Elite maker David Braben slams pre-owned games retail model
Says they are wrong
The creator of Elite, David Braben, has - at the current Gamecity festival in Nottingham - been expressing his views on shops selling pre-owned games.
As reported by Eurogamer, Braben says: "We've got a lot of retailers eating our lunch and refusing to sell full-priced games. I've been in a shop where I've tried to buy a copy of a relatively recent game, and I've taken an empty box off the shelf and they've given me a pre-owned copy. That, I think, is disgraceful. Not holding stock of new games, substituting them with pre-owned games at the same or much the same price... That is really destroying the shelf-life of our games."
He continues, "The shops are not giving us a way of distinguishing between pre-owned and new. So the shops are essentially defrauding the industry," before going on to call HMV's recent move into selling pre-owned games "shocking".
Braben has a solution - adopting a similar system to the film industry. "My argument is that for every game there are two versions. One is personal, not for resale and it's made abundantly clear you can't sell it. And it's made available for something like GBP 25. And a resale and rental copy, which in film is actually about GBP 80."
As we reported a couple of weeks back, when it emerged that certain developers had begun offering incentives in the form of one-time-only downloads to encourage gamers to buy new, it's a complex issue.
Braben will be perceived by many as being a bit out of touch or draconian since it's very difficult to propose people shouldn't be allowed to do what they like with a product they've paid £40 for.
However, many will also sympathise with his view that it shouldn't be retailers taking the largest cut of the profits by selling more second-hand games than new. After all, selling better value second-hand goods right next to identical, full priced new ones isn't a typical business model for retail outlets.
Gamecity is on until Saturday and will have plenty more speakers and events going on between now and then. If someone stands up and argues the opposing case to Braben's during it, we'll be sure to let you know.
