Installing issues usually ouccur only once per user.

Also you dont download all the patches more than a few times.

So if the new user has installing issues and downloads all the patches, SD has to pay for additional support.

Also you have another one downloading and using impusle whitout paying aynthing.

Not to mention that nothing stops you from keeping a fully patched copy of the game somewhere.

Reselling of software simply fails for practical reason.

SD could implement a system to transfer license. But i do not see how this could be done cost effective.

And a big difference between software and music cd is that you dont need to make copies of the music to play it and there is no way to make the user to sign an eula. Which means the most users of music cds dont even make copies that they could keep after selling the original one.

Holding a customer's hand through the process of 'support' is something the CUSTOMER may be entitled to.

The person the on-seller sells his copy to is NOT a customer and thus cannot expect support.

Games/software is definitely NOT the first comodity that has non-transferable warranty.

About the only 'reasonable' way the second buyer could garner support would be to have the customer/seller request it as the 'registered purchaser'.

The only alternative to this is to have separate 'costs'.

Buy the game for $10....and be required to purchase updates/patches AND assistance as required.....then it'd matter little exactly who was seeking [and paying for] support....so then and ONLY then no-one loses, not even the software co. ....

Just because you choose to ignore the fundamental differences between software and other commodities doesn't mean the gibberish you posted has any relevance to the discussion, or any relation to what you quoted.

For one thing, nothing you quoted (or anything I posted in this thread) had any references to the legality of transferring keys and, in fact, discusses why a standardized (as in, formally offered by Stardock) system for transfers is not a fit for Stardock's system.

Overgeneralizations don't help you much either. If you buy a game which does not work and support is unable to get it to work, you are allowed to return it and you'll even get refunded the retail price (so Stardock eats a loss, if you bought it retail). Now, having a bug does not constitute a "broken" game, so that no longer holds.

Oh, but i do get the whole thing -don't worry.

It's just that to me, there's a very thin line between someone *selling* out their copy to another person when that opportunity is lost for SD to receive "new dollars" input from the freshly registered extra copy when anyone would really buy it from them instead of you - or getting it all free from a Pirated copy.

I sure have a knack for exaggeration though, i'll admit.

I don't need to re-read my posts, but you do. There's a big difference between Stardock not allowing transfer of serials (the only limitation they put on re-sale) and all software re-sales being illegal, as you went off trying to create some non-sensical argument about toasters

Why is it that everyone always pulls out something convenient for them and always ignores everything else? This comparison is flawed in many ways. A more valid comparison is between a highway and a PC. A single car depends only on its own parts to work. A game depends on many things to "work" - including other software that the developer has no control over, and other hardware that the developer has no control over. Already, a direct comparison between a car and a game is not possible. Enter the highway. If you're driving on the highway and another car hits you and you crash, does that mean your car was "broken" to begin with because it has a chance of crashing? No, it crashes because something influenced it. Same with games. They run on PCs which have many hardware configurations, many apps and services running at the same time, and much as a single driver on the highway has no control of what other cars do, games have no control over what other software (including Windows) does. The game can run absolutely flawlessly on several developer systems (in essense, using its own parts), but drop it in the middle of a highway (thousands of other PC configurations) and just like driving a car on a highway, crashes become a possibility.

The vast majority of PC game crashes are various driver conflicts, Windows goofs, or weird device conflicts. This doesn't happen with console games, is it because Console developers are somehow more blessed than PC developers? No, it's because they're developing for a system that does ONE thing and one thing only - run their game. And all such systems are the same. If all PC software and hardware becomes standardized (as in, you can only get one "PC" and everyone's PC is the same), you will see this with PC games as well, because it eliminates everything the developers have no control over.

The reason has already been told: transfering the game does not bring any profit to the company. There may be this possibility, but it would require changes in the shopping system. You can not transfer the account, because you may have more licences  than the game you want to sell. To modify the whole system would cost money. And someone would had to pay for that. The result would be more expensive games for everyone - even if only few people really would use this option.

I believe that there are good arguments for not reselling software but let me take it one step more.

If you like a game, don't you want to reward the company so that they make more games?  Reselling a game you liked instead of forcing a new sale distorts the metrics that go into the question of "Do we make more things like X or do we have to close up shop?"

You guys are all missing the point, the reason we buy games is for an experience, you're not paying for a CD (which is physical.

Must like any other experience,  say a vacation or a season pass to a ski mountain, you shouldn't be able to experience all it has to offer, then give it to someone else to experience the same things. The person who is missing out on money and incurring the fact they're basically giving somebody free access to their property is the owner of the experience, in this case, the software company.

When it comes to intelectual property, there is only one owner, and that is the software company, you guys are paying for a season pass of sorts to experience their product.

Well, technically, in part you are paying for the CD I don't think this argument is entirely accurate, since a game is not a movie in a theater. If you just sat and watched a game play out and paid for that.. maybe. Like warreni, I know what you're trying to say, but I don't think it's a solid basis for this kind of argument. When you buy a DVD movie, you no longer strictly pay for the experience (like you did when you went to a movie theater), you actually pay for the physical disc that allows you to repeat the experience at your convenience, more or less.

This applies to any good.  If I buy a used car, Ford gets no money from me.  See the problem?  The software industry thinks it's special.  Every industry on earth would jump at the chance to stop second hand sales of their goods.  Only the software industry actually has the gall to prevent them.  You can give yourself any excuse you want, but there is no justification that is unique to software.

Before someone starts pissing and moaning about how a used car isn't the same as a new one, if I drive a car for a month and then sell it, the damned thing is just as good as new unless I fucked it up.  Cars last a very long time with proper maintenance.  Your software will be incompatible with modern software and hardware long before the car needs an engine overhaul.  How many fifteen year old programs can you use today without assistance or modification?  Getting fifteen years out of a car is just a matter of changing the oil, replacing brake pads and other parts designed to wear, keeping it clean, and not buying one that's a piece of shit to start with.  This with the understanding that cars have a relatively short lifespan, a good kitchen table will outlive your grandchildren if it's taken care of at all.  Many things are vastly superior in durability and long term use than software.

Annatar, either your reading comprehension sucks, or you like to argue and are ignoring it for that purpose.  Conflicts are a result of insufficient standardization and BUGS, not an unavoidable reality that can't be changed.  Read up on hardware vendors some time.  Even the standards that exist are routinely ignored by many of them.  Individual chipsets are shortchanged by vendors and the substitutions made result in aberant behavior.  Even something as obvious as directx compliance for a video card gets fudged on many of the bargain cards.  There is endless bitching by both hardware and software designers on the idiocy that abounds.  If standards were created and held to by all, there would be no conflicts that weren't a product of a design flaw.  Testing a program on a thousand systems to make sure it works on all of them is only required because they aren't.

When I explicitly state the reason for something, either refute it or agree with it, don't pull a console out of your ass.

Who gives a crap about the company? I'm worried about the rights of consumers. In reference to downloadable games, that is a totally different arguement. In that regard I agree with you, but if I buy a physical copy of a game, then I should be able to do with it like I would a book.

Game = Good. Vacation Pass = Service. Goods and services are two different things and are treated differently under the law. If you are saying every time I play a game I am enjoying a service provided to me by a game developer, then I have just lost a little more faith in humanity.

Software companies write games just like authors write books. They are entitled to all the rights given in copyright law, but they are not entitled to control what I choose to do with my copy of the game after I have purchased it. That is the real issue here: somebody is telling me what I can and cannot do with my property. Suddenly I am "renting" the game, not owning. There is something horribly wrong with that.