I was playing Thrillville: Off the Rails last night. As rollecoaster/theme park sims go this is a good 'un and certainly brings some much needed variety to the 360's guns n' cars lineup. It suffers from the Viva Pinata syndrome though, by being overly fiddly for something aimed at a family audience. Developed by David "Elite" Braben's Frontier Developments, Thrillville is still worth a pop. But make sure you don't buy it second hand. Braben recently strode into the pre-owned debate.
"Clearly from the developer and publisher point of view, the second-hand market is a real problem. The shops are essentially defrauding the rest of the industry by this practice, whether they intend to or not."
Anyone who buys their games from specialist retailers like Game and Gamestatstion will be familiar with the jumble sale like atmosphere. But do you care if it means you can get a copy of, say, Halo 3 for a fiver simply by trading in some old finished stuff?
While I've got a stack of sympathy for Braben and developers in general I think he is forgetting the main issue. Namely that games ARE too expensive. Cut RRP's to nearer £20 and trade-ins will lessen. But they will never go away. Rightly or wrongly games are seen as inherently disposable - I still have all the CD's I bought in 1991 but the Mega Drive games went years ago - with relatively little replay value. Ok, obviously multiplayer games are an expectation but generally when you've finished a game you're done. Now if that finished product is still worth over half the price you paid for it can you blame anyone for trading in to get money off the next biggie? No, me neither. Pre-owned then - essential for punters or simply retail "defrauding" the games industry.
