Buying a game used to spite a developer / publisher?

I understand that if you do not agree with how a game was developed, or how the publisher is handling its release, that it is perfectly fine to vote with your dollar and not purchase the game new.

But is it wrong to buy the game used? If you are upset enough about how a game is made that you don't want them to get any money from you, should you still get to play the game? If you were to play it and find that you actually enjoyed the final product, it is hard to imagine having a change of heart and buying the game AGAIN to show them some support, unless you want to buy whatever horse armor they've shoehorned in (at which point you may be soured on the game once again).

It's a personal choice you have to make. There's no right or wrong, but purchasing used does mean they don't see your money.

@psylah: Used? Well, that means someone already bought it and gave them the money; so, you would in some way be supporting that original purchase. Though, it seems like a weird thing to do. If you really have a problem with the game, wouldn't you still have a problem with it regardless of whether your money is going to them or not? Shouldn't you not want to partake in it at all?

I don't know about whether it's "wrong" to do so, but it does seem like a weird way to spite a developer of a videogame.

If the developer or publisher has rub me the wrong way about a game then I probably won't buy the game until its like 20 bucks.

I personally don't buy games used as much as possible also.

Uh generally i don't hold grudges against companies or anything like that. So i'm not going to have some mundane act of defiance against them while still buying their product.

My hatred and scorn are better served elsewhere.

And could mean less of a chance of a sequel

Do what you want as long as it's legal. The only reason not to consume media is if doing so would hurt somebody (E.G. child pornography.) I can't think of a scenario where that's true for a game. Even if the publisher has acted badly or the studio exploited the workers most of them probably hope the game gets played so their hard work is appreciated. If you feel the need to buy the game used so you can enjoy the work while not sanctioning the bad acting publisher or development studio that makes sense, and there's nothing wrong with it.

You don't know whether they deserve your money until after you've played it. Buy used always.

"If you are upset enough about how a game is made that you don't want them to get any money from you, should you still get to play the game? If you were to play it and find that you actually enjoyed the final product"

Case in point.

No, because I'm not a nutcase.

You're not really spiting the company too much. That copy of the game is already out there, so they already got as much money as they could out of that particular copy. Also, if you're buying a used copy of a game, the person who sold it is forfeiting their right to play that game unless they themselves buy another copy. I guess you could make the argument that they lost a sale, but maybe that person goes out and buys the game again later on. I find it hard to imagine that used games sales actually hurt developers anywhere near as much as they would have us believe, but hey, what do I know.

EDIT: Also, I think it's extremely unlikely if not impossible that used games sales/piracy aren't built into the cost of development.

Will harm the hard working employees well before it harms what ever company you have an overwhelming vendetta against, I think their is a distinction between the two, I am not a fan of EA but that doesn't mean that I group every person who works there on the same level of my dislike for EA's corporate practices.

I faced this issue a number of years back. Ultimately I decided it's just best to not play the game. If you have the moral ground to not buy a game then you have to stand on your morals and not play it either. You can't have your cake and eat it too. It may suck that you have to suffer by not getting to play the game but that's the price you pay for taking a stand.

This implies that people who buy used games are doing something wrong or nefarious. That's a really shitty mentality to have.

The way I see is if you're buying the game used its still giving the game exposure (hopefully positive exposure) and if the alternative to that is you not playing it than it wasn't a sale to begin with. Who knows, if you like the used copy maybe you'll go on and support other projects from the developer.

To clarify, I don't buy used games unless they're out of print or hard to find otherwise.

@psylah: An actual example of this dilemma would be illuminating, as I can't think of a company I don't like making games that I do like. Also, as others have said, there's nothing wrong with buying used games from devs/publishers you do like, so it's certainly not bad in the other case.

Liking or disliking the developer/publisher doesn't really come into the equation for me. If they made a game that I think is worth full price, I will buy it for that.

Buying used is only lame if its from a shitty company i.e. Gamestop, if you bought from a local store then more power to you (you can do that with Amazon as well). The price difference is usually negligible though so personally I mostly buy new stuff, but there's a small store I like a lot that I'll occasionally buy stuff from (mostly DvDs, but occasionally a game if the price is good enough, only one I suppose I should have bought new is Bulletstorm).

Go ahead and buy used it you want, there is nothing wrong with it, but doing it to spite a company is pretty pathetic. Lots of people work at these companies and you'd probably get along great with a ton of them. Refusing to give them money for their product just because you don't like some decisions they've made, a particular person at the company, or their public perception is pretty childish.

I have the same opinion on buying used or buying new or pirating. You don't matter. You are an insignificant drop in the bucket and if the market isn't already reacting a certain way to the product, you're certainly not going to change that. Spite them all you want, because they're losing out on 60 bucks at most or slightly more if you manage to convince someone else to do it.

I'm not questioning doing this myself, if I am going to buy a game I almost always buy it new. I was listening to the CAGcast recently where CheapyD was so angered by the way Forza 5 was put together that he refused to buy it new and instead bought it second-hand. Shouldn't he have not played it at all?

It's kind of silly to buy a game used out of spite. That accomplishes nothing and is a little juvenile. Buy a used game because it is cheaper. Don't support the product in any way, shape, or form if you don't like the business around that product.

My mind doesn't even work like that. Whenever I bought a game used, it was because it was being offered at a decent price.

I only buy things used if there is no acceptable way to get it new. In the long run, I play games for my own entertainment, if I let behind the scenes things get in the way of that then the point is lost. And either way, making a good product should be worthy of some kind of reward. Then again, I have yet to take enough interest in a game that was made under dubious circumstances to put myself in the right shoes for this question.

Seems kinda petty. Only reason to buy used is if you can't afford it new.

I'm not insane. If a game is/seems good I'll buy it.

I don't think I've ever bought a used game out of spite. Nowadays, I generally buy games new anyways (whether that be at launch or after price drops) as I hate the stupid stickers that get placed on the cases and are EXTREMELY difficult to remove cleanly and that, to me, is always worth the $5 extra or whatever and I get to support the developers.

I don't think I've ever really hated a company enough to go out of my way to actively avoid their products, though this topic has brought to my attention that I, as far as I can remember, have not bought an Activision game probably since COD: BLOPS. Guess their games don't appeal to me anymore... or somethin'...

I always felt that buying used was a pretty darn weak form of protest. At the end of the day, you're still removing stock from shelves, and you're still (probably) talking about the game with others; indirectly promoting it.

If the developer really did something terrible with a game or franchise, why would you even want to subject yourself to it at all? And if the game is actually good enough to play, why are you protesting it? Rewarding a company when it does good is much more valuable than punishing it when it does bad (ideally, you would do both).

There are odd exceptions, of course (if the developer is treating its employees exceptionally poorly or something like that), but I can't think of any particularly good game that was made by a poorly managed developer.

Damn it, Cheapy.

He seems like an okay guy and I respect his opinions but this is all kinds of stupid.

Doing something in spite of something like what you're talking about is really petty, and not cool. Even if the company was doing something really heinous, just don't buy the product. If you buy a product used you may not be supporting them with dollars, but you are supporting them with your time and attention, which is second only to making money off of you in their eyes

I've never come across a game company that has inspired enough hatred within me to even think about seeking such frivolous revenge. Most of the bad stuff game companies do are just so dumb; it isn't worth my time.

If you want to avoid the wrath of money hungry companies, follow these rules

1. Don't buy something before it is released or on a whim

2. Research before buying

3. Try to find the best deal

4. Wait as long as possible before buying a product (you can wait a month)

If I find a franchise that I dislike from a certain publisher/developer I, like most sane people, would probably just avoid it all together. Buying used is a personal choice and as many above have stated doesn't affect much at all. For me I buy new games mostly, unless I am unable to. For example, a while back I got the xenosaga trilogy used for $35 on ps2, the reason for this was buying it new would have costed me a flipping chunk of my wallet and though I really enjoyed the franchise, buying a trilogy roughly worth $200 isn't something I can justify purchasing new (Though if they put out an HD collection of the trilogy in this current gen, or would it past gen at this point? I would purchase that collection brand new on the spot.) so it all depends on the circumstances.

No, but I am more likely to go out of my way to support certain games by buying them new. For example I preordered Devil Survivor 2 over in the UK to actually get it released and to show there is an audience for Atlus games over here, more than wanting to play the game (which I still want to do).

do whatever you want

I buy used games almost exclusively. I simply don't have the money to buy them all new. I don't think to myself, "fuck that company, I'm not giving them my money". It's just a case of necessity. One case stands out as an exception however; I would never give Monolith Productions a penny of my money again. Fuck that.

What kind of twisted industry loyalty have video games spawned to make people think that buying their product used is spiteful?

"Fuck video games." - Jeff

I do this all the time. Refuse to buy any EA or Activision games (actually I don't buy any Activision games) and sometimes Ubisoft. The Ubisoft exclusions are AC and Rayman.

But EA.... I never buy anything new from them.

When it comes to smaller studios, yes. Like Dragon's Crown, Vanillaware deserves all your money. UNLESS there is some other obstacle. For instance, I wanted to buy BlazBlue CSE for my Vita, but I have only an 8GB card. However a card takes up no space. I ended up just finding it used in retail so I could actually play it without having to delete anything. Another thing is when a game is hard to find new. Obviously, I'm not gonna find a copy of Magna Carta 2 new anywhere so I bought that used. Etc

If I buy a used game it's to save money, it isn't any more complicated than that. It has nothing to do with spite, I just don't think most games are worth the new release price. The last game I ever pre-ordered was LA Noire, and what a mistake that was!

That my be true, but the fact of the matter is that used game sales are hurting the industry way more than piracy. Consoles are by far the largest portion of the market, and the percentage of people buying used games is much higher, 78% vs. 20%. Though of course since piracy is illegal it is much more difficult to calculate the income lost. Not saying anything about right or wrong and to me it would strange not being able to sell something you've bought physically. Though I do think games and software in general is a bit of an anomaly. When you buy a used game, you are getting exactly the same product as if it had been new. Sure the packaging might be damaged, though I've never received a game case that was less than impeccable. The software either works or it doesn't.

I know that people sell their old games to buy new, but that doesn't really help the developer of the first game.

I've never seen a game designed and sold with its sole use being to spite another publisher or developer.

Until publishers start competing for the consumer business and stop charging $44 for a 3 year old game then I will continue buying said game used at a GameStop for $9-15. For instance for the longest time, Dirt 3 was constantly fairly high priced on Steam - and that's a pretty old game by now. Other games should price down with market demand - Syndicate didn't sell very well, and it's not going to sell any better if it continues to be priced at $59.99 new. Drop the price, sell more stock, fight for consumer base because it's so easy to simply go to a GameStop or Amazon and find the same game, used, at a fraction of the cost.

If a dev/publisher does something i don't agree with i just don't buy their games.

That being said i don't have this "moral" against used games. Most games i buy on consoles are used.

No. If I hate a company but still want to play their game I will just save my money and pirate it. Same difference as buying it used only with pirating you get to save your money and another big evil company doesn't get your money instead. I haven't done that in years though, because if I hate something they are doing to a game it's when EA cuts content and hides it behind DLC or designs a game from the ground up to require microtransactions and no obtaining it from other places can fix that kind of mess.

Buying and selling used isn't anything new though, and yet it seems to be the cool thing to blame when sales aren't meeting expectations. Not the wildly over-budgeted games being sold at a cost that most of the audience isn't willing to pay. We don't need everything to be GTA or Call of Duty. Smaller budgets that produce cheaper games is being proven a totally viable format (see the now thriving indie scene). I guess we'll just have to keep seeing these semi-massive companies that attempt massive games get closed down over and over again until they understand they're the problem. The good thing is that as these developers lose their jobs at places like THQ, we're starting to see them produce great stuff on the independent scene. A place that even better allows a creative's vision to thrive. The only problem that exists is a bunch of suits being mad that they can't also being multi-millionaires from their Call of Duty clones.

Still, the tendency leads to developers making everything multiplayer to encourage people to keep their games until they've sold enough copies. That just seems like a waste of resources. Besides, the games who suffer the most due to reselling are the short efficient experiences. Of course they have only themselves to blame, if you don't want your games resold, make it digital only. We are already used to being unable to resell digital games, even though logically, it seems pretty absurd that you have pay more for a game you can't resell. Clearly it is worth it to some companies, otherwise they wouldn't do it. Steam is the obvious example of how to do all digital successfully, with Steam Sales allowing everyone buy an absurd amount of games, though as much as I enjoy it, I'm really sure if it is actually a good thing. Nowadays I'm buying 3 - 6 games every month, though I'm only buying because I can, with the justification that I might want to play it as some point. But unlike movies which tend to top out at 3 hours, games on the other hand have basically no limit. On top of that it is not like developers stop making games, it is their livelihood after all. In a way I feel like I'm just buying games to allow them to make more, but with not enough time to actually make use of them. Even people who play games for a living, can't possible play them all. Besides, the expectation of continuously lower prices only encourages Free-to-Play games.

In any case, I definitely wouldn't mind more short efficient experiences like Tell Tale's games or games like Journey. Games that would likely suffer as psychical copies. Not sure what I'm trying to say really.

@psylah: Stick to your guns and don't play their games. You don't get to have it both ways.

Sure, if I feel like playing CoD I'll borrow it or buy it used. I disagree with how Activision does things and I don't support them financially.

That said I haven't played CoD since... MW1 I think.

Lol I don't even understand how to explain why the idea of buying used out of spite is retarded without actively insulting the intelligence of whoever I was making the argument to.

Shadow Complex