Earlier in June, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that users cannot be prevented from reselling software licenses and that owners of digital content can distribute them without the consent or opposition from the rightholder.
This has lead GameStop into surveying the possibility of reselling digital content, which comes to no surprise given that 27.4% or $2.62 billion of the company's revenue comes from secondhand sales of boxed retail copies.
GameStop CEO Paul Raines, in a statement to GameSpot (yeah for anagrams!), was tight-lipped on which companies he has spoken with concerning this new development:
It’s very interesting. There are some technologies out there in Europe, and we’ve looked at a couple that are involved. We’re interested; it’s not a meaningful business yet. Right now we’re not seeing that as a huge market, but I think we’re on the leading edge. There are a few companies, a few startups, out there that we’ve talked to that are doing this…. we wouldn’t want to disclose that and have our competitors rushing in.
If this comes to fruition, it could well boost GameStop's pre-owned sales even further and help them navigate the digital business that is the future of video game distribution.
That said, would you even want to sell digital content to GameStop?
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