Used Games Sales are at Risk!

The picture to the left is your typical view of one of the many walls of a video game store (such as EB Games). All of those games you see are used video games. Living on a student budget this very section is your best friend. You have countless choices for such a good price. Yet all may be at risk thanks to a case ruling the US Courts of Appeal.

The whole case began when AutoCAD (computer software company) wanted an ebay user to stop selling their software over the site. They basically stated that the “software user is a licensee rather than the owner” (http://games.ign.com/articles/112/1120315p1.html).  This truly is a shock to most people. We purchased the software, we registered the product, yet that doesn’t give us the right as an owner. According to the ruling we are not the owners and now software companies, etc have the right to deny the customer’s ability to resell their products. So what happens to us students that rely on used products just to get through a semester of school.There also has been speculation that this case could also affect the ability to sell used  books, cds and dvds.

Luckily this is only in the US but since most software companies are international it will most likely come up to the north. So course programs aside how does this affect gamers? It affects us because most retail video game stores are owned by US companies. So that means they could pull the used game program in all stores. That means our gaming selection just got a little bit smaller. On top of that our choices just got a little more difficult, food for our fridge or a new game for our system.

Feel free to educate yourself more by visiting http://games.ign.com/articles/112/1120315p1.html. This is generally a great site for gaming news and they have links to lead you into a further investigation.

Justin