Whyos

Bijan Sabet followed up a tweet pondering the future of libraries with a post including the feedback he had received. Some of the responses were interesting visions, while  some simply crowed the death of the printed word as the end of libraries. A fair amount of what I’ve been called upon to do since 2001 is evaluation of how physical retail can continue to have value in a world of digital distribution. -I dealt with this specifically as VP of Business at Electronics Boutique, and since then in a consulting role for various initiatives. Amusingly, the redundancy of libraries and of video game retail stores ends up being sort of the same issue at this point in history: Read More »

I posted last week about the apparent entry of several retailers into the business of buying-in and selling used videogames, and someone very insightful in this area mentioned that it would be interesting to see whether someone trading in games at Amazon would put their credit back into new game purchases. He’s right, because this could be pivotal to next steps, if these retailers are successful. -GameStop’s argument is that buying-in pre-owned product is part of a healthy cycle driving new games sales, and generalist retailers getting involved in the model does sort of dilute that benefit.
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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. Read More »