Yesterday the news broke that GameStop had opened new copies of Deus Ex: Human Revolution PC games, and removed OnLive coupons before selling the games as new. Today, Ars Technica reports that the brick and mortar game retailer has responded to the backlash by taking their ball and going home (as the expression goes) by pulling all copies of Deus Ex: Human Revolution from store shelves.
According to a screenshot of an email posted by GameLife (shown below), GameStop has sent out an email to employees to pull all Regular PC Edition of Deus EX: Human Revolution, and place them in storage to be returned to the vendor in the future. The company further stated that the reason for pulling the copies of the game is due to the included OnLive coupon competing with their own Spawn Labs Gaming Division. “We are returning all copies of the PC regular edition to the vendor in agreement with Square Enix.”
Fortunately, any customers who had the game reserved will still be able to purchase the game if they still wished to. Returns of the game will also be honored for those with a receipt.
While this move has been supported (publicly) by Square Enix, it is sure to only further enrage customers, and result in bad PR. The issue for most customers is not the removal of the free OnLive coupon included in the package in and of itself, but the fact that GameStop represented these games and new and unopened to customers. When customers found out that their new games, which they paid a new premium price for, were actually opened (and had materials removed) prior to them purchasing them many were understandably displeased over the mis-communication.
While pulling all copies is well within the companies right, as is removing the coupons (so long as the games are not then advertised and sold as new and unopened) it is not going to help calm the waters. It is hardly my place to suggest to the company how they conduct opertions; however, as a consumer I feel that they should know their practice and recent reactions are a bit unnvering. Do you think GameStop is handling the situation correctly? What would you like to see the company do to assuage its customers?
So now there will be the
So now there will be the normal version and then the Gamestop version? Well at least Square Enix can resell copies to less picky venders such as everyone else.
GameStop should have done
GameStop should have done their homework on this ahead of time. Instead they take an item out of a game because they decide on a whim it is in their best interest. To me it is stealing. Since the game was actually devalued they should pay a fair adjusted amount to everyone who bought a copy from them that was tampered with.
Another Reason why brick and
Another Reason why brick and mortar game stores are either A)Carrying less and less pc titles, and/or B)Revenues are steadily decreasing causing closures of stores and similar.
Its like Blockbuster and other video stores. Blockbuster remains alive (but barely).
GameStop has no right to remove any included items from a game (even if its a coupon to a competing service)… ultimately, its a choice of the consumers which service they’re going to use. Legally, the action opens up GameStop to class action lawsuits by not only consumers, but also the game publisher.
They’ve been doing this for a
They’ve been doing this for a few years, not just with this game.
The REAL problem is, the games are advertised with coupons or extra included items ON THE BOX, they’ll pull those items (for instance, Harvest Moon came with a little cow), and put them in a bin, and ask for $5 for the item that should have already been in the box.
It’s not just these stupid coupons, and why no one has sued Gamestop is beyond me.
My concern is whether taking
My concern is whether taking out the token was the ONLY thing the Gamestop employees did. For all that I know they could also have copied down the registration information like game serial numbers, or even replaced the DVD/CD with a hacked version depending on how good they were at duplicating the disk graphics.
But there must surely also be legal consequences to selling an opened game at the same price as a new game.
Just another reason I’m glad
Just another reason I’m glad I don’t shop at gamestop.
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