14 DAY TRIAL // The videogames industry has been talking quite a bit lately about the used game market. They have been vilified by publishers as one of the reasons of the limited growth the industry has seen in 2008. The idea is that gamers who get GTA IV or Gears of War 2 from someone who already played the game or from GameStop are not delivering any revenue to the developers and publishers of the game.
The same used games market has been seen as a source of growth by most gamers, who are pointing out that they might be getting less new titles if they could not use the revenue derived from selling their older games. The discussion is far from being over but until then, a new entity seeks to attract the support of both publishers and gamers by aiming to do something totally different with used games.
Donate Games is a new charitable foundation seeking to draw revenue from used game sales. The money will then be used to boost the care and research directed to the so called “orphan diseases,” those medical conditions affecting a very small percent of the population of the world.
Donate Games makes its pitch by asking some rather easy to answer questions - “Are you tired of trading in your used games at retail stores for pennies on the dollar? Are you looking for a new site to purchase used games at low prices? Do you want to help change the lives of people around the world?”
Donate Games has been set up by Jim Carol and his wife Cynthia. Jim has worked in the IT industry. Their son was diagnosed and treated for a rare disease, called Philadelphia Chromosome. The initiative is set to allow other patients to benefit from the same level of support and treatment.
At the moment, you can go to the website of Donate Games and you can donate a sum of money or a few games you are no longer playing. The foundation is not reselling games, as the basic infrastructure has not been set up yet.