It's pretty clear from the nature of a ticket and the theater that you're paying for the privilege of that one viewing. Not so with games. You can play those as often as you want.

It's almost as flawed an anology as food. Would you say that after buying McDonalds and eating your burger, the burger should remain valid and you should be able to barf it into the mouth of the next person in line?

The theater is a service, not a product. If you buy a DVD and watch it, you can sell it to someone else.

Most games, especially single-player ones are experiences. Most people play them once, enjoy it, then put them on the shelf, same as a movie or a book. Is reselling movies or books ethical? Most people agreed that it was, when physical media dominated, by the simple precedent of other physical goods being resold. But now that a lot of media is digital, the consensus seems to have faltered. I've yet to come to a final conclusion of the ethics of various modes of media transfer, but I don't think reselling media can be ethical and piracy unethical in the same moral framework, so until I can be convinced otherwise, distribution without the author's consent will remain wrong in my book.


When you buy food, you are paying for the transfer of physical goods; you gain something and the seller loses something. Then the value of the burger disappears once you eat it. Not so with media, where you pay for the experience - the seller does not lose anything and the value of the movie does not disappear by you having viewed it.

It's not about good or bad, it's about who's getting dikeed over. Some people can't find it in their budget to afford constant internet, but if they save a little money, they might want a game they like, and to me, when you buy a hard copy version of....Skyrim for example, you shouldnt HAVE to use Steam to validify it's yours. Yes there's 'piracy', but at this point, Piracy to me is a boogeyman term like Ghosts, Freddie Kruger, and Liberals. Steam is no different than any other DRM at this point. While it does offer it's good points, it does have it's bad. If you want to buy your games through Steam? More power to you. If you want to buy a game on a hard disc, you shouldnt be obligated to use steam to play it.

All Im saying is Steam is a bit of an obnoxious DRM, but it's also a useful tool. It's a mix of both, anyone who says it has no flaws is blind.

The value of the ticket disappears.

I see your point. I guess it does svck that you have to have internet to activate some games.

See, when you buy games at "insane deals" on Steam, the manufacturer is still getting some money - probably more then what they would get from a 2nd hand store selling the used game. Plus, you still get all the fancy features like online play.

In this way, selling a game for insane deals on Steam is not a lost sale for the manufacturer, but rather better economies of supply and demand. It doesn't cost anything (or very, very little) for Steam to maintain a given game on their service since they are a distribution network first and foremost. They don't have to worry about making sure there's shelf space for the Next Big Thing, whereas retail stores need to worry about that constantly. I can't tell you the number of games I've bought on Steam at insane deal prices that I likely would never have bought otherwise - certainly not in a store, where it was used, the disc could be scratched, etc (which I have had happen).

Do I necessarily agree with the idea that I don't really own my games (if we assume that EULAs are valid)? No, of course not. Has it become commonplace for every single software developer to make that particular claim? Yes. Do I care enough to make a fuss? No. If they started to take away my Steam games, then I'd have a problem.

See that's the thing, they've never tried to go all evil on people and try and take their games away. So it's never been brought to court. I'm sure with enough time, people, money, lawyers, and cases it would fall and be changed. But as of right now there's no reaosn to do it, because they haven't started taking away our games. So yes the EULA seems bad and there are some genuine bad parts to them, but on the other hand you get stuff thats never been put to the test too. So people just need to keep an open mind. If it ever came to some sort of lawsuit against the companies we would have to see.

Technically yes. But technically it's also a lost sale when someone buys a Rolex from a pawn shop.

I see no difference between the two.

I'm not going to change my opinion just because "millions of ppl" supposedly don't have a problem with it: I have a problem with it.

If you're going to dismiss dissenting opinions as "sticking a bad Steam opinion here for the sake of it", why bother soliciting opinions at all? Maybe you should have been clearer about only wanting replies from people who agree with you.

Except for the fact that the '98 Taurus isn't costing ford anything anymore. Maintaining servers for an online game does.

Online games are a special case, though. I agree that something should be paid for ongoing costs of running servers, but for games that are stand-alone and have long since stopped being supported, it's not costing them anything. Many games were never even patched to a fully-working state when they were still current, so it's a bit much to expect some sort of "maintenance fee".

I buy a game "new" if I trust that it looks good and I'll enjoy it. Or it'll end up back at the shop in the used game pile.
I'll buy a game pre-owned (used) if it doesn't look too promising or I'm low on cash. I think the losses the companies make out is nonsense and the game stores have a right to sell on these used games because they simply can't put them back on the shelf as "new" when they've been opened and played, but they can't simply destroy them all instantly as that costs money - money made from the selling of pre-owned games.
The nonsense that the games companies are moving to digital distribution to combat this is, like I said, nonsense because it's only going to further damage their sales because I, like thousands more, don't trust online distributers with my bank details and the effort it takes up to set up these programs to buy the games. Effort not worth wasting.

But that's it, you don't own it. AS was pointed out, every game has an EULA and AFAIK, they all say the same thing, that you arre not buying the game, you're just paying for the right to p;lay it on your computer/console. And the EULA is something you agreed to, or you wouldn't be able to play the game, and that agreement is a legally binding contract. So, no, you can't do anyhting you want with it, becuse legally, you don't own it. You own the physical disc and the right to play it on your machine, but you don't own the actual game software itself.
svcks, but that is the way it works.

Redundant post.

EULAs don't get to decide that, consumer laws do. However much corporations might like it to be the case, EULAs don't override the law (at least in most countries.) It seems that, although they make a lot of noise about the way they think things should be, they seem reluctant to actually put it to the test in the courts. Strange, that.

You never pay a game developer directly through a retailer. Doesn't matter if it's used or new.

I don't buy used games personally, but that's because I don't own a console. The $60 price point I think is the prime reason such a large second hand market exists for games. Most console gamers I know support their buying habit that way. If used game sales were blocked, I think we'd see a significant drop in overall software sales as a result. Consumers would be much more wary on what they spend their money on, they'll buy fewer games and only settle for safe stuff they are familiar with, which will hurt games that aren't super-blockbusters even further. I think it will probably happen seeing as the industry is so narrowly focused on short term profits.

Though if that kills the $60 model, I'm all for it.

As a whole, used games sales won't affect the developers in any major way. What it will affect is the population playing the game, for example a multiplayer game. Without used game sales, borrowing from a friend, etc, they'd be much emptier.

I wouldn't have bought a huge number of games unless they were as cheap as they were.

Make a good enough game and you'll never have to worry about used game sales. Look at Skyrim, 10 million units shipped, the majority will be sold new, Bethesda took their time and marketed it effectively and reaped the rewards.

It's when your game looks "meh" that people remain on the fence and wait to get it pre-owned instead of rushing out and buying it, and who's fault is that then....?

Also OP, there are many games that i've purchased used that i would never have bought new, something i suspect many others do aswell. Therefor you can't just say for example: 500,000 used copies were sold so we lost 500,000 game sales.

So? They still got money from the person who originally bought the game.

To the original company; yes
To the company selling the used game; no

But the person who originally bought the game would not be needing the server space, since to consider selling they would not be playing so much anymore. yet the buyer will likely be playing alot more taking up more bandwidth and costing more. eventually the cost of maintaining the servers will outstrip the profits for the original sale.

So it is a choice between either; a charge for used buyers to play multiplayer, killing off the servers before they become unprofitable, or having a subscription fee.

The first option is the only one which doesn't harm the customers who bought the game new (ie the customers that actually matter to the company) it is the best option

The server costs were covered at the original sale point as were the other costs.

I like your logic though.

With it I could get Publishers and Developers to start paying me for time I don't spend on their servers when I'm not playing the game!

Az

There are too many circumstances to simplify it like that. It doesn't matter how much they play on multiplayer, the person who sold it can't play anymore and the person who bought it can, it's the same as far as the server is concerned.

What if the person who bought the game used didn't player multiplayer at all? What if the person who sold it still played a lot but needed the money urgently?