Again, gaming companies try to squeeze more money out of the consumer

Over at GameIndustry.biz I read an article "Pre-owned sales have no benefit to publishers", and the first response that came to mind was, why the fuck should it? The article mentions Eidos president Ian Livingstone who slammed the pre-owned games market because publishers and development studios didn't benefit. He believes that the games that the buyer didn't deem good enough to keep should continue to make more profit for the people who failed at developing a decent game.

Many have come to defend the practice of used game sales; in an interview of Microsoft exec Chris Lewis by Phil Elliott, Chris stated that he believes that used game sales is an important part of the gaming "ecosystem" and that it benefits the publishers in more intangible ways, like increased accessibility for those who wouldn't normally pay full price for a game they weren't sure of. Lending, borrowing, and reselling games at a used price increases the amount of people who experience the game. I should mention that the Gamestop execs also stood up for the practice, but Gamestop is an evil corporation that takes advantage of consumers... bastards.

There was also a statement by a representative of Microsoft on a separate occasion, which stated that they don't believe that used game sales hurts the industry because if the game is well designed and meets the expectations of the consumer, then it will not be resold. Essentially they stated that they make games that the buyers want to keep and play again so they aren't worried about it, which brings up the most important point of this discussion.

The expectation of a gamer is that they will find a game enjoyable and replayable. A person who buys a DVD of a movie they like expects the movie to be good enough that they will rewatch it again later, as does a gamer who buys a game. For those who wish to experiment and see if the movie lives up to the marketing hype, there are movie theaters, but in the gaming industry there is no such option. Sure there are demos, but only after buying and playing the entire game through(at least the main storyline that is) does the customer know if it's a game worthy of buying. It would be an interesting notion, if there were "theaters" for games and people could come in, play, and finish a game and pay a small fee. After wards, the gamer would then decide if the game was worth going to buy a copy of to play at home. Certainly this would weed out so many horrible games out of the market. But unfortunately, we don't live in that world, and the closest thing we have is used game sales.

The point I would like to make is that when a game is released, consumers shouldn't consider reselling the game, they should find that it's so well designed that they want to play it over and over. Then there is also the argument that publishers should be selling an "enjoyable experience" which is what we get when we play a great game, and not just an "experience" which is what shitty games like the 50 Cent Bulletproof gives us.