Used Games are Damaging

In the first of a weekly opinion column Next-Gen.Biz editor-in-chief Colin Campbell takes a look at the trade that’s costing this business over $1 billion a year.

Last week GameStop announced Holiday sales up 45%. Games retailers en masse are whoopin’ it up, selling heaps of games. Which is wonderful for them, because, due to the lucrative used-games business they get to sell those little boxes of joy all over again.

The silent fury of publishers toward their retail "partners" is a palpable force in game industry politics. Retailers such as GameStop, with its powerful network of 5,000 frontline stores, are coining up to $1 billion a year in used game revenues in North America alone. Add Europe and you’ve got to think about almost doubling that number.

Publishers don’t see a dime, nor even a eurocent of the money.