GameStop CEO: DLC Isn’t Deterrent to Used Games Trade

[radio667]

from edge-online.com .......... Publisher attempts to make an impact on the sale of second hand games by using DLC to create long-term value or encourage new purchases doesn’t work, according to GameStop CEO Dan DeMatteo.

"Through our years in the used business, we have learned that the second-hand user is a value-oriented consumer... we don't believe that a $10 add-on piece of DLC is compelling to a used game buyer," he said, in reference to schemes such as Mass Effect 2’s Cerberus Network.

he Cerberus Network is free to gamers who buy new copies of Mass Effect 2 with the use of a redeemable code inside the box – this code can only be used once and allows for access to free and paid for DLC. Users who buy the game second-hand have to pay an extra $10 for access to Cerberus.

"We can market and execute DLC sales right in-store," DeMatteo says. "There's a tremendous opportunity for us to encourage software developers and publishers to create DLC because we'll be able to market it. It's very difficult to discover, find... add-on content with the tools available [currently]."

Via Gamasutra .

[JoystickMonkey]

Bonus for buying new, penalty for buying used... whatever.

[Valis]

Reminds me of the music industry focusing much of its efforts in the 90's on giving used music shops ("illegally reselling music") a bad name and occasionally harassing dance music shops in places like Toronto, NYC & Miama for selling mix tapes/CD's that contain 'unlicensed samples' and so on. In short, nothing that really made any dent in the things people wanted to do with their music. Meanwhile the groundwork was being created for digital distribution of other things...for which the larger labels were obviously well prepared.

Of course in this case worrying about gamestop's used game sales when we already have Steam, Direct2drive and so on just makes so much more sense right?

[Scott]

Unfortunately, companies will start gimping the game entirely. IE removing a big feature like multiplayer.

[JoystickMonkey]

Or, a great company will continue to release excellent content for their game for free, causing new people to buy it and old people to continue to want to play it.

Alternatively, there's the free to play model, which has its own bag of moral dilemmas. Similarly to the "Do we make the game suck if you don't get the 'free' DLC?" question, free to play raises the "Do we make the game unfair after the player is sucked in unless they add a little money?" question.