Used games are fair trade

Polygon: "When Ready at Dawn boss Ru Weerasuriya criticizes GameStop for selling used games — and failing to provide any of the revenue to games developers — he's echoing a sentiment common among video game-makers."

[Auron]

I'll admit bear traps are a fair trade.

[TheHybrid]

Wow. That was excellent. I may be changing my mind on this issue.

[Soldierone]

I don't care who says it, its still a flawed argument. If you go into GameStop and simply trade in your game, you get almost nothing for it. However if you trade it for store credit you double the value right there. You trade it towards a NEW GAME you could double the value yet again.

So GameStop is sitting there telling people "hey buy new games, and let us help you. While you are here, take some old used titles too"

Honestly you take that away, you will benefit absolutely no one. All those people TRADING UP will no longer be able to afford you half arse 60 dollar game, let alone its 50 dollar "season" pass.... aka the rest of the damn game.

If you want more sales, make better games. End of story. People wouldn't trade in your game so fast if it wasn't only 5 hours long and had absolutely no replay value at all....

[CRAIG667]

Fair enough but in the real world things aren't quite as black and white, For instance I bought Borderlands 2 on release, didn't get into it and quickly sold it on ebay(think I was spending all my time with HALO4) anyway after I got bored of Halo4 (too quickly) I decided to give Borderlands 2 another chance and got it 2nd from blockbuster online, Now it's my favourite game of the last 2 years...

What's I am saying is as a developer you may make the best game ever imagined but you will never please everyone, we are human,not robots,no matter what you you do someone will be disappointed with your work and trade it in...

I would personally like some of the revenue created in the used games market to go back to developers, Too many are going out of business and with the next gen of consoles production cost's are not going to fall no matter what Microsoft or Sony tell you, the noose is going to get much tighter for developers in the coming years...

[Soldierone]

Yes not everyone is going to like every game, the problem is the people that do actually like a game still beat them too fast and trade them in.

If anything they should just implement a "no trade policy" for 30 days. Let the publishers get money for 30 days, then open the gates. Because if no one is buying the game for those 30 days its proves it isn't the used game markets fault.

And don't forget, even if they were to create a money pit in used games for "the developers" it still won't go to them. Its the publishers that want the money, and they blame us (gamers and people buying used titles) for not having it.

[tracyllrkn]

Used games aren't really the problem, game budgets are. You can't expect to make a profit when a game costs $100 million to make. If developers could keep budgets low, this industry would be fine.

[AbortMission]

Metro Last Light devs are a good example of being able to develop great games at low budgets. You don't need James Cameron budgets to make amazing blockbuster games, although money always does help

[showtimefolks]

there was a study done that proved if a system blocks used games than the market will actually loose 15% each year, I hate gamestop as much as the next guy but sometimes their trade value towards a new game are higher than you can sell on ebay/craiglist

many gamers trade in their used games to buy another copy of something new that just came out, if we block used games than those gamers won't be able to trade in their games meaning they won't be able to buy as many new games

but the developers should work with gamestop to get some return and not hurt the gamers

that's why going digital has a huge push, but if we gonna go digital than prices have to be better

[iceman06]

I have seen that study and I completely agree with it. As much as the industry complains about GameStop and used games, they also understand that it is a necessary evil. If they wanted GameStop to be gone, they could simply stop doing business with them. That hasn't happened. Why? Because those gaming dollars would be missed.
Besides, the real issue is more about getting a "fair share" of the revenue. Where does revenue sharing come in for developers? The publishing agreements!!! THAT is the real issue. However, the devs hands are usually tied on that because the publisher has all of the control. It's a fight that most devs can't win (unless they are both publisher and developer). Therefore, they are looking at a battle that they MIGHT be able to do something about...used games. In business, it's the consumers that take the brunt of any shift in the market. Businesses cut, bend, and stretch to make sure that they stay "in the black" and shift the burden to the consumer.

[JohnCartenper]

While I agree selling one's physical copy is a fundamental right in a capitalist society, selling your games to gamestop or the like is just dumb.

Why not sell it on ebay/craiglist instead and take in 4x the money ditching the parasitic middle man?

15$ for a 1 month old game? No thanks.

[rainslacker]

I agree that their trade-in price policy isn't terribly consumer friendly, but way too many people are using that as a justification as to why developers should get a cut of the 2nd hand sale. That to me is just wrong, and honestly a completely different issue.

Developers claim they want their fair share. I argue they get that when someone buys the game new. What happens after that sale to that particular product isn't really their concern until they make the effort to brunt the risk of buying all these used games like GameStop does. As far as I'm concerned, the developer's involvement in a game sale ends when that first sale is made.

[Hicken]

A worthwhile article out of Polygon? Maybe I should play the lotto tomorrow.