Bethesda Exec Pete Hines Explains the Used Game Sale Controversy

You may have heard lately that Bethesda's legal firm, Vorys, recently put legal pressure on an Amazon Marketplace listing for a sealed copy of The Evil Within 2 to be removed. Now Pete Hines, Bethesda's senior vice president of global marketing and communications and marketing, has responded, clarifying the situation.

According to Hines, the issue was not with the seller trying to sell the game second hand, but that the game's listing was classified as "new" instead of "pre-owned:"

"All we're saying is if it's a previously owned product, you have to sell it as a previously owned product
. . .
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 and said, 'Hey this is new.' It's not new - you owned it, you bought it, so just list it as a used title. That's it, that's the end of the argument."

Hines reiterated that the company is in no way looking to hinder or prevent the sale of used games, as long as they're correctly listed as "used" in the listing:

"If you want to sell your copy of the game, it's 'pre-owned'. You can't say that it's new because I have no way to verify that, and ultimately that person is our customer we have to deal with and if there's stuff missing or things that have happened we're the ones that are going to have to make it right."

The internet community has been less than accepting of this explanation. The most common counter-argument is that they shouldn't expect this to be their responsibility, but that of the retailer/seller. Others believe this is a simple diversion, and that Bethesda actually does want to prevent used game sales.

I feel like if they really wanted to hinder used game sales, they would work with GameStop before individuals.