Nice idea. One thing I don't understand though, who is ever going to want to purchase new games from Green Man Gaming given that the pre-owned ones will be the same? Digital downloads don't depreciate in value as their is no physical box/disc to take a beating.

In otherwords given the choice between a "new" digital download and a cheaper "pre-owned digital download" why would you ever go for the new one?

Well, I guess you wouldn't. You would always buy the pre-owned one, on the condition there are pre-owned codes.

Sounds good but I can think of only one problem with this:

With boxed product the consumer has a number of trade in options, CEX, GAME/Gamestation, Indies, Grainger Games, Cash Convertors, eBay, Play.com, Amazon, sell to mate etc.

With this, the consumer can sell to Green Man, AND NO ONE ELSE, hence a lack of competition equals the potential for poor price offerings. Also, if this company dissappears, you cannot trade them in anywhere else.

Martin

Well pre-owned will have to be cheaper than the new games they sell, and they'll need to be competitive with Steam et al.

Also, if the company didn't exist you would be able to trade them in anyway... don't see the problem there.

Where would you be able to trade in a used game code uique to a possibly defunct company?

Also, with poor prices I was referring to the trade in price, not the retail price

Look, if I have to use a digital file after someone else has used it I don't expect to pay full price!

But no one else is offering a trade-in service, that I know of.

You can buy it from Steam and then keep it.

You can buy it from Luzio's firm and then sell it back.

If Luzio's firm goes under, you can't sell it back.

How have you lost out?

It's simple... When a game is first released, the early adoptors will need to pay top dollar (because no pre-owned is available)... There isn't an option to buy pre-owned, so just like with physical products you either pay the price to be first to play, or wait and play less...

It's simple supply and demand here, prices will fluctuate based on this, pre-owned (and more specifically the price of a pre-owned code) will generate a larger demand, if they can't supply they will need to pay for a new one...

Selling back is a retention strategy.

When selling used item, it is physical items with depreciated value but when it is digital, there is nothing to depreciate. Publishers can simply lower the value after the given time for the same item and not share another entity. I don't see the value in the business model for the publishers.

10% of the profit goes to the publisher, which is good. But perhaps best of all someone could trade in, say, FIFA 09 and get FIFA 10...

So publishers get a further revenue from the sale of another new game.

... then I should expect no depreciation in value, therefore I should expect back exactly the same amount as I paid.

This will end up as nothing more than a digital rental service, in which case, they cannot expect people to suffer any greater loss than they would have done had they rented the game.

While ever companies like Sony insist on charging as much for the DD as they do for the disc, I'll take the disc with resale value any day of the week. At least I know that in 2 years, when my hard drive fails, I won't suddenly have to download 2TB of game data again.

But that's just an overall problem with digital downloads, not this service in particular.

"At least I know that in 2 years, when my hard drive fails, I won't suddenly have to download 2TB of game data again."

Unless most of your DVDs become scratched. DVD's are on the way out.. just not dead yet. As Internet gets faster and faster, in 5 years you could probably download all 2TB again in a couple hours. Burn the games you download to DVD/BluRAY if it bothers you so much.

...its a loyalty scheme. The idea that your "selling back" code is ridiculous, all you're doing is getting a discount by showing you've bought a game from them before.

How exactly can I trade in the code from my Hard Drive. Am I expected to upload all the game code from my PC, then take an image of the Hard Drive to prove Ive given the game back?

I'm really confused. When a buyer obtains a game from a digital download theyre not downloading a unique copy of the game, its the same copy as everyone else with different key codes.

So lets say I sell back my WoW, but still use it. the next guy who buys it cant play as im still using the unique product code, I can then deny I ever sold it and carry on playing WoW with an extra coupld of quid in my bank account.

As David Evans suggested, surely this is just a loyalty scheme, which the likes of Steam and D2D have had for years.

That sounds like a very good idea! I've always argued against downloading games for that reason alone, so if this idea is incorporated into the global gaming scene as opposed to just PC, then this will be huge.

If this reached the PS3 store it would be a great feature because i would trade-in, add some credit to my wallet and buy a couple of games if it did.

I think there is a huge potential to massively increase sales in games here. Lets hope they make the most of it, and prevent people from being able hack/crack their way to keeping their code in use but 'trading in'.

Fair play to Mr Luzio for thinking out side the box so to speak...

There's obviously a few things need ironing out but if he gets this right he's onto a winner.

I thought it was a good idea until I had a smart beer...well cheap Indian whiskey actually

Scenario
Game X
Sell 1 New, comes back into marketplace as second hand
Assumption that if one had a choice of buying digitally a new one or a second hand one, the cheaper one would be purchased as no packaging, scratches, instructions, smell to distinguish, unlike retail boxed product
On this assumption the market share that new could have would quickly settle to 50%
As soon as there is abundant second hand stock, New is completely killed off
The decrease from an online gross margin of say 50% would drop to 10% rapidly

Does that sound attractive to publishers?

This could work out really well. A Digital Retailer has to buy keys from the Publisher to sell X amount of copies, reselling a license is basically adding 1 more key to the pile.

You really own nothing but the key when it comes to Digital Distribution so really this would usher gaming into a "Bonds and Stocks" Era where reselling a key nets the original some cash, the publisher a slightly decreased Royalty and the Reseller a nice profit.

RE Number 18s point

Where is the incentive for a publisher to allow a retail to resell a games key/code for a second time?

the PC market is in decline, largely thanks to piracy and the growth of console. Publishers are also supporting it less, even if we don't like it.. given that it seems a little like the boat sailed already on this opportunity doesn't? or at least what is left in the harbour still are very small dinghie's...

Good luck Green Man

Just what the digital scene was missing, i always think whether to buy new release games from steam because if there no good or if ive completed them your stuck with it just product sitting in cyberspace. This i can just see taking off and if Green man get it right could be the competition that is needed in the digital market. Really cant wait for Green Man to come alive.