Tag: used games

GameStop Laments the Second-Hand Sales Business

gamestopIt’s no secret that GameStop does some serious business with its used-game sales racket; even in an industry that is seeing a steady decline in this rough economy, the sales giant is actually seeing a profit spike. Normally people don’t like to choke the golden goose, but recently a GameStop “spokesperson” named Niall Lawlor spoke very candidly about the company’s stance on its lucrative practice.

“We discovered the used business was a way of preserving our margins,” Lawlor said. “We don’t like being in the used business, it’s very difficult to manage. If we hadn’t got the used business, we wouldn’t be there.”

That’s sort of an odd position for a GameStop spokesperson to take, isn’t it? For a company that single-handedly started the trade-in scheme, bemoaning the method by which you pull in ridiculous amounts of cash is a little strange. GameStop quickly tried to stem the comments by maintaining that Lawlor was an impostor, but that would be kind of hard to pull off at an industry event. What do you guys think? Any opinion on this strange bit of news?

Source: 1up via GamesIndustry.biz and Kotaku

The Economics of Gaming

MoneyWhen I was a kid, I remember lugging around a case of 20 or so NES games with me to my day care during the summer. The place that my brother and were imprisoned at had one bonus about it: a row of NES systems to keep the kids occupied, herded like sheep and left to stare bleating in front of small television screens.

Oddly enough there’s only thing to me that’s strange about this scenario. And no, it’s not the fact that I can’t even remember anything else about this period of my life except beating Mega Man 3 in front of onlookers, or the fact that the day care had all these NES units in the first place. The weirdest part of the whole thing for me? As a little kid, how did I afford to buy that many NES games for myself?

If there’s one drawback to this otherwise beloved hobby of ours, it’s that video games don’t grow on trees or drop out of the sky for our enjoyment. These little boxes of contained and bridled joy are ass expensive, especially when you add them up over time. Continue reading The Economics of Gaming

5 Things Hurting the Video Game Industry

One look at my entertainment center or my favorites in Firefox reveals that I am in love with video games. It’s really not that hard to hide. On top of being in love with the games themselves, though, I am also madly in love with the culture of gaming and the history behind it.

Looking forward to the future, I continually fall in love with this lifestyle even more. However, there are a few trends that are starting to emerge that I am simply not a fan of. While these ultimately won’t break gaming, they are definitely detrimental to the overall community. Here are 5 things that are currently wrong with the video game industry.
Continue reading 5 Things Hurting the Video Game Industry