Pirating the fucking universe out all the games is fantastic. No really, the attitude works, mr. Asshole :-P

But it is not the 5-10 year old games the publishers are trying to prevent from being resold, it is instead games within the first 6-9 months where most of the profit is made that they want to stop. When a used copy is being sold rather than a new one then publishers loose out on it ie. they don't make any money even if a game is being sold.

Favorite comment amongst the ensuing shitstorms? SORRY, VOLITION, MY MONEY IS PRE-OWNED, YOU CAN'T HAVE IT. :3

No, they don't. They get royalty from the initial, single sale of the book to the library. They get nothing from subsequent borrowing.

Steam has had a very interesting effect on PC gaming. Not necessarily positive from a commercial standpoint, but interesting. You see, while unit sales of games have actually skyrocketed since Steam became popular, actual revenues from PC games have nosedived, extremely so when DLC, MMO subscriptions and revenues from virtual items are taken out of the equation.

Digital is only interesting for the wider community as long as gamers can get something for next to nothing. As soon as the box and digital cost the same, you'll see the majority of people going for the box.

I'm betting that we'll start seeing a shift away from Steam and back to activation-based DRM by the end of 2013. Take Two have already openly admitted that physical media will remain a substantial part of business, Ubisoft have suddenly announced that Rayman Origins for the PC in retail will be DRM free and even EA acknowledges that physical media has a future.

Cry me a river. Seriously. If your business model is so weak that someone buying a used game can kill your company, you deserve to go out of business.

And by retailers, you mean Gamestop. End of story. Wal-mart, Target, Best Buy, Shopko, K-mart, etc., all do not buy used games and turn around to resell them (though granted, I have seen a few very limited numbers of pre-owned games in my local Wal-mart, how that happened, I have no idea).

And just where have you gotten the idea that going to a library results in a publisher getting a royalty? Just where would that money come from? Maybe that happens in your country, but not in the U.S. They want to prevent ALL resales. If a person can play and enjoy a game from 10 years ago, they have no real need to buy this year's iteration. Why do you think sports games have their servers shut down after so long? It's to force people to buy this year's $60 roster update.

When a used copy is sold, the developers already got their money from that copy. It could not have been bought used if someone hadn't already bought it new.

Unless a developer is willing to keep a game in print and in circulation in perpetuity, eventually you will no longer be able to play that new game. For no other reason than they were born past the time when that publisher wanted to stop supporting it.

So first off, the sale of used games can only even scratch the surface of first-sale games if a very large amount of people buy new. It is physically impossible to be otherwise. Secondly, as far as I can tell yours is the only country who government pays companies for every checkout of a book from a library. No one else - as far as I can tell - does that. Thirdly, used sales actually contribute to both strong initial sales and to the longevity of a game's pre-nosedive-sale sales. The current system is what leads publishers to focus only on initial and pre-order sales. Fourthly it is trivial to retain early-sale customers by offering content drops, paid-DLC, and expacs which require not getting rid of the base game to play. Which is the system we pretty much already have - so nothing major would have to change. Fifthly, the game companies and DDs could make a lot money by offering their own platforms for used sales and draw business away from Amazon, eBay, and of course the behemoth the other two don't come close to: Gamestop. Their position on used sales hurts their own bottom line and the consumers. It's a lose-lose when it could be a win-win for everyone.

I don't know your sources, but this guy disagrees with you.

Thanks, it somehow dropped the second digit... *ahem*....

Ah that's better ... and makes more sense than you suddenly becoming schizophrenic :)
:)

It happens unfortunately ... just blame the forum's quote system and actually everyone will probably believe you :)

So screw console gaming if they do that!

They actually do in Denmark though to be fair only Danish publishers are paid from continued borrowing but foreign ones also get something from the original purchase.
Yes, I know they are trying to stop ALL used sales even of 5-10 year old games but that is only because there would be no good way of only stopping the newest ones. No business model could live if only 1 in 10 copies money would go the the publishers - that's the same problem with piracy that today if a game needs to break even then it must sell 1 mill copies (AAA title) but this means that 10 million people must be playing it because piracy can be as much as 90% in some parts of the world (and yes I know that not every pirated copy equals a lost sale). The same with used games that if Person A buys a new game for 60 bucks and then resell it to Person B, who sells it again to C, D, E, F, G, H, I and J then the publisher only makes 60 bucks but if there where no used games then they would make 600 bucks. That's a huge difference - and again yes, I know that not everyone who buys used would have gotten it new. But the problem is there.

No actually only 1 person needs to buy new and then he can come back and resell it and this process can happend as many times as needed as long as people take goood care of the game. Yes used games can boost sales of new games down the line (just like library books can boost the sales of new books) but it can also hurt the new sales if people are busy playing old games. I agree that publishers are way too hooked on preorders and sales within the first months and don't think long term and that's bad. And yes I too would hope that publishers would see the light and offer their back-catalogue at a reduced price and I don't think that would really hurt the sales of new games, so I agree with you there.

Look, I don't want to defend publishers like EA and Activision since I find them to be scum. But at the same time I CAN see their point that they should recieve a small piece of that cake from used games rather than have a big retailer like Gamestop score all the profit from doing aboslutely nothing for it. What I object to here among gamers are the lack of balance or willingness to see that the current system is fucked up and need to change. I feel the same way about DRM. I don't have anything against people who hate DRM in any form but I DO object to gamers that can't even see WHY publishers feel the need to put DRM on anything these days. We need a balanced system that benefits everyone.

Yes, and there's actually similar provisions in the UK and Canada, but I was looking at the US (since that's where the majority of the complaints from game companies seem to originate).

On a side note, it's not really a fair comparison regardless, since you're talking about a setup whereby the product is continually loaned out for no fee whatsoever, as opposed to a system where the product is a used market.