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.
[drop2]Now, if you buy a pre-owned game in somewhere like GameStation, the retailer takes everything you pay (excluding of course whatever they bought it off the previous seller for), but the developer and publisher get none of that. As far as I’m concerned, that’s just the same as the torrenting model, just that the distributor gets something out of it. Maybe, however, you consider the former to be more moral than the latter due to the exchange of money?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.
Zephyre
Sorry I haven’t read the whole 6 pages of replies, so this may be repeating a point, but whenever I see these articles I can’t help wondering why no-one seems to grab the important points.
First thing – How do you assume every pre-owned sale is a sale taken from the publisher? I’m guessing the only reason for buying preowned is the cost, meaning it’s unlikely you’d buy the game at full retail price if used wasn’t available. So, either way the publisher gets nothing from this customer.
Second point – how many people sell games for cash? As you usually get better value when you’re trading in against a new game (or taking store credit) then the publisher may well see revenue from the trade in when the person trading the game uses the funds towards a new one.
All this nonsense about used games costing the industry money is a joke. If the publishers don’t like you selling your own property then maybe they ought to make the games worth keeping (regular DLC for example)
Linford Butler
I disagree with the major point made in this article: that pre-owned games are essentially piracy because, upon purchase of a pre-owned title, the game developer or publisher recieves none of the revenue.
I’m unconvinced by that point for the sole reason that, somewhere along the long road from development to pre-owned purchase, someone, somewhere, paid money to the publisher in order to become the one in posession of their product (in this case, a videogame). That is often a retailer, who then sells products off, taking a cut themselves and putting yet more money through to the publisher of the game, on top of the original stock they bought in the first place.
Therefore, the single game itself has already made money for both the retailer and the publisher, and probably somewhat of a tidy profit.
What happens after that, therefore, is immaterial. Pre-owned games are the original product which, by all rights, has already fulfilled its purpose (to make money) and has already been fully paid for. It isn’t like piracy: torrents serve unlimited duplicates of a software or product, whereas pre-owned games are not duplicates. The money in torrenting is lost in the repeated download of the duplicated software by different people: the software duplicates are never paid for, yet the product is still delivered.
With pre-owned games, however, there is only a single copy which, originally, will have been fully paid for at some point. Therefore, the publisher never actually LOSES anything, as the product has already made the money it was expected to when it was first retailed as a new product. The publisher merely doesn’t MAKE any further money from the resale of pre-owned products. Therefore, it isn’t as though the publisher is fobbed off in any way, as even before something becomes a pre-owned title in a rack in GAME or HMV or wherever, it has served its purpose and made the money it was supposed to for the publisher.
So, for me, that’s where the key difference lies. With torrents, the DUPLICATION of the software means people download software that is never actually paid for (the duplicates). With pre-owned games, the money is already made before it becomes pre-owned and, as there is only one product and not many duplicates, they haven’t LOST anything.
The publishers are merely irritated by the fact that they don’t make money AGAIN once a game is sold as pre-owned. The issue here is not piracy, it is greed on a publisher’s part.
That’s my opinion. Feel free to disagree, by all means.
Oh, and my disagreement with the points made in the article doesn’t mean to say that I didn’t enjoy reading the article. By all means, it was extremely well-written, and it must have been good to galvanise me into a strong enough emotional response to write a comment of this length. :P
jpat21285
Long time viewer first time poster!
Think this is looking at used games in the wrong way, in the article it’s noted that the developer get a cut of the cash your spending at the till, that’s not the case shops buy from publishers and therefore it’s the cash the publisher gets that the developer is paid that the dev is getting a cut of.
Secondly in order for a game to be sold 2nd hand it mustve been purchased new, therefore the Market for used can only be as big as the game is popular. This is not the same as a torrent which one copy is sold and potentially hundreds of people download.
Thirdly this isn’t new, how many people have sold games to friends when they are finished?
grimm
100% agree with this. Indeed the pre-owned market for a particular game depends on the number of copies legitimately sold (unless the pre-owned game is being re-sold many many times which is less likely for a new game, in the short term at least).
gideon1451
I could afford three at most games a year if I didn’t buy pre-owned.
mcphatty
Sorry if I’m drawing the wrong conclusions, but isn’t this also an argument over an industry which is floundering in the current market? If a melon seller has trouble selling his melons because mangos sell better should he complain about the state of things or put his talents to better use helping the mango seller, thus putting dinner on the table?
Aside from whether or not preowned is piracy, maybe developers should reconsider bothering with their product if they aren’t in a position to compete in the first place.
hazelam
if preowned is a problem, give new buyers more, don’t punish people who legally bought preowned by removing parts of the game.
the alice game is a perfect example, buy it new, and you get a code for a download of the original game.
that would definitely get me to buy new, if i have the money i will be giving serious consideration to doing just that.
iamtdogg
If you remove the preowned and as such trade in market then the industry would suffer more as people would simply rent the games instead meaning the devs still only getting one sale and probwbly as has been said before not being able to buy as much new
StevenHibs
LOL
rept0n
I purchase most of my games new on day of release (usually pre-ordered), but even still I shop around for the best price.
If I want to get a game after it has been released then I shop around again, but I have no qualms over whether it is pre-owned or not – best price wins every time.
I’m not currently a big fan of online multiplayer, so whilst the online aspects being removed for pre-owned doesn’t really affect me (infact, this simply boosts the return on a game when I sell it on eBay), I don’t like the idea that a potentially central element of the game is lost.
Ultimately, a lot of this argument comes down to the size of the software house and publisher.
I can’t stand sports franchises that churn out the same old **** every year and get thousands of people buying the game. I’d much rather they realised that the sports have seasons and that they charged (less) for seasonal updates, whilst the base game remained free. I bought F1 2010, but am loathed to re-buy the game at full price just to get KERS and ARW on the same tracks with mostly the same drivers.
What I do like is games that take the effort to produce good DLC.
Basically, if DLC is good enough (and not just a code to unlock functions of the game that are on the disc from the start), then the developers will get further revenue from both original copies and pre-owned.
And then we have PlayStation Plus.
I’ve fallen back in love with my PSP since my Plus account has given me dozens of Minis and PSOne games.
I’m quite happily going to keep renewing my subscription to Plus (mostly because I’ve really enjoyed the content that they’ve given me, but partially because I equally don’t want to lose that content).
Oh Sony… you have me over a barrel with Plus!
The sooner developers embrace digital delivery systems and the pricing of devices such as the iPhone drives down the cost of games the better!
I’ll always be happy to pay more than any other media type for a game (as I feel I get more enjoyment out of it), but there must be a happy medium between the current £39+ price of a game and the occasionally good valued pre-owned value?
And if things do go digital… I lose out – as I currently buy games and then sell the majority after completing. Maybe Sony could invent an online method to maybe ‘sell back’ a game for credits against a new game.
Actually… that’s a great idea… I’m copyrighting that right now!
hazelam
yeah plus, while great, is also quite insidious. :)
and this is from a subscriber.
if you consider it like a long term rental deal where you get new games and not have to give back the ones you already have, it sounds much more reasonable. :)
OneShotWook
I’ve not read the entire comments list here and i have read a few that have mentioned it but to not mention law in the article at all seems a big missed issue.Weather right in our eyes or not is irrelevant,fact is retailers are allowed to do this as are individuals,it’s really as simple as that.
If publishers are really going to nail this then take a look at steam,competitive pricing and all your dlc,online etc included,they need to be ahead of the preowned market not behind it,after all they to are saving money through digital distribution.
Put simply 50 to 60 quid for Halo Reach and Mass Effect 2 is greed in plain sight as current digital downloads,both titles available new at 10-20 quid from a retailer.