The Current market:
I pay AU$110.00 for a new game for eight hours of content of questionable quality.
I finish this game in a weekend, and have no incentive to continue playing. The experience was not memorable or enjoyable enough to warrant experiencing it again at a later date.
The Publisher didn't put enough effort into the game to give me any reason, whatsoever, to hold onto their game.
They want to create disposeable games of low quality and charge a high price for these titles. I react to this as follows:
Under the rights granted to me by my government, I finish the game and then sell the game to someone who will most likely enjoy the game moreso than myself. This transaction tranfers my rights to the purchaser. I spend the money made from this transaction on another title that may, or may not, be from the same Publisher.
In total, the Publisher has made 1 copy of their game and has sold that copy, making the established profit on that copy. At no time was more than 1 copy of the game in circulation.
If the Publisher presents a quality title that is worth replaying, they will retain a higher number of customers, achieving a higher number of total sales.
The Market the Publisher wants:
I pay AU$110.00 for a new game of eight hours of content. The Publisher doesn't need to spend money on making a quality title; they need only focus on advertising the game, and buying high score reviews from the most popular publications, to achieve as many Sales as possible before Word of Mouth kills the title.
Their customers have no ability to react to the quality of the purchased title, and cannot resell their title.
They make a profit off of each copy sold, which is capped at the total sales achieved before the game was killed by word of mouth.
The Market the Publisher will get:
I don't pay AU$110.00 for a game that I don't know is any good, and cannot resell if I don't like it.
The Publisher doesn't make a profit off of the title sold because I didn't buy it.
As the quality of titles is lowered as the Publisher is "safe" because titles cannot be re-sold, less people pre-order games.
Less copies sold means less pre-owned titles available. The pre-owned market dies. Numbers of Gaming Centric Stores close as a result of the loss in profit. In turn, the Publisher sells less copies in total as there are less places to buy games.
Publishers are left will smaller sales, smaller profits, less customers and eventually less staff.