I don't really ever appreciate rights management garbage, but I think this new crusade against used games is actually based in reality and far more justified than the crusade against piracy. Someone who downloads a a game could have any number of reasons for doing it - they don't want to pay, they can't pay, they want to try the game - and none of these things directly mean lost profits, while someone who buys a used game for $5-10 less than a new game was absolutely willing to pay money for the product and chose to give that money to a party that is completely separate from the publisher and developers. To me that's clearly a lost sale.

I can see a logical argument being made against piracy as a moral issue, but it is not the cancer killing the industry that the big businesses want us to believe. GameStop on the other hand is an enormous leech that's directly sucking profits away from the publishers. I honestly don't know if I agree or disagree with the idea of blocking used games. I mean, I am a Steam user and none of the games in my library can ever be traded, but the idea of limiting a physical copy does bother me.

The big issue of course is that when resale is removed from the picture, perceived value plummets. A console game can go for $60 new because there's this unstated implication that the buyer can later sell it for $30-40. After purchasing it, even if the initial buyer never trades or sells it, it has monetary value. On the other hand, a digital license can never be transferred and therefore is worthless beyond the value of the entertainment offered to that initial buyer.

I am curious to see how this turns out on the Xbox 720. They may find that people are unwilling to pay $60 for a one-use license and be forced to adopt the PC model of dropping prices quickly after release and offering enormous sales on older games. Will that mean net losses or net profits? Who can say?