14 DAY TRIAL // Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick has just talked about pre-owned games, and what strategies publishers like his company should take in order to stop people from trading in titles or buying used copies.
Besides sharing some insight on Activision's strategy, Kotick also took a shot at rival EA, and its own Project $10, which offers customers that buy new games 10 dollars worth of content, which must be paid for if you buy that same game used.
"We can do some of these things that EA and others have done, but we actually don't think its in the best interest of the gamer, and so we've chosen not to," he told Joystiq. "We're not doing anything to suppress used games today.
"What we've tried to do is to really support our audiences and, you know, when you talk to players, they like the idea of having a currency."
"They like the idea of being able to take a game they no longer want to play and use it to get a credit to buy new games."
This is by far one of the most sensible and gamer-friendly statements that Kotick released in quite some time.
The Activision boss has often been quoted as saying that he wants to take the fun out of making games and run the most profitable business around.
Going back to the pre-owned games problem, Kotick is confident that with quality content launched post-release, the used game market can easily be defeated and players will hold onto their copies.
"The best way to keep people engaged in your game experience is keep giving them more great content. As business models evolve, as the way you distribute content evolves, as the ability to do things online changes in terms of pricing or trial or sample," he said.
"I think we've definitely always been out in front of the rest of our competitors. But I think you always need to be sensitive to that relationship and not crossing the line to a place where the customer feels like they have been taken advantage of."
While Kotick is most definitely right, don't forget that post-release content for Activision games, like Call of Duty or other such things, most often costs more than the average, so even if some people are still holding onto their copies, the company is still making a killer profit, even bigger than EA's Project $10.