Frontier founder and creator of Elite, David Braben, has said that he thinks HMV's move into selling pre-owned games is "shocking", and that the increasing emphasis on the pre-owned market is a serious threat to the games industry.

Speaking to our sister site Eurogamer.net at the GameCity festival in Nottingham, Braben said: "The shops are not giving us a way of distinguishing between pre-owned and new. So the shops are essentially defrauding the industry."

Braben, in Nottingham to talk about the making of Frontier's WiiWare hit Lost Winds, acknowledges that the prevalence of pre-owned games is one factor pushing his company towards digital distribution.

"We've got a lot of retailers eating our lunch and refusing to sell full-priced games. I've been in a shop where I've tried to buy a copy of a relatively recent game, and I've taken an empty box off the shelf and they've given me a pre-owned copy. That, I think, is disgraceful," he said. "Not holding stock of new games, substituting them with pre-owned games at the same or much the same price... That is really destroying the shelf-life of our games."

On HMV's move into selling pre-owned titles - the first non-specialist retailer to do so - Braben said: "That is shocking, and I think the games industry has to do something about it soon."

"There are a lot of studies that suggest it's anywhere between 8 and 12 or 15 times a pre-owned game goes round. If you think that the industry's getting a tiny percentage of those 12 or 15 sales - typically from the sale of a GBP 40 game, the industry only gets GBP 20 anyway, in round figures. That is lost to the system," he said.

He's not a proponent of DRM - "personally, I detest DRM," he said - but understands that publishers are being forced into a corner. "Look at EA. They have been crucified for the admittedly draconian DRM on Spore, but they're in a very difficult position. They need to do something."

Instead, he argues that the games industry should move to a similar model to that used by the film industry for DVD and video sales. "They brought out rental copies, and copies not for resale or rental. That distinction is really important in the video market, and all of the chains honour it because they know it's more than their life's worth not to," he said.

"My argument is that for every game there are two versions. One is personal, not for resale and it's made abundantly clear you can't sell it. And it's made available for something like GBP 25. And a resale and rental copy, which in film is actually about GBP 80."

"The key thing is to find a way where actually we give the benefit to people who have original copies," he argued. "It's a very small step to make games distinguishable - it can be done with serial numbers. I'm not talking DRM or anything draconian, but we can give stuff to the person who has a new game, and we can start tipping the balance."

Braben also thinks that the pre-owned market, along with piracy, is pushing developers and publishers towards exclusively online gaming strategies.

"This isn't really special pleading, it's a practical point of view, because otherwise the industry will be forced to go 100 per cent online, and I also find that a shame," Braben said. "I love single-player games. Getting a beautifully crafted single player experience is something that's going to be killed if we're not careful, because the online validation of online games means that they tend to get pre-owned a lot less."

link is http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/pre-owned-market-is-defrauding-the-industry

what "like the movie industry" i guess in england you cant resell your movies, i know its not as big of a market as video games but its a definite market.

one of the more evil solutions that is drm free has been tried in florida, where turning in cd/dvd/games requires registrations and waiting period as well as criminal background checks before it can change hands to a bonded reseller which all are suposed to be.

outside of that they have to build in value that keeps the player from wanting to ditch the game, so it dries up resell.

Funny how it's not doing the same to other industries as well.

I despise the used-pawn shop that is Gamestop for these practices.

I really wish that only new games could be sold. And games could be brought back and sold only six months after release, as by then, the vast majority of games are done selling.

Well, if you buy a game and you don't like it you can trade it in within 24 hours. The retailer has to take it back. Although the consumer can't get his money back. He has to choose an other game that he might like. Problem is the retailer has a pre-owned game that's 1 day old. I don't think it's fair to label this game as pre-owned and sell it for €50 instead of €60.

I came in here ready to rip the OP to shreds and while I do disagree especially with the part the title comes from other parts of the article make at least one decent point: used game stores selling used games for prices only $5 less than new is ridiculous.

But that is only the fault of stupid/uncaring buyers. It doesn't HURT retailers for used game stores to make more money. If anything, overpriced used games HELP new retailers because I know I'm less likely to buy a used game if I barely save any money by doing so. I'd rather have a shiny new game with a perfect box that still has the manual in it.

As for the complaint about used game stores that don't sell new games as well: come the fuck on. This happens in plenty of industries.

Blah blah blah, wah wah wah.

I guess we're all lucky that Detroit and Tokyo don't expect us to crush our cars when we're done with them. God knows how much the used car market eats into their bottom line.

Some of these developers need to pull their heads out of their asses and realize that if you make a good product, charge a fair price for it, and don't try to screw the customer at every turn, you'll get sales and make money. The used game business is no different than any other used business; it serves a great purpose for those that don't have enough money to buy every game brand new while it also puts money back into the system as people who buy new games sell their old games and use that money to purchase another new game.

The short-sighted nature of some people is really appalling.

Don't blame the used game retailers, blame stupid customers for that.

The problem is that you can't "fix" stupid customers. They will always exist. Unfortunately, the developer is the one who gets hurt by them in this particular case.

Well if video games weren't so expensive in the first place then we wouldn't have to go through this. Just actually drop the price of games when your supposed to and we'll be fine.

Until then I'll continue to buy used games to make statements against certain devs and help my wallet.

If the industry didn't make games that would make people want to return them then we would be all set.