DICE 2009: GameStop exec defends used game sales

A few of the headline-making speeches at the 2009 DICE Summit in Las Vegas have prophesied the rise of digital distribution and the slow decline of brick-and-mortar retail outlets, like the oft-demonized GameStop -- Dave Perry's speech even included a photoshopped jab at the company's logo, re-dubbing it "Used GameStop". However, the retail juggernaut's chief operating officer J. Paul Raines recently took the DICE stage to defend the company's used game sale practices, claiming, "borrowing and lending games are very important ways for people to try new games."

He said that the effect GameStop's pre-owned sales have on the success of new games is beneficial -- according to the company's statistics, over 70 percent of trade credits are applied to the purchase of new games. As far as stealing from the coffers of developers and publishers, Raines said that only four percent of used games purchased are titles that were released in the past 60 days. Even with these figures in hand, we still understand developers' protestations -- after all, any slice of a $2 billion pie is highly covetable.