Publishers Actually Profit from Used Game Sales

For a long time, videogame publishers have been rallying against the practice of selling used games in specialty stores, saying that they undermine the industry by limiting the amount of money developers and publishers get from the public.

Recently, special offers have appeared, which can only be taken advantage off by the first buyer of a game, like vouchers for a piece of downloadable content released as soon as a game is out. But it seems that publishers are quick to forget the positive effects that used games have on their business.

Marc Mondhaschen is the director of Used Games at specialist retailer Game Crazy and he talked to IGN about the way his company does business and about the impact of used games.

He stated that “We did a study not too long ago for a very large vendor who we managed to figure out for them 20 percent of their sales inside the first 28 days were paid for with trade dollars. So you got 20 points of their sales that wouldn't happen unless we had a trade business going. And that's specialty retail. Game specialty retail is maybe a third of the channel, 35 percent of the channel. So you got 10 percent of your sales that wouldn't happen unless somebody was out there trading games with your customers.”

So, at least 10% of the sales of new titles, especially those highly visible and that attract a wide range of players, are a direct result of the used game trade. There's even a more indirect relation, with Marc saying that specialty retailers, like Game Crazy and GameStop, are able to exist and sell more niche titles, like Katamari Damacy, because of the profits they make on used game sales. So, publishers not only get direct sales from money generated by used games but they also get a chance to sell videogame titles that might otherwise go unnoticed.