GameStop opening Deus Ex boxes, removing free OnLive game code
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
For proprietary media like Playstation, XBox, etc they're going to be disintermediated whether they like it or not. They still can win in the PC arena.
So rather than acquiring strategically pointless startups like casual gaming site Kongregate, they'd be wise to ramp up their efforts to compete with Steam or even acquire whole digital distribution + consumption stacks like OnLive itself.
Competing with Steam is more a relationship challenge than a technical one, and of all companies GameStop is well placed with those existing relationships.
The downfall of Blockbuster should have proved that they need to change a long time ago.
They've already acquired companies to directly compete with both OnLive and Steam: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/01/gamestop-details-plans-fo...
They do have a lot of names and numbers, but you rarely see anything remotely like the "i <3 steam" or "i quit pirating games because steam does it right" abject love that valve gets.
I have serious doubts GameStop's corporate culture can accept gamers as anything other than something to extract dollars from, much less accept lower revenue and lower expenses.
Possibly future is Steam alike platforms with rent ability (such as gametap / metaboli). Simply put Netflix for games is the next thing, although looks like going to take another 3-5 years to get something decent in that field.
GameFly fulfills this very nicely right now, though it does lack an equivalent to Watch Instantly.
PC gaming will never die, it'll just keep changing form. Right now we're seeing it shift to the web, to tablets, etc.
Consoles obviously took massive amount of the market. PC hardware is still expensive if you want to play the new games, some games don't even bother release PC versions any more. But there's a hardcore gaming community and there are certain types of games that still suck in consoles. Even this is clear indication that PC gaming is dying, or will be a niche rather than a main stream thing.
You're arguments are all but copy and pasted from every other person who has brought this up in the last ten years or so. The reasons you stated haven't brought about the end of PC gaming yet.
The point is, I've never met, or even heard of, a GameStop fan. Maybe they can do it, maybe they can be the go to solution for online distribution. I just doubt it. They try a lot harder to get their hand in your wallet than they try to give you a fun gaming experience.
It's hard not to hear about valve promotions from non-valve people(sorry to harp on steam). I've never had that experience with GS, and i think it's because they make people uncomfortable.
my comment's peer's discussion of gamefly is exactly what i mean. high regard for GS just seems ... really really rare.
Gamers love the concept of digital distribution but not the way Steam does it.
When I encounter limits that directly affect me, it's usually due to restrictions insisted upon by some brain dead publisher, but not by Valve.
So I (as a steam "fan" [not fanboy]) are really interested in where you think the service lets you down.
All true, but with the exception of the fact that Valve gouges their European clientele, none of that really disturbed me much.
The fact that I don't have to fumble with media to me is so valuable that it balances the disadvantages out.
But all your points are valid and while I probably wouldn't personally make use of a rental option it would sure be nice to have (for example: to evaluate a more expensive game before buying it. Thinking about it; This is probably the very reason why they don't have it, but I digress).
Trading or gifting games would probably be a no-brainer to implement, then again it would be bad for business.
Overall I just haven't found a comparable service that works so well, which probably makes me that relative fan.
That doesn't mean that there's no place for improvements or a better product / service in the future.
The same goes for renting. Granting people the ability to try out a game before buying it could increase sales. Many of the games I play I don't even come close to finishing. If there were a cheaper (and easier) option to try out a game for an hour than buying the full game in a physical store and then hoping I can trade it off later on, I might very well be interested.
I never quite understood why shareware games went out of favour.
As for problems with not being able to re-sell or rent games, that's not so much of a problem for me because I don't do that anyway. I would only really need to sell such games when they take up too much physical space, and with Steam and digital delivery it's not an issue.
For me it's the lack of a resale option. With console games I can get them on the day they come out, beat them in a week or two and get half my money back.
This means a AAA title that costs $60.00 actually only costs me $30.00.
I haven't found a way to sell steam games yet:( This means that the same game on steam would have to cost half of what it costs in retail chains to be worth my while.
Now Steam occasionally does have such games due to sales, but it just can't compete with the new releases.
I think the PC gaming market's relationship with GameStop can be described as "disgusted." Lots of PC gamers dislike GameStop (rockpapershotgun.com and pcgamer.com and their forums as prime examples of how people feel about them). Exclusive pre-order bonuses, cruddy behavior like this, ect.
So rather than acquiring strategically pointless
startups like casual gaming site Kongregate
Hardly a startup.
I was hired long before the EB/GameStop merger and watched as the company adopted EB's culture. GameStop was a bottom-up company, and EB was a top-down company. Much more authoritarian in its management, and saw the customer more like a piece of meat.
In the years just after the merger, I watched morale fall as the "scratch protection" plans became a priority, trade prices plummeted, and we stopped stocking PC games in several stores. They replaced GameStop's functional, DOS-based POS and adopted EB's slow, windows version. The transition was terrible, and the company seemed deaf to the complaints that holiday lines were getting longer and longer as they added features to an already slow and bloated system.
I quit and returned to school a couple years after the merger, it was the right decision, of course.
I loved my time at GameStop. I built a community around the store I managed and did everything I could to do right by the customer. I knew several managers (on both sides) who were as dedicated as I was to this goal. The culture at corporate was focused on marketing and was in no way supportive of this goal, and I'm saddened to see what they've become. But it was probably inevitable.
The comments here are pretty disdainful, and I definitely understand why. But there are a lot of good people working in the trenches that deserve thanks for what they've done for their customers.
So no, I'm not amazed.
If they were honest, they'd either send the boxes back to the manufacturer and ask for ones that didn't have the codes, or leave them intact. Stealing something out of the box, then wrapping it up like it's new and selling it... That's just dishonest.
I'm amazed at how Gamestop doesn't even try to lie or spin their way out. They state, "Square Enix packed a competitor’s coupon within the PC version of Deus Ex: Human Revolution without our prior knowledge and we did pull these coupons."
Don't give them points for following the only course they had open to them.
Disclaimer: I wish I was an investor.
There are many reasons why this is bad, first and foremost that this is where a lot of the action is right now and those of us with less than 10 million available to invest are stuck investing in only the rest of the economy. Which, from what I gather from the news, is pretty mismanaged in the US.
After trying out OnLive for 5 minutes even without playing, it is obvious that this is the future for most gamers.
It (or something like it) is the future, there's no doubt about that.
When you couple pretty poor quality with persistent, noticeable latency, you do not have a recipe for success.
What you're saying is nontrivial and may not even be workable, because it's impossible to really separate "stupid slow player" from "player whose latency is high enough that he can't react".
I used to work at one in HS. It's really easy to reseal a package with shrink wrap.
I don't play a lot of games, but every time I do pick one up (since GameStop is virtually the only remaining B&M game store in many places), it hasn't been a consumer-friendly experience.
I will admit I would never buy a new game from GameStop. One time when I wanted to purchase PES 2011 they tried to sell me a brand new game with the packaging teared off. This disturbed me quite a bit. When I tried to explain to the manager it was the same thing as a used game to me at that point he didn't accept my argument. I bet they do this more than it gets reported.
In other news, digital distribution to me makes sense i.e. Steam, and full downloads direct to console HD and the like, but it just isn't a large enough market share yet IMO. These games are humongous it's kind of pain to keep running out of disk space, at least as things stand currently.
Slow broadband speed and download caps would limit your ability to download games over and over.
Removing the OnLive coupon may hide one (small) competitor, but does nothing to stop GameStop's real competition in the PC space.
What would be more interesting is if Square Enix and GameSpot have some contract for how to sell these games, and GameSpot are breaking this.
I think that traditionally it's the trademark owner who gets to define what their trademark is allowed to be applied to, not a "hunter off the street." (Did you mean "punter"?) This sometimes has deleterious effects — for example, Saran Wrap no longer contains any Saran, and Kaopectate in the US no longer consists of kaolinite and pectin — but by and large it's a sensible policy, in light of the information asymmetry between consumers and producers that makes trademark law a reasonable bargain in the first place.
("Information asymmetry"? I mean, if you knew how to make flawless replacement cylinder heads for your Ferrari, you'd likely make them yourself instead of buying them from Ferrari; and if you knew how to identify flawless cylinder heads, you wouldn't need the Ferrari trademark to ensure that the ones you bought were flawless. The reason the trademark benefits you as a consumer, or for that matter Ferrari as a producer, is that it allows you to delegate that decision to Ferrari's engineers, machinists, etc., even when you're buying the part through a reseller; and then Ferrari can charge a premium for their reputation.)
If anything, right of first sale (remember GameStop buys games in bulk from publishers) protects them.
> With reference to trade in tangible merchandise, such as the retailing of goods bearing a trademark, the "first sale" rule serves to immunize a reseller from infringement liability. Such protection to the reseller extends to the point where said goods have not been altered so as to be materially different from those originating from the trademark owner.
It seems to me that removing coupons from the box is "altering goods so as to be materially different from those originating from the trademark owner".