MrPopo wrote:
What. Industry gets X for the game from A. B gives nothing. There are two scenarios I can imagine where B supports the industry:
1. B purchase the game new
2. B gives A some money Y under the condition that A uses that Y and his own X-Y to purchase the game, and then when A is finished he gives it to B.
Neither is the case here. All the money going to the industry is from A. He had to have all the money available to purchase it in your scenario.
In your point of view you are trying to assign the responsibility to those buying the games used, when the responsibility actually lies on those SELLING used (not that I find it wrong, it is just who is really responsible). Player A - by selling used - is passing on the Y fraction of his support onto Player B, so Player A can no longer claim that he supported the industry with the full X.
If player A pays X, plays the game, and receives Y selling it, I find it pretty hard to see how you can say player A is supporting that publisher with X - the right amount is X-Y.
You are making it more complicated than it is. You don't need to track what Player A does with the money or any other games, and this is a good reason to believe my method to be the correct way to evaluate the situation. Player B is retroactively supporting THAT game, not any other games that Player A buys after. How can anything else make sense consistently across the board?
Your way makes less sense - consider this: player B only plays RPGs and hates shmups. Player A sells an RPG and uses some of the money (Y) to buy a shmup. Your way has Player B support a shmup when Player B hates shmups. My interpretation correctly identifies that Player B supports the RPG retroactively.
Furthermore as money is fungible, it is highly questionably to identify that Player A used the Y money to buy a shmup. What if he used instead the money from Player C (that only plays platformers)? After the respective transactions the money is no longer distinguishable. My point of view also avoids this issue as it only assigns the identity of the money Y to the game player B buys and I forget about it after that.
So Player B supports ONLY the games he himself buys (used) and player A supports only the games he buys (and retroactively only to the difference between his buy and sell prices). I believe you only find this concept strange due to the retroactive nature of the situation, but as I mentioned earlier this only amounts to player A giving player B an interest free "loan" of value Y for the duration that player A has the game until selling (and if the interest free part bothers you, fine, consider it a loan with interest of the calculated amount smaller than Y which, after considering the interest, amounts to Y).
Maybe you will have less trouble identifying it if you instead thinking that player A is actually only renting the game. Player B is the real buyer (assuming player B actually keeps the game, that is). Consider this situation: Player B buys the game for X and rents the game to player A for a while (letting Player A play first) for X-Y. How much is each player contributing? Player A contributes X-Y, and player B contributes Y. It's the same (unsurprisingly).
Ivo.
