[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.