Bethesda Defends Legal Action Against a Man Who Tried to Resell a Game

I've seen way more people on places like Amazon and Facebook try to sell games as "new" and then follow up in the description with "only played once or twice", how about we go after THOSE people first before the person selling an actual "new" game?

Well I mean...technicaly they are right.

The game ISNT new. It IS Pre-Owned.

Once it's sold by an official distributor it passes into private ownership. Any further sale it has then been previously owned.

I'm not saying Bethesda's turning into the next EA or Activision, but they're a little to close to that track.

@get2sammyb @Enuo And Bethesda actually makes single player games.

Worlds apart these guys.

Wtf? It's only one man selling one game, why the heck lawyers in involved?

Bethesda know all about selling old things as new. One look at their game engine is proof enough of that.

A game purchased and never removed from the wrapper is not new. It is still pre-owned and not new. Selling as new is for distributors. I side with Bethesda here.

So then what is a game at a game store where the game is removed from an envelope and then placed in an unsealed case? The store says it is new, i say it is used. I then go down the street and purchase the game in a sealed case.

I liked it better when game and movie cases took 5 minutes and a razor knife to open. Now most sealed game cases have a cheap shrink wrap resealed quality.

What a significant waste of everyones time. My favourite bit is where Hines said:

"You could have opened it up, played it for five hours, taken whatever inserts or stuff was in there, put it back in shrink wrap "

Like who has a shrink wrapping machine at home? I am guessing a miniscule number.

Honestly, bethesda need to focus on making their games and cut out this nonsense. Ok its largely their parent company leading the litigious issues, but each case just erodes customer good will.

Um... Amazons own words:
Video Games
New video games: A brand-new, unused, unopened video game in perfect condition in its original packaging and with all original packaging materials included.
https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/external/200339950?language=en-GB&ref=mpbc_3149161_cont_200339950

Methinks someone's gonna get fired at Bethesda for this outburst mistake. The seller can sue for slander or what such... Good luck to the common man!

That's stupid. I don't know why you would sue someone for such a dumb reason. I hope it gets resolved in the guys favor. Especially considering what was posted above me. If that's true, Bethesda will get tossed out of the court here I would imagine.

@bbq_boy I totally agree with you if the game it's sealed then it is brand new just because it's own by a different seller doesn't mean the game it's not brand new, they just don't want to be responsible if something is wrong with the game, this is just another example of publishers that don't like physical games because the resell value and second hand market that's why they are pushing towards digital, but anyways hopefully he'll win if he decides to sue

This is ridiculous. I love Bethesda, but this is low. Individuals sell games they haven't opened all the time. Just check eBay, there are tons of sealed games advertised. Bethesda goes after an individual, but yet GameStop can actually remove games from their cases and still sell the game as brand new? Give me a break. Go after them. Not after an individual who is just trying to get the most of a brand new game they no longer want. If it turns out it's not really a brand new sealed game, then Amazon can step in. No need for Bethesda to get the lawyers involved.

so are they doing like gamestop & selling their game in a paper slip claiming it's brand new?

If he returned it at a store unopened it would go back with the new copies, until the seal is broken it is new.

Just one more comment on this one. Peter Hines makes this sound as if good ol bethesda are doing this to protect the consumer from damaged goods. Yet this is clearly about them getting their cut of the sale from an 'approved retailer' (although they will have already got that when the game was initially sold). How can they claim though that somewhere like game is selling the product as 'new' when half the time they have removed the game from the shrink wrapping and box and chucked it in a cardboard sleeve in a drawer. I have received more games with scratches and finger prints that way during my life. They that hardly seems new to me. Maybe go after those practices first...

Whaaaat? Lol this story is so dumb! If people buy from sites like those they obviously know it's 'pre-owned' since it's not a retailer...but wait a minute, retail stores have people dealing with packaging so that means all games are pre-owned gg

If it's unopened, then it's still new. Same as if I'd bought a game from a shop, then returned without opening it. Getting lawyers involved in this when they have no evidence that it isn't new is a disgrace.

Well if this is the case will be having words with friends and family that bought me pre owned games for my birthday and Christmas all these years can’t believe none of them bought them direct from the distributors! No idea what they are even trying to achieve with this it just makes them look bad

Bethesda is getting a little bit (you know what i mean)

they should make a game first that does not require mods to be as good as it can be before acting all mighty.

What about the opened "New" copies of games gamestop puts on the racks? The last copy of a game the store has they say
....can they be sued?

@Knuckles-Fajita if you're going that way then depending on the terms of sale GAME, Amazon et al are selling pre-owned as new because they buy from their distribution network at cost. This is just the big boys testing the waters to see if they can stop 2nd hand sales, which is what they've wanted for ages. Now that microtransactions are being curtailed it'll be back on the table.

OK i get that technically the game isn't new as it was previously purchased but this is quite petty

on a side note don't shops buy games from publishers, if so all the games in shops are also technically pre-owned so why aint you suing all those for advertising them as new

Personally I think there has been an over reaction across the board. There was no justification on the part of Bethesda to act in the way they did but I suspect this was the result of one or two over zealous employees.

Equally as stupid are the over reactions of people on the internet. Honestly, I find it depressing how quickly people will create a huge fuss over nothing on the internet these days, particularly against companies that for the most part, demonstrate that they are doing their best to service their customers.

Any company who release games like Prey, Evil Within 2, Wolfenstein and Doom are pretty awesome in my book.

@Lovespuds The internet has become a place of overreaction. its both hilarious and sad to watch.

I like many of their games but this is ridiculous. This is purely semantics, surely they're better than this

@ToniK
Pretty sure this will turn out to be an action undertaken by a few employees rather than some high level strategic decision undertaken by the board.

They have to own it now, as demonstrated by a the formal response, but this whole issue will go nowhere and the over reaction is completely unwarranted in my humble opinion.

I thought Bethesda should be putting their time and effort into making games instead of worrying about a random guy on Amazon selling his copy of Evil Within 2.

On a side note, the local GameStop does this all the time. They take the packaging off of sealed games and sell them to people as "New". It's one of the many reasons why I don't shop there.

It really does seem Bethesda is out to make an example out of this guy but why single him out when people and companies do the same every day?

If Bethesda are serious and really want to go this route then they may as well of went after a company like GAME because if they are bothered about one person selling their game as new, then they must not really like what GAME do, break the seal, take the disc out the case and put them in a cardboard/plastic sleeve then into a drawer to then sell as new. Why do they do this anyway when they can just put one empty case on display and keep the rest of the stock all sealed in the stock room?

"we would never try and stop anybody from selling a used game"

No because the wrath of the Internet really wouldn't be good.

"Our view is that this is a total overreaction"

Agreed.

Bethe$a is a piece of garbage nothing new. Patches bigger then games, games not fixed between 3 consoles, broken games to lazy to fix games and try to act like a good guy. Well 🤬 you Bethe$da

So your telling me that if I get a game as a present I wouldn't be able to sell it as new? Because it would be new I've not opened said game.

Bethesda are prob technically right - if they didn't buy from a supplier then it is second hand, description would be as new. That said, overkill. One guy isn't causing them huge headaches.

@Knuckles-Fajita What's the actual difference between him stocking the game and then selling it, and a shop stocking and selling the game? At the point it's stocked in a shop, they own it - and if not, why the eff am i paying them for it? - so therefore when I pay for it, it's already been owned by someone else. So ALL games a pre-owned in that sense which is clearly ridiculous.

Instead, in real terms, pre-owned means pre-opened and even pre-played. And funnily enough, when many shops actually unseal and remove the disc from cases, that copy is more rightfully described as "new" than most games in GAME or Gamestop.

@Enuo Agreed, had that vibe all throughout their E3 conference. Especially when they had to keep repeating they were voted most trusted developer... screams corporate sell out.

The seller could have gotten the game as a present, didn’t want it and put it up for sale, I did the same thing once. It could have been many things. If a game is factory sealed then it is new. Gamestop sells opened display games as new, companies should go after them too I suppose.

Bethesda also have no way of knowing if the game has been used so they must also be against used game sales.

@j_Colgy don't wory if they keep this up they won't have that title next year anymore.

fallout 76 (for different reasons),this case and the whole negative stance towards sony with that card game makes them seem like arrogant people.

@Knuckles-Fajita not true. As long as it's never been open its new.

suppose i buy a title from Game, and then a week later find it cheaper somewhere else. i can return the original i bought from Game for a full refund as long as it's within 14 days, unopened, and in its original condition. does anybody think Game wouldn't put this back on the shelf as new?. suppose it's actually a month later.. i know i couldn't get a refund. i could sell it back to Game as 'pre-owned' and get about a tenner for it, then watch them put it out on the shelf as new for £50.. or i could try to get as much as i could by selling it directly - in my view, it is justified to described it "as new" because it's in exactly the same condition that you'd buy it from Game, amazon, or anywhere else.

@Neolit How is it any less new than a game kept in a building owned by GAME or Gamestop? It's a sealed, unplayed game. There's no other way of describing it. He's just the distributor instead of GAME et al.

@Neolit I agree, and I wasn't missing that. That was my point, in fact. That they're using some kind of legal technicality to BS people and to try to justify something. As I said in my original post, if a certain person or group holding something before sale makes something pre-owned, then everything is pre-owned. In other words, Bethesda are full of it.

It's also obviously down to the purchaser to decide. Clearly a collector would rather have a "pre-owned" factory-sealed, untouched copy of a game from an eBay seller than a "brand new", unsealed, pre-played by staff, copy of a game from GAME, even though by Bethesda's nonsensical definition, the "brand new" and "pre-owned" descriptors should be switched.

Anyway, we agree on this. I just wanted to add some detail.

@Neolit I agree, but if the owner told you in person that the car had never been driven, it would both be true and be appealing as a car with zero miles on the clock. But as we're both saying, it's just semantics. And I think as you'll the agree, the "just semantics" conclusion is a point against Bethesda's claim here.