

GameStop opening Deus Ex boxes, removing free OnLive game code - sp332
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/08/report-gamestop-opening-deus-ex-copies-removing-free-game-code.ars

======
dotBen
Digital distribution is coming, whether GameStop like it or not. Removing the
free codes for OnLive is not going to stem the tide.

For proprietary media like Playstation, XBox, etc they're going to be
disintermediated whether they like it or not. They still can win in the PC
arena.

So rather than acquiring strategically pointless startups like casual gaming
site Kongregate, they'd be wise to ramp up their efforts to compete with Steam
or even acquire whole digital distribution + consumption stacks like OnLive
itself.

Competing with Steam is more a relationship challenge than a technical one,
and of all companies GameStop is well placed with those existing
relationships.

The downfall of Blockbuster should have proved that they need to change a long
time ago.

~~~
anurag
_So rather than acquiring strategically pointless startups like casual gaming
site Kongregate, they'd be wise to ramp up their efforts to compete with Steam
or even acquire whole digital distribution + consumption stacks like OnLive
itself._

They've already acquired companies to directly compete with both OnLive and
Steam: [http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/01/gamestop-details-plans-
fo...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/01/gamestop-details-plans-for-impulse-
and-spawn-labs-says-its-be/)

~~~
pyre
Yes. This seems more like an anti-competitive move to protect their own move
into digital distribution.

~~~
Splines
.. and seems completely unnecessary. In some ways Impulse is better than
Steam, and I really hope they try to continue to improve the service.

------
zinkem
I spent several years of my life at GameStop, and I miss it.

I was hired long before the EB/GameStop merger and watched as the company
adopted EB's culture. GameStop was a bottom-up company, and EB was a top-down
company. Much more authoritarian in its management, and saw the customer more
like a piece of meat.

In the years just after the merger, I watched morale fall as the "scratch
protection" plans became a priority, trade prices plummeted, and we stopped
stocking PC games in several stores. They replaced GameStop's functional, DOS-
based POS and adopted EB's slow, windows version. The transition was terrible,
and the company seemed deaf to the complaints that holiday lines were getting
longer and longer as they added features to an already slow and bloated
system.

I quit and returned to school a couple years after the merger, it was the
right decision, of course.

I loved my time at GameStop. I built a community around the store I managed
and did everything I could to do right by the customer. I knew several
managers (on both sides) who were as dedicated as I was to this goal. The
culture at corporate was focused on marketing and was in no way supportive of
this goal, and I'm saddened to see what they've become. But it was probably
inevitable.

The comments here are pretty disdainful, and I definitely understand why. But
there are a lot of good people working in the trenches that deserve thanks for
what they've done for their customers.

------
wccrawford
I'd like to say that I'm amazed that GameStop would steal from their
customers, but they haven't been the bastions of honesty that I'd like to
think they were.

So no, I'm not amazed.

If they were honest, they'd either send the boxes back to the manufacturer and
ask for ones that didn't have the codes, or leave them intact. Stealing
something out of the box, then wrapping it up like it's new and selling it...
That's just dishonest.

~~~
kodablah
Or if they were honest, they could at least get a statement from Square Enix
accepting blame for mis-packaging.

~~~
rexf
That would not be honest at all. Putting in a redeemable game voucher for On-
Live was not "accidentally packed" into each game. Square-Enix came to an
agreement with On-Live to include On-Live digital copies.

I'm amazed at how Gamestop doesn't even try to lie or spin their way out. They
state, "Square Enix packed a competitor’s coupon within the PC version of Deus
Ex: Human Revolution without our prior knowledge and we did pull these
coupons."

~~~
wccrawford
No, initially they would not comment on it, despite the fact that people knew
it was going on. It wasn't until they realized the internet had ahold of it
like a rabid dog that they decided to talk. At that point, they had no choice
but to tell the truth.

Don't give them points for following the only course they had open to them.

------
yock
Is this even their prerogative? Presumably, Square Enix would have partnered
directly with OnLive and made some contractual arrangement to include the
promotion in their product packaging. I'm certainly not a lawyer, but I can't
imagine this being within GameStop's rights.

~~~
mortenjorck
Eidos could quite possibly have a case for tortious interference; consumers
could for deceptive trade practices:

<http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/08/gamestop-onlive/>

------
adelevie
I'll use this story next time I explain net neutrality to anyone. "Think what
GameStop is doing is bad? Imagine your ISP engaging in similar practices."

------
srbloom
Gamestop may have Streisand effected themselves. I hadn't heard of OnLive
before today but will probably try it out tonight.

~~~
sad
Indeed, if you haven't tried it yet then you absolutely should. I highly
recommend Just Cause 2, it's a huge game and it plays perfectly. You can play
any game for 30 minutes without spending a penny.

Disclaimer: I wish I was an investor.

~~~
marvin
YES. I'm actually really sad that I'm unable to invest money in the huge
expansion that's happening in the software industry right now. Due to
Sarbanes-Oxley, this entire industrial development is completely off-limits to
regular Joe investors. It sucks to be aware of this and not be able to do
anything about it.

There are many reasons why this is bad, first and foremost that this is where
a lot of the action is right now and those of us with less than 10 million
available to invest are stuck investing in only the rest of the economy.
Which, from what I gather from the news, is pretty mismanaged in the US.

After trying out OnLive for 5 minutes even without playing, it is obvious that
this is the future for most gamers.

~~~
Cushman
Thirded. If I could put money in any company today, it'd be OnLive.

------
vectorpush
GameStop's lack of scruples: not surprising. GameStop fears OnLive as a
substantial threat: a little surprising. Internet speeds for the majority of
Americans are just way too slow for OnLive to be viable.

~~~
tatsuke95
But unless we have some bizarre infrastructure regression, it only becomes
more viable in time.

It (or something like it) is the future, there's no doubt about that.

~~~
eropple
Requirements will also increase, though, and the biggest problem with OnLive
can only be fixed by raising the speed of light.

~~~
jergason
Requirements increasing will only mean they have to upgrade their computers in
a data center somewhere, not that the ping between the server and you needs to
get faster. The delay is noticeable, but games requiring more processing power
will have no effect on the time it takes OnLive to send you data.

~~~
eropple
Of course, but even that's a nontrivial task. OnLive's game machines target
somewhere around "low-middle"; the quality isn't even console-level. They buy
machines that are close to the first to be obsoleted by the upgrade march, so
there'll always be the "damn, that plays like ass on OnLive" problem for new
releases.

When you couple pretty poor quality with persistent, noticeable latency, you
do not have a recipe for success.

~~~
regularfry
It'll only take one AAA publisher with a deep marketing budget to sink a
couple of million into dedicated OnLive servers for a new title for that
problem to go away. Maybe that's what they're banking on.

~~~
vectorpush
I'm not so sure. To make an impact it would have to be a very popular IP
designed with OnLive's stack in mind coupled with platform exclusivity (at
least at launch). The problem I see for OnLive is that their target
demographic (gamers who purchase AAA titles) are the consumers who are most
critical of performance issues. If OnLive were serving up content to casual
gamers, the service's shortcomings would be less of an obstacle, but I just
don't see how they're going to get tech-aware consumers to jump on board.

~~~
regularfry
There's another angle, though: while the control round-trip might be hideous
on OnLive, the inter-user round-trip is negligible; presumably everyone will
be sitting on the same gigabit (or better) LAN. Games currently have to pull
all sorts of tricks to make the inter-user latency appear not to be present.
They've got good enough that generally you just don't notice. I think the same
thing will happen here, although I admit that nobody's demonstrated that
they're capable of surmounting the technical challenge, and I doubt it's as
simple as tweaking #defines in the network stack.

~~~
eropple
It's a lot easier for a game to let you shoot at where your client-side
prediction thinks the guy is supposed to be than to allow players to react to
things that happened before their input for a given time tick was processed.

What you're saying is nontrivial and may not even be workable, because it's
impossible to really separate "stupid slow player" from "player whose latency
is high enough that he can't react".

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chaostheory
> For now, if you absolutely must buy the game from a GameStop location,
> either make sure the game is sealed, or check for the coupon before leaving
> the location.

I used to work at one in HS. It's really easy to reseal a package with shrink
wrap.

~~~
nlawalker
Me too! The heat gun shrink wrap is cool stuff, but it's obviously not the
factory-fresh stuff (nicely folded cellophane gift wrap) to anyone who's
purchased a new game in the last few years. Plus, there's also a box seal
inside the wrap anyways.

------
lawnchair_larry
This is the same company that will buy used games for $2 and sell them for
MSRP minus $3 or so, then try to sell "scratch insurance" as an attachment.

I don't play a lot of games, but every time I do pick one up (since GameStop
is virtually the only remaining B&M game store in many places), it hasn't been
a consumer-friendly experience.

------
rickdale
In my area, GameStop is the only place that has a wide selection of used games
on the cheap. Some times its nice to blow $100 on video games and end up with
5 titles rather 2.

I will admit I would never buy a new game from GameStop. One time when I
wanted to purchase PES 2011 they tried to sell me a brand new game with the
packaging teared off. This disturbed me quite a bit. When I tried to explain
to the manager it was the same thing as a used game to me at that point he
didn't accept my argument. I bet they do this more than it gets reported.

~~~
jerf
Amazon works pretty well for this now, and the catalog is far deeper than any
Gamestop's. It's even easy to sell your own stuff there through a variety of
mechanisms.

------
kin
I'm not surprised that this doesn't surprise anyone. So many fall victim to
unethical practices from Gamestop, the worst I think being selling used re-
shrink-wrapped games as New.

In other news, digital distribution to me makes sense i.e. Steam, and full
downloads direct to console HD and the like, but it just isn't a large enough
market share yet IMO. These games are humongous it's kind of pain to keep
running out of disk space, at least as things stand currently.

~~~
Ralith
I'm a bit confused. When is hard drive space a problem? With digital
distribution, you can redownload at whim, and with discs, you can reinstall at
(slightly less convenient) whim.

~~~
rexf
Agreed, HD space on personal computer isn't the limiting factor.

Slow broadband speed and download caps would limit your ability to download
games over and over.

~~~
kin
I mean on a console, not a personal computer. We're talking digital
distribution of software onto game consoles, with Steam and PC, it's easy.
But, with say PSN and Xbox Live, I'm not alone when I say that I have trouble
managing space and dealing with download times. I'd rather buy a hard copy of
the game.

------
nathos
Amusingly enough, the new Deus Ex is a Steamworks game
[<http://steampowered.com/steamworks/retailsupport.php>] and it requires Steam
to be installed to play it.

Removing the OnLive coupon may hide one (small) competitor, but does nothing
to stop GameStop's real competition in the PC space.

------
dismalist
Is this legal?

------
JMiao
well, that's one way to build a moat.

------
kragen
Can Square Enix sue GameStop for trademark infringement or something? Opening
trademarked boxes and removing things that the customer is presumably paying
for, without notifying the customer, sounds illegal to me. If you did the same
with boxes of Legos, what would the result be?

~~~
rmc
Trademark law wouldn't apply here.

~~~
kragen
Presumably "Deus Ex" is Square Enix's trademark, no? If GameStop is passing
off what's left after they tamper with the box as _Deus Ex Whatever_ ,
wouldn't that be trademark infringement?

~~~
dsl
You are pretty much saying "Well the earth has gravity, so gravity must apply
here." No, trademark has nothing to do with this.

If anything, right of first sale (remember GameStop buys games in bulk from
publishers) protects them.

~~~
kragen
I didn't realize there was a "right of first sale" in trademark law (obviously
I'm not a lawyer) but what Wikipedia says about it is this:

> With reference to trade in tangible merchandise, such as the retailing of
> goods bearing a trademark, the "first sale" rule serves to immunize a
> reseller from infringement liability. Such protection to the reseller
> extends to the point where said goods have not been altered so as to be
> materially different from those originating from the trademark owner.

It seems to me that removing coupons from the box is "altering goods so as to
be materially different from those originating from the trademark owner".

~~~
corin_
An OnLive coupon is absoolutely nothing to do with the trademark it is a
seperate item that happens to come with it. They may have broken their
contract, we don't know, but this has absolutely nothing to do with
trademarks.

