Epic: Used Game Market Is A Huge Issue, Publishers Exploring Ways To Combat
Posted by x3sphere at November 10, 2008, 2:22 pm

Epic Games president Michael Capps has went on record to say that secondhand sales, or the used game market, is a “huge issue” stunting industry growth. Furthermore, Capps says publishers are conjuring up possible ways to dampen the effect of secondhand sales and encourage individuals to buy new copies of games. One idea being entertained is offering paid DLC free to consumers who purchased the retail version of a certain title.
I’ve talked to some developers who are saying ‘If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free’. We don’t make any money when someone rents it, and we don’t make any money when someone buys it used – way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it.
Understandably so, secondhand sales are a growing issue, but cutting consumers out of core game content simply because they purchased a title used sounds a bit extreme to us. Offering non-essential perks to those who purchase a title brand-new is a far better solution.
Second-hand game sales are “a huge issue” – Epic [GI.biz]
Read more: Epic Boss Calls Wii A Virus, Cliff Bleszinski: Gears 2 Not Coming To PC, Gears of War 2? Nonsense, Says Rein, No Gears of War 2 at E3, Microsoft Officially Announces Gears Re-Issue

"We don't make any money when someone rents it, and we don't make any money when someone buys it used"
-
As I said elsewhere, they are discounting the initial sales to the rental stores and the people that trade them in - and there are no small amount of rental shops or people who will buy something knowing they can trade it in when they are done but maybe wouldn't have if they couldn't.
If it weren't for rentals/shops there are many bottom of the bucket games that wouldn't sell half as many. They are seriously aiming to shoot themselves in the foot and piss off any fans they have left doing stuff like this and DRM that can kill an OS.