PS4 Not Playing Used Games, What Is This Hobby Coming To?

[j_factor]

Actually, considering inflation, games are cheaper than they were a decade ago even at full MSRP. A $50 game in 2003 is the equivalent of a little over $62 in 2013 dollars. Games are much cheaper than they were in the 1980s and 90s where I can recall spending $50-$60 for NES and SNES games. That's over $100 in today's dollars. People just are looking to always get things cheaper. There's nothing wrong with that, but it largely killed the music business and turned touring into the only real viable source of revenue for recording artists and so now you have outrageously priced tickets for concerts in many cities.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the post you quoted, I didn't say anything about retail prices.

But since you brought it up. I think games were more likely to vary in price a decade ago. $50 was the most common MSRP, but it was far from universal. There were lots of $20, $30, and $40 games back then. There were even a few $10 games like The Italian Job and Ball Breakers. $10 in 2002 is equal to $12.80 in 2012 and I'm not seeing any new releases for $12.99. Nowadays, there are very few exceptions to the $60 rule, aside from new editions of previously existing games.

NES and SNES games were more expensive because they were on cartridge. Computer games during that time were certainly not nearly that much.

Used game sales aren't new, but the scale at which they have been expanded is something fairly recent. Gamestop didn't engage in major expansion until the past decade including a merger with EB and in the past three years, they have been particularly aggressive about adding new locations.

The merger with EB expanded the name "Gamestop" only. It didn't expand the business, if anything it slightly shrunk it as some locations were closed, being deemed too close to each other.

It's similar to the rapid expansion of Starbucks that not only killed many small coffee chains and shops, but also drove coffee sales to record levels as the convenience of having a gourmet coffee shop on every corner got more people into the habit of buying $4 coffee every day. I'm frankly amazed at how often I hear co-workers and friends talk about buying and trading in used games to Gamestop, many of whom would never have bought used a few years ago simply because before Gamestop they didn't have an easy way of doing so outside of maybe Ebay and to a lesser extent, video rental chains like Blockbuster or Hollywood Video.

I guess this is a regional thing, because out here, the number of Gamestops today is definitely not greater than the former number of Babbages + EB Games + Funcoland + whatever else.

I agree that Gamestop shouldn't be faulted for pursuing a lucrative business model just like Apple shouldn't be faulted for the fact that single song downloads have replaced whole album sales. That doesn't change the fact that the very existence and success of Gamestop's business model is significantly impacting the bottom line of publishers and developers.

Yeah, well, so are lots of things. *shrug*

The music and DVD industry already tried slashing MSRP over the past few years and sales continued to fall.

I don't remember that happening, they cost about the same as they always have.