Good. The less material for stores like Game to flog and then re-flog, thus reaping additional profits the developer never sees a penny of, the better as far as I'm concerned.

@1 I totally agree. Retail is currently laughing at Publishers and helping kill off developers with their pre-owned tat.

Hopefully more publishers will see the benefits of cutting out retail soon

@1 & 2

Just as Publishers are helping to kill of independant retailers with their pampering to supermarkets.

@1,2 & 3.

This will have no effect, 2nd hand prices are determined by various different things. The fact that it will be available for say £15 from PS home, just means that it will sell for say £8/10 pre-owned. The advantage for the consumer is that they can then trade it back in for some value after.

EA may just be opening a can of worms with retailers (espeically indies) if a retailer knows that this publisher "may" re-release a game at a later date on download this will be a variable that the retailer "may" take into account when stocking titles from that publisher. If a retailer feels they have no support from a publisher it will be less appealing to stock those titles compared to that of a publisher that always shows their support to the retail sector.

Remember with out the retailer sector (both bricks 'n;morter and online stores) the avenues to release a game are very limited. In a time that EA are struggling with market share to the new almight "Blizzard-activision" it seems to me that it is a very narrow minded choice to make

I dont know the current percentage of PS3 owners that are online, but I would imaginea significant amount of market research has been done before making this decision and that by selling online only is possibly not as narrow minded a decision as you may think.
Also - i think the percentage is actually fairly low - in which case this is still not a narrow minded decision but may be designed to provide an added incentive for more people to go online - this may be due to an agreement with Sony. Although the PSN service is free they are promoting such upcoming items as Home (if it ever comes) and the user created community of Little Big Planet. Also if more people get online this increases the potential to sell more games/movies/downloadable content etc.
I wouldnt dismiss these people as narrow minded - there are business brains behind the business (usually).

Times are changing and Indies need to adapt. HMV for example had taken a real kicking but have changed how they do business and it has turned them around.

ok, HMV are not an indie store but maybe lessons can be learned. Digital downloading is the way to go. Why not offer instore downloading, or games already on USB sticks for sale? New ideas will bring in new customers.

@ [1, N]

Now good luck to selling a game that you bought and turned out to be rubbish, or simply finished playing! Opens the way up for having only ONE place you can get your games, the platform holder! Brilliant! (sarcastic)

@ 1 & 2. You are talking ****, shops make pennies on new releases so they sell pre-owned to make up for it.

Not sure how big the Burnout game will be to download as the 40GB PS3s may only be able to store a few games if they are big files.

look at it this way
SHOP SELLS GAME : £39.99
DOWNLOAD : £29.99
So you save £10
You get bored/don't want the game anymore...
SHOP BUYS DISC BACK : £15-25 back in your pocket
DOWNLOAD : well, tough you bought it, you keep it
also you won't be able to borrow other peoples games or play them elsewhere
Also, what happens when you come to sell your ps3...game goes with it
this is a stupid idea and i don't think it will hit off.
As jason said it will most likely also require a lot of memory to hold a full game

The headline isn't actually factually correct - "cuts out" suggests that retail won't be involved in selling Burnout Paradise in the future, which isn't the case - rather, Criterion is allowing people to purchase Paradise online _and_ at retail. As for the second-hand issue, I think there is nothing wrong with second-hand games, as there is nothing wrong with second-hand books, clothes (style notwithstanding!), DVDs, furniture, and so on - I would argue strongly that anyone arguing against second-hand games should argue against second-hand everything else as well....

Re comment about selling the PS3 with games on them surely this is just the same?
Could a shop resell a PS3 loaded with games as the games had been purchased from legitimate source.
Also if more go this route then the gangs of geeks currently looking for ways to "hack" the PS3 will turn their attention to getting games to work this way rather than trying to get copied discs to work.

@1&2

Ford don't see any money on the sale of second hand cars, what makes you so special? The fact that retail barely makes any profit off new titles only leads me to one conclusion, you're a couple of greedy a$sholes.

As for retaillers 'killing off developers with their pre-owned tat', well that's an absolute load of twaddle. Publisher preasure to get games out quickly resulting in low quality titles is killing off the devs. If you push crap onto the market that in turn doesn't sell then how is that the fault of the retailer? If you develop a good game and you make a return upon its release then why should you also see a return on the second hand sales? If you develop and publish a poor title because of bandwagon jumping the latest big thing or trying to cash in on another popular medium, (a movie perhaps), and it bombs, then that's your fault, no one elses. Take some fu**ing responsibility.

And yes the title of the story is very misleading. MCV, lay off with the Daily Mail/ Sun styled shock headlines, you're better than that.

I laugh at any idea that publishers can cut out retail.

Tell me this, whose going to sell the hardware for the public to play your games on? Retail won't without the games because there is no money in hardware. And then suddenly the publishers are broke.

Stop making poor quality games, stop missing release dates by years, stop charging for extra content that is already on the disc, and support specialist retailers instead of the supermarket chains which led specialists to preowned as a way to compete and make money.

Also, Valve showed with Steam that all downloadable games do is make more money for the publishers with no tangible benefit to consumers, by the time this Burnout is available the game will be on the PS3 Classics range at 19.99 ($30-35) anyway.

@1 & 2, if you worked as a developer (as I do) you would know how stupid those statements are.

What makes you think the developer gets any profits from a game? Unless you are both publisher and developer, you see no difference of income, regardless on how many (or for how much) games sell.

As a developer, it is your job to convince the publisher that you are the best team for the job, at the best price. That fee is then fixed, you produce the game, the publisher pays you the money... end of story.

If that game sells 100 million copies, you, as the developer get no more than if the game sold 1000 copies... It might guarantee you the next job off the publisher but that's about as far as it goes.

Sony proved with GT5P, that digital retail is all about greed, not about the consumer. The sooner people realise this, the sooner we can get away from this stupid idea.

And as someone else already mentioned, second-hand games are no different to anything else, stop treating them like some elusive holy grail. People are entitled to buy things for a price they can afford, second hand lets them do that.

There's also the fact that there are companies out there that deserve to have their games sold second hand. They need a kick and a financial one is the best way of getting the message across...

@ 15,

If supermarkets can make one or two quid on it, then they will.

@15: Valve do a good service with their downloads. Granted the prices do stay quite high for a long time, but being able to download a full game to your hard drive is a step forward. Who cares about selling it onwards second hand. If money is that tight, cut down on the games or get a second job.

Loved the comment about retailers not making much money on a game, did you not see Game's full year profits and growth. Major retail (not indies) have had it to good for too long and now the publishers and developers are holding the cards (in the future)

"I laugh at any idea that publishers can cut out retail.

Tell me this, whose going to sell the hardware for the public to play your games on? Retail won't without the games because there is no money in hardware. And then suddenly the publishers are broke. "

Last time I looked Richer sounds sold TVs, Videos, DVD players and Amps but didn't sell the media to watch them on, Dixons etc. sold MP3 players, hardware etc but not the music, films etc to play on them - Sky have no problem selling systems at retail.

The likes of youtube etc. have shown that the public will put up with poorish quality for the sake of price and convinience, Steam has been a major sucess I see no reason why games cannot be trickled to their platforms in advance of the release date with a final set of files sent out on the day of release ala Half Life 2 if money changes hands in advance.
At worst downloads will be a way to maximise a games profit or make money from used or loaned titles (and can someone please tell me why games should not be sold used, why they are any different from any other item that goes through a design and manufacture process?) at best it'll cut out retail (that as others have said seems to be reporting large profits so can't be doing that bad).

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