The games industry is a multimillion-dollar behemoth, currently raking in more cash than Hollywood and growing at an exponential rate. There is no denying that it is the predominant form of contemporary entertainment and looks only set to continue remaining the dominant medium of choice for many years to come.

However, videogames are under threat. A very real and threatening threat that threatens to threaten everything that we hold dear. This threat is real and it is a threat. I am of course referring to USED VIDEOGAMES, the single most dangerous beast the videogame industry has ever faced, and a pervasive peril that could tear at the very fabric of American civilization. 

Used videogames are a truth. An inconvenient truth, if you will. Read on as we tell you about the disgusting truth that is used games. It's so very, very disgusting.

Some will have you believe that used games are a fair part of business and nothing to be alarmed about. These people are WRONG. Such used game apologists should be ignored or better yet, arrested. Although not technically illegal, the sale and purchase of used games should be considered little more than piracy in another, more alluring form.

So-called "honest" businesses like GameStop are no different from child pornography rings, distributing lurid and perverse wares to equally lurid and perverse customers. While we're not suggesting that those who buy used games should be put on the sex offender's register, we do suggest that somebody suggest it.

So, we've established that secondhand games are primarily bought by pedophiles, probably. However, if you're into this sick filth, you likely don't care, so let's talk about the real damage it does. See, used games don't just affect your pocket, a pocket that grows fat off cheap, secondhand gaming kicks. Oh no, it actually affects more people than that, actually!

Have you considered what happens to a publisher when you buy a secondhand game? They lose money! Oh, you might argue that publishers already make money off the original sale of the game, but they don't! In fact, whenever a secondhand game is bought, the original $60.00 transaction disappears from our corporeal plane of existence, erased from history as if it never happened. Kind of like Quantum Leap, but different. We have proven that this happens using scientific evidence, and if you want to see the evidence, we might show it to you later. 

It's not just honest, small-time family businesses like Activision that feel the sting when the Scorpion of Secondhand Games stings it with its stinger. Roughly 500,000,000 development studios have gone bankrupt thanks to the used game market, while US retail chain Wal-mart has been brought to its knees, unable to compete with cheaper games from unscrupulous purveyors of (metaphorically) stolen goods. Last but not least, think of the poor starving black babies in Africa who cultivate the essential plastic used for packaging, growing the beans from which plastic is produced in plastic fields that make plastic.

Looks a little different now, right? Well done, you've gone and murdered little African babies, making you no different from the average child murderer. Do you think Freddy Krueger paid full price for his copy of BioShock? Think again, murderer!

The main issue with secondhand games is that no other industry ever has to deal with a similar problem. Think about it -- have you ever bought a used car, or even heard of a store selling used clothes or music? Of course you haven't! The very idea is preposterous, so why are videogames being singled out like an assassination target?

Let's delve into the grotesque mind of a used game salesman, shall we? The mind of the used game seller is winding, decadent and twisted. Think of them as human sponges, absorbing the hard work and graft of others, before being squeezed (like sponges) and surrendering the water of ill-gotten videogames into the thirsty throats of vagabonds and parasites. Many of them are foul perverts and brutes, who rough up ordinary people and force them to buy their seedy wares. Often at gunpoint.

We don't want to sound alarmist or sensationalist, but secondhand games are basically terrorism. We have no justified reasoning to back this claim up, but we do know that terrorism is a bad thing, and that's enough for us. If you wander into GameSpot and buy Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, a patriot is one thing you will not be. You will actually be Al-Qaeda I Think I Spelled That Right! Do you want 9/11 to happen all over again? Well put down that used game, and buy it brand new instead!

Hey now, hey, hey, come on hey, hey, I've not got a heart of stone. I realize some of you are poor, or simply greedy, and the lure of cheaper games is tempting, no matter how reasonably priced and rather inexpensive videogames happen to be. The promise of cheap gaming possibly overrides all the damage we've talked about so far ... so let's talk about the serious harm it can cause to YOU, the consumer. Oh yes, you thought that you would get away scot-free, right? NOT RIGHT AT ALL ACTUALLY! Purchasing secondhand software puts you at risk as well. Let's examine how ...

In November of 2004, Susan Winters, who asked to remain anonymous, was walking home from her workplace, a pub in East Kent, late at night. It was a night like any other, except you're not beaten, raped and left for dead on nights like any other, which was what Susan Winters was, so it was actually a night of beating, raping and leaving for dead. Though she survived, Susan was left physically and emotionally scarred by her ordeal and can no longer leave the house without supervision.

Interestingly, when she went to the police station to report her attack that night, crawling painfully from the dark alley where she was left grievously injured, she was found to be in possession of a number of secondhand games that she had bought for her son earlier in the day, most notably Shadow Hearts, God of War and Castle Crashers. One has to ask the simple question: Would the attack have taken place if Susan Winters had just said no to used games? We'll never know the answer, but what we do know is that this attack occurred on a night where she had not, and on many of Susan's attack-free days, no secondhand games were in sight. The dots are there; we merely have to connect them with lines of logic.

The vicious effects of used gaming don't just stop at something so minor as rape. One man in Kentucky purchased so many secondhand titles over a three-day period that his head turned into glass. In Atlanta, a crazed teenager was discovered attempting to put Sonic Unleashed into a syringe so that he could inject it into his bloodstream like some sort of daft drug. The madness of secondhand gaming has got into the brain stem of modern society, turning it mad.  

Used games are the cancer that is killing the metaphorical Kylie Minogue that is our humble game industry. Something must be done, because if this Satanic Communism is allowed to continue, who knows where it will end? Some kind of recession probably! Now that you are armed with the truth, we hope that you realize exactly what is at stake here. In short, don't be a clit -- support the game industry with the loyalty and respect that publishers like EA and Activision show their customers every single day. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I just saw a man offering a woman his coat to romantically shield her from the rain and I must put a stop to it ... SHE DID NOT FUCKING PAY FOR THAT COAT!