[jordan0day]

I think we've both said the things we wanted to say in this thread, so further replies might not be especially useful -- I just want to point out that I think your pricing decrease algorithm needs a little tweaking: Aliens: Colonial Marines, which got generally terrible reviews, was released on Steam on Feb. 12. So, four months ago. It's only dropped $10 in that time ($59.99 to $49.99).

I don't doubt that the publisher has probably done a little thinking about whether they'd sell enough copies at $30 rather than $50 to make up for the loss of per-sale profit, but it seems to me that what they (the publishers) are actually trying to do, by killing secondhand sales, is have their cake and eat it, too.

[batiudrami]

It depends on the game. At the other extreme, Borderlands 2 was released in September at $60, was $30 by October and $14 by May. I suspect that the reputation of Aliens: Colonial Marines is so bad that price reductions aren't helping.

I suspect that publishers would love to be able to kill used games and maintain current pricing strategies, but I just don't think it'll work for them. Video game sales are too price elastic and, like you said, for people who would ordinarily buy new at $60 and resell at $30, their video gaming budget would only buy half the games it used to. These people would be more likely to wait until the games were $30.

In a worst-case scenario, if publishers persisted with that strategy, other forms of entertainment may be seen as more appealing and money might disappear from the video games industry.

Like you've said, the free market would take care of it, and I think used games are standing in the way of that being able to happen while allowing maximum compensation for the developers.