GameStop Forcibly Removing OnLive Coupons from Deus Ex PC Copies, Because They're GameStop [UPDATED]

Gamestop (and by extension EB Games, which is what we have here) are, simply put, operated by people who have no idea how society works.

They are ignorant, on a planetary scale.

Disgusting.

And you know any employees doing this are selling the coupons.

It's no surprise that Gamestop is intentionally taking away coupons from within the games as the standard business practice, for many years now, has been to sell games that have obviously been opened before hand by the store employee's, only to be sold at full price.  
 
What boggles my mind is the fact that people (or should I say feable minded teenagers who truly don't know any better) still use Gamestop's services for pre-order bonuses, or to generally purchase games. And because of idiot gamers, Gamestop still exists today. Thanks you fucking dolts!

I don't normally like the overly snarky, blatantly hostile way in which Alex writes news articles, but I gotta say, for once I'm with him all the way. This is just bullshit, plain and simple. I don't know if they're doing this in EB Games in Canada, but I think I'll be checking Future Shop instead.

That takes shitty to an whole new level. Not shocked it's GameStop.

kind of surprise that they haven't gotten a Class action suit against them yet for selling used games as New... since that could be construed as fraud. 

@Example1013 said:

@Xeirus said:

@Example1013 said:

Yeah, so Eidos sneaks in OnLive coupons into physical copies and we get pissed at GameStop for not wanting to give away free coupons to a competing business, instead of Eidos or OnLive for trying to undercut GameStop's sales.

What???????? Eidos isn't sneaking shit, it's their game and they can do whatever the hell they want. Gamestop has no right to tamper with a product before it's sold and then act like it's brand new. It's flat out lying, and the fact that you even try to understand this is beyond ridiculous.

The "product" they're selling is a single-use license in physical form. The coupon included isn't a part of that license, so they can do whatever they damn well please with it, especially if they didn't know about it beforehand. You don't like it? Tough. It sounds like you don't shop there anyways, so it's really none of your concern. Stop acting like they lied to you. Or I guess it's also a problem that Eidos opened the box to put the coupon in? It's not like games are magically teleported into a shrinkwrapped copy straight out of the factory.

Opening the game, then selling it as a new copy is a pretty shitty thing to do.

this sounds illegal?

I don't know about over in the US but in Australia we have a government organisation called the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission. These guys basically protect the rights of consumers and help prevent anti-competitive behaviour from small and big business alike. Companies that do stuff like what GameStop is doing get fines and massive negative publicity from wide media exposure.

Josh Ivanoff doesn't even give a reason as to why they don't want them getting into the hands of customers. I guess because it means people would stop buying games at GameStop, but that's a silly excuse.
 
But really it doesn't matter in the end, because GameStop have already lost. Even I, the strongest supporter of PC gaming possible have to acknowledge that retail PC sales are not going to last much longer. Soon you'll download or buy from an online retailer exclusively.

This is the stuff that makes me hate gamestop. I hated it when I would buy a new copy and they would give me an unsealed version of it. Seriously that is just the apsolute worst. Reason 1 I don't like gamestop. Then they will actualy TAKE things out that are supposed to be in my box?

Would I ever actually use onlive? Nope. Would I buy a PC game at Gamestop? Lol no. However this is still pretty dirty business to do such a thing and would make me even less likely to buy this from them.

I know Gamestop sucks and all but yeah... Alex may be getting overboard with his opinions on the site. He seems pissed rather than offering a good insight of the whole situation.

This is terribly depressing. The local GS stores have fantastically wonderful employees, and I hate that supporting their particular stores means supporting this very evil corporation.

I'm also assuming GameStop is about to get the shit sued out of them.

WTF. Really? This has to be illegal in some shape or form.

I might actually stop going to Gamestop.  I have a couple pre-orders there too.

Regardless of the politics of competing services, opening a box and selling as "New" is my main issue. Cost of this as a possible suit vs. cost of sending the games back to the distributor and getting new copies sans the insert is probably the main motivation here. I still find it abhorrent.

@TwoLines: If the disc is in perfect condition (and unplayed) and hasn't been sold yet, I don't see how that matters. It's not like a TV or a chair, where the shelf model has actually been used. And if your new disc doesn't work, you can just bring it back and have them give you a new one. GameStop may not accept returns on opened new game sales, but they do take exchanges. The like 2 times I've gotten a bad disc, I've just brought it back and gotten a replacement copy.

Some of the new eco-cases don't protect discs at all, to the point where you can cut straight through the container and into the disc, but I guess that's still okay to sell because it wasn't technically opened, right?

Coming soon, if you preorder a game it will be shrink wrapped and in a box.

Preorder now or you will only get a loose disc.

I'm usually OK with Gamestop most of the time, but even I have to admit this is pretty messed up.

I don't have a problem with this. How can the publisher expect retailers like Gamestop to advertise the competition? That's just silly. I don't think Best Buy would be willing to sell a game with a Gamestop coupon in it.

Did GameStop sell Portal 2 for PS3 in their stores? The one that came with a free copy of the game on Steam (that you'd have to activate Steam to claim)? If so, their response holds no weight. They must have had plenty of prior knowledge of that little agreement.

well...fuck, i dont even

Did GameStop sell Portal 2 for PS3 in their stores? The one that came with a free copy of the game on Steam (that you'd have to activate Steam to claim)? If so, their response holds no weight. They must have had plenty of prior knowledge of that little agreement.

@blacklab said:

I don't have a problem with this. How can the publisher expect retailers like Gamestop to advertise the competition? That's just silly. I don't think Best Buy would be willing to sell a game with a Gamestop coupon in it.

Then don't sell it.

They should help themselves to your cd-key while they're in there.

@Example1013 said:

@TwoLines: If the disc is in perfect condition (and unplayed) and hasn't been sold yet, I don't see how that matters. It's not like a TV or a chair, where the shelf model has actually been used. And if your new disc doesn't work, you can just bring it back and have them give you a new one. GameStop may not accept returns on opened new game sales, but they do take exchanges. The like 2 times I've gotten a bad disc, I've just brought it back and gotten a replacement copy.

Some of the new eco-cases don't protect discs at all, to the point where you can cut straight through the container and into the disc, but I guess that's still okay to sell because it wasn't technically opened, right?

Don't care, it's illegal.

Yeah, this would be tragic if there weren't 10 other places you can get a PC version of this game. Show those fuckers what you think of their anti-competitive bullshit and buy it somewhere else

I don't have a problem with this. How can the publisher expect retailers like Gamestop to advertise the competition? That's just silly. I don't think Best Buy would be willing to sell a game with a Gamestop coupon in it.

When I went to GS to buy my copy of Duke Nukem forever (yeh whatever, I still like it), they had a "new" copy of Marvel Vs. Capcom 3's collector's edition on the shelf. 
 
The thing is, it wasn't new at all. I have the collectors edition, and I know how it looked when I got it. The one on the shelf wasn't even sealed, the slip cover was taped to stay on. And the comic book that comes with it was just shoved into the slip cover instead of inside the steel case where it's supposed to be. Not to mention the reason why most people bought the CE, the code for the Jill and Shuma DLC, wouldn't even work because the copy obviously wasn't new.  Yet there it was. On the shelf with the big word "New" on it and a price tag of $69.99.
 
I told the guy behind the counter about it, but he barley payed me any attention because I was at a midnight launch. I waited for a bit to bring it to his attention more, but he wasn't having any of it. I eventually just said fuck it, and went home to play my new game. But I just couldn't believe that they could either be that stupid and/or evil. 
 
After that I've tried hard to not make any purchases at GS. Which is a shame, because I actually like the employees at the one near me. But the company itself has no business representing games and gamers. 
 
Needless to say, this story doesn't surprise me in the least.

@TwoLines: Care to find the Code that this violates? I'm genuinely interested in seeing what law makes this illegal, what the penalties are, and what other things it pertains to.

I work in a UK games retailer, and for us it's commonplace to open up new stock, remove the disc and manual and other inserts, and the place the box out on the shelf (especially if we don't have dummy stock for the shelves). We do keep stock that is unopened, particularly for big releases or steady sellers.  
 
We do this largely because we're a small store and need to file a lot of stock in drawers, so having the opened copies in the drawers means more space for more stock, and also means when we don't have dummy stock for the shelves we can put out something to advertise availability on the shelves. 
 
However, we wouldn't go so far as to dump something that came with the game, whether it's for a competitor or not.  Gamestop, in this instance, has effectively thrown away part of the product that the buyer has bought.

If it wasn't for the fact that I already never buy anything there, I would so swear off of buying things there.

I don't live in the US, and never ordered anything online from GameStop, except for a couple of games on Impulse, as their international shipping rates are ridiculous. That said, If I were one of their costumers I'd longer be after this. I agree they shouldn't have been forced to promote competing services on their wares, but that's between them and Square-Enix. At best, they could just not sell the game, if they have an issue with the coupon. But openning up packages and removing content is so disgusting that I'm giving up on GameStop's Impulse.

I work in a UK games retailer, and for us it's commonplace to open up new stock, remove the disc and manual and other inserts, and the place the box out on the shelf (especially if we don't have dummy stock for the shelves). We do keep stock that is unopened, particularly for big releases or steady sellers.   We do this largely because we're a small store and need to file a lot of stock in drawers, so having the opened copies in the drawers means more space for more stock, and also means when we don't have dummy stock for the shelves we can put out something to advertise availability on the shelves.  However, we wouldn't go so far as to dump something that came with the game, whether it's for a competitor or not.  Gamestop, in this instance, has effectively thrown away part of the product that the buyer has bought.

Today for me is terrible

@blacklab said:

I don't have a problem with this. How can the publisher expect retailers like Gamestop to advertise the competition? That's just silly. I don't think Best Buy would be willing to sell a game with a Gamestop coupon in it.

Even if you look at it from that point of view, the correct response would then be to pull all the games from the shelves and stop selling them until they worked it out with Eidos/Square-Enix. They shouldn't be allowed to go in and remove things from the package just because they don't like it.

Square-Enix and OnLive should both sue (since obviously they have some sort of contract that Gamestop is interfering with), Square Enix should threaten to pull all of their games from Gamestop (that's drop their sales by, what 1-2 copies since Gamestop sells everything used?) and people should request their coupon directly from Square Enix. Maybe Square Enix could set up a program where you send in a photocopy of a Gamestop receipt for the PC version of DEHR and they'll email you an OnLive code.
 
Also, this is basically misrepresenting goods on Gamestop's part. Square Enix broadcast that the PC version comes with the OnLive version. Gamestop is essentially unbundling the two products and selling them like they're still a bundle, and the customer isn't aware of this until they've already opened the package. IANAL, but legally I think that Gamestop should be required to mark these packages as missing the OnLive version of the game. Basically, they should have to disclose that the game has been tampered with before the sale ever takes place.
 
I think those idiots bit off more than they can chew this time.

@TwoLines: Care to find the Code that this violates? I'm genuinely interested in seeing what law makes this illegal, what the penalties are, and what other things it pertains to.

@Xeirus said:

@Example1013 said:

Yeah, so Eidos sneaks in OnLive coupons into physical copies and we get pissed at GameStop for not wanting to give away free coupons to a competing business, instead of Eidos or OnLive for trying to undercut GameStop's sales.

What???????? Eidos isn't sneaking shit, it's their game and they can do whatever the hell they want. Gamestop has no right to tamper with a product before it's sold and then act like it's brand new. It's flat out lying, and the fact that you even try to understand this is beyond ridiculous.

The "product" they're selling is a single-use license in physical form. The coupon included isn't a part of that license, so they can do whatever they damn well please with it, especially if they didn't know about it beforehand. You don't like it? Tough. It sounds like you don't shop there anyways, so it's really none of your concern. Stop acting like they lied to you. Or I guess it's also a problem that Eidos opened the box to put the coupon in? It's not like games are magically teleported into a shrinkwrapped copy straight out of the factory.

Boy, good thing my sister works there and not me. I wouldn't want to have to deal with angry customers. Luckily, though, her store chose to not open up their copies. At least they're in the clear. :D

Wow......let the shitstorm ensue

this was proven fake.

@onarum said:

@Example1013 said:

@TwoLines: Care to find the Code that this violates? I'm genuinely interested in seeing what law makes this illegal, what the penalties are, and what other things it pertains to.

So you're okay with the fact that they are forcibly removing a coupon to a service you would otherwise get for free just because they don't want you to use it? I don't care it's against the "law" or not, it's wrong all the same.

I don't particularly like it, but it's not illegal, and it's not really that bad of a thing to do. They could've gotten units without the code and there would be no issue, so as far as I can tell this is just dealing with an unresolved issue from pre-orders, either through them not knowing or them being backed into a corner by pre-order sales. It's not like they're lying about what they're giving you or selling your information or anything.

I only buy PC games on steam, if it isn't there then I either buy it for PS3 or don't buy it at all. When I buy PS3 games I always get them from Amazon

@Xeirus:   Ironic thing is though, would anyone have cared if they had an OnLive code in their copy of Deus Ex? Or, if this didn't leak out, would anyone have known better?  This is just baffling.