Ford doesn’t get a piece of every used car people buy.
Publisher’s don’t get a piece of every used book. So why should gaming be any different?

Frankly, if they stopped flooding the market with Junk..people would be far more willing to buy new.
Right now for example there are 3 versions of the *same* street fighter game. Why was that necessary?
Don’t forget “Game of the year titles”. A lot of DLC heavy games drop a GOTY edition CHEAPER than the initial release with hours of added content. What’s the incentive for Me (a hardworking consumer) to pay $60+ for the standard game, plus $10 a piece for 2-4 pieces of DLC when I know in 8-12 months a GOTY will drop for $40-50 With all the DLC?
There isn’t any.
If developers want to encourage new purchases, they need to make it VERY appealing with extra free stuff.

Sorry guys,

-A man who bought MW3, Skyrim and Arkham City for $100 (saving $80) at a used store..in January.

Does that mean you will never biy anything second hand?

Ur wasting ur money

Its like the fun running 1’000’000 instances of an C64 emu or Mario on a multicore cpu ^ ^ somebody that dont have it in RL that tech evlolution, dont can really understand that kind of gamers.

Ps: (The other thing is they all act like we could expand for ever, this is a lie!!! ) is ment for material rescources, not the imagination.

I now symphatize with all Hackers WH or BH do what u have do, in the end only free information is possible if all is hacked and no companies can tell us how to use the devices once they have sold it.

All humans should be able to use old devices for the sacre of low costs, you forget 99% of this ball is pooor ppl. Firmwarehacking is the key to prevent planned obsolence at least a little bit an keep used goods at least a liitle value.

I could still live with a old outdate machine, I dont really need all that fancy widgets animations and so on. Shure if I can get them for free easy, have to pay for the connection anyway. But in a developing country its totally different an these arent our thrashbins.

The other thing is they all act like we could expand for ever, this is a lie!!!

Give a shit 4 these closed nets like XBL or PSN, Steam. Go opensoure  or at least alternate community servers/networks, in the end on propriority nets the online games moste all are p2p with host on own devs anyways.

Last thing, I was once a core games but now I see it was only distraction against the real world.
WakeUp folks.

By the way someone buying a used game doesnt take credit or reward away from the developers, they got paid the sixty for the original purchase of a disk, now tell me what industry has the right to make a profit out of a product that they already sold to me? And its not like they change the developers name to gamestop once its sold they still get all the credit, they just dont get to exploit my wallet for a second time and resell a product that someone already bought there legal rights to.. Have u seen the profit margin on each disk sold? Its astronomical, its disk gold, and if ur willing to pay 5 to 10 dollars more for the same already over priced product u need to take a step back and reevaluate where you could be if u didnt so ignorantly give your money to greedy people

As I have stated, however, I don’t know stats for this industry.  I’m just commenting on the assertions that you’ve made.

Furthermore, the publishers and developers keep getting lumped together in these posts as though they are two parts of a single entity.  This in not the case.  Publishers, generally, provide financial backing for the developers (writers and artists in other analogous industries) and handle product distribution.  The current media distribution method almost ensures that product dissemination is too expensive for developers to cover. Good publishers also make sure developers never get too much income at one point.  If that happened, projects could be funded internally and distributed via inexpensive online methods without the need of a publisher.

If anyone is concerned about the well-being of developers, less focus should be directed at second-hand media sales with more attention to the fact that developers have to go to loan sharks to survive.

The platform holders (Sony, MS, Nintendo) have more to do with pricing than the publishers.  The problem with gaming in the 80s was quite different.  Atari didn’t have a formal licensing program.  Anyone who could create a cartridge could make games.  So the market was flooded with shitty titles that no one wanted.  Today we have much higher quality standards the reason there are so many clone games is due to publishers not willing to risk their capital on a game they aren’t sure if going to sell.  The only way to change this culture is to get higher profits at the publisher level so they could take more chances.

“Retailers, publishers, and developers must work together to set time
limits before used console games can be sold. Most titles experience
majority of sales in first 60 – 90  days of release this number is
decreased to 30 – 60 days during holiday sales. After that period games
are discounted.”

This system would be very difficult.  You would be saying to GameStop they need to hold on to a title for 30-60-90 days before they can sell it.  This would dramatically reduce how much money they could offer you since they would only be guessing at the value of the game 30-60-90 days from now.  Also who would enforce this?  The retailer?  The publisher (would they have a team of publisher police)?

“This approach is the least intrusive to customer without need for
consoles that block used games. STOP offering digital copies for 59.99
they should be no more than 49.99. The current market for games has
enjoyed great success as a whole earning more than movies in the recent
decade and the success can continue if all the players work together.”

The real solution is for this economy to get better.  We can’t sustain any of these “disposable income” activities if there really isn’t any disposable income around.  Entertainment and recreation isn’t as important as gas for the car and your health.  I am afraid until things turn around economically publishers and developers will not be back into the “hay day” of the gaming biz.

You are using the industries STRONGEST success and projecting it across the entire industry.  Call of Duty is hardly a representation of typical results in this industry.

“So why can’t I buy used to games again?”

No one is stopping you the author is telling you WHY he doesn’t and he offers some compelling reasons.

“Sharing content has been the back bone of the console gaming industry
from the start… Play a game at a friend’s house… Buy it next week.
Sell it cause you beat it… Buy another game.”

That may be true but used game sales have never been a retail endeavour in a nation wide sense until several years ago.  If used game sales were just amongst friends we likely wouldn’t be having this conversation.

“The giant money hungry game corporations have just figured out a way to
double down on there expenditures…”

I think you mean they have found a way to double down on profits.  Expenditures would mean costs have gone up.  The whole tone of the comment is just wreaking of class warfare, and doesn’t really demonstrate a great understanding of the game industry.  The core game industry is shrinking.  Costs are going up and returns are not as good, investors will take their investment dollars elsewhere if this keeps up.

“While your at it let’s get rid of
libraries too… Whoops that’s a already a work in progress.. Wake up
people.”

What’s this got to do with the discussion? :P

BluRay or Double Density DVD – $59.95
DVD – $39.95
CD – $19.95

This would have given smaller developers a chance to be on store shelves, but perhaps I am not privy to certain costs within each company that prevent “smaller sales”.

Not that your point is relevant to the conversation.

This argument didn’t hold water 10 years ago, still doesn’t.  Just demonstrates you are ignorant to how software licensing works.

People generally do not buy a car, electronic device, book, etc. and sell it used in less than a week.

Is it really that much to expect people to have a intellectual discussion and not some emotion filled rhetoric?

That’s why you are seeing some major publishers dumping developers.  Because there is so much money to go around they are swimming in it like Scrooge McDuck.

Can we please not engage in such obvious class warfare rhetoric?  I get it — it seems we have a lot of communist gamers.

You do realize that free market capitalism is what provided societies with video games, the free time to play them and the disposable income to afford them.

Doesn’t refute the argument that DLC is optional replacing car parts is not.

DLC is not a legitimate way to assuage the lost revenue. It’s not like every person with a console connects it to the internet. Also there are the additional resources devoted to developing code to be added to the game. In other words they are not making money off the original product but an add-on for it. Why don’t you learn the complexities of the development process before insulting people. 

 If you purchase a used game it was once purchased by someone else, the developer received the money for that game from the consumer.  If the consumer then tries to sell the game, to purchase another, the the developer stands to make more money from the sale of a new game.  If a person selects a used game, and the price is less, then so what?  

If a store sees that a game is not selling would it be wrong for them to put it on sale , or put it in a clearance bin? The thought that people should only purchase new games is absurd. Admittedly there will be hard core gamer that will purchase everything new, or possibly have a shrine, or something to their favorite game, then it is their right to purchase the game new, the first day it comes out.  Been there, done that, knows others that have done the same.  But I will not say that used games are not also important to the industry.  Not everyone has enough money to shell out all the cash for their wanted games, or to purchase games for siblings, or any other allowances that are consumed by gamers. 

Also would it be wrong to purchase games from out dated systems, used, when its impossible to find it in stores, or if the money for the games will actually go to the developer for those games?  So, Basically, purchasing games used is not really a problem, the most a developer will lose is through the illegal downloading of games, rather than the purchasing of used games.  Used games sometimes keep the interest in the game, or allows for users to diversify or sell games to get newer or better ones.

I think if you want to write an article about the developers (as oppose to the corporations they work for), you should write about how they should get more of the money from the game development.  Right now, a developer could create the new Halo, but see little to no money from doing so.  I would rather see developers be seen more like patent holders within their companies.  That would allow the developer to stay profitable with any idea they come up with.  Think more like an actor that gets paid for rights long after the movie was released. But you and I know that will never happen and neither should restricting game usage that only helps the corporations, not the developers.

Again, these are only possibilities, the kind of stuff I would bring up at a financial/marketing meeting if that were my job.  That being said, I assume that those in the industry’s employment are at least as capable as I am in this field, so somebody brought all this up at some point.  Maybe it’s just that the cost of the discs, boxes, media distribution and lost sales is less than the total operating cost of a “cloud-based” model.  If so, they just need to sleep in the bed they made.

I have the option of purchasing an authentic replacement starter.    I also have the option of purchasing a starter from 3rd parties who make their own versions.  

If I purchase an item, I should be free to keep it, to play it, or to get rid of it.    Furthermore, I should be free to use it across multiple devices.

The current state of the media industry is very frustrating, with companies trying to get us to purchase the same content multiple times, and the attempts to start cashing in or closing off the used game market are just one more method by which media companies are behaving unethically in the pursuit of a few more bucks.

As others have mentioned… the concept of Ford getting a share of me selling my car to my neighbor is fundamentally ridiculous.    Other examples that actually occur are equally ridiculous… for example the fact that companies don’t want me to be able to play my DVD on my tablet device….   I’m just imagining extending the car metaphor, and trying to take my Ford on the highway and being told, “sorry, your car is only good for interstates… you need to purchase the highway version, and the neighborhood version, AND the interstate version.”

Instead, blame the customers for selling/ buying used games.

Also, reduce the initial sale price- follow the WoW model.  free initial game- money for everything else. Then this wouldn’t be a problem.

I get my new game and free up space in my cabinet
the store makes a few bucks from resale of the older game
game developing companies make a few bucks from purchase of a newer game

to add a new level of complexity in there where the store has to pay a percentage of used game sales also to the game developing company…as a requirement..is too much.  Sure, it takes money to fund creating a game..but not that much.  If the game becomes real popular as so few do anymore..there are far more ways for companies to capitalize on that.

The fact is all of the video game industry is changing, while profits keep increasing (against the economic trend). Large companies are buying out many of the smaller and “indie” developers. The development focus has shifted from single, innovative and fresh games to franchises and sequels (Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Bioshock, any sports game). To get your game out there, you have to be able to afford marketing and a PR campaign, or have the rights to a Hit from a long time ago, and only big companies can afford these things. A glut of graduates in media arts, who grew up playing video games now trying to get into the industry have shifted it from an employee’s to an employer’s market, with a changed landscape and attitude industry-wide. And the big game companies are now starting to act like big corporate companies, not a bunch of kids who think they could make a great game. Big companies take steps to maximize profits, control PR, standardize the work environment, and benefit investors,  not to _change the world_. Accordingly, expecting everyone to support our “wide-eyed, fun-loving buddies, who are just trying to make us happy guys, with some really great games”, is not only base naivete, but also an indication of poor research, with an outdated understanding of the modern gaming industry. It is ridiculous to expect everyone to “follow your lead” on those grounds, especially when you seem to be leading blind.

Give substance. Make details of the industry part of the article, not part of the comment section. Explain how the industry is currently being shaped by the _various_ factors affecting it, and then make a case for supporting small developers who put out a quality product, like Mastersquishyfishy suggested.

Besides, this is slowly becoming a non issues, whether I buy used or not. Mass Effect 3 developed a fun and interesting multiplayer that you could get a taste of in the demo, but you need a single person license for. When you buy a new copy of the game, it comes with a license. When you buy used, you pay 10 or 15 bucks for a license, which happens to be about the difference between a new and used copy. Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Assassin’s Creed 2 both “missing chapter” DLC which completed the game’s story, while offering more gameplay for the buyer and getting “devs a cut” off of people who want more out of their used game, a mutually beneficial maneuver.

If you’re going to take the pulpit, come prepared, or you just further hurt your cause.

Personally, I buy new. Just six months later, when it’s twenty bucks and comes with all the DLC included.