Regulators Approve EB/Gamestop Merger

Gamasutra is reporting that the U.S. SEC has approved the merger of Gamestop and EBGames, which was proposed earlier this year. From the article: "If completed, the merger between GameStop and EB would create a single company representing 20 to 30 percent of the overall market for video game products in the United States, and practically the entire market for used games. It's currently unknown whether EB and GameStop stores would keep their current monikers, or unite under one central name for branding purposes."

Comments

bad deal on used games...

[beowulfy]

I just have to say here that I hate how little these stores give you in store credit for good used games. You can sell them back any popular, good condition game for store credit, and they will give you about 5 bucks for it. Then they turn around and sell the used game for $45, only $5 off the retail price. So they screw you at both ends. I wouldn't mind if they charged this much for the used games if they gave you a more fair trade in value and vice verca. I stopped shopping there years ago because I didn't like supporting such a greedy company.

Re:bad deal on used games...

[slashrogue]

It's because they make so little profit on new games. Reselling used games is how they make their money.

Entire market for used games?

[LordNimon]

practically the entire market for used games.

They must mean just brick-and-mortar stores, because used games are definitely a lot cheaper on eBay or Amazon.com, even if you include shipping. Frankly, I don't know why anyone would buy a used game from these stores. After all, you have to have a computer or console to play the games, so chances are you have Internet access, too.

Very little competition, especially online.

[frederec]

For quite some time I've lamented how few video game retailers there are. Gamestop and EB have very variable workforce and policies. Larger stores that do video games in addition to other products (Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and so on) have a terrible selection. Even Best Buy, who is good with DVDs at least, tends to be a few weeks behind on the video games, if they get them at all.

This is compounded even more when looking online. I have yet to find an online video game retailer that is decent. Especially regarding preorders. If I preorder three things from gamestop.com, two come out one day, and a third comes out one day later, they will send them to me UPS. In three different packages. And there's no way I know to keep that from happening.

So when I heard the news of the merger, this just made me depressed that there would be that much less competition between retailers. Unless there are some magical game retailers I'm missing. Does anyone out there know of (especially online) game retailers that are good?

Re:Very little competition, especially online.

[frederec]

I like the principle of Steam getting rid of the publishing middleman, but I absolutely hate the requirement of being online even after buying the game. Call me old fashioned, but I've always prefered being able to buy a game, play it, then a few years later bust it out and play it again. If I wanted, I could go home right now and bust out my nintendo and start playing some games. Steam requires that the company still exist and have the same setup a few years later. Technology changes so quickly that I don't have a whole lot of confidence that it will retain a similar form, if it still exists. This is something (aside from the price) that has traditionally kept me away from MMOGs. The impermanence of it being so built in. If that changes I'll give it another look.

As for the revolution. That's all speculation right now, but I can only hope it will do all that people hope it can. If old things aren't so available, at least they can still be playable.

I would have cared...

[rAiNsT0rm]

But anymore the two companies are almost mirror's as it is. Back in the day I would have preferred EB over Gamestop as they had better deals and incentives on trading in used games/systems and they marked games down a good bit at times. More recently it is almost the opposite in that Gamestop has had the better trade-in deals and at times lower prices.

But now both tend to have ineffective staff, poorly staffed, and cloned stores. The merger will mean very little IMHO. I personally can barely stand to go in either of these stores as I am barraged with stupid sales pitches for their store card that I have to pay a yearly fee for or pre-orders, or just deal with the lame-ass employees. These stores never did anything to differentiate themselves anyhow.

I now have a new favorite haunt called The Exchange, where the staff are normal, they pay great for trades and their games are 20%-50% the price (even new) of EB/Gstop. That or ebay and I can generally get any game I want for a fraction of the cost and time.