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Do Games Industry Folks Buy Games New or Used?
Gamasutra has another of its usually-interesting Question of the Week features up, and this one deals with the issue of used games. The question : Do Games Industry Professionals Buy Their Games New or Used? A lot of anonymouse answers this week. From one mouse: "I buy both used and new games, depending upon what the price differential is, and availability (old games are hard to find 'new'). I think the used games market is good for the industry for two reason: * it increases the value of game--people buy games knowing that they can get money when they sell it back, and * the game gets greater exposure--the purchaser of the used game might not otherwise have played it. This does not mean that people have the right to steal our products by copying them, reselling the originals, and playing the copy. But we made a product and sold it to them. It is theirs. They are free to resell it, the same way you're free to resell your car, house, or furniture. - Anonymous, Microsoft"
It's pretty much the same where I work. Since everyone's into video games I find out more about games that I'm interested in more than when I worked outside of the industry. If there's a lot of buzz about a game that I might like then I'll buy it new. Most times people will play through games and you can buy the games off of them really cheap or just borrow it. We have people that don't have some of the consoles, but will buy or borrow games and play them at work.
I don't think we're any different than just a bunch of friends that like games. As far as the article is concerned I don't even know if the people in the industry making purchase decisions are enough to affect the overall economy of the industry.
What's odd to me is that they all talk like buying used games only happens at GameStop. Places like that are a huge ripoff. Almost all the games I buy are used and there are only two places that I really look:
1) eBay gives you essentially the "real" value of the game.
2) Amazon used&new will (rarely) give you a better deal than eBay and (usually) give you a higher confidence in not getting screwed over.
I've found that eBay and Amazon used&new will typically have used stuff at similar prices. And always* significantly lower than going to a physical store.
*Unless the game JUST came out.