Of course they can see that - it's the main point.

If a publishers sells a game by digital download from their own service, their profit from the sale is 4 or 5 times as much as it would be from selling the same game as a physical copy in a physical shop. Even if they sell it as digital download on another company's service, the publisher will make 2 or 3 times as much as they would from selling a physical copy in a physical shop.

Yes, publishers really are inflating the prices of downloaded games by that much. Running a server has nothing like the costs of manufacturing the discs, the boxes, the printing (box art even if there isn't a printed manual), plus the costs of physically transporting truckloads of boxed games, plus the profits for the shop, plus the cost of the stock that doesn't sell.

Publishers want to lose the costs of selling physical copies in physical shops while still including those costs in the price they charge to customers. It's not legally fraud, but it's a very similar mindset. Then they want to blame the customers for it, just to add insult to injury.

It's short-termism and greed, simple as that. The second-hand market sustains the game industry in the long term by making it more attractive to customers. If every copy of every game has the cost inflated to $50 by the publishers so they can pocket $40 of distribution costs they no longer have and is utterly worthless when you've finished with it, where's the attraction? But if you can pick up some second-hand games for $10-20, if a copy happens to be available when you want it, it makes the entire gaming industry more attractive to customers.

In order for a game to be available second-hand, it must have been bought new at some point. So the second-hand market, which attracts customers to gaming, requires and therefore promotes new sales directly as well as indirectly by attracting customers to the market.

Few, if any, places sell *only* second-hand games. So selling second-hand games brings customers into places that sell new games, which promotes new games sales in that way too. Has anyone here bought second-hand games and *not* bought any new games while in the shop? Unlikely.

Second-hand games sales promote browsing and buying on a whim, which promotes the entire gaming market including new sales. People will browse a bunch of second-hand games to see what's available and will buy a couple on a whim. $10 for something that looks like it might be good? Yeah, OK, I'll pick that up. Oh, and I'll have that other one as well. 3 for $25? I'll look for another one and get that too. May as well. $50 per game and people will go in to buy a specific game only, without browsing, and buy less often.

Second-hand sales also promote new sales of related games. Here's a classic example from me. Years ago, I popped into a games shop in my lunch hour to browse. Maybe I was going to buy, maybe not. I wanted an RPG, as that was pretty much all I played at the time. A selection of second-hand games were on sale at 3 for £20. Browsing got me 2 RPGs for nearly £20 and used most of my lunch hour. So I picked up Need For Speed Underground 2 just as the 3rd game for the offer, just because it was there and the cover caught my eye. I found it great fun, went back and got NFSU second-hand and the newly released NFS: Most Wanted *as a new sale, full price*. A bit later, I bought NFS: Carbon new within a couple of days of relase. That's 2 new full price sales in release week solely because of a single second-hand sale. I was going to buy NFS: Pro Street as well, but I played a demo and thought it was rubbish.

So I think that far from harming the games industry, second-hand sales help it.

More a problem for xbox and ps3/wii games would've thought. Doesn't bother me :).

GOG works with some of the same principles - browsing, buying on a whim due to price, etc.

I came to GOG today to buy 1 game. I bought 3. Why? Because I was browsing and they were cheap. If they weren't cheap, I wouldn't have been browsing.

I just looked - I have 48 games from GOG.

If a business effectively said to me "Hi, want to spend maybe $350 on games?" I'd say "No, of course not, that's too much money." But if the business effectively says "Hi, we've got loads of games, cheap as chips. Have a browse, maybe buy a game for $6, maybe $10, maybe get it even cheaper on sale.", I'll buy. And then buy again. And buy again. And I'll spend maybe $350 on games. It's the way human minds are wired - 1x350 seems like a lot more than 40x6 + 11x10.

Now that I've written it down, I do wonder why I have ~150 games (I have ~100 boxed games in addition to my GOG ones), most of which I haven't actually played. Silly me.

Do they not have after market parts over there?

I agree completely. The gaming industry just has a hard time seeing this, and are basicly cutting there own throat, or at least attempting to.

It's possibly they don't want to win they just want to put a guilt trip message out there and think that might convert a few rubes. Though I'm not sure how they'd ever think the effort/reward on that one works out in a worthwhile manner. Of course actually killing off used games is just as terrible of an idea.

And as a final note, people keep saying "it didn't kill PC", didn't you ever stop to think maybe a lot of PC gamers moved to console for just that reason? With no alternative left it could very well kill both PC or console (okay, not really, but it will radically alter the gaming landscape and I bet nearly no one will be happy with the results).

Are used cars harmful to the industry?

Yes, I think it's a ludicrous proposition. Make good games and people will buy them. It's that damn simple. But instead they're pushing out mostly utter crap that is rushed through production with bugs and no story and little quality. Then they're surprised it doesn't sell like water in the Sahara? Quality games have always sold well. Crap games don't. It really is quite simple.

The PC maybe doesn't have a second hand market anymore, but we have Steam, GG, GOG. We can get brand new games for the price of used console games. If you are a die hard DRM phobic this might be bad for you, but for your average gamer I think the trade was well worth it.

Digital Distribution has been a godsend to publishers and they are making massive profits of it, but at least some of it trickles down to the customer this time. The switch from cardriges to CDs (which was also a massive drop in costs) never reached the customer.

The "voice of the cusomer" is, imo, actually heard on the PC as most games drop in price really fast. Only the most basic mainstream games seem to be able to stay high for a long time (CoD). We even had a Skyrim 50% sale recently. And because that isn't limited by physical copies, just about everybody could get it. I don't think you will get it for that price at GameStop used for the consoles.
Psychonauts vs. Call of Duty. Sorry, had to do that ;-P. Generally I share your sentiment.

You may also have noticed that they have won the fight over second hand sales by now. So with the same argument as you used (that both behaves the same), they'll win the fight over piracy as well. Then who can say it's useless or a waste of time?

I was reading the comments on GameSpot on this subject some time ago. It is absolutely horrifying the way people jump to the defence of the industry, trashing anyone who dares disagree with the industry or openly says that they buy used games. Granted, it's GameSpot, one of the lowest-IQ communities out there, but I cannot understand why people have become so incapable of defending their own interests.

My guess is that for those people defending the industry, gaming has become less of a hobby or a passion and more a simple addiction. Reminds me of a quote from the Matrix, about people so hopelessly inured and dependent on a system that they will fight to protect it.

(Edited for a couple of typos)

Second hand sales wouldn't exist without first sales, damn morons.

The industry want to kill the independent stores? Those who only survive with used
games sales because they can't compete with supermarkets and still makes some
money?

The industry want to suppress any value related to old franchises, making old titles
forever unavailable to the second hand market and fading in obscurity?

The industry want to raise the cost of entry for new franchises, making potential
new customers wary of anything unusual?

So the industry want to extinguish it's customer base. Way to go…

For used sales, even if they say it's only a "license" (and a rather limited one), the
publisher doesn't add any value to the product after the first sale - they shouldn't
get anything at all past it. Zero. Nada. You want customers to pay for a new copy?
Make it valuable or get lost!

Where are the beautiful boxes, with cloth maps, medals, magical stones, and so
on? Where are the splendid manuals, with funny comics or intriguing stories? Hey a
lot of games where sold with at least a poster.

I liked the Stories at the Frontier (with a full galaxy map), the Colditz book, etc. So,
no, I won't resell any of my Origin or Sierra stuff. But looking at what comes with
newer games: a simple DVD case?!? Is there anything worth keeping past a play-
through? There isn't any more value that a used copy, and there is even less value
that a pirated copy - with the numerous crappy DRM.

The industry makes throw-away consumables, and customers acts like
consumers? Unbelievable!

I don't disagree, but it becomes a lot worse when you get games such as the new Anno 2070, where you only get to have the game on three different computers (and where every change in hardware equals a change in computer). I wouldn't complain if they said three different computers a year or something, but three in total will mean that the game is worthless as a collector item.

Then you have games where you have to log on to a server to play - what happens when the server closes? And what about games where you can only have one account/character, which means you'll have to buy one game for every member of the household?

I have no problems with the GOG business model, and on Steam I only have a problem with certain publishers.

Basically it's saying that it doesn't matter the way the industry is treating us because piracy is allowing us to bypass most of their "measures". Personally I found that wrong on many level, when I buy a game I give my money to the publisher, not to the cracker, also I shouldn't have have to resort to do something potentially illegal for a game I legally bought.

Honestly I am not convinced that it has that much to do with the lack of a second hand sales market, IMO it's more likely because of the fact that they don't have any manufacturing/storage costs to pay for and have much better margins than on console. (no license fee to pay)