Killing the used game market is bad for the gaming industry

Video game publishers have started a war against the used game resale market. This assault on used games is bad for the industry. In the past, players could buy a title, play it, and then sell it to another player or to one of the many computer stores. Now, with a push towards downloadable services and multiplayer games, companies are trying to keep their products out of the resale market.

Downloadable games are a great convenience, but that convenience comes at a price. Most downloadable games come with especially dire digital rights management (DRM) protection. The publishers of the game claim that these protections are necessary to prevent piracy, but there is absolutely no evidence that DRM or any form of copy protection prevents piracy. Pirates only see copy protection as a small challenge. What DRM does do is prevent honest gamers from doing with their games what they have the right to do: explicitly sell or give away the game when they are done with it. Draconian DRMs limiting the number of installs and other similar schemes interfere with the owner’s right to resell their property.

What publishers don’t seem to recognize is that the resale value of a game is embedded in the consumer’s decision-making process. The decision to shell out $ 60 for a game is easier if I know that I can recoup some of my investment by selling it to a game store or another player. If it makes it impossible to resell the game, the value goes down. Game publishers are delusional if they think they can take away the right to resell a game and keep selling so many copies. In their minds, the aftermarket is slashing the money they could make, but this is the wrong way of thinking. They believe that a player will spend money on new games that they currently spend on used games. This attitude demonstrates tremendous myopia on the part of gaming companies. If I buy a new title for $ 60 and can sell it for $ 30, I am much more likely to go out and buy another. If I can’t sell my property, I have to go out and spend another $ 60 and will probably have to think long and hard before spending another $ 60 on a game that I can’t sell. In economic terms, games are an extremely elastic good. WE DON’T NEED video games. The higher the perceived cost, the fewer games we will buy. Eliminating the aftermarket from games will increase the cost of games and we will simply buy fewer games. This is not good for the industry or the consumer.