If circulation of used games is as bad as piracy then why..?

Why did so many of you gamers went full on berserk on Microsoft and its initial DRM features on XB1?

Living in a country with crappy economy often leaves you no choice. Do you realize I living in Poland have to spend 4 times more money in relation to a standard of living than in any other country to the West of Europe? Essentially prices are the same but the average salary is at least 4 times less.

And no, piracy and trading in used games is not the one and the same, because in piracy case, general poverty translates into mental poverty. And that mental poverty destroys gaming environment and makes it a really unpleasant place. Don't you ever forget that. Oh and the law forbids to professionally rent video games. Why? Presumably because of high piracy rate. Even if publishers wouldn't earn more, redefining law regarding renting video games would at least make piracy more redundant and would kill this toxic mentality!

However, in trading case, these people are cultured enough to be willing to buy new games if there is a good opportunity economic-wise. I occasionally bought new games this gen both physically and digitally. Don't you ever judge people like that. I'd love to keep my games for longer but that's why I appreciate good DD sales from time to time. In case of physical games, I have no choice.

Anyway, what's your take on this?

Without saying one is worse than the other, since it would be quite hard to quantify the damage they do to the industry. Most people just don't care or are ignorant, MS also could have sold the whole thing a hell of a lot better.

Since I'm on opera mini on my phone and can't edit my post, I'll also add: you're bound to buy some new games (by selling your old ones for example) even if you trade them in, because it would be eventually not profitable for you in order to get the newest ones. For example my Metro: Last Light was brand new. And I intend to get the newest Batman the same way.

I agree that MS maybe didn't sell ti well, but it was a good idea anyways. The line between lending a game and piracy is so fine that either both hurt the industry or neither does but oen is considered illegal and the other is legit. I'm sure copyright laws will soo be changed to outlaw lending of material though, looking at how the US government is heading anyways.

Congratulations TC, you havn't drank the kool-aid.

Used games are nowhere near as damaging to the industry as piracy, the two aren't even comparable. The idea is ridiculous. And like you say, used games frequently give way to new purchases as well.

I'm gonna rant below, so skip it if you're not in the mood. Used games aren't inherently bad. There a ton of games I wouldn't have ever played if I hadn't been able to buy them used (Heavy Rain, for one). Plus, being able to sell used games back only empowers the gamer to then go out and buy a new game with their newly acquired money. The only proper way to counter used games and not undermine the spending power of a consumer is to offer discounted games, which can be done quite easily as the adoption of digital downloads becomes the standard.

MS just shouldn't have ever said anything about DRM. They (and Sony too) want to live in all-digital world so they can function like Steam. But you don't have to force consumers into it - there are natural incentives that the consumer will adopt if you just stand back and let it happen. One of those incentives is lower prices, which you could offer. But MS didn't choose to trumpet the incentives of the digital landscape (any sort of mention of Steam-lie sales would have been huge) but instead focused on satiating consumers' concerns about the hurdles it introduces.

If they were intent on addressing consumers' concerns, they should've said, "there will be a non-intrusive game validation process that won't operate during gameplay. The Xbox will automatically validate all game purchases on its own without requiring any attention from the user. Any other rights management imposed by a game will be up to the publisher and won't occur at a system level." There was zero need to ever address what would happen if you failed to validate your purchases (you can allow users to infer what happens).

Gamers would've jived with that and their whole PR debacle would have been avoided.

Maybe they're not as damaging but not comparable at all? C'mon now. In both cases the developers of the game doesn't get anything out of it.

Agree. If you're going to kill the used market and go all DD then you should lower the prices. Is ridiculous trying to do that while still announcing new games will cost $60. The customer only loses from this, gains nothing as a trade off.

Basically what Apple did to the music industry. It did go all DD, killing trading of music but it lowered the prices a lot and people adopted it en masse.

People went berserk on MS because it's MS, and the internet hates MS.

As far as piracy, and used games though. Personally, I think both have been proven to be beneficial to the industry.

@Basinboy: Good post.

OT: I've been a pirate, a software pirate, a "game trader", and a digital consumer. My favourite is to be a digital consumer. The 'one way street' with money is easily tolerated when discounts can be 75% plus.

Today, I bought Batman Arkham Origins CD Key for Steam for $33USD. That is about $40NZD, and that is about the price a three month old plus 360 game will stagnate at for ages before finally bottoming out to $20 after a couple of years. New is $87, and I used to buy used games at about $40.

So, thanks to an established digital games infrastructure which doesn't allow used games - Steam, the price of new games at launch has come right down, and basically met the price of used games.

Because copies of games have value.

We should just be given the choice to go either or, but have digital to be cheaper.

Why does anybody give a **** in the first place? You're not going to profit from anything that goes on one way or the other, and there's no proof that devs would pass the buck if they collected every dollar they think they deserve to make.

If everyone paid top dollar for every single DD or physical copy, what makes you think devs would in turn make better games or pump them out any faster than they do already? Honestly, if they knew people would pay top dollar for every game they made, we'd all get a bunch of shit-quality games because there would be no standard to hold them to.

I'm more concerned with my wallet size, not the strangers I don't know who make the games.

That's an interesting point... but, who knows what would've happened if someone who bought an X1 with no intention (or possibility) of connecting it on the Internet found out his system won't work without an on-line validation once per day?

The people already paid for the console, so the whole thing could've ended up even more messy, they could even try to press charges... keep in mind, gamers are the group who tried suing EA over ME3 ending. That's how far the Internet rage can go...

As for your original question it is because they crossed the line. We don't like getting caught in the corporate web. We allow it to some extend especially if there are incentives. But there always needs to be a way out. MS didn't offer incentives but only risks and with an attitude that they expected us to fall for anything. That is crossing the line.
Piracy vs second hand trade wasn't really part of the backlash. We weren't thinking about how to give MS more money. I don't think that many people here would care so much about that. (And for what we've seen, they shouldn't care so much about that.)

Which for the record is exactly what people should have done because that was false advertising, which is illegal.

What false advertising?

$60 for a new game.

Lets say you wish to buy GTA5, AC4,Ghosts, R&C and TLOU this holiday.

$60x5=$300

$300 for 5 games. That is alot of money for the average person. You could buy alot with that. If i can sell those games when i am done with them then i can buy more New games and still contribute to the industry.

I never pay $60 for every game unless it is GTA, COD, Naughty dog games etc. Gaming is expensive so if i can sell my game off when i am done with it, it is good to know that i can

$60 for a new game.

Lets say you wish to buy GTA5, AC4,Ghosts, R&C and TLOU this holiday.

$60x5=$300

$300 for 5 games. That is alot of money for the average person. You could buy alot with that. If i can sell those games when i am done with them then i can buy more New games and still contribute to the industry.

I never pay $60 for every game unless it is GTA, COD, Naughty dog games etc. Gaming is expensive so if i can sell my game off when i am done with it, it is good to know that i can

Pirated games are stolen. Used games are used - the original purchase has been made, the publisher gets their cut. The retailer advertises more new games to be sold, making more money for the publishers while selling used games, which have already been purchased new, which keeps stores open and the market ticking over. Younger gamers, and less well-off gamers, buy more used games = more new games are sold, more stores open, more cuts for publishers, more marketing and so on. Meanwhile, the developer was paid a salary and is not effected by any of this.

The online check-in was a middle-finger to those of us that buy new games and play offline, it was an attempt at getting a bigger piece of the industry pie - and not a well veiled one. There is no reason that any of the policies they were going to implement could not have been/still be implemented for digital downloads.

Used games are not damaging to the industry and no developer has the right to forbid anyone from selling on a game they've purchased, that's how the market price changes organically. The sooner the EU and other law makers catch up to the digital age and begin legislating to protect consumers interests the better.

Price discrimination (i.e. Steam sales) is one of the best things in a market, since it serves the purpose of second-hand games, while allowing dev/publishers to earn additional revenue from the sales. However, price discrimination is virtually impossible while second-hand trading and a physical-dominant market exist.

Used games don't damage the industry.

Only a braindead imbecile would eat up the whole "used games are teh devil!!!!1111" fairytale.

MS had no used game, also had game installs that allowed for discless play, they tried to get rid of no used games but people fought back in the rumor phase, which is why during their damage control they came up with the horrible DRM thingy so they could account for rights in a used game system.

They got rid of their DRM requirement but we no longer have discless play.

Honestly though I'm sure Sony wanted the same exact thing, only reason they didn't go for it was because they could attack their opponent for doing it by not doing it themselves and that gives them an edge on the market.

People should never think that they are the same. The fact is used game sales is not evil and people have the right to buy or sell used games. The company already made the money from the game anyways but piracy is bad because the company never makes cash from it at all. It's sad when you have some people say that used gaming is worse then piracy. I mean they can't be serious.

I don't remember the specifics. They told the customers that the ending was going to be something entirely different and more valuable than it turned out to be. Something in which all decisions you made mattered, that sort of nonsense. In the end it turned out none of your choices up to that point mattered at all. And they didn't say that just once in some peculiar interview taken out of context. They couldn't stop talking about it. You would get 'many different endings' that would not be 'a bespoke ending that everyone gets'.

Edit example:

"At this point we're taking into account so many decisions that you've made as a player and reflecting a lot of that stuff. It's not even in any way like the traditional game endings, where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got ending A, B or C... The endings have a lot more sophistication and variety in them." Casey Hudson (Executive Producer).

There was a lawsuit I think and technically it was false advertising but as interviews and apparently the game's website are generally not considered advertising they got away with it. Which basically means that if you are a game publisher you can lie about your game to no end as long as it isn't on TV or in a trailer and I think lying about the trailer is fair game too (Thief 4 'gameplay' trailer without actual gameplay footage). Even though I think the endings weren't that big a deal considering they were only a small part of the entire game I disagree with their stance on this because it opens the door to more corporate deception and malpractices.

Dude, people would go berserk on Sony and Nintendo if they did the same thing, and currently, the internet LOVES Sony.

piracy is a necessary evil because you can't always put all your trust in private companies because if you do they'll abuse. And people are just as greedy, that's why games like Suikoden II cost so much even when the discs are in really bad condition and that is not fair. Another example is Gamestop unwrapping new copies of Xenoblade and Metroid Prime Trilogy to sell them at twice the price.

Trying to reduce piracy is fine to help the sales of newer games but eradicate it all would be stupid. And not to mention that piracy is the only way to preserve gaming history.

Piracy is not necessary. It's profiting from someone's work for your own gain.

sounds like someone got issue where they live...

Even if i don't sell my games developers get nothing from it as time goes on,is stupid to actually want developers to profits from a single copy of a game more than once..

Is like Nike wanting to profits from second hand cloth,now cheap copy cats those are another 2 cents,expecting profits from second hand market show how greedy some developers have get,and is quite stupid to spec profits from second hand sales,you may argue that it doesn't give anything to developers,but fact is those should not give anything to them after the initial sale,even more now on the nickel and dime era.

Im in shock that their are still people living in poland. I thought they were all in the UK now.

I am so glad we are able to trade away crap game on consoles, just got rid of Diablo 3 for ps3. While the game was fun it is unplayable because game get corrupted after awhile. Blizzard cant fix it either, they s**k at make console games,

I really believe that overall sales of new games would decline dramatically if used games were eliminated.

only an idiot would think that borrowing games is as bad as piracy. even piracy isn't as bad as they say (see the number of games sold each year, and companies are bigger than ever, even DRM-free games sell very well). people who pirate games will never buy games anyway.

corporations sell their arguments through marketing and repetition and people buy it. especially americans, i don't think anyone else in the world is as adamant in protecting the corporate interests to the point of hurting their own interests. not all people, but I've seen a LOT more than I'd think it could be possible.

@edidili: the constant falacy with that argument is the assumption that all those used sales would otherwise translate to new sales, when in reality people would just be a lot more careful about the purchases they do make. There's also the consideration that used games is like passing a memo around the office, but pirated games is like making a copy for each person in the building. Scale is nowhere near the same.

Eh, people should've just let Microsoft do their thing. Would've been nice to see how it panned out and what else they had in store.

Of course, people were too damn whiny to let that go on. As if they had to buy the system.

Oh well. Internet's gonna internet.

You do understand that MS changed it because people ultimately weren't going to buy it, not just because they moaned about it. If they thought they were going to be able to sell them they wouldn't have changed it.

You could make the exact same point with piracy so that is not unique to used games. Let's not forget that the majority that pirates would have never bought the game anyway, countries like China and India leading on piracy numbers for example.

I'm pretty sure the moaning was enough for Microsoft to reconsider their stance on the entire thing. It comes down to the same thing. Those moaners wouldn't have bought it, so Microsoft changed the whole thing.

But my point was more to the fact that people should've just kept their complaints to a minimum instead of going full internet on MS.

What's even funnier is that those individuals now still don't "trust" Microsoft because they could change it back. oh lawdy laaawd. Why bother crying in the first place then?

The ability to buy and re-sell game discs is one of the selling points of consoles.

Take that away, and you may as well just buy a PC.

Maybe, you know, to fight for consumer rights. It isn't just about Microsoft, or the Xbox One, if the entire games industry thought they could get away with it we would be approaching a very different anti-consumer landscape.

I have the right to complain about a product or service, and return or request a refund for that purchase. That company loses my trust, but their next customer may benefit from that complaint.

Oh, I'm not saying I agree with their policies. Well, I was mostly annoyed with the check-up thing. Essentially Microsoft wanted to put out an all digital platform in the lines of Steam, and that sounded intriguing.

Who knows what they had in store. We didn't really gave them a chance to properly work out their plans.

As far as it being anti-consumer... Well, it's obvious that this product wasn't meant for you in the first place.

I always relate this back to cars.

Someone buys a new car. They sell it after a year.

Does the used-car buyer pay the manufacturer a re-purchase fee?

No.

Why?

Because once the car is originally sold, it's no longer the property of the manufacturer. The manufacturer's sole purpose is to sell the car ONE time and make the most of that original sale. They are not entitled to any further profit once the car drives off that lot. If they want to make more profits off that same car, they need to BUY IT BACK from the new owner, usually done through a trade-in for credit toward the purchase of a new car...

Oh... look. An idea that Microsoft should have considered: Offering a trade-in or buy-back program for XB1 games for the current owners of those XB1 games; this way the current owner of the game can get cash/credit for the game they originally bought AND Microsoft can re-sell it themselves for used-game profit. But no, Microsoft just wanted pure profit via a used game activation fee and never even thought about a trade-in/credit system on their OWN end. Opportunity LOST.

I posted this in another thread, but it's relevant.

"It's also worth noting there are 50million+ XBL users/accounts compared to 80million+ 360s sold. Presumably 3/8ths of 360 owners are not connected, so not that small a niche."

Neglecting 3/8ths of their install base doesn't seem like a smart move, and I'm glad Microsoft eventually saw that. But, you are right. The issue is "this product wasn't meant for you in the first place." I'm primarily a gamer that isn't American and plays games offline. And I'm not sure how that 30million+ splits into territories but there's, again presumably, a large enough number to make Microsoft change their stance - which may be a case of too little, too late. We'll see.

Oh yip. No disagreement there. I think it would've been more of an experiment. I'm not denying that they would've lost a good chunk of the market in doing so with their initial ideas, but I still stand firm behind the fact that they tried to put out something that was different than what the competition was offering. Seems the market just wasn't ready for that yet. Who knows, maybe next gen we'll get a balanced version of what they were planning, and the gen after that, full-blown digital.

That's years from now, so that doesn't really matter.

But as I've said before, I wasn't too fond of some of their practices, and hell, I'm all about physical content as well. But for me, it would've been nice to see what they had planned. Maybe it would've turned people's heads.

I don't really know. Nobody does. Microsoft chose to adjust their strategies in order to be successful. Can't really blame them for it.

Piracy = Secondhand Games

The only difference is one is publically accepted, and everybody bitches and moans about their "rights" when talk of stopping secondhand game sales comes up.

No disagreements here, either. "We'll see" how the Steambox fairs.

@Boddicker - lol

Indeed. Steambox looks cool.

@freedomfreak:

This -

The 300 prototype units will ship with the following components:

GPU: some units with NVidia Titan, some GTX780, some GTX760, and some GTX660

CPU: some boxes with Intel i7-4770, some i5-4570, and some i3

RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600 (CPU), 3GB GDDR5 (GPU)

Storage: 1TB/8GB Hybrid SSHD

Power Supply: Internal 450w 80Plus Gold

Dimensions: approx. 12 x 12.4 x 2.9 in high

-
- sounds incredible. If final specs are anything like those then next-gen consoles will look like the toys they are. And I really want to try that pad.