Lionhead Thinks Pre-Owned Games Are Worse Than Piracy

The act of pirating PC games has always been a problem. Lionhead’s Mike West claims that “the longest it’s taken to happen is two days. Someone will crack it somewhere, and there’s not much you can do about it.”

In the case of the Microsoft-owned studio, Xbox 360 sales of have more than made up for the cost of developing both the Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game. “For us, it’s probably a no-lose, even with as it is.” exclaimed West. “Second-hand sales cost us more in the long-run than these days.”

While publishers have worked to make it worthwhile to buy new, such as one-time usable codes for additional content or even online multiplayer, the pre-owned game market has grown beyond specialty stores like . Retailers like Amazon and Wal-Mart have buy-back programs. And not a single cent is sent on to the developers or publishers of the games.

I for one am happy to shell out the extra cash for a new game. GameStop generally sells recently released games for $5 less than their new counterparts. When companies such as EA require second-hand buyers pay an additional $10 for their multiplayer or downloadable content (such as Mass Effect 2′s Cerberus Network), it’s actually more cost-effective to buy it new.

What say you, our faithful readers? Do you buy new or used? And why?

[Source: Eurogamer]

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3 comments

  1. If they make games slightly cheaper, People might buy all their games new. The issue for me is buying a game new for 60 dollars or so, when getting one less than a week later costs 50 dollars or less. I like new games as much as the next guy(or girl), but if games are too expensive, then I won’t buy it until a year later, when the price goes down and there are only used copies of the game left.

  2. I have fable III on Xbox 360but the writing on it is way to small for me to read so i was wondering if there is a way to make it bigger

  3. Clayton Cottrell August 2, 2012 at 1:32 pm -

    So I’m playing Fable three and someone in the game asked for flowers as gift but I have no idea where to find them, help?