One of the ever-present demons of the gaming industry is second-hand sales through outlets like GameStop. Some publishers like EA and THQ have turned to online passes to drum up some money from purchasers of used games. Guillaume de Fondaumiere, founder of Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream, believes that second-hand sales harm the industry and could possibly harm retail distribution in the future.
“I would say that the impact that the recession had, that the most important impact especially on AAA games on console, was the rise of second hand gaming. And I think this is one of the number one problems right now in the industry. I can take just one example of Heavy Rain,” he told GI.biz. “We basically sold to date approximately two million units, we know from the trophy system that probably more than three million people bought this game and played it. On my small level it's a million people playing my game without giving me one cent.”
In fact, de Fondaumiere estimates that Quantic Dream has missed out on €5 ($6.8) to €10 ($13.7) million in royalties due to used game sales.
“Now I know the arguments, you know, without second hand gaming people will buy probably less games because they buy certain games full price, and then they trade them in etc etc. Well I'm not so sure this is the right approach and I think that developers and certainly publishers and distributors should sit together and try to find a way to address this,” he continued.
“Because we're basically all shooting ourselves in the foot here. Because when developers and publishers alike are going to see that they can't make a living out of producing games that are sold through retail channels, because of second hand gaming, they will simply stop making these games. And we'll all, one say to the other, simply go online and to direct distribution. So I don't think that in the long run this is a good thing for retail distribution either.”
He admits that maybe game publishers should try to meet consumers halfway in order to make used games less lucrative.
"Now are games too expensive? I've always said that games are probably too expensive so there's probably a right level here to find, and we need to discuss this altogether and try to find a way to I would say reconcile consumer expectations, retail expectations but also the expectations of the publisher and the developers to make this business a worthwhile business,” he closed.
Is de Fondaumiere correct? Or is there too much doom and gloom in his predictions?
