Thing is, some places take the mick. Game in Braintree had Fable 2 at 39.99 new, or 37.99 pre-owned. With such a small difference I'd rather pay more and then at least the developer who put all the work it gets some of the money, rather than Game lining their own pockets.

By the time the second hand prices come down, then places like Play and Shopto have brought theirs down too.

I like to buy the original as then the people who put the work in get some of the money. If I don't want to spend £40 on a game, I'll wait 'til it comes down price. For example, Mirrors Edge is down to £27.99 on shopto. I'd rather buy that, than a pre-owned version at a similar price.

Most publishers see selling it second hand just as bad as copying.

Its got something to do with the multiplier effect (For business study bods you'll know what this is).

Person A buys game for rrp 40 quid and sells it on for half the price.
Person B Buys game for 20 quid and sells it again halving the price once more.
Person C buys game for 10 quid and keeps it.

Notice from just one copy of the game, it has changed hands 3 times and that one game alone has had 70 quid invested in it whereas the rrp was at 40 quid. But the 30 quid has gone into the pockets of the users NOT the publisher.

Naturally they're going to be a bit annoyed. They want to maximise return and when someone is taking the product and selling it to line their own pockets with gold. They feel slightly cheated. A bit like say a pirate taking all their hardwork and taking it for free.

Nautrally this has led them to come up with downloading the game and leaving it on their computer or DRM which not only combats illegal copying but locks them onto specific hardware and as one nasty bioshock publisher argued that just because you bought the game, doesn't mean your family can get away with playing the game you bought.

This of course alienates consumers as they're esstentially renting and not buying and with possible develops of making consumers pay a subscription price for top games like bioshock 2 and gta5.


As for the price of the game being so high. Most of it is mark up price as it travels down lines of distribution. Most of this money goes to the shop owner like game or the publisher. Very little is seen by the developer and therefore makes the gaming industry very cut throat. Of course, some small time developers can get away with distributing on their own and thus they get most of it. Valve probably has done very well through steam. Good on them i say. IIRC, steam came about after their game was stolen and they planned safety measures to counter it.

Machie wrote:
> That must mean you're their dream consumer GP, you cant bear to
> get rid of any of your old games ^^

Yep, I buy games new or new at a reduced price, never trade them in and very rarely buy 2nd hand. Usually, I buy 2nd hand if it is an old game that I wanted to buy but for some reason never bought and is no longer available new.

Garin wrote:
Game buys a title at wholesale and then through trade-ins,
> they get to sell that title 2 or 3 times.  Each time making
> nearly as much as they did on the original sale or in some cases

Preowned is the company's major profit generator.  Think at the number of PS2 games being traded in at £1 and then sold at £9.99.  Huge profit.

However, if they do get rid of the second hamd side of things, then they'd have to dramatically reduce the price of the new games.  As the points pb and Machie have used, many people can't afford to buy new titles immediately and then on top of that use some of their older ones to help fund the price of the new ones.

And Machie, if you download something to your HDD, only you (or the person/people) that uses that console can use it.  You should find that Nintendo allow you to download a lot of their games through the virtual console (bought with Microsoft points) and Xbox Live Arcade allow some original XB games and Arcade titles to be bought for the equivalent of £4-£8.

Although Garin is playing Devil's Advocate here, you can compare the markets about what is going on.  Just because it is a different product doesn't mean it won't follow similar trends.  I's also like saying the credit crunch and the way the lending/savings etc isn't affecting the technology markets.  What happens in one can usually be a pretty good indicator of what could/should happen in another market.

And finally...yes Machie...I am the blame taker!  Although I havent worked for game for a fortnight :p

Comparisons with other markets are pointless.  The business models and revenue streams are totally different so its impossible to make realistic comparisons.

The point with the second hand market is that you've got retailers making as much off second hand titles as brand new ones.  Game buys a title at wholesale and then through trade-ins, they get to sell that title 2 or 3 times.  Each time making nearly as much as they did on the original sale or in some cases even more.  And when you've got this happening, retailers start devoting more space to their lucrative second hand market instead of new titles.
If I were a publisher I'd have to be insane to think this wasnt a problem.

^{This probably belongs in the gaming forum but I had burgers for lunch.}

Whats with all these codes? Why cants we buy games or controllers or bits for our console and then sell them off when we don't need them anymore. It saves us from chucking them in the bin plus poor people get to have a bargin.

Do they really want everyone to buy everything new? I know they avoid talking about this but they know that we know that they don't like it at all. Now I'm hearing about things on the Wii that will only work once and I wont be able to sell or give away. Or extra downloadable content that can only be downloaded once so making it worthless should you pass a game on.

I've been saying this for almost two decades now. I game would have to be bloody spectacular for me to want to spend £40 pounds. Its just not worth it especially if you only play it for a few days. I want to see games no higher than £5 and just download them on my HDD and play them on my machines.

So in conclusion, when you buy a game you should own that game and whether you want to sell it or give it away that's your prerogative.