No Used Games for You!

Myagi on 14/12/2008 at 14:57

Quote Posted by BlackCapedManX

I may be alone here, but I think the idea of "used" software is ridiculous. Software doesn't degrade, and when you buy a game, you're not buying "stuff" you're buying IP usage. The problem with saying that games are like, say, cars, is that once you put a car in your garage, it doesn't come with all of the plans and parts to build a second one at no cost to the driver, and if you buy a used car it's not like you can put a new paint job on it and have all of the internal workings just as good as when it was made (or in fact better, if the car company has "patched" the car and is sending out new engines for free.)

I assume you find second hand DVD movies equally rediculous, for all intents and purposes that is also "software", on discs. What about if you buy a poster with some photo/painting, it stands the same chances of getting degraded as the CD/DVD disc and case otherwise it will be as new, so you shouldn't be able to sell that in your garage sale. After all the IP belongs to the artist or whothefuckever owns the picture, it's irrelevant to the legal concept how much money per copy the original artist would be getting the principles are similar. Or better yet, what about books (unless you're abusive they're usually in pretty good condition), what if you want sell a bunch of them in your garage sale. Where do you draw the line.

WingedKagouti on 14/12/2008 at 15:31

Quote Posted by RavynousHunter

What the hell are you talking about? I never even mentioned piracy, I was talking about buying used games.

You were talking about people who can't afford the games at launch prices. They don't have a right to play those games. Which leaves a few options:

1) Piracy.
2) Buy used.
3) Wait for the games to hit the bargain bin.

Your post made it seem like 3) wasn't an option.

gunsmoke on 14/12/2008 at 15:38

Quote Posted by fett

That, accompanied by the 2+ hours I spent repairing my HL2 install, multiplied by the amount of times I've cut my wrists in frustration over Psychonauts CD's not working properly, led me to buy a PS2 this Christmas.

I'm at a point where I'm fully willing to say Fuck The PC Game Industry. I hope they die in flames and all have to get jobs at K-Mart. I'm sick of being fucked over because I supported their product by paying an outrageous price for it, then being treated like a criminal, and end up having to depend on criminals (cracks, torrents, etc.) to make the fucking thing work properly. Fuck them and the OS they rode in on, Ken Levine included. They collectively don't give a shit that they're ripping us off, and the whole time bitch about piracy and sales. It's their own fucking fault and I'm tired of being the scapegoat. Lego Indiana Jones was the last PC game I'll ever buy (Fuck all the Securrom bullshit, and fuck you LucasArts). I'd rather date the whore that is the console market than keep getting dicked by a steady girlfriend. I know that the crackdown will apply to the console market too, but at least when I buy a new console game, it works out of the box, and I won't have to buy a new $225 vid card to make it so, or spend hours on e-mail trying to get past the CD check or some bullshit. Fuck 'em, fuck 'em, fuck 'em.

Not that I feel strongly about it or anything.

This is why I quit upgrading @ the 9800 PRO/Athlon XP 2600+ generation. I am now only playing legacy PC games, and own an original XBOX (and absolutely LOVE it) w/plans to get a 360 very soon. I moved on from keeping current w/the bullshit they get away with, and the workarounds, patches, updates, compatability issues, cracks, key codes, settings, frames per second, and all the bullshit just to get a game loaded.

I have MAYBE an hour or two tops 3 days a week to game. I want to spend as little time possible fiddling w/shit and just PLAY.

RavynousHunter on 14/12/2008 at 15:42

Quote Posted by WingedKagouti

Not Mentioned != Not an Option

BlackCapedManX on 14/12/2008 at 15:47

Quote Posted by Myagi

It's really simple, I draw the line at anything that can be distributed without a physical component. Imagine if they sold books simply as .pdf documents so you wouldn't have to actually house a massive physical library. In this scenario it would be ridiculous to by a second-hand .pdf file. That's just dumb.

The idea that physical disks are an intrinsic part of a PC game is becoming more and more outmoded. Second hand DVDs are still a little odd for me, but because you don't (typically, though this trend is changing) store the DVD on your DVD player harddrive, I can see some justification there. I can also see a time when nearly all home movies are handled digitally, via a Netflix type system or whatever, making second-hand movies moot.

Again, I think a Steam-esque service neatly wraps up a lot of the issues people have been mentioning. I was home over Thanksgiving break and my brother wanted HL2 for his PC (specifically Garry's Mod, but you need HL2.) He's a bit of an asshole so he simply wanted to pirate the version I owned, and I was like "you can't do that because of how Steam works, and I'm certainly not giving you my account." However I had a HL2 "Gift," that I realized I could give him, so I figured I'd do that. I wanted to make sure it would run first on his computer, before I gave up my gift and he couldn't use it anyway. So I installed Steam from the internet, signed on with my account, DLed HL2 to his harddrive because it was activated on my account, started it up and ran it for a while to make sure it worked, made an account for him, gave him the HL2 gift, didn't even have to DL the game again because it was already on his harddrive, and he had it up and running without a problem.

I didn't have to handle any physical disks or product, I can run HL2 on any decent enough computer with internet access with any number of installs on any number of computers as long as I'm signed in to use it. What here do I have to bitch about? I own a working, totally functional DX GOTY disk, and I've been heavily considering buying it on Steam anyway simply because of the incredible convenience. If I owned my entire library of games on Steam, I wouldn't have to worry about losing disks, or changing computers or whatever, because I'd simply load up Steam and install whatever games I wanted to play, because I owned the right to play them and I can cash in on that ownership wherever I have access to Steam.

We're so used to the idea of owning something physical, but I really think that it's a concept that doesn't transition well to digital media. When you buy a game from a store you're buying the physical packaging and physical disk, but not the ownership of the right to use the data indescriminately. For example, if you buy WoW (heaven's knows why, but if you do...) you don't own the game, just because you bought the disk doesn't mean you get to play that game indefinitely. With WoW you're buying a right to limited use of game time. With most single player games (or non-persistent MP games) you're buying a right to unlimited time, but the developers are still within their rights to put restraints on number of uses (again, why something like Steam is far more reasonable.) Again, we as consumers are very used to buy "things" instead of "rights," but the bottom line is that we're definitely moving toward an age where you don't own all of the contents on your harddrive. I'm not saying that I like that, I'm just saying there's a lot of obvious rationale for digital distributors to think that way, and I for one, if I'm not going to get to own the raw data, I may as well buy the rights to use it from the internet and store it on someone else's database when I'm not using it instead of cluttering up my bookshelves.

fett on 14/12/2008 at 16:26

Quote Posted by RavynousHunter

However, limiting the sale and playability of used games does harm at least some people, those gamers who, by no fault of their own, are part of the lower economic echelons and therefore can't afford many brand-new games. Basically, they're punishing poor people for being poor and telling poor families with children who play games that they can go stuff themselves and can't use the used games they just bought.

Exactly right RH - I consider my family to be 'lower middle-class' - two kids, rent house, two used cars, me on disability, wife in school. The ONLY way I'm going to play games, or buy games for my kids, is if I can get them used because I can't afford to drop $50 every time something new comes out that sparks our interest. But it's not like I haven't spent money on new games, new video cards, controllers, expansion packs, etc. It's just that I have to be very choosy about which games I'm willing to pay full price for (the same thing I do with DVD's, CD's, and instruments). So while I buy used (a lot), I also contribute to the market about 3-4 times a year.

That being said, if used games are outlawed, we'll play the stuff we already have, but will eventually drop off playing games at all because we'll get bored, and won't be able to play a wide variety of titles often enough to make it worth keeping the machine, or contributing to the market in any significant way. People who don't understand that dynamic obviously aren't familiar with the attention span of kids, or their consumer habits. They get bored and move on to something else. It's families like mine that this law would affect - it'll eventually push us out of buying games altogether.

I know a lot of people rent games, but the types of stuff I play, and the amount of time it takes me to complete a game, doesn't work with the short-term rental period. Isn't there some type of netflix for console games?

RavynousHunter on 14/12/2008 at 17:33

So long as there is a demand, there will be those willing to create a supply. If they ban me from buying second-hand games, I'll buy em used anyway and they can go fornicate themselves with an iron rod, tbh.

The_Raven on 14/12/2008 at 18:43

Whether or not EULAs completely invalidate the first sale doctrine is still a matter of debate since a general court judgement has yet to be reached. At least that's my understanding of the current state.

Quote Posted by BlackCapedManX

If I owned my entire library of games on Steam, I wouldn't have to worry about losing disks, or changing computers or whatever, because I'd simply load up Steam and install whatever games I wanted to play, because I owned the right to play them and I can cash in on that ownership wherever I have access to Steam.

Nope, the only thing you'd have to worry about is account highjacking and the servers going down.

Also, STEAM is slightly irrelevant in this discussion since the publishers are talking about retail outlets like GameStop that push used games fairly hard. This means that the physical medium of the IP is being exchanged.

Another thing that I noticed that people haven't brought up yet is the fact that the trade-in value of used games is normally put towards store credit that the customer then uses to purchase other games, some of them being new. I can see this crackdown reducing the number of new releases being sold since little Johnny now doesn't have a means of having some way of offsetting the cost of new games that are outside his alloted allowance. Also, as having works at an EB Games for a few months, I can tell you that most of the customers I came across did realize the value of getting new copies of their games due to the fact that there's less likely to be trouble encountered with read errors off of a new game than one that has been previously used and sold.

Aerothorn on 14/12/2008 at 18:49

Quote Posted by Aja

I can't understand why people want to sell their games anyway. I don't sell books once I've read them, or movies once I've watched them. It usually takes a few reads/views/plays to really get to know something anyway, and I like then revisit it years later for nostalgia. The only games I've ever sold were ones I didn't intend to play. Otherwise I still have every game I've ever owned (starting with NES).

Because sometimes there are games I buy that I are not good enough for me to finish, or not good enough for me to ever replay. There's no point in sitting on it if I'll never, ever use it again.

Also, it's untrue to say that publisher do not at all benefit from the sales of used games. I will sometimes buy an expensive, new game knowing that I can sell it; if I did not have the option, I simply wouldn't buy it at that high price point and would wait till it was bargain-bin price.

Aja on 14/12/2008 at 19:41

Quote Posted by Aerothorn

Also, it's untrue to say that publisher do not at all benefit from the sales of used games. I will sometimes buy an expensive, new game knowing that I can sell it; if I did not have the option, I simply wouldn't buy it at that high price point and would wait till it was bargain-bin price.

How does the publisher benefit from this arrangement? Gamestop certainly does. And I suppose the guy who buys your game after you're finished with it does too.

Pretty simple here: if you want certain kinds of games to continue being made, you have to buy them new. You can rationalize your unwillingness to pay full price all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that those of us who don't mind spending $60 every few months on something that they want to see MORE of have to support the industry for all the rest of you (at least I don't sell my games, so I guess that helps somewhat).