Whyos

Last week, there was a pretty specific analysis of GameStop’s used game business in the WSJ (with the slightly annoying flaw that the writer seems to have conflated “gross” and “net” in the sentence emphasizing high gross margin on used games vs. single digit retail expectations).

I like the Gears of War 2 model that’s mentioned, of including in new games a single-use code for a map pack download with value approximate to the discount the user would get from buying the title new. This should be quite good for the publisher and the retailer. For the publisher, it simply feels fair, as the game that’s bought, played for a week, then sold back to GameStop has a value that’s slightly diminished, in proportion to the lower re-sale price of the used title. -The newer used title is still $5-$10 cheaper, but it’s diminished by $5-$10 worth of content. The publisher/developer still doesn’t make money on the used product sale, but this has to feel better for them than having the exact same title at retail, costing less and providing no revenue to them.

The benefit to the retailer is that it encourages developers to actively produce incremental content to drive sales. I know from experience at Electronics Boutique that a great tool for encouraging additional game sales is such special content, but also that it’s damned difficult to get a dev team, likely in the throws of crunch time, to produce material targeted to this end. -They often won’t prioritize the marketing people enough to facilitate their ends at that point. But addressing the used game issue is a visceral concern to game developers, and one that can get them to reassess priorities. If this model gets broader adoption, and is thoughtfully exploited, it should mean more incremental content, likely actively modifying over the life of the original title.