Target is ramping up its in-store trading program to include more items that have a cash value and can be used towards purchasing new goods, the retailer announced today. The company said today that customers can save money on "back-to-school purchases: by trading in their used electronics and video games. Target’s Electronics Trade-in service (in partnership with NextWorth) has expanded to 1,490 of its stores across the country where Target Mobile centers are located, and new product categories have been added to further expand the service.

Australia's Productivity Commission, an independent advisory board that focuses on the "economic, social and environmental issues affecting the welfare of Australians," is now setting its sights on video game prices in the country. A new report entitled "Economic Structure and Performance of the Australian Retail Industry" details the sticker shock Australians face when it comes to buying video games. The report details the practice by publishers of artificially increasing the price of games.

New research from the NPD Group reveals that many consumer electronics purchases are made with the express purpose of letting the kids use them. According to the company, 78 percent of portable video game systems purchased and 56 percent of portable digital media players purchased were for kids. The research also shows that there are almost as many kids using computers (73 percent) these days as there are using televisions (74 percent). Three-fifths of kids (60 percent) are using a portable or console gaming system as well.

It only took them a decade to come around. Walmart has decided to begin providing its U.S. sales data to outside parties, including research firms we care about such as Nielsen and NPD Group. All this is according to a report in Advertising Age.

For the last 10 years, NPD has been unable to provide data for retail game sales at Walmart and its Sam's Club stores, leaving a gaping hole in the numbers that firms such as NPD provides. With access to the Walmart and Sam's Club data, NPD could provide a more detailed picture of how video games are performing at retail in the U.S.

Nielsen has said that it will start providing Walmart and Sam's Club data to its clients in "a few months." NPD has not commented officially on this story.

Source: Gamasutra

The National Retail Federation has released its annual Organized Retail Crime report for the previous year. The National Retail Federation’s Organized Retail Crime survey, now in its seventh year, is conducted every spring to gauge the impact and severity of organized retail crime. The survey focuses on large scale theft of goods such as jeans, videogames, and house wares - anything that is popular and easy to sell.

Are retailers in the United Kingdom discriminating against games that dare to associate themselves with Valve's popular digital distribution system? One publisher says says yes. According to Russian publisher 1C Company, some brick-and-mortar retailers are refusing to stock its PC titles that have ties with Valve's Steam platform. 1C Company claims that UK retailers have told them that if their game uses Steamworks, they won't be allowed on store shelves.

"[Steam's confidence] compares very favorably to that of the retail chains," 1C's UK publishing director Darryl Still told CVG in an interview. "[Those retail chains] recently sent a command to publishers that if they include Steamworks in their title it will not be stocked."

"Those guys need to grow up, stop bullying, and focus their attentions on making their offerings as attractive as the people they are obviously looking over their shoulders in panic at," he added.

New research, based on three different surveys, finds that parents want a universal ratings system for all media formats. The research, which gathered the responses of 2,300 adults from three different surveys found that most parents were generally satisfied with ratings related to television, movies, video games, music, and handheld devices. Nevertheless, a majority of surveyed felt there should be some sort of universal rating system for all media, including web sites, music CDs, and games played on handheld devices.

Some parents also said that the differences in the ratings systems for different types of media were often inconsistent and confusing, though most complained about television ratings that didn't properly convey what kinds of content a given program contained.

The United Kingdom's Department for Culture, Media and Sport said this week that complex technical details are behind the delay of implementing PEGI age-ratings for video games in the UK. There is some doubt that the ratings system will become law this year, but the DCMS says that it is working hard on getting it done.

"We are working to put the scheme into implementation as soon as possible," a DCMS spokesperson told GamesIndustry.biz, but did not offer a revised timetable.

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey, UKIE, the Video Standards Council, and ratings body the BBFC, are said to be at a "delicate" stage in the negotiations. Sources familiar with the matter tell GameIndustry.biz that there is a general optimism that the system has a chance of becoming law "by Christmas." All involved want to sort out the details and get things right the first time, before pushing forward.

Forget about the "rent is too damned high" party, gamers down under are getting robbed by retailers, according to a consumer group. Australian consumer rights publication CHOICE has submitted a document to the government's Productivity Commission last week demanding retailers lower the price of games.

The group called on "importers, distributors and retailers to pass some of the savings they are enjoying thanks to the strong Aussie dollar on to Australian consumers." As an example, CHOICE claims that Australian consumers can save about 90 percent on the price of Portal 2 if they purchase it abroad instead of at home.

The Australian dollar is worth about as much as the US dollar, CHOICE says, but the price of video games has not come down in the country.

UK retail outlet Dixons Retail will start selling games via a new digital game download market. The new online service will run across three websites: bespoke Dixons, Currys and PC World. Like every other digital distribution platform, customers buy their PC games online, download them onto their computer and can write reviews for them afterward if they so desire. The new digital store uses the gaming download service Ztorm.

The first 10,000 customers who sign up for the new online games store can choose four free games worth up to £50. Chris Rogers, category manager of gaming at Dixons Retail said that new offering enhances the retailer's existing gaming offerings.

“With hundreds of games readily available, we’re confident that the download site will be hugely popular,” he added.

Source: MCV UK

According to an Edge report citing multiple sources inside various UK retail chains, consumers are growing tired of the PlayStation Network outage (now in its third week) and are trading their hardware for Xbox 360 systems. The various sources are saying that consumers are trading in PS3 consoles and games for cash or for replacement systems, and that PSN point card sales are on the decline.

"In the first week of downtime we did not really see any major change in sales or trades,” said an unnamed store manager at a major UK retailer. "However from the second week onwards we have seen an increase of over 200 per cent on PS3 consoles being traded in, split almost 50/50 between those trading for cash and those taking a 360 instead.

South Australian Attorney-General John Rau says that he will support a measure that introduces the R18+ classification for games in the region, and replaces the MA15+ rating. Under Rau's new version of video games classification system, the ratings would be "G," "PG," "M" and "R18+." M15+ would be completely eliminated. Rau hopes that his new system will be adopted by all of Australia, but he's certainly willing for his region to "go it alone."

"At the moment, the MA15+ classification is like a crossover point between what is acceptable and what is unacceptable," Rau said to ABC News. "We want that to be a very clear gap. We will have a new classification R18+ and the MA15+ will disappear."

Bo Andersen, President & CEO of the Entertainment Merchants Association today applauded the efforts of video game and DVD retailers in enforcing ratings systems and keeping adult material out of the hands of teenagers. Both groups did pretty well in the latest "undercover shop" by the Federal Trade Commission, which seeks to identify the level of ratings enforcement by leading video game, DVD, music retailers and movie theaters. Andersen said,

"[The] EMA is pleased with the leading performance of its members in enforcement of the video game ratings and the significant improvement in enforcement of the DVD ratings. The credit for these improvements goes to the individual retailers who have made ratings enforcement a part of their corporate culture, and in the case of video games, the ESRB and their ESRB Retail Council."

The latest Federal Trade Commission undercover shopper survey found that video game retailers continue to enforce the sale of "M-Rated" games to minors better than any other industry. Overall, sales of R-rated movie tickets, R-rated movie DVDs, unrated DVDs, music CDs carrying a Parental Advisory Label (PAL) that warns of explicit content, and video games rated "M" to minors were on the decline.

"Our undercover shopper survey demonstrates some progress," said David Vladeck, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. "But more needs to be done."

The FTC recruited 13- to 16-year-olds, unaccompanied by a parent, to attempt to buy media content that was not appropriate for their age groups. The undercover secret shopper program ran from November 2010 to January 2011. Teenagers attempted to buy these products from national and regional chain stores and theaters across the United States.

While rumors last week indicated that Nintendo might slash the price of the Wii console to $150, retailers around the country seem to have taken the matter into their own hands. What we do not know is if these price cuts are sanctioned by Nintendo or if retailers simply decided to slash the price to move stock. Whatever the reasons, the Wii is available at a number of retail outlets for $169.99. Best Buy was apparently the first retailer to list the lower price sometime on Friday, but others soon followed.

Now retailers such as GameStop, Target, Toys 'R' Us, and Amazon have listed the Wii at the same price. Walmart has lowered the price of the white Wii system to $179.

We do not know if this is a permanent price drop, sanctioned by Nintendo, or simply an indication that retailers are losing confidence in the Wii (the latter is doubtful). We will wait and see what happens, but if you do not already own a Wii now is as good a time to buy one as any.

North American retail Video game sales slipped 4 percent in the month of March as consumers turned to digital downloads and online games for their entertainment needs - according to data released by NPD Group. Sales of computer and video games fell 16 percent to $735.4 million, compared to $875.7 million in the same period a year ago.

Nintendo's 3DS hand-held drove hardware sales up 12 percent to $494.5 million in March, but it wasn't enough to make up for the steep slide in software sales (the average gamer bought just one game with the $250 system). When combined with sales of game accessories - Microsoft's Kinect and Sony's Move - overall game industry sales were $1.53 billion last month, down 4 percent from $1.58 billion in March 2010.

The message coming out of March is that consumers seem to be shifting away from retail and to digital distribution channels.

Retailers have been gunning for amazon.com for a long time and have tried in the past to use political muscle to "put them on a level playing field." When I say "level playing field," what that translates to in the eyes of retailers is "force them to pay state sales tax." Retailers have lamented that it is unfair that they have to make their customers pay sales tax while Amazon does not.

Now brick-and-mortar retailers have a new weapon to take on Amazon - the Alliance for Main Street Fairness. The group is pushing hard to change sales-tax laws in more than a dozen states including Texas and California. Before the group was associated with smaller, local businesses. Now it has the backing of retailers like Target, Best Buy Co., Home Depot, Sears, and Wal-Mart.

The NPD Group said that it plans to deliver digital sales data on a monthly basis, as a supplement to its regular monthly retails sales data. Speaking to GameIndustry.biz, NPD analyst Anita Frazier added that the research firm wants to report data on a number of fronts including revenue from video game subscriptions, downloadable content, mobile and social gaming every month.

Wanting and doing are two different animals, and NPD has been slow to deliver anything more than estimates on digital sales from places like Steam and Direct2Drive. Nevertheless, what Frazier is saying this week is good news:

"We are expanding the number of digital retailers we have relationships with in order to develop a digital POS (point of sale) service," she said.

A little digging on both Blockbuster’s and GameFly’s web sites shows that both companies are not renting DC Universe Online to its customers. It would be difficult to do more than one time unless they had a special deal in place with either SCEA or SOE to supply additional codes for these discs that come with one-time use codes.

We reached out to both companies to get a better idea of what their policies are related to renting and accepting trade-ins of DCU. Here are their responses:

"Here's how it works," Rachel Silverstein, GameFly's Vice President of Marketing told GamePolitics. "We offer trade-in to help our subscribers realize some value for the games they no longer want to play. Trade-ins do not become part of GameFly’s rental inventory. Whether to buy the game for subscription rental or to accept it as trade in are completely separate decisions."

UK TV retail queen Mary Portas (known as Mary Queen of Shops on TV) went after UK-based games retailer GAME in a very public way over the weekend after her 17-year-old son was not allowed to purchase a 15+ rated game at the company's Oxford Street store. Outraged that the store was following the recommended guidelines on ratings, Portas took her fight to the phones to contact the company's CEO and to Twitter.

The result was a very public display that some gamers responded harshly to - like this Eurogamer forum thread where users called her everything from a "see you next Tuesday" and a moron, to a b*tch and a drama queen. Good job, Internet.

Her initial argument was that staff at the store recommended games to her son, but then refused to sell them to him because he didn't have a proper form of ID.

The Intel AppUpM developer program and UK-based Dixons Retail PLC are in search of an app that enables users to interact with products from one or all of its retail sites - Currys and PC World - from home. The app can be a game, a 3D design tool, augmented reality, or whatever else developers want to build - as long as it meets the aforementioned criteria. The winning app will be judged on how much it engages users and on the level of interaction it creates with the stores or their products.

To get started, join Intel AppUp developer program, create an abstract, and pass it along to the challenge site. The top six developers with the best abstracts will then be asked to develop their app. All six developers will win at least $8,000 once the program validates their completed app. The best one wins $15,000 and receives additional exposure through promotions by Dixons and Intel AppUp.

The deadline is December 15.

According to data gathered by internet research firm ComScore, Cyber Monday saw the heaviest online spending day in history. Gian Fulgoni, the chairperson of the organization, said that Cyber Monday was "a historic day for e-commerce."

How momentous an occasion? How historic? According to the data, online retailers made $1.028 billion for the day, up 16 percent from a year ago. That number is a milestone for online retailers because it is the very first time that online one-day sales surpassed the billion-dollar mark.

"The online holiday shopping season has clearly gotten off to a very strong start, which is welcome news," said Fulgoni.”At the same time, it is important to note that some of the early strength in consumer spending is almost certainly the result of retailers' heavier-than-normal promotional and discounting activity at this early point in the season."

Darryl Still, international publishing director for PC publisher 1C, writes an editorial in response to an MCVUK report ("Retailers blow off Steam") where brick and mortar games retailers in the UK said that they might ban games that have support for Steam built into them.

In his editorial for MCV, Still talks about how his company had the foresight to see three years ago that owning the digital rights to the games it publishes was important. At that time 1C decided that it needed to secure the digital rights to all the games it publishes. That decision has been very lucrative for the company.

But the most important take-away from this editorial is that 1C makes more money via digital distribution than it does at traditional retail, and the experience, turn-around time and costs of doing business are much more reasonable.

In light of the Cuban government’s dissatisfaction with a mission in Call of Duty: Black Ops that has players attempting to assassinate Fidel Castro, the Washington D.C.-based Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ) has called for a boycott of the game.

Noting that Wal-Mart, Best Buy and “dozens of other retailers in your community are today dealing this pornography to the children in your community,” AFGJ called Black Ops “part of the whole culture of US militarism with the entertainment industry’s role being to desensitize us to violence.”

Earlier this week Anita Frasier took to the NPD Group blog to explain the recently announced changes to its video game industry retail sales data. The title of her blog post says it all: "The Games Pie is Bigger."

While Frasier acknowledges that sales of physical game copies have been steadily decreasing in recent months, she points out that money is being made elsewhere and NPD is going to start tracking it - beginning with a new annual report called "Games Industry: Total Consumer Spend."

The new report will include traditional retail hardware and software sales, used games, rentals, mobile apps, social network games, and digitally distributed content in the U.S.

Entertainment Software Association (ESA) chief Michael Gallagher, along with Michigan Retailers Association (MRA) CEO James Hallan, took to the Lansing State Journal website for an opinion piece outlining the Schwarzenegger vs. EMA Supreme Court battle could impact retailers.

The piece states that the “misguided” California law—which contains “subjective and indefinite language” in relation to what would constitute an offensive game—is “particularly concerning for retailers,” because “the retail industry has already taken giant strides toward ensuring that violent videos do not end up in children's hands.”

According to the opinion piece, the “vague law” could be trouble for retailers because:

The Street is running a three part series on the popularity of second-hand goods in a down economy and, in the second part of the series, which focuses on the used videogames market, Wedbush analyst Ed Woo pegged 2009’s used videogame market at “close to $2 billion.”

Woo said that figure represented 10 percent growth and added that he expects the sector to grow again in 2010. The article further claims that GameStop, which does not break out used videogame sales in its financial results, “bases nearly 80% of its bricks-and-mortar business on trade-ins.”

Christian PC game publisher Left Behind Games has stated that its Left Behind 3: Rise of the Antichrist PC game, in advance of Christmas, will benefit from the “largest marketing push through churches since the Passion of the Christ.”

In a story last week, the company claimed that Christian store chains had pre-ordered 37,174 Left Behind Games titles in advance of the holiday season. The company has now disclosed the names of the chains that will carry its games, which includes Family Christian Stores, LifeWay Christian Stores, Mardel Christian & Education and Berean Christian Stores.

In a weirdly specific press release, religious game developer and publisher Left Behind Games stated that it’s received initial holiday orders for 37,174 copies of its PC games.

The orders were from the U.S.’s “top four leading Christian store chains,” covering 503 locations. Titles ordered included Praise Champion, Charlie Church Mouse: Superpack, Keys of the Kingdom and Left Behind 2: Tribulation Forces, but the real stalwart of the bunch was Left Behind 3: Rise of the Antichrist, which averaged 24.8 copies ordered per store.

CEO Troy Lyndon added, “The depth of these new orders increases our projected fiscal year revenue by $401,095.”

The CEO of UK retailer HMV understands why publishers are against used game sales, but he doesn’t seem to agree with them.

Simon Fox (pictured), speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Fox indicated that publishers he talks to are “mixed” on the subject of used games, saying, “I've met both types - publishers that genuinely think what we're doing is wrong, or if it's not wrong that they should be benefiting from what we're doing. And others feel much more relaxed.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Fox demonstrated a pro-consumer sentiment, saying that he believes used game sales contribute to the sales of new titles.

As he explained:

We genuinely think that actually what it does is enable people to buy new product - and it allows them to trade-in previously-played product to get a credit and put that back into the games market. The way we've certainly geared our offer is that it's far more advantageous for the customer not to take cash, but to take a credit that's then used in buying another game.

Fox added, “I think it's slightly odd that publishers should somehow think that they have a claim to profit that a customer might make on a second sale.”