To TTFP: I do agree that most of the profit in the games resale business comes from used games (anywhere as high as 75%, while new games profit tops out at about 15%) Although I do not have the numbers for Gamestop but I Own a Small Anime/Video Game Chain and I know that most of my customers trade in old unwanted games for a discount on the newest games. (Old Madden 05 for New Madden 06). And most of my trades come from "casual" gamers. Meaning they don%u2019t collect or keep there games anyway, and use Frequent Trade ins as kind of extended rental. Again more common for casual gamers. The one demographic all the New, shiny, %u201DExpensive%u201D games are not targeted for.

Most of Gamestop's profit margin is with used sales, (I bet it's more than 75%) and when I was leaving the company (then known as Funcoland) they were becoming a more corporately run machine, desperately watching that bottom dollar. Now that they're the biggest retail chain of video games sales in the world... I don't see them stopping to "give back" to the game makers unless they are liable to do so. Meaning never.

This is ridiculous. The last thing we need is for publishers to think it's okay to make money on used game sales.

The entire concept of pay to play media needs to be killed in it's birth.

they have all the right to keep it, but they aren't...that's what makes this bold...the developers aren't FORCING them too, they are donating it...and you know what, it is a big deal...consider....gamestop does 1.3 BILLION during their holiday season, lets say one third of that is used 400,000,000 dollars used revenue for gamestop holiday...now that ratio isn't right, but let's say that this was the used sales revenue for the whole year...and 10c of every dollar means 1 dollar out of every 10...10 out of every 100, 100 out of every 1000, 1000 out of every 10,000, 10,000 out of every 100,000, and 100,000 out of every 1,000,000...so they would be donating 400,000 dollars, and i'm probabaly SERIOUSLY undercutting the used sales revenue....most likely, gamestop would donate close to a million...which is a third of the development cost for a toptier game title...

now sure, this small company is no where near a gamestop, but still...its a serious chunk of change...oh that could, if they trend caught on, have a huge benefit to the industry...but for a small company, every penny counts, so i appaulde the IDEA...

now the two problems are: a) this is a small company, so they aren't sending that much cash out....the "development and publishing community" is a broad term...who is getting this money? EA? vivendi? squaresoft? is it going to one company or is it being spread out evenly amongst them all?....THOSE questions are what makes me doubt this whole claim....i mean, what, does EA open there mailbox one day to find a check reading, "100$ for the development of a game, your friends at..."

i think its bogus, and i think the lack of explaination of where these funds go prove it...

and, the companies they are donating to are capitalist organizations...we aren't talking a not-for-profit organization with lofty goals...its a business...i would rather they give the money to something a little...grander....if they want to keep it in industry, how about donating to establish a government lobey or the creation of some industry watchdog to replace the ESRB, or to the ESRB or whatever...

Here's my thoughts:

I go to a used game store(or section) and buy a game. I pay the clerk X dollars, when the game retails for 3X. The store takes all the profit of X/2, since they paid X/2 to the person who traded it in. Well, that person originally bought it for 3X, and that money did make it [partially] to the developer. Buying used games doesn't screw the developer.

On that note, I never buy used based purely on principle and would love to help out developers, as I am highly interested in being one someday using my modeling and programming skills.

Yeesh.

A "publicity stunt" that at least helps out is better than one that doesn't. So you're saying you'd rather patronize an organization that stays low key and chill than one that - yes - pulls stunts, but at least uses proceedings to donate to charity or pays the people who created a game or piece of music? That's like the guy who blasted Penny Arcade's Child's Play as just an attempt for them to get popular.

I'm a pretty big music collector. I have well over a thousand cds and a fairly large vinyl collection as well. A good chunk of this I've bought used. The only problem is, when you buy a used cd, this cd may have already passed hands 5 times. While the savings is great for me, it does hurt the band because they never see my money. Only the middleman does. That's one reason why, when I do buy new cds, I often try to buy them directly from the artist or the artists label. When you're buying from smaller labels, the artist really does see a lot more money when you cut out the middle man.

EB and Gamestop make a killing off of used games. I buy a good chunk of my games used and, while I do buy from independant used game stores a lot, this still doesn't help the people making the game. In fact, I fear that even when I buy games new, it doesn't help the people making the game very much. The games that I do buy new are the indie games...and this is me hoping that there's power in numbers. The more that are sold new, hopefully the more games of that type we'll see.

Does anyone know if any game producers/directors get kick backs based upon performance? This is just curiosity on my part.

cute publicity stunt. i guess they figure even giving away 10% and getting free advertising is better than getting nothing whatsoever.

how about making games cheaper. I sure as heck am not buying any $59 games, microsoft.

So what if they want us to see this? It's just that iTVG is not big enough for this to be of too much help. Still, 10cents is better than nothing, as some retailers are doing NOTHING. And as it says in the end, they're hoping other retailers would follow their example.

Gosh, some of you are so cynical. :P

I don't see this as being noble, as they'd probably like us to see this. It's more of an attempt at cheap publicity. This won't affect the market in any significant way.

http://www.itradevideogames.com/index.php?page=games/indgame.php&indid=5825

Buyer's remorse for me!

Thats a good thing. Too bad the site sucks.