How do you feel about used games?

Lately, being a broke college student, I have been buying used games more often than I usually do. Personally, while I do understand that it does harm the industry a bit, economically your first concern should be yourself. If you have enough disposable income to buy a new game and are willing to do so than that's great. However, if you decided to save a little and buy used I'm not going to lose any sleep at night.

I have heard the idiotic argument that buying used games is just as bad as piracy. While the situation of used games as a whole might be more harmful than piracy this is because the act of buying used games is more common. If I said that more people die from smoking than they do from homicide that doesn't mean it's better to kill someone than it is to give them a cigarette. Unlike piracy buying used games requires a pre-existing copy that someone has bought new at some point in time. While no money goes to the developer it helps support the retailer, which in part provides an outlet to sell new games, including more obscure ones that other outlets like Wal-mart or Target would not stock.

And of course there's the argument that used games help sell sequels. Let me provide an example. I am interested in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune but I'm unfamiliar with the franchise and so am not willing to pay a large amount of money. I buy the game used for cheap and greatly enjoy it. Uncharted 2 comes out. I am now familiar with the series and know I enjoy it and so I am far more willing to buy this installment for $60 new. It's a stretch but used games in some small way help developers.

Do you buy used games and how do you feel about it?

I buy them often. A lot of games stay 30-40 forever so used is awesome then.
 
I'd like to pay more for my games to support developers but I'm gonna need demo's then. Or when the industry stops making sequels that look better but add little then I might consider full price again.
 
I do buy full price for games I really think are worth it.

I usually buy new games but if I see an older used game for cheap ill buy it.

I understand why it sucks for developers and publishers, but not everyone can afford to buy their games new and the used game market helps these people get their hands on the games they want.

At the end of the day if I am a publisher, I'd rather have my customers buying the game on the used market and trying to sell them DLC and so on then having them go out and pirate the game. With the former, it shows that they are at least willing to spend money on the game.

I almost always buy used games unless said game requires an online pass code.

Gotta save money however you can

I have no problem with the people who buy used games. I usually only do it on really old titles.

I do have a problem with publishers and retailers and their pissing match over who should get the money and how. I think if they actually worked together they could come up with a creative solution that satisfied all parties, especially the costumer.

Sloppy seconds, is what I think. 
 
Only time I really ever buy used games is when I see some old PS1 game (or older games even) that looks insanely stupid and I just have to play it. 

@TaliciaDragonsong said:

I do buy full price for games I really think are worth it.

Exactly, and very few games are worth $60 in my opinion. There is a real problem with the pricing structure of video games. Developer themselves admit that this is a problem but they always think that their game is the special one and worth your 3 Jacksons. It really is a problem of humility and being able to take that risk. It's a risk worth taking though. Would Deadly Premonition have sold nearly as well if it was $60 instead of $20? No. No one is willing to make such a large gamble on a weird obscure game. But if it's $20, hey, why not? It doesn't look like this pricing structure is going to change anytime soon, so it looks like the best we have for now is prices dropping quicker.

I stopped buying used games once I understood that the people making the games didn't get anything from it and that the store took all the profits. Around that time I especially hated Gamestop. They both screw the developers AND the customers. But they're just a business and it's not their fault. That doesn't mean I have to buy games from them anymore though.

I don't know if I'll buy any new consoles for now on, so for now on I'll always buy games new. Of course I'll wait until there's a price drop or sale but at least I know the devs are still getting something for it.

I'd prefer to buy the game new to support the developer but I've bought used games before. I'll usually only do it if they're super cheap. If I find a used game that's 5 bucks less then the new game I don't bother with used.

I almost always buy games new, but seldom at full price. I'm pretty good at finding a bargain, and if I can't then I am usually ok with waiting for the price to come down a bit. Sometimes a game will come out that I want to play immediately and I'll pay $60 for it, but those are few and far between.

I don't have any problem with other people buying used games. If money is limited (and when isn't it?) people should do what they can to save money. It's often worth checking Amazon though, as you can often find a new copy of slightly older games for less than what Gamestop charges for a used one.

I think there are maybe 2-3 games per year that are actually worth full price, the rest I do try to buy new, but it's after waiting for them to drop to less than $30. After a game gets around two years old, I'm getting the game used because the price difference between hunting it down new and going a few blocks to gamestop is just too big. I don't think that after a couple years a studio is sitting around waiting to see if a few people buy their marginal game each month, these games are make or break, I would assume, in the first few months. I actually tend to believe that it helps the industry by generating interest in sequels for games that most people would never have paid full price for, I know it's happened with me.

Used games rule, but I'm now hooked on Club Nintendo rewards so I can't bring myself to buy Ninty games used. Gotta get fake points for a boondoggle!

I bought new games when I had the money to do so, but now I don't so I don't.

OH WELL.

the only people that irritate me are the ones that buy a new game for 55 instead of 60

My feeling is, it's your item to do with as you please, if you decide to sell it, it's totally your right to do so, if used games are such a problem, publishers should decide to lower the price of the game in hopes for larger sale amounts thus offsetting the lower sales price, but of course CEO's of these companies are only concerned about maximizing profits because they are publicly traded companies thus making board members and stock owners happy is their only real concern.

Used sales has become the boogy man, just like cassette tapes were for music distributors, nobody has seen the boogy man and no one really sure if it exists but they'll tell you the camp fire stories to scare your pants off because even if 50% of people believe it, it has worked! If car companies could convince buying used cars was killing them you bet your ass they would.

With that said..... I do have a problem with gamestop not because of used games, but because of their ratio between trades and sales, they make alot of money for nearly no work, if they were a bit more fair, it be alot better.

I'd gladly pay full price for new games if I could. Well, usually... not always. Some games are just so weird that paying 60 bucks for them might make me think of them in a lower regard then if I bought them for say, 20 bucks. I'm thinking of something like Killer 7. Or Indigo Prophecy. Stuff like that. For 20 bucks I enjoyed them. If I'd paid full price for them I might think of them more harshly.

I have no problems with used games, though, other than they always seem to come with ugly stickers on the box, that is if they even come with a box at all.

meh, In most cases a developer has already sold all their copies to retailers anyways. They got their money. You're really just reimbursing target/gamestop for holding it for you. From my understanding its rare that a retailer demands their money back because they haven't sold any (seeming how the media makes a huge deal when this happens). Used games aren't what's causing that latter issue, it's the game/marketing fault. Also at least nowadays companies are getting DLC and Online Pass money from those people. Potentially a bigger market because of the used games.

Also I don't really get why used games have become this issue, yet no one bats an eye with used movies, cd/vinyl, furniture, cars. It's all the same thing.

I totally understand wanting to give money to the actual source. There's better ways to do this though. This is why I like buying music from band camp or things from band/artist's actual website. Choosing New or Used at gamestop isn't doing much.

Anyways, I don't like used games simply because I just don't like things that have been touched by others. I can assume they haven't kept as much care with it as I would have. Who knows what they could have done. New things don't have that issue.

I try to buy new now if I can but if I catch a cheap used copy (Far Cry 3 and Mass Effect Trilogy examples) I'll grab it that way. Fuck Gamestop, I like the people at the ones I've used but their policies are bullshit.

It's a free country (well, at least for the most of us here), people should be allowed to sell their stuff if they want to. Just because retailers like Gamestop and Game gave use shitty business models does not mean used games are bad.

They're gross.

It's no different than buying a used car, used electronics, or used furniture and not one complains about that.

@awesomeusername said:

They're gross.

What exactly do you mean by gross?

@Rainbowkisses said:

@awesomeusername said:

They're gross.

What exactly do you mean by gross?

imagine who had those games before you did.

MAYBE THEY HAD SEX ON THE CASES

AND YOU'LL NEVER KNOW

Someone who builds by hand a chair doesn't get money for it a second time when the first owner sells it to the second owner.

Someone who builds by hand a computer doesn't get money for it a second time when the first owner sells it to the second owner.

Someone who releases an album doesn't get money for it a second time when the first owner sells his copy to the second owner.

I don't see why that same principle can't be applied to video games. What intrinsic property does a video game have that sets it apart from those examples above, or really anything physical that can be bought by one person and then sold to another?

@Rainbowkisses: They're gross because

• Publishers/devs make no money from them.
• When I first got my PS3 in 2008, my mom bought me Assassin's Creed used. It didn't work. Then we returned it and they gave us a different disc. Still didn't work. I didn't even want it used but my mom got it because it was cheaper. By like $10.
• What @Animasta said. Someone could've sexed that case up!

@Gaff said:

@believer258 An intellectual property, perhaps?

You'll note:

Someone who releases an album doesn't get money for it a second time when the first owner sells his copy to the second owner.

No one will say anything if I sell my copy of Pulp Fiction to someone else.

No one will say anything if I sell my copy of ACDC's Back in Black to someone else.

No one will say anything if I sell a (hypothetical) copy of a painting to someone else.

i rarely buy used games only with games that i cant find in any other form yjen used or insanely cheap so that im willing to tale a risk on a game that i fear that i will not like or bare playing just in case im wrong also rarely with games i allready own on pc

I stopped buying them since I switched to PC but even before then I rarely got them unless it was a really old game that I missed out on playing.

@TaliciaDragonsong said:

I buy them often. A lot of games stay 30-40 forever so used is awesome then. I'd like to pay more for my games to support developers but I'm gonna need demo's then. Or when the industry stops making sequels that look better but add little then I might consider full price again. I do buy full price for games I really think are worth it.

That's pretty much my standing on the issue.

Eh. I don't really care about them. Don't usually buy them, either. PC Master Race and all that. I got some hard-to-find 360 games used, though.

I'm fine with it as long as those who buy used don't complain about not being able to play online.

if you don't support the developer they have no reason to support you.

I pretty much have to buy new games because there aren't any used game retailers where I live.

@Gaff said:

@believer258 An intellectual property, perhaps?

You'll note:

Someone who releases an album doesn't get money for it a second time when the first owner sells his copy to the second owner.

No one will say anything if I sell my copy of Pulp Fiction to someone else.

No one will say anything if I sell my copy of ACDC's Back in Black to someone else.

No one will say anything if I sell a (hypothetical) copy of a painting to someone else.

@Animasta said:

imagine who had those games before you did.

MAYBE THEY HAD SEX ON THE CASES

AND YOU'LL NEVER KNOW

Then it will be the closest I ever physically get to a loving relationship. :(

I look at it the same way I look at everything else you can buy. And that is that its fine. Also, used games is no where near as bad as piracy. The dev's still get the first sale of the game with used games as required by law. Piracy they get zero money. Personally though I have more new games on my shelf than used mostly because when a new game comes out I want to play it. And $54 for a used copy at gamestop for the first month or so is not worth it. I will spend the $59 and get a brand new copy.

A $60 price point is not viable for me, simply put. I'll trade in games to defray the cost, and since I play games extremely slow I have no qualms about picking up a game for $30-$40 (or less) six months after it's come out.

I want to support devs making good games, but publishers need to think about lowering the initial price point so more folks like myself are willing to take the chance on a brand new game.

I don't see the point in them. If you are going to buy used just save your money and pirate it and wait for the real thing to go on sale and buy it then if you are the type that feels guilty about it or you want to support the people that make the game. If I care enough about a game that I go to a physical store to buy the thing then I buy it new so the people that make it get the money and not the leeching store selling it.

Also, I would like to know this magical land where people are getting used games for $10 when the new ones are still full price. Any time I look the difference between them is like $2-$3. People that buy used when there's that little difference are the real scum bags in my eyes.

When you play with a used game your playing with every other person that ever played with that game.

Brace for boredom. 1 new for about every 8 second hand, and it's mostly a calculated choice that will mean I profit or get to play it for next to nothing. E.g. every year you can get the new COD game for 25 quid in Supermarkets if you buy so much shopping, I buy booze I would have bought anyway. By the time I've done with the game I can shift it for about 33 quid. For Christmas my girlfriend has got me on the 4 for 20 quid deal in Blockbuster IL2 Sturmovik, Wanted: Weapons of Fate, Crysis 2 and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. Sturmovik sells for about 15 on ebay so that'll easily net me 10 in the hand. It's all equations.

Can't say I really care.

Sure while the developers might not get any cash out of the deal, the company that sells them too you does and that generates jobs in your local area, which in this current economic climate is sorely needed.

I kid of course but truth be told i really don't care who gets my money so long as i get a game to play.

I dont buy them much anymore mainly because almost every game i get is through steam but i dont have a issue with people buying them. My issue is the retailers who pay almost nothing for used games and then turn around and sell them for near retail price like gamestop.

@DarthOrange said:

When you play with a used game your playing with every other person that ever played with that game.

then you can play multiplayer in a single player game!?

@Gaff said:

@believer258

@Gaff said:

@believer258 An intellectual property, perhaps?

You'll note:

Someone who releases an album doesn't get money for it a second time when the first owner sells his copy to the second owner.

No one will say anything if I sell my copy of Pulp Fiction to someone else.

No one will say anything if I sell my copy of ACDC's Back in Black to someone else.

No one will say anything if I sell a (hypothetical) copy of a painting to someone else.

Because Pulp Fiction has already had a pretty lucrative box office run (and despite what video game evangelists say, movies are still a bigger, and more profitable, business than games). And I'm pretty sure Tarantino gets residuals off every copy sold. As for musicians, see my answer above. The video game industry is rather unique in the IP / Tech industry at large that it doesn't have a real secondary revenue stream in the form of residuals, royalties or patents (unless you make an engine like Epic).

But this is a principle we're talking about; doesn't matter if it's Pulp Fiction or the latest flop at the box office. I used Pulp Fiction as an example because it's a well known movie. How much money it made doesn't matter, what matters is whether it's right or not to buy a used copy. Tarantino doesn't get residuals if I sell my copy of Pulp Fiction to my friend down the street for $5.

@Gaff said:

@believer258 Oh, and musical artists do get paid for airtime everytime their songs get played on the "radio", streamed through official channels etc. As do session musicians, who don't actually write / compose the songs, but do have a hand in performing the original song. Maybe that's a better analogy than normal used goods. Then again, PATENTS, as seen with Apple vs Samsung, for an example how even "normal" goods can be a hairy situation.

But I don't think that excuses those things, especially since secondary revenue streams for video games do exist in some form. Quake Live is a free version of Quake 3, for instance, or Playstation Plus charges you $50 a year to play a selection of free games each month (among other things), which isn't so far off from paying a sum of money every month to watch cable television.

And remember that this defense doesn't really work when you're talking about the principle of the matter since many musical artists don't get their songs on the radio, and many movies don't get played on cable television. Would it be right to sell your copy of an album that doesn't get any radio-play at all, or your copy of a movie that just plain doesn't appear on TV?

So, back to my original question: What makes video games, all video games, intrinsically different from all movies and all albums in this matter?

I never understood why game developers deserve special consideration vs other artists/manufacturers. Certainly I'm sympathetic that they'd like more money for their efforts given how tight budgets are these days. Who doesn't?

But let's get real, It's a physical item that I bought and paid for. Are you telling me I can't resell this disc I have in my hand that I store in my house if I want to? Or buy somebody else's? Even if a disc ends up having 3-5 owners over its' lifetime, somebody paid the game maker initially for it.

IKEA doesn't get a cut when you resell their furniture and they still make money.

Your local painter don't make jack when you resell a painting/printing of theirs you buy.

Your favorite author makes nothing if you resell her book after you've read it.

To expect anything different is to be out of touch with our market economy reality.

The whole anti-used game argument seems to me based off whining. Instead of fighting it game makers should harness it to their advantage, and to some extent that's what we are seeing now. DLC, micro transactions etc. They may be annoying to some, but it beats the alternative of all this really stupid DRM and endless shaming crusades.

Not to mention often times used games are the only way to acquire a game years after release. If you like old games chances are you'd miss having a market of used games to try and find your desired game in.

Game makers are light years behind on realizing how consumers make decisions in the real world. Everybody in the consumer products market knows "you give away the razor to sell the razor blades". You think HP gets upset if you a buy a printer of theirs used? Of course not because now you are buying their ink which is what they really want to sell. It's only now game maker are realizing this. Look at the success League of Legends s having. It's only the beginning of a new economic reality in games.

Free 2 Play like or not, or models similar, is basically what games are going to become. Like it or not that's what already works in just about every other industry.