Many gamers have griped about GameStop’s lucrative used games program. Now a company spokesperson has claimed they don’t even like the program themselves, but it was necessary to survive in the marketplace. GamesIndustry.biz reports that Niall Lawlor spoke at the Develop conference, and called out InstantAction CEO Louis Castle regarding digitial distribution. Castle had made remarks earlier in the year calling GameStop’s used model “parasitic,” and compared it to “thievery.”
“We discovered the used business was a way of preserving our margins,” Lawlor said. “We don’t like being in the used business, it’s very difficult to manage. If we hadn’t got the used business, we wouldn’t be there.” Lawlor added that GameStop “evangelizes” for the industry by its existence. “We have to be in it, otherwise if you take a look at our margins you’d realize we need to be in used.” Castle maintains that the used business is accelerating the death of retail and the decline in publisher profitability.
It’s hard not to notice that GameStop isn’t just surviving thanks to used games — it’s thriving. The industry itself has seen month after month of declining sales in the past year, while GameStop’s revenues have steadily climbed. Perhaps the used market was a necessary move to stay in business, but most gamers probably won’t feel pity given the company’s rising profits.
