What is the difference? The company gets paid exactly one time, and lots of people enjoy their product on this one time payment. The difference is that in the case of used games, people profit massively on the hard work of others, without lifting a finger.
Physical ownership, I suppose.
>>322531334
>people profit massively on the hard work of others, without lifting a finger.
>without lifting a finger.
I see you've never tried to run a business.
>>322531334
>What is the difference?
Pretty simple.
Used games are limited by the number of copies or licenses that the company created, so you know that the company got paid at least once.
Piracy means that the company didn't get paid at all for it. You can make as many number of additional copies as you want.
>>322531334
That's wrong and you know it. It's fine for games to be redistributed- what matters is that it doesn't deprive the devs of another true sale. People buy used games because someone didn't want it, which attests naturally to its value.
Like, seriously, I know pirating is easy, but you need to be bigger than that.
>>322531334
Using that logic, you might as well only buy games directly from the developer.
>>322531334
>Buying used vs pirating
This is gonna be good
>>322531334
You know the fucking difference.
One is legitimate ownership and the other is not. The real question is what does that mean to you?
> yfw you realize the costs of piracy is priced into the cost of vidya
>>322533487
Actually, with piracy, the company gets paid at least once as well. Someone has to buy a copy to crack it.
>>322533579
>That's wrong and you know it.
But it's not.
>what matters is that it doesn't deprive the devs of another true sale.
Going into a shop and buying a used game is certainly worse than just grabbing it off TPB in that case.
>>322534726
But with preowned, there is a limit to the number of games out there in the wild. I'm sure we all remember the time that we attempted to find a used copy of a popular game without any luck and were forced to pay full price for a new copy of the game.
With piracy, the publisher has no control over the supply of the game.
Pirating is bad, but pre-owned game peddlers are just insidiously bad.
In my local GameStopI don't buy my games therethe used games are the first thing a customer sees when they step in. They take more space in the store than anything else, they even have the newest & most popular pre-owned games on their own spot.
That is the reason they try to focus more and more on those "Bring in pre-owned games", they hope to receive even few of those big hitter games, which they buy from the customer for a shitty price, then put back on sale for a good amount cheaper than the brand new one and hope to sell it for crazy profit of which none will go to the original dev or publisher.
That is all business right? In most eyes that is quite ok.
The bad thing is that all those unpurchased brand new copies will be blamed on everything but these pre-owned game peddlers. They will be blamed on piracy, for a good reason, they almost literally are the same as piracy. There is a reason both consoles & PC game publishers try more DRM, to prevent the use of purchase by multiple parties, but also to deter these pre-owned game peddlers. Devs/Publishers know what they are doing but can't/won't attack them directly due to:
1. The dev/publisher and the peddler are owned by the same people/shareholders.
2. They can easily control the sales of games being published and thus it is not smart to attack them for their practices
3. They work in alliance with the dev offering retailer unique pre-order/purchase rewards so to as to attract more purchases.
It is business on the base level, but on the current market it might still be eating away at the profits of devs/publisher whom I care a lot more about than some retail company.Shitstorm incoming.
There's one major difference.
If you pirate a game you'll play it at release, which means you'll talk about it at release and build hype for the game. Free advertising.
When you buy preowned you do the same, except you do it years after release when nobody gives a shit any more.
That's why pirating is better for the devs.
>>322537819
>trying to justify being a thief
>>322538143
All I'm saying is that piracy has positive effects which buying used doesn't have.
And it's true.
People who buy used truly are the scum that is killing gaming.
They are disgusting worthless people.
They actually have money to spend on games, but instead of giving it to the devs, who deserve it, they give it to the jews
>>322538662
This.
Though some of them are clueless parents who just buy whatever is the cheapest.
>>322537193
This is a sensible post. I think it's also important to remember that many of these stores have a policy of actively pushing for people buying new games to buy used instead, which, unlike the impossible to prove lost sale fallacy that is always applied to piracy, is an ACTUAL, DEMONSTRABLE lost sale.
Ultimately piracy is a victimless crime [but still a crime nevertheless, that's not in question], and used games are basically retailers pulling a primae noctis.
>tfw next generation is going to be digital only because fags keep pirating everything
>>322540498
Why would that make stuff digital only?
From what I've heard steam DRM is trivial to crack.
>>322533142
>transfer pirated .iso, crack, and all available patches onto a thumbdrive
there, enjoy your 'game cartridge'
>>322540819
>tfw in two generations everything is going to be streaming-only because fags keep figuring out ways to steal
>>322540971
>tfw in three generations nobody will make games anymore because everyone will have stolen all source codes
>>322541161
That would be nice.
>>322533579
Let me paint a picture for you.
10 people want to play a game.
5 people are willing to pay for it.
5 people pirate it for whatever various reasons.
2 copies are sold.
1 of those copies is used to make the upload to pirates.
1 of those copies is sent back to shitstop.
That copy gets flipped 3 more times by the remaining people who would pay and then brought it back after.
Shitstop makes more money off the game than the actual publishers and developers without having to cover costs of development or production or marketing(albeit they have to market their own store). So not only is their gross higher but so is there net.
Game publisher blames people who never wanted to pay for the game in first place(even if you really wanted to blame somebody for that anyway it'd be the guy who uploaded it). Actual developers get shit pay and have no job security while being treated like shit. Devs lose creative will and huge chunks of their lives to work for any potential money they can get. PR makes it look fun.
>used
>1 person buys new, 1 person buys used
>used buyer can resell, but stock is always limited to 1
>pirated
>1 person buys new or used, 1000 people pirate
>stock is unlimited
>>322542236
Well that's post-scarcity for you
>>322540498
>>322540971
Pirates are really a minority anon, even though super easy, pirating is still too "hard" to most of the retards of modern day.
I am certain that pre-owned games peddlers cause more losses in modern day sales than piracy. Since a pirate is still a potential buyer after pirating the game, someone who buys for the pre-owned game is quite certain to not purchase another copy.
Pirates are an easy demograph to blame, they are faceless, uncounted numbers, have been made synonymous with stealing and they will not fight back.
They will keep blaming pirates for all the unnecessary actions they take which are anti-customer or take power away from the customer. You will be punished because of some unproven somebodies are doing "bad" things.Anyone who thinks this industry is not degenerate enough to capitalize on something like this is a naive idiot and probaly buys pre-owned game while chanting "Pirates are killing the industry"
>>322533351
He's a kid, what did you expect?
>>322542236
>pirated
>can be archived forever and enjoyed as a timeless work
>used
>scarcity and obscurity doom it to never being known by many who would enjoy it and available to even less of them.
>gets it picked up and put on some wall collection of some fag who would never play it anyway
>>322531334
looks liike corporations are getting a bootm from goodl old unclelele saym keeo btfoing ebil megacors my hacker bro
>>322531334
Poorfag on laptop here, I don't even have a dedicated game store for 100 miles. Closest I have is a thrift store. Am I a problem?
>>322542236
On the other hand:
>pirated
>hey, this game is actually good, I'll buy it next time I see it on sale
>used
>hey, this game is actually good, good thing I bought a copy.
>>322543085
I don't think you can blame someone who has no reasonable way to buy games for pirating them. If you're like me and lives in the middle of a rapidly expanding desert, that makes things hard.
>>322542236
>1000 people buy a new game
>500 take it back to the store
>500 people buy a pre-owned game
>250 of those take it back to store
>250 people buy a pre-owned game
>125 take it back to the store
The dev has gotten money for 1000 copies from which the store also takes a cut. They will not get more. meanwhile the store has gained a cut of 1000 and 875 sales of pure money. of course the number can be tweaked to lets say if 50% of the retun copies are bought, they still have sold ~440 copies of games that will not profit the dev.
Pirates on the otherhand while being also bad
>1 person buys copy
>1000 download it
>all 1000 are still potential buyers
The crack might suck, people are not bothered to wait, multiplayer does not work, etc. Say what you will DRM is gettin harder and harder to crack, while it might never truly defeat the pirates, it still slows them down, which might be all the the publisher needs.
And I assure you, pirates are a very small minority of people without money or morals.
>>322531334
First Sale - the concept that once someone has bought an item that it then belongs to them and they are then within their rights to re-sell it.
Companies like Valve have bypassed this by focusing on convenience and ubiquity with totally digital subscriptions tied to an account. So initially this seems like a step backwards but if you buy a game from Steam it is then yours on any machine you might get so a compatible game will work on your Linux workstation, your Mac laptop, and your Windows tablet and you don't have to worry about breaking or losing an install disk. Basically Valve has given up on re selling people the same games.
The problem many companies have today is that they want to have both the old model where you own the media but your license is tied to that media, and the new digital model where you have no ability to re-sell a game.
>>322543814
>The problem many companies have today is that they want to have both the old model where you own the media but your license is tied to that media, and the new digital model where you have no ability to re-sell a game.
Which I'm actually goes entirely against the spirit, even if not the wording, of consumer protection laws in many countries. Not quite sure about the US, however.
But hey, what can you do, legislation doesn't advance fast enough to cover most of these situations as they are developing, this is the sort of think that will have to be resolved on some judge's desk one day.
>is it legal for developers or distributors to cut off your access to an already-bought product? On what basis?
>>322531334
Buying Used
Original owner relinquishes game
New owner acquires game
The game's audience size is still the same. Not ideal, but not really a net loss for the developer as far as players vs. sales goes
If the game's good both players might purchase their next new game
Piracy:
Original owner still owns game
Infinite new people also own game
Audience is now massive but the players vs. sales ratio is now massively skewed
If the game's good all of these players will most likely just pirate it again
>>322544291
Fucking hell, I am scared of that day.
Might be exaggerating here, but I think decision like that will be a day that tells us how deeply rotten with corporate mold our courts truly are.
>2025
>you consider which games in your library do you want re-subscribed for the next year
>if you don't the games are locked from your use
>standard subscription time is 1 year
>might be even shorter for hot titles
>we are back to the world of warcraft subscription model
>>322542194
Is this bait? Or are you serious?
I came here to see what was going on. I don't really give two fucks about pirating/used games/blah blah. I don't think pirating has an meaningful impact on the industry except for DRM shit which really isn't a huge deal at the end of the day.
But the delusion the majority of piracyfags display is nothing short of astounding. What game has only ever been played by 10 people? Buy hey, let's use your picture.
The point is that the physical copy is controlled. The pirated copy is not. So while 5 people payed for a game.. it was the same controlled copy of that game. The other 5 are uncontrolled copies, and to even hypothetically think it stopped at 5 is ridiculous.
Oversaturation devalues a product. That copy of a game that was sold 5 times had to be sold back 4 times. The one that was pirated was simply given away 5 times at no value. That makes the game worth exponentially less from a value standpoint. People experienced this game at no cost. They have no legitimate opinion on it other than that they played it. They did nothing but wait to get it. How can they possibly judge it's worth? The 60 bucks it cost at release is not missing from their wallet, and no one who wanted to sell that game will ever take them seriously. Their numbers mean nothing, so they are not a demographic worth investing in.
The copy that was sold 5 time still only exists once. One must look for it to find it, and it is in a controlled environment. Someone pays money to get it, and therfore (honestly whether or not their opinion is based in earnesty or frivolity is unfortunately urrelevant) matter more to thise who created it. That creates value. Even if the company did not make money on the used copy, they can still see (since it was in that controlled environment) that the product they made was worth something. Do you see the difference here? It's not about morals. It's about business.
>>322544692
>Buying Used
>If the game's good both players might purchase their next new game
>Piracy
>If the game's good all of these players will most likely just pirate it again
All pirates are morally rotten individuals right? Not potential customers wanting to test a game? All normal buyers are saints who will definately buy the game outright next time, not buy a pre-owned copy again.
Nice thinking anon-kun.
>>322544692
>If the game's good all of these players will most likely just pirate it again
There's a reason for why many companies are starting to play meaningful sums of money for things like YouTube visibility, and remember, let's playing WAS, at some point, compared to some sort of "visual piracy".
Also, there IS a net loss for the developer as far as player vs. sales go, because the customer who went into gamestop to buy a game and then was convinced by the cashier to pick up an used copy for cheaper instead is an actual lost same.
>>322544925
I think this is likely, Microsoft and Sony are already headed that way transitioning their systems from devices that play games natively on their own hardware, to devices that stream a game from another device. So in the future you won't be buying a game at all, you'll be buying access to a game streamed to you from a remote server.
>>322545289
>>322545656
>They have no legitimate opinion on it other than that they played it. They did nothing but wait to get it. How can they possibly judge it's worth? The 60 bucks it cost at release is not missing from their wallet, and no one who wanted to sell that game will ever take them seriously. Their numbers mean nothing, so they are not a demographic worth investing in.
>There's a reason for why many companies are starting to play meaningful sums of money for things like YouTube visibility, and remember, let's playing WAS, at some point, compared to some sort of "visual piracy".
I don't quite think the developers or the publishers quite care to think "oh well, at least the customer appreciated the value of the work properly by paying money for it, even if it wasn't to me".
Speaking strictly about business, it doesn't matter to you at all if the product you make is worth something if that worth doesn't find its way back to you.
>>322545289
>the cost should be used as a standpoint for measuring a game
>not the other way around
Anon for fucks sake are you not a customer yourself?
Also as if games companie these days live of the fucking numbers, they need money, they need revenue.
Sometimes I wish they would just finish their fucking super locked retail copies that can only be used once, so that the pre-own market would die down asap, lets see how the sales will do after that.
Even when that happens pirates will still do what they do, becaue they are faceless & uncounted in numbers.
Even the most extreme anti-customer measure will not stop pirates. Because they have nothing to lose, only gain.
>>322546140
Fuck, wrote a wall of text and you summed it up in few sentences.
regards >>322546253
>>322545689
>So in the future you won't be buying a game at all, you'll be buying access to a game streamed to you from a remote server.
I see that service model as being utterly unsustainable.
One needs to ask questions regarding at which point the costs of keeping authentication and streaming hardware functioning 24/7 puts a meaningful dent on the profits of the operation, especially if you take into account the fact that it turns off a share of your customers by essentialy forcing them to jump over a series of hoops that have no guarantee for stability or continued existence.
One needs only to look at the example of Sim City to see how that sort of system backfires tremendously.
>>322546686
We can only watch what the industry comes up with.
>>322546140
The point is that is displays monetary interest. Of course they don't care that someone appreciated it They care that money was spent on it at all. And I feel that this is why video games are argued as art.. but I really don't intend to change the subject. I only mean that, like a song or book, it's only going to sell well for a set period of time after release. After that point, if it's creator doesn't do anything new then there is no more money to be made. I don't think anyone's ever been set for life after a single game. But if people are still spending (what add up to be) inconsequential amounts of money.. they'll probably spend money on something new but similar. That's where the developer goes "ok, I can maybe do this for a living". The pirated copies do not say that.The rare occasion being that an exceptionally old and hard to find game suddenly becomes popular through piracy when it was fairly modest on release. But everything has an outlier, and I don't think it's worth mentioning realistically speaking
>>322546686
>at which point the costs of keeping authentication and streaming hardware functioning 24/7 puts a meaningful dent on the profits of the operation
Companies already routinely handle those expenses without monthly fees on users. Using virtualization to allow many people to play games on the same hardware simultaneously is already a thing, and hardware encoding can make streaming very light on resources.
Users also already deal with the limited lifespan of devices and services that they purchase, how many people are dissuaded from buying an Xbox knowing that one day Live for the device will be discontinued and their system will become single player only?
So in the future when you play a game a virtualized instance running the game will be spun up on a server in a data center near you, and when you're done playing that instance will be unloaded and those hardware resources will be dedicated to some other task. I should point out this is possibly one of the reasons why companies are currently porting games to Linux, if your game runs on Linux you don't have to pay licensing fees to Microsoft for those temporary virtual machines.
>>322546253
It's not the cost, it's the act of spending the money. And you are right, they care about the revenue. There is business to be determined in used sales. Which is probably one of the reasons it's not shit on as much as piracy. There is nothing to be determined in piracy. That's my point. The fact they are uncontrolled and uncounted.
And as I said, I don't really care that piracy won't be stopped. It shouldn't be. Fuck that nanny - state horseshit. But to say it is no different, or less harmful, than a market that actually does something to the economy, is ridiculous.
>>322542981
are you having a fucking stroke
>>322531334
i actually dont care at all because im tired of there being too many companies cashing in on videogames. my backlog is only getting longer and i can only finish it if game developers stop.
>>322549040
> 56 minutes ago
He's dead, anon.
>>322543775
you are so asshurt its hilarious
if half of your consumer base buys on day one and still returns it your game is shit and you should stop blaming everyone else
>>322548242
Aight.
Nothing to argue there both Piracy and Pre-owned games sales are hurtful to the devs/publishers.
One (piracy) is blamed for the actions of other (pre-owned peddlers) that is of the two the most insidious in my though process. All this leading to publishers/devs being given more reasons to fuck customers in the name of piracy.
I'm sure publishers are aware of the pre-owned game business and are trying something to combat it. Though they will still fuck customers in the process, because they are given the chance.
>>322534153
>>322534153
Fuck I miss 90s TV shows.
>Get into Constantine
>They cancel it after season one
>Get into Almost Human
>Canceled after Season one also.
>Episode 2 of Season 2 for The Strain was fucking retarded, killed my interest.
When the fuck will I enjoy TV again goddamnit.
