Morality, ethics, steals and deals of collecting

[Zthun]

You were advocating that the OP take advantage of a website mistake and get as many games as possible. That would be the wrong thing. Those games will be written off as losses and the cost of those losses are passed on to the consumers who actually PAY to own those games. TANSTAAFL. If you don't know what that means, you should look it up.

Very true, but the cost goes to someone else, not the person who buys the games.

TANSTAAFL - There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Always has been true on a global economic scale, but on an individual level, it doesn't hold as strongly.

And what, prey do tell, give anyone the right to be Mr. Righteous? Right and wrong are opinionated - they are not fact - they are what you were taught. They are never written in stone. What you are talking about is good and bad. Those come from experience. For example, it is probably a bad idea to touch a hot stove since you probably have a VERY good idea what the outcome is going to be. Doesn't make it right or wrong.

[nhm]

Very true, but the cost goes to someone else, not the person who buys the games.

How do you think companies make up the losses? They pass it on to the customer in their prices. So, yes the person buying the game is absorbing the cost of theives.

And what, prey do tell, give anyone the right to be Mr. Righteous? Right and wrong are opinionated - they are not fact - they are what you were taught. They are never written in stone. What you are talking about is good and bad. Those come from experience. For example, it is probably a bad idea to touch a hot stove since you probably have a VERY good idea what the outcome is going to be. Doesn't make it right or wrong.

Call me "righteous", but theivery is wrong.

[Zthun]

How do you think companies make up the losses? They pass it on to the customer in their prices. So, yes the person buying the game is absorbing the cost of theives.



Call me "righteous", but theivery is wrong.

Either way, I would have considered it a deal and taken the games.

[Oobgarm]

If a website glitches and you can take advantage of it, why not? They should have the ability to negate those extra orders at their discretion. If it gets through, then it's their loss for not noticing it. Live and learn, as they say.

If someone is selling an item of value for a low price, why not buy it without a word? They are charging an amount based on their perceived value of said item. If they wanted more, then they should have done the legwork in valuating it.

Had something kinda similar happen during the PSP launch with a rechargeable Blockbuster gift card I had. I traded in a pile of games, worth over $250 to them. They attempted to put it on the gift card for me, but the gift card was having a tough time getting approved. So they decided to credit my account for the $250 instead. Went back up to the store another day, used the credit on the account, had them check the gift card and the amount was on there, too. They were not the same employees who'd helped me previously, so I said nothing and proceeded to spend the whole thing. Made for a good score. Did I feel bad about it? Not at all.

[BetaWolf47]

What about ethics when you go retro video game shopping with a friend? Awhile back I did just that and it just so happens both of us were looking for TMNT IV Turtles In Time (among many other games) and I spotted it first & other than reaching over the counter & grabbing the clerk before my friend spotted it snagged the game 1st. My feeling is first come first serve and from what I can tell he agreed.

The argument here should be who needs it more. Look at it from this point of view: you're with someone who's just beginning to collect, while you have over 1000 games. You guys spot a huge lot of games including Final Fantasy 1-3 (US), Earthbound, Super Mario RPG, Final Fantasy VII-IX, Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire I & II, Lufia I & II, Super Metroid, Castlevania I-IV, and Zelda 1-3. You spot it first, and ask the seller the price. He says $60, which would be a steal for that lot. While you want that deal badly, you already own a bunch of other games. The right thing to do here would be to grab your friend and ask if he wants it.

[TonyTheTiger]

snip.

How do you feel about copying down (or simply remembering) registration codes and DLC codes from used or shelf copies sitting in a GameStop?

[Zthun]

How do you feel about copying down (or simply remembering) registration codes and DLC codes from used or shelf copies sitting in a GameStop?

Holy shit! You can do that?

[Porksta]

Holy shit! You can do that?

Yeah, you can do it with Guitar Hero transfer codes pretty easily... or so I heard...


How about this scenario:

Guy posts that he is really in need of money and needs to sell some things. One of the things he lists is say Dragon Age Origins for 360. You offer him $25 - not a rip, but not near market value. Does the seller have any right to be upset? After all what is more important - the seller getting near market value for his game, or the seller getting money, which he said he very badly needs?

[Zthun]

Yeah, you can do it with Guitar Hero transfer codes pretty easily... or so I heard...


How about this scenario:

Guy posts that he is really in need of money and needs to sell some things. One of the things he lists is say Dragon Age Origins for 360. You offer him $25 - not a rip, but not near market value. Does the seller have any right to be upset? After all what is more important - the seller getting near market value for his game, or the seller getting money, which he said he very badly needs?

Yeah, he can be upset. I posted about this in the What's it Worth forums about whether or not you get offended if you receive a bad offer. In reality, he can be upset and pissed all he wants (I probably would be irritated too), but in the end, if he choose to sell me the game, or sell it to anyone for that matter, that's his issue; the way I see it, the buyer got a great deal.

On a serious note from the scenario above: Taking codes off the wall and writing them down does not involve an exchange of goods. This scenario is no different than me taking a game off the shelf and running out of the store with it (and if it was gutted - me looking pretty stupid later). Now with the original scenario, the OP was getting a package deal that came with multiple games. He is still paying for the package, but he's getting an outrageous discount that the original vendors probably don't want him to have. It would be like me paying $5 at Goodwill for a copy of Earthbound. They're just ignorant to what they have - and I get a great deal for it and I can smile about it later. Lucky break for me.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Besides, if MS can't code their damn store software properly, they have bigger problems than giving out unintentional free games and LIVE service...

There is morality and then there is aesthetics... Morality is black/white (well, in my mind. Rape is a immoral because it's initiated violence, and it's ridiculous to claim to have raped in self-defense). Aesthetics are the gray areas, and even cultural and more trivial social norms like etiquette, politeness etc. They also cover mentioning when you get too much change, sending a email to MS about the OP scenario, or even trying to take advantage of it and so forth. There is a clear division between them.

[Gameguy]

it's ridiculous to claim to have raped in self-defense

A person with a gun breaks into your workplace, threatens to kill you and everyone else there unless you rape a co-worker. What happens then? It happened in a Law and Order episode, something like that where the men were forced to rape the women.

[nebrazca78]

A person with a gun breaks into your workplace, threatens to kill you and everyone else there unless you rape a co-worker. What happens then? It happened in a Law and Order episode, something like that where the men were forced to rape the women.

Well if it's happened in Law and Order...



Once I was working at a local Kwik-E-Mart and a woman gave me a $100 bill thinking it was $10. I gave it back to her.



On a gaming note I once hit a BIN on eBay for tons of Sega games and hardware for $200 shipped. One of the games was Spider-Man for 32X which was worth about $150 at the time. I was not about to contact the seller and ask if I could pay extra money.

[Icarus Moonsight]

A person with a gun breaks into your workplace, threatens to kill you and everyone else there unless you rape a co-worker. What happens then? It happened in a Law and Order episode, something like that where the men were forced to rape the women.

That would not really be rape on their part though. The proper self-defense in that instance would be to beatdown, if not kill, the guy with the gun making the threats and ultimatums. The gunman committed both a threat of life on others, and at least an attempt of multiple rapes by proxy. Easy peasy. Gun's in play, choice is out the window. Either you have to neutralize the threat or do what they say in an attempt to preserve life. Life/existence is the primary value common among all humans. So violating that value is the crux of immorality. Anything else is pretty much aesthetics. You don't have to like it when people violate your aesthetic values, but you can take no forcible action against them for violating that value, well, morally speaking. You could, but then you are correcting aesthetic breaches of personal preference with universal moral violations. Kinda like opening a can of soup with a grenade. Overkill.

[Joshie]

The argument here should be who needs it more. Look at it from this point of view: you're with someone who's just beginning to collect, while you have over 1000 games. You guys spot a huge lot of games including Final Fantasy 1-3 (US), Earthbound, Super Mario RPG, Final Fantasy VII-IX, Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire I & II, Lufia I & II, Super Metroid, Castlevania I-IV, and Zelda 1-3. You spot it first, and ask the seller the price. He says $60, which would be a steal for that lot. While you want that deal badly, you already own a bunch of other games. The right thing to do here would be to grab your friend and ask if he wants it.

Or you buy the lot yourself, take what you need in your collection, and give him the rest as a gift. I do not see any bad karma in that situation!

[Icarus Moonsight]

Cherry picking for charity... Sounds like Goodwill Industries.

[Fear The Turtle]

A thing you have to realize about these deals with private people is a lot of people just DON'T CARE what the market value for a game is. They beat a game, they sell the game. It can be Chrono trigger SNES and they just see it as another old game and try to sell it for 10 bucks, never knowing it costs more than that on eBay. If they wanted to sell it for a lot of money, they'd put it on eBay. So, sometimes you have to realize people don't really care what their games are worth, and not everyone's in this hobby simply to have the nicest collection going.

[BetaWolf47]

Or you buy the lot yourself, take what you need in your collection, and give him the rest as a gift. I do not see any bad karma in that situation!

Yeah, that too. But if it's just one game neither of you have, and it's an amazing deal, I think it's best to let the person who has the inferior collection to have it.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Inferior huh? How congenial.

[Cornelius]

Or you buy the lot yourself, take what you need in your collection, and give him the rest as a gift. I do not see any bad karma in that situation!

I'm on board with this. To me, the person with the more complete collection has a much harder time finding anything to add to their collection. Sometimes lots are the only reasonable way to do it. So in a case like this, I'd almost say the person with fewer holes to fill has more 'right' to those items that will fill holes than the person that can use everything.

Interesting question to think about. With the people I know, it would pretty much be whoever got it first, but I'm we'd also sell to each other 'at cost' any items we weren't keeping. I don't really know any collectors, but I've hooked friends up that just want DDR or a NES at cost.

[Joshie]

Interesting question to think about. With the people I know, it would pretty much be whoever got it first, but I'm we'd also sell to each other 'at cost' any items we weren't keeping. I don't really know any collectors, but I've hooked friends up that just want DDR or a NES at cost.

I have this thing about making profit from my friends. It makes me feel bad. I tend to buy multiple copies of the things in my collection if the price is amazing because I know eventually a friend will need it and i can either give it to a friend or sell it for the price I bought it for.

However, this becomes a hassle when I am actually trying to sell off something face value to strangers and my friends want the usual friend treatment...