jrutz

Okay, I've always been curious about this, and since I know there are some game industry insiders lurking, maybe they could answer this.

How does buying new games from online marketplace sellers, like eBay, Half.com or Amazon, effect the bottom line? I know if you buy at a retail outlet, like Best Buy, the sale gets counted by TRST or something. But when you buy from a marketplace or directly from a distributor, are these sales already counted? Or do they even get counted?

Just curious, because when I decide to buy a new game instead of a used one, I'd like it to actually count toward the bottom line.

Jeremy

fujishig

Aren't "sales" counted by the number of copies that the retailers order, not the number that are actually bought? In any case, I think a lot of online businesses use the same warehouses, and I'm sure at least the biggest online retailers, and those with B&M roots, get counted somehow. Amazon, themselves, track sales ranking for each of their products (which can be deceptive, because sometimes the top products are heavily discounted items or cheap items used to get within range of a coupon).

~~ PAL ~~

With the increasing presence of online retailers, they do need to track the figures for online sales.

As for counting toward the bottom line, used games shouldn't affect that at all. It really only accounts for the profit/loss of the resellers.