Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Frontier Developments chief David Braben believes that the pre-owned games market is damaging the single player games and suggests a genuine rental market could be a solution.

"I think it's really damaging to the single-player experience," he said. "Games like BioShock and Assassin's Creed, where they're perfectly valid games, but once you've played them they go into the pre-owned section."

"The sales don't reflect the actual sales of people playing them because someone has gone out and bought, at almost the same price, a pre-owned copy because they couldn't get an original. It's very frustrating that they don't carry that stock any more."

"A genuine rental market would be fine," he explained. "There may well be other business models - and the problem with video rental, as I understand it, was prices were really high. I think that was the issue."