Used Video Games

Lately I've noticed a trend by video game developers bitching about used game sales, the latest of which can be found here. There are other examples out there too, much more condemning at times, this was just the most convenient to post.

Now to be fair I do understand a production companies problem with second hand games, they're not getting any compensation for resale, but what the hell do you want? There is a legitimate case to be made about piracy, ripping and burning games is a theft of Intellectual Property, but once you've paid for a license for a game it should be yours to do what you want with it.

Maybe the problem at heart here isn't so much with the consumer as it is with the developer. We're getting flooded with more and more "Must Play" games every year, and the price sure as hell isn't going down, your average 360/PS3 game is retailing for 60 bucks these days, and a lot of them are going for 70-80; I'm not even going to mention Special Editions, those are purely consumer optional and are rarely resold anyway.

So you take a slow economy, raise the price of software, and put out more crap than quality and then complain when people buy used at every option? Seems like a problem to me, and, again, not with the consumer.

I'd take this opportunity to cry about the coming flood of digital distribution, such as our good friends at Valve, but to be perfectly honest that was going to happen anyway. The only problem I have with digital distribution is once hardcopy games are gone will outfits like Steam still feel the need to keep their prices affordable?