PS4 Developer Criticizes Gamestop’s Exploitation on Used Games


The developer making the statements is Ru Weerasuriya, the founder/boss of the company Ready at Dawn, best known for their God of War games on the PSP and currently working on the PS4 Exclusive The Order: 1886.

As a strong advocate of the video game industry, Weerasuriya was at last month’s E3 event promoting the new game, and giving a very interesting interview in which he bashed Gamestop’s business practices of making money from used games.

Weerasuriya states, “I think the problem is right now there are retail outlets that are really taking everybody for a ride. You can’t make a living at the expense of everybody else.”

He explains how the practices not only hurt the developers, but the consumers as well.

“Unfortunately, they’re not just making a living at the expense of developers but also the consumers because the consumers will see less and less games come out if developers can’t get revenue to make more new titles and keep going as a business,”

used-games

The developer goes on to tell a story, “I walked into a GameStop, asked for a new copy of a game and without telling me [the store clerk] tried to slip me a used copy and wanted to sell it to me for $5 less,

“I flipped out in front of the guy. I was like, ‘Dude, wrong guy… You’re doing this to the wrong guy’… There are developers out there who are making games for [years] and some of them will go down purely because the revenue stream is basically flawed and creating this place where developers don’t see even a little part of it.”

He continues for a solution, “I don’t think we should stop used games, but we should do something about getting part of the revenue back from GameStop and places like that. That’s not penalizing consumers; they’ll still get what they want.”

Do you agree/disagree with the developer? Comment below.

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