Second-hand games.

[FullAuto]

An article on second-hand games and a certain developers' rather draconian views prodded me to ask something I've been wondering about for years.

 

Second-hand games must sting developers, as they don't get any of the profit at all. So what's the second-hand market like where you live? Does it vary by format, are the prices substantially lower on average than for new, etc?

 

Here in the UK the second-hand market seems to have shrunk, especially where PCs are concerned, but it's still going very strong. Wii and DS games seem to retain their value, and to be priced quite close to new versions. You can find some of the older 360 titles for peanuts, while the PS3 seems to be the most expensive overall. PSP games are cheap as chips, but some are hard to find new or used. There are a ton of PC titles, old and new, that are going for next to nothing, with regular offers on multiple purchases.

 

Yours interestedly,

 

 

FA.

[Space Voyager]

We have a few second-hand shops but no good games.

[FullAuto]

One of the changes which has happened fairly recently throughout the market as a whole, but which shops like GAME (formerly Electronics Boutique) have been doing for years is the pricing of used games. You used to be able to find 2ndHG which, even if they were recent releases, were priced substantially lower than the new versions, sometimes by as much as 50%.

 

Now, whether shops realised just how much profit they could make from 2ndHG or were forced to in order to compete with shops already doing so, the price difference between used and new is on average, much less. The retailer takes a big chunk of the profit anyway, as we know. The split on a new game is developer/publisher/retailer. The split on a 2ndHG is, well, there isn't one, it all goes to the retailer. So minus what they pay the consumer, which often isn't much at all, the money is all theirs. So they can actually make more money on 2ndHG than on new ones.

 

Saying that though, there are still plenty of games available at prices solely designed to shift units and make some money, no matter how small.

[Azrael Strife]

No second hand game shops over here. In fact, almost no game shops here. Computer games are virtually nonexistant here, I don't think I ever met someone who had more than one or two original games. Pirated games are sold in... well, everywhere, downtown I cannot walk two consecutive blocks without running into "salesmen" selling pirated PS1, PS2 and PC games.

I buy my original GameCube games from a guy that brings them from the US and sells them not too expensive.

I'd say the reason for this situation is that, if I remember correctly, there's a 70% tax on electronic games, reasonable huh? That's the reason a Wii costs 500 on the most reasonable places (in the UNreasonable places, it costs about 900, this is GameStop).

[Zombie]

Just to verify, Uruguay imposes a 70% tax on imported games? That's baffling. Why is it so high, and where does that money go?

 

Geez, that explains why you have such an active black market on pirated titles.

 

- Zombie

[Bomb Bloke]

Here we have two types of second hand game sales - Big time chains, and small time shops.

 

The small time shops are just second hand places that take stuff people don't want (DVDs, games, TVs, fishing rods, etc) and sell them on. They typically hand out pocket change to people selling, mark up $10-$20 and stick it on their shelves. They typically have 10-30 games at any given time. A year or two ago you could get SNes/GB games there, but those are now near non-existant on shelves. N64/PSX is the oldest stuff, 360/Wii/PS3 the newest.

 

For some reason these small shops seldom stock GBA/DS stuff, though there's a reasonable amount of PSP stuff around.

 

The big time shops tend to have much higher price tags, but tend to offer large discounts if you want to trade in. They also tend to sell other stuff (HD TVs etc), but the games are pretty much the only thing they sell second hand. They don't tend to stock anything older then GC/PS2/X-Box 1 gear and typically have large collections of second hand games. Unlike the small time shops, they don't sell PC games second hand.

 

One "small time" shop I saw stocked only games, must've had a few hundred. 90% of the stock was only available as a "trade in". You brought in a game for the same system, payed the "difference" price they were asking (typically less then $10), and they swapped them over. A simple but effective way to do business, I thought, though they might run the risk of getting ten million copies of the same (crap) game.

 

Although this is a bit of a tangent, I notice that on eBay some sellers have started selling fake GBA cartridges. Somehow they can duplicate the things, though they don't do a terribly good job of it. My Rebelstar Tactical Command manual is astonishing to look at.

[FullAuto]

It seems to me that pubs/devs would like to cut down the 2ndH market, through DRM or other means. Because every 2ndH sale is a certified lost sale, as far as the pub/dev is concerned (not the retailer, they love it). Much as pubs/devs might wish otherwise, 2ndH sales take more money that could have been theirs, than piracy does, seeing as with 2ndH sales, people are definitely willing to pay for the game. With piracy, this is far from certain. 2ndH prices are also much closer to the RRP than before, meaning pubs/devs are denied even more money.

 

A solution could be to pass on a percentage of 2ndH sales to the pubs/devs responsible for the games, but somehow I can't see retailers doing this.

[Bomb Bloke]

Not willingly, anyway.

 

However, the way current DRM systems are going, such a system won't be possible.

[FullAuto]

"The shops are not giving us a way of distinguishing between pre-owned and new. So the shops are essentially defrauding the industry." Says Braben, after making his first game in about ten years.