Gamestop has made a killing out of just selling used stuff. You know, you take your perfectly fine games, consoles, and controllers to them, they pay you money (almost never a whole lot of it), and then they mark it up to an obscene extent, and roll in the dough.
Well, now it looks like they want to extend that empire of used games business, as Gamestop today expressed an interest in selling used DLC for consoles.
Now before we actually start sputtering in outrage at the sheer preposterousness of the idea, let’s actually ask ourselves: how is that even possible? Digital content by nature is non re-saleable and locked permanently to one account (or in Nintendo’s case, one system). How does Gamestop plan on getting around that, exactly?
“It would require a partnership between retailers and publishers, but absolutely, it could go that way,” Gamestop’s Mike Hogan said. “We’re absolutely interested in pursuing that. There are lots of examples where people have taken digital content and made it transferable from one consumer to another. Think of World of Warcraft and its third-party item sales. There’s no fundamental or technological reason why that couldn’t happen on other platforms. If the consumer wants it, and it provides value, then we believe it will happen over time. The consumer will speak for that.”
Yeah, well, good luck trying to get publishers on board for that, Hogan. Although the sad part is, if somehow you did make it work, people would actually buy into it.
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