Welcome to Gaia! ::

I've never been parainoid about buying used games or some such the like, because I, having been young and naive, actually thought that most people take relatively good care of their games.

Then, one day when I was about 11, me and a bunch of my family were out at a cottage that my grandpa owns. My dad had borrowed FF7 from his friend, and I was in the Nibelheim flashback.

A few of us left for a boat ride, and when we came back, I opened my playstation to find...

A HUGE CHUNK OF THE DISK WAS COMPLETELY BROKEN OFF!!!!! scream scream scream scream gonk

No one there was willing to tell me who it was because, they said, my eyes had, quite litteraly, turned red. I was seething, and they all knew that I would murder who ever had done it.

Hoping that the chip would not effect the part of the game I was in, I tried to continue. I got up to the point just before the famous Sephiroth in the Fire cutscene, and it froze. The fire was still moving and making noise, and the one dude on the ground's eyes were still blinking, but nothing happened.

...I cried myself to sleep that night...

Thank god that my dad's friend didn't give a crap about the 1st disk...

If I want a game, I have to buy it used. I just don't have enough money for a new copy more often than not. I think the only game I ever got new was Radiata Stories.

I don't really like renting, though. There's the whole "I might not be able to ever find it again EVER" thing, plus the fact that rentals are less closely inspected than used copies.

I don't care if it's used, rented, stolen, eaten digested and crapped out...as long as it works and I can play it.

I hate scratches too...not to the point where I baby my disks though. I take good care of my games...I put them in their [correct] boxes when they are not in the system, and I generally try not to drop them. But sometimes accidents happen...like someone drops the disk accidentally....or the disk goes out of control inthe 360 and the eye scratches it. But even if the scratch is bad enough to where the disk wont read....I still don't sweat it. I just hop on over to the nearest game store and get the disk buffed for 2$ [or free for me since I have a buffing card].

Generally I don't rent games though, except for on those rare occasions when I have a rent one get one free coupon. Even then, I rent games I know won't be worth buying.

Given a choice, I'll buy new rather than used (whoo, support the industry and not EBGames' wallet). However, trying to find some older, out of print titles titles new is just about impossible, and in that case I'll stoop to the lowly used bin. Better to be able to play it used rather than not at all.

On the topic of scratches, I've never had a problem with used games breaking or not working. They may look a little beat up sometimes but usually they're checked before being resold and/or been buffed.

(Used Games)
I recently bought a used copy of Okami, it's the only used game I have and I was super worried about it not workin' or something, I played all the way through and no problems.

(Bran Spanking New Game Fresh Outta Case)
A few years back, I was in 6th grade maybe, Jak 2 came out and I love these games ><, I bought it the fist week it was released, oh I was so happy....anyway...After I got to a certain point in the game it froze, so I took it out looked at it and it had a super gash in it. Angered by this I bought a new copy, I don't really remember what happened to that one....but I ended up buying 3 copies>< so I don't trust any game nowadays....

Once I bought a Used 'The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass' from GameStop and when I got home and started to play it, it turned out to be 'Mario Kart'. I took it back right away and told them and they said they would try to find another used on for me but I of course was impatient to play to I bought a new one instead and they gave me credit from the defective game.