I said Millions in plural.  The link you made said million as singular.  Maybe we have a different understanding of English.

The market is alreayd built.  Games on Demand for 360, PSN for Playstation.  Its already there and I am sure they know exactly how much sales they get compared to retail.  You do know we are talking about console games right.  Where a developer has to go through the console maker infrastructure.  I really do not know where your train of reasoning is going.

Botton line is that I never said retail is slaughtering developers.  I stated developers need the retail market.  I really do not understand why this concept is so hard for you to understand.  You act as if developers can just make people want to purchase digital because thats the way they want to go.  If it was that simple we would not even have a physical disk to load games in this upcoming gen.  I am sure MS wanted to go that route but thought it was too risky.

I actually agree with the OP and I also agreed with Microsoft's policy... to an extent.

Microsoft wanted to charge you for playing a used game after you've already bought it pre-owned. Fine fair enough, but the problem is that we DON'T know that Microsoft were going to give some of that profit to the publisher. According to EA Microsoft were not planning to distribute part of that second hand resale to the publisher.

I actually agree that some sort of middle ground has to be reached between the publisher and the consumer. At this point I can see Microsoft and Sony trying to encourage digital sales on their online stores; that automatically enforces DRM.

In terms of hard copy sales, you have to remember that second hand sales are part of an industry that supports thousands of jobs, and a lot of people can't afford games at retail. Thats something that can't be ignored. But I do think more needs to be done to support developers and publishers, however maybe DRM is not the answer...

I think the answer is rather than forcing DRM on the consumer, Sony and Microsoft should incentive new purchases. Things like pre-order DLC, online passes, or digital purchases are the way to go imo. But I do agree more should be done to support publishers and developers; however Microsft's DRM policy benefited themselves, so theres no love lost by abandoning that policy in my view.

Maybe we do, because it never said "million" at all. Maybe we have a different understanding of numbers, too, because "mid 7 digits" means millions to me.

You do know that on Steam developers have to go through Valve's infrastructure, right? What is your point?

Because the retail market and used games go hand in hand. Because physical products and ownership also go hand in hand. I really do not understand why this concept is so hard for you to understand. You act as if developers have no control over what people want to buy. Apparently in your strange version of the English language where "mid 7 digits" does not mean multiple millions, the word "incentive" also does not exist.

It's worth noting that my previous link was Capcom talking. Do know what sort of stuff they release on XBLA and PSN? Largely HD remasters and remakes of old games. If they can spend millions making Super Street Fighter II HD Remix, which - let's face it - has a pretty limited audience, then heavier hitters could easily go digital if only for, say, the first month or so, get the early adopter's money with a much better breakdown in favor the publisher, and then hit the retail market later. That would limit the amount of damage that is supposedly being done by used games.

I'm not doubting that Gamestop's practice of pushing used over new is doing actual damage. But if it is, the problem is with the industry punishing consumers rather than punishing Gamestop.

This hasn't been the case for any product they've done studies on. So i'm interested why you think it's different in videogames.  Every study from Cars, to books, to clothes show that a healthy used market increases sales of new products.

Used games ALLOW more unique games and developers to take more risks.   Why?  Because if i buy that new $60 game i'm not sure about and it sucks.  I can sell it for $45.

Otherwise i'm going to only stick to my core games constatly afraid i'm going to get burned for $60 with no recourse.

The lack of variety is due to publisher being myotpic and thinking everything needs to be a big blockbuster with gigantic budgets.

Also don't be shocked when you find out the Steam community market is going to end up being a trojan for used game sales.

Do you really think any retail company would go for this.  Do you really think such a plan right now would actually be successful.  Just throwing this out there, what do you think you people who love your game ownership so much would do if the retail chains decided to not stuck games that went this route.  Do you think Gamestop would be all ok playing second fiddle to such a scheme.  I know I can throw out some wild ones but thats right up there

I guess this is where you are not getting it.  The retail and used game market use to help developers because it was snergistic.  In todays climate that is no longer the case.  You keep talking about game ownership but who is taking away your ownership.  Never during this converstaion was this an issue.  The 2nd hard market now competes with New games which is the differnce we face today.  There was never a time in history where you could so easily trade your game to millions of people.  There was never a point in time where just about any company that sell games also sold used games.  The market has changed and it has not changed to benefit the creators.  As I have mentioned many times, there needs to be a balance or there will be changes you may or may not like.  We already see those changes and their will be more to come.  All these companies in the red isnt because of bad management.  Its because their expect today to be like 1999 but the market doesnt support the kind of sells developers and publishers expect.  Instead games will need to change their distribution. Digital, Eposidic, Microtransaction, free to play. 

Last but not least you really should look at the lifetime highest sells on PSN and 360.  There is no way those types of sells can support mid to AAA type of games.  Hell they barely support Indie games and arcade games.

I hear this argument for used games but then I went into Best Buy the other day and they had a bunch of games for 20 bucks new.  They also had the same games used and they were mostly 3 bucks cheaper.  The used market isnt something really needed because games waterfall pretty quickly after a month of sales.  If they are not selling good at all, after 2 weeks you can get them 20 dollar cheaper.  Usually the used games are not that much cheaper at this point either and I have seen a lot of occasions where the used game price is more expensive.

Jesus fucking Christ. That is the very definition of bad management!

And what are you even arguing at this point? When I say that publishers and platform holders need to entice gamers to go digital, you say NO GAMERS DONT WANNA AND GAMESTOP NO LIKE IT! Then you constantly repeat that games need to go digital, when according to you... they can't.

Did it ever occur to you that indie and arcade games tend to sell less than AAA games because the audience for them is simply narrower, not because of the method of distribution? If the GTAs and CODs and Halos were digital only, they wouldn't be limited to whatever The Walking Dead managed to sell because that's just the maximum possible size of the digital market. They would utterly smash digital sales records. State of Decay just cruised past 500k sales on XBLA alone in about two weeks. That's 500k sales, with no cost of manufacture, no retailers taking a cut, no price protection to worry about. Digital works. It can work for exclusively digital releases. It can work in conjunction with retail. It works for those who make it work. Those who can't survive with this range of options available to them will just have to wither and die.

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.

Once more I agree with Badger Gnome  and Kasz.

But let me underline the issues once more:

- unless it's totally twisted, used goods market is always beneficial to the new goods one

- GameStop twisted the used market, but MS tried to solve this screwing everybody. What's worse is that if it managed to get away with it, it would probably have ended up making a deal with GS for the business of selling the "reactivation" of used games so rewarding who was just the first offender and screwing again the end-user.

- Some people are blinded because they think ditching MS proposal means losing some good features, but those good features can still be implemented as an incentive for those VOLUNTARILY choosing the new system and regularly checking online their games, without forcing those that prefer the old one (or that are forced to use it, always or sometimes).

@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.