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Talking at yesterday’s Atari Live event in London, Atari CEO David Gardner explained that secondhand sales have been damaging for the gaming industry.
“Secondhand game sales represent consumer choice and desire,” he said. “Obviously, it has economically been extremely painful for the industry… the publishers don’t benefit.
“But as games change and they become more and more network centric, the disc in the box becomes only one part of the experience. As that experience grows then it becomes not such a problem,” he added.
President Phil Harrison reckons that more online content will be an effective combatant of the secondhand trade: “”There’s no doubt that second hand games sales has a macro-economic impact on the industry and a lot of people get miserable about it,” he said.
“But it’s no coincidence that the most valuable games, the one’s that have the most lifetime as a game experience, are the one’s that don’t get resold, that don’t get traded.
“The games that have the embedded community, the embedded commerce, the extended, expandable experiences, are the one’s that you would never want to trade, the one’s you want to keep hold of. And that’s perfectly in line with our future strategy so we’re not that concerned about it,” he added.
Thanks, GI.
By Mike Bowden
Viewing 7 responses
sickpuppysoftware said:
Not as painful as shoving your games out first then worrying about testing them afterwards eh Atari?
wickedman said:
fuck, dude lower the fucking prices on the software,fuck,fuck!!!!
Harry said:
In other news, Ikea complains that folks selling dining tables via Loot is harming the furniture industry.
Get a fucking grip Atari.
Truk said:
Why’s everyone shouting? He’s saying the second-hand industry is painful for publishers. It is. He’s also saying that Atari are changing their business practice to deal with this, which is the correct response. I don’t see what the problem is, unless everyone’s just having a good hard kneejerk.
G1GAHURTZ said:
Phil will probably be looking for a new job soon…
He’ll probably end up working for MS!!
DrDamn said:
@Truk
Well I did try some sensible discuss of this on previous articles but got “Shatnered” for not understanding the issue properly. Interesting to see Phil making some of the same points I did though
Truk said:
Heh. Shatner.
Harrison makes some good points. He’s not a stupid man.