Publishers Are Supporting Rentals to Eliminate Second Hand

In the long running fight against the second hand market for video games it seems that big publishers like Electronic Arts and Ubisoft are now interested in making the rental market more attractive via retailers like Blockbuster.

Gerry Butler, who is the commercial director at Blockbuster, told MCV that, “We have ramped up the rental side of our business and we have got an awful lot of support from publishers. Publishers like renting as it takes away from trade-ins.”

One of the advantages of the rental market is that it makes a direct contribution to the revenue of publishers, something that does not always happen with the pre-owned game space, despite initiatives like the Ten Dollar Project.

Butler says that with such a huge number of big releases coming this fall most gamers do not have the income to get them all but they can opt for a monthly rental subscription from Blockbuster to catch up and allows them to actually buy the game if they like it, with the rental fee deducted.