Industry News - Trading in Games Got Harder

With the age of DLC on every modern console threatening the used game dealers such as Gamestop, Game Crazy, and Play N Trade, the dealers will have to comply with a recent federal law. The 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that software publishers can stop buyers from reselling their software to others, which differs from rulings in which software can be sold again under a "first sale"Â doctrine.

According to Anthony Reese of the University of California-Irvine, the first sale doctrine is responsible for the bulk of public access via the existence of stores that sell used materials like books, records, and videos. He added in that this ruling can be used in other courts and impact their sight over other business types such as eBay and stores like Gamestop.

To put in an example, around thirty percent of Gamestop's profits are in used games. Add in the domino effect, Gamestop claims that it will impact their new game sales as most of new games are bought with trade-in credit of used games. New game sales cover fourteen percent of their profit.

But there could be some light to this subject at hand, as big retailers like Target and Best Buy offer used games now, and it is believed by legal experts that publishers are likely to negotiate an agreement about retail of used copies of their games instead of an all out ban of the practice.

Sources:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-gamestop_12bus.ART0.State.Edition1.2702a76.html

Written by Evil Ambassador - Geroncio Copiozo