‘Developers can use premium DLC to kill off pre-owned games’

Developers that chose to design and sell premium downloadable content alongside their retail console games can help curtail the used games market – and also stand a chance of generating over $10 extra revenue with every unit sold, says Microsoft.

Speaking at this week’s Gamefest event in Seattle, Microsoft’s group business manager of the Xbox Live Marketplace Alvin Gendrano said that downloadable content makes players hold onto their games longer – and eventually discourages them from temptation to trade the game in for another one.

“PDLC helps defend against the used games market and helps maintain your games’ prices in the marketplace,” he said. “Everyone is aware of the problems with used games. These are dollars which come out of gamers’ wallets and don’t go back into helping us build better games and tools.”

He added: “The longer players play your game the lower the chance there is that they will trade them in.”

The comments came as part of a session looking at how downloadable content supplements retail revenues – see our full session report here – during which Gendrano said that games with DLC make more money per unit.

“That’s significant additional revenue potential through DLC that you can unlock," he said. The top 10 games with premium DLC, according to Microsoft, have each made an extra $18 for every copy of the game sold.

For more from Gendrano on premium DLC, see our full session write-up here.