[daeken]

I personally am not a fan of used cars (I don't see it as being much better ideologically than theft, since the people who made the car are not getting compensated on resales which provide an identical experience to one that you get brand new), but publicity-wise it's a very smart move on Honda's part.

[Negitivefrags]

If you are trying to compare games to cars, then the analogy doesn't translate to digital products at all.

Non-digital products degrade as they are used. A car only has a certain number of kilometres in it. The older the car is, the worse it is to drive and the more it costs to run.

Digital goods either work or they don't. If you buy the same digital good used then you get the exact same experience as the person who bought it new.

Things that don't wear out are just different.

[Dylan16807]

Cars degrade but not by very much. You sometimes have to repair new cars, you sometimes have to repair old cars.

Ignoring the fact that discs go bad, digital goods depreciate FAR faster than cars. A 15 year old car in good shape retains most of the value it had the day it was sold. A 15 year old game is barely worth anything.

[socillion]

Amusingly, an oft-mocked anti-piracy commercial uses the slogan "you wouldn't steal a car", directly comparing digital media with cars. I'm not sure if GP was referencing it, but that's what jumped to mind when I saw this thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmZm8vNHBSU&t=5s

[jordan0day]

The degradation of the non-digital product isn't what's important -- it's the value of that product that is important. Oftentimes (like in the case of most cars), the value is closely related to that degradation, but that's just the case for cars.

The value of a digital product like a video game declines over time, as well, even though the data on the disc doesn't degrade. The experience degrades. If that weren't the case, the used games store would be able to sell a used game for a lot more than they do.

If publishers and studios really want to kill the used games market, they'd acknowledge that their games lose value over time, and drop the prices over time accordingly. Which they do, just not enough, apparently.

[Negitivefrags]

Those are two types of value degradation, and I don't think you can compare those either.

A used game can be sold next to a new game at the same point in time and the used game will be priced cheaper. You will get an identical experience regardless of which you buy, that is to say, the real value of both is identical.

The shop only prices it cheaper to encourage you to buy it, because they have a higher profit margin on used games.

If you drive a car about for 50,000KM and put it back in the shop, now that car is has lower real value than the new one next to it.

[jordan0day]

"A used game can be sold next to a new game at the same point in time and the used game will be priced cheaper."

"The shop only prices it cheaper to encourage you to buy it, because they have a higher profit margin on used games."

So why isn't it the publishers job to ensure that neither of these statements are true? That is, two months in, why haven't they dropped the price of the new game enough to make it attractive compared to the used copy? If they can't make any new sales because the used copies are so much cheaper, what's the point of maintaining that price?

[Negitivefrags]

The economics of used games just don't work that way.

Before the player has played the game, the value of the game disk is shown to be at least $60 dollars to that person. They show that by paying that price.

Once a player has completed a single player game, the value of the disk to that person is now zero. Given the opportunity, they will sell the game at any price they can get. They will happily trade the game in for $5.

To a new player coming along, they may still pay $60, but if there is a used (and effectively identical) copy sitting there for $55, why not buy that instead?

A shop will price match a used game down to below any price that a publisher could conceivably wish to charge because they only pay a tiny price for the identical product used.

> That is, two months in, why haven't they dropped the price of the new game enough to make it attractive compared to the used copy?

The comparison is meaningless because they are identical. The cheaper price always wins, and the used game will always have the cheaper price.

Used cars are fundamentally different than digital goods due to the fact that they can be consumed infinitely without devaluing the physical asset.

[jordan0day]

"... the value of the disk to that person is now zero. Given the opportunity, they will sell the game at any price they can get. They will happily trade the game in for $5."

But that's not really true, at all. "Replayability" is a term that gets tossed around, a lot when describing single player games. If "the value of the disk to that person is now zero" were true, it's a term that wouldn't even exist.

Additionally, I hate to resort to anecdotes, but I'm not sure if there's any unbiased research in this area -- but I don't know anyone who buys a brand new game, plays it for a month, and then "will happily trade the game in for $5." I mean, I'm sure there are people who do fit that mold, but if that were true, then all the used games shops would only give you $5 for any month-old game. But those month-old games command a much higher price than that, precisely because people aren't happily trading in the game for $5. This is really basic econ 101 stuff here. Supply and demand.

[batiudrami]

You don't get an identical experience with a used car. The car has wear on parts, a shorter warranty, uncertainty regarding previous treatment and servicing, and no 'new car smell'.

With a used game, assuming the disc itself hasn't been damaged (and if it has, you are entitled to a refund as per any retailer's used games policy), you get an identical experience to a person who purchased the game new.

[jordan0day]

But the price of that used car is also adjusted to reflect the wear/warranty/uncertainty. In an efficient market, the price of a car, used or new, reflects the actual value of that car.

Why should games be considered any different?

You also don't get an "identical experience" to a person who purchased the game new. The bits on the disc may be identical, but the experience isn't. For example, a game bought new in 2009 might look great in 2009, but by 2013 you've come to expect more. Likewise, there may be fewer players online for multiplayer experiences. There's also all sort of additional intangibles -- you probably won't be the first person in your peer group to play the game, so you can't brag how you beat it faster than someone else, or have the same feeling of shared experience when you ask "did you get past level X? How did you beat the lava golem?", and their response is "I don't know, I did that like two years ago."

The analogy isn't perfect, but hopefully it's illustrative enough. At the end of the day, both cars are video games have a certain value when new, and a certain, probably lessened, value when "used". The characteristics by which the value has decreased from new to used are different, but they're extant in both cases.

[batiudrami]

>The bits on the disc may be identical, but the experience isn't. For example, a game bought new in 2009 might look great in 2009, but by 2013 you've come to expect more.

That's a fair point. But a new copy of a game bought today that was released in 2009 will also cost closer to $5 than $60 - the decreased experience in that sense is already reflected in the retail price.

For me, ideally what would happen is that used game sales would go away [1], and as a result games would become cheaper, either when they first go on sale, or through heavy discounting more frequently (because people only have a set amount of money to spend on games).

This is essentially what has already happened with PC - there are no resale options, and prices discount far, far more quickly than on consoles. If you want the 'day one experience' as you described, you can get that, for $60. But you have the knowledge that, if you wait, it'll also be available for $30 in 3 months time, and $10 in the Christmas sales. Plus, on every single copy sold, ~70% of the money is returned to the publisher/developer.

[1] edit: As I noted elsewhere, I still think you should be able to lend games to friends. That is, I think, beneficial to publishers and consumers.

[jordan0day]

I think we've both said the things we wanted to say in this thread, so further replies might not be especially useful -- I just want to point out that I think your pricing decrease algorithm needs a little tweaking: Aliens: Colonial Marines, which got generally terrible reviews, was released on Steam on Feb. 12. So, four months ago. It's only dropped $10 in that time ($59.99 to $49.99).

I don't doubt that the publisher has probably done a little thinking about whether they'd sell enough copies at $30 rather than $50 to make up for the loss of per-sale profit, but it seems to me that what they (the publishers) are actually trying to do, by killing secondhand sales, is have their cake and eat it, too.

[batiudrami]

It depends on the game. At the other extreme, Borderlands 2 was released in September at $60, was $30 by October and $14 by May. I suspect that the reputation of Aliens: Colonial Marines is so bad that price reductions aren't helping.

I suspect that publishers would love to be able to kill used games and maintain current pricing strategies, but I just don't think it'll work for them. Video game sales are too price elastic and, like you said, for people who would ordinarily buy new at $60 and resell at $30, their video gaming budget would only buy half the games it used to. These people would be more likely to wait until the games were $30.

In a worst-case scenario, if publishers persisted with that strategy, other forms of entertainment may be seen as more appealing and money might disappear from the video games industry.

Like you've said, the free market would take care of it, and I think used games are standing in the way of that being able to happen while allowing maximum compensation for the developers.

[anologwintermut]

I personally am not a fan of used men/women (I don't see it as being much better ideologically than theft, since the people who made them are not getting compensated on resales which provide an identical experience to one that you get brand new), but publicity-wise it's a very smart move on ...

In case its not obvious, whether or not the product deteriorates has about as much to do with the legality/morality of selling a used game as my sarcastic quip does.

[frou_dh]

Many gamers like to buy and play games day 1, so something that's not retained in used games is riding the crest of the hype/community wave.