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[EuchreJack]

I must say, having lost use of one of my games due to Steam not working currently, my position has very much changed from before.

I now want them to just give me my game without their inlayed &*@$.  If it doesn't start working soon, I'm going back to piracy.

[fenrif]

Off topic, but -fenrif- are you a lawyer, on a debate team, or something like that? You're one of the best debaters I've ever seen.

Haha nah, I'm just naturally argumentative I guess. Thanks though!

[G-Flex]

I covered all this in one of my previous posts. But none of the pre-owned games/books/movies/etc I've bought has ever been a "bit tattered." Anecdotal evidence is fun isn't it! It's really not hard to find pre-owned anything in like-new condition. There are whole shops dedicated to providing this service for you on any highstreet. US video game stores used to re-shrink wrap pre-owned games and resell them as brand new, because there's basically no way to tell. You might get a book with a dented or scuffed cover, but you get new books like that too. You might get a game with a scratch on the case, but you get new games like that too. Things that are new in shops have just as much chance of being damaged in transport, stocking, manufacture, etc. as you do of buying a preowned one in the same condition.

This is kind of suspect. The probability of a new game disc getting scratched up or otherwise damaged in shipment, and still making it to the shelf, despite being packaged beforehand, is incredibly low compared to the probability of someone scratching their disc through use prior to selling it to a game shop for resale. Granted, that's why any decent store will offer a refund on such a product, but it does happen, because people are rather good at getting discs scratched up over a period of months or years.

[The Mechanical Man]

This is kind of suspect. The probability of a new game disc getting scratched up or otherwise damaged in shipment, and still making it to the shelf, despite being packaged beforehand, is incredibly low compared to the probability of someone scratching their disc through use prior to selling it to a game shop for resale. Granted, that's why any decent store will offer a refund on such a product, but it does happen, because people are rather good at getting discs scratched up over a period of months or years.

Fenrif is talking about a scratch on the case of the game, not on the disc itself.

[G-Flex]

Oh. Carry on.

[pilgrimboy]

Thing is, would anyone actually buy any firsthand copies of games that are older than a month or two if they could pay a hell of a lot less for an identical 'preowned' copy?

Yes. That preowned copy was bought firsthand at some point.

Regardless of what that'll do to the guys who actually made the game and won't be gaining a penny from this.

Same with cars. Buy a second hand one and the creators dont get a cent.

2) Apples and iguanas dude.  A lot of people choose to purchase over pirating because it's legal and less likely to be filled with malware.  Secondhand keys don't have these issues at all.

I dont know anyone who refrains from piracy simply because its illegal, so is Jaywalking but people do it without so much as blinking. Most people are aware of that-site-that-must-not-be-named and there are few malware issues for popular releases. Which people use. The only real difference is 1 pirate copy for many people, as opposed to 1 firsthand copy for 1 person (getting a pirate copy is even *easier* then getting a second hand copy), which only seems to reinforce fenrif's point.

3) Yes, some people will always buy new.  Probably less people though, which means less money for developers and potentially less game getting made.

I dont see how less games getting made is bad per se. If there are less games getting made, its because of a smaller market demand for new games. In which case people are happy with whats available in the current market.

Okay, let me get this right.

You're arguing that its good for less games to get made?

You're arguing that a digital copy of a game being resold is like a car being resold?

And are you're arguing that people will buy as many firsthand games as they do now when the secondhand ones are cheaper?

[G-Flex]

I don't see why any of those are actually bad things.

[pilgrimboy]

I like games. The more the merrier. That way there might some games that I might like.

[pilgrimboy]

This bill, if passed in the States, would mean that we will be paying more for games while having less of a selection to choose from.

We'll pay more for all our games because the discounts will end. They will have to compensate for not getting any money on the reselling. And I wouldn't be surprised if the reselling doesn't ever reach the lows of the discounts that we see these days.

Right now, the publisher/designers get the money for the game. In the world this bill would cause, they would only get money from the initial sales. After that, resellers, who really did nothing for me to enjoy the game, will get all the money. Would I rather make the people who initially made the game possible get the money who can then turn around and make more games? Or would I rather that some savvy retailer gets the money? In the end, everyone loses except for the new middlemen. The consumers will have less games to choose from while the publishers will have to get all their profits from the first day of sales.

[G-Flex]

I like games. The more the merrier. That way there might some games that I might like.

... So anything that drives up the price to the consumer is good? You haven't considered the possibility that some of the people who buy used games can't afford them new, that people who resell their old games now have money to buy other games themselves, or that, just maybe, people have the legal right to resell them, which would trump this entire argument?

Seriously, if you don't see how being able to resell something you bought is good for the consumer, not bad, there's a problem here. Unless you think the people actually reselling their old games somehow fail to benefit from this. If I can sell my old games, that gives me money to exchange for new games. That sort of flexibility is good for you whether you're buying or selling them.

Also, potentially, the fact that people can resell their games would encourage publishers to make games that have more than limited novelty appeal, that people actually want to keep.

Seriously, you might as well say that selling books second-hand should be illegal, or has somehow ruined the publication industry there.

[Shadowlord]

This bill, if passed in the States, would mean that we will be paying more for games while having less of a selection to choose from.

We'll pay more for all our games because the discounts will end. They will have to compensate for not getting any money on the reselling. And I wouldn't be surprised if the reselling doesn't ever reach the lows of the discounts that we see these days.

Right now, the publisher/designers get the money for the game. In the world this bill would cause, they would only get money from the initial sales. After that, resellers, who really did nothing for me to enjoy the game, will get all the money. Would I rather make the people who initially made the game possible get the money who can then turn around and make more games? Or would I rather that some savvy retailer gets the money? In the end, everyone loses except for the new middlemen. The consumers will have less games to choose from while the publishers will have to get all their profits from the first day of sales.

This is just speculation.

You could instead compare to the existing video game sales industry, and point out that (in the US) Best Buy and Gamestop never have sales on physical video games as good as Steam does - but considering the higher profit margins on digitally distributed games, this is not particularly surprising. Additionally, I don't even see sales as good as Steam's on what used to be Impulse, which is now GameStop's digital distribution platform. Impulse used to have some good sales, before it was sold to Gamestop, but it didn't have a lot of games from big developers other than Stardock and Paradox at the time. Valve sees its sales as a great way to make even more profit and build up interest in games and boost their sales even after the actual sales events end. GameStop and Best Buy seem to prefer giving trade in bonuses towards pre-orders (e.g. get bonus credit if you trade in games towards the pre-order of AAA games), or running trade in bonus credit events where you get additional credit (+50% or +100%, etc) for trading in games. This makes sense for them, because any game you trade in and they resell is pure profit minus whatever they pay you, and even if they pay you extra for it they're still usually making a profit, and getting you to pre-order something is good for both them and the publishers of the games you pre-ordered.

[G-Flex]

At any rate, it's extremely suspect to assume that anything that allows the publisher to take more money from the consumer is good for the consumer in the end, especially if they do it by restricting the rights of the consumer.

[fenrif]

This bill, if passed in the States, would mean that we will be paying more for games while having less of a selection to choose from.

We'll pay more for all our games because the discounts will end. They will have to compensate for not getting any money on the reselling. And I wouldn't be surprised if the reselling doesn't ever reach the lows of the discounts that we see these days.

Right now, the publisher/designers get the money for the game. In the world this bill would cause, they would only get money from the initial sales. After that, resellers, who really did nothing for me to enjoy the game, will get all the money. Would I rather make the people who initially made the game possible get the money who can then turn around and make more games? Or would I rather that some savvy retailer gets the money? In the end, everyone loses except for the new middlemen. The consumers will have less games to choose from while the publishers will have to get all their profits from the first day of sales.

Do you not have used (anything) sales in the US? We can sell almost anything used over here in the UK. All the buisnesses and industries are still going. We've been doing it for literally thousands of years. People still make stuff. Wierd, huh?

As I've said before, the idea that video game publishers will severely lessen the production of games because they're (and this is purely speculation that flies in the face of all real world evidence) loosing money because of used sales is ridiculous. Even assuming that they would lose money from having to respect the right of first sale, game publishers are in the game publishing buisness. Do you think they're all going to just pack up shop and take their ball home if their profit margins drop?

It's just so completely ludicrous to me that people keep trying to paint game publishers as the victims of foul play in this. "Oh those poor multi-billion dollar multinational conglomerates! People are making them obey basic comsumer rights laws like every other industry! "

...They would only get money from the initial sales.

This is literally all their entitled to. You're suggesting that they somehow own the thing after they sell it to you. This is an entirely different buisness model all together. I can understand why you've confused the two though. Publishers really want to have you pay for one and give you the other. Buy our product... Now you've paid for it it's just a rental!

Heres a secret that the big game publishers don't really want to aknowlege: People will always make video games. Seriously, for the rest of your lifetime people will always make video games. And I can gaurantee you that in 5 years time there will be more made per year than today. I've read in more than one place over the years that video games are the biggest entertainment industry. I even read they're bigger than movies and music combined (though that might be just in a specific market). Lets say we ignore all the 1-10 man studios, the resellers like gog.com (Evil resellers, they're killing the industry!!!) and the student/art project games... The major publishers will still fund more new games. There's just too much money there, even with evil pirates and horrible pre-owned purchase almost pirates, and IP-devaluing sales, and everything else. Games are easier to make, have a bigger audience, and are easier to play than ever before. This is a thing that will continue. Look to the movie industry and you'll see huge numbers of parallels between the two mediums.

The fallacy of what you're suggesting is akin to saying there will be less new books to choose from in the future because how can they possibly compete with all the previous works mankind has produced over the years? It's that level of just off the wall nonsense. I'm not trying to be harsh, but seriously just step back and look at what you're arguing against and who you're arguing for. (it's your own rights and buisnessmen who ride studios and franchises into the ground for an extra 1%, respectively)

[10ebbor10]

There's a difference between used physical sales and used digital sales. Physical sales have the restriction that they might be damaged (Though they often aren't, they still have this perception with a lot of people), whereas digital copies are always in perfect state.  Then there's also the fact that physical resale is harder to do than digital. (Depending on how excrutiatingly complex they make it, anyway). It is after all, near impossible for me to sell one of my games to another bay12'er living on the other side of the world, for example. This will mostly collide with the different pricings in different countries. One might buy were it is cheap and then sell it. Third there's the fact were it might negatively impact the sales.

Given these problems, we can devise a number of solutions

A) Evade the ruling, somehow
B) Divide steam on a per pricing group basing, each with it's own shop and such
C) Automated checking to see if no'one abuses the system for profit. This happens with the gifts system already
D) Pass a rule that you can only sell a game for the price you bought it or lower. This will prevent mass exploits to make money of the system, and possibly discourage lending games to friends for no money, as they would be worthless afterwards.
E) Take a share of the resale price
F) Go for Singleplayer +/ multiplayer only in game. You can pass a singleplayer game between friends and all get the same experience, but the same doesn't count for a multiplayer game.

Also, it might cause steam to go for an Always online DRM. After all, otherwise you could buy games on one computer(A), install them on another(B), and sell them on computer A. Meanwhile, as long as you don't let steam connect to the internet on computer B, you can play your games indefinitely.

[Shadowlord]

Physical sales have the restriction that they might be damaged

...
When you buy a game used from either Best Buy or GameStop in the USA, you have a week in which you can return it, for example, if it doesn't work or is a terrible game.
(When you buy a game new, you have a month if you don't open it, or more if it was bought during the holiday season (at least with GameStop - I didn't look up Best Buy's policy to double check but I think it is similar). On Steam, you can never return a game even if you never install it.)

Then there's also the fact that physical resale is harder to do than digital. (Depending on how excrutiatingly complex they make it, anyway). It is after all, near impossible for me to sell one of my games to another bay12'er living on the other side of the world, for example.

...
What. Go in store. Sell game to store. THAT WAS EASY. Alternately, go on amazon.com, sell game to them, and they will pay for your shipping. You can always give/trade/sell games with your friends in real life, and if you really want to sell a game to someone in another country, it's really your own fault for making it difficult. I'm not sure why you would pick that one rare case and use it to compare to digital resale (which does not exist with Steam or Origin (as far as I know), and even the services that do have it only allow you to sell games back to the service like real-world retailers do, not to sell it directly to other people, AFAIK).