
I followed you until the end. If you're willing to give things away, that doesn't sound like a pack rat to me. What do you mean by that, you want to be sure they get a good home or something?
I'd always go to friends first, although usually for trades of some sort. I used to be materialistic (that's how I called the "pack rat" thing. Because I liked material things.) about books and stuff like that. Games never applied due to their lower value, though.
What I mean is that at the time, I could get a (new) manga volume for 5 euros. It didn't last long but had a very high re-usability, as I typically re-read a whole series every time a new volume came out (every three months), sometimes even more. Still for 5 euros I could buy a (new) paperback novel. That would make about a day to a week worth of reading, depending on size and style, and had a high re-usability as I can't think of many books I've read once only.
Then I could get a (new) DVD for 10-15 euros, and while it would only be a few hours long, I was almost sure to watch it more than once.
Or, if I wanted games, I could spend 50-60 euros and get one new, or 20-30 euros and get it second hand. It would either be very short, or be long but also boring so I wouldn't finish it. The average use would be once, because for every game I replayed once or more, there would be many, many games I never even finished.
When you reach that point, really, not only do you buy less games than the rest, bu you sell them as much as you can. From my point of view, the rest wasn't as much worth selling, because I'd get less money out of them if I sold them, and more value out of them if I didn't sell them.
After moving across continent though, even my love for books has faded. I had to leave everything behind, or close, and while it was very hard at the time, I stopped caring afterwards, and now I wonder why I ever cared? Why did I care about the item book, when I should have cared about the contents only?
So I'm definitely less of a pack rat. And the way I see it, something is of value to me only if I'm sure I'm going to use it at some point. If not, its value is zero, unless I sell it.
Even if I think I might use it someday at some point, it's probably worth selling it now, and re-buying it in a few years if I really want it, when it has lost some value anyways.
I'm still "materialistic" to some extent though. For instance, I don't go to the (movie) theatre, because for the price of a DVD I go back home with nothing in my hands. Not worth it.
Now, the play theatre, that's something different altogether, because the interaction with the actors is something you wouldn't get if you just bought a recording of it. But the way I see it, in the movie theatre the only differences are that you can't skip the commercials and you can't pause to go pee. Oh, and other people are sure to ruin your experience in some way. So you usually don't even get to see/hear the whole movie.