As retailers pull games from shelves and eat the cost of used copies, money gets left on the table...or goes to other games.
As retailers count up lost revenues that would have been made from sales of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas this summer, some business writers are suggesting Take-Two is privately reveling in the publicity the "Hot Coffee" controversy has brought it. "After all, nothing says 'buy me' to a 15-year-old quite like a message that this product is too racy to sell at Circuit City and GameStop," Business Week columnist David Kiley wrote. "In my opinion, censorship and uproar will only make San Andreas and future GTA games more appealing to teen gamers, Take-Two's target audience," said Motley Fool editor Nathan Alderman.
Cheeky theorizing aside, it's clear who the losers on the front line are. Almost every major retailer in North America, including Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, and the aforementioned Circuit City, has pulled the game from its shelves. GameStop yesterday said it would lose more than $1 million just from not being able to sell used copies of the game.
News source: GameSpot
