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GameStop Opening Deus Ex Boxes, Removing Free Game Coupon
DisKurzion writes "A leaked GameStop memo indicates that employees are to open the regular PC release of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and discard the included OnLive coupon. From the article: 'GameStop spokesperson Beth Sharum confirmed the practice, telling Ars that "Square Enix packed the competitor's coupon with our DXHR product without our prior knowledge and we did pull these coupons.'"
Isn't this tampering with a new product?
So... let me get this right.
If you're competing against a fast-growing distribution method that has the potential to completely under-cut your own business model, the best way to do that is to... engage in behaviour that will really piss a good portion of your customers off?
It's not actually the removal of the coupons that bugs me - it's the opening of the game boxes. I know that some retailers do this a lot - fortunately, it's rarer here in the UK than it is in the US. But I really don't like it - I've certainly bought "new" DS games in the past in the US that had saves already on the cartridge (presumably a staff member's).
It's not as if they're just competing against download distribution. I've never bought a game from Amazon or play.com that had been opened before it arrived (well, aside from the time our local post-office staff decided that stealing was fun, but that's another story) - and those are almost always cheaper. Seriously, do these bricks and mortar retailers even want to stay in business?
Actually, IANAL, but is there a legal issue here? If there's a reasonable expectation that every copy of the game includes this coupon and Gamestop are removing it, are they committing fraud or theft or something? Either from the consumer or from Square-Enix? I mean, surely Square-Enix must have a civil case here - and it's almost at the kind of level where it starts to sound criminal (if it happened in the UK at least).
Cool. I can violate every provision of the EULA, and it's GameStop that has to agree to the terms.
I wonder if that'll hold up in a court of law?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
This would be like my grocery store opening my cereal box to get the toy out so that I'm more likely to buy toys from the store.
Fucked. Up.
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
To think I wanted to work there as a child...
I don't know what the reasoning is, but they do it. They reseal them when they sell them. So it is nothing different for this one. If you demand factory sealed games, Gamestop was never a place you shopped.
Also to note Onlive isn't a distribution method. Onlive is a service where they run the games on their servers and stream you the video. The idea being you don't need to have a good computer to run the game. In reality it sucks badly since you only get a low bitrate 720p steam, meaning it does not look like you get with a high end system, more like with a low end one, and there's interface lag because of the network round trip.
In terms of digital distribution, Gamestop actually is in that business, they purchased Impulse some time ago so they now sell games online as well as in stores.
What a bunch of deusbags.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
When I purchase something that is advertised as "New" I expect it to BE new. I want it to be sold to me as it was shipped from the distributor. By opening these boxes and removing whatever the fuck they want, are these games even allowed to be called "new" anymore? I avoid shopping at Game Stop to begin with (There is fortunately a local store that has better prices and more selection), but when I DO need to buy a "new" game from them... I'm going to start insisting that they only give me sealed boxes. If a game is not still factory sealed, I'm going to demand it be sold at the used price point, as this is essentially now an "open box" item.
True story. I went to Gamestop once to pick up Dragon Age: Origins. I'd seen the DLC advertised with a new copy, and that sounded like a good deal. The clerk offered me a used copy for slightly below the $60 asking price. I specified I wanted a new copy for the DLC, so he took the box out from behind the counter, I paid for it and left.
I got the game home, opened it, and there was no code for DLC included. Then I noticed the game had been unsealed and re-wrapped. I took it back to the store, presented the receipt and said, "Hey, you sold me a used game at full retail." The guy tried to backpedal, saying it was a new copy that had been opened for display purposes, and maybe someone had stolen the DLC code. It was late, so at that point I offered to take the used copy he'd previously offered if he gave me the right price for it. He then said that was the only copy they had (though he'd previously tried to sell me on a used copy before presenting me with the "new" one). He hastily provided me with a full refund.
Then I went to a competitor's store nearby, where I found a new (i.e. sealed) copy for $40, DLC included. I have not set foot inside a GameStop since. My definition of a "new game" is one that's gone from the factory to my hands without the contents of the box seeing daylight. GameStop, it seems, has other ideas.
I've got a better crystal ball - this is a tempest in a teapot, gamers will bitch and moan and do nothing about it, and life will go on. No lawsuit. No reckoning. Nothing.
The Wired article on this does a more balanced job at handling the legal ramifications:
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/08/gamestop-onlive/
Basically, Gamestop may be in the right, legally, if Square-Enix has a pre-existing contract with them with a non-compete clause. As the article states: “Existing contracts between GameStop and Square may have barred this kind of promotion, and so GameStop may actually be justified in their action if Square is in breach of some promotion/marketing agreement”
But they can also be in legal trouble over this, as the article also points out, for a number of different reasons.
Nowhere on the packaging does it say "Free OnLive coupon", apparently. I haven't looked at the packaging myself.
I quit shopping at Gamestop because they opened many of their boxes. Since they are selling new games along with used for consoles, how do you know which you will end up with? Case in point, I purchased a Nintendo DS game for my daughter. Christmas Day when she opened it up and put it in her DS there were saved games on it already - it had obviously been used. When I bought it, I mentioned that the box was not sealed, and they claimed that they had to do that else they would get shoplifted. I replied that other stores have less employees in the store but don't have their games opened and behind the counter.
Another time in a different Gamestop my son bought the PS2 game Devil May Cry, again the package was open and the had the discs behind the counter. A few days later while playing it asks him to insert Disc 2, which was not in the box. We went back to the store and they still had the 2nd disc.
In both cases they made good, but after those experiences they lost me as a customer, and I had been shopping there nearly every week since they were Babbages. It sounds like they have still haven't learned not to open packages.
In this case it's even worse - don't they have to break the security seal to get the coupon? In the old days they could just re-shrink wrap it, these days most games come with a security seal as well.
This is PC copies of the game.
Then I go back to my opening statement - people still buy things at Gamestop? I don't own a console and honestly after giving up 3 years ago because all the Gamestops in my neighborhood only stocked console games (or a very limited selection of used PC titles), I vowed never to buy a game again from a brick and mortar store. Guess what - I don't have any problems using Gamersgate or better yet buying directly from the publisher and downloading. It saves me a drive and it helps keep a useless store clerk job out of the economy.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.