This came up in another thread but i thought it might warrant further discussion and to get other people's thought on the matter, didn't find a similar thread so apologies if this has been discussed to death somewhere. So i think we can all agree that piracy = bad, now there is discussion to be had about how it can be so prevalent in some countries that it's difficult to avoid but that's another topic altogether.
So here's my hot take on it: Company spends X amount of money paying X amount of people to make a game. Said company expects people who play that game to reimburse them financially for a certain amount, either a higher price when it first comes out or cheaper when the deals start kicking in. So straight piracy is pretty clear (not to mention illegal): Regardless of whether you "never would have bought the game anyway so technically its not stealing" you're not giving the company money for something they made but are reaping the benefits of their product. Big yikes.
So the way i look at it when it comes to the second hand market it's essentially the same situation. If money is tight i can't be too critical of people who when offered a game £5 or £10 cheaper at Game (or whatever your countries version of this is) just wanna get the most bang for their buck and don't think about it too much. But game companies don't receive a penny of that money, the game store does. I've worked at Game and i know how much they push second hand games because it's where most of their profits come from. Every single person who brought a brand new game box would have to be asked if they want the in some cases only marginally cheaper second hand one and you would get a lot of shit if you didn't do this. Game makes maybe 1 or 2 pounds profit (if that) on a full priced brand new game hence the hard sales push.
Key resellers is a newer thing and a somewhat thorny issue. This is basically a grey market that seems to cross over into the black market depending on the legitimacy of the methods these sites use to get these keys. I've heard the horror stories of how some of the keys get acquired and how some people have been screwed over by companies de-activating these stolen or illegitimate keys (although i would argue that's the risk you take if this is how you want to get access to games). Let's look at what i would hope is the more common scenario: Person gets a free key to a game with their console/graphics card/whatever purchase. Person doesn't want the game so they flog it to a key-reseller. It gets sold and again none of that money goes to the company that made the game. Now i know that when they make these deals to include games in say hardware purchases they probably get a chunk of cash for that but i would guess it's a lot less than they would get had people gone out and bought those games.
I have an extreme example about this: Assassin's Creed Unity. It's been a running joke now how often this game pops up in things like Hotdealsuk emails and the like. Currently you can purchase AC:U for the vast sum of 99 pence or you can often see it get thrown in for free if you buy PUBG or whatever. It's current price on the UK Xbox store is £24.99. Regardless of your feelings about Unity as a game it is worth way, way more than 99p.
So... thoughts? Are you fine with second hand purchases/key-resellers? Do you go out of your way to support developers/publishers you like by say double dipping on different console platforms or do you always buy stuff second hand (and basically never give companies that make the games you play money)? And here's the kicker: How much do you think this entire situation has influenced the rise of micro-transactions in current videogames?
So here's my hot take on it: Company spends X amount of money paying X amount of people to make a game. Said company expects people who play that game to reimburse them financially for a certain amount, either a higher price when it first comes out or cheaper when the deals start kicking in. So straight piracy is pretty clear (not to mention illegal): Regardless of whether you "never would have bought the game anyway so technically its not stealing" you're not giving the company money for something they made but are reaping the benefits of their product. Big yikes.
So the way i look at it when it comes to the second hand market it's essentially the same situation. If money is tight i can't be too critical of people who when offered a game £5 or £10 cheaper at Game (or whatever your countries version of this is) just wanna get the most bang for their buck and don't think about it too much. But game companies don't receive a penny of that money, the game store does. I've worked at Game and i know how much they push second hand games because it's where most of their profits come from. Every single person who brought a brand new game box would have to be asked if they want the in some cases only marginally cheaper second hand one and you would get a lot of shit if you didn't do this. Game makes maybe 1 or 2 pounds profit (if that) on a full priced brand new game hence the hard sales push.
Key resellers is a newer thing and a somewhat thorny issue. This is basically a grey market that seems to cross over into the black market depending on the legitimacy of the methods these sites use to get these keys. I've heard the horror stories of how some of the keys get acquired and how some people have been screwed over by companies de-activating these stolen or illegitimate keys (although i would argue that's the risk you take if this is how you want to get access to games). Let's look at what i would hope is the more common scenario: Person gets a free key to a game with their console/graphics card/whatever purchase. Person doesn't want the game so they flog it to a key-reseller. It gets sold and again none of that money goes to the company that made the game. Now i know that when they make these deals to include games in say hardware purchases they probably get a chunk of cash for that but i would guess it's a lot less than they would get had people gone out and bought those games.
I have an extreme example about this: Assassin's Creed Unity. It's been a running joke now how often this game pops up in things like Hotdealsuk emails and the like. Currently you can purchase AC:U for the vast sum of 99 pence or you can often see it get thrown in for free if you buy PUBG or whatever. It's current price on the UK Xbox store is £24.99. Regardless of your feelings about Unity as a game it is worth way, way more than 99p.
So... thoughts? Are you fine with second hand purchases/key-resellers? Do you go out of your way to support developers/publishers you like by say double dipping on different console platforms or do you always buy stuff second hand (and basically never give companies that make the games you play money)? And here's the kicker: How much do you think this entire situation has influenced the rise of micro-transactions in current videogames?
