GameStop Sued Over "Deceptive" Used Game Sales
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
dragontiers said:Anyone else think it is ironic that even if he wins, this case will last long past April, when the availability of the DLC expires, therefore causing him to lose out on it anyways?
I would like to refer you to my previous post, which explains both of your concerns. To sumarize:Master_Fubar23 said:i didnt know about A since i dont actually have the gameslowpoke999 said:and it sux that B is true but maybe things like this will make more people aware of what they may be buying.
how about a parent who doesnt know any better? not saying this guy is one but neverless generally its the people who are less informed that get sucked into this kinda of bullshit.
A) All the information was on the box, including the fact that the DLC was only available with a "Full Retail Purchase". He should have read the box. Caveat Emptor.
B) GameStop's trade in policy is not relevant to the matter at hand, and furthermore, is a direct result of capitalist society. No one is forcing you to trade your games for so little, and no one is forcing you to pay so much for used. If people weren't willing to accept their prices, they would have to change them to accommodate their customers. Supply/Demand.
You can't drag a legal contract into this. They are completely different examples. Besides that in a legal contract you have to initial many parts stating you read and agree with those parts, then at the end you have to sign usually following a paragraph that reads something along the lines of: I read, and understand this document, and agree to abide by the terms within. All information provided in the document is truthful to the best of my knowledge.dragontiers said:
There is a reasonable expectation that you will read anything you sign. You don't sign the box before they let you leave with it.
As far as "One per customer" and other bits of fine print, well they don't let you leave the store with more then one do they? I think that qualifies as notifying the customer before purchase don't you? Which is what this is all about in the first place. Furthermore that is printed in fine print in order to be deceptive the customer, not to cover their bases. That's the whole purpose. They don't want you to notice the "one per customer" so that you get your happy self into the store thinking you are going to get a nice deal. Legalese that nobody cares about is always printed in fine print, and that is there to only to satisfy law.
It's a laugh to think the DLC that comes with the game is anything other then an incentive to get you to buy new and not used. That is why it should fall on gamestop to notify customers.
Um, yeah. To satisfy that they don't get sued for crap like this, really.manaman said:
And to all the people saying that Gamestop should charge less because the DLC is no longer included are forgetting that the initial price of $60 (USD) is not the price of the game + the DLC for buying new and using the code before a certain date to get $15 worth of content for free. Retailers aren't going to automatically lower the price of the game $15 at the end of April just because that code has expired.
Here I was thinking I was being fairly clear. Then again it is hard to get a point across when people cut out little snippets and ignore the rest huh?Ashes2Ashes said:
They use fine print for two reasons: To satisfy law without crowding the advertisement, and to print restrictions in a way that it is unlikely the customer will read them. Both reasons are basically so the customer will not read it. In one case because they don't need to, in the latter becasue they don't want them to.
The practice works in the case of a grocery store because the customer cannot actually buy anything the store does not allow them to. Say the customer goes to buy 15 of the bottles of soda that the ad says "limit three per customer" the customer argues and they merely have to point to the small print in the ad and say, put the other 12 back. It's a bit different if the ad showed 15 bottles of soda, and you picked up a box with a picture of (and big enough for) 15 bottles of soda and then got home to find three bottles of soda in the box. Their fine print isn't such a legal buffer in the face of those deceptive practices. Please don't get smug with "he could tell the weight" comments this is a hypothetical.
Gamestop can charge whatever they want for the used game. They can even charge more then retail of a new game if they want to. It doesn't mean people have to buy it. However if they are going to continue to offer the games as an alternative to buying new then they can inform the customer at the same time that the extra content is only a one time redeemable code, and the code was likely used by the first owner.Ashes2Ashes said:
The DLC will still be there. The cut off date is to redeem the code included in the box. He just has to pay for it.Master_Fubar23 said:
All that depends on which court you end up in. First-sale doctrine is pretty clear. Computer software companies try to muddle with it by saying they license their software for use and don't sale copies. Which can't be true or they could just fight Gamestop selling used copies and all this would be a non-issue. Courts have both kicked out arguments for and against EULAs and it still remains to this day confusing. Some courts have even allowed the resale of disks and software bundled with computers, then later courts ruled that you can only expect first sale doctrine to apply if there was an actual sell. Nearly all have allowed resale of software even when explicitly voided by the EULA.HG131 said:
Most companies are violating the Clayton act in the US with their EULAs and TOSs anyway. U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 109 leaves them bound to the act if the product can be leased or rented. Basically if they don't disclose the EULA prior to purchase then you can consider the whole damned thing void, leaving you with all rights of an owner of a copy.
Since you are unable to return opened computer software, and very few even print the EULA in the manual, there is no way to argue that they notified you prior to purchase.
Strange most people should be arguing on the side of consumer advocacy, but it seems the majority of people around here would rather let the companies run all over their customers as long as they added some small print tucked away somewhere.
I have no objection to the idea of used game sales. In general the guys who make the games are getting paid hundreds of millions of dollars (ie the development budget primarily goes towards paying the personell = developers) the producers who put up the development money are also making massive amounts of money, and generally selling the units they put on the market. Truthfully I think the used game market flourishes because of the cost of games to begin with... but this is another discussion.
To be totally honest it's easy to take a moral high ground when your not the one who feels that they have been screwed. In general the whole purpose of fine print and things like marking something with an asterix and then defining what it means elsewhere is the hopes of people overlooking it and making a mistake. There are entire businesses based around deception and finding ways to hide fine print from the people it binds. Some are much, much, sneakier than others. Legally speaking this gets unusually subjective because the idea of fine print has gone both ways in precedent, and it is going to come down as to whether or not this was reasonably placed.
As far as the arguement that "Project Ten Dollar" was on the internet, I don't give much weight to that arguement because I do not think that being on the Internet and doing research should be mandatory to buying a game, irregardless of whether it's a good idea or not. Heck, I tend to plan out my game purchuses ahead of time and somehow I STILL wind up missing things.
Strictly speaking though I think this is going a bit too far with the lawsuit. I do think that Gamestop should have marked the packages with a sticker or something, but I also would think that if there is an issue here it would be more about EA producing deceptive packaging (as someone who bought *2* new copies of Dragon Age, I can't comment on this since I knew what I was buying in detail).
Personally if I was EA, I'd offer him the codes quietly in exchange for him not making a bigger scene about it even if they are rivals (of a sort) with Gamestop nowadays (which started the whole DLC thing to begin with) I'd want to prevent this from going to court.
The worst case scenario that should apply here would be making the DA:O content free, with a warning that EA be more clear on their packaging in the future.
All of these punitive damages and such are absolutly ridiculous since basically your dealing with a guy who got scammed for $15 in the absolute worst case scenario. If it was more money or some kind of time-sensitive thing (like a promised beta access on a pre-release deal) I might be a bit more ruthless in my analysis... but geez, losing $15 is kind of petty when your talking about bringing it up before the legal system.
Basically I can see all sides here, the basic arguement is fairly reasonable, but I think the extent to which it's being taken isn't. Heck, even if you put it entirely on Gamestop for not putting on a sticker (which I feel they should have) they should just give him $15 for this, and maybe do the same for anyone else that can come in with a receipt showing they bought a used copy.
To be totally honest it's easy to take a moral high ground when your not the one who feels that they have been screwed. In general the whole purpose of fine print and things like marking something with an asterix and then defining what it means elsewhere is the hopes of people overlooking it and making a mistake. There are entire businesses based around deception and finding ways to hide fine print from the people it binds. Some are much, much, sneakier than others. Legally speaking this gets unusually subjective because the idea of fine print has gone both ways in precedent, and it is going to come down as to whether or not this was reasonably placed.
As far as the arguement that "Project Ten Dollar" was on the internet, I don't give much weight to that arguement because I do not think that being on the Internet and doing research should be mandatory to buying a game, irregardless of whether it's a good idea or not. Heck, I tend to plan out my game purchuses ahead of time and somehow I STILL wind up missing things.
Strictly speaking though I think this is going a bit too far with the lawsuit. I do think that Gamestop should have marked the packages with a sticker or something, but I also would think that if there is an issue here it would be more about EA producing deceptive packaging (as someone who bought *2* new copies of Dragon Age, I can't comment on this since I knew what I was buying in detail).
Personally if I was EA, I'd offer him the codes quietly in exchange for him not making a bigger scene about it even if they are rivals (of a sort) with Gamestop nowadays (which started the whole DLC thing to begin with) I'd want to prevent this from going to court.
The worst case scenario that should apply here would be making the DA:O content free, with a warning that EA be more clear on their packaging in the future.
All of these punitive damages and such are absolutly ridiculous since basically your dealing with a guy who got scammed for $15 in the absolute worst case scenario. If it was more money or some kind of time-sensitive thing (like a promised beta access on a pre-release deal) I might be a bit more ruthless in my analysis... but geez, losing $15 is kind of petty when your talking about bringing it up before the legal system.
Basically I can see all sides here, the basic arguement is fairly reasonable, but I think the extent to which it's being taken isn't. Heck, even if you put it entirely on Gamestop for not putting on a sticker (which I feel they should have) they should just give him $15 for this, and maybe do the same for anyone else that can come in with a receipt showing they bought a used copy.
I stopped shopping at Gamestop after they screwed me out of my BlazBlue artbook because my local Gamestop clerk was mistaken with respect to the ability to pick up said artbook in-store if you order online. People should just stop shopping at Gamestop and developers need to stop giving people a reason to shop there. If they are so butt-hurt about used game sales stop giving Gamestop pre-order bonuses that drive people to their locations!
Ps. If the coffee was kept at a temperature that was not even fit to drink the warning that the coffee was hot is almost irrelevant. People drink hot coffee all the time without it burning their throats! The warning in this case would be practically meaningless.
Ps. If the coffee was kept at a temperature that was not even fit to drink the warning that the coffee was hot is almost irrelevant. People drink hot coffee all the time without it burning their throats! The warning in this case would be practically meaningless.
A company uses fine print to cover their asses, that is indeed true. It is the customer's responsibility to read that fine print and inform themselves before purchasing anything. Things like return policy, warranty and the features your product will have are all important and very relevant to your purchase.manaman said:
There's no excuse for ignorance. People need to get informed before purchasing, they need to take responsibility for their purchases as well. "Well I didn't read that when I bought it." is a piss poor excuse.
No excuse for ignorance and yet I see so much of it. Say I stop you before you cross a bridge and say I work for the city and there is a $5 toll to cross the bridge, you hand me the five dollars and walk on knowing you paid your toll.Zer_ said:
Till the people laugh at you on the other side when you mention the toll. Are you going to just chalk it up to ignorance on your part and say "silly me?" Hell no, you are going to be upset about getting ripped off.
Just because I intentionally staked out an area where a deception is likely to pay off does not make that deception any less fraudulent. Yes consumers shouldn't have to be babied and pampered, but you have to have some restrictions on the companies as well so that the consumer does not end up screwed out of all their money and belongings. The companies have millions of dollars to throw around to study how to effectively separate you from more and more of your money, if all you have to fight them with is common sense your going to lose ground pretty damn quickly. People who get ripped off are victims and not prey to their own stupidity.
Besides I was advocating more information at the start this random meandering discussion furthered by different users, many choosing to comment over one specific line in my previous post. That was all, every thing else was just to clarify points, and now it seems you thought I was relating the points (again clarification) to the Gamestop fiasco. Nope the only thing I think here is that game stop could make it a little more obvious when they recommend you get the used game in place of the new game that you will not the get the free DLC with the used game. Easy enough, pure and simple.
Either that or you secretly work for Gamestop and you're in defence modeHG131 said:
<-- equals joke mind you.By the way, I have a friend that lives in Florida.. She says GS is just as crappy as everyone else here is saying. If all you say is true about the GS you go to, then you must have found a secret stash of awesomeness.
