Used videogame/video game revenues dilema.

[BreakABone]

Awesome! My least favorite movement in gaming. I get to rant about this almost every week on the podcast.

That said, Project 10/PSN Pass/uPlay Passport/whatever company X calls it. Its shoring up a problem, that wouldn't be a problem if people focused on the actual problem and not the bottomline.

That's a fun sentence, but really this exists because most game companies are bleeding money. Most of it from the ballooning cost of HD development, the other is from chasing the Holy Grail that is Call of Duty, but the fact is they need a way to find another source of revenue. This is why we saw the emergence of DLC this generation, which isn't bad if done right. But then you have people like Capcom who just has you pay for content that's already on the disc.

So companies wanted to find another way to make money, and they say that GameStop is doing remarkable business so why not cut in on a piece of that pie.

The problem with that is numerous, but the first is that is 10 bucks really worth it to most people? At the end of the day, you will just limit your potential audience for online in general. which is a tough market to break anyhow.

The other one, even though the program is relatively new. We haven't seen an increase in new game sales for any game that offer it nor have we seen much in the way of increased profit for companies using it.

I'm sure they make some money, but who knows.

The biggest problem however, as Gekko pointed out, is it screws consumers on almost every level.

-Want to rent or borrow the game from a friend. Pay 10 bucks to get the whole experience or don't. Its potentially one less customer.
-People buy less used games, means stores/companies buy less used games. There's ton of gamers who use the trade-in system to continue their hobby and purchase new games. If that segment of the market dries up, used and new game sales go down.