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Old 2011-06-16, 09:55   Link #1
DonQuigleone
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Second hand sales vs. Piracy

A few months back a Lionhead developer said that secondhand sales were worse then Piracy.

Now obviously all of us live in a grey area, and most of us have Pirated at different points. But I don't think anyone would disagree about Piracy at it's core being an illegal act that denies the Industry sales (to what degree is another discussion entirely).

Similiarly Second hand sales are also a method whereby other people can experience the product (be it a game, a movie, or whatever). The truth is, for games or movies there is usually limited rewatch value. Most people will "consume" the product once. So in a sense you can pay for your "service" of playing the game, derive it's full value, and then sell it on. To the original producer, they get just as much profit from the resale, as they do from an illegal download, or a pirated DVD on the streets of Hong Kong IE nothing. Indeed all the money from the sale goes to the original buyer (who probably did not buy with resale in mind), or more likely some middle man (like Gamestop), in both the case of Hong Kong Piracy and resale money is changing hands without the original authors getting anything. Now the ethical argument for buying is that your compensating the author(s) for their time and effort put into the product, and you're paying for it's use.

Now of course legally speaking, second hand sales are legal. But while this makes sense for things that are utilities, say your office software or your watch, for media entertainment it makes less, as their value to you decreases drastically after you have used them. They're more like a consumable item like food. Though in some games cases, where the game has a long life (something like, say, starcaft 2) this isn't a correct characterisation, but for most games, movies and entertainment, you use/complete it once, and then likely never use it again.

So what are your thoughts? Should Second hand games be considered as "wrong" as outright piracy? Or are the producers just stingy, money grubbing villains? I myself can see good arguments from both sides.
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Old 2011-06-16, 10:05   Link #2
Xellos-_^
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Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
Or are the producers just stingy, money grubbing villains?
you said it.
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Old 2011-06-16, 11:02   Link #3
Raghar
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Computer games are computer art, a mere binary data (stuff that has been made to be used on a computer, and can be used only on a computer). Selling something like that would be similar to second hand bread selling. Or by saying I acquired my driver licence cheaply because I obtained it second hand.

Producers might be robbers, and a lot of game developers are just normal people who, when presented with a hypothetical opportunity to earn more money, would scream money, but this second hand selling of a virtual item is the same as selling a snake oil. At least with a snake oil the person gets the oil of that poor snake and PETA wrath, with second hand sale the person would only encourages illegal selling.

Computer piracy at least would create some non obtrusive advertisement, and the game developer knows nobody was forced to pay money for his work. Second hand sales mimic behavior of shops that are selling real existing stuff, which takes volume, and which can be used without a computer.
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Old 2011-06-16, 11:16   Link #4
TigerII
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If second hand sells for digital media is illegal, than so should flea markets, garage sales, etc.

I don't have the right to sell something I purchased, and someone else doesn't have the right to purchase something from me? It really is ridiculous how corporations have become. Look at Activision. Charging for a stat service, 20 bucks for maps.

I buy maybe two games a year and rent the rest I play. I just can't afford any other method. At the rate it is going, I won't be playing games much longer.
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Old 2011-06-16, 11:21   Link #5
Kafriel
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Second hand sales: I sell my stuff because I no longer want or need it, usually at ridiculously cheap prices. Who wins from this: I do, because I get something for it, and the buyer does, because they also got something that would have otherwise ended up in the cupboard of oblivion, i.e. trash. Why should you encourage people to destroy things instead of passing them on to the people around them? It reminds me of large supermarket chains that throw away huge quantities of food instead of giving it to homeless people or selling it to the community at a much lower price.
In case you care about the original producers, think about how much money they make out of their business and how much they "lose" by not getting a part of what you collect when you sell second-hand stuff with an arbitrary example of mine. Toy Story 3 has grossed over a billion dollars so far, let's assume that 100,000 people sell the future DVD for 10$ each. That's 0.1%, not counting the DVD sales, yeah?
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Old 2011-06-16, 11:21   Link #6
Kamui4356
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
But I don't think anyone would disagree about Piracy at it's core being an illegal act that denies the Industry sales
I'd disagree with the bolded part, and I can cite a source that mildly supports my position on it.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...nime-dvd-sales

For more anecdotal evidence, there are quite a few dvds sitting on my shelf that would not have been there if not for fansubs. I know I'm not alone in that.

The media companies are greedy, but I think a big part of it is they haven't figured out that a download is not a lost sale. The person likely wouldn't have bought it without downloading, and it is still possible they would buy it after. Same thing with second hand sales. People buying used games or movies are doing so because it's an older out of print title, or they want to save a few bucks rather than pay full price. Personally, I dislike buying used games, I'd rather pay the few dollars extra for a new copy, but that isn't always an option. The people who sell their used games are frequently consumers of the latest titles, selling their old games to subsidize their purchase of new titles, so making that illegal could actually hurt sales of new games.
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Old 2011-06-16, 13:11   Link #7
DonQuigleone
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Raghar View Post
Computer games are computer art, a mere binary data (stuff that has been made to be used on a computer, and can be used only on a computer). Selling something like that would be similar to second hand bread selling. Or by saying I acquired my driver licence cheaply because I obtained it second hand.

Producers might be robbers, and a lot of game developers are just normal people who, when presented with a hypothetical opportunity to earn more money, would scream money, but this second hand selling of a virtual item is the same as selling a snake oil. At least with a snake oil the person gets the oil of that poor snake and PETA wrath, with second hand sale the person would only encourages illegal selling.

Computer piracy at least would create some non obtrusive advertisement, and the game developer knows nobody was forced to pay money for his work. Second hand sales mimic behavior of shops that are selling real existing stuff, which takes volume, and which can be used without a computer.
This is somewhat the crux of the point. A game or movie is not an appliance, like say your toaster. It's something more like a ride at carnival. You never have ownership of the ride, just like you don't actually own the game or movie. Instead you hold a license to experience it. You can't ride a ride and then sell your ticket to someone else. That is in effect what happens with second hand sales.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TigerII View Post
If second hand sells for digital media is illegal, than so should flea markets, garage sales, etc.

I don't have the right to sell something I purchased, and someone else doesn't have the right to purchase something from me? It really is ridiculous how corporations have become. Look at Activision. Charging for a stat service, 20 bucks for maps.

I buy maybe two games a year and rent the rest I play. I just can't afford any other method. At the rate it is going, I won't be playing games much longer.
I'm not saying second hand sales are illegal. They are very legal, but asking the question "are they ethical?" You're not actually buying ownership of the game. You're buying a license to use it. It's more like a car rental. None of the value of a game is in it's physical structure, all the value is in it's design. The actual game itself probably cost less then a 3$ to package and ship.

Furthermore, as entertainment goes, games are probably one of the most economical out there. At release a game is 50-60$, but you can usually expect 20-60 hours gameplay from that. Compare that to a DVD which will be 20-30$ but only 3 hours entertainment at most. And that's not taking into account that after a year or two on release you can usually get buy new for 20-30. There's no reason financially not to buy the games you like new. Anime and movies, there's some reason there as the price is absurdly high for what you get.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kafriel View Post
Second hand sales: I sell my stuff because I no longer want or need it, usually at ridiculously cheap prices. Who wins from this: I do, because I get something for it, and the buyer does, because they also got something that would have otherwise ended up in the cupboard of oblivion, i.e. trash. Why should you encourage people to destroy things instead of passing them on to the people around them? It reminds me of large supermarket chains that throw away huge quantities of food instead of giving it to homeless people or selling it to the community at a much lower price.
In case you care about the original producers, think about how much money they make out of their business and how much they "lose" by not getting a part of what you collect when you sell second-hand stuff with an arbitrary example of mine. Toy Story 3 has grossed over a billion dollars so far, let's assume that 100,000 people sell the future DVD for 10$ each. That's 0.1%, not counting the DVD sales, yeah?
I don't have the figures, but the percentage of games sold that are second hand is much much higher then 0.1%. The only figure I could get from casual browsing is that 60% of $ spent on games is in new games bought from a store. That means 40% of game dollars goes towards things like online purchase, DLC, subscriptions and used game sales. I'd say for games used sales are probably in 10% range, but I'd appreciate anyone that could find published numbers. It's certainly big enough that companies are trying to do something about it. Notice how certain game now charge extra to gain standard stuff unless the copy is "new", an example being Mass Effect.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamui4356 View Post
I'd disagree with the bolded part, and I can cite a source that mildly supports my position on it.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...nime-dvd-sales

For more anecdotal evidence, there are quite a few dvds sitting on my shelf that would not have been there if not for fansubs. I know I'm not alone in that.

The media companies are greedy, but I think a big part of it is they haven't figured out that a download is not a lost sale. The person likely wouldn't have bought it without downloading, and it is still possible they would buy it after. Same thing with second hand sales. People buying used games or movies are doing so because it's an older out of print title, or they want to save a few bucks rather than pay full price. Personally, I dislike buying used games, I'd rather pay the few dollars extra for a new copy, but that isn't always an option. The people who sell their used games are frequently consumers of the latest titles, selling their old games to subsidize their purchase of new titles, so making that illegal could actually hurt sales of new games.
Tell that to the music industry where Sales have been declining year on year for the past decade. Piracy does lead to lost sales. The faulty logic that media representatives use is that every illegal download is a lost sale. That's just wrong. Likewise DVD sales have also been decreasing for the last 4ish years. Now games are a growing industry, so it's not necessarily so visible if sales are being lost. That said, while the industry loses on a whole to Piracy, individual companies may not. So if your product is particularly niche, say Anime, then you might gain more from the increased exposure (as you say) then from the sales lost. But mainstream products will definetely lose sales, though it's difficult to say how much.

What you say about selling games to subsidize new purchases is relevant, and a few interviews I read said that factor made them hesitant to go after the practice entirely. That said, if this is Ebay, where most of the price is going to the original customer this is fine, but what about where a middle man like Gamestop is involved? In that case the game is often quite marked up, and consumer and industry combined are losing that markup to Gamestop, an entity that does not in fund the creation of new games.

However this argument may be moot in the future with the growth of online distribution. Resale of a digital product (say on steam) is impossible, as all games are registered to a specific account and aren't transferable (far as I'm aware...)
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Old 2011-06-16, 13:50   Link #8
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Most of my games I can't sell, as they're manufacturer's copies (Uncle is a VP in Sony, so most of 'em I actually don't even pay for). I will pirate a game if I can no longer find it on a shelf, or I've simply lost the CD for it. Remember, after the initial sale period, the manufacturer will make no money on a product, and it all goes to the middleman (ie. GameStop), so pirating then isn't really denying the industry that made the game any money.
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Old 2011-06-16, 14:17   Link #9
Xellos-_^
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
However this argument may be moot in the future with the growth of online distribution. Resale of a digital product (say on steam) is impossible, as all games are registered to a specific account and aren't transferable (far as I'm aware...)
which is why i haven't purchase either Civ5 or SC2. I buy games, i don't lease them. if the game industry wants me to lease games, then they won't be getting my money.
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Old 2011-06-16, 14:47   Link #10
Tiberium Wolf
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Selling 2nd hand game is the same as everything else you sell in 2nd hand.

Look! You have at home tons of old games. You don't even touch them and they are taking space. Now you have 3 options:
1- get more space
2- garbage
3- sell it.
It's pretty obvious you would go to with 3rd option. Same thing for every other thing. If you ppl wanna compare with cars then ppl that are buying 2nd hand cars are hurting the automobile industry and the planet by using inefficient old machines.

Everyone of them complains this and that are hurting them. Man! They are businessman they should have predicted those outcome. Everyone one think the damn market needs to grow and grow. They have no notion of limits. I don't seem them complaining about piracy in 3rd world countries do we? Why? Because there's no profit selling it there. Not everyone has the same wages and buying power even in 1st world countries.

My take of businessman goes with George Carlin
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Old 2011-06-16, 14:55   Link #11
TigerII
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post

I'm not saying second hand sales are illegal. They are very legal, but asking the question "are they ethical?" You're not actually buying ownership of the game. You're buying a license to use it. It's more like a car rental. None of the value of a game is in it's physical structure, all the value is in it's design. The actual game itself probably cost less then a 3$ to package and ship.

Furthermore, as entertainment goes, games are probably one of the most economical out there. At release a game is 50-60$, but you can usually expect 20-60 hours gameplay from that. Compare that to a DVD which will be 20-30$ but only 3 hours entertainment at most. And that's not taking into account that after a year or two on release you can usually get buy new for 20-30. There's no reason financially not to buy the games you like new. Anime and movies, there's some reason there as the price is absurdly high for what you get.
Which is why I rent 90% of what I play. After I beat a game, I almost never play it again, so it makes no sense for me to pay for a new game I will play once. Unfortunately for me publishers hate renters and it will surely be gone soon. Everything will be DDL games. When that occurs I probably will be out of game, just can't afford it.

As for movies, it is outrageous the cost for them. Again, I watch movies once, maybe twice. Again I rent. 2.59 for one night, walk two blocks and return it.
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Old 2011-06-16, 15:02   Link #12
NightbatŪ
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Raghar View Post
Computer games are computer art, a mere binary data (stuff that has been made to be used on a computer, and can be used only on a computer). Selling something like that would be similar to second hand bread selling. Or by saying I acquired my driver licence cheaply because I obtained it second hand.

Producers might be robbers, and a lot of game developers are just normal people who, when presented with a hypothetical opportunity to earn more money, would scream money, but this second hand selling of a virtual item is the same as selling a snake oil. At least with a snake oil the person gets the oil of that poor snake and PETA wrath, with second hand sale the person would only encourages illegal selling.

Computer piracy at least would create some non obtrusive advertisement, and the game developer knows nobody was forced to pay money for his work. Second hand sales mimic behavior of shops that are selling real existing stuff, which takes volume, and which can be used without a computer.
On what planet are you living on?
A DVD/CD/etc, with whatever is on it (even nothing) is a product
In life, I'm allowed to sell everything I have, but you claim this doesn't apply to 'media'?

What's next? Carmanufacturers claiming their old cars are still theirs (hey they designed it, they 'drew' the blueprints)
The guy who originally made the house you are living in gets x% of your morgage for the next 70 years after his death?

Cut the BS, if selling a game or DVD 2ndhand is snakeoil, then it was already snakeoil leaving its manufacturer



To kill another analogy: I don't own the themepark, yet I am allowed to sell the ticket I just bought to someone else, same as the movietheatre, same as a ticket to the races or a concert
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Old 2011-06-16, 15:15   Link #13
Gamer_2k4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
This is somewhat the crux of the point. A game or movie is not an appliance, like say your toaster. It's something more like a ride at carnival. You never have ownership of the ride, just like you don't actually own the game or movie. Instead you hold a license to experience it. You can't ride a ride and then sell your ticket to someone else. That is in effect what happens with second hand sales.
While I understand the rationale behind calling a game purchase a license instead of ownership, I still don't think that should have any impact on whether or not it can be legally resold. You can't compare it to an amusement park ride, because that's essentially a service. It's like paying a guy to wash your car and then expecting him to do it twice. It's not a good; it's not a physical thing. A game disc IS a physical thing, no different from a book. And we can resell books, can't we?

The thing about a CD, a video game, or anything else like that, is that it doesn't get depleted as you use it. In that regard, it's no different from a book, a car, a toaster, a pair of sunglasses, or any other physical good. Yes, if I buy sunglasses from you instead of from a store, the company loses a sale. BUT THAT'S HOW IT'S WORKED SINCE BUSINESS BEGAN. Games shouldn't be exempt, and justifying it by calling a game a "license" is simply burying the issue in semantics.

Sure, you can argue that the "experience" has nothing to do with the physical form of the game disc. But, strictly speaking, that's not true. The shape of a disc (that is, the grooves burned into it) is what determines the experience you get. It matters little that you require certain hardware to draw out that experience. A fan as a physical shape doesn't do anything by itself; you have to supply electricity to make it turn. Sunglasses are useless except when you're outside. A car engine isn't any good unless you have a car to put it in. And yet, all of those things are considered goods you buy, not services you license.


Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
Tell that to the music industry where Sales have been declining year on year for the past decade. Piracy does lead to lost sales. The faulty logic that media representatives use is that every illegal download is a lost sale. That's just wrong. Likewise DVD sales have also been decreasing for the last 4ish years.
As far as DVD sales go, the obvious reason for their decline is the introduction of streaming video services like Netflix. I don't know if your music figures only deal with CDs or if they take into account things like iTunes, but if it's the former, then the flaw is pretty clear in that argument, too.

Regardless of whether or not the downloads are legal or illegal, it makes sense why people are going that route. If you buy a DVD, you'll watch it, what, once a month? At MOST? The price of a DVD is simply the convenience charge of not having to go to the library to check out the movie (for free). How often people will pay that convenience charge is almost entirely dependent on how much it is. If a DVD cost 50 bucks, only the most fanatical movie-goers would have a collection. If it cost a dollar, everyone would have hundreds.

The reason piracy is so rampant is because it costs nothing to try out a movie, game, CD, or anything else. Right now, I have a copy of Duke Nukem forever on my computer. Will I ever play it? Probably not (especially after reading all the reviews), but it's there if I want to. To put it bluntly, though, the game is simply not good enough to justify dropping sixty bucks on it. Companies are complaining that pirates don't want to buy their games? Then perhaps they need to MAKE BETTER GAMES.
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Old 2011-06-16, 16:23   Link #14
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I don't give a god damn what the media companies say. I will sell my old stuff if I'm not using it anymore.

This is just as much horseshit as Apple trying to claim jailbreaking an iPhone is against the DMCA.

This is stupid. If you buy something, it belongs to YOU. What you do with it after buying it is up to you, NOT to the company that made it. Any laws that make this false are by definition fucking retarded and should be deleted.

Seriously, corporations? If you keep treating people like shit, eventually they're going to get pissed and stop giving you money. This whole piracy thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The gatekeepers spend millions upon millions to fight piracy with restrictive DRM and draconian IP laws, and all it does is make more and more people want to just say FUCK THIS STUPID SHIT and start torrenting.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gamer_2k4 View Post
Companies are complaining that pirates don't want to buy their games? Then perhaps they need to MAKE BETTER GAMES.
Piracy is just their excuse, a convenient scapegoat. They know piracy will always exist and will never stop. They know it's inevitable, but it's an easy out when confronted with the cold reality that Sturgeon's law is in full effect here. It's easier to point a finger at pirates to distract people away from the fact that their product is selling like shit.
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Old 2011-06-16, 16:37   Link #15
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Originally Posted by synaesthetic View Post
I don't give a god damn what the media companies say. I will sell my old stuff if I'm not using it anymore.

This is just as much horseshit as Apple trying to claim jailbreaking an iPhone is against the DMCA.

This is stupid. If you buy something, it belongs to YOU. What you do with it after buying it is up to you, NOT to the company that made it. Any laws that make this false are by definition fucking retarded and should be deleted.

Seriously, corporations? If you keep treating people like shit, eventually they're going to get pissed and stop giving you money. This whole piracy thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The gatekeepers spend millions upon millions to fight piracy with restrictive DRM and draconian IP laws, and all it does is make more and more people want to just say FUCK THIS STUPID SHIT and start torrenting.

Piracy is just their excuse, a convenient scapegoat. They know piracy will always exist and will never stop. They know it's inevitable, but it's an easy out when confronted with the cold reality that Sturgeon's law is in full effect here. It's easier to point a finger at pirates to distract people away from the fact that their product is selling like shit.
Wait, the SOGA doesn't work on your side? Or it doesn't exist at all?
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Old 2011-06-16, 16:39   Link #16
Gamer_2k4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by synaesthetic View Post
This is stupid. If you buy something, it belongs to YOU. What you do with it after buying it is up to you, NOT to the company that made it. Any laws that make this false are by definition fucking retarded and should be deleted.
To be fair, that's why the discussion of "buying" vs "licensing" games is coming up. Of course if we're BUYING the game, we should be allowed to resell it. If, as DonQuigleone is suggesting, we're merely licensing the the game, then yeah, they totally have a right to say we're not allowed to resell it.

I still agree with everything you wrote, though.
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Old 2011-06-16, 16:46   Link #17
SaintessHeart
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gamer_2k4 View Post
To be fair, that's why the discussion of "buying" vs "licensing" games is coming up. Of course if we're BUYING the game, we should be allowed to resell it. If, as DonQuigleone is suggesting, we're merely licensing the the game, then yeah, they totally have a right to say we're not allowed to resell it.

I still agree with everything you wrote, though.
If we are to license games to play instead of buying them, under most laws (or at least those running under British Common Law), we would have :

1. No rights to blog about it.
2. No rights to create fan-maps for it.
3. Pay regular fees as long as we want to play them
4. Have to return the game and the packaging in its pristine condition once we don't want it anymore

Yeah, that is about it I think. And obviously 1 & 2 will kill the communities and the market - it is shooting themselves in their own foot if they are trying to tell us "get used to it"; no doubt more people would take up fishing and spend less time playing games.
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Old 2011-06-16, 17:12   Link #18
DonQuigleone
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xellos-_^ View Post
which is why i haven't purchase either Civ5 or SC2. I buy games, i don't lease them. if the game industry wants me to lease games, then they won't be getting my money.
You can't own a game. It's like owning music. You don't "own" the music. Ownership implies you can do modify it and sell it to whoever you want. Resale is meaningful in the case of physical objects as in their case the object has physical value. The intellectual value of the care design is far less valuable then the car itself. And really, software has always been a "license" or "lease" system. Noone has ever owned their software as then you'd have permission to replicate it on masse. Ownership implies you can do what you want with it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiberium Wolf View Post
Selling 2nd hand game is the same as everything else you sell in 2nd hand.

Look! You have at home tons of old games. You don't even touch them and they are taking space. Now you have 3 options:
1- get more space
2- garbage
3- sell it.
It's pretty obvious you would go to with 3rd option. Same thing for every other thing. If you ppl wanna compare with cars then ppl that are buying 2nd hand cars are hurting the automobile industry and the planet by using inefficient old machines.
There's a very big difference between a car and software:

Cars degrade, an old car is noticeably worse then a new one (and that's even if they're the same model). Games are always the same quanlity regardless of when they're sold, or how many people have owned it.

Cars a utility, games are entertainment. Owning a car gives you value, owning a game after you have finished it rarely gives you any value.

Most of the cost of a car is in it's building, negligible costs of a game is in it's manufacture.


Quote:
Originally Posted by TigerII View Post
Which is why I rent 90% of what I play. After I beat a game, I almost never play it again, so it makes no sense for me to pay for a new game I will play once. Unfortunately for me publishers hate renters and it will surely be gone soon. Everything will be DDL games. When that occurs I probably will be out of game, just can't afford it.

As for movies, it is outrageous the cost for them. Again, I watch movies once, maybe twice. Again I rent. 2.59 for one night, walk two blocks and return it.
Nothing really wrong with renting. Renting your money does go to the original manufacturer, in the form of the license fee. However rent places are disappearing as no one wants to do it. Why rent when you can download it in 5 minutes?

Quote:
Originally Posted by NightbatŪ View Post
On what planet are you living on?
A DVD/CD/etc, with whatever is on it (even nothing) is a product
In life, I'm allowed to sell everything I have, but you claim this doesn't apply to 'media'?

What's next? Carmanufacturers claiming their old cars are still theirs (hey they designed it, they 'drew' the blueprints)
The guy who originally made the house you are living in gets x% of your morgage for the next 70 years after his death?
The difference is that a standard product has physical value, and you derive value from continuing to own it. Media has no physical value (any more), and once you've used it, it ceases to have any continued value to you, it's like a book, but books usually degraded very quickly, so the issue never came up.

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To kill another analogy: I don't own the themepark, yet I am allowed to sell the ticket I just bought to someone else, same as the movietheatre, same as a ticket to the races or a concert
You are able to sell the ticket before you use it, but not afterwards. Of course, technically a game is an unlimited use ticket, but actually if you look at theme parks that offer unlimited use( or a season) tickets, those tickets are always non-transferrable, and registered to a single person. There is, of course, good reason for this. And actually, now that I've looked it up, many normal theme park tickets are in fact non-transferable.

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Originally Posted by Gamer_2k4 View Post
While I understand the rationale behind calling a game purchase a license instead of ownership, I still don't think that should have any impact on whether or not it can be legally resold. You can't compare it to an amusement park ride, because that's essentially a service. It's like paying a guy to wash your car and then expecting him to do it twice. It's not a good; it's not a physical thing. A game disc IS a physical thing, no different from a book. And we can resell books, can't we?
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A game disc hold much less value then the paper in a book. And the paper in a book degrades far faster then a game disc. A cheap paperback will often get ruined pretty quick. The equivalent in game terms will last nigh on forever. However it's a legitimate thing to consider with books too.
The thing about a CD, a video game, or anything else like that, is that it doesn't get depleted as you use it. In that regard, it's no different from a book, a car, a toaster, a pair of sunglasses, or any other physical good. Yes, if I buy sunglasses from you instead of from a store, the company loses a sale. BUT THAT'S HOW IT'S WORKED SINCE BUSINESS BEGAN. Games shouldn't be exempt, and justifying it by calling a game a "license" is simply burying the issue in semantics.
Cars and and other standard goods do get depleted as you use them. A car after 10 years of driving requires far more regular maintenance etc.

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Sure, you can argue that the "experience" has nothing to do with the physical form of the game disc. But, strictly speaking, that's not true. The shape of a disc (that is, the grooves burned into it) is what determines the experience you get. It matters little that you require certain hardware to draw out that experience. A fan as a physical shape doesn't do anything by itself; you have to supply electricity to make it turn. Sunglasses are useless except when you're outside. A car engine isn't any good unless you have a car to put it in. And yet, all of those things are considered goods you buy, not services you license.
You're talking about utilities. In software terms, a car is a lot more like MS office. Resale of MS office is a lot more justified as you lose something when you sell it on. Likewise you lose something when you sell your car. When you sell a game after playing it, you lose very little, just the ability to replay it later, which you will likely never use. Also, these days we're moving into an age where games will not be delivered on physical media. We can't argue it has any physical presence anymore. Also, you can't copy a car or sunglasses. You can (very easily) copy media.


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Originally Posted by synaesthetic View Post
I don't give a god damn what the media companies say. I will sell my old stuff if I'm not using it anymore.

This is just as much horseshit as Apple trying to claim jailbreaking an iPhone is against the DMCA.

This is stupid. If you buy something, it belongs to YOU. What you do with it after buying it is up to you, NOT to the company that made it. Any laws that make this false are by definition fucking retarded and should be deleted.

Seriously, corporations? If you keep treating people like shit, eventually they're going to get pissed and stop giving you money. This whole piracy thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The gatekeepers spend millions upon millions to fight piracy with restrictive DRM and draconian IP laws, and all it does is make more and more people want to just say FUCK THIS STUPID SHIT and start torrenting.
It's more justifiable to jailbreak the iphone as you actually physically own it. I also am in entirely in agreement that all the DRM and IP stuff is counter-productive. I'm more talking about the ethics of it in itself, I'll address it further later.

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Piracy is just their excuse, a convenient scapegoat. They know piracy will always exist and will never stop. They know it's inevitable, but it's an easy out when confronted with the cold reality that Sturgeon's law is in full effect here. It's easier to point a finger at pirates to distract people away from the fact that their product is selling like shit.
I don't think it's entirely unjustified. A lot of media businesses have gone out of business, look at music. Tower records is gone, and other stores that previously only stocked music are now stocking all types of media, games movies etc. They do have to move with the times though.


The crux of my ethical argument over why buying second hand isn't much better then piracy is this. We live in an age where we can pretty much access anything we want for free. We've all downloaded stuff illegally at one point or another, I myself have as well. I usually download stuff I'm on the fence over. I do, though, buy the game if I like it, or I like the developers previous work. Why? Simply because I like their work, and I'd like to see them make more, and I'd like to see them make money from it. So if I was going to pay for the game, I'm going to damn well make sure that money gets to them. Buying second hand none of that money goes to them. Instead I'm just paying some guy I don't know. From the point of view centred on me that's not so different from just paying some chinese guy. Either way, I may as well have pirated, because it's the same end result concerning the group I'm concerned with (the developers).

So if you do like what a game company makes, you should buy new. I don't see the point in buying second hand when you can just pirate for basically the same result.

But I don't think second hand buying is wrong per se, just pointless. Obviously the industry has problems with it though...
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Old 2011-06-16, 17:46   Link #19
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These folks hate the concept of "right of first sale" ... they'd like to be able to deny you the right to resell your books, your DVDs, your (....whatever). That's what makes e-books a little bit e-vil. The consumer can't clean out his/her library and make a few bucks at the garage sale or second hand market anymore.

The problem with Don's remarks on software LICENSING... is that LICENSING means the company should be willing to replace the physical media for cost of media at most or "Free". When was the last time a game company jumped up to offer that to anyone? They want to be able to "sell" it to you as a license but also not have to provide you eternal access to the game via replacement of physical media.

When I licensed server OS systems and apps from Sequent or IBM.... the physical media was replaced on demand.
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Old 2011-06-16, 17:58   Link #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
There's a very big difference between a car and software:

Cars degrade, an old car is noticeably worse then a new one (and that's even if they're the same model). Games are always the same quanlity regardless of when they're sold, or how many people have owned it.

Cars a utility, games are entertainment. Owning a car gives you value, owning a game after you have finished it rarely gives you any value.

Most of the cost of a car is in it's building, negligible costs of a game is in it's manufacture.
Yes there is a big difference.

Can you say the COD1 can be sold by the same price you bought a few years ago? Of course not.
Owning a car doesn't give you value. You lose value. You buy a car for $10k. Then go for a 20k mile ride. Can you actually sell back the car for $10k?

We can't compare with manufacture because they are completely different things. I just used cars to point out the idea of same issue of selling 2nd hand cars if you don't count the issue of part selling for repairs. Anyway let this car compare die out. It wasn't a good choice to start with.
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