Both AFKgamer and N3rfed commented the story about the goon buying an used box of World of Warcraft and expecting the cd key to be still usable.

On another blog, commenting something unrelated, I wrote:

I have a website because I felt the need of an “history”. So that every time a recurring topic is brought up I KNOW the point where I left. So it sets a level, from that level I move on.

This is why now I’m able to show (and link) a rare tidbit from Lum:

Lum:
At the same time, there probably needs to be a bit more oversight re: EB and selling used games.

Case in point. I was browsing our local EB one day and noticed in the used racks a copy of an expansion pack for the MMO I work on. It looked pretty used (no box, beat up manual, etc) so it wasn’t just “returned after one day”. Now, being that I work on said MMO, I happen to know that whoever bought that copy was more than likely hosed, since the CD key to “expansionize” the account can’t be re-used, and that our CS gets calls about this sort of thing frequently. So I take the game up with me when I check out.

“You probably shouldn’t sell this.”
“Yeah, well, there’s Horizons if you’re into…”
“No, you don’t understand. I work for these guys. You can’t resell these. The CD-key isn’t transferable.”
“Uh…”, and the now flustered counter guy thinks quickly, then comes back, self-assured, “Oh, the publisher reset those CD-keys. We call them in.”

I arch my eyebrow. I happen to know no such thing happens, since, um, at some point I would have to code support for it on our end.

“You *sure*?” I ask, trying not to be accustory, trying to let him save some sort of face.
“Uh huh!”

So a week later someone probably bought an MMO expansion pack, brought it home, couldn’t activate it, and posted on a message board somewhere about how we suck. Yay!