@Rob
Changed my name from Egads to my real name. It's a habit of mine to stay anonymous on sites such as these, sorry about that.
Regardless of the merits of Tycho's argument, I still think you misquoted him. And, I don't really care about Tycho's point of view (I'm not a fanboy of any sorts), I'm merely interested in the argument. I think you misconstrued what was at stake, so I said so.
I think what is at issue is that Tycho is making a fairly modest argument. He says, if you want to support developers monetarily, then don't by used games. Of course, he never provides an argument for the first premise. It's perfectly legitimate, as you said, to assume that people buy used games for many different reasons (money constraints etc.). Perhaps Tycho should beef up his editorials.
You're also right to point out that it is possible that developers may see money from used game buyers. DLC, online gateway fees etc. will most likely generate a profit at some point. But, then again, developers don't see any money from the purchase of the used game EVEN IF the purchaser decides to invest in DLC or whatever. Does anyone know if it's possible to purchase DLC for pirated games?
And, if your argument about brand loyalty is simply that in playing the first of a series then people will go on to buy the second, doesn't that also apply to pirated games? So, if I pirate Hitman and like it a lot, aren't I more likely to both buy a legitimate copy of it and perhaps purchase the sequel? Surely, brand loyalty doesn't just arise from having a used or new copy of a game. This is the same argument people use to promote music piracy. Unfortunately, without any concrete statistics all of this is really just speculation. Maybe people who by used games don't give a shit about the brand and never will. Conceptually, I see your point, but without any evidence, I can make the exact same claim about pirates.
I agree that there isn't an exact equivalency between pirates and used game purchasers. That is obvious. I'm just saying that, there are issues concerning buying used games that are the same as the issues that concern piracy. The large difference, one that you pointed out, though perhaps not in this way, is that the used game market (most likely) won't bankrupt a developer. As you said, the games have to be purchased new at some point, so they are already "in the system" so to speak. I'm sure that if World of Goo was subjected to used game sales and not piracy, 2D Boy would have stayed afloat (at worst, 50% of the purchases of its game would have been used purchases, as opposed to the 80% or 90% that were pirated).
Here is another point, one that hasn't been addressed, I don't think. Who makes money from the purchase of new games? We know retailers make $10. And, we also know that publishers make most of the rest, because they are the ones taking on the monetary risk of releasing the games. So how much do the developers ACTUALLY make? But not only that, how much do the grunts in those companies actually make? Does the Lead Artist make any more money if the game sells 1.2 million or 5 million copies? Maybe at some companies (for instance, we know Infinity Ward gives out large bonuses), but perhaps not at others.
My point is that, if we agree with Tycho that supporting developers is what we want to do, purchasing a game new may not be as effective as we think it is. This is obviously a larger issue and has to do with the role of publishers etc., but it is important to think about when figuring out where to put our money.
"
It's absolutely crazy that you would call Tycho's argument dishonest, considering you misquoted him. When you take what someone says out of context and use the decontextualized argument as a strawman, THAT is dishonesty.
You quoted Tycho as saying "I honestly can't figure out how buying a used game was any better than piracy." However, that's NOT all he said, your quote should have been this "[...]I honestly can't figure out how buying a used game was any better than piracy." The [...] is ridiculously important, considering your hack and slash quoting job misrepresented the second clause in a conditional as if it were an unqualified statement.
What Tycho ACTUALLY said was this: "IF I am purchasing games in order to reward their creators, and to ensure that more of these ingenious contraptions are produced, [THEN] I honestly can't figure out how buying a used game was any better than piracy." (emphasis added)
See what happened there? Tycho was making a point about the goal of purchasing games. For him, if he is purchasing games in order to support the people making them, he sees no difference between piracy, where no money is transferred to the developers, and buying used games, where money is transferred to the original buyer, or to Gamestop, but not to the developers. Tycho NEVER said buying used is identical to pirating. That would be a silly comment to make, and he didn't make it.
Of course, there are laws that govern how copyright transference works in these cases. But we aren't talking about what's legal or illegal, but about why you would purchase a game in the first place. Tycho does so to support the industry he loves. I find it hard to see how there is any dishonesty in that.
"
Also, I dont think the best defense against someone calling you a faggot is "Ya, well, Im not gay, so there."
This is the second article in the last little while on Bitmob that purports to grandiosity, but actually never gives an argument in favour of it, instead continuing to whittle away at the ambition of the piece until it says basically nothing.
You could have simply said "Reviewers should review games based on the content of those games, and the intentions of the game's developers."
Perhaps, like me, those reviewers didn't find Mass Effect particularly emotionally compelling. Or, they knew that their readers were not interested in that kind of review. I am pretty sure that IGNs readership is mostly 15 year old boys, who mostly dont care about how the reviewer felt when they played the game"
Another game that I remember having harsh death consequences is Clocktower. I dont know if anyone has played this, but it was a survival horror game that had something like 26 different endings depending on when and where you died (or if you survived until the "true" ending). It was frustrating as hell, mostly because there was no way to know whether you would die if you made decision X, and you could be killed by the possessed girl with one measly poke from her knife"
Heavy Rain hasn't been released, but you should look into it"
@Rob But you have no statistics that back up your speculation about "market forces". I agree, as I said, that it would seem as though brand loyalty and DLC purchases would, in the long run, support developers, but neither you nor I proved that. I don't disagree, because I don't know. But you don't know either, so...
Let's be clear, I buy used games all the time, unless there is a steam sale, I "need" the game 0-day to feed my addiction, or it is from an indie developer that I really want to support (VVVVVV, World of Goo and Everyday Shooter are good examples of brilliant indie games that I would pay much more for than I did).
I guess my motivation in all of this is to make clear that the BEST way to support games you love is to buy them new. Perhaps using the similarities between piracy and the used game market is a poor way of doing this, just like equating slaughterhouses and concentration camps is a poor way to talk about animal rights, regardless of the similarities.
"