A few weeks ago I bought the excellent game Blur. I bought it from Play.com, it cost me £24.99. That doesn't sound weird does it? Well it does if you consider the fact that the game had only been out two weeks at most and already it was retailing at almost half it's recommended retail price. The same goes for the similar Split Second, less than 6 weeks after release and it's already pimping itself like a scraggly hooker "Please buy me, take me home, pleeeeease".

Borderlands, Batman : Arkham Asylum, even the latest Splinter Cell game, these are retailing brand new at sub £20 prices and it's not even been a year since release. Poor old DJ Hero is selling brand new, complete with turntable, for £40 in some places. Even the mighty Call of Duty series, previously impervious to price drops, is having to cut it's price these days. It took CoD4 almost two years to drop in price, MW2 is already hitting the skids. Just about the only game bucking the trend is L4D2 (barely though).

So, R.R.P., what's the point? More worryingly, if you're not making a AAA title that'll shift 3 million copies on release are you going to turn a profit? Is this the slippery slope? Is this going to damage game production?