Bungie: Pre-Owned Game Sales Hurt Halo
September 27th, 2008, 1:50 am by James Fudge (2 Comments)
(+11 rating, 17 votes) 
According to Bungie Audio Director, Marty O’Donnell, the pre-owned games market had “big” effect on sales of Halo. Speaking to to GameInustry.biz, O’Donnell said that smaller studios face a difficult future if they can’t get a return on their investment due to the sale of a pre-owned copy of a game. But in the very same breath he admits that he doesn’t actually know what that impact is - he just assumes it’s “big.”
O’Donnell is certainly not alone in his assertion that pre-owned games sales hurt overall sales of games: In an interview with GI.biz, David Braben, chairman of Frontier Developments, said that it is his “belief” that the pre-owned games market is “damaging” to single-player titles. In that interview he suggested an alternative rental system, involving the supply of rental discs to retailers at no cost in exchange for a percentage of a store’s rental profits.
Jens Uwe Intat, EA’s European Publishing General Manager, in yet another interview with GI.biz, said that the company is trying to find ways to discourage pre-owned game sales by engaging the consumer beyond the initial purchase of a game.
