With origin and steam and online registration for everything is it possible to buy and play the Sims 4 used or is the era of buying used games from GameStop or trading in used games over?

You can buy used Sims 4 from Amazon.

the registration codes work? I saw a few offers that said they didn't know if the registration keys would actually work or if they had been used already?

No idea. I guess they must though if the original user has deleted the game from their origin account.

Just get a code for 30 dollars from a trusted site. It's not too much money and at least you can get support.

As far as I know, once registered to an account it is always registered to that account. No used copies. Try to buy it on a sale, that is the perk of digital games.

Couldn't that be a perk for retail games, too?

Honestly, you're going to have to go through so much trouble and effort to find something used now. Game companies are trending towards online download and piracy protection and as a result buying used or sharing games has gone "out of style".

If you can't afford the $70 for the digital download, you can either wait for it to go on sale, or search endlessly for a used version which is not guaranteed to work and probably won't because of the gallery and Origin. And believe me, you want the gallery. Even if Origin is annoying, the ability to look up your favourite house creator's and drop their stuff into your game without even minimizing it is great.

Think of it this way: You're paying once. Yeah, there'll be ex-pacs but it's not like you're paying a recurrent sub for privileges to play.

I'm really happy for you, and I'mma let you finish. But I'm using a borrowed copy of the game and have never had any desire to try to connect to or use the gallery. It's a bit pretentious to try and tell people what they are going to want.

EDIT: I just mentioned this to my friend from whom I borrowed the game and she replied with "What's a gallery?" So it's not just me.

It said mine was used when I got it. The registration code worked just fine.

I wonder if the person who owned it before you registered with the code, though? I'm confused on how it works.

She didn't mean it the way you took it. To suggest, "You're going to want...." is another way of expressing an opinion about how wonderful or how important a feature is to the person suggesting it. It's not meant to tell someone what they want. I've seen this used in many reviews before, but it's also possible that it's not a way of speaking or communicating in all areas where English is spoken.

Then maybe I took it more literally than she meant it, but I did try to lighten it a little by starting the response with a joke so as not to be too harsh xD
Should I have ended it with "lol" instead?

No, I apologize. I was hard on you. I am on the Autism spectrum so you starting with a joke went over my head. People have been nasty to me today, but I shouldn't be cruising around getting angry at strangers.

o 3o, I'm on that spectrum too. could explain my communication problems.

EDIT: I found said comments and have attempted to diffuse the situation in question.

It could, but the problem is retailers have to shell out money for the games and the amount of profit they get for their individual store depends on what they sell the game(s) for. A digital game, however, requires 0 dollars worth in material to make. Generate a code and sell. So you can easily shave off 10-20 dollars and still make a decent profit, since buying codes in bulk to hand out is undoubtedly cheaper than buying physical copies in bulk... Which is why websites can get away with selling 35 dollar codes for a 60 dollar game and still make some cachingcaching.

I know it's off-topic, but I'm :lovestruc loving :lovestruc the autism talk between you two. I wish I could show this to the speech path at work, as in, "See what's possible?". Nicely done! Even without autism, communicating online is even trickier than communicating in person.

No, because the retailer gets a cut from the sales. This is why you see so many sales on digital games, they cut out the middleman. ( Edit: Lil_Puddin explained it better!)

It'll be on sale when GTW comes out, I'm like 90% sure. They always push sales when they put out new content so that people can buy it in a bundle.

Oh emoticons, where would communication via Internet be without you?

I prefer the hand typed emotes because they are soooooo 90's chic. C: