Employees Claim EB Canada is Dropping Preowned Sections

Jamous

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This wouldn't be a problem with most games. But what about games like, say, Arkham City, where you lose content if a game's pre-owned? What about games like Rage? What then? What if you go in, intending to get a new copy of the game and only end up getting one that's already been used, with the code cashed in already? That'd make me pretty damn angry at least. Hopefully you're right and it isn't as sinister as it seems. But if they start doing this with games with Codes then it doesn't even bare thinking about.
 

Phoenix Arrow

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Amnestic said:
I have a local 'Chips' gamestore where I'm living and...well, it's the best gamestore I've ever been in. It's got prices on par with GAME but it has an enormous collection of older titles. And by 'older' I don't mean 'Old PS3 launch' titles. I mean Mega Drive, Dreamcast, N64, Gameboy Original, PS1, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, NES, SNES, Atari...and probably more I'm forgetting, all for fairly reasonable prices.
Ugh. When I was at 6th form, the town my college was in had a shop just like that. Loads of old used games and the guy who owned used to order in a couple of the latest games too. This shop was awesome, me and a friend used to just go in there, look at the games and remember the good times. It has a biggest Megadrive section than the PC section in most Games. They even had a few NeoGeo games and pretty much every controller since the late 80s.
This shop had been there since I was a kid. Then Game moved in about 30 seconds walk away. The shop shut a year later.
 

Sylveria

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isometry said:
I don't see why publishers tolerate the used game market at all. I think it's silly that they worry so much about PC game piracy while doing nothing to stop the sale of used games. From a business point of view, used games are worse than piracy, since with piracy there is no way to know if the pirate would have bought the game, but with used-games they are typically paying 80% of the new price, so each one really is a lost sale.

By the way, I'm not condoning piracy at all by comparing it to used-games. I'm glad that PC game makers are finding ways to overcome piracy, because that means more support for the developers that make great games. I just wish they would apply the same logic to the used-games market, figure out a DRM solution that fights the problem while not getting in the way of legitimate users. I guess the other idea is to force companies like gamestop to give them a cut of used game sales.
Sheepy sheepy.. sheepy sheepy sheepy...

I love seeing people going "Go Publishers! Stop those evil used games!" instead of saying "Hey publishers! Give us a reason not to buy used games!" You have a brand new car right? All your DVDs are new right? I hope you never rented anything either? Actually, every single THING you've ever owned or used you bought new, right? If not, you're a massive, bile-spouting hypocrite for saying what you're saying here. Used game sales are no different than the sale of any other used object. Someone buys it new, they sell it to someone else, who then sells it to someone else.

Oh, and what about old games? Today I just bought the entire Wild Arms series. New copies of most of those games would have run me $80+. What about about those sales? Those are marked up significantly from their original retail price, should they be sending an extra cut to the developer cause they hoarded the games for 10 years then decided to price gouge? There's no extra money going to the developer on those sales, new or used. So you'd happily allow no one to play older games without paying a huge markup? Heck, why not charge $200 for games? $500 even? If used game sales are gone, developers can set whatever price they want. Will they sell as many copies? No, but it doesn't matter, there's no alternative. Maybe wait 10 years and the price will fall below $100, or it'll go up cause, hey, you can't get it any other way.

I also like how you're passively endorsing SOPA by saying you're glad producers are finding ways to overcome piracy, one of those ways being getting government legislation that states they can shut down websites for even posting still images of their products if the desire strikes them. Tell me.. why do you hate freedom, comrade?

But I have good news, they already have DRM for console games developed, they just haven't used it because it would be financial suicide. Originally it was gonna be standard issue on PS3 games. The game would essentially be assigned to a console so no one else could ever use that disc. Oh, but god help you if your PS3 broke or your PSN account was compromised, cause you'd need to replace your entire library.

Good for you though wanting to destroy the one small recourse we as consumers have. Game could be bad, buggy, and broken to hell but there's nothing we can do. Could be a game you just flat out don't enjoy, but can't return it. No, we can only trade it in for a partial refund, and you want that gone. I pray you work for EA or Activision, if not, the things your saying should make you ashamed to call yourself a gamer.
 

Amnestic

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Aug 22, 2008
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Phoenix Arrow said:
Amnestic said:
I have a local 'Chips' gamestore where I'm living and...well, it's the best gamestore I've ever been in. It's got prices on par with GAME but it has an enormous collection of older titles. And by 'older' I don't mean 'Old PS3 launch' titles. I mean Mega Drive, Dreamcast, N64, Gameboy Original, PS1, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, NES, SNES, Atari...and probably more I'm forgetting, all for fairly reasonable prices.
Ugh. When I was at 6th form, the town my college was in had a shop just like that. Loads of old used games and the guy who owned used to order in a couple of the latest games too. This shop was awesome, me and a friend used to just go in there, look at the games and remember the good times. It has a biggest Megadrive section than the PC section in most Games. They even had a few NeoGeo games and pretty much every controller since the late 80s.
This shop had been there since I was a kid. Then Game moved in about 30 seconds walk away. The shop shut a year later.
Where I am, we have a GAME, a Gamestation (three minutes away), HMV (30 seconds away), Chips (3 minutes away) and a Grainger Games (3 minutes away, who you may remember from this article [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113875-Drunken-Condom-Flicking-Mars-U-K-Games-Awards]).

I forgot to mention, but the Chips just got an oldschool SNK vs. Capcom arcade machine last time I was in there too. I wish there were more stores like it.
 

Phoenix Arrow

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Amnestic said:
Where I am, we have a GAME, a Gamestation (three minutes away), HMV (30 seconds away), Chips (3 minutes away) and a Grainger Games (3 minutes away, who you may remember from this article [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113875-Drunken-Condom-Flicking-Mars-U-K-Games-Awards]).

I forgot to mention, but the Chips just got an oldschool SNK vs. Capcom arcade machine last time I was in there too. I wish there were more stores like it.
Well, the town I went to college in was pretty small, but pretty close to three relatively big cities. If you wanted to go shopping, you'd go to one of those. It wasn't big enough to support two game shops and it was a shame to see their door boarded up. The guy who owned it was such a nice guy.

Southampton is like that though. Within about a 5 minute walk, there's 2 GAMEs, a Gamestation, a CeX, an HMV and an ePlay. Fuck ePlay. I've been in there 3 times and each time they've mugged me off. They used to have game boxes on their shelf which they didn't have the disks for. There also used to be an EB, another GAME, another CeX and a Virgin Megastore too. They're all slowly starting to shut now though. I'm sure one other GAME will be shut by the end of next year.
 

PunkRex

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CrystalShadow said:
-Sigh-

Welcome to the situation in England. More or less. Although they do seem to be taking it to a new extreme here.

Both Game and GameStation, while still having dedicated second hand sections routinely mix new and used copies together on the same shelf.

The second-hand sections contain older titles you can't find new anyway, and the other section contains a more or less random mix of new & used games.

The only dedicated 'new only' section is PC games, and then only because you can't really sell second-hand PC games. (Although, believe it or not, Gamestation does. - Which came as a huge surprise to me.)
I never noticed this, i'll definatly have to cheack tommorrow. I mean I know they sort of mixed the two but the used are always well labelled with big yellow stickers.
 

duchaked

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when I go to GameStop (no more EB Games around where I am, sad since I preferred their layout), I walk right past the NEW section to the USED
plus I only ever look at the price tags lol...if I wanted a game brand new, I'll just buy it SEALED and disc untouched from another retailer (unless I pre-ordered it at GameStop, which happens once in a while)
 

Gizen

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As a small correction to my previous post detailing some of these changes, games are still being seperated by console as well as by genre now, and new games definitely are not being confined to the bottom/behind the used games. Having just started the reorganization process today and having mixed all our new and used PS3 games together though, I can confirm that the new system is extremely confusing, and if anyone shopping at an EB does want a new copy of a game specifically, I highly recommend going straight up to the counter and asking for one, because finding a single new copy of say, LA Noire for example on the shelf, surrounded on all sides by several dozen used copies, is like finding a needle in a haystack.
 

CrystalShadow

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Apr 11, 2009
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Phoenix Arrow said:
CrystalShadow said:
-Sigh-

Welcome to the situation in England. More or less. Although they do seem to be taking it to a new extreme here.

Both Game and GameStation, while still having dedicated second hand sections routinely mix new and used copies together on the same shelf.

The second-hand sections contain older titles you can't find new anyway, and the other section contains a more or less random mix of new & used games.

The only dedicated 'new only' section is PC games, and then only because you can't really sell second-hand PC games. (Although, believe it or not, Gamestation does. - Which came as a huge surprise to me.)
I don't know what game shops you're going to pal. I live in Southampton, there's 4 GAME shops here and one Gamestation and none of them do that. Well, I haven't been to Gamestation for years so I don't know if they do that.

Regardless, the video game market in the UK is in a position that there are what? 3 major video game retail chains? GAME who are ridiculous. Seriously, I went to buy a game there once, couldn't see it on the shelf, asked someone if they had it and they told me the game was a Sony exclusive and wouldn't be released on the 360. So I went to HMV and they had it. HMV. I forgot they even sold games.
Then there's Gamestation. Who are owned by GAME and I'm convinced they only exist so there's an illusion of choice.
Apart from that, there's CeX which is more a pawn shop than anything else. They mostly sell games, but they also sell electronic goods and porn with dodgy titles. They only sell pre-owned games, but at least their rates are fair, both for buying and selling.

But buying video games on high street in this day and age is a mugs game. Here's my advice, from me to all gamers. Use http://www.shopto.net/. Free 1st class delivery and they dispatch games so quickly.
Well if they don't do it in your area, that's great and all, but there are 4 'Game' stores in my area, 3 Gamestation, two HMV stores... As well as ASDA's game department,

ALL of which mix new & used games together.

So you can say it doesn't happen in your area, but it's going on in every place that sells both second-hand & new games that I've been to in the last several years...

As to Gamestation and game being the same thing... That's only been the case since last year. I know it's still pretty dodgy, but that's what happens these days.
Plenty of industries are like that. (Have a look on supermarket shelves and check how many 'competing' products are made by the same company.)
 

Phoenix Arrow

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CrystalShadow said:
As to Gamestation and game being the same thing... That's only been the case since last year. I know it's still pretty dodgy, but that's what happens these days.
Nope. The second the started to get big, they were bought out by Blockbuster who tried to outdo Game the only way they know how, by putting shops everywhere they could. So then Game bought them from Blockbuster... I want to say 5 years ago? Something like that.

But that's not all. Gamestation originally tried to get people to come to them instead of Game by offering more deals. Pretty much every game that was outside of the top 10 was 2 for £x. So Game had to try and outdo them with those deals. Now though, Game own Gamestation, so they don't have to do that. So you might've noticed there are basically no deals in Game shops and the amount of money you have to pay for Gamestation deals has increased.

That's the situation, and now noone can stop them. Except ASDA. God help us.
 

CrystalShadow

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Phoenix Arrow said:
CrystalShadow said:
As to Gamestation and game being the same thing... That's only been the case since last year. I know it's still pretty dodgy, but that's what happens these days.
Nope. The second the started to get big, they were bought out by Blockbuster who tried to outdo Game the only way they know how, by putting shops everywhere they could. So then Game bought them from Blockbuster... I want to say 5 years ago? Something like that.

But that's not all. Gamestation originally tried to get people to come to them instead of Game by offering more deals. Pretty much every game that was outside of the top 10 was 2 for £x. So Game had to try and outdo them with those deals. Now though, Game own Gamestation, so they don't have to do that. So you might've noticed there are basically no deals in Game shops and the amount of money you have to pay for Gamestation deals has increased.

That's the situation, and now noone can stop them. Except ASDA. God help us.
Yes... That seems to be what happens though. Honestly, the gulf between the theory behind capitalism, and the reality is so wide it's almost a joke that there's so many people that think capitalism actually works.

But that's a completely different kind of discussion in the end.
 

Phoenix Arrow

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CrystalShadow said:
Yes... That seems to be what happens though. Honestly, the gulf between the theory behind capitalism, and the reality is so wide it's almost a joke that there's so many people that think capitalism actually works.

But that's a completely different kind of discussion in the end.
Well, I think people don't know exactly how Games parent company operates. There used to be game shops called Future Zone. The company that ran those were given a bunch of money and support from EB in return for however much of their income. I don't know the numbers obviously. But anyway, they went about buying smaller companies, one of which were GAME. They must've thought "hey, that's a good name for a GAME shop" and rebranding all their stores as GAME.

So they put themselves into a position where any challenger could easily be crushed or bought out. The only companies they left alone were woefully incompetant, like ePlay and that shop that went to some industry event a flung condoms at people.

But you know what's interesting now? They're being suffocated by people ordering games online. They recently shut one of their stores near me and I'm sure it's not the only one.
 

CrystalShadow

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Phoenix Arrow said:
CrystalShadow said:
Yes... That seems to be what happens though. Honestly, the gulf between the theory behind capitalism, and the reality is so wide it's almost a joke that there's so many people that think capitalism actually works.

But that's a completely different kind of discussion in the end.
Well, I think people don't know exactly how Games parent company operates. There used to be game shops called Future Zone. The company that ran those were given a bunch of money and support from EB in return for however much of their income. I don't know the numbers obviously. But anyway, they went about buying smaller companies, one of which were GAME. They must've thought "hey, that's a good name for a GAME shop" and rebranding all their stores as GAME.

So they put themselves into a position where any challenger could easily be crushed or bought out. The only companies they left alone were woefully incompetant, like ePlay and that shop that went to some industry event a flung condoms at people.

But you know what's interesting now? They're being suffocated by people ordering games online. They recently shut one of their stores near me and I'm sure it's not the only one.
That's not really a huge surprise. Online retailers have a massive advantage over traditional retailers. But... There's nothing stopping the same thing happening all over again.
(Eg, some huge online retailer takes over or crushes all the competition.)

In fact, Microsoft got a reputation for being an evil empire not so much for what it did to it's customers, but what it did to it's competitors.

Which is summed up in an infamous phrase apparently attributed to someone at microsoft. (But who knows really.)

Embrace. Extend. Extinguish.

Or to put it differently, Take over your competitors, and if that fails copy their stuff and use the massive disparity in resources to crush them.
(After all, who cares if you make a loss for a few years if it results in all your competitors going out of business?)
 

Phoenix Arrow

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CrystalShadow said:
That's not really a huge surprise. Online retailers have a massive advantage over traditional retailers. But... There's nothing stopping the same thing happening all over again.
(Eg, some huge online retailer takes over or crushes all the competition.)
Well, it's certainly a possibility. But fortunately there are already enough massive shopping websites out there that noone has the pockets to buy any of them out. I mean you've got the likes of Play and Amazon, then if you're talking about games specifically, you've got smaller sites like Shopto and then retail places that are starting to move online like HMV. Not forgetting the rise digital distribution sites and you can always fall back on eBay.