News 100 million used games traded in US annually

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2009/06/30/100-million-used-games-traded-in-us-annuall/1

More than 100 million used games are traded annually in the US according to analysts, who believe it's actually strengthening the industry

 

stop working to this disposable "game of the month" formula and that number will drop.

 

And twice that being downloaded every month!

 

Why are games developers and publishers always moaning about used game sales (well, if it's not one thing it's another it seems)?

Every single other commodity and entertainment product has used sales which impact on new sales (albeit perhaps not as much as for games), so why do they think their industry is an exception? They don't seem to realise that there are people out there that can't actually afford to buy every game they want to play new, so their only option is to buy it used or not play it at all. I really can't see the logic in their thought that stopping used game sales will massively increase their profit, because it just wouldn't - if anything I could see it hurting their profits.

These people need to wake up and start living in the real world, not in their self-created fantasy where they're rolling around in giant piles on money with naked models on their private yachts.

 

The problem is that they do live in the real world, and naked models and private yachts don't come cheap. If you're buying used games, you're not adding to their piles of money.

 

Those sorts of figures would explain why publishers are so hot on this online limited activation DRM - I bet publishers are salivating at the idea of getting another, say, $3-5 billion in revenue...

 

I was never really fond of trading games at gamestop.

Those people were bloody theives, $15 for 6 games??? Bah, I'll keep them and buy a bunch of used ones.

 

I buy PC games but I can honestly say that I've never sold off an old game, even if it's crap. Generally they get boxed up and stored away. I might occaisonally donate an old game to a relative or friend, but that's about it.

 

I don't think I've ever bought or sold a used game

 

I used to buy the odd used game when i was little but i don't now and i have never sold a game

 

I have plenty of used games in my collection, thanks to "BOGOF" offers at gamestation. I've never sold a game though, i'm too much of a hoarder, I won't even throw away broken games. I do buy shiney new cellophane wrapped games but usually after a price drop. £30-35 is too expensive for me, unless I really must have it, Half-Life 2 being an example. Nothing really wows me into an impulse buy anymore so I wait till a game is under £20.

 

I sell the odd game on ebay, also sold quite a few games when I was younger to allow myself to buy new ones. Generally though I keep the majority of my games.

I have several games I own that I should really sell on because I don't really play them, but with achievements especially, I keep them just encase I do go back to them one day.

 

Recently I've started trading in some games (Halo 3, Heavenly Sword, and a few other current gen titles) to fund newer purchases. I dare not trade in my older games as I've become somewhat of a collector depending on the title. I still have my Chaos Wars in it's wrapping (it was sold in limited quality here in the U.S. for PS2).

I don't see a problem with trading in games. Now a days, even RPGs come up short and at $60 per game I try to mitigate my cost as much as possible if I know for a fact I have no desire to play through the game again, or it's online features and the used games industry is the only place to find older titles (I finally tracked down Suikoden II without the $100+ price tag it goes or on Ebay).

 

I buy my games used now, so cheap and the game will still work, so why even bother paying another 20 dollars for a new copy of something. I'm really not one to care for any fancy extras so it works great for me.

 

I don't like buying used games as there's usually only a few dollars difference between the new and used versions. I've also found some good deals on new games on sites like Amazon Marketplace and eBay.

 

There is one point they are missing.

Many games are in series (total war; Fallout; COD) a cheap purchase in the series may lead that person to by the next one coming out. I bought Morrowind on sale, wich resulted in that I bought Oblivion and Fallout 3 at full retail price, now tell me how the cheap purchase hurt their sales in any way.

In the end if the game is good enough the customer naturally want more and then most likely will by the next game in the series.

 

In my golden age. (atari ST and early PC age that is) I have bought a new game every week. Every game was as expensive as it is now and that is around 50 dollars (99 to 110 dutch guilders back then) for a floppy disk in a carton box and 256 colors of sprites. But those Adventure games; like Legend of Kyrandia series, Larry Lafter series, Space Quest series, police quest series, tentacles, loom most of them playing sounds thru midi on the ST to my synth modules. And later on through a soundblaster with real speech! That was awesome.

 

Hmm actually to my knowledge some game publishers love the idea of their games being sold on.. the ones who make downloadable content for a fee... this way they get twice (or more) as many potential costumers for their extra content... and I think for some of the games with downloadable content this is where the money is.. not in selling the actual CD/DVD

 

What I really don't get here is how games publishers whine about piracy affecting thier profits when pre-owned games sales also net them no money....

 

Piracy doesn't even get them the original game sale. At least they have that with pre-owned titles.