[QUOTE="Swiftstrike5"]You buy something used ( a car) and you expect it to be of lesser quality or worn down. You buy a used game and it runs perfectly, 100% of the time. There's NO reason to buy new over used for video games; the same cannot be said for cars or other products. Encouraging new sales is fine by me. There's a big difference between a company simply trying to make money and a company trying to nickel+dime their customer. EA/Bioware has turned to the later instead...Falconoffury
DVDs wear out too, eventually. There is a dye that eventually breaks down after enough years. There are other examples of long-lasting items. There's tools, musical instruments, and guns. These things all can last generations if properly cared for. It is no excuse to screw the customers just because games can last decades if properly cared for. Whether I can resell a game goes into my purchasing decisions, and it makes the game worth less to me if I can't.
The quality of the disc is irrelevant as long as the game runs fine. If it doesn't, you simply return it to store and the give you another copy. That's how the industry works. It's nothing like buying cars, tools, musical instruments, or guns used. The quality of the tools, musical instruments, and guns degrade over their use, which is why they carry a lower price tag. A copy of game runs or it doesn't. The disc can be read or it can not. A five year old CD runs the same as a brand new CD. There's no visible degradation in between those two points. There's no tedious work required to increase the lifespan, just proper handling. If the disc doesn't work, it's not sold as a used copy. By that reasoning, why would anyone buy a game for $60 when they get the exact same game for $30? Are you willing to pay an extra $30 so that 2 page manual does not have a stain on it? No, you don't care about the quality of the case, disc, or manual as long as the game runs. Retailers are screwing developers by actively promoting used sales over new sales. Why? Because they make a significantly more off those sales. Then you resell it to them and they continue to make more and more money off the same product. Retailers benefit greatly, consumers benefit marginally, but all at the expense of the developer.
Developers not screwing the customer though, they're ensuring revenue. For the PC community, the used market was destroyed a long time ago, but now we see new retail games for $40-$50 within the first week of sales. Maybe $30 within a month and eventually you can pick it up for under $10. More than 70% of the time I can find a new PC copy of a game for the same price as a used console copy. If developers see more revenue, they can lower the price of a new game for everyone. That way developers and the consumers are benefiting, but retailers are not. As it stands, they have to factor in the used game sales as lost revenue and jack up the price of retail games to compensate. I can't say for sure that this will happen to the console market as well, but that's my line of thinking.
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