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Selling pre-owned games is damaging the gaming industry !

Gothic Girl | January 15, 2008 | News | Company 
If you step into any gaming store, you will see a large variety of both new and pre-owned games. But for gaming stores such as Gamestop, selling pre-owned games can often be more important than selling the brand new ones. Why? Because when a new game is sold, part of the profit goes back to the publishers of the game. But when a pre-owned game is sold, 100% of the profit goes to the store. And publishers are not happy with this at all ... especially considering the ridiculously inflated price that pre-owned games (no matter how poor their condition) are being sold for.
Last week GameStop announced Holiday sales up 45%. Games retailers en masse are whoopin’ it up, selling heaps of games. Which is wonderful for them, because, due to the lucrative used-games business they get to sell those little boxes of joy all over again.

The silent fury of publishers toward their retail “partners” is a palpable force in game industry politics. Retailers such as GameStop, with its powerful network of 5,000 frontline stores, are coining up to $1 billion a year in used game revenues in North America alone. Add Europe and you’ve got to think about almost doubling that number.

Publishers don’t see a dime, nor even a eurocent of the money.

But games often turn up second-hand days after on sale date, and can be marked down by as little as $5 off the original asking price. They’re being sold alongside the new product. Given that the retailer is giving Johnny Consumer a store-credit of no more than $15 to $20 for his game, you can see who is making out big on this.

So the publisher-paid ads are paying to promoting hot new games that the publishers spent millions developing but for which they paid dick after the first sale.
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  • 0 thumbs!
    Play ISDF | January 15, 2008
    Well you can't really expect publishers to get cash for pre-owned games, they got cash for the initial sale, after that they don't really have any rights to any cash that may be received for that copy of the game. I can kinda understand why they are a bit annoyed, but all I can say is "too bad, deal with it".
  • 4 thumbs!
    Donnelly | January 15, 2008
    I've stopped buying preowned games from stores, they all look as if they've been used as coasters.
    • 0 thumbs!
      Storm | January 15, 2008
      I agree with you there, ljp. The guys that sell these games most likely do because the condition of it is terrible, or because they need the cash...or both.

      I hardly ever buy pre-owned games. The last one I got was some pool game about 4 years ago for the PS2, and that did not last long. -_-
  • -1 thumbs!
    kik36 | January 15, 2008
    There's another place that takes advantage of this......it's called E-bay. While I personally would never buy a used game, the publisher's got their cash the first round it wouldn't be right to get another chunk the second round. What a customer does with the product after purchase should be their business.

    Edit: I don't buy used games because I have never seen one unscratched, not because I think it's wrong.
  • 0 thumbs!
    Incidnia | January 15, 2008
    I never buy pre-owned games in store any more: One, they cost loads and two, they are usually in horrible condition. I buy and sell all used games online now, seeing as they have descriptions and I can either get them for cheap/sell them for more.


    Anyway, developers can't be angry with this, after they sell that copy once they no longer own the rights to it.
  • 2 thumbs!
    iLLmatic | January 15, 2008
    I'll remember that the next time I'm trading in a crappy game the gaming industry produced.
  • 0 thumbs!
    StabWound | January 15, 2008
    I havent bought a pre owned game in years, the last one i bought was cracked and they refused to give me a refund.
    • 0 thumbs!
      tallteen86 | January 15, 2008
      That sucks -_-

      Meh, I occasionally buy used ones...or at least I did, before I started spending all my money on new releases (usually collector's editions)...and then not on any game at all (Save up for a HD-TV, got it, broke now)
  • 1 thumbs!
    Peano | January 15, 2008
    I used to buy a lot of pre-owned games. On a paper boys wage it's hard to save up for a new game so as a kid with not much cash kicking around pre-owned games were a good send. I don't buy them anymore just because I can usually find offers where I work (2 for £60) and have my staff discount, so it's not worth it for me. But pre-owned games are great, you can pick up some classics at great prices!
  • 2 thumbs!
    synshasa | January 16, 2008
    Buying a pre-owned game is not always bad. Personally I rarely had a bad experience. I buy used or new based on how I feel about game. Just consider this how many times have you bought a game for 60 dollars that was just terrible. Think how less your pain would be if you only paid 20 dollars for it.
  • 1 thumbs!
    Gothic Girl | January 16, 2008
    I never buy used games because they are always so ridiculously priced. The worst I've seen was the other day ... I went into EB Games and saw a pre-owned Super Mario Galazy selling for $99!
    A brand new copy of Super Mario Galazy is only $75!

    Very rarely have I seen a good deal for a pre-owned game. As mentioned in the article, they're usually only a few dollars cheaper than a brand new copy (or even more expensive in Super Mario Galaxy's case).
    I'd rather pay a bit of extra money knowing I've bought a new game that hasn't been damaged, rather than a cheaper pre-owned game that might have been used as a frisbee for a dog.
    • -2 thumbs!
      iLLmatic | January 16, 2008
      Do you have your currency mixed up?
      • 2 thumbs!
        Gothic Girl | January 16, 2008
        Umm ... nope?
        What do you mean?
  • 0 thumbs!
    Chaos | January 16, 2008
    Pre-owned game prices now are ridiculous. I mean, Super Smash Bros. Melee pre-owned is $35. I'd rather pay a little bit more for a brand new game, get all the little booklets, and make sure that there's nothing wrong with it. No finger prints, no scratches, no nothing.
  • -1 thumbs!
    BANDITO ATTACK | January 16, 2008
    thats cool cause they dont get any money from me anyway


    i buy all my shit used tho. every ds/psp/ps2/360 game i own has a yellow sticker.

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