PS4 Dev Thrashes GameStop’s Business Model

“You can’t make a living at the expense of everybody else.”

Developer Ready at Dawn may be best-known for its exceptional God of War games on PSP, but it’s the studio's upcoming foray into the next-gen space that has PlayStation gamers excited. The Order: 1886, a third-person action game exclusive to PS4, is currently under development at the small Southern California development house.
On the heels of the game’s announcement at E3, Ru Weerasuriya, founder of Ready at Dawn, gave a fascinating interview to Games Industry International, in which he lambasted GameStop’s business model, in particular pertaining to sales of used games.
“I think the problem is right now there are retail outlets that are really taking everybody for a ride,” he said. “You can’t make a living at the expense of everybody else.” Weerasuriya noted that both consumers and developers are getting the short end of the stick because of the repercussions of the used games market.

“I walked into a GameStop, asked for a new copy of a game and without telling me [the store clerk] tried to slip me a used copy and wanted to sell it to me for $5 less,” he later explained. “I flipped out in front of the guy. I was like, ‘Dude, wrong guy... You’re doing this to the wrong guy’... There are developers out there who are making games for [years] and some of them will go down purely because the revenue stream is basically flawed and creating this place where developers don’t see even a little part of it.”
Weerasuriya’s solution is simple: “I don’t think we should stop used games, but we should do something about getting part of the revenue back from GameStop and places like that. That’s not penalizing consumers; they’ll still get what they want.”
For more from Weerasuriya, including more about The Order: 1886 in particular, catch up on the rest of the interview here.

The Order: 1886

Published by: Sony Computer Entertainment

Developed by: Ready At Dawn Studios

Genre: Action

Release Date:

United States: TBA

Australia: TBA

UK: TBA

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