This article is solely the opinion of the author, and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of TheSixthAxis, its staff or owners.
Hello dear reader, my name is Josh and I write news and the occasional feature here at TSA. Apologies for the interruption to your regular schedule, but I wanted to briefly talk about something that grates with me as a regular reader of posts, comments, and forums around the web. I’ve seen many people (not just here) beating down the “pirates that ruin the game industry” and yet being very positive about pre-owned games.
So here’s what I have to say: buying pre-owned games is just the same as piracy. Here’s why:
First and foremost, I’m not saying that everyone who has ever bought a pre-owned game is a pirate and should be immediately locked up, and I’m also aware that a lot of people, myself included from time to time, buy pre-owned games. But I want to say before I start that just because we do it, doesn’t mean it’s okay, and I think it’s best in the topic of argument to take a step back and think on a less personal level.
Obviously, second-hand sales of DVDs, games and whatever else have been around for many many years, I’m clearly not going to deny that, but precedent doesn’t make it right. Let’s look at it this way: if you buy a game, new, at retail or online, the retailer, developer and publisher all take a cut of what you pay. That seems fair, right? If you download a game from a torrent site, none of those three take anything, which I think we can agree is unfair.
Okay, so lets say I download the game, as a torrent, but from a paid members-only site, that’s still piracy and that’s still wrong – even though I strictly-speaking paid for the file, the makers got nothing. “But the retailers have to pay for stocking and transportation of the aforementioned pre-owned games,” I hear you cry. Sure, I can go with that, but when I torrent the file there are no stocking or transport costs, so I shouldn’t actually have to pay anything.
Then you have the two main supposed positives of pre-owned sales for the makers of the product: promotion and retailer partnerships. Some claim pre-owned is acceptable because it gets the name of the product out there for someone to then buy maybe a sequel or other game by the companies behind it – yet surely that’s just as true for those that pirate the game? The only real benefit for pre-owned for a developer/publisher is that by not kicking up a fuss about it, they keep their games in stock at retailers and therefore get them sold out to customers.
Basically, game-makers are blackmailed into staying passive with regard to pre-owned because otherwise they’ll get screwed over by retailers.
Once again, I’m not claiming everyone is an evil person, I’m just saying that piracy and pre-owned are really very similar from the point of view of a game-maker. Therefore I see no reason why online passes or anything equivalent should be a problem for anyone who appreciates the games they buy, because at least the developers and publishers at least get some financial support to actually continue doing what they do. That is all.
Feel free to discuss/argue with me here, or you can also find me on Twitter at @joshlhood or even e-mail me at josh [at] thesixthaxis [dot] com if you wish to have a more private conversation on this topic. Thanks.
Image: Edge.
gazo69
To me there is nothing to discuss here, piracy and pre-owned in the same sentance= silly
Juelz345
well to be fair, you just put piracy and pre-owned in the same sentance. And now, so have I.
jayjay119
Silly Billies!
quinkill
Interesting point. I can see that it’s difficult for developers and publishers to pull out of retail distribution because of the pre-owned market that they loose money on, simply because retail is where (i’m guessing) they make most of their new game sales money from. I don’t necessarily think the onus is on the consumer though and to call us pirates is a bit strong. Paid-for Torrent sites don’t have the networks and contract with retailers that publishers do, let alone the lawyers, lobyists and money that companies like Activision have. If developers have a problem then they should use their resources to come up with a better reselling model with the retailer and things like online pass are a great way to bypass retail completely. I think one thing is missing from this debate and that is rental.
I use LoveFilm and rent 80% of my games and often never buy the online pass as I cannot justify the price given the amount of time I will play the game before returning it. I do buy brand new games and pre-order those that really intrigue me like Portal 2 this week, and others like UC2 and GOW3. My point is surely given the initial premise put forward in this article isn’t rental far more close to ‘Piracy’ than a Pre-owned purchase?
quinkill
sorry about the grammar. It’s all over the place :P
Juelz345
“and to call us pirates is a bit strong”
One of the first things he said was that he wasn’t calling anyone pirates:
“First and foremost, I’m not saying that everyone who has ever bought a pre-owned game is a pirate”
3shirts
No, the VERY first sentence says “pre-owned is piracy”. Sorry but if you write an article as direct as this you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Juelz345
Tushay. Off with his head!
*awaits inevitable “the cake is a lie* comment.
quinkill
I realise that, which is why I’m agreeing with him…”to call us pirates is a bit strong.” As I said my grammar is a bit all over the place, maybe that’s the miscommunicado!?
wick15
Very good read. I totally understand where you are coming from. People shouldn’t complain about online passes or the like. My only query is what exactly would you do with games if you didn’t trade them in? Surely buying a pre-owned game is just a form of recycling? Not a very fair one for developers at that, but still better than just destroying it.
3shirts
What I don’t get is; Why now?
This industry has been around since the 80’s (in its current form at least) and pre-owned games have been part of it for just as long. Before that videos, CDs, records etc have all been just the same. Why has the games industry suddenly started to have a problem with it.
In my opinion they have just found a WAY, not a reason.
hazelam
media has been resold like this for centuries.
and it’s not the games are getting more expensive to make line, because movies nearly always cost more than games, a big hollywood film can cost a couple of hundred million to make these days, but they’re not punishing those who choose to sell their purchased films on, and when you do buy new they don’t charge anything like the same price games publishers do.
jayjay119
Well I don’t know how much weight this theory holds but we have been hearing a lot this generation about the costs of developing more than any other, I don’t know whether it is because I am older now and financial issues etc pique my interest more than last gen, but I don’t recall it before this generation. Maybe publishers are feeling the pinch. Of course it’s also publishers with greedy reputations such as EA and Acti spearheading the whole anti preowned market.
hazelam
and movies these days can cost a couple of hundred million.
it’s no coincidence that the company pushing the fight against preowned hardest is the one with the annual updates that are almost exactly the same as the ones they released each of the previous few years.
ea never tell us how much revenue they get from advertisers do they? but look at any ea sports game, there’s advertising everywhere.
maybe if they stopped paying adulterous sports stars or even worse players convicted of running dog fights god knows how much money to be their cover star then maybe the games that use 90% of the same assets as the last game wouldn’t cost so much to make.
one last thing, ironically activision seem to be one of the few publishers who don’t seem to have a hard on for killing preowned sales.
maybe because they make a hell of a lot of money from their dlc, just look how much dlc there is for the guitar hero games
and then there’s the map packs.
TheDeathAvenger
Maybe it’s something to do with shops like GAME pushing pre-owned games more than ever. Not that going into shops like GAME is anything like common for me anymore, but the few times I am in I’ve noticed that there is a lot more choice of pre-owned games compared with ‘new’ games.
hazelam
i hope you’re sitting down, because this is gonna be a long one.
so many points to go over.
firstly, the legality, reselling media people have bought has been legal for centuries, why is it is gaming is suddenly declaring war on this perfectly legal, and i would say not even slightly immoral, practice?
i’m gonna go with greed.
gaming has been dealing with the preowned market for a long time, but so has the book market, for centuries even, they don’t feel the need to restrict our right to sell our legally purchased copy.
if the literature business has accepted that precedent for centuries why shouldn’t gaming?
just because they have the technology to restrict content to a single user, that doesn’t mean it’s right for them to do so.
and as for this being anything like downloading a torrent?
well that is just ridiculous.
for a start, you’re not copying the title and selling it multiple times, you’re transferring ownership to a new person, that copy has been paid for, there is still only one person using it, you cannot possibly think that that has any similarity to downloading a copy without paying where the if if the original was paid for none of the thousands of copies were.
so the comparison with torrenting is totally invalid.
and as for the idea that the developers get nothing out of preowned sales.
well that’s just wrong, and that’s not opinion, that’s fact.
for a start, how many trade ins are made to buy new games?
i don’t know the figure but there is no denying many trade ins go towards funding new game purchases, that is a clear benefit for the publishers.
it’s ironic the company with the biggest hard on for these online passes is the one who would suffer most without trade ins, by which i mean ea with their identikit annual updates, trade ins being anything like theft? what’s more like theft is charging fifty quid for a game that’s almost exactly the same as it was the last few times they sold it and calling it a new game.
no trade ins would mean less new games sales.
then there’s the fact that few games stores actually sell new games at their rrp, i doubt selling below rrp means they pay the publisher’s less so they must be taking it out of their cut of the sale profits, how can they afford to do that?
trade ins.
without the profit from trade ins they would probably have to start charging full rrp, which would once again mean less new games sold.
and what with the huge amounts of dlc that seem to be available for almost every games these days, once again ea with ludicrous amounts, and selling cheats, cheating’s bad, unless they’re making money on it, then it’s fine.
no preowned means you’d only be able to sell one set of dlc per disc.
but that won’t bother them when they start selling consumable items as dlc, yeah, buy bullets for battlefield 4.
and you make it seem like this is pure profit for the stores on the preowned games, well it’s not, they may give you less than they’re worth most of the time, but they’re not getting them for free.
they have to give us something in return, you can either get cash, usually not worth it, or get in store credit, which is often used to buy new games.
and they’re afraid of doing anything about preowned because of the stores?
they don’t want to upset the stores?
they don’t seem to mind upsetting the customers though.
because they know they’ll get away with with it doing it this way, the stores have the bargaining power to avoid being screwed.
thing is, nobody seems to realise it, but, so do we.
because we control the one thing this whole industry is focused on, our money, this isn’t some essential service, like the hospitals or the police force, this is a luxury item sold for a premium price.
i just wish people would realise, they need us more than we need them.
we’re not just a resource to be exploited.
start treating your customers with respect or one day you’ll find you don’t have any left.
hazelam
there is one more thing i simply despise this jihad against preowned games for.
that’s making old games impossible to play.
they’re destroying the history of this industry.
say years from now people wanted to look back and see the games people played now, what will they find?
they’ll find that nothing works any more, everything is tied to the original owner, nobody else can access it.
can you imagine if only the original owners of all shakespeare’s works were the only people who could now read them?
would the world be better without the works of shakespeare?
no shakespeare, because apparently selling on your media is akin to piracy?
what if they had the technology to restrict content back then, we could be living in a world without shakespeare.
i don’t know about anybody else but i think that having the works of shakespeare available is infinitely better than not having them.
and who knows, we could have a modern day shakespeare who’s work may never be seen in future because some people thought the preowned market was anything like piracy.
in my opinion, any form of media that goes down the totalitarian drm route, that gaming seems to be heading, will suffer in the long run.
Juelz345
Yes, the world would totally be better without shakespeare. F**K Rome and Juliet!
Also, gross over exageration. The article says nothing about DRM and locking content to the orginal purchaser. It’s comparing the effects of piracy to pre-owned.
And I fully support whatever it takes to keep the work of any modern day shakespeare unseen.
And for future refernce, when debating someone’s opinion, refering to it as “just rediculous” and going off on random tangents, isn’t the most effective method.
hazelam
it’s all part of the same issue, drm is used to stop preowned sales.
and that is the next step publishers will take after these online passes, sony have showed they have the capability with dcu online discs being locked to a single account.
and shakespeare is considered one of the greatest writer who ever lived by many people.
lastly i don’t think i could ever respect anything said by somebody who would rather the world had less art.
3shirts
TL; DR
Juelz345
I always but my games new, but then i also trade in my old games to help with those purchases.
For me personally, if pre-owned went away and i couldn’t trade in my old games, i’d still purchase just as many new games. I see the option of trading in as a benefit, not a determaning factor.
I purchase games because I want and enjoy them. If it’s agame that i’m not particularly excited for then i just wait until the price drops or until amazon has it on sale.
And as someone who is a huge fan and supporter of digital distribution (and hoping to see it heavily supported in the next generation of consoles), I’m ok with not being able trade in or sell my games when I’ve finished with them.
hazelam
but would you buy as many new games if you couldn’t sell your old ones? if the option to trade in and get the new game for less wasn’t available.
Juelz345
As I said, yes:
“For me personally, if pre-owned went away and i couldn’t trade in my old games, i’d still purchase just as many new games.”
Now obviously this relates to me personally. I’m fotunate enough to be able to afford a new game or two each month. I don’t trade in all of my games anyway. Any exclusives, I keep. I only ever trade multiplatform games.
hazelam
ok, for you it may not be an issue, but for many people it is.
games are expensive, some people wouldn’t be able to afford that many new games if they couldn’t trade old games in.
Juelz345
I totally agree with you. And i also see the point that the article was trying to make.
It’s unfortunate that games are generally priced higher than their target audiance can afford.
And i certainly don’t thing that pr-owned=piracy. I think they both have negative effects on the developers and published bottom line, but there are some benefits to pre-owned. And at the very least pre-owned gives gamers that can’t afford to purchase all their games new, a honest option. But i do believ that if you can afford to purchase the game new, then you should.
grimm
I buy all my games new, however I often wait for them to come down in price to the £15-£25 bracket. Any games that I really want though I buy at launch and often collector’s editions.
As for waiting for games to come down in price, I often find new games on certain online retailers to be cheaper than the pre-owned version sat on the shelf in Game or CEX, so I really don’t see the point in buying pre-owned.
I’v also heard about people buying ten copies of a game new and sealed from Amazon and taking them into various high street stores and trading them in for more than they paid.
jamess109
Long live torrents!
Juelz345
You sir, are part of the problem.
Dummy01
First of all a pre-owned copy stays always what it was originally… one LEGAL copy. In piracy the number of copies is not the same as the number of legal copies and this is the problem… in fact this is the crime.
I guess the writer suggests not to buy anything pre-owned, because in that way the manufacturer does not get anything. So from now on don’t buy second hand LEGAL TVs, cars, or even rubber ducks, because there is the chance the manufacturer to stop producing…
Not to mention the total loss of recycling from reusing…
SiNTAX
What a load of bollocks!
Juelz345
Well formed argument. You brought up so many valid counter-argument and sound logic to support your opinion. Let me guess, head of the debate team in high school?
djhsecondnature
Zing!