But the same could be said of used books, used furniture, used anything!
The only difference is that, with games, it is now technically feasible (I'm sure IKEA would love it if you couldn't resell their furniture second-hand, so everyone had to buy directly from them).
It really angers me that this approach is even legal.
I think the economic incentives aren't so negative. There are many games I would not want to sell at any price that is less than for the game sold new (perhaps in the bargain bin, with age); the replay value is just too high. Good games with replay value are exactly the games I want to buy, and they also happen to be the games I wouldn't want to sell.
An anti-used game policy would really help (a) linear, low-interactivity experience-based games, and possibly (b) duds. I'm not a fan of either.
-If gamestop really is strongly pushing used games over new, that's messed up and definitely hurts game developers and enriches gamestop(the useless middleman). It causes titles to have less longevity, which means studios end up caring less about time-less quality and more about releasing sequels.
-Piracy and used game sales have had negative effects on the quality of games. This is pretty obvious, many games now require an always on internet connection to play, many games now do DLC and micro-transactions, less single-player games, no LAN in starcraft 2 :(, less AAA pc games.
I think the model is fine if it's like what steam games do. You have an account, and purchase a non-transferable non-revokable license to play the game. Of course the lock-in with steam isn't great. Ideally there would be a "global" service that tracks games you've purchased in different digital stores.
The games he's talking about are sold in DVDs, and Gamestop can't exactly clone them, so yes, there's wear and tear. Pure digital game sales are usually not resealable anyway.
I have a large collection of electronics books which are often expensive and electronics is only a hobby for me so it's hard to justify the cost. Sometimes you have to buy second hand books, many of the definitive Z80 books are out of print.
I started buying second hand books as a child. I wanted books on philosophy and this was the only way I could own works about Descarte, Locke et al without begging my parents for tens of pounds (my income way about £1 a week back then). I've even come to like seeing other peoples notes in the margins. I often wonder "What are they thinking?" when they highlight different sections of the text.
We always try to buy furniture 2nd hand- for the price of a chipboard IKEA wardrobe you can normally get a big, solid wood, Victorian one which is quite likely to last a lot longer!
I myself own more second hand books than new ones.
Used books are very popular among students, though, but that is once again something different.
If you don't like what a company is doing, don't buy the product.
Only recently have publishers started introducing schemes where you get a first purchase unlock code/card.
Perhaps a way that game developers can combat the sale of used games undercutting their current offerings is to make games that are so good that people don't want to part with them so quickly.
While I'm sure it could potentially be a problem in high-churn stores like gamestop, most places do have a replacement policy on discs that are scratched at purchase.