Gaming, PC|August 24, 2011 4:59 pm

Now Can You Stop Supporting Them?



I’ve never been shy with how I’ve felt about GameStop and how crappy of a business they are. But this surprised even me for hitting a new low. GameSpy has a story up today where GameStop was caught, yes actually caught, removing the free OnLive version coupons that gave PC owners of Deus Ex: Human Revolution a copy of the same game on the OnLive gaming platform. Which just happens to be a company that they are competing with in the online video game market (with their ownership of Impulse). Once again, this shows people how shady of a company GameStop is, and that we really need to stop showing any of our support to them.

We received reports from a handful of GameStop customers claiming that their new PC boxed copies of DXHR were opened and the OnLive codes were missing. We also received evidence from an anonymous tipster suggesting that it was GameStop management that made the decision to physcially remove the OnLive codes from its PC copies of the game.

Below is a photo of an email printout allegedly sent by GameStop management. We’ve blurred out the contact information of the person who sent the email, but we did phone the individual and confirm he is a GameStop employee. The individual declined to comment on the OnLive codes and immediately directed us to GameStop’s media relations department.

Source: GameSpy

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Author: My name is Steve as you might have guessed. I'm the Owner/Community Manager here at PlatformNation.com. You can follow me on Twitter or Facebook if you like but you are going to see less gaming talk there and more of my random nonsense.
  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1644172147 Jon Corpus

    We looks like I am pull all my pre-orders from them and taking my business elsewhere.

  • Anonymous

    Very poor move on their part. Lets examine this whole situation… customer buys PC copy of Deus Ex, which comes with a code of the OnLive copy of the game… Gamestop removes it because they dont want to support a competing  digital distribution company. For one, OnLive is hardly a competitor to Impulse, while they both sell games digitally, Onlive differs in many fundamental ways that ensures a small percentage of overlap in potential customers.

    Also, if the customer has just bought a PC copy of Deus Ex… what percent of them are going to purchase it AGAIN from Impulse? Maybe 0.05%. So the amount of potential losses in sales is completely insignificant. The loss of potential customers to Impulse is also insignificant. Even if Deus Ex sells incredibly well, the number of people who buy boxed copies of a PC game from Gamestop has gotta be very small. So in order for any loss of potential revenue at all to occur, a user would have to redeem the code on OnLive and like the service so much that they decide to use it exclusively/in the place of Impulse.

    This insane amount of speculation and potential, compared to the very real consequences of this bad PR and the direct loss of sales from customers who dont want to get ripped off. Anyone who sees this news story is going to buy the game somewhere else now because they want that free code.

    Not only is it a greedy move for Gamestop, but also a poorly made one from a business standpoint. All this bad PR for basically nothing.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=16723035 José D. Colmenares

    It may not be the best decision, and people may not like it, but they were not informed beforehand that those coupons would be inside those boxes and they shouldn’t be forced to sell games that promote a competitor, no matter how large or small that competitor is.  I worked at Gamestop until a few months ago, and I can tell you that their business is hurting, so losing even a small percentage of customers to a different competitor can hurt their business.  

    I for one don’t think they did anything wrong.  People who bought the game still got a new game, just because it’s been opened doesn’t mean it’s been played before, and therefore isn’t used.  For those people who REALLY need a completely sealed copy, they could have just said, no thanks, I’ll go buy it somewhere else.  Even if they pre-ordered it, you get all your money back.  After learning that those games had competitors coupons in them they were still trying to provide a service to people who wanted the game, without promoting another competitor, tell me how that’s wrong?  

    The fact is, Gamestop was not informed of those coupons before the games shipped, so they were put in a bad situation.  What should they have done?  Wouldn’t you try to sell some to people who preordered the game and want it ASAP (and maybe don’t care that a coupon they wouldn’t use anyways was removed), or send all the games back and tell all your customers, sorry we lied and told you we would sell that game, and now we decided not to sell it.  Which sounds like it would hurt your business more?  Pissing off SOME customers who need their game to be sealed, or pissing off EVERY customer who pre-ordered the game?

    Look, Gamestops are run fairly independently from one another depending on the store manager, so yes it can be hit or miss (and I’ve worked for both kinds).  But for those Gamestops that who have good employees in place, it can be a great way to get your games and a fun environment to be in.  Other Gamestops can have the worst kind of employees and give you a terrible experience.  But in THIS case, I think Gamestop was just trying to make something good out of a bad situation.

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