Short games are the reason for trade-ins, says Avalanche founder

Short video games with little replay value are one of the reasons why people trade-in their games, according to Avalanche Studios founder and CCO, Christofer Sundberg.

Speaking to Edge Online, Sundberg said second-hand games have been such an emotive issue this E3 because "games have been too short."

He continued: "I mean, when you can play a game through from 8 to 10 hours, I would return the game too, because there's no reason for players to play it again."

He said that if developers are offering little variation, then there's no motivation for players to hold onto the game unless they want to keep it for their bookshelf. He cited Avalanche Studios' Just Cause games as examples of titles that players keep because they continue to offer variety and many hours of gameplay.

The secondhand game market was one of the most-discussed topics this E3, largely sparked by the new console generation's used-games policies. Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told Polygon that if developers are worried about used game sales, they should just make better games. Sony released a video, seemingly poking fun at its competitor Microsoft, that showed the steps involved in trading in games for the PlayStation 4.

Meanwhile, former Epic Games developer Cliff Bleszinski took to Twitter today to argue that a used-games market cannot co-exist with the AAA game market.