GameStop Wants to Snag Exclusive Gameplay as Preorder Bonuses

[Steve the Pocket]

If I were a video game company, not only would I not go along with this, I would refuse to let GameStop carry my titles in the future. And if they somehow get ahold of them anyway, I'd send people to go around and smash their windows in with a baseball bat.

Don't they already straight-up refuse to sell any games that don't offer pre-order bonuses? I thought I read about that at some point.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Uhhh no. In Australia they already sell new titles for $100 upwards, sometimes more for just a vanilla Call of Duty game on release. I can smell EA and Ubi jumping in on this already.

 

[Jacked Assassin]

Phase 1: Wait for GTA6 to make driving a Gameplay Exclusive to Gamestop.

Phase 2: wait & see how many gamers actually move onto a GTA Clone that promises it won't be like GTA6.

Phase 3: Profit!

Of course I'm joking.... Or am I?.... *COUGH*JustCause2>GTA5*COUGH*

 

[JET1971]

These kinds of business practices just makes me ill. So content gated to a store that doesn't carry PC games will be locked out from everyone buying the PC version. Sound like a way to get customers to not buy the product to me.

 

[Mahorfeus]

Okay, I shop at Gamestop an awful lot, and they have never let me down. I've never really felt any real need to knock on them.

But THIS just sounds like a terrible idea.

 

[Dalisclock]

On one hand, Fuck you gamestop. This stuff is stupid and it makes me glad that I don't shop at your stores.

On the other hand, Nothing stays exclusive forever. Oh, at launch, they might have some EXCLUSIVE side mission or something. In a year or so, that EXCLUSIVE side mission will be available as DLC for $10 or as part of a "Collectors edition" or "Directors Cut" pack.

And some gamers will be butthurt because "I bought it at gamestop, so it was supposed to be exclusive to US".

Though at this point it's hard for me to care because I almost never buy anything at launch(I've only preordered a game a handful of times, and the last time because they threw in another game I wanted with the pre-order, so I got 2 for the price of 1).

 

[AdagioBoognish]

For the love of god.. Got to give gamestop some credit. Those guys have been able to bail water out of a sinking ship for years now, but it's really past time they went under.

 

[Slegiar Dryke]

No, no, no, no, no, no,no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

A thousand times NO. If this shit goes through I think I will give up my hobby as a whole and learn to live my life without new video games. Stick to the good old games before they had the idea that cash gated/exclusive content was a good thing.

this and more is my opinion exactly as well. I can't honestly remember off the top of my head the last time I played a recent new game............maybe Lords of shadow 2? which was fun but anyway, other than that, I've stuck with my collection of older console generation games and been quite happy. As much as Nintendo has my eye now with their spread at E3..........the rest of the industry damn well seems to want to push me and others who have had enough......as FARRRRR away as possible XP and if this happens.....screw em....

 

[Rozalia1]

These kinds of business practices just makes me ill. So content gated to a store that doesn't carry PC games will be locked out from everyone buying the PC version. Sound like a way to get customers to not buy the product to me.

... You don't realise how money all that is? They don't give a crap about PC versions right, the money simply isn't there for them. They institute this successfully, PC sales plummet (unless you know... this outrage on display here is false and everyone will buy anyway), PC versions of games start being pulled of future games due to bad sales, PC customers are than faced with the prospect of if they want to play those future titles they have to get console versions...which gamestop will have the "complete" version of.

If gamestop can successfully defeat their competition in digital with such a thing than...wow...what a maneuver. Its business at its finest, a masterstroke.

 

[Elijin]

I wish certain companies would focus on providing a better service to win sales and loyalty, rather then trying to hold content hostage to net those sales...

 

[whycantijustdeletemyaccount]

.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Fine, let them do it. The console exclusive content, timed DLC, and preorder bonuses usually blow ass anyway. Plus wouldn't it mean games that had Gamestop exclusive content would be cheaper...right? No? well fuck any new game that pulls that crap and quintuple fuck Gamestop and any other retailer that pulls this kind of crap. I hope this happens and GaemShite screws itself over from the backlash.

I haven't even been to a GS in about 3 years and have only bought games that were either from Steam that were on sale or had Nintendo somewhere on the box and only ever go to a major brick and mortar shop after checking out the mom and pop store first and can't wait the 3-4 days for Amazon or Newegg to ship something, so I don't care what they do as long as they get bit in the ass if they deserved it. The industry crash might not come, but certain companies seem destined to try and at least have their own.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Alright, well I'm just going to promise to myself right now, if any game actually does this I'm just not going to get it, no matter how good it looks. There's already a bunch of questionable bullshit we have allowed to seep into the industry, it's about time people started fighting against it by not throwing money at these cunts, effectively saying "Yeah, we don't like what you're doing, but here's my money anyway!".

A big part of stopping this shit from getting worse is the consumers themselves. Don't support it, let them bleed for money until they see that their pathetic tactics no longer stand.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

As if the whole preorder thing wasn't bullshit enough as it is. I can't wait to see what Jim Sterling has to say about this.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

I would refuse to let GameStop carry my titles in the future..

That's the scary truth about Monopolies, when you have such a substantial share in the market, in this case, boxed games you get an awful lot of sway. So when they say they're going to developers/publishers for deals, its actually like the mafia asking for "protection money". "You can give us content right, be a shame to have your game at the back of the store, where only a fraction of our customers go."

So whilst it is good to take the moral high ground, cutting yourself off from potential revenue is a death sentence for "smaller" dev's, ergo Platinum, etc.

So in closing, I can see this happening and only Gamestop will profit, like they need more billions. Please somebody tell me again why its a-okay for them to take the profits from used games wholesale, just because "well its what they do with cars". The fatman gets fatter and the publishers make up more reasons to get around him by screwing us over (Day 1 DLC, project 10 dollar, etc).

 

[Strazdas]

so, basically, they want to do this:

And this is exactly why people pirate games. this means that the ONLY way to get a full game without using the gamecon is to pirate it. if pirating is the only option - people will do it. thats how world works.

Seriuosly, gamestop needs to be killed, not given exclusive content. then again, there still exist people that are willing to stay for hours in cold for midnight launch instead of preloading the game while playing another. i guess gamestop still has costumers willing to do it the hard way.

I'm wondering just how they intend to implement this in a meaningful way across all markets considering Gamestops current perception of the PC market. More importantly, I'm wondering how much this move will end up costing in bribes, er... kickbacks, or incentives, or whatever the "socially acceptable" term for Graft is nowadays.

didnt you knew, everyone on PC pirates anyway so no legit costumer exists to begin with. Obviuosly the profits of PC games exceeding console profits is fake, gamestop knows better!

I suspect they'd have to tread carefully as they'd be encroaching into anti competitive practices, I am partly hoping their stupid enough to try so both Gamestop and the publisher dumb enough to agree with get fined to the stone age for trying.

this implies anticompetetive laws are actually enforced, which as we know already is not true in US.

Come on guys, this isn't so bad. Remember when movies had exclusive scenes you could only watch on opening night, or all those books that had pages ripped out of all but the pre-order, or how about all those music albums that removed tracks from those who didn't buy day one? What? You mean you don't remember how great that was? I guess that is because it is terrible idea that never happened.

Seriously, this is a terrible idea. Apply it to just about any other entertainment medium and it completely falls apart. Games are no different in this respect. Locking parts of your game away for all but a select few is stupid and should not be supported or encouraged.

funnily enough, Music albums DID have country-exclusive songs and that was a popular practice. especiall "japan-only tracks". havent seen that in new albums so probably the idea died since everyone pirated these exclusive songs anyway.

 

[RicoADF]

this implies anticompetetive laws are actually enforced, which as we know already is not true in US.

Maybe not in the US, but they operate in other countries such as Canada, Australia etc as EB Games, so they could still be hit if their not careful. That said I'd rather such an action not be required.

 

[Dalisclock]

These kinds of business practices just makes me ill. So content gated to a store that doesn't carry PC games will be locked out from everyone buying the PC version. Sound like a way to get customers to not buy the product to me.

... You don't realise how money all that is? They don't give a crap about PC versions right, the money simply isn't there for them. They institute this successfully, PC sales plummet (unless you know... this outrage on display here is false and everyone will buy anyway), PC versions of games start being pulled of future games due to bad sales, PC customers are than faced with the prospect of if they want to play those future titles they have to get console versions...which gamestop will have the "complete" version of.

If gamestop can successfully defeat their competition in digital with such a thing than...wow...what a maneuver. Its business at its finest, a masterstroke.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or just seriously overestimating how much of a "masterstroke" this is.

Because at best it looks like something that a few people will try for a few years but won't catch on for a majority of games.

 

[gamegod25]

Ughhhh...just no. It's bad enough with store specific preorder bonuses as it is. If they actually get involved with the development and pay to have large chunks of game gated off...then fuck, I can't wait for the AAA game market to come crashing down and take them with it. It took one crash to clear out the dregs of the game industry perhaps its about time for another to kill off the giant dinosaurs that have grown fat and greedy.

 

[Nowhere Man]

Yet another reason to just be patient and wait for the Game of the Year editions.