Legal issues with 2nd-hand PC games

[Streeteh]

But the CD key is tied to the particular copy, so how would that happen unless the seller kept the game installed without the media (which AFAIK isn't legal)?

The point i'm making is that the original owner would want to keep the game, as opposed to selling it on so they could continue to play the online mode. If they were to sell it to someone else they would lose said online mode, hence it becomes an incentive to keep the game. The game isn't being stopped from being sold on due to DRM etc, it's just being kept cos it's good.

A good example would be a friend of mine that wanted to play Half-Life 1, i would have been happy to lend/sell him mine but as i was very much addicted to TFC (a Half Life mod) and didn't want to lost the ability to play it he instead bought himself a copy.

 

[Indy500]

The point i'm making is that the original owner would want to keep the game, as opposed to selling it on so they could continue to play the online mode. If they were to sell it to someone else they would lose said online mode, hence it becomes an incentive to keep the game. The game isn't being stopped from being sold on due to DRM etc, it's just being kept cos it's good.

Well, unless they play a LAN game over Hamachi.

 

[Streeteh]

Well, unless they play a LAN game over Hamachi.

Which makes a teeny tiny percentage of people i'm sure. The fact of the matter is, good games that offer entertainment over a longer period of time are less likely to be sold on second hand which will result in a greater number of first hand sales.

 

[FoxEye]

The point i'm making is that the original owner would want to keep the game, as opposed to selling it on so they could continue to play the online mode. If they were to sell it to someone else they would lose said online mode, hence it becomes an incentive to keep the game. The game isn't being stopped from being sold on due to DRM etc, it's just being kept cos it's good.

A good example would be a friend of mine that wanted to play Half-Life 1, i would have been happy to lend/sell him mine but as i was very much addicted to TFC (a Half Life mod) and didn't want to lost the ability to play it he instead bought himself a copy.

I don't think you can distinguish between SP and online modes. If you sell the game, you are obliged to uninstall or at the very least stop using it.

Playing online = using the game, meaning you should still have the game in your possession.

Playing online when you've sold the SP game is obviously equivalent to piracy.

 

[Streeteh]

I don't think you can distinguish between SP and online modes. If you sell the game, you are obliged to uninstall or at the very least stop using it.

Playing online = using the game, meaning you should still have the game in your possession.

Playing online when you've sold the SP game is obviously equivalent to piracy.

Ok you've lost me, what does this have to do with my post?

 

[Indy500]

Which makes a teeny tiny percentage of people i'm sure. The fact of the matter is, good games that offer entertainment over a longer period of time are less likely to be sold on second hand which will result in a greater number of first hand sales.

I agree with that point.

However, I personally didn't buy a lot of my games new though. In fact, apart from Supreme Commander, I haven't bought a 'new' one in 3 years...they were almost all second-hand. Even with SC I waited several months for the price to drop. I'm not like some of the people here rushing to pre-order titles and buying them at the £30-40 launch price. So by that reckoning, I'm an overall loss as far as the publishers are concerned.

 

[FoxEye]

Also it's well within developers powers to keep users from selling on their titles by much less underhanded means. Take a look at games like half life where cd keys are needed to play online, this meant a user would keep their copy for years in order to preserve their ability to play the fantastic online and mods, or burnout paradise which keeps introducing new (free) patches that add extra vehicles or game modes.

I think I must have mis-interpreted what you were saying here.

Forcing you to keep the game to play online isn't "underhanded" in my estimation They're using the game still, just not the SP part of it.

By using the word "underhanded", you seemed to be implying that users have a right to expect to play online after they've sold the SP game. But it looks like you weren't saying that, so I guess I'll just shut up now

 

[Streeteh]

Nah mate, by underhanded i was referring to DRM with limited installs etc in order to prevent resale. I view a good online mode as a very legitimate method of discouraging people from selling their games and should be encouraged.

 

[V3g3tto]

I won't have anything on my system i built and am still paying for that i don't want. I wanted to get Mass Effect, saw it on sale for £20, cheap, heard it had DRM. Didn't buy it.

Over the years, i've swapped hard-drives and re-formatted many times, as well as upgraded my PC. Also, older games i pass onto my dad when i am done with them and i uninstall them from my machine. I pay for a game, it becomes my property and then my responsibility what i do with it. I wouldn't buy a car to be told how many miles i can drive it per day.

As for protection, it's easy to bypass without downloading a new version of a game. You're merely patching it, modding it yourself for your use, which i would love to see someone try and take me to court for, because they'd better know dam well what they are doing. Providing i am not making profit, distributing it or gaining unfairly from it, i could change the source code to make every NPC a giant pair of **** if i wanted and tell the publisher about it, nothing they can legally do.

 

[FoxEye]

I agree with that point.

However, I personally didn't buy a lot of my games new though. In fact, apart from Supreme Commander, I haven't bought a 'new' one in 3 years...they were almost all second-hand. Even with SC I waited several months for the price to drop. I'm not like some of the people here rushing to pre-order titles and buying them at the £30-40 launch price. So by that reckoning, I'm an overall loss as far as the publishers are concerned.

The thing is, publishers seem to asssume that the number of people buying their games new is an unchanging constant.

They don't seem to think that lowering the price will drive more box sales. Hence their answer to needing more revenue is actually to put the prices up.

I think they must have the mindset that people are going to pirate game whatever the cost. I'm sure some would, but I'm also optimistic that more people would buy games if they were cheaper.

Additionally, if we assume that more people would buy a game new if the cost were, for example, £15 instead of £30, I would assume that the second hand market would probably shrink. The reason being that the second hand value would plummet - due to extra supply and lower demand - leading many to perhaps decide to keep their game instead of selling it.

But now I think I've crossed into complex economic theory that I don't truly understand

 

[Indy500]

The thing is, publishers seem to asssume that the number of people buying their games new is an unchanging constant.

They don't seem to think that lowering the price will drive more box sales. Hence their answer to needing more revenue is actually to put the prices up.

I think they must have the mindset that people are going to pirate game whatever the cost. I'm sure some would, but I'm also optimistic that more people would buy games if they were cheaper.

Additionally, if we assume that more people would buy a game new if the cost were, for example, £15 instead of £30, I would assume that the second hand market would probably shrink. The reason being that the second hand value would plummet - due to extra supply and lower demand - leading many to perhaps decide to keep their game instead of selling it.

But now I think I've crossed into complex economic theory that I don't truly understand

Well, my guess would be because of console games and people willing to pay more for them because the machine itself is cheap. The rise of the consoles and increasing system requirements for PC games probably dont help. This in turn starts a never-ending cycle of declining sales and ports, eventually developers abandon the platform altogether.

 

[Joebob]

The thing is, publishers seem to asssume that the number of people buying their games new is an unchanging constant.

They don't seem to think that lowering the price will drive more box sales. Hence their answer to needing more revenue is actually to put the prices up.

I think they must have the mindset that people are going to pirate game whatever the cost. I'm sure some would, but I'm also optimistic that more people would buy games if they were cheaper.

Additionally, if we assume that more people would buy a game new if the cost were, for example, £15 instead of £30, I would assume that the second hand market would probably shrink. The reason being that the second hand value would plummet - due to extra supply and lower demand - leading many to perhaps decide to keep their game instead of selling it.

But now I think I've crossed into complex economic theory that I don't truly understand

Good point. Publishers also seem to think that they make a 1:1 loss for every second hand game sold i.e. they assume that everyone who buys a game second hand would have purchased it new if second hand was not an option. Everyone in the real world knows that people buy what they can afford, so if they only have £15 to drop on a game then they wont buy anything if second hand is no longer available.

 

[V3g3tto]

The thing is, publishers seem to asssume that the number of people buying their games new is an unchanging constant.

They don't seem to think that lowering the price will drive more box sales. Hence their answer to needing more revenue is actually to put the prices up.

I think they must have the mindset that people are going to pirate game whatever the cost. I'm sure some would, but I'm also optimistic that more people would buy games if they were cheaper.

Additionally, if we assume that more people would buy a game new if the cost were, for example, £15 instead of £30, I would assume that the second hand market would probably shrink. The reason being that the second hand value would plummet - due to extra supply and lower demand - leading many to perhaps decide to keep their game instead of selling it.

But now I think I've crossed into complex economic theory that I don't truly understand

But you're completely true. If they had a brain department, they would have done proper market research, which would tell them there is an equilibrium point where a customer buys or does not. For me, i would've bought a couple of games recently out if they were £20-25, that to me is not a lavish purchase. £35 is different.

In grand scale of things it's not, but in my mind there's obviously a threshhold where i will be turned off a purchase. Same goes for DVD's - £20 = No, £10-15 = yes.

And yes, lower new price would discourage 2nd hand trading. I would be more encouraged to sell on a £40 game (console ones mainly) than a £20 game and considering i buy few £40 games if any, i sell zero.

 

[krooton]

Agreed, that argument is flawed in that a lot of the time the sale wouldn't happen if the buyer had to buy it new. I've bought loads of xbox 360 games second hand that I'd never pay full price for, but the second hand price is enough to make me risk handing over the cash. To say you loose a new sale for every copy sold second hand is way off the mark.

So then how is the pirating of games that people would never have bought in the first place so much worse?

 

[FoxEye]

So then how is the pirating of games that people would never have bought in the first place so much worse?

"Never have bought new" /= "never have bought"

 

[Delvis]

So then how is the pirating of games that people would never have bought in the first place so much worse?

Because there are people who DO pirate them, if they where not pirated in the first place, 'x' amount of sales would not have been lost.

By pirating the game (via bit torrent at least) you are making it available to a whole new audience every time.

 

[krooton]

"Never have bought new" /= "never have bought"

Both mean no money to the company, so from their perspective there is little difference.

Eg.

Person A would never buy a game brand new. They do buy second hand though, and that money does not make it's way back to the publisher.

This is ok.

Person B would never have bought a game. If they then download it, with the publisher getting no money, how is it so much worse than Person A.

Yes there are variables, but is Person A did not put the money they made back into buying another game, and Person B would never ever have bought the game any way, the difference on the publishers side is none existent.

 

[V3g3tto]

When all is said and done, there is no way to stop market forces, only tickle them a bit.

The music industry proved this to be the case, trying with all they had to stop music downloads. You must remember that for every company that designs software to stop this, there's equally adept people to get around it. If people want it, they'll have it.

The solution was/is to work with these people and don't give them a reason to pirate,etc. There always has and always will be piracy, it's near impossible to prevent, but it can be stemmed.

There's a trade-off: If the effort or price is more than the cost and effort to aqcuire something legally, people won't do it.

People will take the path of least resistance, always have..always will.

 

[FoxEye]

Both mean no money to the company, so from their perspective there is little difference.

Eg.

Person A would never buy a game brand new. They do buy second hand though, and that money does not make it's way back to the publisher.

This is ok.

Person B would never have bought a game. If they then download it, with the publisher getting no money, how is it so much worse than Person A.

Yes there are variables, but is Person A did not put the money they made back into buying another game, and Person B would never ever have bought the game any way, the difference on the publishers side is none existent.

You're not even trying.

Person A is giving money to someone who does buy new games (we'll call him person X).

Given that person X is your average PC gamer (ie, not infinitely rich), he now has more money to buy new games.

Thus person A indirectly drives new game sales.

Persona B does not, neither directly nor indirectly.

Even a 3rd hand sale indirectly helps drive new game sales, the chain is simply 1 step longer.

 

[krooton]

You're not even trying.

Person A is giving money to someone who does buy new games (we'll call him person X).

Given that person X is your average PC gamer (ie, not infinitely rich), he now has more money to buy new games.

Thus person A indirectly drives new game sales.

Persona B does not, neither directly nor indirectly.

Even a 3rd hand sale indirectly helps drive new game sales, the chain is simply 1 step longer.

And if Person X just continues to purchase second hand games with the money saved, or indeed feels that the money saved by purchasing second hand games exclusively allow them to save for computer part upgrades?