@last_lap: "Only having one place to buy games is a monopoly and leads to price rises and the like. With retailers, they can sell the codes a bit cheaper because they sell other items akso, the consumer can price match etc, and thus creates competion for the consumers benefit. Having multiple options is better than just one option wouldn't you agree?"
I've never once seen a retailers sell digital codes for games for less than what the console stores sell them for. They simply sell the same games the console stores do at the exact same prices. The retailer are simply working in tandem with the console digital stores to create vouchers that the customer takes right back to their console to redeem. There's no cost benefit to the consumer for a third party selling game codes.
Price matches for physical media don't work the same way for digital items. The way physical distribution works is any adjustment to MSRP gets refunded through the distributor/publisher chain, and price matches and negotiated sales as well get refunded through the distribution/publisher chain. This requires publishers to keep money on hand for MSRP adjustments, sales, and inventory liquidation. Retailer don't eat those costs themselves when they have sales, price match, or the MSRP drops. The publishers reimburse them for all that. If say one store has a game on sale, that's negotiated with the publisher and the retailer gets reimbursed by the publisher for what they sell. And any store that price matches that other store also gets reimbursed by the same publisher, that's why lots of stores do this, they just don't eat the costs themselves. Even when inventory is liquidated, the retailer gets reimbursed for it by the publisher, publisher takes their word the retailer destroyed that inventory because it's too costly to ship back.
That is why physical sells cheaper than digital, because lingering physical copies are a cost liability and publishers don't want their own digital sales undermining their financial liabilities created by lingering inventory. They won't or shouldn't price match a digital code for same price as say the cost of a physical copy, they won't be reimbursed by the publisher for doing so. There's also isn't going to be any digital price matching of other digital retailers because, again, all they do is create vouchers for what's available on PSN for the exact same price as it's available on PSN.
On the other hand, the argument against this is probably best argued from the position of retailers. They can likely get a cut of the codes they do sell, but the retailers being prohibited from selling them will have a harm on their ability to conduct business. But it won't make a lick of difference to the consumer price on that end. And given the shifting balance these days with the market in general, with digital dominating physical sales, it really hurts gaming retailers to be left out of selling digital codes.
There's a separate issue also, less from the retailers selling codes, but with publishers. I have read that publishers sometimes fight with the platforms to have their digital prices reduced, and/or put their games on sale. From what I recall, the platform holders sometimes don't want some games from other publishers interfering with the sales of some newly released games they're trying to preserve sales momentum for, and are stubborn about allowing for sales and MSRP price drops. If true, that is an issue that relates to games prices, and it does come down to decisions made by the platform. Generally though, I don't think it's the publisher who keeps prices artificially high. Naturally, the market saturation will compel price drops on its own. So there is something to be said about the platforms keeping the game prices high, but it has nothing to do with the ability for third party retailers to sell codes.
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