uk games market being 'strangled' 英国游戏市场被“严密保护”-凯发k8官网

one of germany's largest video games publishers has said that the uk's ¹ chains make it difficult for publishers to break into the uk market.

德国最大的视频游戏生厂商之一称，英国的零售链条使外国出版商难以进入英国市场。

georg ⁴, koch media's ⁵ director, also blamed the exchange rate and uk pricing structure for the difficulties faced by games publishers.

industry experts say the second-hand market also ⁶（窒息，抑制） industry growth.

mr larch said at the games com meeting that a rise in digital distribution would make things easier in the future.

he told bbc news that while the firm's ⁷ in germany had risen by 18% this year, in britain that figure was much lower.

"we're seeing companies like amazon take a larger market share, and the growth of digital distribution, but it's going to be a long-term development as people still want to have something in their hands," he said.

mr larch said that other economic factors were at work against overseas publishers.

"we can see a lot of cheap imports from the uk to europe [due to the current exchange rates]."

ian livingston, president of uk-based publisher eidos, told bbc news that publishers still wanted to work with retail.

"these aren't just shops, they are a marketing tool, a window into our world where software houses can display their wares," he said.

the problem that publishers have with retail, he said, was due to the growth of the second-hand games market.

"the pre-owned market is a serious problem, because there is no benefit to developers or publishers," said mr livingston.

while ⁸ have to pay a percentage to the publishers for a sale of a new game, there is no such requirement when selling a second hand game, with the shop pocketing all the profit.

mr livingston estimated that the pre-owned market made up more than a quarter of a video-game retailers turnover.

"a shop makes a bigger ⁹（利润，边缘） on a pre-owned title, and can sell them six or seven times, so there is no ¹⁰ for them to reorder and the content creator gets no slice of the action," he said.

industry experts say the landscape of what makes a successful video game is changing.

while software developers could turn a profit if a game made it into the top 20, with rising development costs and more platforms to develop on, a game often needs to be listed in the top 10 for publishers to ¹¹ any investment.

this has made some developers more cautious on what they develop and has also seen retailers ¹² more space to the best-selling games.

retailers may then refuse to stock so-called "tier（列，行） two" games altogether.