The debate about whether or not used games are good for the industry continues. Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream’s co-founder, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, is decidedly on the side of them not being good for business. In fact, he blames the secondhand market for a loss of between $6.8 and $13.6 million in royalties.
“I would say that the impact that the recession had, that the most important impact especially on AAA games on console, was the rise of second hand gaming,” he told GamesIndustry.biz. “And I think this is one of the number one problems right now in the industry.
“I can take just one example of Heavy Rain. We basically sold to date approximately two million units, we know from the trophy system that probably more than three million people bought this game and played it. On my small level it’s a million people playing my game without giving me one cent. And my calculation is, as Quantic Dream, I lost between 5 and 10 million [Euros] worth of royalties because of second hand gaming.”
