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Squilliam on 03 June 2010
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theRepublic said:
Squilliam said:
Does it hurt the seller in the used market? Yes definately. However it would only in effect be a few dollars in real trade in values as the Gamestop trade value reflects the long term discounted cost price where features like multiplayer are less valuable. In the short term given Gamestops large margins they would be take the majority of the hit as they could not sell the game for $50-55 as is typical but for a lesser amount such as $40-45 depending on loyalty card.

When sales go down they will keep their plan? No that doesn't logically make sense. Given the fact that its tendency is to increase, therefore they must have had some success in an industry sense or more publishers wouldn't be adopting this tactic.

All this is going to do is depress the value of used games, both trade in value and resale value.  Gamestop is going to keep the same margin, they are just going to buy and sell these games for less than before.  It is going to hurt gamers who finance their gaming by selling games.  It is also going to hurt publishers because it is going to push the shelf price of a used game even lower, making it more attractive.

They must have had some success for other publishers to adopt this?  No, this policy hasn't even gone into effect yet.  It starts with their 2011 sports line which hasn't even been released yet, so any publisher copying this is doing it blind.

Gamestop prices games at a long term discounted rate so it wouldn't effect the long term pricing of the used games significantly. Thats why they pay $25 for a $60 game. Gamestop doesn't have perfect market power and the ability to pass all of the costs onto the used game seller so they will take some/most of the hit, any economist would tell you this. If the used seller loses then the used buyer can win and its a balance between these two factors however if the price comes down then the demand goes up so the overall value lost on the used market is not the full $10 but a balanced market rate taking into consideration supply/demand.

Publishers aren't going to do anything which they believe will hurt their own interests. They are apt to experiment however and it appears the experiment has paid off given the fact that exclusive DLC for new buyers has been used in the past and this is an extension upon an already apparantly successful model.

 



Tease.