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Why Game Developers Should Shut Up About Used Games

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-that-they-will dept.

Ssquared22 writes "It may feel like a rip-off to some, but you've got to admit that paying $30 for Gears of War 2 sure beats paying $60! Game publishers and developers may not like it, but people are going to trade in used games for new games and those old games will be sold back to other people. There's nothing game developers can do to stop them, and companies like Gamestop continue to laugh all the way to the bank. In an article at Crispy Gamer, David Thomas dissects one of the most critical issues in gaming today: used games and merchants (online and brick-and-mortar) who specialize in this 'sleight of hand.'"

7 of 590 comments (clear)

  1. Re:They can stop it: Installs locked to hardware. by Jackie_Chan_Fan · · Score: 4, Informative

    Also as far as i know... If you buy a game on steam, its locked to your account and name and you can not resell it.

    The used game market is going to die when digital distribution takes over.

  2. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  3. Re:Great advertising for new versions! by gandhi_2 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Arbitrage in action. Gotta love it!

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    THL phish sticks
  4. Re:They can stop it: Installs locked to hardware. by SCPRedMage · · Score: 4, Informative

    Inaccurate.

    When you purchase game content on XBox Live, the purchase is tied to both the gamertag AND the console. Both can use the content freely. That is, you can use the content with that gamertag, regardless of console, and you can use it with that console, regardless of gamertag.

    To make this a little clearer, if you take your gamertag to a friend's system, while you are signed in to that gamertag, you'll be able to use any content you've ever purchased while signed in to that gamertag. Conversely, if a friend brings their gamertag over to your system, they will be able to play not only the content purchased with their gamertag, but the content purchased on that system, but only while using THAT system.

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    My sig can beat up your sig.
  5. Re:They can stop it: Installs locked to hardware. by Jonathan_S · · Score: 3, Informative

    Microsoft already addresses this issue by allowing you to Download your gamertag to only one Xbox 360 at a time. So if you go to your friends house you can DL your gamertag and all of your "Xbox live arcade games" can now be played on your friends xbox. Of course your home Xbox will now not be able to play them until you redownload your gamertag to your Xbox 360.

    Sort of. Microsoft ties a download to both your gamertag and your specific xbox.

    Log in as your gamertag and you can play the game from any console, like you said.
    But on the game's "home" console any gamertag can play it, even if your gamertag isn't there. (And once a year Microsoft will let you adjust the "home" console for your downloads; or they'll do it automatically for an RMA replacement console)

  6. Re:Great advertising for new versions! by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Informative

    The only way to _create_ a market in a setting where naturally there would be no market, is to criminalize DIY copying so only one single state-approved monopolist (almost sounds like the Stalin/Lenin fella came up with this BS)

    The "fella" that largely came up with the original Copyright Clause in the U.S. Constitution is James Madison, aka "Father of the Bill of Rights". I'd say you should pick your parallels better.

  7. Re:Great advertising for new versions! by kristjansson · · Score: 4, Informative

    I think you should bear in mind that

    • James Madison, the "Father of the Bill of Rights", was vehemently anti Bill of Rights. The reason for that was that he did not want future generations to believe that the Bill of Rights was an enumeration of the rights and liberties of individuals and their home states, as opposed to the Constitution being a firm boundary of the powers of the Federal Government. He conceded after over a year, and he had the 9th Amendment in mind before any of the other proposed Amendments. To give you an idea of how well that worked for us, when Robert Bork was asked in confirmation hearings to place him on the Supreme Court, he referred to the 9th Amendment as an "ink blot on the Constitution." Thankfully, he did not get confirmed to the Court, but most Justices are averse to referencing Amendment 9 in their findings anyway. Sorry, I'm digressing...
    • The patent and copyright provisions originally in the Constitution granted an exclusive monopoly on distribution for 17 years from the time the patent was granted, after which, the work in question fell into the public domain. The trade off for the creator was almost two decades of head start, in exchange for protection from other people attempting to derive a profit immediately from said creator's work. Compare and contrast with current American copyright law, DMCA, etc.

    Long and short, the current copyright and patent systems are at best the perverted and distorted afterbirth of what Madison wrote in the first place, and trying to pretend that Madison was in favor of writing the Bill of Rights in the first place is patently false.