Publishers Frustrated With Second-Hand Sales

Via Joystiq, a look at MCV into the increasing frustration publishers have with second-hand game sales. From the article: "As pressure has increased this year on sell-through and pricing of new releases, so games publishers have become more sensitive about the size of the pre-owned market - which is believed to be worth as much as £50m a year to leading chain GAME and possibly £100m across the market as a whole. Publishers have agreed to discuss privately what action may be possible to stop the trend, either under the auspices of trade body ELSPA or simply via legal protection." We've already reported on Epic VP Mark Rein's opinion on reselling games.

Re:Morons.

[ZephyrXero]

Well if legislators have any sense they'll just laugh at them when they try to take away yet more rights of fair use from the public...but unfortunately, a large portion of Slashdotters (self included) live in America where we aren't so fortunate.

Re:Hold on!

[Spaceman Spiff II]

Well Nintendo DS games sell for about that. Soon after Mario Kart came out, I walked into Best Buy and walked out with $35 less and Mario Kart DS. Also, the Revolution's games are supposed to be "affordable" so I wouldn't be surprised if they came in around there.

But for multi-million dollar budget games, though, do have to recoup the costs somehow, so *those* may not come down in price.

Japan had this for a while

[Myria]

Up until a few years ago, it was illegal to sell used games in Japan. If you have an imported game from this period it's likely it will have a NO RESALE icon on the back. A Japanese court decided it was illegal to do this, but it took an act of Parliament to actually reverse it (their legal system does not have precedent).

The system failed in Japan because it was against consumer rights.

Melissa