The root of the problem with reselling has never been the company doing the reselling - it's the pricing of the product that allows, and even encourages the purchase and sale of used products.
A new game will set the consumer back on average $60-$70, regardless of whether it is single player, multiplayer, or moddable and any combination of these two. Why do we pay the same price for a single player game as we do for one with technically unlimited gameplay? Or for one with multiplayer that allows potentially unlimited permutations of unlimited gameplay?
Feature-based pricing with a far lower base rate would benefit everyone. Even just lowering the standard price on games to around $40 flat would allow them to -almost- be impulse buys, would easily cover packaging and shipping, and still allow a healthy profit margin that would encourage greater sales. If packaging is really that huge a concern, why not take efforts to reduce cost of packaging, like the smaller format boxes we saw appear recently, reduction of included inserts in favor of digital documentation (I read the manual, but how many of you do? I'd give it up gladly for a drop in price), or maybe even (yes, go ahead and groan) included advertising inserts to generate revenue to counter it?
$40 also gives a whole lot less "wiggle room" to the used game market, and resellers would be making $10-$30 less profit per title at the new release stage. The temptation to wait for a title to drop in price or hit the used game store's shelves at a lower price would likewise lessen greatly at a more accessible price point. Length of time before a significant price drop would, likewise, increase which would encourage further sales at the initial release price. Even so - only twice the cost of a movie for interactive entertainment? Sign me up.
It would, however, be -more- intelligent to set a standard price at something like $30 and then do feature-based pricing. Cars do it - more seats? Costs more. Convertible? Ditto. More powerful or newer engine? Same deal.
Apply to games: Multiplayer? Costs $10 more. Built-in mod support? Costs $5-10 more. Brand new game engine? Costs a little more.
You'd get a market with varying prices and incentive to make games last longer and be more interesting. It would probably even encourage innovation.
Don't get me wrong - I actually want the developers to get -more- money to better support the industry. I just think that charging more and netting less first-purchase sales is the wrong approach, and restrictive DRM is a draconian approach that avoids addressing the real problem.
