Sought After Games Get a Second Chance

One of the big problems with gaming retail (and there are many) is that games have such short shelf lives. If a film doesn't tear up the box office, it has another opportunity with DVD and VHS sales. In the case of music and books, they may sit on retail shelves for months or even years before they become successful. However, with games, if a title doesn't have immediate strong sales, it is basically forgotten about and left unsupported regardless of how much of a potential audience it may have. Siliconera has a story up about a gaming retail company that is taking the opposite approach: if titles initially fail at retail but later on garner acclaim, strong word of mouth, or high prices on Ebay, Game Quest takes it upon itself to contact those games' publishers and work out a limited print run. So far, it's worked incredibly well. Game Quest has to front all of the financial risk in order to get publishers on board for a rerelease, which generally runs about $100,000, but so far every title the company has reprinted has easily made back its initial investment. So far, the company has reprinted titles such as United Game Artists' Rez (PS2), Inis' Gitaroo-Man (PS2), Capcom's GameCube versions of Resident Evil 2/3 and others, with plans for many more to come. The company sells the brand new games for standard prices, rather than the inflated prices gamers usually have to pay for used titles on Ebay and at retailers. In fact, when large retail companies like GameStop buy stock from Game Quest, they apparently open the cases and then sell the games as used so they can charge a high premium for them as collector's items.

What's next in 2006 for the publisher/retailer? Recently they purchased the now defunct Working Designs' remaining inventory. ... What's really surprising is a number of extremely rare titles like Sega Ages for the Saturn, Exile, and Cosmic Fantasy 2 for Turbo Graphix 16. They're currently in talks with Square-Enix, Atari and Konami for more reprints. ... Game Quest Direct said that any they would try to reprint any game that goes on eBay for over $100.