Peoww News

Seasoned gamers will be no strangers to the effective high-street monopoly of Game and the like, those not living in a large town being subject to their extortionate prices for both new and pre-owned games. Case in point, Winchester where I work has an HMV, Game & Lacklustre Video.

Madden NFL 12 was released today, so it wouldn’t be entirely unreasonable to expect maybe a slight reduction in the cost of the 2011 edition. Definitely not the case. They had no new copies (natch), so pre-owned it was. £17.99. Given they probably paid the poor sap that traded it in about £7, that’s £11 clear profit into their coffers. The same £17.99 was the price last week, prior to the release of the sequel.

It’s currently no better when it comes to the FIFA series, FIFA 10 pre-owned is a fiver. Fair enough, but FIFA 11 is still £25 new in their stores, with pre-owned a only a little less. I’ll bet even money that it drops a lot when FIFA 12 comes out later this month.

The sales droid said “FIFA pre-owned drops quickly ’cause loads of people trade it in! We don’t get that many copies of Madden traded in, that’s why the price is high”. No, the price is high ’cause you’re money grabbing profiteering bastards.

Shopto are doing Madden 11 brand new for £14.86 so if a canny ebay bid doesn’t pan out, they have my business.

I’ll stick to Game for the (very) occasional pre-owned bargain, ta.  Ian