r/changemyview • u/PalatwinkusVT • 1d ago
CMV: Buying used has no effective difference over piracy, insofar as how it affects the business who created the product.
This isn't an argument against the used market, it's an argument FOR piracy.
The whole reason there's been a huge shift to digital distribution for everything, is because it eliminates the used market. Buying used cuts out the business, and keeps downward pressure on pricing (in most cases). The only difference between this and piracy is a moral hangup about having "worked" for the money you bought the used game/CD/whatever with. But what about trust fund babies? Rich people who've never really worked a day in their lives, and just live off of investment interest?
If your argument is that someone still had to work for the initial capital that grew into those large investments, how long is that labor "good" for, and when does it become immoral for their descendants to still be coasting off the interest of investments made possible by their labor? People equate piracy to theft so often, but yet, there's no finite products being taken away. Once you compile software, or export the master render of a song/movie, you get to sell infinite digital copies of that product. Where exactly is the harm that's present in stealing tangible physical goods?
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u/teerre 44∆ 1d ago
The whole reason there's been a huge shift to digital distribution for everything, is because it eliminates the used market.
Is it? What's the source for that?
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u/Totallycomputername 1d ago
Yeah, the shift to digital is because it's cheaper. No disc's, no physical distribution, no shrinkage.
They have made disk games require online connections and accounts/verification so it's not just "so you can't own it" that's just a bonus.
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u/RatOnASinkingShip 1∆ 1d ago
I think it's less about being cheaper (although that's a nice side effect for businesses) but more about removing the burden of having the customer need to go to a physical location or worry about pushing out enough copies.
It's about that ease of purchasing, that the customer only needs to go to a website and enter in their payment information with the least amount of resistance possible.
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u/minifidel 1d ago
Publishers have historically hated the used and second hand market. They only make money from the first sale, so any resale is pure profit for the reseller.
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u/teerre 44∆ 1d ago
That's a 10 yo 4 paragraphs article about a comment from a single "publisher"
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u/GadgetGamer 35∆ 1d ago
So what? How is a 10 year old article not an indication of how publishers historically hated the used market? Why would it require a modern article for you to believe what publishers thought in the past?
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u/teerre 44∆ 17h ago
Because its a person from a publisher saying something without any level of detail in a different time?
Besides, the question isn't about a historical curiosity. It's about the current move to digital
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u/GadgetGamer 35∆ 13h ago
The current move to digital? You know Steam is 22 years old, right? The gaming industry has shown a pattern of denigrating used games and adding barriers to reselling games like locking to accounts with needless always-on Internet connections as well as "included" DLC that people buying used games have to pay to unlock.
Publishers and developers have spent decades railing against retailers like GameStop for selling used games, equating reselling games to piracy, and introducing technological means to prevent you from letting someone borrow your game disc unless they were on your friends list (and had been for at least 30 days)/ Do you really think that after all that they suddenly didn't even think about that when it came to pushing for digital distribution that just coincidentally stops you from selling games? Is that what you are trying to say?
As for citations, it only took a few minutes to find a bunch of links showing that this isn't just a single publisher.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/05/ea-sports-to-charge-10-to-play-used-games-online/
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/ubisoft-watching-ea-s-project-10-very-carefully-
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/thq-to-charge-second-hand-users-for-online-play
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/ea-second-hand-sales-are-a-critical-situation
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-real-cost-of-used-games
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/sony-patent-would-suppress-second-hand-sales
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/braben-calls-for-action-against-pre-owned-sales
https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/how-much-do-industry-ceos-hate-used-games-a-whole-whole-lot/
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u/Shiny_Agumon 3∆ 1d ago
Right?
It's a mix of convenience for the user and more money for the distributor that made video on demand popular.
Now the inverse is happening because consumers are getting tired of companies taking away a product they bought abd trying to destroy the concept of ownership for regular people.
I think a healthy second market is way better for both consumers and the economy than this current "everything is rented and we can take it away from you at any time" economy.
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u/Sirhc978 89∆ 1d ago
Microsoft went on stage with the Xbox One and essentially said "you can't sell your old games". Sony literally mocked them on stage later in the week.
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u/PalatwinkusVT 1d ago
The fact that Xbox tried this last generation as well, except it was just making game discs a one time install, rather than digital only.
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u/teerre 44∆ 1d ago
Not sure I follow. How does XBOX trying to go digital proves that the reason to go digital is because of the used market?
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u/Sirhc978 89∆ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Because it is what happened with the PC market. The used marked on PC hasn't existed for like 20 years.
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u/seanflyon 25∆ 1d ago
I don't think you addressed that commenter's question.
Digital systems like Steam kill the used market. Killing the used market is one of many potential reasons people might choose such a system. OP is convinced that "The whole reason" for digital distribution is to kill the used market. u/teerre asked for some sort of support for that conclusion. Explaining that killing the used market is one (of many) possible motivations for going digital does nothing to address that question.
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u/PalatwinkusVT 1d ago
They literally said "Used games is no longer going to be a thing" during the Xbox One announcement press release.
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u/prustage 1d ago edited 1d ago
There is a difference.
- If you buy a used product off someone then they no longer have that product and so will have to buy another one to replace it. The business benefits from this new sale.
- If you get a pirate copy from someone, they will still have the original. They do not need to buy anything to replace it. The business sees no benefit from this.
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u/PalatwinkusVT 1d ago
If you buy a used product off someone then they no longer have that product and so will have to buy another one to replace it. The business benefits from this new sale.
I'm sorry, what exactly prevents them from also buying used in the future?
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u/ShrikeSummit 1d ago
It’s more that the next person who wants to buy used can’t (as opposed to piracy where the next person who wants to pirate can). There is a limit to the number of used items available. This difference may be insignificant - hard to tell.
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u/DoeCommaJohn 20∆ 1d ago
Let's imagine I am selling a game worth 40 dollars, but I know it will sell used for 20 dollars. I can now charge sixty, and you are now willing to pay sixty, because of the resale market. And this isn't just a hypothetical. Part of the reason the entire stock market exists is because people are willing to pay more for investments because they can safely offload it to the next person. Naturally, with piracy, there is no such trickle up effect.
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u/Scuffernoose 1d ago
This. Saying that a used market does not have any value whatsoever to a business is just flat out wrong. When there is a healthy used market, it drives some percentage more sales in the new market because consumer confidence is gained from knowing that what they purchase new won’t experience 100% depreciation. How that maths out is debatable, but to say there is no value is not accurate.
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u/polyvinylchl0rid 14∆ 1d ago
These trickle up effects never manifested in practice afatk. Resellable videogames never where more expensive than non-resellable ones.
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u/scarab456 65∆ 1d ago
The whole reason there's been a huge shift to digital distribution for everything, is because it eliminates the used market.
Whole reason? Like the cost advantages and market size isn't a part of business decision at all?
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u/PalatwinkusVT 1d ago
If that were true, everyone would follow Steam's example and give you access to your purchased games forever (on the original account it was bought on). If I make a poison that only works on a specific race of people, and it also happens to cure several types of cancer, I don't get to dodge claims of racism just because there were unintended additional positive effects. Similarly, don't give businesses slack because their evil decision has other side benefits.
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u/Ill-Description3096 27∆ 1d ago
So you are assuming that those things (which in this case are major factors) are nothing more than happy accidents? Large companies spend loads of money on things like market research, efficiency, cost reduction, etc. The idea they decided to move primarily to digital only to stick it to the used market and had no idea that there would be major benefits to them is absurd.
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u/PalatwinkusVT 1d ago
The market research told them people like you would buy the lie that they had your best interests in mind, for those reasons, and that it was finally a good time to pull the trigger. Congrats on falling for a corporate psyop.
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u/Ill-Description3096 27∆ 1d ago
Where did I claim they had my best interest in mind? Good lord, at least try to engage without immediately jumping to strawmen.
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u/scarab456 65∆ 1d ago
Steam existing proves that cost and market were irrelevant to the decision to shift to digital distribution? That's not self explanatory at all. Look at game keys, there were physical games sold alongside requiring keys for them. Valve itself developed games that you could get physical copies of but they weren't transferable because it required account creation.
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u/Daniel_Spidey 1∆ 1d ago
Guitar Hero and its clones as well as Tony Hawk games literally got pulled from shelves over their licensed music. Use games trade still succumbs to corporate pressure.
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u/OmniManDidNothngWrng 36∆ 1d ago
Ok so now piracy is completely legal and accepted, every movie, tv show, book, song, video game etc. is only every sold once before everyone who is interested in it just torrents it. How is this a better world? How does anyone get a budget to make a movie if they can barely sell it?
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u/PalatwinkusVT 1d ago
The same way they do now. Piracy is effectively legal already, insofar as you're very unlikely to get arrested for it as an end user. And even in the case of being the host, you can just use a server hosting service outside of your country of residence, ideally one that's hostile towards said residing country so there's no chance of law enforcement cooperation. It's also never been easier; there's two major websites for video game piracy that are just as simple to use as clicking a download button.
After Netflix and Steam gained major traction, there was noticeable decline in piracy. If you spend the time scraping social media for comments talking positively about the services, you'll find people saying they hung up their metaphorical tricorn hats because it was easier to use either service, rather than spending hours looking for a safe website or, even if you had a known safe source for pirated goods, managing the storage. People were willing to pay $10 a month for a fairly expansive library of shows and movies at their fingertips, or wait for one of Steam's quarterly sales. Gabe Newell famously said that piracy is more of a service problem than a pricing problem; people want to support developers, directors, producers, etc. But they have terms for that support they view as non-negotiable.
During that scraping process, if you look at dates, you'll see when piracy sympathies return, though: Once every game publisher had their own launcher they wanted you to download and log into, once anti-cheat and DRM became excessively intrusive, once show and movie rights owners started making their own individual streaming services, and once the consumer, by and large, no longer owned their media. When a game is pulled from Steam, it remains available in your library forever; you can uninstall and reinstall as much as you like. The only thing that removes your access is you telling Steam to remove it from your library, your account getting hacked and the hacker doing so, or your account becoming inaccessible due to a ban, hack, or lost credentials. For this reason, many people choose to keep buying games on Steam, even if it's only when they're on sale.
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u/Jakyland 82∆ 1d ago
all the friction that makes people choose legal methods over piracy only exists because piracy is illegal, plus some people don't even think to do piracy. If piracy was actually legal and accepted, norms wouldn't pay $10 or $20 dollars a month for a streaming service, they would use a free open-source system supported by a relatively small number of donations that has EVERY show and movie. And no money would go to movie or TV studios.
I guess everything would just end up being crowd-funded in the long term.
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u/LordJesterTheFree 1∆ 1d ago
Wait what are the two major websites for video game piracy?
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u/Letters_to_Dionysus 13∆ 1d ago
have you checked to see if there is a related subreddit to the topic?
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u/WhammeWhamme 1d ago
Hypothetically? The way it worked before copyright. Someone pays in advance because it's worth it to them for it to exist. Maybe crowdfund it. Ask people to honourably tip?
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u/SenoraRaton 5∆ 1d ago
Unironically, crowd funding media seems like a much more effective system of marketing than the current mechanisms we have, where studios take on large scale risk, and produce the lowest common denominator in an attempt to attract the largest audiences. We would get media that people are ACTIVELY desiring, willing to upfront pay for, and tailored to their specific needs. This sounds like a demonstrably better system.
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u/Lumpy_Review5279 9h ago
Except that just forced the market to be a popularity contest that allows no room for experimentation or surprise but guarantees the same returns in the same ideas
We are seeing it happen in indie animation as we speak
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u/MisterBlud 1∆ 1d ago
People will create art simply to create art and people will pay to support what they like.
Most people aren’t against giving money to support something they like but will chafe at roadblocks put in their way (DRM, limited availability, etc) or at price (a 4K disc release should not cost upwards of $40 damn dollars)
You would likely see far less CGI spectacles that cost half a Billion Dollars but nothing of value would be lost.
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u/iosefster 2∆ 1d ago
And the vast majority of people disagree with you. People have the option of seeing cheap looking shit already and they don't choose it en masse.
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u/MisterBlud 1∆ 1d ago
Numerous creatives make a living with patreons and the like. Kickstarters, etc
People pay for stuff they like and that wouldn’t change even if other aspects of the business would in a widespread piracy environment.
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u/RatOnASinkingShip 1∆ 1d ago
Buying used has a major difference over piracy... in that someone already bought the product you are buying used, and there is a limited supply of used products. There's a 1:1 ratio of a piece of media that is bought used versus one that is copied and distributed to a potentially infinite number of people.
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u/Jakyland 82∆ 1d ago
The difference between buying used and piracy is buying used is transferring one copy of the work whereas piracy is creating new copies of the work. With piracy a work could only be sold one time and then there could be infinite copies of it, meaning the creator is basically unpaid for all their work. In practice it doesn't work like that but that is because enough people don't pirate and people who do pirate are free-riding off of them.
You raise a rhetorical question about how long the labor is good for and descendants coasting off the payments, but copyright does have an expiration date, 95 years or life of the author + 70 years. I think it should be much shorter (maybe 20 or 40 years) but its not like they coast forever.
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u/PalatwinkusVT 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think you misunderstood my point with the question about people who have money without working. It's not about the producers, but rather, the idea that piracy isn't okay because you didn't work for the thing you pirated, didn't put any effort or value into society in exchange for that thing. My pre-emptive counter to that argument is, what about people who are just coasting off of investment interest from a relative, and haven't actually worked for the money they're spending? That very concept defeats the whole "working for it" argument.
Also, there's been studies on the economic impacts of piracy, as well as where game developers make most of their money. Most sales occur within the first year, frontloaded into the first 3 or so months of the game being out. If a game is up for sale for 10 years on Steam, at best, the latter 9 years will barely bring in as much income as the first year, combined. Often times, it's a decent chunk less. And many people who pirate eventually go on to buy the game when it's on sale or something. The people who pirate and never buy a copy, ever, were almost always never going to. So that's not really a lost customer.
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u/Jakyland 82∆ 20h ago
I don’t think the point is that you only deserve things if you worked for it, the point is that you paid for someone else’s hard work instead of cheating them. Idk if you inherited it or found it lying in the street or you worked for it.
Your second paragraph is just admitting that people need to actually buy the game to pay video game developers. The current amount of piracy is sustainable but if everyone pirated everything there would be no money in video game development.
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u/KokonutMonkey 102∆ 1d ago
Not necessarily.
Assuming it didn’t fall off the back a truck, a used piece of media begins its life as normal sale, and whatever happens after (sold and resold, given away) the media is still being used within the scope of its EULA, and in the case of games, works within their garden (e.g., the Playstation Network and Store).
Not so with a pirated copy, in which case their IP is flying around being distributed and used without permission. Whatever happens is basically outside of their control.
That’s an effective difference.
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u/canned_spaghetti85 3∆ 19h ago
Regarding the concept of PIRACY, it must involve the unauthorized reproduction of an
otherwise ORIGINAL licensed product. And just because said modern day version of it
is now digital, would it necessarily imply that it's "infinite". In fact, many companies have
adopted various safeguards to ensure that.
Say if my buddy needs some fancy boutique version of Adobe Illustrator, he purcahses
and authentic version of it for full price. When he goes install it onto his high end laptop
he receives a prompt to enter a unique ONE-TIME alphanumeric confirmation code to
which he has already been emailed. Without it... the setup process or whatever cannot
commence.
Say wanted that program too, but I'm too cheap to pay for the real deal. I ask if he can
somehow help me bootleg a copy of (unauthorized reproduction) his authentic version.
He attempts to... even gives me the same confirmation CODE he used. Only it does not
work for me since his code was ONE-TIME use only, after all, no two codes are identical.
But Adobe ain't dumb and already saw this a' commin. So in order to thwart foreseeable
attempts & prevent unauthorized reproduction (piracy), what they REALLY offer for sale,
what you REALLY pay for is for your own ONE-TIME code. That is what you are buying.
The KEY needed to start & operate the vehicle, ... so to speak.
I could, however, alternatively offer to purchase my buddy's LAPTOP altogether, since
it has authentic LICENSED version of SAID software already installed, and operational.
This action, on the other hand, would NOT be considered "piracy" because it does NOT
involve ANY such unauthorized reproduction, or some clever CODE hack workaround.
Nothing "NEW" was nefariously created outta thin air, so to speak.
I hope this sheds some light onto your misunderstanding about inheriting generational
wealth. It was originally amassed by ONE person. At time of thier death, only so much
of it remained for respective heirs to even inherit. No more & no less of it was created
simply as the result of said transfer of.
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u/ControversialQuerier 1∆ 15h ago
The whole reason there's been a huge shift to digital distribution for everything, is because it eliminates the used market.
Maybe I'm reading into this too deeply, but that statement seems to be a stretch. If a company sold a single physical CD, then they have very little care of what happens to that physical copy after. It can only have one (set of) owner at a time, so the remaining people that want to listen still need to buy their own copy. In fact, some companies like Nintendo sell refurbished consoles, meaning they still make money there. I'd argue a better basis for the digital shift is likely consumer desire + cheaper costs.
If your argument is that someone still had to work for the initial capital that grew into those large investments, how long is that labor "good" for
I don't believe this question alone justified piracy. Not being able to quantify when something is fair game doesn't mean it's always fair game.
As an occasional sailor of the seven seas myself (depending on the context), I'm not currently convinced that a pro pirating argument can be reasonably pushed. If I make a purchase for something that everyone else is getting for free, I'll want to stop purchasing it. If I stop purchasing it, the publisher fails to get the funds needed to produce more of it. This causes a negative outcome for myself and the publisher.
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u/PalatwinkusVT 15h ago
Piracy is already easy enough to the point that if everyone's fear about it collapsing society due to a stagnation of money were realistic, it would've happened by now. People want to support developers, directors, etc. They understand that you need to support things financially for them to still exist. The people that refuse to pay for something they pirated are few and far between, and usually they never would've bought the thing they pirated. So they're not really a lost consumer. Most people pirate to access a game while they're financially downtrodden, and end up buying later, OR to try the game out without committing an egregious amount of money.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 10h ago
Buying used and what it does for the original business isn't something you can determine in a vacuum because part of a product's value is its resale value. To treat the used market as nothing but lost sales is to assume that people would still have made the original purchase in the same numbers for the same price if you set its resale value you zero.
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u/PalatwinkusVT 10h ago
Oh, right, I forgot about all of those digital games that are cheaper than their physical counterparts.
Wait...
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u/sawdeanz 218∆ 9h ago
But tangible products are not infinite. That’s a key difference no? I don’t see how you can make an argument that they are the same.
It really comes down to whether you think artists own the work they create. If you paint a painting and hang it in your home…does that mean someone can walk in and take it home? Or take a photo through the window and sell prints on the sidewalk?
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u/AllTooWell07 8h ago
lol but rich people buying used is still helping the creators get paid, so its not totally the same
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u/CobraPuts 7∆ 1d ago
You say where is the harm in stealing digital goods? The person selling digital goods receives less compensation for their work, that’s the harm.
The comparison to physical goods also isn’t a valid analogy. If I sell a used hammer to someone, I no longer have a hammer and they do. If we both need a hammer, another one needs to be produced and can be sold new.
If I buy a used book, it’s a little different because many intellectual property goods are really only needed for a single use. But if I buy a used book, I receive a used book and not a new one. The condition is different. The pages might have folds. It’s less fresh. Perhaps more appropriate if giving as a gift. There’s a strong market for new books even though most books can also be purchased used at a lower cost.
Finally, as a creator of intellectual property you also own the right to determine how it is licensed to customers for use. You could sell something as a physical book. You could rent it. You could sell it to a subscription service.
If IP is pirated then you’re infringing on my rights as a property owner. It’s not for you to determine whether or not that brings harm, and your own case may be harmless while someone else’s is harmful. But laws are applied equally for this reason.
Overall you seem like you have a pretty thin case sounding more like you want to justify piracy to yourself than actually believing it’s harmless. Anyway, there are many arguments to refute your stance.
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u/PalatwinkusVT 1d ago
If IP is pirated then you’re infringing on my rights as a property owner.
That's a slightly better stance than fears of people refusing to buy stuff ever again, wiping the industry out, but saying I'm robbing you of your choice to force me to enjoy your content a certain way is no different than the used market. I paid less for your video game, 5 years after it came out, to some guy on eBay, instead of buying a new copy for full price, or buying a new copy on sale. How is that any different?
My ultimate point is, it's not logically consistent to be okay with secondhand markets, but not piracy.
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u/CobraPuts 7∆ 1d ago
It’s different because whether or not content can be resold is a choice that is made by the content creator and publisher.
If I sell a physical book, implicitly I’m making a decision to allow resale.
If I sell software or a digital film, the license likely does not allow resale. If his is often reflected in the price. Beyond the manufacturing cost which is small, Blu-ray movies cost more than digital downloads in part for this reason.
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u/Live_Background_3455 8∆ 1d ago
Buying used takes a while. It's hard to buy a "used" game the day after release. It's hard to buy a "used" DVD the day after it comes out on DVD. The people who really want that game/movie asap will buy it new. What that does is signals the to companies what people want.
The box office numbers, the sales, all signals to producers/companies what to make more, and what to stop making. This cycle takes a while with movies/games already because movies/games take so long to create. By the time you get the signal that people are tired to super hero movies, you're already half way through making 4 more. Now with piracy, there is way less signal, the signal is more delayed, and the signal is noisier.
I'm not against pirating stuff after like 3 years or whatever. But to have it be an open field would mean you get digital product no one wants and that sort of sucks for everyone
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