Are used games a missed opportunity for Publishers?
There aren’t many companies that sell games that aren’t in the used game business these days. Gamefly jumped in last year, and now Amazon is getting on-board.
That’s clearly an issue for publishers and developers since games aren’t a tiered business like movies, so there is no point in the business that they can be guaranteed a sale, unlike movies.
That said, it’s hard to deny that some of this is the publishers fault. At $60 AAA retail games are probably overpriced compared to actual perceived value, so consumers are going to look for ways to bring down the cost to a level that’s more in line with their expectations.
It’s clear that first-user-free content, such as the extra maps that were provided with Gears of War, are a good way to get your fans to buy your product new. It also creates a sense of value for your content.
But I have to wonder if it wouldn’t make sense to simply decrease the cost of the product at retail and add some of the features a la carte as DLC. Sure, they’d still lose some sales to used copies, but more consumers might also pick up the product at retail. It also means that you might see games appearing in more places than just GameStop, Big Box, and online stores.
Microsoft did end up releasing those Gears of Wars maps as a separate purchasable download. I’m curious how that did for them.
Ultimately DLC helps turning your product from a single event to an ongoing platform that can has some legs beyond the initial sale. And as the flexibility of the type and pricing of downloadable content grows, you can also bundle together that content at a later date for a lower price.
And one day you might even have a tiered business…
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