@conkerton Developers making crap games doesn’t justify the used market. We have a ton of avenues to find out if a game is good before we buy it. Unlike most industries we get multiple inside looks and updates at what a game looks like, writers telling us about the game play and controls, and in many cases reviews of games are out the day of or even before the release. If you are armed with all that knowledge and still buy a crap game then it is on you. Don’t buy crap games and they’ll stop making them. I haven’t bought a movie game ever, because movie games have always been crap. It took them a while but it seems Activision has finally decided to stop making that garbage. Vote with your dollars. But the problem is that good publishers and good games aren’t seeing the revenue they should simply because we can save $5 to buy it used.

@jrmorgan23 You could've gotten Uncharted 1 new 3 months about for about $20-25. You don't need the used game market for that. Games drop in price over time and greatest hits usually sell for $20-30 a year and a half to two years after release.

@lionheartssj1 You'll just log in with your gamertag or whatever at you buddies house and get access to your game... You won't be locked out of it. They already have the cloud services going.

@kvan33 Hey, I agree with you on that. It is a nice option to have, but I don’t think many people buy with that in mind, as you stated. The truth is though, we as gamers could possibly get more games and better experiences if the $2.62 billion we spent on games went into the hands of the people who make the gaming experiences to help fund them, than to have Game Stop get fat off of nickel and diming us. Let’s be honest, you walk in there and the new game cost $60, the clerk says, “Hey, we have a used copy of that for $54.99.” You didn’t even ask the guy about the used copy, you had full intention and ability to buy that game new. He sees you consider it and he goes into his sales pitch about how it has a warranty and you can bring it back within 3 days or whatever. By the time he is done you’re like why wouldn’t I pocket my $5, and you go ahead and get it. He didn’t mention to that he gave the kid that traded it in half that for it and what they are getting from you is all profit. It had nothing to do with what you could afford or were willing to pay, the $5 really wasn’t that big of a deal, but to the people who actually made the game they saw nothing for it.

@kvan33 I think it would hurt the sales of games that either don’t have the marketing budget to convince people to buy it day one or games that people just aren’t sure about. But come on, people don’t go out and spend $60 day one in hopes of getting $25 back if they don’t like it.

@Catalyst222 The car manufacturer saw all the sales they were going to get from that product. They make a new model every year, and it is rare you are going to find a used model of a car the same year it is released. People don’t pay full price for a car just to trade it in a month later and get a new one. Mass Effect 3 was a 30-40+ hour game and you had kids playing day and night and finishing it over a weekend. You can find those used now. The person who bought it day one got the full experience and benefit from it and the person who goes and buys it used will get an equivalent experience. That only happens in the gaming industry. It would be different if there was an embargo on trading games for the first 6 months to a year of the release, but that isn’t the case. Used games are being sold as an alternative to buying the new product with equivalent value.

@Catalyst222 I think your idea of value is skewed. Yes, I agree that something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, but many people will only pay as much as they have to. Many people think $60 is too much for a game, yet many people pay it. If games cost $100 there would still be many people willing to pay it. The fact that they only have to pay $60 means they get to keep the other $40 in their pocket. The difference between all the things you said and software is that the quality of the end product is the same as new. If you buy used clothing you get a product that may be dated, shrunk, faded, or any number of things. With software you get the same experience as the person who bought it a year ago. That is a major difference. The used games market lowers the value of games to a level that the publishers can’t match because the competitor is the one selling the product and setting the price point. If the publishers lower the price then Game Stop just lowers your trade-in value and sells the game even cheaper. The publishers are in a no win situation.

@Coco_pierrot The very thing you are in favor of (the used game market) is the main driver of DLC. Because developers and publishers are so concerned with the used market they are doing more and more to try and find ways to “extend the gaming experience”. Some people would say extending the gaming experience is great. Well not really. What it really is, is them removing non-crucial parts of the game and selling it to you in increments down the road in hopes you won’t trade in the game before you get a chance to see the full story. Either that or they waste development time and budget to tack on a multiplayer mode on a game that doesn’t need it or it doesn’t make sense to have. If it wasn’t for the used game market this may not have happened. Now that it has happened I don’t see it going away, but what you could see is companies going back to releasing less DLC and doing more expansion packs.

@Catalyst222 Cars and software are two completely different category of product. You buy a used car and you get what you pay for. You are getting something of less quality than the person who bought it new. The car now has wear and tear from the previous owner that will cause you to have to pay money in the future to fix, whereas that new car has a X amount of miles warranty that the owner gets the benefit of. Most software can’t even be returned once it has been opened. You go buy a copy of Windows from Walmart, open it, install it on you PC, and bring it back in a week and see where that gets you.

@Brendan Sinclair The games media is talking out of both sides of its mouth; on the one hand you have the talk of this utopia where you don’t have to worry about standing in line or finding a place to keep disc, where everything will be digital, oh glorious day. On the other hand you have this fear of losing the used game market and a way to get games for less money for those poor unfortunate people who simply don’t have an extra $5-10 to spend on a new copy of the game. News flash: if they go digital there won’t be used games. How many studios got closed and how often has Game Spot posted news about layoffs? These people aren’t just making games to put a smile on our faces, it is their livelihood. So when a guy walks up to a publisher and says he has a idea for a great game that he believes will sell 2 million copies, but he has to caveat that by saying that the publisher will only see revenue off of about 1.3 million because the other third of those sales will go to the secondhand market, how much do you think a publisher is willing to invest? Why should anyone make a product that others will get full benefit from while knowing that they will not be compensated for their work? Why should Game Stop get the revenue from Take-Two’s work? I’d be trying to find a way to get the full benefit of my work as well. You clearly stated how you feel this affects the gamers, but you’ve stated nothing that is a benefit to the publishers for keeping the status quo