Kotaku
1998: Capcom, Konami, Namco, Sony, and Square file a lawsuit against a Tokyo game shop for selling used games. Having failed a campaign to make resale of games illegal, they now prefer to supervise the resale of games.
Because when you buy something, it's not yours to sell. And you should know that by now. On one hand, resellers are selling games for less than their new counterparts. Of course, this also means that these games once sold as new and profits were made. From the other perspective, resellers might be charging MORE than retail value for a title, in which case there is an easy way to fix that supply and demand structure...
Given the strong state of Japan's game shops, I'm assuming the big companies failed. But ask Ash. He knows everything about Japan since he lives there. Absolutely everything.
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Comments
Oh how different life would be if the lawsuit had gone the other way...
Haha...that reminds, I was amused to see my Sonic the Hedgehog has "Not for resale" wirtten obnoxiously in the middle of the cart.
Considering the success of places like Super Potato and pretty much every other game shop in Nihonbashi, Osaka, I'd say they failed big time.
This reminds me of something... When I was studying abroad last year in Osaka, the government tried to ban sales of used electronic goods. Apparently, the Gov't had somewhat recently adopted new safety regulations that the older devices didn't comply with. Or something like that. I spent a lot of time in Nihonbashi/Den-Den Town, so I noticed that quite a few shop owners were pissed (almost all of Den-Den Town is used goods). There was a hugely negative reaction, and I believe the Gov't cancelled the ban, or found someway around it.
This is why Japanese games using jewel cases have spine cards. Note that the UPC and SKU number are on the card, not on the insert inside the case.
The spine card is meant to be thrown out after purchase, in order to make the resale of used games more difficult.
@bVork: Not really. Not having a spine card (obi) when you resell a game may reduce mow much you would receive if you did have the obi; but it doesn't make it any more difficult to trade in. This is from experience from a number of used game shops.
Ah, the used game market.
I love the circular logic game companies employ when discussing it. Because clearly the used game market indicates zero demand in lower priced games while ALSO being a deadly threat to the economics of the game industry.
@bVork: Also note that CDs and even books also have those obi strips. And, yeah, it doesn't really seem to cause any problems in reselling things (I've bought used Japanese CDs and books, but never used games)... so I don't think it's intended for that.
Do the game cases still say that they're not for use outside of Japan?
Cause if they do, they're not quite getting through to me :P
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