EA to start charging for Online play with used games

[Gameguy]

Whether a game is good or not isn't a basis on why people purchase used. Most people aren't collectors of games, etc. The benefits Gamestop offers for buying a game at used price far outweigh the new price of a game if the average gamer.

The point I was getting at was that if a game is really good, there won't be as many used copies available to buy as more people would be willing to keep them. It's not like there won't be any used copies, but there won't be tons available so people would just get new copies if they couldn't find used ones.

Gamestop is $5 less but gives you the option of an additional 10% off with the Edge card and they use this as another selling point. The Edge card gives you an additional 10% off plus a year subscription of Game Informer magazine for $12 a year(is it still $12? I remember back before the merger it was $10.) A $60 game that's used will be $55, then $5.50 off with the Edge card, so the gamer is really paying $49.50 which is 200% mark up from trade in and 100% profit for Gamestop.

Another thing employees at Gamestop are told to do is to let the customer know their seven day return policy. It doesn't matter if you like the game, hate the game, it doesn't work, whatever. If you purchase Final Fantasy 13 and play it for six days straight and then return it or happen to play it an hour but absolutely hate it, you will be given store credit since it's within that seven days. That keeps the person having to buy something at their store(new or used though,) and then they will always say that you can purchase another game and again return it.

With this seven day return policy, Gamestop knows that some gamers may want to finish it, forget about returning it or even like it enough to keep it. The fact that they have insane mark up on used games, they're making a ton of money off the games to not care if someone repeatedly comes in, beats a game, then switches it out with another.

I remember when the Edge card first got started, it came with a subscription of GMR magazine and I believe it cost $24.99. The membership was for 10 months and I didn't even save enough to break even, I never bothered with that again. I remember it was for 10 months because the card expired in less than a year and I didn't get all of the issues in the mail though I was told it would be for 12 months. I should point out that where I am the stores are called EB Games, but they're owned by Gamestop and have accessories branded as Gamestop.

I remember when the return policy was 14 days, and you could only return something if something was wrong with it. I haven't kept up to date with all of their return policies.

But you don't take into consideration the number of people(I'm sure it's a big figure) who just buy to play and then trade in for the next big thing, regardless of how "good" the game actually is. What about those who dumped Modern Warfare 2 for Battlefield 2? Or those who will buy NCAA 11 and then turn around and dump it for Madden 11? One could easily compile a list of titles this would work for.

Very true, a lot of people do this. While used copies will still be available, the number will be reduced. Instead of a game being resold 5-6 times before someone keeps it for good, it may be resold 2-3 times before being kept. If a game is good, it's more likely that more people will buy and keep it.

I'm really just tired of game companies blaming used sales for their lack of profits, plenty of other industries deal with the same thing yet are still doing fine. For example, if you buy a used hammer at a yard sale you're hurting the companies that make hammers. As I've mentioned earlier, would anyone put up with auto makers forcing people to buy new cars if they needed another one? Just imagine if you weren't allowed to buy used cars, if you wanted another one you could only scrap your old one and could only buy a new one. I'm sure used cars are big sellers so that would greatly affect the industry, but that just won't fly.