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

[Alby_da_Wolf]

Fayceless said:

Alby_da_Wolf said:

@OP:

I can't agree with you.

Used games by themselves are beneficial to the gaming industry, as they contribute to fund new purchases of the more intense gamers.

OTOH, what's harmful is GameStop used games business model, because it uses them to unfairly compete with the new games market and at the same times its huge margin on used games reduce funds available to those intense gamers needing to sell older games to buy new ones.

What GS does isn't illegal, it uses both users' laziness and lack of time and its widespread presence to make them a less convenient offer in return for some time and effort spared compared to other used games channels, but despite being legal, it's nevertheless quite harmful.

But if something must be done, it shouldn't ever damage end-users, that are innocent of this, but just GS (and other companies behaving like it), maybe with rules about commercial exploitment of the used market by subjects different from the consumer.

I'm going to disagree with GameStop being bad, here's why:

They are a gaming store.  The existence of gaming stores is great for gamers, the industry, and smaller developers.  We probably wouldn't have seen Xenoblade Chronicles get a U.S. release without GameStop - Nintendo was timid about and bigger retailers probably were too.  They're a great place to pick up everything you need for gaming, and buy niche games, or older games, that you might not find anywhere else.

However, the existence of gaming stores DEPENDS on those margins from used games.  Margins on new games are far too small to actually run a business on.  There's no "commercial exploitment" going on there, it's no different than selling something to a pawn shop or thrift store.  Wholesale margins on products usually double the retailer's money at full price.  New games don't come close to that, as $45 of every $60 game goes to publishers - only a 33% margin.  You're not going to run a successful business off that, so without used game sales and their high margins, Gaming becomes exlusive to Wal-Mart and Amazon.

@bolded: Yes, this is a very good point, and in general GameStop is behaving in a legit way, BUT it went too far, unbalancing the natural equilibrium between new and used, exclusively towards its own interest and screwing both publishers and end-users too. But this point you mentioned is really an issue that if solved could contribute also to solve the whole problem.