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.
jcor
I always wonder why the second hand sales market,when it comes to the games industry, is made out to be such an evil thing by the publishers/developers etc. I could be wrong, but I’ve never heard Ford, Volkswagen or Opel/Vauxhall complain about the 2nd hand market.
In my opinion, if I couldn’t trade in my used games I wouldn’t be able to buy as many new games as I do and I’m sure I’m not the only one in the same boat.
So like Kovacs, I think the second hand market, in a way, helps sell more full priced games.
Kovacs
It’s a symbiotic relationship. The way I see things going is further along the online pass route, or what Zipper have done with SOCOM 4 Pro.
Pre-owned is a necessary “evil”. But we have to encourage people to buy new if we want new games at all. So, there needs to be incentives to not go the pre-owned route.
And if you think this is “ruining gaming” or whatever, that’s fine. Imagine living in a world where NO games are made because the developers are all out of business.
3shirts
I agree in part but online passes are a bad way to do that. Offer incentives, yes, but access to something that is part of the game is not one of those!
The cost of having someone online using your servers or whatever is, presumably, built into the price of the game but if the game is sold on, the overall number of people playing online is unchanged so why should the second owner have to pay to do so?
Kovacs
If not added/full features what should they do? This is not a rhetorical question. If you were a developer and you needed someone to actually buy your game first-hand to stay in business, with the current gamut of tools available to you, what would you do?
One way is to bring out DLC in the future that encourages people not to trade in their game. No trade-ins, no pre-owned market.
But then, as we’ve already discussed, this would impact the amount of new games purchased. So, maybe that’s not the best approach.
I don’t think it’s a question of “the unit can only be used by one person so that *spot* on the server is never doubled, it’s always assigned”. I don’t think it’s that clear-cut.
Succinctly, developers need to get a cut per sale of their games. For every pre-owned sale, that’s a first-hand sale lost that they won’t see a penny of.
Hence, in my opinion, the whole “but they got a slice of the first sale” argument is moot. Pre-owned means they’ve lost the same slice of a new sale because they’ve been excluded from the equation.
I think I’ve already said it when I stated: they can’t stop pre-owned, but they incentivise first-hand in they will do this ANY way they can. And that includes extra/full features. If you don’t like it – well – that’s your right. Don’t buy the games that do this.
And when everyone is doing it and it’s the norm, I suppose you’ll need to find a new hobby.
I don’t mean to be glib or dismissive. I can understand people’s strong opinions toward developers gimping second-hand titles online or whatever. If you can only afford the pre-owned version it’s a tough pill to swallow. Which brings up something else I said. Wait. You can pick up new games for practically half-price a matter of a few months after their respective launch dates. Which is the current price of the pre-owned! At least, with delayed purchases, the developer at least sees something.
“But then no one will be playing the game!”
Well, if everyone who used to buy pre-owned waited …
“Why should I wait? Why should I be treated like a second class citizen?”
You don’t have to. You can buy it day one and pay the full RRP. I do accept we’re back to square one, however.
:)
3shirts
I totally disagree with your assertion that every pre-owned sale is a first-hand sale lost. A great deal of pre-owned purchases are people picking up the game because it is cheap. If it hadn’t been, they would simply have never bought it.
GTRsannin
Well cars are a bit different they need new parts and most of those parts are made by the car manufacturer and newer cars you pretty much always have to take to the brand-specific service to get fixed cause they have so much computers that you can’t do much your self to fix them
bigdon23
No one in there right mind would take a car to the original manufacturer for repairs, its more expensive and exactly the same as a back street garage.
As for parts, alot of aftermarket parts are made by 3rd party manufacturers and are better quality.
and for really cheap theres always the scrap yard and a haynes manual?!
GTRsannin
That is why i said most and the original parts are always the best quality cause they are the original they were made for that car after market parts tend to be for multiple cars or models so they might not fit your car the best like some brake pads for older cars might have the cord that lights a warning light on your dash to say you need to change those pads but your car might not have that feature of course you can still use those pads you just don’t connect that cord
thadon101
I’m torn on the subject
On one hand, I understand how devs/publishers are being badly affected by piracy (particulary on PC) and the desire to recouperate those losses
On the other hand, I buy 95% of my games new on release day so I’m putting a lot of money into the market in comparison to the 5% I buy ‘used’. That 5% of my purchases are games I wouldn’t risk paying full price for so in that sense they’ve potentially attracted a customer for any sequels whereas before they wouldn’t have
Overall, I’d have to disagree with the used games market being a bad thing, particularly these last few months as single-player games seem to have halved in length
Not sure I agree with the point about waiting to buy new tbh. Surely if everybody waited for a price drop – as many did with Enslaved – that would damage the IP anyway?
Foxhound_Solid
I waited for Enslaved to drop and my bro got me it for my birthday – £22.00. Havent played it yet mind.
There is a meeting ground – £2.00 online pass when buying a preowned game, with the stores selling preowned for a £2.00 less than normal.
The comprpmise should be between then stores and devs and not with us, as if they push hard enough gamers will side step the games doing this or have seriously lower sales to bragg about :-)
Great topic Josh!
GTRsannin
I don’t like to buy games as Pre-Owned i like to buy them as new because i like to support the game developer it’s not cheap or easy to make a game and i like to open the wrapper and know that everything that game is supposed to have is in that package and i think the online pass is a pretty good idea at least that way the developers get something
hazelam
correct me if i’m wrong here, but didn’t they get paid for that copy when it was sold the first time?
there’s still only ever going to be one person using it at a time.
and the original owner might even be playing a new game he just bought instead of still playing that old one.
that’s a win wither way right?
or at least a draw one way and a win the other
the original owner playing the game is to all intents and purposes the same as a new user playing the game.
but if it’s sold on, the original owner could well have bought a new game.
GTRsannin
Well its not really a win cause the developers might think that that other person could have bought a new copy as well so they could have gotten money from it and of course it looks better on how many copies were sold list if everyboduy buys their games new
GTRsannin
*everybody for once i don’t check my writing and i make a mistake :)
hazelam
ok, so then maybe it’s a draw either way.
ok so the other person might have bought new without preowned, but then the original owner might not have bought another game.
the point is, the publisher, got paid for the copy of the game the original owner had, whether the original owner keeps playing the game or he sells it on and somebody else plays it the publisher still got their fair share from that copy.
but now, unlike just about every other media on the planet, their fair share apparently isn’t enough.
GTRsannin
That’s exactly what it is it’s not enough that is why some of them put those online pass things in their games cause everybody wants money and i can kind of understand it of course you want money from your hard worked product
Kovacs
“correct me if i’m wrong here, but didn’t they get paid for that copy when it was sold the first time?”
As I said above, yes, but the pre-owned sale negates the potential profit the COULD HAVE earner if it didn’t exist. And the majority of developers need a lot of sales to break even.
Homefront, a game that I’m sure saw a lot of pre-owned movement, needed to sell 2 million units to break even. For every pre-owned sale that’s -1 off the required target so the developers get to make Homefront 2.
GTRsannin
Exactly it’s always one sale less when people buy it Pre-owned
hazelam
that’s assuming everybody who bought preowned, would have bought new otherwise.
nobody can know what the percentage that might be, but i doubt it’s 100%
and it would be higher the earlier in the game’s life, but as the weeks and months roll on the chances of that preowned sale legitimately being able to be considered a lost sale for a new copy reduce dramatically.
and also that discounts trade ins made to fund new game purchases.
we never get figures for how many games are sold because of trade ins do we?
maybe every game, or every two games, they prevent people trading in should also be considered a lost sale too.
maybe it is tough for the publisher’s to break even, but that doesn’t mean we should give up our rights to make it easier for them.
if their profit/cost ratio is off maybe they need to be more efficient instead of blaming the customers for doing something that is perfectly legal.
Foxhound_Solid
Also, because if the CODE EPIDEMIC we wont be able lend each other games soon!
The Accoubntant is well and truly into the GAMING WORLD now :-(
mugsybalone
Muahahaha! That’s right. All your money are belong to us!
bigdon23
I apologise to the auther but in no way is second hand anywhere near piracy!
I like to buy second hand things from charity shops, 2 reasons, its cheap and it helps others, is that wrong?
I have 2 main points
1 – Without preowned game sales, most people still wouldnt be interested in gaming. Why? preowned opens up the content to people (like myself) who would not otherwise be able to afford it. hense the gaming market would still be for geeks and fat people and not the masses.
2 – it is my belief that the developer tax (online codes ect), will not encourage people to buy new, but infact make people think why not just download it for free!
WolfieZero
Six years ago this point might of held well but nowadays this isn’t the point.
First, I’ll point out that I rarely buy used games as I will buy a lot on day of release, I typically only buy rare/old games used. So on with my point.
Piracy is to presume the developers are not going to get any money, so that isn’t the case with the vast majority of games nowadays in that even if the person doesn’t buy a game new the developer can still make money from a title.
Look at what EA do with new and pre-owned order; if you do so they will give you extras in the game that would cost £5 if you where to download it. It’s true that this extra content isn’t typically required but an addition to the main experience.
Fallout released new missions a few months after release, yet it didn’t matter if the game was new or pre-owned, people could get access to it. This means that devs could see a higher sales of DLC compared to the physical game. Not sure if this has ever happened, but it’s possible.
Pre-owned is a needed evil as I see it; yes devs don’t really see much from these games, but it’s still supporting the industry as a whole and does allow exposure to those who may not be able to afford the full costs of a game (though I do agree when I first played games it was £60-80 a cart so it’s certainly cheaper nowadays).
If you are to class video games as art then you have to take the association with it in that it doesn’t always return big or enough, but it’s exposing your work to the world. Painters often die poor with the person then owning the rights to those paintings making their money, but this is how things can work in the art world. Songwriters would be happy to slum it so long as people enjoyed their work (I’ve known a lot of successful bands who still only make just enough despite they are very well known). I can’t speak for film makers but they are a very mixed bunch!
I think what I’m saying is to call pre-owned games piracy is wrong and misleading but rather we have to accept it for what it is and may not help the individual but still makes the industry as a whole something viable.
jayjay119
Once more into the fray, but another thing that boosts the interest in preowned is publisher attitude. Like I said before, it is greedy publishers like EA and Activision that seem tot be speareading this revolution. But they are also the ones, in my opinion, putting in the least effort, throwing out yearly editions of the same franchises with little to no change. Why would someone want to pay £40 for Fifa ’12 when Fifa ’11 does exactly the same thing just with one or two less features and slightly less shiny? They wouldn’t. Give me a decent game and I’ll pay for it. Like I said earlier if Mirror’s, Edge which is undoubtably one of shiniest jewels in this generation’s crown of originality, were to get a sequel, I would buy it new because I know I will enjoy it.
What’s more, publishers may be worried about the preowned market, but they don’t seem to do anything to help themselves. They charge extortionate digital prices, which no one will pay even over new retail. Why do they not have their own stores dedicated to games? Whether physical or online, offering deals to the consumer. Why do publishers like Activision and EA not offer their own preowned service akin to something like Mazuma if it worries them so much? Answer, Greed like Hazelam said. Preowned has existed for years, centuries even, it’s only today fat cats in greedy enterprises are giving it a bad game to dissuade people. Like Foxhound_Solid said there is a middle ground under all the shite, but the problem is these producers pushing against preowed want to have their cake and eat it too.
Asdafers
Top push this further – how is it possible the publishers can sell the same game (or even better sometimes with GOTY/Platinum editions) for less than half the starting price? The code somehow got cheaper to print on a disc after 1 million was done? Or maybe just the greed target for that title was achieved and you can move on to another?
Sell the games on day one for 19.99 instead of 44.99 and you’ll kill pre-owned in flash. Keep taxing players with online passes, account bound DLCs and what not and then you will really see a surge in piracy/private servers as people will try to get the things they are denied.
I actually thought of another reason there is an uproar about pre-owned now as there has never been – there has never been so many titles people just wanted to see rather than play for months. In the old days we were getting a decent game once a year. Now it’s every week? How do you keep up? Trade-in, buy pre-owned to catch up on last week. Most people are not collectors, they play the game and move on. So if the industry that is able to pump out as many fantastic games is complaining they are not getting enough money what do they want to do? Sell us a game each day new for 44.99?
Please do not tell me that it’s the small ones that get hit the most, because they are not. The ones that are hit the most are the big fish that mass produce AAA titles and complain they only sold millions of copies. How much is enough? There is no such figure to the corporation, there is always room for “growth” and each year they set the targets for profits even further. That’s how modern companies operate everywhere but NO OTHER companies start selling half functional products just in case they will get sold second hand.
So to all that are saying that pre-owned is killing the industry I’ll say – the industry is doing a great job themselves. They do not need any help :)
ThatBoyTim
Well if you put it that way! You are never going to remove 2nd hand sales of any item, but you make a good point.
For the record, I reckon I buy 90% new and 10% pre-owned.
Tuffcub
So anything we sell second hand is piracy.
I pirated a nice dining table a few weeks ago and my Dad has recently pirated a wheelbarrow. I’ve also just bought a PSP (yes, i know) off Ebay. I expect Sony to be knocking on my door asking for money any second now.
Your arguement fails because gaming is the only industry that seems to think it deserves a slice of the second hand pie. No one else does.
“But Online elements of games cost us money to run!” moan developers. Yes, and what did you do? You slapped uneeded online elements in Dead Space and Assassins Creed JUST so you can make this arguement.
If the game has an online mode then by all means set up a pass system, but do NOT slap in stupid Online elemnts JUST so you can strangle more money out of people.
FoxHoundGabe
“But Online elements of games cost us money to run!”
And those costs ARE included in the game’s intial price. Do you think they spend more time and resources if the game has on-line content? nope, they have a deadline and a budget, they decide what to do with it. Thats why many gamers (like me) moan about all games having to have a multiplayer now, thats less time spent on the single-player experience.
And what about maintaining servers? well, doesnt matter who own the copy of the game, there will only be one person per copy playing, so there is no extra costs there.
hazelam
and lets not forget, who is usually hosting these games?
yes, the players.
most console games played on line are played peer to peer where one of the players has to host.
the most these publisher’s servers have to do is matchmaking and keeping score at the end.
and how often do ea’s servers crap out?
don’t get me wrong, i don’t think we should get everything free.
i’m willing to pay if it’s deserved.
i’ve paid mmo subs in the past, i played wow for like a year, and when the right mmo comes along in the future i’ll pay again, unless it’s a free to play mmo of course. ^_^
Bilbo_bobbins
It keeps retailers in business, without it they would probably all go bust, then where would they sell their NEW games? The problem is, people will always do it privately or swap games anyway. You will never ever stop it, they have to get around it, which they have finally found.
quinkill
it’s fair point, especially considering that we still get a lull in game releases over the summer (though this is changing).