New Start Up Video Game Retailer Will Share 10% of Used Game Profits With Publishers

[j_factor]

I'm not aware of any major entertainment company that sells used versions of their own product. The easiest angle for Gamestop to take would be a claim that they are engaged in price and market manipulation or product dumping. Have you ever noticed that the Apple store maintains MSRP at all times and with a few rare exceptions, so too do Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft? I'm not saying it's impossible, but there would likely need to be a lot of restrictions in place to even allow them to operate and frankly, in doing so they would alienate their entire new retail network and essentially kill their new product business where they have a much larger profit margin for a lot less work.

There is no such offense as "market manipulation". There are various offenses related to what we might call market manipulation (e.g. collusion), but you have given no reason to assume that they'd commit any of them. There is also no such thing as "product dumping". There is price dumping, but just because they open a store, doesn't mean they're going to sell their products for less than fair market value.

[Bojay1997]

There is no such offense as "market manipulation". There are various offenses related to what we might call market manipulation (e.g. collusion), but you have given no reason to assume that they'd commit any of them. There is also no such thing as "product dumping". There is price dumping, but just because they open a store, doesn't mean they're going to sell their products for less than fair market value.

I never said there was. There is a whole body of law at the state and federal and frankly international law designed to prevent market manipulation. If you want specific statutory citations to law and regulations designed to prevent such manipulation, you can easily do so in Google.

I never assumed they would or wouldn't do anything. I can tell you, however, that among the reasons video game manufacturers and publishers don't open their own store chains is the potential litigation that could ensue from anti-trust claims and claims of market manipulation. More importantly, it doesn't make good business sense for them as it undermines the value of their new product and will likely cause a massive backlash from retailers that only sell their products new.

By the way, product dumping is a term used pretty interchangeably with price dumping and as far as I can tell, means the same thing.

http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/adp_e/adp_e.htm

[The 1 2 P]

As an update it appears that the start up(EKG) will now share the 10% with both publishers and developers, although they will be splitting the initial amount in half between the two. So still 10% total but 5% will go to publishers and 5% will go to developers.

[Bojay1997]

As an update it appears that the start up(EKG) will now share the 10% with both publishers and developers, although they will be splitting the initial amount in half between the two. So still 10% total but 5% will go to publishers and 5% will go to developers.

I'm surprised he is able to get any press at all. His Indiegogo crowd funding effort for Gamegavel was a complete disaster. I think he literally only received one pledge for $25 out of the $100K he was looking for.

http://www.indiegogo.com/gamegavel