Whelp, another reason to boycott Capcom.

[AppleQueso]

It also means that if I buy a dvd I can copy it to my phone or pc to watch on the go as long as I own the dvd, if I sell the dvd then I have to delete all copies.One thing that I wonder writing this, if I own the dvd, can I then download the HD blu-ray rip? Probably not, but it is still a fairer law.

Highly doubtful, because the blu ray version is a different product with different data on it. Even if it is the same movie.

[flamepanther]

The problem with that is that it no longer matters where the $6 comes from once the original transaction is completed. Whether or not it comes from reselling the game has NO impact whatsoever on the original transaction.

Heck, that is also what I have been saying. It only matter that X (not *which* X) was paid for the game and that Y (not *which* Y) was paid for the game.

It doesn't even matter whether he resells the game at all. Whatever he does after buying the game is a completely separate interaction, and a completely separate transaction.

Ok consider another case without initial agreement. Player A buys a house (no loan from bank). Player B later buys the house from Player B. Why is Player B not contributing to the real estate market? Not only he IS, that many governments around the world know he is and place appropriate and specific real estate taxes on the second transaction beyond income taxes.

Still no good. I covered this before. Your concept of "real estate market" covers both new AND used sales of houses, so in the case of Player B, Player A is the real estate market--not a conduit for retroactive contribution to someone else. We can say he is contributing to the "real estate market," in this example, but that's like saying that in your original example he is contributing to GameStop. It tells us Player B contributes something to an overall ecosystem (specifically to a secondary market, not the primary) and nothing more. The question was whether he contributes to the industry that makes games, not the industry that resells them.

That is correct, we only disagree that being involved initially is a requirement in order to attribute credit to Player B for contributing to the industry (see example with houses above as well).

It's an incredibly important distinction. In your example of the housing loan, you caused the housing developer to receive money, even if it was not initially your money. Player B does NOT cause the game developer to receive money.

As I've said now, your new example with houses doesn't work out the same way. With the second purchaser uninvolved in the original purchase, he contributes only to the secondary market, and not to the people that actually build houses (he did not cause the housing developer to receive money).

Disagree! Player B is partially taking on the support that had until then been entirely attributable to Player A, regardless of whether that was initially agreed or not, it happens at the moment of the second transaction.

"second transaction" is exactly my point. It is a separate transaction. The first transaction is already done and had nothing to do with the second. Player B does not have a TARDIS. He has no responsibility for ANY of what happened in the first transaction, including the issue of whether or not the developer gets any money. If we assume "collective responsibility" of a society is fungible (to some degree, I would say it is), then by your reasoning, everyone currently living in the United States is responsible for contributing to the nation's history of slavery and of genocide against the Native Americans. After all, we've inherited the same land and the same economic gains that came of these atrocities. However, that's fallacious, because none of us were born yet and had no say in how things happened.

If that's too touchy of an issue, suppose I buy a house in Louisiana. I just contributed to the historic Louisiana Purchase! Wait, no, that's absurd.

The initial agreement is irrelevant and you can not even know it is going to be upheld (I could have said I would pay for half the operation and then not do it), but you can know the transaction is done ONCE it is done.

It's not irrelevant at all. The original transaction would not have happened without the initial agreement. The uncertainty involved is a deliberately calculated risk, based on your credit history or your relationship with your brother--and not a complete unknown as with Players A and B. In your examples, if you choose not to pay, you change the original transaction, because you were part of it. You ruin the intended result and effectively contribute a negative amount--as someone loses money they would otherwise still have because of you. If player B decides not to buy the used game, then absolutely nothing changes in the original transaction of Player A.

If this is purely academic or not depends - it is indeed only useful in describing the economic ecosystem in the sense that it proves that used buyers are contributing to the industry, if anything it is the used SELLERS that are "bad" (only in the sense that they shift their initial contribution to someone else).

It proves only that they contribute to the part of the "industry" that resells the games--which was obvious from the beginning. There's no connection between Player B's purchase and Player A's purchase, and Gamestop is not in the business of developing games.

Any other parties, including the employer, of either player can not be said to explicitly contribute via that game as due to the fungibility you can only unambiguously assign responsability to those that actually enter a transaction for that game.

There are so many things wrong with this statement. The employer isn't responsible because they didn't enter into the transaction? That's fine, but if we limit our scope to that range, then neither did Player B enter into any transaction with the game's publisher or developer. Both are related only incidentally. You keep treating Player A and Player B as part of the same transaction when they are not--not any more than the employer is. The two transactions are separated not only by a third-party reseller, but by time, intent, and by another fact that seems to be overlooked here. For economic purposes, when Player A resells his game it is no longer the same good or product. It changes from a new game into a used game, which is not the same commodity (not fungible!) That is why we can substitute any other good or service when he wants to recover some of his costs. The only time in the scenario where the game is equivalent is between Player A's transaction with the reseller, and the reseller's transaction with Player B.

...my interpretation is internally consistent and robust.

Internally consistent? Maybe. I'm not so sure either way. But robust? Your entire premise relies on trying to take concepts that are meant for generalizing economics in an abstracted, non-real way and applying them to specific transactions as though they are real phenomena. You're creating an illusion with a misapplied formula. That's hardly robust at all.

[Ivo]

In that case, Player B is contributing to the real estate market as a whole. In the same sense that, say, Gamestop is part of the games industry as a whole or that used cars are part of the automotive industry.

No, he is contributing to THAT specific house. That is the key issue.

What Player B is not doing is paying more money towards the contractors who built the house in the first place, which is the more relevant parallel to draw. The folks who built my house, back in 1984, haven't seen a dime from sales past the first one.

The only issue is the "more" in that sentence. He is not paying more money towards the contractors, he is replacing part of the money that Player A had put until the sale.

Again, it only matters - from the angle of supporting the developer - if "pooled resources" are part of the original purchase decision.

I don't see why that matters. That interpretation isn't internally consistent in all cases, unlike my interpretation (one of the cases where using the "original purchase decision" breaks down is if someone had agree to it and then changes their mind - by using the point of transaction instead there is no such problem).

As in, without that, the initial sale would not have taken place. You can spin it into that this person or that person all contributed this little slice of that original purchase price...but the fact remains that for two people, or 10 people, or whatever, the game developer got their cut of -one- copy.

[/quote]

I have never said otherwise. The game developer gets X and no more.

Your Facebook example I don't even see the connection.

Ivo.

[Ivo]

House example already addressed with reply to Isolia.

It's an incredibly important distinction. In your example of the housing loan, you caused the housing developer to receive money, even if it was not initially your money. Player B does NOT cause the game developer to receive money.

It isn't really. Player A has solely caused the developer to receive the full amount ONLY until he sells the game. At that instant he is shifting that portion onto someone else.
Look, at that point in time, Player A has played the game for X-Y. How can he magically do that and claim he spent altogether X on the game? He can't. After he sells the game, he can only say he spent X-Y (and possibly claim he also spent interest through the loss of opportunity cost on the Y portion). That is all he can correctly claim after he has sold the game.

second transaction" is exactly my point. It is a separate transaction.

It is a separate transaction on the exact same game though.

The first transaction is already done and had nothing to do with the second.

Incorrect. You are using the word "nothing" incorrectly. Both transactions are connected because it is the same game.

Player B does not have a TARDIS. He has no responsibility for ANY of what happened in the first transaction, including the issue of whether or not the developer gets any money. If we assume "collective responsibility" of a society is fungible (to some degree, I would say it is), then by your reasoning, everyone currently living in the United States is responsible for contributing to the nation's history of slavery and of genocide against the Native Americans.

Strawman! No. My claim can only be equated to this (which I believe): anyone that has purchased a slave after he has been enslaved is certainly taking a portion of the responsibility for THAT slave having been enslaved (not necessarily for any others). And the buyer of the slave doesn't need to time travel to retroactively assume that responsibility.

After all, we've inherited the same land and the same economic gains that came of these atrocities. However, that's fallacious, because none of us were born yet and had no say in how things happened.

And yet I have the feeling you would agree that even if someone, call him Player B, is born after a Slave has been enslaved and then buys that Slave (obviously the Slave is older than Player B), then Player B has responsibility for it right there.

If that's too touchy of an issue, suppose I buy a house in Louisiana. I just contributed to the historic Louisiana Purchase! Wait, no, that's absurd.

Yes, it is absurd and another strawman. My house and game examples are always dealing with THAT house and THAT game.

It's not irrelevant at all. The original transaction would not have happened without the initial agreement. The uncertainty involved is a deliberately calculated risk, based on your credit history or your relationship with your brother--and not a complete unknown as with Players A and B.

As you claim that the initial agreement is the relevant part (instead of the transaction), in your point of view it seems that the Player that changes his mind can rightfully claim to have support the industry, how that works I don't understand as by changing his mind on the agreement he has not paid anything. Sorry, that is internally inconsistent as far as I'm concerned.

In your examples, if you choose not to pay, you change the original transaction, because you were part of it. You ruin the intended result and effectively contribute a negative amount--as someone loses money they would otherwise still have because of you.

No, see, because you insist that the AGREEMENT is the important thing and not the transaction (or lack of transaction), then you can not turn around, shift into MY viewpoint (which indeed always work and is based on the TRANSACTION) and then use the lack of transaction to say that now there is a negative contribution. You want to have "the best of both worlds" there, but it is inconsistent to do so. If you want to choose the TRANSACTION as the relevant point, you have to do it all the time. If you want to choose the AGREEMENT, you have to stick with it and then reach the incorrect conclusion in the corner cases that show it to be inconsistent.

It proves only that they contribute to the part of the "industry" that resells the games--which was obvious from the beginning. There's no connection between Player B's purchase and Player A's purchase

I'm repeating myself here, but of course there is, they are the exact same game.

There are so many things wrong with this statement. The employer isn't responsible because they didn't enter into the transaction? That's fine, but if we limit our scope to that range, then neither did Player B enter into any transaction with the game's publisher or developer.

He entered a transaction for THAT game. There is a connection.

Both are related only incidentally. You keep treating Player A and Player B as part of the same transaction when they are not--not any more than the employer is.

There are two transactions, that much is clear. I'm not treating it as the same. I'm just saying the second transaction transfers responsibility / support for the industry from Player A to Player B. That is all.

The employer has no interest in the game, whereas Player B obviously has by definition has he purchased THAT game. How is that for an extremely relevant difference?

The two transactions are separated not only by a third-party reseller, but by time, intent, and by another fact that seems to be overlooked here. For economic purposes, when Player A resells his game it is no longer the same good or product.

Say what?

It changes from a new game into a used game, which is not the same commodity (not fungible!)

Sorry, that could work for bars of gold, not for games with distinct identities. The extent of the fungibility of that game (which exists) is only to other copies of the same game. So of course it wouldn't matter if say, the initial copy of the game Player A has purchased stopped working within the warranty and he got a replacement copy. To that extent it is fungible.

That is why we can substitute any other good or service when he wants to recover some of his costs.

No, you can't claim at all that Player C buying Player A toaster for Y is transferring responsibility for the game. You can say he is taking responsibility for the toaster and supporting the toaster industry. It is only because player B is directly buying THAT game that he takes on support for THAT game. Rock solid and consistent.

Internally consistent? Maybe. I'm not so sure either way.

Despite the funny joke a while ago by someone else, the mathematics are extremely simple and the concept is solid. I took an interpretation centred in the transaction and it always works.

But robust? Your entire premise relies on trying to take concepts that are meant for generalizing economics in an abstracted, non-real way and applying them to specific transactions as though they are real phenomena. You're creating an illusion with a misapplied formula. That's hardly robust at all.

I fail to see what is illusionary about transactions involving the exact same game. It was only abstract when I made the joke with Pi and i. Any other amounts you put in (including 0 for gifting the game instead of selling or stealing instead of buying) is pretty well grounded in real phenomena. Give me any another real phenomena possible in real world transactions involving games and I feel confident that I can include it in what you call an illusionary model.

Ivo.

[MrPopo]

Hey Dsh, do you have any economics professors you could bribe with liquor to come on the forum and weigh in on this?

[ZeroAX]

Hey Dsh, do you have any economics professors you could bribe with liquor to come on the forum and weigh in on this?

You do know that if we got 3 economics professors, one from America, one from Europe and one from Asia, each would say his own thing, and this thread would only get longer and even harder to understand/keep up with, right?

[flamepanther]

No, he is contributing to THAT specific house. That is the key issue.

You don't contribute to the house, you contribute to the person or industry that sells the house.

Player A has solely caused the developer to receive the full amount ONLY until he sells the game. At that instant he is shifting that portion onto someone else.

No, he is getting new money from someone else for a separate transaction.

Look, at that point in time, Player A has played the game for X-Y. How can he magically do that and claim he spent altogether X on the game? He can't.

Yes he can, because he spent some amount of time without that money. Saying he retroactively spent less than the full price of the game just because he received money at some later point is like saying he spent it on absolutely nothing just because the game also left his possession at a later time.

After he sells the game, he can only say he spent X-Y (and possibly claim he also spent interest through the loss of opportunity cost on the Y portion). That is all he can correctly claim after he has sold the game.

Wrong. He can balance it out in his budget and make an excuse to his wife "hey, after I sold it, it's as if I paid less for it" but it's just an imaginary exercise for the purpose of budgeting. He still paid full price for the game, and had to do something else (in this case sell the game, but could have been anything) to get more money elsewhere.

It is a separate transaction on the exact same game though.

In terms of the game retail business it's not the same product (and it wouldn't matter even if it were).

Incorrect. You are using the word "nothing" incorrectly. Both transactions are connected because it is the same game.

Purely incidental. After the first person buys it, it is merely one possession among many. After it goes into the reseller's inventory, it is the same as any among other used copies of the same title. Player A could sell one copy, Player B could buy a different copy, and nothing in the scenario would change. The transactions involving the individual copy are no more related than separate transactions involving the same dollar bill.

Strawman! No. My claim can only be equated to this (which I believe): anyone that has purchased a slave after he has been enslaved is certainly taking a portion of the responsibility for THAT slave having been enslaved (not necessarily for any others). And the buyer of the slave doesn't need to time travel to retroactively assume that responsibility.

...

And yet I have the feeling you would agree that even if someone, call him Player B, is born after a Slave has been enslaved and then buys that Slave (obviously the Slave is older than Player B), then Player B has responsibility for it right there.

You are still wrong. If someone did what you say, they are responsible only for the continued enslavement of that individual. They could also be said to be morally responsible for the future enslavement of others, since the purchase establishes there is still a market for selling slaves.

Yes, it is absurd and another strawman. My house and game examples are always dealing with THAT house and THAT game.

But if I buy land in Louisiana (in this case with a house on it), it is still part of the same land covered by the Louisiana Purchase.

As you claim that the initial agreement is the relevant part (instead of the transaction)...

First of all, that's not what I said. I said it is relevant that the transaction was directly caused by the agreement. There's a huge difference.

in your point of view it seems that the Player that changes his mind can rightfully claim to have support the industry, how that works I don't understand as by changing his mind on the agreement he has not paid anything. Sorry, that is internally inconsistent as far as I'm concerned.

For starters, he could only even try to claim to contribute to the developers if the purchase would not have happened without him. Therefore, he caused the developers to receive money. It would be the same as if he stole the first player's money, bought the game with the stolen cash, and then gave the game to the first player still new and unopened. This is more true than it sounds, because the second player's promised money was part of the original transaction, but never materialized. It would be stupid, and he would be a complete asshat, but he could make the claim. Secondly, of course it's absurd, because secondary game sales never happen like that in the first place. The whole idea was to illustrate the absurdity of comparing used game sales to home loans, because the one does not operate at all like the other. Mission accomplished.

No, see, because you insist that the AGREEMENT is the important thing and not the transaction (or lack of transaction), then you can not turn around, shift into MY viewpoint (which indeed always work and is based on the TRANSACTION) and then use the lack of transaction to say that now there is a negative contribution. You want to have "the best of both worlds" there, but it is inconsistent to do so. If you want to choose the TRANSACTION as the relevant point, you have to do it all the time. If you want to choose the AGREEMENT, you have to stick with it and then reach the incorrect conclusion in the corner cases that show it to be inconsistent.

Again, no. The agreement and the transaction are both important. What is possibly more important is who caused the developers to receive money. Unemployed, underage children contribute to developers, for example, by influencing their parents to purchase games. Player A caused the developers to receive money. Player B did not.

There are two transactions, that much is clear. I'm not treating it as the same. I'm just saying the second transaction transfers responsibility / support for the industry from Player A to Player B. That is all.

But that doesn't happen in reality, only in an abstract idea space (if at all).

The employer has no interest in the game, whereas Player B obviously has by definition has he purchased THAT game. How is that for an extremely relevant difference?

Not compelling. From beginning to end, you're considering responsibility in reverse order. The employer made the purchase possible, regardless of interest in the product. In fact, they DO have an interest in services provided by employing Player A, who is arguably working for his employer in part due to his interest in buying games. Player B did NOT make the purchase possible--he merely took advantage of it after the fact.

The two transactions are separated not only by a third-party reseller, but by time, intent, and by another fact that seems to be overlooked here. For economic purposes, when Player A resells his game it is no longer the same good or product.

Say what?

You heard me.

It changes from a new game into a used game, which is not the same commodity (not fungible!)

Sorry, that could work for bars of gold, not for games with distinct identities. The extent of the fungibility of that game (which exists) is only to other copies of the same game.

Close. New copies are equivalent to new copies, and used copies are equivalent to used copies. When the game is bought used by Player B, it is no longer equivalent to when it was a new game purchased by Player A. Don't believe me? Go to Gamestop. The same title new and used is separate inventory at a separate price point, even within the same store. New games are not sold as used games, and used games are not supposed to be sold as new games, even if some people still try. You can treat it as though new games are a raw material for the creation of used games.

No, you can't claim at all that Player C buying Player A toaster for Y is transferring responsibility for the game.

And I wouldn't say it either, because Player A does not transfer responsibility for the original sale no matter what he does after the sale is complete.

You can say he is taking responsibility for the toaster and supporting the toaster industry.

No, you can say he is supporting Player A, and the used toaster industry (if there is such a thing).

It is only because player B is directly buying THAT game that he takes on support for THAT game. Rock solid and consistent.

"Rock solid" would imply that you've demonstrated a real way in which Player B's money reaches the publisher or developer, which you have not done. "Consistent" would imply that you are not confusing abstract generalizations that occur only in idea space with real events, which I am now absolutely certain you are doing.

Despite the funny joke a while ago by someone else, the mathematics are extremely simple and the concept is solid. I took an interpretation centred in the transaction and it always works.

But the way you're interpreting it only happens in an idea space as an abstraction of economics--not in reality. Even if you were being internally consistent here, that doesn't make it jibe with reality. Solipsism is the most internally consistent idea you can find, but we should all know it is absurd.

I fail to see what is illusionary about transactions involving the exact same game. It was only abstract when I made the joke with Pi and i. Any other amounts you put in (including 0 for gifting the game instead of selling or stealing instead of buying) is pretty well grounded in real phenomena. Give me any another real phenomena possible in real world transactions involving games and I feel confident that I can include it in what you call an illusionary model.

I'm sure you can, but it doesn't mean that's what's going on in the real world. The concept you're using--the fungibility of cash money--is meant to balance ledgers, manage budgets, and abstractly describe economies in a simplified way. The closest you can get to the real world with that is "it's the same result as if..."

"Same as if" is not the same thing as "is". Overlooking that, if you're going to turn real money and real transactions into abstract money and abstract transactions to claim money is essentially changing hands from the used game industry to the new games industry, then you have to consider the goods as they're considered by the market in that same abstract idea space before you try to switch back to describing real concrete things. That causes two HUGE problems for you: 1) In that abstract world of the games market, new and used copies are separate commodities. You can no longer consider the game to be the same product after the initial purchase, because it is not treated that way by the market, making the new game meaningless in terms of selling the used game, and; 2) since the USED game is interchangeable with any other USED copy of the same game, any connection between Player A and Player B is also meaningless in terms of responsibility.

[pakopako]

it's bullshit. Imagine buying a DVD but you can only watch it once. Pfft.

A lot of studios would LOVE to do this honestly.

DivX. (The rental brand failure, not the codec.)

[flamepanther]

it's bullshit. Imagine buying a DVD but you can only watch it once. Pfft.

A lot of studios would LOVE to do this honestly.

DivX. (The rental brand failure, not the codec.)

Sony also has a patent that allows them to do almost the same thing with BluRay discs down the road if they so choose. It involves making the space on the disc that stores the decryption key essentially get erased by the laser on first read. The player stores the encryption key from the disc, but it can't be used in any other device in the future. Hopefully they never decide this is worth it.

[Ivo]

You don't contribute to the house, you contribute to the person or industry that sells the house.

Fair enough, it was a slight imprecise use of language. You contribute to the person or industry that sells the house, and when you contribute to the person that sells the house, you are directly "undoing", cancelling and transferring the contribution of that person and taking that contribution as your own. But I used "to that house" because THAT house is they key point in the interpretation where the transaction is the relevant portion.

No, he is getting new money from someone else for a separate transaction.

He is getting new money from someone else for a separate transaction, sure. This does not invalidate that that transaction acts as a transfer of the support given, being as it is on the same game (so, separate transaction, but intimately related as it is the same game).

Yes he can, because he spent some amount of time without that money.

He can't, although it is entirely correct that he spent some amount of time without that money - which is why I was careful to add (before you brought this up, I may add) that he could also claim not just X-Y but also further deduct interest on the portion Y. So if you want to consider the amount of time and that opportunity cost (which is perfectly fair), Player A contributes X-Y and the interest of Y, and Player B contributes Y minus the interest of Y. Since very early I mention "interest free loan" when I used simply X-Y and Y. But adjusting the respective amounts like this is more correct (although slightly more complicated). Once again the interpretation is internally consistent and correct.

Saying he retroactively spent less than the full price of the game just because he received money at some later point is like saying he spent it on absolutely nothing just because the game also left his possession at a later time.

He spent the full price of the game, and then he transfers the responsibility (partial or not) for it. Your point of view is extremely inconsistent in corner cases, some of which I already presented. Mine has yet to fail in any limiting cases.
Consider Player A only had the game for very few hours and did not even play it (he isn't even a player) - he just did the errand for someone else and gets the full amount upon delivering the game.
Your interpretation makes it look like the Player that isn't even a player is contributing to the industry You will try to fall back on the "there was an agreement and that is relevant". With my interpretation I don't need to worry about that and whether player A is actually a player or if it was hours or years that he had the game, and describe any situation perfectly by adjusting the amounts (in this case Y=X, Player A contributes X during the few hours, and after the transaction Player B contributes X and Player A contributes X-X=0 - as it should be). So in such a situation I can totally say Player A has contributed nothing towards it (after the transaction).

Wrong. He can balance it out in his budget and make an excuse to his wife "hey, after I sold it, it's as if I paid less for it" but it's just an imaginary exercise for the purpose of budgeting.

Actually that is a pretty good example how it is NOT imaginary and relevant. Of course, if his wife is anything like you, she will unfairly not understand the dude. It is not an excuse, it is the reality of it. It's not *as if* he paid less for it. It is *as if* he just rented it. Which may very well be much more acceptable for their budget if he doesn't intend to replay it and so on.

He still paid full price for the game, and had to do something else (in this case sell the game, but could have been anything) to get more money elsewhere.

While he could certainly get more money from elsewhere, he couldn't correctly justify (in such a situation) that he "paid less" for it or that he "just rented it for less". He could in those situations say (while he kept the game in his collection, I may add) "yes I paid full price for it, but I worked extra time / sold something else that I would have liked to keep" or whatever applies, but those sentences are obviously NOT equivalent to "I paid less for THIS game", they just mean "I got more money from elsewhere". Which is of course unsurprising given that is what he did (in your own words).

Purely incidental. After the first person buys it, it is merely one possession among many. After it goes into the reseller's inventory, it is the same as any among other used copies of the same title.

Agreed, there it is fungible among the same copies of the same game. This is no problem for my transaction interpretation. You only need to care at each transaction. If Player A sells to Gamestop, you stop caring about player A and only care about Gamestop. You already know what Player A contributes after that transaction and Player B can do nothing to alter THAT part. Player B will henceforth only alter Gamestop's contribution after that transaction is done. At each transaction you only care about X_i and X_(i+1). This is exactly why I don't need a time machine and this is exactly why there is no violation of causality. And this is why it is internally consistent.

Player A could sell one copy, Player B could buy a different copy, and nothing in the scenario would change. The transactions involving the individual copy are no more related than separate transactions involving the same dollar bill.

In this example with a middlemen, you can not directly compare with just 2 parties, but 3. Instead of "gamestop" in the middle, you can think of player A, B and C. Player B takes responsibility from Player A, Player C can not affect that. Player C takes responsibility from Player B. It is indeed impossible for C to affect A because they are not in the same transaction. What you are trying to do (intentionally or not) is a strawman to shoot down my transaction centred interpretation by "sneaking in" another transaction and not considering it. As my transaction interpretation crucially uses each transaction to keep consistency, you can't do that (nor have I done it while using my interpretation).

But if I buy land in Louisiana (in this case with a house on it), it is still part of the same land covered by the Louisiana Purchase.

I took out the part with the slaves because it may get touchy.

Then sure, transfer down the responsibility, adjust for interest and inflation. It is just difficult to do it as there have been many parties, but you can iterate all the way. Note that (like in the ABC example) you can not directly affect A, only your buyer. Then your buyer affects his buyer and so on.

First of all, that's not what I said. I said it is relevant that the transaction was directly caused by the agreement. There's a huge difference.

Apologies for my misinterpretation. My point still stands. An agreement that is not upheld is a shake ground and a bad corner case for any agreement interpretation.

For starters, he could only even try to claim to contribute to the developers if the purchase would not have happened without him. Therefore, he caused the developers to receive money. It would be the same as if he stole the first player's money, bought the game with the stolen cash, and then gave the game to the first player still new and unopened. This is more true than it sounds, because the second player's promised money was part of the original transaction, but never materialized. It would be stupid, and he would be a complete asshat, but he could make the claim.

Shaky, I really prefer my interpretation.

Secondly, of course it's absurd, because secondary game sales never happen like that in the first place.

You would be surprised what happens. With my interpretation I can fit anything possible (even if unlikely). Yours struggles. Does that no indicate anything to you? And yet you question the robustness of my interpretation...

The whole idea was to illustrate the absurdity of comparing used game sales to home loans, because the one does not operate at all like the other. Mission accomplished.

Mission accomplished, but not in the way you intended it. My interpretation continues robust.

It is not at all absurd to compare these. In both situations a specific object is acquired for X and owned by a party (Player A) for a period of time and then transfers this to another party (Player B) for Y. If you have issues with the comparison it is because you are not abstracting the concepts.

Again, no. The agreement and the transaction are both important.

For you they are, which is why you get into trouble with consistency.

What is possibly more important is who caused the developers to receive money. Unemployed, underage children contribute to developers, for example, by influencing their parents to purchase games. Player A caused the developers to receive money. Player B did not.

Motivations are well outside the realms of simple economics. Maybe Player A (or B) bought the game with other intentions other than playing it (e.g. gifting it). So what? I don't care in my interpretation. If parents actually gift the game, well, consider the child Player C and the 0 value cases is included in my interpretation anyway.

If you care about intentions, you are only making your ground shakier.

But that doesn't happen in reality, only in an abstract idea space (if at all).

If it is the only abstract interpretation that is rigorously consistent, then it is pretty fair to say it is what happens in reality. Get a *better* way to model it and then you can suggest that it doesn't happen like THAT, it happens like THIS.

From beginning to end, you're considering responsibility in reverse order.

I am merely considering transfers of responsibility and I'm being internally consistent with causality by only having those take place at each transaction, not before. I don't see where you are imagining any reverse ordering.

The employer made the purchase possible, regardless of interest in the product.

Not necessarily, as money is fungible and all, but not relevant either. Of course the transaction is only possible if Player A has X. I don't care how player A has X. I just care that Player B has Y (not why - excuse the pun) and that by giving Player A the Y he takes the game AND that portion of responsibility from Player A.

In fact, they DO have an interest in services provided by employing Player A, who is arguably working for his employer in part due to his interest in buying games.

Quite irrelevant for the transactions. I only care about the transactions. I don't need to worry about all this other fluff that you apparently need to care about (and then my interpretation is the complicated one? ).

Player B did NOT make the purchase possible--he merely took advantage of it after the fact.

I don't claim at any time who makes the transactions possible. What I say is that Player B takes responsibility at the time of his transaction.

When the game is bought used by Player B, it is no longer equivalent to when it was a new game purchased by Player A. Don't believe me?

I believe you, but it doesn't matter at the point of each transaction the game and the amount changed for it is not fungible. Only from a given transaction to another can you not know. See the ABC example above (consider Gamestop B) as I already covered this.

"Rock solid" would imply that you've demonstrated a real way in which Player B's money reaches the publisher or developer, which you have not done.

Money not being fungible outside of each transaction, I don't need to demonstrate this. Money (X of it) reached the publisher. It doesn't have identity. The transfer of responsibility occurs in a given transaction, the only point where it has identity.

But the way you're interpreting it only happens in an idea space as an abstraction of economics--not in reality. Even if you were being internally consistent here, that doesn't make it jibe with reality.

The model is consistent and describes any case you could throw at me so far with straightforward generalisations. The other interpretations get clunkier and you start discussing motivations, what enables this or that and so on.

I'm sure you can, but it doesn't mean that's what's going on in the real world.

It's apparently going on exactly like this in the real world.

The concept you're using--the fungibility of cash money--is meant to balance ledgers, manage budgets, and abstractly describe economies in a simplified way. The closest you can get to the real world with that is "it's the same result as if..."

I imagine that you also think the ledgers only get balanced virtually, that the budgets are only managed virtually, and then what happens in the real world if this only works in the abstract? The abstract concepts work in the real world, that is why people actually use them and not just in universities (so, indeed it is not just academic - and there was even the cute example with the wife of Player A to show it).

"Same as if" is not the same thing as "is". Overlooking that, if you're going to turn real money and real transactions into abstract money and abstract transactions to claim money is essentially changing hands from the used game industry to the new games industry, then you have to consider the goods as they're considered by the market in that same abstract idea space before you try to switch back to describing real concrete things.

Metaphysics distinction, probably.

That causes two HUGE problems for you: 1) In that abstract world of the games market, new and used copies are separate commodities.

No problems

Indeed new and used are different, but it isn't an issue for my transaction centred view as at each transaction the game has an identity and that is all I need. I already gave examples where I myself used the fungibility: a) game stops working within the warranty and is replaced; b) Player B is Gamestop and sells Player C any given used copy regardless of who it belonged to (at which point I don't care if the game has belonged to Player A - he gave his responsibility to Player B, not to C and then I only care about B and C).

Note I didn't even say Player A played the game (well in some examples I did I think). I don't need to worry about that. He can keep it wrapped and new and sell it for a profit and everything still works.

You can no longer consider the game to be the same product after the initial purchase, because it is not treated that way by the market, making the new game meaningless in terms of selling the used game

I don't need to and do not consider it to be the same product. The only identity it needs is it is Player A's game. He can buy 2 and sell one of them, I don't care which one. He can have his one copy replaced by warranty; he can have played it in a friend's house and mistakenly swapped it for his friend's copy. All irrelevant.

2) since the USED game is interchangeable with any other USED copy of the same game, any connection between Player A and Player B is also meaningless in terms of responsibility.

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It is only interchangeable outside of any given transaction, so I don't care. In a given transaction the identity is perfectly clear. It is THE copy that is being transferred from A to B. That is all I need to know.

To conclude:
Fair enough, you don't think it works like this in reality, there are many places where abstract concepts describe reality and I'm used to that. I really (another pun!) don't want to go into metaphysics of "What is really reality?", "Is reality the equations themselves that describe it?" or any stuff like that. If the interpretation works that is as far as I want to go.

At this stage I believe I have explained myself as clear as I can and I don't think I misunderstood any particular thing from your side. It seems that you are not convinced (which is certainly your right), even though you have tried and failed to poke any holes in the interpretation I hold. Competing models are clunky and require you to consider many more elements on top of the transactions themselves (and I think that given more and more carefully crafted corner cases you may need to keep patching it up with more and more considerations). Markets are inherently defined by transactions and this is all I need to use.

Finally, I have noticed that we are already repeating ourselves a fair amount so we are probably starting to go in circles, so perhaps we should call it quits with our respective interpretations before one of our single posts is a whole thread page. We will see.

Ivo.