Benifets to be a pirate gamer :(

sid said:
If I were a developer then the way I see it

Selling game on from one person to another (like dmpoole mentioned above) is generating me no money while 10 people have played that game.

So as far as I am concerned that is lost revenue really (no different from if they'd pirated it). The fact that second hand is legal isn't important as at the end of they day I'm not getting any money from either.

sid
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You may not make money from the 2nd hand sales, but whos to say they would buy the game anyway if there was no 2nd hand copy available? They may not buy the game at all at full cost. A good game, even one thats 2nd hand, will cause news to spread about it which will encourage people to buy the game. Pirating on the other hand does the same thing, but it doesnt always encourage people to buy the game, it sometimes just encourages people to pirate it.

So pirating and 2nd hand sales are NOT the same thing. People realy need to stop saying they are.
 
Dist said:
Pirating on the other hand does the same thing, but it doesnt always encourage people to buy the game, it sometimes just encourages people to pirate it.
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Well by that logic.

"2nd hand games on the other hand does the same thing, but it doesnt always encourage people to buy the game, it sometimes just encourages people to buy it second hand". ;)

vonhelmet said:
OK, and what about a guy who builds a house and 10 people get to live in that, one after the other, each selling it on to the next?
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Thats not the same. The person who builds the house is selling an asset and gets all their costs reimbursed and makes a profit at the first sale. With a game, your only selling a license to use that copy, it has no physical value, and the revenue, is no where near enough to cover the cost. It's like renting a house, not buying it. If you bought the ip to the game, then it would be different.
 
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Ulfhedjinn said:
Already been posted on page one or something, this one is better anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSsJ19sy3JI
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lol dammit

Anyway, how i still don't understand how secondhand ownership is as bad as illegally pirating. It isn't at all since once you buy a game it becomes legally yours to do with as you please (except copy it and distrubute it).

If a hundred people buy a second hand game that originally cost £30, the company has taken £3000.

If a hundred people download a game that originally cost £30, the company has taken £30.

How is that in anyway the same? :confused:
 
sid said:
If I were a developer then the way I see it

Selling game on from one person to another (like dmpoole mentioned above) is generating me no money while 10 people have played that game.

So as far as I am concerned that is lost revenue really (no different from if they'd pirated it). The fact that second hand is legal isn't important as at the end of they day I'm not getting any money from either.

sid
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True, but as Acidhell pointed out, it's like that with everything ie. cars, houses, clothes, dvds, cds. It's just a fact of life that developers have to deal with. And anyway, i'm sure these developers get their money that they've "lost", back by charging the first owner a few quid more.
 
I don't pirate games because I don't spend that much time playing them. I can easily afford enough games to fill the time I want to spend playing games.

I suppose a key difference between reselling physical objects and reselling games is that physical objects deteriorate, so a second hand one is in some way inferior to a new one in the majority of cases. Where as with a game, the packaging and disc may deteriorate, but as long as the disc is up to a certain standard the data is exactly the same as a new copy.
 
Gaygle said:
lol dammit

Anyway, how i still don't understand how secondhand ownership is as bad as illegally pirating. It isn't at all since once you buy a game it becomes legally yours to do with as you please (except copy it and distrubute it).

If a hundred people buy a second hand game that originally cost £30, the company has taken £3000.

If a hundred people download a game that originally cost £30, the company has taken £30.

How is that in anyway the same? :confused:
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If a hundred people buy a second hand game that originally cost £30, the company makes £30.

If a hundred people download a game that originally cost £30 the company has taken £30.

Fixed.
 
Psyk said:
I suppose a key difference between reselling physical objects and reselling games is that physical objects deteriorate, so a second hand one is in some way inferior to a new one in the majority of cases. Where as with a game, the packaging and disc may deteriorate, but as long as the disc is up to a certain standard the data is exactly the same as a new copy.
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What about reselling of things that don't degrade...ie. PC parts (a la MM, ebay etc)
 
Gaygle said:
Warranties can be transferred iirc
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In most cases with PC hardware warranty cannot be transferred.

When RMAing to OcUK for example you need to provide your order number etc. and the item will probably be shipped to the same address that's on the receipt unless you've moved. Most RMAs direct to manufacturers will require the receipt.
 
Do the people who create the cracks do it for fun? Because if they do, then that's an interesting point. If people like doing it, then that's human nature, and no matter how much you copy protect something you can't stop human nature. :P
 
Gaygle said:
Warranties can be transferred iirc

and electronic items degrade slow enough as to make no difference.
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Warranties maybe transferred but they don't reset when you pass the hardware on

Monkeynut said:
Do the people who create the cracks do it for fun? Because if they do, then that's an interesting point. If people like doing it, then that's human nature, and no matter how much you copy protect something you can't stop human nature. :P
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Humans like to be challenged, the harder copy protection you put on, the more likely it is to be cracked and gain news that it's been cracked. Bioshock being an example
 
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Energize said:
The simple way to stop lost revenue through second hand games, is to make games so good that people can't wait to buy them second hand, or reduce prices to a resonable amount (which also discourages piracy) so people can afford them. It's fair and everyone wins.

Last year EA made $3 billion in revenue and made a net profit of $76 million, so clearly developers aren't doing too bad due to piracy or 2nd hand games. ;)
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Hmm took 3,000 Mil but only made a profit of 76 Mil ?

Do you think they're doing well? that's 2.5%.
 
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mr.sly said:
If a hundred people buy a second hand game that originally cost £30, the company makes £30.

If a hundred people download a game that originally cost £30 the company has taken £30.

Fixed.
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I can't believe you're actually sticking by this argument.

You're missing one fundamental point: the number of copies in circulation.

You're not alway guaranteed to find a second hand copy of a game. Take GTA4 for example; there a relatively few on the second hand market at the moment. Therefore you have a choice: you can either buy it new and make the developer more money or you can pirate it.

Buying second hand simply cannot be compared to pirating. All the second hand market does is shortens the product's retail life. Pirating destroys it.

Burnsy
 
Ulfhedjinn said:
In most cases with PC hardware warranty cannot be transferred.

When RMAing to OcUK for example you need to provide your order number etc. and the item will probably be shipped to the same address that's on the receipt unless you've moved. Most RMAs direct to manufacturers will require the receipt.
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Oh i thought they could generally be transferred if the seller could be bothered.

Also, don't you get warranties with games? If they unexpectedly fail for no reason? A mate of mine has had a few of these games on XBOX 360 and PS3 which keep crashing in the same place (even tested some on other consoles).

At the end of the day, someone has bought that game and paid full price for it hence it is legally theirs to sell/give away/fish fry. And as i've explained earlier, pirating games is not very comparable with 2nd hand ownership
 
Burnsy2023 said:
I can't believe you're actually sticking by this argument.

You're missing one fundamental point: the number of copies in circulation.

You're not alway guaranteed to find a second hand copy of a game. Take GTA4 for example; there a relatively few on the second hand market at the moment. Therefore you have a choice: you can either buy it new and make the developer more money or you can pirate it.

Buying second hand simply cannot be compared to pirating. All the second hand market does is shortens the product's retail life. Pirating destroys it.

Burnsy
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Of course it can be compared. In both cases, the people who actually put their lifes into making a game dont not see any return whatsoever.

I'm not saying pirating a game is right because its just the same as buying a 2nd hand game. They're as bad as each other.

You're very knowledgeable of Windows. So for example (taking the law out of it for a second) I purchase Vista, install it, then I sell my disc to a 2nd hand shop. They sell it on make a profit, Microsoft sees nothing and I've made some money back as well. That person might as well just download the copy, because they're supporting Microsoft at all.
 
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