Obsidian Entertainment is no fan of the used games market. Like so many other game developers, the studio doesn’t gain anything from the used sales performed by GameStop, which earns upwards of $2 billion in profits each year from used sales alone.
Chris Avellone, writer of Old World Blues, Knights of the Old Republic 2, and the upcoming South Park RPG has spoken out against the used games market. “Of course, one of the greatest things about digital distribution is what it does to reduce the used game market,” said Avellone in an interview with IndustryGamers. “I hope digital distirbution stabs the used game market in the heart.”
Avellone further praised digital distribution for the flexibility it offers game developers.
“One of the things I enjoyed with Fallout: New Vegas was that digital distribution of the DLC made things more flexible in terms of getting the content done. You didn’t have to worry about production times for discs, and so you could take an extra week if you needed that to get things right,” he said.
Avellone says that he hopes that the company will eventually publish its own games without the need for publishers and retailers to get their hands into the mix.
“Our eventual hope is that we can stockpile enough resources to release our own titles digitally. Smaller games can be very satisfying projects to work on, and it would be great to do that. But it’s going to take time for us to get there; we want to make sure we do it right.”
