It cant all be people trading it in, can it? I mean different gamer tags on 360 at least, have separate achievements attached to them. Since I don't own a PS3, im not familliar with how trophies work across multiple accounts. Do these numbers take into account multiple users on a single console?
Trophies are via account. So you with your brother and sister could on one coppy achieve two set of trophies.
Reality is that most of gamers out there rarely share their games with family mambers. When family has kids often they have their own consoles and games because you know kids hate each other.
Still there are sets of trophies that were probably obtained by family.
That's actually an interesting viewpoint, it also makes sense but not on every level.
What if MS was comparing their games sales with the number of achievements people get from these particular games too. What if they just found out that, let's just say Halo 3, has sold 8 mio. copies but 16 mio. different accounts got achievements from that game?
Well, from an developer standpoint I would ask myself "why the hell didnt we sell more units of our game, when there are clearly so many more people interested in our product?" "We lost 8 mio. sales goddamn!"
So, in the end you have a product that has the potential to sell 16 mio. units, but because of resales you just get the half of it.
If I were the developer I would try anything to at least take piece of the cake that is these additional 8 mio. sales.
This is where probably this whole thing lies and i saw that already when Jaffe talked about his reason and his ideas about games, ownership, loaning etc.
Devs/Pubs viepoint on that subject (loaning/trading) is same as pubs see piracy. They see only one side of picture which could be closed in numbers: lost sales, lost money.
From developer point of view i understand Jaffe that he created game and see people enjoying his game without paying him anything (after somebody loaned/traded-in game) his viewpoint is completely logical.
But he see one only one side of picture.
Loaning/trading market is self-working awareness engine which doesn't work in spotlight but its work is felt everywhere in industry.
Everything resolves around like all things money.
Each of us has different circumstances but we all can agree with have buildin limits how much we spend on different things. Games have their limit in our budget. For me it is 3-4 games monthly, someone else may buy only one new game only and there are people who don't buy games new they buy games only used.
Point of above is that everything is connected. If someone will buy new game and plan to trade it later that dude who don't buy new games will buy it. Thanks to this both of them will profit from it. One will get money to buy new game other will enjoy his game cheaply. From developer point of view shortsighted approach he didn't earn more than 60$ (original buyer) but real view of this case is that developer earned only 60$ and two people played his game, possibly enjoying it. Those two people tried his product and now those two people if they liked it they will talk with their friends and may possibly convince some of those friends to actually buy his game.
Gaming market is not furniture market. People love to talk about games and experiences with it. They love to play with each-other and this is very reason why places like NeoGaf are so vivid. I doubt there is furniture like Gaf somewhere out there.
People who buy games used are the same who provide funds to people who buy new games. If you shut down used games market not only your sold copies numbers will fall directly but your game will get flack indirectly because there will be simply much less people who will know about your game.
Publicity and awareness is one of the biggest thing pub/dev should compete for because it directly drives how much money they earn.
Minecraft without any campaign sold millions of copies with marketing budget of 0$ and just last year mojang earned $200mln. Both are very reason why F2P, MOBA, MMORPG risen and why Minecraft is so profitable for Mojang.
Do you wonder why Borderlands 1 was given in PS+ before Borderlands 2 premiere ? It was above. Thanks to it many people tried 1 and some of those people bought B2. And used games market works like just like that.
This was just one aspect of that problem. To look on other problem we need to look on it from broader perspective and ask why people play games in first place. It is because they want to spend some fun time. Gaming market belongs to entertainment industry which means there are other things, other than gaming. If some person enjoyment to spend money ratio will fall then some of those dudes simply will look for other things that will provide him enjoyment at lower cost. It may be TV, it may be drinking or other things who knows. Point is gaming market compete with other markets for people money. Last thing you would want to do is to make him count every dollar spend on his fun.
Next one on list is personally directed to Jaffe. Not because he was dick to used gaming market users but because he is developer which doesn't really fallow gaming trends aka his work is most of the time original, creative and sometimes innovative aka the good guy which is loved by people in places like here (beside random crapshots). If used market gaming will be gone then direct effect of that will be that people will have less money to buy games. Less money = less games bought = people will choose safest games to buy (aka best bang for buck). Which directly translate to sad Jaffe because his games are not mainstream ergo he will earn less money.
Those are only few problems that will rise with execution of used games market and loaning games and that not complete list of things involved.
Used games market/loaning is integral part of industry and very reason why this industry is in place where it is. Without it industry won't grow.
Thanks to used games market there are probably 3mln (assuming everybody loved it) people out there who are waiting for beyond two souls instead of 1,3-1,5.