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I responded to your other comment below (about "identical experiences") and you responded to it, and I think we're closer to being conceptually on the same page than it might appear. But I'll go ahead and respond to this one, too. I agree, a video game is more an experience than some functional, utilitarian object. (Interestingly, cars are often too sold as "experiences" -- maybe this is why their value decreases so precipitously after they've been driven off the lot, heh). I think that a game's value as an experience rather than "an object", though, is orthogonal to it's actual dollars-and-cents value. The value is the price people are willing to pay, plain and simple. That is, a brand new, $60 game isn't really worth $60 to most people after it's been out for a couple of months. The used games market is more agile in recognizing this. If the first-party publishers became more agile, they'd wipe out the used games market. Why would I pay, say, $30 for a used, six month-old game, when I can get a brand new copy for the same price? The answer: I can't. The first-party publishers are still charging at least $40 or $50 for that game. The used games shop has recognized that the true value of that game, six months in, is actually $30. The publisher is in denial, or trying to take advantage of some sort of arbitrage by charging $40 or $50. I think you're also discounting the fact that the first-party publishers do get a portion of that used games sale. That is, when someone buys a brand-new game at $60, and sells it to the used game shop for $30 a month later -- $30 of the original $60 purchase is coming from the used sale. Sure, in some cases the person buying that used copy for $35 or $40 might have bought a brand new copy if no used copies were available, but in many cases, that person might never have bought a copy at all. If the used market is shut down, maybe I stop buying the games when they're $60, because I know I can't get some portion of that money back to spend towards other games. Anyway, as I noted in another comment, the price of a new car has not only the cost of materials and labor factored in, but also the cost of the probability that someone who buys that car used would have bought a new one instead, had the used car not been available. Video games should also be priced like this (I suspect they are, actually, and all the handwringing by the games industry is really just a misdirection). TL;DR: In a free market, it doesn't matter if a good is experience-based of utility-based, its' price should reflect its actual value (which is determined by the market). Secondhand games aren't taking food out of developers mouths, inability to quickly adjust price to match actual value is. Shutting down the secondhand games market is a cartel/monopoly tactic, not actually beneficial for the general public. |