Real reason why used games are hurting the gaming industry...

[kupomogli]

The Last of Us is a new IP and it seems to be doing quite well.

What about 3D Dot Game Heroes and Demon's Souls? Atlus published them, but it doesn't mean they got the publishing rights for free. Atlus even said they only expected 25,000 from 3D Dot Game Heroes and 150,000 from Demon's Souls, yett instead, sold 160,000 for 3D Dot Game Heroes and 360,000 for Demon's Souls.

Not a new IP, but Castlevania Lords of Shadow. If you've played the game you'll know how well developed of a game it is. Beautiful grahics with a massive amount of detail, great combat system, well voiced. They even had Patrick Stewart voice Zobek and you know he had to cost some money. He probably cost more than the entire game took to develop. Mercury Steam stated in an interview that initial sales were better than Konami expected, better than any other Castlevania game and immediately had them work on a sequel. This is a game that has less than 1.5 million lifetime sales.

Keep thinking of Lords of Shadow, an absolutely amazing looking game and then look at Tomb Raider. Still an amazing looking game, Tomb Raider is one of the best looking games in this generation, but you can't deny that some of the visuals in Lords of Shadow looked incredibly amazing and well detailed. So how is it that Lords of Shadow can sell 1.5 million across both consoles, and then Tomb Raider sells 2.5 million yet is a flop? Or a game like Hitman Absolution graphically doesn't look that great,, gameplay I dunno not a fan, and sells 3.21, and it's a flop?

I don't believe it's an issue with used game sales. I think some companies have terrible management of their resources and really bad sales projections which cost the publisher way more money than if they had reasonable expectations.