I agree with you 100%. 

Yeah, that explains why Blockbuster seems to have like 40 copies of some movies.

Still, i wonder why they're able to sell those rental copies after like a month.

For those wondering, games sold as rentals are sold under a specific license that costs the rental retailer about $200 per rental copy.

So, in a sense, the rental games are "covered" as extra income for the publisher. Its really the used game sales that hurt the industry, not the rentals, although some genres are probably hurt more by rental issues than others.

There is probably a different agreement for resales of those videos they got for dirt cheap with the studio probably getting a cut on that too, depending on hold old the movie is.

Don't forget that resale of used copies of recent movies hurts Blockbuster renting business ( the earlier they sell those movies for cheap, the less likely people are to rent instead of buying..)

Still it seems to me like this would be a perfect way to counter sales of used games.

The business of selling used games thrives because of people buying games new on release day and reselling those shortly there after. Those people are not doing anything different from renting the game.

Make widely available cheap rental of games that includes royalties sharing with the publishers and those people will most likely move to renting ( especially if royalty sharing allow renting outlets to have a lot more copies available on release day).

Once they do, the main source of used games sold shortly after games releases will be gone and all will be back to normal......

PS : I can't believe Gamefly pays 200$ per game when I have been offered to keep for 40$ a game they shipped me on release day, that would be a huge loss for them. That offer came 4 days after the game release....

I think the real problem is why don't people go back to old games?

People go back to reread old books, people go back to listen to old cds... etc

Could it be that just the games just aren't good enough currently?

That 99% of "Epic game stories" would be regulated to saturday morning cartoon or straight to DVD release?

The best way to combat Gamestop's practice, is for publishers to offer gamers some options, because if Gamestop didn't do it, consumers would goto eBay, Amazon and a host of other options to offload old games. Heck, even flea markets...This is capitalism, so they need to stop whining and get fesh ideas out there. Publisher need to put DRM on game disc to be require to have the disc in the machine, and try to find a way for them to get a piece of the action, and btw...having video games been making RECORD profits y-o-y? Are they pulling a page from the oil industry?

Yes. That's the only B.S. I'm seeing here. Everything else is legit.

nice comment.

Ah, I guess I was right after my stealth edit.

More than likely, as was said with blockbuster, is that there is a licensing fee associated with any given game, and the publishers indeed get a cut of the profits.

It works the same way in the actual movie theatre business:

Warner Brothers (or whomever made it) makes a movie called "The Dark Night" - Theatres pick the movie up to show, but must pay 80% of their gross receipts to WB for the licensing fee under their contract. 80% rate lasts for 2 weeks.

After 2 weeks, the contract can be, and usually is, re-negotiated and changed to a lower rate. This is why (if you look into the movie industry, as I do very often) that many movies get dropped after 2 weeks: The theatre doesn't have the user base to market a given movie, and would rather go to another movie, or feels that the terms of the agreement aren't good.

Likewise, the longer a movie is out, the royalty rate/licensing fee drops considerably. This is why you have Dollar Theaters in the USA - the licensing fees are so minute for a movie 3+ months old, that a theater can make the same amount of money by charging $1 as a major multiplex can at $9 a ticket. This is also why movie food is so expensive: They make whatever they charge on the food, but not the movie ticket.

So having said all of that, I assume rentals are indeed the same way: Blockbuster produces a SKU readout (similar to a movie theater's ticket count) to ensure that proper revenue cuts are assured. It can be done, trust me.

So what happens when they sell a game? They are selling the licensing/viewing rights to the individual, and most likely then giving the distributor a cut on the sale, just like if the game was at retail.

Now, as for rocketpig's argument about used games: The issue isn't that used games are bad, but that Gamestop is bad. They are inherantly focused on used games, and NOT new games. Go to any GameStop in America: 50% of the items they have are used. Where I live, it's even worse, because they FAIL to purchase new games unless you pre-order! So 80% of the time, you can only get a game used - which leaves the distributor out of the loop, and murders them from getting compensation out of the game.

This is why digital distribution, despite it's flaws, is becoming so popular. Any developer makes a larger bit of money via DD as they do at retail. There are no used copies, and when that comes a long, the developer/publisher/distributor will manage, and compensate for it.

Record gross, not record profits.  Pretty big difference there.  Dare I say... critical difference.