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Is there any point in even buying used VN? Piracy vs Used


Dark Ariel7

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Other than just wanting to own the actual game. Has anyone here ever thought that it was pretty pointless to actually buy a game used. I mean the new ones are expensive but you are supporting the makers. If you buy used you are not supporting the makes. 

Also more general but is it even moral to buy used?(not just vn but anything media) I mean if you dont believe in piracy that is. if you think piracy is ok then that's cool and you obviously would not have a problem with buying used.

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I suppose it all depends on your values. Personally, I wouldn't care at all about whether I bought a game used or not just to support the developers. Now, if I were the type of person to feel bad for people I don't know, I would never buy used; however, I'm not that nice a guy. If I were the frugal type, I would buy whatever would be the best financial benefit to myself. If the game I'm buying is of high interest to me, I'd buy it new to encourage the developers to make more of what I like. And if you're buying the VN used, you're still supporting the retailer. I'm also the kind of guy that typically avoids giving small donations unless I'm really driven to make an investment (like Sekai Project).

 

To buy something new means you're investing in the developers. I wouldn't even say it'd have that much of an impact either, since people borrow games all the time (and, of course, there will be pirates). If a game is made well enough, or marketed very well, it will sell, and the developers will get the money they deserve. But for me, personally, I like to have an emphasis on direction with my budget. I try to weigh my options as best as I can, and only invest my money in a way I deem most appropriate.

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I get the little impact theory. I guess I was thinking more along the lines of why even buy it if you can just pirate. I thought people mostly bought because they like to support the people that make them or to play them. If its just to play them and you were going to buy second hand, you might as well just pirate.

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Ah, right. I guess I went a little overboard with that and missed the point. If the option to pirate is there, then I suppose the whole reason for buying used is to feel better. Buying used may be somewhat frowned upon from a moral standpoint, but piracy is illegal. At least with buying something used, you're supporting the retailer/individual selling the VN. But piracy doesn't support anyone other than the individual downloader. On the other hand, buying used still involves investing in a product that may or may not be worthwhile (especially if it's a low-brow product), and that can only be avoided through borrowing/pirating.

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Doesn't really make sense to support an unaffiliated seller as he wont be making any content or anything. I feel like if you are going to buy used you may as well just pirate.

The seller may not be making the product, but he's still selling it. Sellers need money too, or else they won't stay in business. And having fewer retailer options can lead to overpricing on goods. See where I'm getting at?

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I work for a company that makes a large amount of their profits from used goods.  Without them, we would have a very rough time.

 

Essentially, for an item to be called "Used," it had to have at one point been bought as "New."  Accordingly, the company has already received their portion of the profits for that item.  If people decide that they don't like a game/book/cd/whatever, or they've finished using it and no longer need it, instead of sending it back to the store, who won't take it back because it's not the same quality as when it was sold (even if it's still in it's wrapper, after 30 days they won't take it), they take it to a store that does buybacks and sells it.

 

This allows the company that bought it to sell it at a lower price to consumers, who will take the risk of buying a used product, thus resulting in a profit for the used goods company, and since the company that had created the item already got their payment from the "New" sale, it's essentially free publicity for them.  Eventually, somebody who buys something used will buy something from the same company new, and at the end of the day, everybody is happy.

 

I handle anywhere between 1500 and 5000 buybacks a day, and anything I buy back is something I would play in my household.  Many times you're buying essentially a new product that had the plastic covering removed, and therefore cannot be called new.  The discs will be in excellent condition (and if they aren't perfect when I buy them back, we resurface them, and all is well with the world), and the risk you're ultimately taking is whether or not supplemental material (ie: Guidebooks, Digital Codes) will be there/work.  Visual Novels, in my opinion, would follow the exact same procedure.  H-Manga, or something similar, however, I'd be wary of buying back, but that's for reasons that may or may not be obvious.

 

TL;DR, Buying a used product is essentially free publicity to the company that made it, because they've already made what they expected to make on that item.

 

EDIT:  I'm dodging the Piracy question entirely.

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EDIT:  I'm dodging the Piracy question entirely.

Considering the huge conflict of interest, I think that's a very wise move.  Not that I'm saying you shouldn't work for a business that sells used goods or anything, it's just...flame wars blow.

 

Honestly, I think that you should make every effort to legally obtain whatever it is you're trying to buy new or used, but if the price is is so high it's worth more than it originally was new, I'd just say "Screw it," and pirate it.  For example, I just downloaded a Minish Cap ROM.  According to Amazon, either I can buy a physical copy new for $160+, or buy one used for $40+.  I don't particularly like being scalped, so I just got the ROM instead.  I don't even know of any used game stores in my area (or several hours away from my area) that sell Minish Cap, or even GBA games, any more.  Nobody I know owns it, either.  That said, I recently bought Persona 3 and 4 FES online since I could get them at a decent price and I didn't feel like I was being utterly ripped off by buying them.

 

That said, though, all of the VNs I have downloaded on my PC are torrented.  I'm just not willing to pay the extra shipping costs, which would seriously screw me over, since I don't currently have a steady flow of income.  I might try to buy the VNs I want that lack official translations when I get a job, but until then, I'm only really willing to buy localized VNs, or digital copies of unofficially translated VNs.  Kinda conflicts with my answer, but hey, if the torrents are at Fuwa, I'm going to take advantage of them.

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If I buy a new copy it's only to support the devs, otherwise if I was low on money I would buy a used copy or in lack of used copies I would pirate it, until I would have enough money to buy the game, that's what I did with most of my steam games, I pirated them and when I had the money I would buy them.

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Used visual novels are a huge issue in Japan; they are one of the reasons why studios make little to almost no money from their games, which has impact on their overall quality. Theoretically, they should make reselling games illegal, since it's basically almost no different from pirating; actually a lot of western TOS state that an originally bought game cannot be resold, copied or distributed in any other way without legal consent of their respective creators. It's a grey zone, though. That's why people do it. Most of them forget though, that when they buy a used game, they aren't supporting the developers. A viable solution would be to create some sort of a system, that enables shops to sell used games, as long as a part of the revenue still goes to the creators, but you can propably imagine how troublesome and hard to mantain it would be. No surprise publishing platforms like Steam became so popular nowadays - there's no point in getting used games, when you can get originals so cheap and get a free support along with a whole digital library you can access from nearly anywhere you are.

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I don't buy hard copies to support the producers/writers etc.. I'm not buying books or CDs to support their makers either. It's good it does support them when I buy it and I feel good knowing it supports them, but thats not why I'm spending my precious money. I buy VNs because I like to have them, having the actual physical box, put it in a nice spot and look at it. Some VNs are hard to get though, some are only available as "used" at some point (for a lot of money), but if I really want it I just save for it and buy that one. Also, so far I haven't had any bad experiences buying used VNs from Amazon. If its worth or not to buy used goods really depends on the VN and the reason why you want to buy it in my opinion.

 

Buying digital copies is something I don't really like, it feels like a waste of money to buy a VN but to not get anything more than I get from just pirating it (like a nice box). I'd never buy a digital copy from.. mangagamer for example. That said, if there's a VN on steam that looks "ok" but not interesting enough that I want a physical copy from it I do buy it, especially when it drops <10 euros. I guess thats my way of supporting, whoever that may be.

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