terryjews

@carlos0981
This is the retail experience in general. You can always find a better deal somewhere, it's just a matter of looking. Your store is local and only applies to you and everyone else living there. Not everyone has the same option you do but the pawn shops where I live offer nothing better. I'd love to have a place that would take even 50% for an item but I don't. I either sell it to a friend or just donate it and write the full value off my taxes.

@Roflrex

Technically there's always a middleman. Steam still takes a 20-30% cut for being a retailer. When you look at some of the insane sales they have with games selling for $5-10, many companies aren't seeing a great return even when they're moving thousands of copies. People rip on EA for Origin but they're just removing the middleman too. The irony is publishers are the middleman for developers. In a perfect world, developers wouldn't need someone to package and sell their game but until then EA will get 100% for Mass Effect while BioWare gets only what they need to produce their game and a big fat pink slip if they ever fail.

Fun fact: less than half of Gamestop's total profit comes from used games as of their fiscal year 2010 report. Anyone mind explaining where the other 60-something percent comes from?