that logic doesn't make sense to me for digital goods It makes some sense. There is (effectively) no first sale doctrine for digital goods. One organization g

that logic doesn't make sense to me for digital goods It makes some sense. There is (effectively) no first sale doctrine for digital goods. One organization gets to set the price for every single consumer. There may be middlemen, but the licencing deal will (at least implicitly) control the lowest price the middleman can offer without turning the "rental" into a loss leader. The copyright holder can sacrifice possible sales/"rentals" today, to maintain the market's perception of what such a product is worth tomorrow. A lot of people expected all digital stores to take Steam's approach to pricing. The steam store is known for the price of games dropping rapidly after release, and multiple deep-discount sales throughout the year. Even outside of sales, steam's "new" digital copies of aging games can be (and are often are) priced lower than physical shops selling used copies. But things generally trend towards the PSN and Xbox route. Their stores are notable for keeping prices high. Even on aging titles, their prices can be higher than physical retailers selling (new, not used) copies. Retailers need both the shelf space and to cut their losses from over-ordering at release. I'm sure they both have spreadsheets and models that explain how they'll make more money in the long run. But, for either model to work AT ALL it was important to find a way around the first sale doctrine for digital goods. If resale existed on any of these platforms, prices would be forced to respond to market forces.