NEWS
Tesco adds Extra as trade-in plan goes national
All Tesco Extra stores now accept used games LEADER
STEAM SCEPTICS NEED TO GET A MOVE ON
EVERYONE MCV spoke to about Valve and its towering digital distribution system Steam has been massively positive about it. At first, that is. Admiration and awe is always followed by bitterness, jealousy and, above all, frustration. Steam, simply, is just much, much better than everyone else. Being brilliant tends to attract customers. And keep them. Therein lies the rub – Steam’s perfect delivery mechanism has created a hugely imperfect world for everything else. Retailers, publishers and distributors are scared of losing out. But what took them so long to wise up to this? The core industry should have been paying attention long ago while Valve, for the last six years, embraced audiences with increasingly wider, open arms. I can appreciate why some have been slow to catch on – ‘80 per cent of the digital download market’ might sound a bit ‘tallest dwarf competition’. But these are serious numbers – analysts say the digital and physical market will reach parity within three or four years. Luckily, that means there’s time for those sceptical of Steam to carve out opposing market share. But they’ve gotta be quick. If the big retailers are only now figuring out that ignoring Steam has handed it a monopoly, I hate to think of the fate that will befall those who might not even know who Valve is.
by Christopher Dring
SUPERMARKET behemoth Tesco has now rolled out its pre-owned games service to all of its Extra stores. That’s nearly 200 shops across the UK. However, although all Extras will be accepting trade- ins, pre-owned games will only be available to buy in 150 of the firm’s larger outlets. “We are continuing to develop our pre-owned offer and we are rolling out to the Extra stores estate as sales warrant,” Tesco’s senior buying manager for games John Stanhope told MCV. “At the moment we are buying and selling in 150
stores and buying in all Extras,” he added. Consumers can check the value of their game and find out where their nearest trade- in store is by visiting the Tesco Entertainment website at
www.tescoentertainment.com. Prior to the roll-out, second- hand games could only be bought in 61 Tesco shops. The move comes a month after Asda announced it would be rolling out its used game offer to 234 stores. (You can read more about Asda’s pre- owned strategy on page 20.) Tesco told MCVlast month that it hopes to have 20 per cent of the UK games software market by 2012.
www.tescoentertainment.com
LONDON’S BURNING, BUT
NUMBER 10 HASN’T NOTICED ED VAIZEY brought the London Games Conference to a warm, fuzzy close last week, saying ‘the Government’s commitment to games has never been more resolute’. What a joke! I’m not talking tax breaks. Just hours before his talk, one of Vaizey’s bosses – y’know, the Prime Minister – unveiled plans to invest in an East London ‘UK Silicon Valley’.
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But the focus was on attracting big foreign companies like Google and Intel to invest in new facilities. Games didn’t even get the usual ‘pity mention’ in the press materials. That’s hugely insulting when some of the best homegrown stars to utilise the tech from said big US firms are in London. Moshi Monsters, Playfish, Rocksteady, Sports Interactive… I could go on. So how can we believe anything someone like Ed Vaizey says when the London games development boom has gone unnoticed by Downing Street?
Michael.French@
intentmedia.co.uk
November 12th 2010 5
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