How Gamestop Reduces Developers' Sales
Game developers themselves can figure a way to make games owned by a single person. Sony was going to do it remember.
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I'm concerned about both you and your co-worker. The original post looks like either a blatant troll or an uninformed misinformation piece. As was already pointed out, there were many articles and counter-articles in a public debate on the matter about 3-5 years ago. If the COWORKER is the person with the problem, why are YOU clearly stating your own name and your employer in the first line of your grand declaration?
The broad accusation "[color="#1C2837"][size=2]my name is Jordan Walker from Silver Ray Studios and I am here today to inform you...[that a multi-billion dollar global company is stealing from you" will do nothing but harm both you and your employer. Such a statement could easily result in a lawsuit for defamation against both you personally and against your business. Most company policies make it clear that unless you are a corporate officer or HR person, you need to make it clear that your statements have nothing to do with your company and are your own views, not theirs. Generally employment contracts are clear that violations can be grounds for termination.
The business model GameStop and others have used is perfectly legal and has been in use for hundreds of years. Reselling your property is an age-old, established, and generally protected right of consumers. Some companies don't like it, but they delude themselves when they work to stop it. Attempts to shut down secondhand stores and property consignment simply will not work on a grand scale.
The game resale monetization debate has already been addressed many times over the years. Some groups and companies feel like this is strongly protected by first-sale and traditional property rights, other groups and companies want to heavily restrict it by contract (and EULAs) and changes to the legal code.
Services like Steam, Direct2Drive, and Impulse are attempts at solutions. Concepts like DLC and paid in-game ads, subscription-based gaming and SaaS are attempts at solutions. Mixed solutions like you mentioned (a one-time-code voucher for the original purchaser) and freemium games are attempts at solutions. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but you can see that people have been looking at this for many years.
You are not the first to pose the question, and there are many well-written articles and opinions on the matter. Many of those articles debate if this is a problem at all.
Go read about the issue and research it yourself before making accusations about specific companies and specific practices.[/font]
Thanks for the replies, I see your points now, a friend (a member of our team) wanted me to do this since he did all of the research by the way I wasn't trying to develop a trend more like propose a problem and find a solution for it.
I'm concerned about both you and your co-worker. The original post looks like either a blatant troll or an uninformed misinformation piece. As was already pointed out, there were many articles and counter-articles in a public debate on the matter about 3-5 years ago. If the COWORKER is the person with the problem, why are YOU clearly stating your own name and your employer in the first line of your grand declaration?
The broad accusation "[color="#1C2837"][size=2]my name is Jordan Walker from Silver Ray Studios and I am here today to inform you...[that a multi-billion dollar global company is stealing from you" will do nothing but harm both you and your employer. Such a statement could easily result in a lawsuit for defamation against both you personally and against your business. Most company policies make it clear that unless you are a corporate officer or HR person, you need to make it clear that your statements have nothing to do with your company and are your own views, not theirs. Generally employment contracts are clear that violations can be grounds for termination.
The business model GameStop and others have used is perfectly legal and has been in use for hundreds of years. Reselling your property is an age-old, established, and generally protected right of consumers. Some companies don't like it, but they delude themselves when they work to stop it. Attempts to shut down secondhand stores and property consignment simply will not work on a grand scale.
The game resale monetization debate has already been addressed many times over the years. Some groups and companies feel like this is strongly protected by first-sale and traditional property rights, other groups and companies want to heavily restrict it by contract (and EULAs) and changes to the legal code.
Services like Steam, Direct2Drive, and Impulse are attempts at solutions. Concepts like DLC and paid in-game ads, subscription-based gaming and SaaS are attempts at solutions. Mixed solutions like you mentioned (a one-time-code voucher for the original purchaser) and freemium games are attempts at solutions. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but you can see that people have been looking at this for many years.
You are not the first to pose the question, and there are many well-written articles and opinions on the matter. Many of those articles debate if this is a problem at all.
Go read about the issue and research it yourself before making accusations about specific companies and specific practices.[/font]
Nice business model. They make $20 per return->resell with the newest games because they resell the newest used games for around $50 and buy them back at like $30. Even once it gets old, they still reap profits off the same copy. Genius. 
No wonder they always pay less than other places for used games.
No wonder they always pay less than other places for used games.
[font="arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif"]I'm concerned about both you and your co-worker. The original post looks like either a blatant troll or an uninformed misinformation piece. As was already pointed out, there were many articles and counter-articles in a public debate on the matter about 3-5 years ago. If the COWORKER is the person with the problem, why are YOU clearly stating your own name and your employer in the first line of your grand declaration?
The broad accusation "[color="#1C2837"]my name is Jordan Walker from Silver Ray Studios and I am here today to inform you...[that a multi-billion dollar global company is stealing from you" will do nothing but harm both you and your employer. Such a statement could easily result in a lawsuit for defamation against both you personally and against your business. Most company policies make it clear that unless you are a corporate officer or HR person, you need to make it clear that your statements have nothing to do with your company and are your own views, not theirs. Generally employment contracts are clear that violations can be grounds for termination. [/font]
Their help wanted ad claims to be targeting consoles but the only thing they can offer is profit sharing its a good bet that Silver Ray Studios isn't any kind of registered company. So I don't think there is to much of a worry about getting fired over a comment. Considering the aspirations of a console release with no budget I think they can put their fears to rest about Gamestop 'stealing' their second hand game sales.
Author
This thread is only serving as an informational post. So why I am I still getting feedback?
Author
By the way this was supposed to be meant for informational purposes only after my first edit. Also I wasn't posting this because Gamestop was trying to steal from me or was going to do so. It was because it is messed up to take someone else's game and then resell but never buy new copies so they don't get any more profits. So Gamestop is still making money off of their product while the developer only gets so many sold products. Also since this will serve for informational purposes only, NO MORE FEEDBACK. Just leave this thread as it is.
The right of a consumer to sell items he bought is absolute, if i buy a copy/license of a game i own that copy/license and have the right to sell/transfer it to someone else if i see fit to do so, GameStop has the right to buy copies/licenses from individuals and resell them at a higher price, If the amount of money they make doing so is unreasonably high it should be possible for competing stores to offer more for trade-ins or charge less for used games. This is how the free market works,
While the free market itself is far from perfect one should think very carefully before allowing governments or corporations from interfering with how it works. (Some interference can be justified (Copyright and Patents for example are an acceptable way to make products with high R&D costs but low marginal production costs profitable, but those are regulated by law and the people has the power to get these changed if they see fit to do so).
Those attempting to restrict basic property rights for the paying customers (Through the use of restrictive DRM, or restrictive EULA/ToS) are the real thieves in the software world. (Copy protection is fine as long as it only prevents piracy), If the right to resell a license is restricted in any way it should be made clear to the customer before any payment goes through. (This is something most publishers are bad at, DRM infected or restrictivly licensed software should have clear warning labels informing the customer of all the restrictions that are in place (shrinkwrapped licenses in general are a very bad thing and at the very least a basic outline of the permissions and restrictions given should be on the box itself.
While the free market itself is far from perfect one should think very carefully before allowing governments or corporations from interfering with how it works. (Some interference can be justified (Copyright and Patents for example are an acceptable way to make products with high R&D costs but low marginal production costs profitable, but those are regulated by law and the people has the power to get these changed if they see fit to do so).
Those attempting to restrict basic property rights for the paying customers (Through the use of restrictive DRM, or restrictive EULA/ToS) are the real thieves in the software world. (Copy protection is fine as long as it only prevents piracy), If the right to resell a license is restricted in any way it should be made clear to the customer before any payment goes through. (This is something most publishers are bad at, DRM infected or restrictivly licensed software should have clear warning labels informing the customer of all the restrictions that are in place (shrinkwrapped licenses in general are a very bad thing and at the very least a basic outline of the permissions and restrictions given should be on the box itself.
(in a now-Deleted or Unapproved post):
By the way this was supposed to be meant for informational purposes only after my first edit. ... since this will serve for informational purposes only, NO MORE FEEDBACK. Just leave this thread as it is.
Were you asking to have the discussion closed? Because a lot of people seem to be enjoying participating in the discussion you started...
Or were you complaining that you're getting some other form of feedback, like PM's or thumbs up/down?
I buy most games used, but I have never sold a game back to gamestop as they usually only give about 1/5 of the game's value and to me it's just not worth it.
Developers should focus more on high replayability so people actually want to keep the game instead of beating it in 5-10 hours and never wanting to touch it again.
Imagine there was some sort of law preventing gamers from selling their games. Much less people would buy these games with no replay value.
I think the best solution is just to make better games instead of trying to sucker customers with one time codes and all that BS.
Developers should focus more on high replayability so people actually want to keep the game instead of beating it in 5-10 hours and never wanting to touch it again.
Imagine there was some sort of law preventing gamers from selling their games. Much less people would buy these games with no replay value.
I think the best solution is just to make better games instead of trying to sucker customers with one time codes and all that BS.
I think if you're going to protest against gamestop for reselling games because it decreases the number of new purchasing customers, then in principle, you should also be completely opposed to public libraries, movie rental businesses, and swap meets.
Public libraries purchase only a few copies of a book and then let users borrow the book for a period of time so that they can consume the content. The author of the book only makes money at the time when the library purchases the book. The number of people who read the book is somewhat irrelevant. Should public libraries be banned?
A similar situation applies to movie rentals. Should Netflix be shutdown because they purchase a movie once and then ship it out to be consumed by multiple individuals? Is that cheating the movie industry from lost revenue?
To get slightly more abstract, consider a swap meet. Suppose I bought an expensive name brand purse which I no longer need because I bought a version which was more in style. I go to a swap meet and trade in my designer purse for some other property. Is the purse designer being cheated out of a lost sale? Should swap meets, pawn shops, and second hand stores be illegal?
Personally, I don't think this is a very big issue (At least for PC games industry). Most PC games are turning towards digital distribution so the seller/reseller business model of game stop is endangered -- You don't need physical media to play new PC games. As a result, you see primarily console games at Gamestop. If/when console developers get digital distribution going, gamestop is probably going to go bankrupt. I'd be selling my stocks if I currently owned any in gamestop.
Public libraries purchase only a few copies of a book and then let users borrow the book for a period of time so that they can consume the content. The author of the book only makes money at the time when the library purchases the book. The number of people who read the book is somewhat irrelevant. Should public libraries be banned?
A similar situation applies to movie rentals. Should Netflix be shutdown because they purchase a movie once and then ship it out to be consumed by multiple individuals? Is that cheating the movie industry from lost revenue?
To get slightly more abstract, consider a swap meet. Suppose I bought an expensive name brand purse which I no longer need because I bought a version which was more in style. I go to a swap meet and trade in my designer purse for some other property. Is the purse designer being cheated out of a lost sale? Should swap meets, pawn shops, and second hand stores be illegal?
Personally, I don't think this is a very big issue (At least for PC games industry). Most PC games are turning towards digital distribution so the seller/reseller business model of game stop is endangered -- You don't need physical media to play new PC games. As a result, you see primarily console games at Gamestop. If/when console developers get digital distribution going, gamestop is probably going to go bankrupt. I'd be selling my stocks if I currently owned any in gamestop.
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