I read in the Independent newspaper on Sunday that the sale of Volvo heavy trucks was 115 units when for the same period last year they sold 41,970 trucks. A drop of 99.7%. But in these difficult times stuff still needs to be moved around and old trucks are still wearing out. In the same newspaper it is reported that Bob Diamond, president of Barclay’s Bank had a £20 million bonus last year and Roger Jenkins, their Middle Eastern chairman, probably had double this. Perhaps they will now buy some Volvo trucks to help get us out of the trouble they have contributed towards getting us into.

So, as you can see, the world is nuts. And so it is with game retailers. I have already written about how their business model often now depends on selling the same game repeatedly in the secondhand market. But with the game publisher only getting paid once per game. Thus depriving the people who actually make the game of the income needed to pay for development. The retailers are shooting themselves in the foot by forcing the publishers to adopt other business models such as online distribution.

And now the retailers are at it again. Despite the game retail business being the biggest it has ever been they are worried about the economic downturn. So the UK game trade press is reporting that retailers are concentrating on stocking the big AAA hits and are cutting back on everything else. Thus depriving their customers of a rich diversity of choice. You can see exactly where this is going. The publishers are going to be even further hacked off by high street retail. Non plastic and cardboard business models will become more popular sooner. And then the high street will have less and less games to sell. They are like turkeys looking forward to Christmas.