Dear Future Gamer,

Just a little thing that bugged me this week - "Retailers do indeed whack about 50% mark-up on games" (FG21, "Are you being served?"). Could you please tell me which distributor these retailers are buying from? I've been in this industry for 10 years now, at all levels from retailer to manufacturer, in both buying and selling roles, and I have no idea who you could be referring to.

If you go back far enough (to the days of 8-bit cassettes, in fact), there were 50% profit margins, but as technology progressed, games companies used the excuses of development costs, new formats and general increased overheads to cut this figure down. By the time Sega hit the mainstream with the Mega Drive, margins were 25%, and during the price wars of 1995 and thereabouts, PC games margins were often less than 10%. Often, you sold at a loss. Even today, I know many retailers that make do with 20%-30% margins on new PlayStation and PC titles.

This margin myth has really gone on long enough. (I can remember ACE magazine's breakdown of where your money went when you bought a game conveniently "forgetting" to include VAT.) I suggest that before you comment on someone's livelihood, you talk to a few people in the business, rather than just the publisher's PR crowd over a few pints.

Richard Brook

FG: Hands up, Richard, I stand corrected. Thanks for clearing things up - that's what Feedback is all about, after all. But, hang on, if retailers aren't pushing up the price of games as much as I thought, surely that gives even more credibility to the "games cost too much" argument. Any software houses out there like to defend yourselves?