Pre-owned titles defraud games industry, or do they?

The recent news that entertainment retailer HMV is entering the pre-owned games business has provoked yet more debate about the age-old issue of trade-in. Outspoken critic of the trend towards pre-owned, Elite co-creator David Braben is now accusing shops of "defrauding the industry."

"The shops are not giving us a way of distinguishing between pre-owned and new," he said. "So the shops are essentially defrauding the industry."

And you can see his point, after all publishers and developers make no money from second-hand sales. And game stores do often resemble jumble sales. Of course, you could easily argue that if games were cheaper, or better, or packaged with free badges then the issue would go away. But I doubt it. Braben fears games could very soon all require online validation.

"I love single-player games. Getting a beautifully crafted single player experience is something that's going to be killed if we're not careful, because the online validation of online games means that they tend to get pre-owned a lot less."

We've been here before but it's Friday so what the heck. Trade-in then - what do you think? A harmless way to make new games affordable or the gradual defrauding of an industry?