Overly Positive

Today’s return to posting starts with a hot topic that appears to have asploded the interwebs today – the debate over the used games market and whether or not gamers giving to it is the same as stealing or not patronizing the developer. This whole shindig got started at Penny Arcade and has ballooned out into the various blogs I’ve read, with Syncaine and Syp both taking a stance on either side of the equation.

Where does an optimistic smiley face guy like me stand? Well, I don’t know if I fall slightly within one side of the coin or the other, but I will say that I like the used games market, as it has given me plenty of joy, appreciation, and, inevitably, support for the folks making games I play.

Maybe part of this stems from your financial situation. As a wee lad, and one raised in a family of modest means, games didn’t come to our household that often – a bit of a rough spot considering I really loved games. When I wanted a game, it’d have to be one of those Special Occasions ™ like Christmas. Otherwise, it was saving and earning through meager little jobs and the allowance I was given, til that magical “new game” number was reached. If, for some reason, I got to buy a game sooner because of the fact that it was used, I did so. But I still earned the cash to buy it.

I can only imagine if I’d been conscious of the developer cost that I was taking away. If I hadn’t bought the games I did used, I might not have gotten a chance to play them. I might not have gotten a chance to appreciate them. And perhaps, just perhaps, I might not have decided to even purchase them.

Maybe I’m kind of a silly idealist (ok, scratch that, I am one), but aren’t there intangibles other than the almighty buck to playing, loving, and patronizing games and the games business in general? Sure, people have to put bread on the table, but last I checked, making and playing games was more than about cashola. For the people making games, I’m willing to bet that somewhere within their head they do them because they are passionate about them and want to create something people will enjoy. For the people playing games, I’m sure that they get enjoyment out of them through escapism, relaxation, or any other reason why they might play them.

And really, isn’t that the important thing? That games are made with passion and are appreciated just as passionately? That an industry does exist, no matter how financially fit, that creates entertainment of this nature? Sure, this sounds ridiculously like rainbows and sunshine, and at the end of the day, there are practicalities. But I don’t think that what enters a developer’s mind when he creates a really kick-ass mechanic is how he’s gonna make cash from direct box sales. I don’t think that what enters a gamer’s mind when they put in a disc and start playing is that they got it used and are therefore stealing the cold hard cash from someone’s pocket.

I think people are just thinking they want to make and play enjoyable, fun games.

The used market (and you could even roll the rental market into that as well) provides a service that essentially fulfills this tangible need. That it makes money doing so is to me, peripheral and no more malicious that the dude who decides to charge 8 bucks a box of popcorn at the theatre because he can. It’s just the nature of providing a business around a service. In the end, however, the more we play, the more we get exposed to, and the more we experience things in the gaming industry, the more likely it is that players will, well, want to play more games and buy more games. Isn’t that the important thing?

The great enemy here is not thievery, or lack of morals, or even money. It’s really indifference. The lack of a wider market for people to play games means less games are played, and therefore less games are bought. And that’s not very optimistic or positive at all.