14 DAY TRIAL // Both developers and video game publishers have long talked about the evils of the used games market and now one leading studio has put a number on the losses that it has suffered because of sales of second hand game copies.
Guillaume de Fondaumiere, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Quantic Dream, has told GamesIndustry.biz that, “I would say that the impact that the recession had, especially on AAA games on console, was the rise of second hand gaming. And I think this is one of the number one problems right now in the industry.”
He added, “I can take just one example of Heavy Rain – we basically sold to date approximately two million units, we know from the trophy system that probably more than three million people bought this game and played it.”
The executive believes that the company has lost between five and ten million British Pounds because of the used game market.
Heavy Rain was launched during 2010 and was considered an innovative game because of the way it used acting and motion to deliver its story.
Publishers have begun offering a number of incentives to gamers in order to persuade them that buying new copies of major titles is more advantageous than waiting for used copies to appear on the market.
It seems that the most successful initiative is to lock out multiplayer for those who get a game used while selling codes that can unlock the content.
Electronic Arts has implemented the Online Pass concept in most of its sports games and Ubisoft has taken a similar approach.
It's possible that Sony will include something similar in future releases.
At the moment Quantic Dream is working with Sony on a new game but no details have been offered on the genre or the story.