Do you feel bad about buying new(ish) releases used?

[Forlorn Drifter]

Only if it is an extremely good company that needs the money.

Like Gearbox. They can take my money. Along with Atlus, Platinum Games, Double Fine, Cave, and various other companies that actually make good games, and need some revenue.

Now, let's say Bioware. No problems buying used their. Or Crapcom, EA, Ubisoft, etc.

But most of the time, no.

[Menegrothx]

Games I want to support I buy brand new, usually on the launch date. But I dont feel bad about buying used copies of games that arent that great. If a game sold enough during its intial release, I dont feel bad about buying the game used if its a lot cheaper than buying new, as the games sequel might already be released by then.

I dont think that video game industry should have special privileges, as second hand market is something that all manufacturers have to deal with. You have the right to sell your property. There is always financial risk involved when buying used stuff and the obivous fact that the items arent brand new anymore, but in most cases buying a used copy/product works just fine for most people. Of course there is the distinction that games, movies and CDs are individual products when compared to mechanical products, furniture, tools, clothes etc.

Game boxes and manuals are often very cheap these days. Many games dont even come with a proper manual anymore. Some games like Freddy Pharkas and games with unlockable gore used the manual as a way of copy protection, so there was a reason to own a complete boxed version of the game.

[AznKhmerBoi]

I do because i know within a month that game will be $40 used. Could of saved $20 if i was a little bit more patience.

[BoringSupreez]

If it's a really awesome game by a company that I love, then yeah, I feel a little bad.

However, I almost never buy new releases used. If it's still a new release, used copies are only going to be a little cheaper than sealed ones. Might as well just get it new. Or, better yet, wait until new copies get a price drop.

[pepharytheworm]

I wouldn't know I have never bought a Newish game used. Now several months old or older it depends on the price difference, condition and availability.

[Ivo]

2.) If you use the secondary market, the primary market receives none of your money for their hard efforts

(Really, point 2 should be more nuanced as to say that at least the revenue of a new game sale is diffused across multiple people, where at least one of them uses the secondary market to gain money towards buying new releases).

I fundamentally disagree with this. It is not just a question of nuances or the destination of the additional income earned by the seller of the used game (remember money is fungible)

The self-consistent way of counting who actually paid for the game (and therefore supports the devs of THAT game) is dividing it by all the game's owners throughout the life of that (physical) copy. In the simplest case of two owners, the 2nd owner (that purchased the game used) is retroactively supporting THAT game with his own cash. This is independent of what the first owner uses the money for after he sells THAT game. It is more logical than considering that the 2nd owner of game X is actually supporting the game Y that the 1st owner of game X uses the money toward.

Ivo.

[Ivo]

Maybe I should answer the actual question, I wouldn't feel bad about doing that, but I don't do it. I don't remember ever doing that actually.

I strongly defend that the industry is not *entitled* to my money or support at the level that they find appealing. I would defend also that I am not *entitled* to have the industry make games that I like, nor to have them pricing those games in a way I find appealing. So that seems perfectly fair to me.

If you buy new and then sell the game you can't claim to be fully supporting that game, same as the typical person buying the game used is not fully supporting that game (unless the game actually went up from its original retail price, which is pretty unusual).

I do see reasons to fully support (i.e. not just buying new, but buying new and keeping the game) developers that make games you like. I think it does make it more likely that they will stay in business and make more games that you like.
Fully supporting games you like does not guarantee at all that you get more games you like though, and you also aren't *entitled* to have the devs make more games you like just because you supported them previously.

I really like some pricing schemes where you pay what you want and also these fairly recent approaches to fan funding on kickstarter, and I see getting games used as one way for customers to access that kind of "pay what you want" pricing scheme for games that are priced in the more traditional way - noting also that doing so they are giving up the possibility of playing the game earlier (on release date) to get that "discount".

I also sometimes wonder about trying to give the devs a more direct cut of the amount people pay for a game - that is not to say that publishers in particular, and also retailers should not get their cut for their respective contributions in getting the game to you. But for example, putting aside the legality and practicality of the situation if you download a pirated game and really like it, imagine sending the full retail value divided to the dev and to the publisher, that would actually be more of a benefit to them - the bandwidth you consumed downloading it was not paid for them, there was no cut for the retailer that you didn't use.

By the way, GoG is great and Steam is nice.

Ivo.

[Dakinggamer87]

I always buy games new or wait for a price drop. I like having games in brand new condition in my gaming collection.

[BoringSupreez]

I always buy games new or wait for a price drop. I like having games in brand new condition in my gaming collection.

It's so nice when years later, the manual still has "that" smell. You generally can't get that buying your games used.

[Dakinggamer87]

I always buy games new or wait for a price drop. I like having games in brand new condition in my gaming collection.

It's so nice when years later, the manual still has "that" smell. You generally can't get that buying your games used.

Very true indeed