Of course it's baby steps. Publishers are terrified, and loaning is only one tiny step from what they fear second most, aside from pirates- a burgeoning used game market.
Publishers and Developers are gaining absolutely no revenue from you doing that. And that's their issue. They want everyone to buy new games, because then they get a cut of it.
Buying second hand props up the $60US/$90AUD new cost though. Without second hand (ie. Steam at the moment) the prices plummet very quickly, $5 for Just Cause 2 for example, do you think GameStop etc. would allow you to buy it new for that price?
No, it's the other way around. Buying second hand denies profit to the publisher, which reduces units sold, which increases the price they have to charge to make any money.
I know that, what I meant was that I'm not seeing much evidence that they're deadly afraid of it. Maybe it's a mistake to judge by console games which have reasonably strong anti-piracy protection, to the point that I've never regarded the getting a fake as a serious possibility. For PC games that's much harder to enforce, but I haven't bought a PC game in years - as I don't play games much and it's a leisure activity rather than a lifestyle, I prefer ones that I can play from the couch rather than at my desk.
