Ruffiana wrote on Aug 27, 2010, 20:42:

Movies have multiple revenue streams. If movies were only ever released on DVD direct to consumers then it would be an apt comparison, but by the time a movie reaches the home DVD ownership phase, it's already had a run in movie theaters and probably made a profit. It's been available on pay-per-view, and it's been on HBO/Showtime for a couple of months. Even after it's put onto a DVD and sold at Best Buy they can still make money from a film by licensing the rights to cable or network stations. Unlike games, movies have much more longevity. People will watch buy and a movie from decades ago.

Music has rapidly changed it's business model over the years to deal with digital format and ease of copying/distribution. Like films, a recording artist can bring in money from live venues and concerts (akin to movie theaters in being a unique, one time experience), album sales, individual track sales through iTunes, Amazon, etc...licensing of songs for use in film, television, or games. Like movies, music is ageless. People will buy music that they like and hold on to it. Unlike films or games, it takes far, far fewer people to produce a piece of music...so the financial investment and risks are much lower.

As for books, it doesn't take multi-million dollar investments and huge teams of people to create a book...so there is substantially less financial risk involved. There's also some value of a book associated with the physical good, the printed word on paper...and those goods do degrade over time. They grow musty, their spine gets broken, pages tear, print fades. Unlike a game, people are likely to hang on to a book for decades and re-read years, decades, or even centuries after they were written. Keep in mind that books in digital format is a fairly new industry, but it's already having an impact on retailers world-wide.

So while the formats of various media are similar their costs to produce and markets are radically different. Games really only have one market for making money, in a very limited time frame, and yet are still are on par with films in terms of cost to produce, market, and distribute. The reason you don't hear more from the film, music, or book industry about used sales is because it's just not cutting into their profitability in the same way...but that could very well change in the future.