So there’s been an interesting open discussion of the sale of used games over at Penny Arcade this week. Basically; game piracy is bad, but used game sales are equally bad because none of that money gets back to game developers.
I actually think used games sales of the massive Gamestop kind are even a little worse than outright piracy, because it diverts money away from developers, instead of just copying their IPs.
The thing is I really do sympathize with people who are totally broke and don’t want to miss out on the gaming scene. Back when I was a kid with no money to speak of, what little I had was exhausted on the games I liked best. Everything else I pirated, not wanting to miss out. Now that I’m a game developer myself I look back at my younger habits and, supprisingly, I’m pretty much fine with it. Mostly because:
A) Piracy isn’t stealing, it’s copying. I’m tired of hearing over and over again how piracy is theft. Stealing someone’s TV is theft… looking at their TV and building an exact copy of their TV for yourself is alot more like piracy.
B) Like young me, most pirates are also legitimate customers. If you want five games and only have money for one, so you buy one and copy the others, I think you’ve basically done ok by the game industry at large.
Now take that last example, but instead of buying one new game you buy all five games used, nice and legal. You’ve basically screwed the whole game industry by spending your game money in a way that doesn’t support games. You had the chance to help the game industry and you blew it. To me that’s worse than buying what you can afford and copying the rest.
Just my 2cents.
Well really it’s more like a tie with my Xbox360, but still… when did this happen? Now that smart phones are about as powerful as last generation consoles, the prospect of playing games on ‘em has really solidified. It’s just so damn convenient to whip out my little iPhone when I’m bored, it’s taken the place of my DS and PSP for sure, and it’s starting to edge out other gaming platforms for overall time I spend with it.
