As for piracy not creating revenue, again, you're contradicting yourself. You can't claim that saving money on a used copy will inevitably lead to sales of new copies, then turn around and say that saving money on a pirated copy won't
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A few quick points, as I think this debate is losing steam.
When you trade a game in at GameStop people pretty much always take store credit for it because of the reduced cash value for trade ins, and proably more importantly, because promos only apply to trade ins for credit. That's why I talk about the money remaining in circulation within the industry, because it has to go towards additional game purchases.
And if used sales disappeared, do you think these people would stop buying games entirely? Or would they just buy fewer games? Keep in mind that used sales are non-existent sales for publishers and developers since no compensation is given to them. So basically, these people would still be buying the same amount of new games as before. That said, GameStop typically sells used games for only $5-10 less than new ones, so I'm guessing that most customers would accept the slight price increase and end up buying more new copies than they would have otherwise.
Consumers only have so much disposable income, what would happen without the abillity to buy and sell used games is anyones guess. My guess is that so called must have AAA titles would see increased sales while more fringe titles would see decreases due to more dollars being spent on the must have AAA games.
Saying that used games are only $5-10 less than new really isn't true. Most used games are sold pretty aggressively, GameStop is consistsnly offering promos on used games, as do most used game dealers. I bought my sisters family an Xbox 360 for Christmas and found most older titles to be anywhere from 50% to 75% off used vs new. I ended up being able to start them off with a much larger library of games by choosing to buy some titles used.
So if I buy a game, then upload a copy onto the net, that means that neither the publisher nor developer ever received compensation? Most pirated games originate from a legally-obtained copy. While each used copy was initially a new copy, that only applied to the first transaction (just like with many pirated copies). All the used sales? No compensation whatsoever (just like with pirated copies).
You should really drop this line of argument. The copy you post on the Internet is not the copy they received compensation for, it is a duplicate, as is every other copy downloaded. Your argument only makes sense If GameStop was manufacturing additional copies of the used games they sell.