LOL sorry. I get on the soapbox when it comes to things I'm passionate about. I don't buy used games but I would never want to take away someone's right to do so.
To clarify:
When you purchase physical goods, except in the case of a written contract which states otherwise, you are always entitled to resell those goods for whatever price the market will bear. For example, if you paid off your house or paid in full for your car, and you resell it, YOU keep all of the profit. Always. The manufacturer or previous owner never sees a cent.
Now, I understand when it comes to expecting support for a game some people say second-hand buyers don't deserve it. I get that. But you must understand that the second-hand market is largely console, and with consoles it should NEVER be assumed that all consoles are connected to the internet, so it should be a non-issue.
Just some clarification, I didn't make that clear in my first post.

Wow, you are on the ball tonight. That pretty much summed up the whole issue.
-Starts a slow clap-

Thanks, CTO. Just trying to clear things up for people who might not know better.
Gave you and everyone else some rep cookies.

CymTyr made a pinpoint landing with everything he just said and wrote my thoughts down better, then I'll with my basic understanding of english ever could.
Give the man some +rep and /thread.
Edith said one thing I'd like to add here: what THQ and other publishers are trying to do here, is mixing the concepts of selling and renting in their favor. Keeping the profits from selling with the rights of renting. Which is why I do the same as Lou does - buying a few must-haves for full price and waiting with all the rest for a 10-15 bucks sale.

Within the 3 minutes of reading this thread, I thought of the following ideas to reduce the sales of used games:
- Improved replayability (duh!), though it can be difficult for some genres...
- Building a "collector culture", so people are more willing to keep the games,
- Improving experience in the next game if you have the previous one (e.g. while playing New Vegas, you can insert the F3 disc to unlock some bonus content),
Each of these ideas is better for the player than simply banning resale or building some even more adamant DRMs...

The way they're broaching the subject is whiny. That's my point right there. They might be trying to decrease second hand sales, but rather than just get on and do it they have to bitch and moan about it too.

I remembered when I was in high school three years back or so. The only PC games I really played were Starcraft and Rollercoaster Tycoon, both of which required nothing more than a disc check. I didn't know there was a such thing as DRM. Why should I? It was never a problem.
Then I bought the Orange Box USED off of Amazon. What a shocking disappointment it was to find out that the disc were basically nothing more than shiny frisbees. Luckily the vendor was kind enough to let it be returned. I came off with a bitter taste of Valve and Steam ever since.
Seriously, the gaming industry (well, I guess software companies in general) breaks all intuitive sense of ownership. You can buy a movie DVD, a video cassette, music cd, or a vinyl record and resell it or lend it to all your friends. Game developers apparently think that they are special enough that capitalism needs to bend its rules just for them.
WE ONLY GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO USE THIS PRODUCT AND NOT THE ACTUAL PRODUCT ITSELF. That sounds awfully like the old Soviet agricultural system or medieval feudalism, where peasants lease a plot of land with their crops, but don't actually own it. It's like these companies are trying to de-evolve into baser forms.

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. THQ are crying like babies with an overinflated sense of self entitlement while EA just get on and deal with the matter as best they can.
I'm not saying I'm a fan of EA's approach but at least they're not coming across like little bitches. Which is more than can be said for far too many publishers right now.

I'm fine with multiplayer being only for new copies, for the record. We've had that on PC forever and it didn't cause me any issues... if you buy a used game from 20 years ago to give it a go again you can still play the singleplayer.
It's Steamworks type crap that makes all used sales useless for all aspects of gameplay I disagree with, and I think if consoles go that route it will just hurt their business overall.

I don't like Steamworks, either, but it's a helluva lot better than Securom's more aggressive installs, or Starforce if you want to go back a few years.

I think I know what's going on. The publishers are playing the part of Scrooge because their ultimate goal is to stop people from donating games to toy drives during the Christmas season. They can't stand that they can't afford the gold toilet they want because these little punk kids whose parents are working several jobs to save for their kids college education and are barely making ends meet are getting free games during the biggest consumer event of the year. THQ says to the sad little kid, "What's the matter little guy, you didn't pay our way overpriced $60 tag for the game? I didn't think so. You're just a cheat. Eat shit and die!"
I'm being sarcastic, but only a little. I don't really have a big problem with the multiplayer part (even though multiplayer has pretty much become a normality), but publishers have been talking about doing things like the one time activation code for single player offline console games too. A good way to combat this would be to make publishers like THQ and Activision tell little kids that they don't care about poor families like they said in the OPs link. I don't think anybody will try to say that they're not being greedy assholes then.

People make different amounts of money. People who have less money have less access to more expensive goods. That's a fact of life. People aren't entitled to video games, and they certainly aren't entitled to the latest video games. You're acting as if the price of new video games doesn't go down after a while. You can find most games on sale for about $10 a year or so after their release. I don't see what's wrong with that.

Possessed, I was going to write a nice little message explaining why getting rid of the second-hand market is bad, until I realized that no matter what any of us say you will retain your position.
I find your posts to be entertaining at times and often insightful. It's a shame you won't be swayed from your position. The suits at THQ do not need a 7th house, seriously.
If you want to take up a noble cause, start rallying for developers to get better deals from publishers such as THQ. The developers are the ones who suffer, not the publishers.

No, people are not entitled to video games. I don't see anything wrong with getting games on sale either, this is what I usually do. I also don't see anything wrong with buying used games or giving your old games to charity. Plenty of good reasons why already posted in this thread. Just like most anything else you buy, you should be able to resell it at a degraded price or give it away. I just see DRM as ruining the game which then makes it unplayable for someone who get's the game secondhand years later when it's not the latest game. I know people who didn't get a PS2 until the PS3 came out and the price for the PS2 dropped.
I'm going to Hooters to watch UFC 118 now. Have a good night!

I don't really have a problem from the second hand game market (in fact, I get most of my console games used, although I rarely buy games for anything other than PC). However, I also realize that game companies, in order to stay in existence, need to make money off people like me, who really don't contribute anything (at least on the console side). What bothers me is when people feel they are entitled to video games because they view games as too expensive. It bothers me because I partly agree with them. Video games, when they are released, are far too expensive for me to justify a purchase, unless it's a game I know will be high quality from a company that puts out great games. However, I realize that I can just wait and get games later, for cheaper. The "games are too expensive therefore I don't feel bad not paying gaming companies a dime and become enraged when they try to monetize my part of the market" argument bothers me in part because it seems so similar to the arguments pirates make.
Part of my annoyance is also with Gamestop. They make money off buying games from users for cheap (usually $10 - $20 for new games) and selling them for $5 off the market price. What I think people don't get (not implying people over here, I see it more over on Kotaku) is that no matter what price publishers set games at, Gamestop will perpetually be able to set a more attractive price point. It's inherent in the business model. If every publisher sold separate access to multiplayer for people who buy games used and people were aware, Gamestop would be forced to sell games for cheaper in order for them to be able to compete with new games. Yes, it may involve them cutting the price of games that they buy from people who buy games new, but hopefully it would encourage them to cut out the middleman entirely, and have better deals on both sides of the spectrum (better sell price for people who buy games new and sell them and a better purchase point for people who buy games used). Even if you add $10 on top of that (if the user wants multiplayer), it will still be a superior deal to a game bought used at Gamestop and everyone will be happy, except Gamestop, which is essentially simply a parasite.
That was rantish, but I hope I clarified my position. I'm not anti-used purchaser, nor anti-publisher, just primarily anti-Gamestop and other retailers who screw absolutely everyone.
While I personally don't mind not being able to sell my games, as I rarely sell any games, I understand why people would, and I support their ability to do so. I simply also think that game developers should get money when people play their games, especially for optional features a la EA and THQ's actions to monetize the used game market.
I do, however, see digital distribution as a way for people to get old games for cheap. Since data sitting on a server doesn't cost very much, DD services can offer games for much longer than they last on store shelves, at a fairer price than many old games currently demand (often selling more than they did initially). If developers and publishers are wise, they will knock their prices down regularly so penny pinchers like me can obtain great, but dated, games for cheap and still make a profit off of it.