do you mean why do we compare them?
they are both digital distribution companies.

Be careful not to further the image most non-Americans have, that Americans are unaware that there are other countries in the world besides their own. Copyright is not an American issue, but a global one.
The law is what's stopping him. If he did that, it would be illegal, and an infringement of copyright. However, if he went to a store specializing in used CDs/DVDs and sold it there, there would be no stopping him, since that is not an infringement of copyright, and is perfectly legal. Notice that we're talking about digital media here, same as games. Made for entertainment, same as games. Subject to ordinary copyright laws, same as games.
So you don't own a DVD or a CD either?
What he is saying, if you would care to pay attention, is that naturally Ubisoft won't get only $50. Imagine how long it would take for a game to reach every potential customer, if only one copy had to make the rounds, being installed, played, uninstalled, resold, and so on. Of course most people will buy it new. Also, not everyone wants to part with a game even though they've completed it. So there aren't as many used copies to be had as there are new.
Ah, so when I pay for a game at the store, go home, unwrap it, put the disc in the drive and start the installation, read the license terms, decide I don't like them, take the disc out of the drive, put it back in the cover, take it back to the store and tell them I don't accept the EULA, do you think they'll give me my money back?
Look, why not just admit it was an error bringing that up, thus negating the feasibility of debating it further? Noone will think the worse of you. It seems clear that you didn't actually mean that, even though that's what you said. Do you think none of us has ever made a fallacious argument?

Just to clear something up... technically you own the media but not the data on it. You license the data.
So while you do own the CD/DVD all you own is the plastic and metal it's made of. What you don't "own" is the music, movie, or software on that media. You simply license the use of such.

But you're still legally allowed to sell that plastic and metal, including the media that it contains, to someone else. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure a number of stores would have been closed, and the owners arrested, long ago.

Now we're getting into some confusing legal issues... technically because you're licensing the software and not purchasing it, the right of first sale doesn't apply.
The courts have tried to figure this out, but multiple cases have contradicted each other. So there isn't a clear answer in the legal system.
So while you can sell the DVD to someone, you technically aren't transferring the right to use the information on it, you're only selling the media itself. Music and Movies are specifically covered in the legal documents of the rights of first sale, software is not.
Why aren't all the companies sued out of business? Because, as of yet, it isn't a clear cut case. This is why you're always hearing about court cases in regards to EULA's or software sales (being able to return a windows license that's received with a computer as an example).
Right now the legal issues are being worked out, and once that's done we'll find out if used game stores are still able to legally operate.

The license you keep talking about establishes the boundaries of how i can use my property, it doesn't question my ownership of said property.
People keep missing this point and stating crazy things like "when you buy a game you don't own anything". The hell i don't. As long as i'm using my property within the boundaries set by the EULA, CP/IP laws and any other relevant laws, no one can legally take my property away and no one but me can legally claim ownership of that property. That particular copy of the game it's fucking mine, period.
This is true for anything you buy. Every single physical product you buy comes with boundaries regarding the use you can give to that property of yours. Digital products are the same. The nature of those boundaries is different from physicall to digital products to reflect the differences between those two kinds of products, but the boundaries are always there. Again, setting boundaries in which you can use some property of yours it's not the same as questioning the ownership of that property.
People also keep mixing up ownership of IP upon which the game files are build and ownership of the files of the particular copy i bought for any game. They're not one and the same. I don't own the IP but i do own the files of the particular copy i purchased build upon that IP, read above.
Naturally, all of this goes right out the window with a service like stEAm, that ties multiple individual (supposed) propertys of mine in a neat bunch called subscription. It doens't matter if i paid for 1 game or for 100, the only thing i legally have is a subscription to the service. If that subscrition gets cancelled/disabled due to an irreparable mistake/problem/error on valvEA's part, i loose everything, i.e. all the games tied to that subscription.
So, Steam is a pretty good example of a service provider posing as a product retailer. They're not commiting fraud cause the SSA it's available for anyone who cares to read it, but the legalese is so thick and so fucking unbelievably ridiculous, that some might definitely claim that stEAm is a misleading platform when it comes to establishing ownership of property, cause according to their SSA, in legal terms there's no property at all tofactor in, just a subscription to a service.
With GOG, i signed an agreement but that agreement combined with gog's business model gives me the means to make sure i won't ever be kept from using the products i purchased here regardless of what happens tomorrow. The same thing cannot be said for valvEA/stEAm, and no ammount of speculation about what has been said on the matter by valvEA, mods on stEAm forums, users, etc, will ever change that.
stEAm's SSA is an amazing piece of legalese when it comes to cover valvEA's legal ass if the shit were to hit the fan one of these days.
Like Wishbone said, it seems you have a real problem admitting you fucked up the analogy by mentioning something that will never work in the scope of said analogy under any set of circustances. Instead you choose to tapdance around the issue.Fine.

Used games are like used books. And we all know that libraries destroyed the book industry years ago... oh wait.

This.
You are sold a game you are not sold only the licence that is why companies like Ubisoft have tried to make lawsuits against retailers like EB and failed. Companies try to explain that we infact bought nothing and have no rights but the law begs to differ.

Did you read the references I gave you? Yeeah... that's pretty much what I expected from you. As per my previous post, I'm not going to bother discussing this matter further with you at this time.
Media ownership is actually a matter of law, which is pretty much the opposite of being a matter of fact. And if you want to convince me of how this matter of law is currently regarded then feel free to cite a few statutes and court cases that support your position, although I think we both know what the chances of you doing that are. However, since matters of law are highly complicated, only as settled as the most recent court case in a given jurisdiction, and since I'm pretty sure neither of us are lawyers, let's look at this matter from a more practical perspective.
I'm a pragmatic sort, so I think the best way to consider something is by what actually occurs in practice. So let's look at how all the players involved in this matter treat the legality of used game sales. Most customers seem to think it's legal, as they're reselling games left and right. Just about all retailers (including their teams of lawyers) also seem to think it's legal, as they're engaging in it left are right with no fear of legal action coming their way. Even the game companies that you're advocating for seem to regard used game sales as legal. Why do I say this when game companies are whining about used sales and claiming in their EULAs that they're really only selling non-transferable licenses? Well, that's because if they truly believed the courts would consider used sales illegal then they could confidently send out C&Ds and/or file lawsuits against the likes of Gamestop, Ebay, and Amazon, and given the noise some of these companies have been making over used game sales you can be pretty sure they'd do this if they felt they'd win. Yet they don't, and thus they don't believe they can win. QED. So we seem to have all the major players- customers, retailers, and publishers- all on the side of used sales being perfectly legal, and on the other side of the matter we have... you. Care to step out of fantasy-land and join the rest of us in the real world?
Consumer interest and quality aren't the final relevant metric, market viability is. Air is in high demand, and you could be selling some damn fine quality bottled air, but aside from President Skroob you're not going to have many customers. Whining that the market should be different from how it is is pointless- it's not going to change itself simply on your account. And if you want the government to step in and change the market through new laws then you'd better be able to present a damn strong argument why such a change would be in the public interest (or have a nice fat bribe... oops, "campaign contribution"), and so far you haven't even attempted to present either of these.
To briefly continue the little game of "uh-huh, nuh-uh" you've started up, it's not licensed, it's sold unless clearly presented as otherwise at the point of sale. Now, to absolutely shred your analogy, public performances are specifically dealt with in the copyright act, not through licensing agreements; lending is perfectly legal, and is explicitly allowed under the copyright act (with further provisions for commercial lending); and you can play a DVD anywhere you damn well please unless you're running afoul of the public performance limitations. See what happens when you try to speak about issues you haven't even looked into?
Steam actually treats the game as a licensed, not sold, product. One of the key points in Vernor was that it was the characteristics of a transaction that defined it, not what one party chose to call it. Now, I'm personally of the opinion that Steam isn't nearly upfront enough about what people are actually getting and I'd love to see the FTC come down on them (and quite a few other digital distributors) under truth in advertising laws, but as the FTC are, for the most part, a bunch of fucking tools that's probably not going to happen anytime soon. But I digress.
What I actually wanted to touch on, and I'm glad you allowed me to segue into this, is that there are currently plenty of options for companies that want to license rather than sell their games. Even games on physical media can be tied to an account or hardware configuration to conform to whatever the license says. The catch, though, is that you need to inform your customers clearly that they're only licensing the content and what the material terms of the license are before any money changes hands. Don't do this and your customers will feel like you're trying to pull a fast one on them (because you are). They're not gonna be happy, and neither will they feel much of a compunction to abide by the terms of the license. You'll also be committing flat our fraud, and if you're egregious enough about it the tools at the FTC may finally get up off their asses and come after you.
You see, when game companies whine about how used sales are hurting them they're not complaining that they can't prevent used sales, as they already have all the tools needed to do this. What they're actually complaining about is that if they do so they either have to let their customers know upfront, which decreases what some customers are willing to pay and gives their competitors a nice selling point, or they have to try to sneak it past their customers, which usually doesn't go over so well. That's why they complain- they want a ban on used game sales imposed universally and externally, so that they don't have to deal with the market realities of licensing as opposed to selling.
Nuh-uh. ;)
Nuh-uh. :P
Video games are already treated as owned properties by all the parties involved, and yet your scenario of everyone waiting 10 x n hours (n = 1-6.5 billion) to play a single copy doesn't seem to be coming about. Why? Because of the realities of the actual market. Time to step out of fantasy land and join the rest of us in the real world. Now, if the real world somehow turns into fantasy-land we can discuss what, if anything, needs to be done about this problem, but for the time being lets stick to discussions about the real world.
Introducing artificial scarcity via copyright so that immaterial goods could be treated like physical goods is just how copyright was intended to act. Want to ditch copyright and talk about what system we should institute in its place? Fine. But until then I'm not about to stop thinking about copyrighted goods in different terms than material objects just because of your protestations. Not to mention that nearly all of the copyrighted goods being resold are actually joined to physical objects. So why shouldn't we be treating these physical objects as physical objects again?
I've never seen license terms written on the box of a game. I've never seen them listed on sites like Amazon when I'm buying a game through them. I've never been presented with such terms prior to purchasing a downloadable game. In fact, I've never been presented with any license terms prior to exchanging money for any game. It's only once I get home and go to install what I already bought that I'm presented with what pretends to be a license, demanding that I agree to it or be unable to use the product I bought, and offering me absolutely no consideration in exchange for the rights it wants to take away. And if I don't agree I've yet to hear of a retailer willing to refund me the cost of the game and compensate me for my time and any additional expenses incurred in returning the game. Guess how compelled I feel to honor any terms contained in this "license"? On this note, I will say that one of the things I like about GOG is that, while not perfect, most of the material terms of the license are clearly presented via their FAQ page for anyone to easily peruse before making a purchase. Still not ideal, but enough that I'm willing to consider myself having bought a license in good faith from them.
Now, since I'm guessing you actually don't know much about how contracts and licenses work outside of fantasy-land, let me fill you in on a few key points. A contract or license isn't worth the paper its written on until a court upholds it. If it comes before a court the court could uphold the contract in its entirety, or decide it's superseded by some law, or decide it's a contract of adhesion or was made under duress, or declare any or all of it unconscionable, and at the whim of the judge invalidate the contract in part or in full. And contract law is fucking complicated, so good luck predicting how a judge will rule unless it's a very cut and dry case. But the other key point is that contracts should rarely be ending up in court because they should be a formalization of terms for a transaction that are agreeable to both parties involved. It's only if one party decides to act in bad faith that the matter can then end up in court. The thing is these days, though, that many companies try to attach contracts and license terms to products without fully informing the customer, by presenting the contract or license after the sale has actually taken place (while refusing returns), and by using their much stronger bargaining position to present the contract as a "take-it-or-leave-it" deal without any kind of a meeting of minds. And through a combination of these tactics try to foist highly unfavorable terms on customers. And since in these case the company is basically acting as a bad-faith actor from the very beginning customers see no reason to place along with the farce of a license or contract unless technical measures are in place to enforce it. Then if the company is incensed enough by this the matter ends up in court where a judge roles 2d20 to determine his ruling.
And with that hopefully you have a bit better understanding of why, when someone brings up the "it's licensed not sold" tripe my first reaction is to just laugh it off as the joke that it is. I'm probably just wasting my time though. Oh well.
In a way I love this kind of DRM, as it's resulting in companies finally having to be honest about what they're trying to offer the customer, and the customer becoming aware of this. It's been dragging companies and consumers out of fantasy-land and into the real world, and it turns out that in the real world consumers don't like have odious terms foisted on them. Who would have thunk it?

Though I do agree with you on most points, DP, there is one point that I have to reluctantly disagree with. I'll also provide some quoted evidence that SV failed to produce.
This is a portion of the EULA for The Witcher.
"1. Grant of License. The Software is licensed to you, not sold, by Atari and CDProjekt, and its use is subject to this License. Atari and CDProjekt grant to you a limited, personal, non-exclusive right to use the Software in the manner described in the user documentation. If the Software is configured for loading onto a hard drive, you may load the Software only onto the hard drive of a single machine and run the Software from only that hard drive. You may permanently transfer all rights Atari and CDProjekt grant you in this License, provided you retain no copies, you transfer all of the Software (including all component parts, the media and printed materials, the CD-authentication key, and any upgrades), and the recipient reads and accepts this License. Atari and CDProjekt reserve all rights not expressly granted to you by this License."
As you can see, SV is technically right about you not owning the software, however, it clearly states that it's perfectly legal to sell the game...sorry, "licence." ;-)
As for my personal issue with steam; I purchased F.E.A.R. 2 the week it came out, unfortunately, I failed to notice the mention of steam in the very fine print. The problem I have with steam is the fact that I have dial-up, suffice to say that I have yet to play the game. DX

Read up on the Vernor decision I referenced earlier. Just because one party chooses to call a transaction a license doesn't mean the courts will regard it as such. And as I already mentioned, a license isn't worth the paper its written on until a court enforces it. Additionally, the boilerplate that composes most EULAs doesn't even qualify as an actual license as far as I'm concerned, as it's not granting me license to do anything I didn't already have the right to do under copyright law the moment I bought the software.

"The software is licensed to you not sold" in plain english means that you can't ever claim ownership rights over anyhting build upon the IP's and Copyrighted material contained on the software in question, it doens't mean "The particular copy of The Wicher you've just bought it's not really yours, it belongs to Atari and CDProjekt"
That's just a way to prevent having to write 50 pages long EULAS describing in painfull detail everything that you can't do with your game files of The Witcher.

Okay...I think I get it now, (damn legalese).
Either way, I agree that selling used games is perfectly fine, (I agreed before I knew the eula was fine with it, too) I just wondered what the educated response to that piece of information was. (and I was tiring of the back-and-forth arguments with no actual progress in the debate)

About FEAR 2, can't you download it somewhere else ? A relative's or a friend's house ? Because if you can, you could then just copy over the relevant files to your own PC using a usb pen, an external HD or even a dvd to transfer the files over.