An answer to game theft and secondhand games

On my recent visits to video game stores I was unsurprised to see that the secondhand game section is now just as big as the new game section. This must make the blood of every game developer and publisher boil because they are getting no income from these sales, despite having done all the work to create the games. Add to this the massive bit torrent stealing of games, which can reach over 90% of all users on some platforms and you can see that there has to be another way.

Eight or nine years ago at Codemasters I came up with the Registered Player Service, an idea to tie each copy of a game down to an individual user and then to provide downloadable content (DLC) as an incentive for participation. So only if we, the publisher, had received a person’s money, did they get the full experience. If they had a pirated or secondhand copy then they only got a basic game. Because of politics at Codemasters this idea was never implemented.

So you can imagine how pleased I am that at long last this idea is being implemented. By BioWare, and they are calling it the Cerberus network. They have added the refinement that someone with a pirated or secondhand copy can still get the content, by paying a fee, currently $15. This is probably pretty close to the incremental nett profit BioWare would make from selling a legitimate copy of the game, so it cancels out the financial effects of both secondhand sales and game theft.

The first game this is being done with is Mass Effect 2, out tomorrow. Legitimate game owners and players must be very pleased, here is an anti piracy measure that doesn’t punish them and which forces everyone to contribute to the cost of making the game if they want the full experience.

From a marketing point of view this requires the philosophy shift to treat owners of the game as a community, not just as a number of consumers, the benefits for everyone are enormous. It is certainly something that needs to be brought to the Apple AppStore (and the many similar such models) if developers want to be adequately paid for their work.

52 Comments


  1. Why exactly do secondhand games require an “answer”? According to fair use doctrine there is no problem: someone acquires the rights to a piece of software, uses it, then sells those rights to a third party (EULAs be damned, especially those that infringe on fair use). But now, publishers want to sell nontransferable rights to media that have classically been transferable, and see anything cutting into their (firsthand) sales figures as a problem and a threat — so they will try get consumers to swallow the poison pill of DRM that locks them out from their rights as consumers.

    Publishers love comparing piracy to car theft, so let’s apply that analogy here: what if Ford wanted to sell you a car at full price, but required you to never resell that car? That’s exactly what the new wave of DRM is trying to pull off, and they’ll throw in the hassle of forcing you to contact Ford HQ every time you try to start the engine to verify that you are still the original owner (obviously automated by the computer but susceptible to network failures, server crashes, and the plagues of bugs and false negatives found in every commercial DRM service so far).


  2. @apikoros

    You seem to have a problem with game developers and publishers earning money for their work.


  3. Actually, Bioware did something similar with Dragon Age: Origins. Purchasers of the game (new) received a code that code be redeemed once for some DLC (armor set and a new party member). Since the code was a one-time thing, people who purchased the game used have to pay for the content if they want it.


  4. And you seem to have a presumption that people don’t deserve fair use rights to software.

    And actually, I don’t fit your description: I never implied devs and publishers shouldn’t make money off their work. You’re just wrong to presume that you’re entitled to nix the secondary market. Or perhaps you believe that software is somehow incompatible with a secondhand market? Yet you provide NO reasons to think so in your article nor your “retort.”

    “Eight or nine years ago, I came up with the Registered Driver Service, an idea to tie each car sold to an individual driver and then provide air conditioning and power steering as an incentive to participate, so only if we, the manufacturer, got money from the sale would the driver get the full experience of driving our cars.”

    That is bullshit that does not fly in any other market, and it is incredible that the arrogance to attempt to impose it can coexist with the persecution complex that gives rise to statements like “$304,149,300 stolen from Activision.”


  5. I have to agree with apikoros on this one – what makes the games industry so special that they deserve to be protected from “evil” second hand sales? Once I’ve paid money for my game I reserve the right to do whatever I want with it. If I want to sell it on, what right does a videogames publisher have to stop me?

    Of course, the answer to this is “none” but if you had your way the answer to this would appear to be that it would be much more acceptable that I throw games that I am finished with in the bin rather than sell them on.


  6. @Sean Bean’s Gravy Boat

    You totally misunderstand what you are buying with a game. What you are buying is the non transferable right to play the game. The plastic and cardboard don’t come into it. So when you sell the cardboard and plastic secondhand to another person they don’t have the right to play it. The Cerberus Network makes this point exactly.


  7. Of course cheap digital distribution would alleviate soem of these ill feelings, but when the developers/publishers actively engage in price fixing in regions such as Australia, making the cost of a digital copy exactly the same as the currently overpriced retail version, it tends to leave a bad taste in ones mouth.

    Now I personally spent about $30AU on Steam over christmas and ended up with about 8 or so games. That’s impressive. But I imagine Mass Effect 2 (I haven’t even looked yet) will probably be price fixed to sell at $89.95US for those of us in the Australian market, where US customers will probably get the usual $59.95US price point. That is totally unacceptable. And we supposedly have a free trade agreement with the US! Laughable.

    So no physical disc, case or manual, plus a game permanently locked to your Steam account, for more than (depending on exchange rate) the retail box price? Where is the sense in that?


  8. I have to agree that depicting second hand sales as “evil” is polemical. I also fail to see why computer games deserve special exemption from the First-sale doctrine or Exhaustion doctrine when books, CDs and DVDs don’t. As apikoros says, “EULAs be damned.”


  9. Bruce, you’re wide of the mark on this one. The second hand market is not the same issue as piracy.

    Perhaps historically it’s not been so obvious as consoles and PCs have had much shorter lifespans before the next generation came along. However, it’s always been the case that games are sold, not rented. As such, apikoros’ comparison with the car market is valid – why does the fact that a game is a digital product make it any different from a car, or music CD?

    If you want to rent out the experience, by all means move to that business model. This half-assed mid-way is a poor attempt to have your cake and eat it. It would be equally technically possible to refund users who buy a game but get bored of it after a couple of hours – perhaps you should advocate that as well to balance the books?


  10. IIRC, both Sega and Nintendo tried to put a stop to second-hand sales back in the Nineties, but lost in court. Besides, if a gamer is buying ‘the non transferable right to play the game’, they have the right to make a copy for backup, no?


  11. It is absolutely amazing that people are still trying to justify stealing video games.
    If you don’t pay for your games then where are the wages going to come from for all the programmers, artists, QAs, designers etc who made the game?


  12. Who was that a response to? Most people on this thread are defending the second-hand market, not piracy.


  13. It’s true that at one point in my life I did pirate games. I am not proud. That’s the problem with liking games and not having much money.

    When my conscience caught up with me, I knew I had to make a change. And the change was not buying games as soon as they came out, no matter how much I wanted to play them.

    Wait a few months and they become affordable, especially if you do little things like make your own coffee instead of buying it at the shop.

    As far as used games go, dude, come on. When I sold my Mazda, I made the money. I had already paid Mazda for the truck, why should they get their money twice? I paid for it, it’s MY truck. The same with games. You pay for it once it’s YOURS to sell as you see fit if you want. That’s commerce.


  14. When I purchased Sacred II, I was required to register the game online with the software vendor. That registration is double-checked each time the game is opened and played. It’s a bit of an annoyance–and there’s got to be a better way, as you described, to recoup–but it is nonetheless a relatively effective method.


  15. quote:

    ““Eight or nine years ago, I came up with the Registered Driver Service, an idea to tie each car sold to an individual driver and then provide air conditioning and power steering as an incentive to participate, so only if we, the manufacturer, got money from the sale would the driver get the full experience of driving our cars.””

    erm , well if you’ve ever brought a car brand new, you’ll have choice of colour , and all the optional extra’s like heated windows, engine size, CD player , etc,etc,etc

    so it is a case of “only if we, the manufacturer, got money from the sale would the driver get the full experience of driving our cars.” after all, isnt it?

    if you buy second hand , you’ve only got the choice of other peoples clapped out old cast-offs.

    i can understand your point , but the analogy could have been a lot better


  16. “What you are buying is the non transferable right to play the game. ”

    Then secondhand games aren’t theft, they’re breaches of contract — and crucially, NOT on the part of the person your scheme seeks to punish! It is the original owner who violates the license, but the second buyer who misses out on extra content (or worse, buys a game with zero activations remaining).

    But of course the publishers want to have it both ways and call it a “sale” rather than a “license,” yet call secondhand sales “theft” and “piracy.” Without the DMCA to protect the license enforcement schemes, Fair Use would obviously trump these legal semantics just as it did when the music industry tried to make mix tapes illegal.


  17. @Right to resale
    The method Bioware is proposing is not taking away your right to resale. What they are doing is charging a fee for continued support on the product. This is no different than using FOSS and paying for support from the developer.

    @All car analogies
    The analogy is terrible. You can still sell the car, but you cannot sell the extended warranty from the manufacturer with the car. If the MFG allows it, the third party can purchase another extended warranty on the vehicle from the MFG once they obtain the rights to ownership of said vehicle.


  18. and on the subject of EULA’s..(end user LICENCE agreement)

    if i recall from all the EULA’s i’ve never bothered to read properly (scan read or blatently ignored is more the case)
    they come with 2 buttons “i agree” and ” i don’t agree”

    so if you dont agree with the fact that it’s a “licence” your buying.. and not the “Right” to the game (or a right/licence to re-distribute)
    merely press the “i don’t agree” button. (at which point the game won’t install.

    from my understanding of consumer law, you’re then entitled to put the item back in the box and return it to the store for a full refund.

    if you dont agree to the EULA , but you press the ” i agree” button then we have to assume 1 of 2 things, either it’s a mistake
    (you might have got the 2 confused , or hit the “i agree” button by mistake, have been under the influence of drink or drugs,or be a complete moron) anythings possible.

    OR…

    you might not agree with the EULA, but want to play the game any way…
    ” I WANT IT, I WANT IT!! GIMME! GIMME!…GIMME NOW”

    which is exactly the attitude of a seven year old child ( at least the attitude of my kids when they where that age)

    not that i’m accusing you of being a bunch of 7 year olds… merely of acting like them.

    it’s quite simple, you dont like the EULA?
    press ” i dont agree” , and take it back to the shop.
    BECAUSE ….thats the only way we will ever hope to get them to change the bl00dy EULA’s in the first place.

    SO…either suck it up like a man , and realize that you’re buying a “licence” to play , and not a right to own/and re-sale.

    OR.. take it back to the shop unplayed
    (and on mass… if 10 million people take a single title back to the shop saying” i dont agree to the EULA” i’m returning it unplayed.. then the games companies/publishers will have no other choice but to change the damned EULA’s for something better)

    OR.. just keep crying like a baby thats thrown it’s rattle out the pram for the third time and can’t understand why the adults won’t pick it up and give it back again…and again…and again..and again….and again ad infinitem.

    END USER <—(you)
    LICENCE (a binding contract)
    AGREEMENT (meaning you're agreeing to a binding commitment)

    if you cant understand those 4 words, i suggest you put not just the game but the whole computer back in the box, and take it back to the store. it doesn't matter what happens with any other product.. be it a car, a film, whatever… you're agreeing to 1 specific thing with an EULA . you either agree to this condition of sale.. or you don't buy the bleeding item in the first place.

    and yes. personally i have returned a couple of games after pressing " i dont agree"
    because i've read (in the EULA) that their gonna dump DRM's all over my computer, and my first and over-riding thought was " i'm not having that piece of sh1t anywhere near my P.C."


  19. quote:
    “Then secondhand games aren’t theft, they’re breaches of contract — and crucially, NOT on the part of the person your scheme seeks to punish! It is the original owner who violates the license, but the second buyer who misses out on extra content”

    you’re spot on the mark there sir 😀

    i guess the lesson there is …” be wary of buying 2nd hand games”

    a mate of mine brought a copy of “WoW” 2nd hand for a fiver in a car boot sale , and couldn’t understand why i spent 5 minutes laughing my head off, until he tried to put the security code in .. then he turned to me and said …
    ” i’ve just wasted my money , haven’t i?”


  20. quote: “According to fair use doctrine there is no problem: someone acquires the rights to a piece of software, uses it, then sells those rights to a third party ”

    under most EULA’s you’re buying ” a licence to use” .. not the “rights” to an item. ergo , you don’t have the right to re-sale..really bad analogy …but if your doctor gives you a prescription for medication … you dont have the right to then sell that medication.. it’s for “personal use ONLY”

    …i could be wrong, because i’m not that clue’d up on the in’s and out’s of fair use agreements.
    maybe EULA’s should read “…for personal use only .. no “fair usage intended or implied”

    fair usage “should” let me burn a 2nd copy of a game i buy ( in case the origional gets scratched…)

    it might go so far as to let me boot it up on a m8’s computer (coz he’s out of work , kicking me off my machine all the time to play it (and being a pain in the arse about it) .. and behind on the rent ..so he’s never going to be able to buy a copy anyway..loading it on his P.C. means that i get ” fair usage” of my own machine and the game.

    fair usage probably DOES NOT cover…
    uploading it to bit-torrent so that thousands or millions of other people can play it too.

    if some company gets smart enough to get a court injunction against a torrent site , to make them disclose the IP address and details of the uploader.. and then sue that uploader for full price of the game for each and every download taken….

    ….i for one would literally p1ss myself laughing for about a month.
    ( like i did after microshaft banned all the chipped X-box’s on x-box live)

    like i did when my m8 told me his had been hit by the ban-hammer too.
    like i did when he said “yeah , but they’ll never find my IRL address” ..when i pointed out to him that he’d already given his IRL address to microshaft anyway, and all they had to do was come to the door with the police in tow, with a warrant to search his house for illegally d/loaded pirated games.

    like i did when i told him about the gower’s review, and how copyright infringment carried a “max” of 10 years in jail….and asked him how many dodgy games he had..and said ..” add a zero to the end of that number…and thats the theoretical maximum amount of jail time you’ll get”

    like i did when i suggested he not drop the soap in the shower….

    why?….

    because i’m a smug b*st*rd. 😀


  21. Think its the best way for everyone to get a fair deal before everything eventually (be it five, ten years or whatever) goes digital rights (which I would prefer) or worse, cloud.

    Only time I could see some abuse is if integral parts of the game held on the media or just basic story are withheld from anyone daring to purchase a game second-hand. We have already seen what naughty sods Capcom were with resident Evil 5 for charging an “activation code” for content that was already on the disc, as did Activision for bits of Wolverine Uncaged.

    Having said that . . . . . .Thank god I was able to trade in Modern Warfare 2 a week after release lol.


  22. i count myself lucky in that respect..
    (i like to play split screen with a m8…it gets me out the house so i can drink beer round his without having to worry about my kids looking at me like i’m some sort of alky … that and he’s got a projector that’s HD and gives a 2.5meter by 1.8 meter screen on his wall …)

    so i brought L4D2 , and he brought MW2.
    hehe 😀


  23. Sounds like a good idea – much better to be selling a service that’s valuable to users than getting bogged down trying to break your product for the thieves while making sure it doesn’t inadvertently break for the non-thieves.

    That said, I don’t understand the equation of theft and second-hand sales. When we look at cars, the existence of a second-hand market increases the value that first-hand buyers derive from their purchase, because they not only obtain the utility of being able to drive the car, but they can also recoup the resale value. As the car has greater value to the buyer, the seller is able to charge more (or sell the cat at the same price to more people) than they could have without the presence of the second-hand market.

    Do we have reason to believe that computer games are not subject to the same effects? It does not seem particular unlikely to me that some people buy new games with the expectation of trading them in if they don’t like them or become bored that they might not have shelled out for otherwise, but I would fascinated to hear an explanation for why it doesn’t work the same for games as for cars.

    To be clear, I understand why piracy is different from car theft, but I don’t understand why second-hand sales of console games are different from second-hand sales of cars. In both cases the seller loses the ability to use the product. Or, perhaps I misunderstand you: do you mean that second-hand sales of *any* good are destructive to the livelihood of the manufacturers of that good?


  24. Again, I don’t think it is quite as simple as either side makes it out to be. Should second-hand game sales be shut down? It is at this point one path of ‘legal’ recourse a consumer has of unloading a game they properly paid money for and found to be either not to their liking or as is sadly common more and more, just a poorly done game. As I said in another post, ‘buyer beware’ in most everything, but at least you are able to resell a clunker after. Yes, you are dealing with intellectual property, not an exact physical object, but we shouldn’t run the risk of swinging too far the other way and giving the developers and game companies all the cards, all the power, and no actual responsibility to the consumer. Companies and the people employed by them are not any more white knights or 100% ethical non-greedy than their consumers are…
    Some type of resale fee as suggested above seems a reasonable compromise to me, a ‘reactivation fee’ the second buyer needs to pay to reregister the game and its benefits – I guess I also wonder at the fact that if more and more games are to be delivered more efficiently and more easily in the future over the net without packaging/shipping costs, there should be a drop in the retail price of the game…correct?:) Somehow I don’t see that happening in any widespread way. Not saying it won’t, just that I’m not holding my breath on it. Everyone is greedy, both the producers and the consumers. A middle ground and some respect needs to be found, with the consumers paying for the product but also retaining at least some flexibility with how they can deal with it after purchase.


  25. I for one am proud to be buying the Collector’s Edition of what will be an amazing game, and am happy for the devs to get every penny. The Cerburus Network is an added bonus.

    When will the apologists and pirates realise that all their actions do is mean that amazing games will no longer be made and developed (see the lack of good games on the PSP for an example of this in action), and stop making excuses for stealing.

    If you can’t afford the games then tough luck. Work harder, get a better job, maybe give up smoking and drinking for a while and PAY for the hard work the hundreds of individuals working on these amazing interactive experiences have done.

    Rant over.


  26. agree 100% with Steven, also a happy owner of the ME2 collectors edition.

    I would give Bioware more money for these titles if they asked for it. The quality of the game and the joy of playing such fantastic games is certainly worth it.

    We need to pay these peoples paychecks, they’ve earned it.

    If you cannot afford it, maybe you need to do something better with your time then gaming?


  27. I don’t want to sound mean Bruce, but if I buy a table, why shouldn’t I be able to resell that table? Am I purchasing a license to use that table?

    If I’m purchasing a license to play the game, that’s understandable. There is some false advertising happening if the game is for sale when it is really just a license to play the game that is for sale. As long as we have a nice, large label on the box stating that we are buying the license to play the game, then I’m ok with it. As of today, I’m not seeing that on the boxes. I’m not for deceptive practices, are you?


  28. “This must make the blood of every game developer and publisher boil because they are getting no income from these sales, despite having done all the work to create the games.”

    What the hell are you talking about? Should libraries be illegal too, as they must be stealing tens of billions of dollars from authors and game companies!?

    These publishers ALREADY got their money when the game was originally sold! Hello!? So, they’re damn HAPPY. Not, unhappy. But nothing will please you. You must also believe artists should keep getting a cut every time their work is resold.

    You now sound like a paid shill for the video game industry. Congrats!


  29. So then Bruce, if I’m buying “the non transferable right to play the game” then that means that every time I’ve traded a game in or sold it onto somebody else that all I’m trading or selling is the physical media and that I still own the “non transferable right to play the game.”

    In that case I am going to compile a list of the hundreds of games that I have bought and subsequently got rid of over the years and demand that their respective publishers furnish me with a new copy of every single one. After all, I own the “non transferable right to play the game” don’t I?

    If these “non transferable” rights were in any way legally enforcable, please explain why it is that the second hand market is allowed to operate? Why are major retailers like HMV starting to do it? Surely even if there was the slightest risk that they could be held in breach of the law that they wouldn’t be getting involved?


  30. Bruce: Your statements of absolutes regarding the application of first-sale to video games does not reflect the current legal situation, as the validity of EULAs in this context has been challenged and won and lost repeatedly. It’s a grey area. As an industry member and journalist, you should be more careful (even if you’re writing editorials).


  31. @steve : In response to your quote on the “USER AGREEMENT” being a legally binding contract…

    Most “CONSOLE” games such as Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 DO NOT have a “I agree button” on them and “Don’t install”.

    Second, a HUGE market of these is for kids/children under 18 and they CAN NOT legally be in a binding contract and its terms don’t apply…

    AND FINALLY,

    Comparing it to selling used DVDs is much better.

    Okay, they had to pay actors, millions to make it, ect. so why aren’t you complaining about selling used DVDs (movies)?


  32. I can’t agree with you Bruce. I don’t see any problem with second hand digital content providing its done properly.

    The key point with second hand sales is that one person gives it up when the next person buys it off them. An issue only arises in the digital world because it is often possible for the original purchaser to sell the media but keep a copy of the content, be it software or music or movie. But that boils down to piracy again does it not, ie copying it unlawfully prior to handing it over to the new owner?


  33. WOW, i cant agree with this one. I have been playing online games for a really looong time and have a library of games n a case saved.

    The car analogy is a good analogy.

    The library analogy is the PERFECT analogy.

    Unsure how games differ from Books, Music CDs or DVDs and they are sold 2nd hand legally all the time, and just as pirated if not more then games are.

    If it was not a transferable right then Gamestop would be out of business.


  34. @Canedriver

    The car analogy is not a good analogy for reasons I have described above. Your library analogy, to be blunt, doesn’t make a damn bit of sense.

    The doctrine of first sale in no way applies to libraries. Libraries exists solely because they are regarded as a “benefit to society” and no publisher would ever be caught dead publicly denouncing them.

    As for video games on physical media are protected under the doctrine of first sale. This means that you can resell this game without fear of the MFG accusing you of copyright infringement.

    The legal question of whether or not video games on digital media are covered under the doctrine of first sale, to my knowledge, has not been answered yet. Currently most, if not all, digital distributors strictly prohibit the reselling of those rights. It can be reasonably argued that these digital distributors are providing a service not a product, and thus the “right to resell” does not apply.

    Of course we won’t know if digital products/services can be resold until it is brought up in a legal battle or legislation has been drawn up clearly outlining what is transferable and what is not. Until then the distributors are free to do whatever they wish with their products/services.


  35. What about the 3rd/4th/5th sales ? Do the publishers still get paid 5 times for the same single product ?

    What if, in a years to come, I want to play Mass Effect 2, when everyone is on ME5, Do I still play the fee ? Or do we all forget about old games and throw them in the trash ?


  36. It’s purely an incentive. EA hasn’t taken away your right to sell your copy of the game to anyone. They’re just making new purchases sweeter. And I have absolutely no problem with that. If it helps to cut down on piracy, so much the better.


  37. Places like Gamestop are not “making money off the hard work of game developers”. Gamestop buys the used game from a gamer for a price. From there, Gamestop has its own costs: staff, store space, electricity, etc. You mean after all that, Gamestop is not allowed a profit for all the work they did? Gamestop does something of value for people. THAT is where they make their money. I don’t see Gamestop passing games off as their own.

    The publishers/developers already made money off that copy of the game. Now someone else wants it. Move on!


  38. There is nothing morally or ethically wrong with someone selling their (original) copy of a game, for someone else to buy and use. It’s no different in principal to the market for used books, used cars, used houses, etc.

    The only difference is that used games are hurting sales of brand new copies of the same game, and that’s because games are so overpriced to begin with. Forty British pounds is far too much for a game, and the games companies should be concentrating on reducing the retail price of new games, rather than trying to rob the user of his legal right to sell his property when he tires of it.


  39. >”@Sean Bean’s Gravy Boat

    You totally misunderstand what you are buying with a game. What you are buying is the non transferable right to play the game. The plastic and cardboard don’t come into it. So when you sell the cardboard and plastic secondhand to another person they don’t have the right to play it. The Cerberus Network makes this point exactly.”

    That is as ridiculous as it is untrue. If it’s true, then EVERY sale of secondhand software is ILLEGAL, and shops like Gamestop, CEX, etc would have been sued by the games companies, and forced to stop selling secondhand games, as would ebay and all other places that still sell secondhand copies.

    You are right that (original or subsequent) purchase of a game involves both the physical media AND the right to run (use) the code contained on the media, but both of those things are sold when you sell the game. And if you were right, then ONLY the purchaser (in fact only the ORIGINAL purchaser) would be allowed to play on that copy of the game, not his syblings, not his friends, not anyone would be able to pick up the joypad and play that copy of the game.

    Software companies would no doubt love this, but fortunately, software companies don’t make the law.


  40. [quote]It’s purely an incentive. EA hasn’t taken away your right to sell your copy of the game to anyone. They’re just making new purchases sweeter. And I have absolutely no problem with that. If it helps to cut down on piracy, so much the better.[/quote]

    This has [i]nothing[/i] to do with piracy, if you download this game from a torrent site that last place you are going to go is EA’s own servers to get DLC, you’ll go back to said torrent site and get your DLC there.
    This is everything to do with the Pre-owned market, and pure and utter greed.
    Lastly, DLC is nothing more than a money grab for the stupid. Content that should have been in the original product, yet now becomes a easy cash-cow.


  41. >It is absolutely amazing that people are still trying to justify stealing video games.

    No one is trying to steal computer games, buying a used game is not stealing. If it is, then explain why Game, CEX, etc, are still in business and still allowed to participate in this “stealing”, which worldwide must account for billions of dollars.

    The software houses of this world are demonstrably both very greedy, and familiar with legal matters, so if you are right, and secondhand games are theft, then the software houses of the world would be united in chasing such shops through the courts, and ending any and all sales of used games.


  42. Maybe the software houses should have a look at the Japanese experience in crushing second hand sales –

    http://www.21coe-win-cls.org/rclip/activity/e_index29.html

    “According to the later media reports or council reports, as a response to the Supreme Court’s decision, the manufacturers were making efforts to establish a distribution right that is not exhausted at the first sale. Also the distributors were negotiating to give several percentages of sales back to the manufacturers for reconciliation with the manufacturers. Nothing has come out of such movements yet.

    Now four years later since the Supreme Court’s decision, what is going on in the used game software market? There have been elimination and consolidation one after another in both distributor and manufacturer sides. A lot of them were caused by their effort to strengthen enterprise vitality such as capacity enhancement for development or cost reduction rather than the game software matter”

    “In addition, now the manufacturers change the price by releasing a cheap edition at less than half of its original price when a certain period of time passes after the first release. It has an enormous influence on the market”
    “Consumers can purchase the product at the cheaper price than the first release. They do not have to buy the used game anymore. The distributors also have no choice but to lower the price to the cheap edition. That has reduced the profit margins of the distributors considerably”
    “Consumers can purchase the product at the cheaper price than the first release. They do not have to buy the used game anymore. The distributors also have no choice but to lower the price to the cheap edition.”

    “Originally, the market of used game software has grown as business since the manufacturers have tried to maintain the retail price of the software as high as the first sale price. No matter how boring the game is, even though it is ridiculed as a so-called “Kuso-Gei (junk game)”, the price was fixed. So consumers sell those boring games immediately after the purchase to buy a new game or they buy the used ones if they were unable to make a decision to buy the game at the first release. Customers started to save money for the games they truly wanted. Such customer behavior brought about a business of selling used video games. If the manufacturers were willing to change prices by detecting consumer wants from the beginning, they would not have been haunted by used video games.”


  43. Gamers will not put up with developers pigeonholing us as possible software pirates and enforcing absurd restrictions upon us.

    Bring it on. All it will do is hurt overall sales and eventually get cracked anyways. Your Codemasters ‘plan’ isn’t foolproof and Codemasters knew that, they dumped the idea because it’s absurd.


  44. >Gamers will not put up with developers pigeonholing us as possible software pirates and enforcing absurd restrictions upon us.

    >Bring it on. All it will do is hurt overall sales and eventually get cracked anyways.

    That is true. Treat people like criminals, and then they tend to start behaving like criminals. And they’ll start thinking “Why should I suffer [the restrictions and invasion protection methods] when I pay for games when if I instead buy or download the same games for free then I won’t have any hassle?”


  45. All second hand sales are theft.
    I mean, the original creator never gets paid on second hand transactions.

    Oh wait, that is the basis for free trade.

    Confused…


  46. I can tell you now, if games could not be re-sold second hand I would never purchase another game ever again.

    Once a person purchases a copy of a game they are entitled to sell that game along as a second hand title if they wish. Reproducing the game (piracy) is rightly deemed wrong. But if I was unable to sell games that I had played to death and was now sick and tired of playing, then I would much rather just pirate them or move onto purely online and free games or games I could just download online for very little costs.

    The stupid cost of games and the very short life span of the game does not make it worth spending huge sums of money on them unless you can then re-sell the game for 1/2 or 1/3 the cost later on and recoup it for the next title. I would bet that if you looked into it, most second hand games are traded for discounts on new titles (and then resold by the store) or the proceeds of the sale goes toward the purchase of a new game.

    If the major companies ever did such a thing they would all be bust within 6 months. I’d put money on it. The only way this would work is if they charged 1/2 or so of what they currently do for a new title. But then the hit to the profit margin would likely kill them anyway. Which is what we have seen in other markets that have tried similar things.


  47. What we do need to keep in mind as has been pointed out by other posters is that the same rules don’t quite apply to most software in buying/selling as a conventional product such as a car or a stereo or a couch. Technically, you are buying the right to use the software if I understand how it still works correctly. So, the question becomes – does a company have the legal right or ability to enforce a policy that states you cannot legally resell the license to use the software? I suppose they do…technically. They can refuse to update or reregister your game if you have bought it second-hand (once they had the proper registration system in place if needed), and this would probably be their most effective way of controlling the second-hand market if that is what they wish to do. However, they may want to consider the ramifications of that, as Lee says above. If there was a small reregistration fee, it would be workable. Attempting to charge the same or nearly same price for a ‘reregistration’ could become a difficult concept to sell, as even though the intellectual property itself can’t ‘wear out’ or degrade, it does become dated and eventually less supported. They could work it the same as new games in the bargain bin…if it is within six months, you pay 75% reregistration, 6-12 months would be 50%, etc etc.

    It seems as if many companies want their cake and eat it too, but that being said so do many consumers of the software. Both sides need to find a suitable compromise – a reasonable system of registering and reregistering licenses with an acceptable price scale, and if they do not wish to allow ANY relicensing, they may need to consider lowering their initial pricing on the software – consumers then need to come to terms with the idea that software perhaps isn’t like any other consumable item we buy, but a little bit different, with slightly different rules.


  48. >The stupid cost of games and the very short life span of the game does not make it worth spending huge sums of money on them unless you can then re-sell the game for 1/2 or 1/3 the cost later on and recoup it for the next title.

    What interest me most there, Lee, is the phrase “and the very short life span of the game” – this is a real point of contention for me. I play mainly first person shooters, and they seem to me to be becoming in the main shorter and shorter, and with less and less replay value. Yes, the graphics get ever better, but not only is the replay severly lacking, but often the only reason I even play the game through to the end (in the single player campaign mode) is to see it through, and not because I want to. Games should be fun, but so often seem to be tedious, and short (yes, these two are not mutually exclusive…), and the publishers seem to think “It doesn’t matter about the single player mode much, as long as it looks great – just add on a multiplayer mode, with too few maps, few user configurable options, and nothing too radical (or it will confuse the idiots who play these games) and it will sell like hot cakes”. If it wasn’t for XBox Live!, then most first person shooters wouldn’t sell at all, I honestly think. And even then, most FPSs are just the same, endless bouts of the same things online, whilst you try to convince yourself that you’re having fun”.


  49. It’s worth noting there’s by no means universal praise for this. I’m assuming Bruce that you haven’t actually played Mass Effect 2.

    The reason I ask is because it contains multiple anti-copy protection jokes within the game itself. It seems that even the very developers implementing it are by no means convinced.

Comments are closed.