Getting used to it | This Week in Business
This Week in Business is our weekly recap column, a collection of stats and quotes from recent stories presented with a dash of opinion (sometimes more than a dash) and intended to shed light on various trends. Check every Friday for a new entry.
Monday was a day the games industry had been waiting for a long time, as UK retailer GAME reportedly informed staff that it would be exiting the pre-owned game market, and would stop accepting customer trade-ins of games beginning February 16.
There was a time when this would have been cause for celebration in the industry, which may sound absurd in 2024 but not half as absurd as the vitriolic way otherwise respectable games industry executives talked about used games a couple generations ago.
QUOTE | "OK, so basically the industry now has the used-game virus." – In a 2009 blog post during his free-to-play Acclaim days, David Perry compared second-hand sales to a disease and said used game stores were "stabbing the industry in the back."
QUOTE | "One of the greatest things about digital distribution is what it does to reduce the used game market. I hope digital distribution stabs the used game market in the heart." – In 2011, Obsidian chief creative officer Chris Avellone indulges in violent fantasies about a world where players can't trade their games in .
You see? Video games don't make people violent, but used video games sure seem to.
When they weren't getting needlessly stabby about used games, industry execs offered arguments against it that could be described as foolishly simple-minded or cynically self-interested, depending on your point of view.
QUOTE | "We believe used games aren't in the consumer's best interest. Describe another form of entertainment that has a vibrant used goods market. Used books have never taken off. You don't see businesses selling used music CDs or used DVDs. Why? The consumer likes having a brand-new experience and reliving it over and over again. If you create the right type of experience,
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