That would be the theory of business taught by morons in universities.  The other theory is that you produce the best possible product at the lowest possible price.

Companies that follow the second tend to take over their markets.  Business is more than a demand curve, Walton and Ford knew business.

Let us all look at the root issue here, why is the issue of not refunding a game even present?

I mean, with consol games you're allowed to resell them right?
so maybe the finger shouldn't be pointing at the software companies, but to the consumer who for some reason, everyone thinks is innocent.  The large majority of the gaming public has at least pirated one game n their lives, and there is a large amount of people who do it without a care in the world. Don't blame the developers for this issue, blame pirates for the fact you're not getting what you should.

To be honest, games, they are not expensive. You have people nowdays that'll spend at least 5 dollers a day on a cup of coffee at their local starbucks, or people that'll smoke a pack a day because of an addiction which has no benifit to them. Why is it that people think they are so hard done by if they don't like a video game. It's like saying you want a refund after watching a dissapointing movie. Point is, video games are created not by CEO's, they are created by people just like you and me, people who go home everyday, worried about money, their family and kids. These are some of the people who gets paid when we do the honest thing and pay for things the proper way. If we all just shared and re-sold our games, companies make no money, people lose jobs and lives are destroyed, all because you didn't want to spend a few hours worth of your paycheque to help support a lifestyle and industry all we all enjoy.

Some people may not agree with me here, but in the end, companies have to make money, or else this whole industry will fall...

A used game has an opened box, likely in less than perfect condition.  The manual has been thumbed through, the pages are curled.  The person buying the used game is expecting it to work, but they probably don't give a shit about the condition of the packaging.  The person that sells the used game is someone that either didn't like it or doesn't collect, and prefers to recoup part of his costs to purchase other things.  Maybe those recouped funds go straight back into new games.  Maybe, with no resales, he buys less to start with because there is more of a risk with that increased cost.  Perhaps the people buying used copies wont be interested in new copies enough to spend that same amount of money on new copies.  Perhaps they'll pirate instead, a rather impressive number of pirates claim they do so because there isn't any advantage to buying them with so few even bothering with a real manual.  Used game buyers might have more in common with pirates than new game buyers.  Perhaps, by banning resales, the pc game market will shrink, and entertainment will be had elsewhere.  There is a rather wide and substantial variety of things to do.

I collect, I even keep the games I can't stand.  I never sell any used games because I have a mental defect and can't get rid of a boring fuck of a game just because I wont play it even if hell freezes over.  I don't buy used games either, for a more rational reason.  People are fucking retards and can't seem to grasp the concept of not scratching the goddamned cd.  If I did sell them though, I know exactly where that money would be going, back into more entertainment.

If there's a net loss for the industry in that scenario, it's minuscule.

Since games are patched and not books, you must concentrate only on the retail version of the game and not on the patched version of the game (after all, your CD contains only the retail version) when using your analogy.

And free of charge for books owners?

is uber unfair ofcourse...

but then again... this is one of the reasons why pirates exist

the loop that goes on forever..... every so called "solution only makes the loop longerr....

pretty fun rlly:

Solution:

implemented:

more pirtes, less customers:

D.O.H.:

At this point I think you're just trying to argue for the sake of arguement. Of course it's not fair to the honest person, but what in life is this way? It's the way of the world, where honest people are always left behind.  I'd hardly call it slight cuts either, if even 50 000 people steal a game, that's a hell of a lot of money in lost revenue, enough revenue that could hire at least 2 people...  Or fire 2...

In a perfect world we wouldn't need a police force, we'd be able to do what we wanted if we all were honest, but that really is not the case, you need to wake up to reality and see that the world we live in, is not just, it's not free, and developers are really not the first people in existance who are trying to protect themselves.

Ask yourself, how would you feel if you had a company and every year somebody broke in and stole 50 000 worth of your stock, you'd do something to protect yourself.

You're making the mistake of assuming those 50,000 pirated copies represent people that would actually buy the game anyway.

How would I feel if someone broke in and stole 50,000 worth of my stock? I'd be pretty pissed, especially since the stock that's missing would have to be replaced at my expense. How would I feel if 50,000 people copied my software and used it without paying? I'd be pretty pissed, but I wouldn't be out of pocket to replace it, and I wouldn't feel I need to make my honest customers jump through hoops and punish them for it either. I'm not saying piracy is right or justified: it isn't. But it doesn't necessarily represent lost sales or revenue.

I follow you, although

Hi

but sometimes people are not in a position to buy brand new, be it clothing, houses, music, videos/movies, etc. etc. . People with less means sometimes cannot afford the direct market. An indirect or secondary market of used items is therefore desirable in society overall.

For posterity, I like Stardock, Ironclad, and Impulse, but I must admit that the system *is* *still* DRM protected. Friendlier, absolutely.

On a related yet narrowly focussed note, I have purchased IL-2 at least 6 times... thats once for every new version they ever came out with. Only the newest version is playable online with anybody else on a standard server of course. Given my inordinate expenditures, I am compelled to cite this as a fine example where I feel substantially slighted if someone tells me I cannot resell the copies of my game. I damn well will if I want to.

(!)

On a bigger picture note, I believe it most important for a company to conduct its business in upstanding and civil terms. That in itself can compel people to support them.

At its worst, yes, there are pirate networks that can damage sales of entertainment product. At its best, piracy allows folks not normally able to or *not willing to* to try a piece of software. I do not pursue piratted copies of software, but I have utilized such - when I am able, if I continue to utilize such, I most certainly buy it. 100% of the time. Piracy is both good and bad; in equal nullifying measure? I do not know... but I suspect so.

(Btw, good discussion in this thread, on both sides/all sides.)

Support cost should be for the lifetime of the product supported via the Serial number. Kinda like a car warranty that's transferrable via the VIN. Perhaps have a mechanism where the email address or something associated to the serial number can be changed to the new person who buys the game.

Real world examples?  The Political machine retails for $20.  A single support call costs what? $10?  So if you sell TPM for $10 and then they pay $10 to transfer the support. . . they could have bought a new game.  If we are talking about the GalCiv2 bundle ($60) maybe the argument changes some.  Thoughts?

Let's go the other way (because I don't know the support structure).  How much are used PC games going for?  How much would the used PC game buyer pay to get the support? 

Your contention isn't that the software company make any money on the resale but that they increase initial sales because the inital buyer knows that they can dump it with good concience or that there will be a market for the used game and they'll be able to dump it at all?

But then, second hand user isn't entitled to patch/updates since they aren't in the boxed software