I remember having this same conversation back in the 80 about blank tapes kill the music industry and VCRs recording movies kill the move business. We can all see the effects of that.

This topic is very simple to me: I would prefer to buy a new game over a used game any day of the week but I can’t see paying $60 or $50 for most games. I just got Dragon Age: Origins- Ultimate Edition for just over $25 new because I’m will to pay $25 for a game. I could have save money and got a used copy but I prefer to have it new.

was this you? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUkCJDkG3fg

Have you ever been in a GameStop or on Ebay? You can buy used games within days of the original release. And people do it by the masses only to save 10$. GameStop is imo a lot worse than piracy.

The used games market doesn't only cover "old out of print games" that is only a fraction of it.
No, I would have taken the money ;-P

Yeah.. in the case of GOG, where you can make as many copies onto as many storage mediums as you want, it's great!

Not so great when DRM gets its fingers in the situation though :P

In regards to the OPs question:
It may be harmful to how the industry currently works.. but that doesn't mean it is harmful to the industry itself. If there are people who want to play games, there will be people who make them.

Yes, I have seen used games on the shelves, but:

- someone has had to buy each of those games before, and have a reason to pass it on (e.g. completing it, or getting bored of it; after only a few days already, as you say???). With piracy, only one leaked copy is enough to make indefinite amount of free copies instantly.

- 50-80€ games that most gamers would want to get rid of already in a few days from purchase go to the second-hand bin deservedly. Apparently those games were quite too short, or lacking replay value, or simply lacking the "keeper value", so it is a just punishment that they appear on second-hand bins quite fast. Maybe that'll teach the publishers to publish longer-lived games.

Of if we are talking about PC games, it could well be that the game in question did not run well on the original buyer's PC, in which case I have even less problem with him selling it second-hand.

Were those bins full of e.g. used console versions of Skyrim or Mass Effect 2, just a few days after the original release? I don't think so.

- Last but not least, the people who sold their (barely) used games probably did so in order to recoup money in order to buy even newer games, ie. the money goes back the gaming industry. The money that these people wouldn't otherwise have had for buying more games.

With piracy, practically no money whatsoever goes to the gaming industry, because everyone is enjoying their free copies.

Thus, is if very ludicrous to claim piracy is not more, or is even less, of a problem than second-hand games.

You know, I just realised that you didn't actually directly address my question (you sneaky lawyers). However you did answer it. You basically said you don't approve of libraries, I assume because they breach copyright?

You are under the assumption that pirates are group of people that never buy games but only get them for free while they are spending all of their available money on, let's say drugs. But, apart from those pirates that are out of any market group anyway, there are still a lot of people that buy "good" games and pirate many of the other titles, just to have seen or played it. That was what I did with limited funds during university or school and many of my friends did it the same way.

Pirates and customers arent totally different groups, there is a remarkable intersection.

I'm saying that the amount of money that is lost to the industry due to piracy is not greater than due to used sales. Pirates do spend money on games.

For all signs and purposes I consider myself a pirate (or at least a former) and I spent/spending a significant amount on gaming. Which goes directly do the publishers/developers, as I avoid the used market.
Who is the lawyer now! Stealing isn't piracy and therefore your comparison was void ;-P.

And as I do approve of piracy, I do also approve of libraries!

Edit:

And yet again we have entered a piracy discussion!

Out of interest a question are PC games released 10-20 less in your country than console games.. this is open to everyone but I know in the UK they are..

But heres the odd thing PC games here drop in price faster than their console version too steam will have sales in the second month for some games...

So PC games are generally untradeable and locked to a single person are cheaper and drop in price faster letting me get them new more often than console games...

Shame the publishers wouldn't drop the console price if there was no reselling

this is the best way to sum it up.

If the publishers didn't spend so much money making crap games they wouldn't need to focus so much on gaining it back with "new" titles being sold of there "old" good games.

We've lost touch with the gamers of today. No one listens to the consumer anymore. Mass Effect is a perfect example... were on game 3, has it gotten better?

Its crazy, D3 getting the majority of combat rebalanced and removing 5 core features to make people happy so hopefully more will buy it visit the auction house

If the designers would focus on the game rather the making money... maybe they would make more money... steam is a great indicator, some things sell really well (big woohoo) but what are people actually playing after the fad dies... what continues to be bought after the hype dies... that shows you what people want and its not Mass Diablo Effect: Age of Money 4... with Online only DLC and 4 layers of DRM....

Its the Witcher 2! -- DRMfree and full of story fun and a game that truly listened to there audience.... its Fallout: new Vegas that listened... its Bejeweled 3 where the devs actually responded by listening to the players...

If the pirated version is just as good as the original, what incentive would most people have for paying 50-80€ for exactly the same game they already have, for free?

The often used honour argument is silly, ie. "people want to support the developers of good games". That happens relatively rarely, most gamers are buying and paying for games just to get the game without hassle and consequences, that is all.

I see it as a similar argument if someone claimed that public transportation should be free for everyone, and people would pay for their ticket only if they felt like it, ie. if they felt the ride was "good enough", or "I wanted to support the company providing the public transportation". Maybe some would occasionally pay for their ride, but most would be freeriders just because they can.

Well, I do. Many modern games are much easier to pirate than ever before. By your logic, there wouldn't be any music industry left. Because I would guess that everyperson has a significant amount of pirated songs on their HD and yet the industry prevails.

I don't know about public transportation in Finland, but nobody in Germany would even think paying for the railroad company if they could avoid it. They are rubbish!

The only ones harmful to the gaming industry are the idiots full of crappy shit-assholes "leading" the aforementioned industry right now (EA, LucasArts, Activision, Blizzard, etc.). Let their fucking heads roll over the floor and we will all be in a fucking better world....

And this is why only certain people should be allowed to have a keyboard.

There's was ALWAYS a second hand market for games and no other producer expects or has even considered possible, income from secondary sale... this is greed, pure and simple.. and it just makes me pay for less games.

I only buy from companies whose policies I can (mostly) agree with.

EA and Activision definately don't get a penny from me at all which doesn't mean I don't play their games.. if they want to use 'piracy' as an excuse to fuck over their customers when we all know that piracy definately isn't the problem it used to be , I won't play ball with that.

Alright not to hijack the thread about piracy and used games, but there is a salient difference between piracy and used games: if x games have been sold, at any one time, there are only x owners of the game even with the ability to resale a game. While it is true that over time there have been more owners than x, at any only one slice, there are only x. That is what the businesses have a right to profit from - the number of people who *can* own the product at any *one* time, x. They do not have a right to profit from all the people who owned the product over all time.

Piracy is different because while there have been x units sold, there are y > x people who own the product at that point in time - not renting or borrowing from the library, but having and owning. That's the salient difference between used games and piracy and why one can absolutely be for used sale and absolutely against piracy. I do not believe a business has a right - with a possible exception to the selling of an original painting for traditional reasons - to profit from every user who has ever owned their product, but I do think they have a right to profit from the number of units out there in circulation.

Now there are nuances with digital media, DRM, DRM-free, and so forth, but in general I am against piracy and very much pro-used games.

Wrong. By my logic people don't buy (DRM-free) Lady Gaga or Rihanna songs because they feel they need to support either lady or the record companies they work for, but because they want to listen to their songs.

So why don't they all simply pirate the songs then? Because they are afraid of the record companies going after their ashes if they do, and most probably pirating music is nowadays more hassle than just buying DRM-free songs legally for a buck or two, or paying 10€ monthly for Spotify Premium to have "unlimited" legit music.

Public transportation means also busses, subways... count in also e.g. taxis, just for the sake of argument. You sidestepped the question.