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2nd hand digital marketplace - Good or Bad?


DaivRules

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Would you support a digital marketplace to sell your digitally purchased titles just like your physical copies?

 

Microsoft announced they had the plans to introduce such a system when they first announced the XboxOne, but mysteriously decided to scrap this great idea of theirs when they said they would no longer tie physical copies of games to a console.

 

In the USA, there is something called First Sale Doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine). It protects consumers and says (basically) when you purchase something, you have RIGHT to sell it. This doesn't exist for digital copies, and this has stopped me from going digital. However, a marketplace and established rights for digital goods could convince me to go digital.

 

What do you think? Would you support a digital marketplace? Hopefully multiple, not owned by Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft marketplaces?

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I would. I think what Xbox was trying to do with it was a great idea as far as giving people a reason to go digital but still have the benefits of a physical copy, mainly resale. I never get rid of my games though so regardless if they add it or not it won't really affect me. However, I'm all for giving the consumer more options. Hardly anyone might use it but at least they'd have the option to.

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I can't even wrap my head around how this would even work, because it's not like you're physically transferring possession of an existing object. You're selling rights to access a digital file. What are they going to do, strip the file from my drive, put it up for sale, then transfer it to the buyer's drive? Or more likely block my access once I complete the sale, then give access to download the file to the buyer? If that's the case, why even go through this nonsense of "used" data and just sell it full price? Doesn't make sense to me.

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I can't even wrap my head around how this would even work, because it's not like you're physically transferring possession of an existing object. You're selling rights to access a digital file. What are they going to do, strip the file from my drive, put it up for sale, then transfer it to the buyer's drive? Or more likely block my access once I complete the sale, then give access to download the file to the buyer? If that's the case, why even go through this nonsense of "used" data and just sell it full price? Doesn't make sense to me.

My thoughts exactly, in my opinion this could would either be useless or have a strong negative effect. If its sold for a lower price like a 'used' item should then no would buy the original...

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I don't see any business sense in this at all.

 

If they were "smart" about this, they would exploit the fact that they have unlimited copies and give loyal consumers incentives for buying online. Sony has recently implemented incentives like this with the $10 back for every $50 purchase on the PSN store or the random $10 giveaway they had for their 20th anniversary. I mean, they don't due this all the time but it's definitely an incentive to go digital with games. 

 

There are a billion of incentives they could implement for going digital and I don't think we've even seen the beginning of it to be honest. However, selling back digital games is an incentive to go digital, it's just not a very good one!

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I can't even wrap my head around how this would even work, because it's not like you're physically transferring possession of an existing object. You're selling rights to access a digital file. What are they going to do, strip the file from my drive, put it up for sale, then transfer it to the buyer's drive? Or more likely block my access once I complete the sale, then give access to download the file to the buyer? If that's the case, why even go through this nonsense of "used" data and just sell it full price? Doesn't make sense to me.

 

You assume there is just as large a supply of 2nd hand codes as the full price. By definition, there are infinite full price codes, but only people who want to sell their codes would supply the market. And yes, authorization would be revoked, no different than PS+, and the game would no longer run. The license would authorize the new person just like they bought it from Playstation store. It's really very simple to me, I don't know why it would seem complex.

I don't see any business sense in this at all.

 

If they were "smart" about this, they would exploit the fact that they have unlimited copies and give loyal consumers incentives for buying online. Sony has recently implemented incentives like this with the $10 back for every $50 purchase on the PSN store or the random $10 giveaway they had for their 20th anniversary. I mean, they don't due this all the time but it's definitely an incentive to go digital with games. 

 

There are a billion of incentives they could implement for going digital and I don't think we've even seen the beginning of it to be honest. However, selling back digital games is an incentive to go digital, it's just not a very good one!

 

There is no business sense from the perspective of Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo, unless they run a market themselves. Just as there was no business sense the first time someone wanted to re-sell a record and got sued. The courts decided this ultimately was a right of the consumer.

 

Whoever runs these markets will take a small percentage of the sale price, no different than ebay, Amazon or whoever, and that's their business incentive/profit. Amazon is doing this now with digital codes. They buy them from Sony, sell them through their store and take a small cut as profit.

 

I am advocating Sony NOT run one of these markets. Selling back is counter-intuitive. Selling to other gamers would be the goal. You wouldn't get anywhere near what you could by selling back to someone who sells codes at full price because they have no reason to sell at reduced prices. That's why I think selling back to Game stores is dumb. They turn around and sell it as new and no one knows.

 

Please think in terms of Craigslist/Amazon/ebay (or even a PSNProfiles market!!) instead of Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo/Game stores.

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While there would be absolutely no point in having a digital marketplace to buy "used" digital games, I would definitely support being able to sell our digital games. It'd be nice if there was a system set up where we could sell to individual players and have the money either go into our PSN wallet or a connected PayPal account but I seriously doubt we'll be able to do that. 

 

 

Parker

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While there would be absolutely no point in having a digital marketplace to buy "used" digital games, I would definitely support being able to sell our digital games. It'd be nice if there was a system set up where we could sell to individual players and have the money either go into our PSN wallet or a connected PayPal account but I seriously doubt we'll be able to do that. 

 

 

Parker

 

100 or even 50 years ago, people seriously doubted we be able to do just about everything we take for granted now. This exact idea is being fought over in courts right now for things like MP3's (http://torrentfreak.com/record-labels-used-mp3s-too-good-and-convenient-to-resell-140422/). It's just a matter of time before someone starts this for games. I believe it will happen and in 10 years we will take it for granted and we will all be hearing something else that someone seriously doubts we will be able to do.

 

I'm really shocked there aren't more people on this site who want more freedom to do things with their content and have just completely accepted status quo.

 

How about this for a start? Would you like to be able to "give" a game you digitally purchased to someone else after you've played it??

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What are they going to do, strip the file from my drive, put it up for sale, then transfer it to the buyer's drive? Or more likely block my access once I complete the sale, then give access to download the file to the buyer?

 

Do it exactly the way PS+ does it, not rocket science really. Simple system which would be more or less fool-proof.

 

But still, I also don't really see that many positive sides to this. If anything, they should do it the way GMG does it, by being able to trade-in your old downloadable content for in-store credit that you may use to purchase new games. That way there's no need to hope that somebody would pick your sale over the others, no pressing down prices and everyone would be treated equally in that sense.

 

I doubt I'd bother using any marketplace type that much, but a trade-in might work wonders.

 

 

I'm really shocked there aren't more people on this site who want more freedom to do things with their content and have just completely accepted status quo.

 

Personally I don't bother with such questions, as for me selling something tends to be more hassle than what the outcome is actually worth. Thus I go for digital content whenever possible, usually even with higher price even. This being said, I would make use of digital trade-in service if one was offered, but most likely wouldn't bother with an actual marketplace and the hassles coming with that.

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