Piracy vs Used Game Vendors

What hurts Developers more?

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    206
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Diplomacy

Weaksauce
Joined
Nov 21, 2007
Messages
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In your opinion what hurts Developers more?

Developers lose money from both, but I'm willing to bet used game sells are more prevalent than piracy.

I picked Used Game Vendors. People buying the used games are paying customers, unlike pirates. Developers do not get any money from used game sales.
 
Used games do.
Pirates normally pirate stuff that they wouldn't normally buy.
Pirating can also gain sales, if there wasn't a playable demo available.
I pirated BF2142, played it a couple of times then went out and bought it, then bought the booster packs as well.
 
Sigh, I'm not one to argue or nitpick, because I suck at it... BUT...

Developers DO NOT LOSE MONEY OFF USED SALES (or piracy for that matter). At best they may lose *some* potention sales, but even then the number of lost *potential* sales lost is nothing major. (key word is potential, the company does not lose money when someone sells a used game, as they already made money selling the game the first time)

A better comparison would be used car sales to new car sales, at worst they may lose a few sales of new cars, due to a couple people looking to buy a new car, get a "like new" car instead, its not like they stole the car from the assembly lot.

In DIRECT response to your question thou, I belive developers lose more POTENTIAL sales to used buyers than pirates, as many people who pirate WOULD OF NEVER PAID for the game in the first place for whatever reason. On the other hand people who buy used games are people who are willing to pay for the game, but may be swayed due to many reasons such as affordablity of a used game over buying it new, or for the simple reason of they do not believe a game is worth full price. (I fall in that catagory, I buy many {read- most} games new, but a few of my games are either used or new from the bargin bin due to the fact I do not believe the game is worth its orginal selling price.)
 
I'd say Pirates. For most games, there are demos that one can try. People generally pirate a game because they want it- there are very few who pirate a game and then actually buy it. If they could not pirate it, and wanted it really bad, they would buy it.
 
The same arguments can be made for both. Both can be argued that people are buying games they would have anyway. I am not going to spend $60 on a game I may or may not like, however when I can get a used copy for dirt cheap I will pick it up. I bought about 1/3 of my Xbox games for $5 each at Gamestop right after the 360 came out. If I could even find a new copy of them, they were still selling for $19.95. More than I was willing to spend.

I ended up picking Pirated games as worse, for 1 reason alone. When I go out to Gamestop to pick up a used game, I browse around. More often than not I end up purchasing a new game along side the used one. So even though the developer didn't see any money from that used game, it did generate a new game sale. If I am pirating a game, I am not going to end up buying some other new game.

Used games gets people to the stores and can generate the sale of new games through impulse buys. Not to mention the people who give in to the pre-order hype when they are there.


In the long run used games won't matter. The next gen consoles will probably won't even use media anymore and will be download driven. Without the media, there won't be used games and as long as you have to hard mod consoles, piracy will continue to be much lower on them.
 
There are a lot of stores that deal with used movies and music, and this kind of argument has been brought up before for their respective media.

The only difference this time is that profit margins on video games are razor thin in the new-retail section, to both developers and retailers. Used games are the sole reason why Gamestop still exists where many of their competitors failed and eventually got bought out. Did you know that generally retailers make no money selling a 360, PS3, or Wii? All of it goes back to the manufacturers, MS, Sony, Nintendo, etc. The only way they make money through console sales themselves are through attachments, hence why places like Best Buy ALWAYS try to push the giant $600+ package "deals." It's a lot easier to sell a WiiPlay when you've just sold a Wii.

It might be nice for some kind of royalty to go back to the developer for used game sales, but once that happens, the music and movie industry would jump on that too; overall it would hurt all the local stores far, far more than the big retail chains like Gamestop, Sam Goodie, etc.
 
Neurofreeze said:
The only way they make money through console sales themselves are through attachments, hence why places like Best Buy ALWAYS try to push the giant $600+ package "deals." It's a lot easier to sell a WiiPlay when you've just sold a Wii.
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This has become more apparent with the MGS Bundle. A few preorders are only available with the purchase of other accessories. With Circuit City, you can only pre-order if you buy the BluRay Remote too. GameStop, you can only pre-order it with the MGS headset, which has been found to be crap. There were a few others I don't remember.
 
In the long run used games won't matter. The next gen consoles will probably won't even use media anymore and will be download driven. Without the media, there won't be used games and as long as you have to hard mod consoles, piracy will continue to be much lower on them.
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IDK about you but Download driven is alot easier to pirate than Discs. I dont know how they are going to beat hackers. I would pick both.
 
Chilly said:
Sigh, I'm not one to argue or nitpick, because I suck at it... BUT...

Developers DO NOT LOSE MONEY OFF USED SALES (or piracy for that matter).
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explain how developers get paid for used game sales???????? developers get no money from used game sales.period.
 
Filter said:
explain how developers get paid for used game sales???????? developers get no money from used game sales.period.
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The only thing I can say at 3am is that they already received the money for the game once, hence the payment is there. A used game is a just a resell.
 
Dallows said:
The only thing I can say at 3am is that they already received the money for the game once, hence the payment is there. A used game is a just a resell.
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Gamer1 buys a new copy of GameX -- Developer gets money.
Gamer2 buys a used copy instead of a new copy of GameX, saves a few bucks -- Developer gets no money.

I hear this a lot on forums when it comes to piracy: "If you want to play the game, support the Developer". Now why is it that people refuse to acknowledge used game sales hurt developers? Why does all the blame for bad sales go to piracy alone, when people would rather save a few bucks and not support the Developer?

P.S. I'm not trying to defend piracy, just trying to bring the effect of used game sales to light.
 
Diplomacy said:
Gamer1 buys a new copy of GameX -- Developer gets money.
Gamer2 buys a used copy instead of a new copy of GameX, saves a few bucks -- Developer gets no money.

I hear this a lot on forums when it comes to piracy: "If you want to play the game, support the Developer". Now why is it that people refuse to acknowledge used game sales hurt developers? Why does all the blame for bad sales go to piracy alone, when people would rather save a few bucks and not support the Developer?

P.S. I'm not trying to defend piracy, just trying to bring the effect of used game sales to light.
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IF you read my whole post, I did agree it can still "hurt", because it takes away a potential sale. BUT AT NO POINT DID THEY LOSE MONEY. When you buy a used game, no magic fairy flies into the game developers bank account and TAKE MONEY AWAY FROM THEM.

That was my point. Again read my whole post and you will see that I agree and belive used sales take away more SALES than piracy.

Key word here is loss of sales, not loss of money. If you sell a bike, you make $, if you don't, you didn't make $, at no point did you LOSE money.

Taking that further, if someone buys your bike for $100, then sells it for $50, did you lose $50? No you didn't, BUT if you had another of the same bike and looking to sell it, you MAY OR MAY NOT of lost a potential SALE, but you did not lose money or have your bike stolen (which also results in a $ loss)
 
Used game sales do not really hurt, because the person would not buy the game itself unless it was at that price. simple as that. Plus yes, used game sales support a whole subculture.

I though of this example today, feel free to dissect it.
Say i live in Bangladesh, and I have a killer rig (and money). I see the reviews for COD4 and go out to buy it. But my store does not carry it, and they say that they never will.
To buy it, i have to go to a UK site and pay an extra $25-50 (50-100%) for shipping.
Am i justified in pirating? (obvious answer is still no, but you get the drift)

replace bangladesh with any location where the shipping will coast up to 100% extra or more, and local retailer does not have it. I truly dont know how many such locations exist, but i was thinking about it today, for some reason it seems very plausible that a high shipping charge makes people shy away from buying. I mean here, we can get the Dirt Cheap Shipping from GoGamer... 5 bucks for 3 games. would you buy a 30, 40 50 dollar game if you had to pay 100% or more for shipping?
 
Other. Because piracy is talked about but not the biggest difference and used game vendors are basically irrelevant.

Game developers suffer because they make crappy games. If a game is good, it will sell.
 
Diplomacy said:
Gamer1 buys a new copy of GameX -- Developer gets money.
Gamer2 buys a used copy instead of a new copy of GameX, saves a few bucks -- Developer gets no money.

I hear this a lot on forums when it comes to piracy: "If you want to play the game, support the Developer". Now why is it that people refuse to acknowledge used game sales hurt developers? Why does all the blame for bad sales go to piracy alone, when people would rather save a few bucks and not support the Developer?

P.S. I'm not trying to defend piracy, just trying to bring the effect of used game sales to light.
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Gonna have to disagree there. Again, the developer already got the money for the game. Piracy has the only real "effect" you could say because people who might have bought it won't because they can download it. That's a lost sale. A game that's already been sold cannot be a lost sale.

Besides the fact that used games from gamestop (new-ish ones) are sold at like 5-10 bucks off. I'd rather spend the few bucks and get a new game myself as I'm sure others will. The only games I would buy used is when they're like maybe under $15 or $20 and at that point who gives a shit?
 
Other. Crappy games and root kits hurt developers. I would rather pirate a root kit free crappy game, than buy one with a root kit. I don't know how much it has to be stretched. Good games like Team Fortress 2 which I just bought for the third time to get my friend to play it help developers.
 
Diplomacy said:
Gamer1 buys a new copy of GameX -- Developer gets money.
Gamer2 buys a used copy instead of a new copy of GameX, saves a few bucks -- Developer gets no money.

I hear this a lot on forums when it comes to piracy: "If you want to play the game, support the Developer". Now why is it that people refuse to acknowledge used game sales hurt developers? Why does all the blame for bad sales go to piracy alone, when people would rather save a few bucks and not support the Developer?

P.S. I'm not trying to defend piracy, just trying to bring the effect of used game sales to light.
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Used cars, used books, used homes, used board games, used clothes...are all fundamental parts of an economy. The fact that people today equate a secondary market to stealing or piracy makes me weep for the generation of the youth.
 
I voted for Piracy. At least with used game sales, someone has to purchase the game before it goes into the market.
 
My own experience: it's been nearly three years since I've purchased a new game, except for a small handful. Same for movies and music. Everything I buy is used, from GameStop (with coupons and bundle deals) or from eBay/Craigslist. It's also the reason I don't shop from Steam, since I can't resell the game when I'm done with it. I still have HalfLife 2 collecting dust in the corner, since I can't do anything with it. I'm a strong proponent of the reseller market, so it hurts me every time I feel like buying a game through a proprietary download mechanism, but I still did buy Luxor and Rainslick Precipice for the 360.

I would rather buy used because it lets the market decide the game's worth. All games are $50-60 new, but few are actually WORTH that price tag. Within a month, they start dropping to their true worth, and plenty of Xbox 360 games are on the market at $5-10 now. I've been trying to sell my Need for Speed: Carbon Collector's Edition for months, and can't even get rid of it even at $20.

I know I'm not giving anything to the developers through these actions, but that's a debatable argument along with piracy. I will not buy any game over $35, that's my price point, unless it's one of the rare GREAT games. Someone could argue that pirating is similar to buying used in this fashion, as the developers will never count on me for profit. The only business to make profit off of me are the used game sellers (which includes end-users).

Overall, I think piracy hurts used-game sellers more than it does developers. But, hey, that's just a speculation :)
 
Technoob said:
Used cars, used books, used homes, used board games, used clothes...are all fundamental parts of an economy. The fact that people today equate a secondary market to stealing or piracy makes me weep for the generation of the youth.
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I never do this but fucking QFT to the nth degree. I was about to say this anyway but you beat me to the punch. It's really a disgusting trend that everything has to be new. What's wrong with selling your old stuff? Garage sales anyone? The government has banned garage sales yet.
 
I put used game vendors. But, in reality, it is shitty games. And anti-piracy measures. I won't buy any StarForce or other really in my face, screw my computer, anti-piracy stuff.

I'm huge into Vista, but the DRM stuff really bugs me. Sure, they need to protect themselves, but guess what? 5 minutes after a game is released, you can download a cracked copy of it. So, who is the DRM stuff for? Screw that.

And crappy games. This includes actual bad gameplay and buggy games. I won't pay to have a beta version that crashes every 5 minutes.
 
pigwalk said:
I voted for Piracy. At least with used game sales, someone has to purchase the game before it goes into the market.
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this is the only rational answer for a solid reason:

with used games sales, the developer made profit on the original sale.
with piracy, there was no original sale.
 
michealo said:
this is the only rational answer for a solid reason:

with used games sales, the developer made profit on the original sale.
with piracy, there was no original sale.
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Then there is no difference between pirating a game and buying a used game, by your logic.

In terms of piracy, there was profit made on the original sale -- Torrent Up-loader bought the game, took it home and cracked it.
 
With nobody having any reliable hard numbers on how many pirated copies of any one game are out there, I don't think anyone here is equipped to make an accurate judgement call.

That said, once I sell a game, my thoughts wander to what game I wanna buy next with that money.
 
Diplomacy said:
Then there is no difference between pirating a game and buying a used game, by your logic.

In terms of piracy, there was profit made on the original sale -- Torrent Up-loader bought the game, took it home and cracked it.
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you're speculating that the torrent up-loader bought the game.
i highly doubt this is the case when tons of games are released well before retail dates.

if this thread's purpose is to rationalize piracy, then congrats.
don't kid yourself, however.
 
Lost sales, for whatever reason, (piracy/used sales), costs the developer the revenue they would have made off of a sale.

How many sales, and thus revenue, they lost for a given level of piracy or used game sales is the only really debatable question.
 
GORANKAR said:
Lost sales, for whatever reason, (piracy/used sales), costs the developer the revenue they would have made off of a sale.

How many sales, and thus revenue, they lost for a given level of piracy or used game sales is the only really debatable question.
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This is just a lame cop-out. It's been proven time and time again that good games sell regardless. I'm tired of this shit.
 
Uhh...the "developers need to start making good games again" excuse only works as a rationalization for buying used games. Not piracy. If a game isn't good enough to buy it for the MSRP, you either wait until the price drops or until you can find it used for the price you think it's worth. You don't have the right to set the price to 0 and still play every mediocre game immediately after it comes out for whatever personal reasons you may have. Besides, if the games are so mediocre, why the fuck are people downloading them? It's like admitting you have terrible taste. It's such a ridiculous argument.
 
Dallows said:
Gonna have to disagree there. Again, the developer already got the money for the game. Piracy has the only real "effect" you could say because people who might have bought it won't because they can download it. That's a lost sale. A game that's already been sold cannot be a lost sale.

Besides the fact that used games from gamestop (new-ish ones) are sold at like 5-10 bucks off. I'd rather spend the few bucks and get a new game myself as I'm sure others will. The only games I would buy used is when they're like maybe under $15 or $20 and at that point who gives a shit?
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Who do I blame for not being able to find "game X" because the distributor decided only to make 10,000 copies worldwide with a smaller percentage being shipped to the country I live in? If I can pick up "game X" at a used game store then fuck the game's distributor because they're the ones that decided to make a very small run on a game I would have purchased new (making it a sale directly to them) but instead I have to hunt one down in the wild and (probably) end up spending more then the game's original MSRP for a used copy.

I voted "other" since DRM, limited production runs, obscene hardware requirements (see Crysis and Assassin's Creed) and shitty games are what really hurt developers more then piracy and used game sales combined.

It took me two weeks to hunt down a copy of Advance Wars: Dual Strike (DS) because it was a limited production run on a game that is pretty popular. I ended up getting it at a local used game store (not going to deal with eBay) for close to the original MSRP simply because of how hard it is to find. If Nintendo and Intelligent Systems wanted my money so damn much then they shouldn't have limited the number of copies manufactured to such a small amount spread across three territories, :rolleyes:
 
Dallows said:
This is just a lame cop-out. It's been proven time and time again that good games sell regardless. I'm tired of this shit.
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+1.

Lets take stalker for example. Long build time, multiple delays, very buggy, small design studio, focus on the storyline, competitively priced, devs that listen to the community, had little to no hype, or media involvement, second tier publisher, From march to early 2008 it was reported that they sold 1.6 million copies worldwide, no idea on todays numbers. The game was available on the internets close to a month prior to retail availability. I had only heard about the game thru word of mouth, stalker prior to 2007 was unknown to me. Now I was one of those people who downloaded stalker in the early going. One thing GSC had going for them at the time was a good piracy deterrent in their game stalker. It was soo buggy that it impossible to play for any reasonable length of time or with playable framerates. Well I waited awhile, a patch came, and I played the game. 30 minutes in, I was having my doubts about the game, but I persisted, and when I got to the garbage level, and I had died about 4 times, at various stages, it really hit me. I could see stalker for the work of art that it was, it reminded me why I play games in the first place, for the challenge, for the immersion, to forget about my life. I decided right then and there that I had to buy that game.

In the end I got a real bargain @ 40 dollars, The time I have spent playing that game, the level of detail that went into it, to produce a quality product, even in spite of the bugs, it was a quality game.

Lets now take crysis. It had as much hype as probably any game since HL2 has had, it had the media behind it, it had the graphics behind it, it had crytek which had already produced a very successful, very visually appealing game in farcry. If any game earns the status of a 'AAA', it would be crysis. Crysis I believe only took two years and change to develop, despite the "delays" it was still quick to market, with the 'help' of EA. It has all the key elements that make any game that is a success, successful. From November to early 2008, EA had claimed to of sold 1 million copies worldwide, which seemed a bit curious since previous numbers had pinned sales (in America) to around 80k units. Now 1 million is a large number, and on paper, it sold faster than stalker, but stalker didn't have the big name publisher or a large dev team that was highly financed, but despite that, it could sell just as well as something that is deemed to be "quality".

We as the pc gaming community were a bit spoiled early on with games, they were usually always very good, being good they were popular, being popular they sold well, and this is why we have companies like valve, ID and EA. They profited greatly through early success, which is why today they are at the forefront of gaming, for better or for worse.

Since then, the gaming market has fucking exploded, in number of new releases, in graphics quality, in game depth, in every possible way, gaming is getting more advanced, we also have more platforms in which to get our game on. Don't let anyone tell you different, the pc gaming market isn't dying, it gained 14% marketshare last year alone, and their is no indication of it slowing down, just hype and misinformation.

Here is the divide we face. Our gaming dollar is being spread way too thin, too many titles, at 50-60 dollars a pop, on too many platforms, with attention being payed on profit margin aspect of gaming rather than the art aspect. We have the half life 2's, the stalkers, the F.E.A.Rs the gran turismo 4's, and so forth of gaming, masterpieces in every aspect, the quality and attention to detail is evident in very level of these games. And at the same time we have the halos, the GRAWs, the rainbow six vegases, the call of dutys, and the crysis'es, where quality isn't the main focus of the game, and profit margin is. Where games are produced to deadline, and not to perfection. Some people can't afford both kinds of game, and this is what is killing gaming as an artform. The games that sell the best are the ones that the maximum amount of people read and talk about, and not the ones that are of the highest quality, or most advanced, a main reason why the consoles are succeeding is marketing, quality for the most part has had nothing to do with it.

The gaming purchases I do make are motivated by what game is most worth the retail purchace price, and my choices are ever dwindling as consoles encroach on once PC dominated genres, and I can't blindly make a purchace in this gaming market with little to no beforehand knowledge of quality, and no guarantee of buyer satisfaction, while at the same time not being able to get my money back if in the end my expectations are not met.

To answer the topic at hand, I can't see how one hurts the dev more than the other. The question doesn't accurately address the problem at hand.
 
Eh, sometimes games I buy dont have new no matter where I look. Specifically I am talking about PS2 games since I just got the PS2 in december of 07 which is sad but still, 90% of games I want are used and arent sold new. So in that case used games are my only choice other than going online and doing a long search just for the game which is an utter waste of time. BUT for my PS3 which I just got I will buy new games because the PS3 needs some serious revenues to keep pumping out good games like MGS4.
 
crappy games hurts them the most. make something good and people will want to buy it.
 
TheCommander said:
I'd say Pirates. For most games, there are demos that one can try. People generally pirate a game because they want it- there are very few who pirate a game and then actually buy it. If they could not pirate it, and wanted it really bad, they would buy it.
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Yeah but there's a lot of people who don't even bother with most of todays games :)

And used games vendors are rather minimal problem for PC companies but a huge problem for console games makers and only then due to price premium they demand.

For example I'm getting several release titles for PC this year and I'm buying 1 maybe two release titles for console - rest will be bought from second hand or low costs series.
 
Some of you are basically trying to find any way you can to justify Piracy. Used games hurting sales? Seriously people.

A) If it's a brand new game.... where are you going to buy your used copy from? (*New releases that suck might have a greater volume of used games, because the game sucks. The game company already got their money, when a store buys back that used game, its the store losing out on money, not the developer)
B) If it is a "hot" game (not saying new), then how easy is it going to be to find a used copy?
C) If you’re getting a game for $5, that originally cost $60. Either a) Its a total shitty game b) Its been out for ever, and game developers have already made the bulk of their cash off that title... they are already on to bigger and better things.

Piracy, no matter how you twist it, is illegal and wrong. If they wanted to you 'demo' their game, they would put out a demo.

You do realize, that when Wal-Mart buys their 20 copies of GTA4.... RockStar just got paid. When you buy it from Wal-Mart, that money is now Wal-Mart’s, RockStar doesn’t get paid again. Used games really makes little to no difference at all in terms of sales #'s or hurting developers.
 
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