This is some really bad behavior:
Yesterday morning, a long awaited title called Deus Ex: Human Revolution was finally released to an eager audience. Tucked inside the box was a little surprise: a coupon for a free copy of the same game through the still relatively new game streaming service, OnLive — something which, if purchased directly through OnLive, would cost $49.99. At least, there was supposed to be a coupon…
The reports started trickling in fairly quickly: for some reason, the coupon seemed to be absent from nearly all copies sold through GameStop.
What had happened? Had the folks at the factory forgotten to pack some of the coupons? Nope. Had GameStop worked out a distribution deal to keep the coupons from ever finding their way into their copies? Nope.
GameStop employees had opened the boxes, removed the coupon, and put the product back on the shelf… after orders from above to do so.
All’s fair in love and war and online gaming, I guess.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Fxd.
My money’s on “A few employees misunderstood a request to check to make sure the coupons were in the boxes. They have been fired, shot and ground up for hamburger. GameStop regrets this incident.”
Odie Hugh Manatee
Our daughter was telling me about this just a few hours ago. If I know gamerz, this is going to piss them off immensely. I’m going to get Deux Ex but I’ll wait for the furor/price to drop…lol!
Not leet, just cheap!
p.a.
ahh. The not-so-invisible hand(s) at work. The free market roolz!
21st century American capitalism= Calvinball.
Ron
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen: Oh no. Gamestop confirmed that this was intentional on their facebook page. The issue is apparently Gamestop has their own online gaming service and views OnLive as a competitor so won’t give coupons for it.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Odie Hugh Manatee: It is so cool to see the posts about stuff than I know zero!
Bnut
Use Steam.
powderfinger
People should file complaints with the FTC. This seems like an unfair or deceptive trade practice.
Villago Delenda Est
Another group of MBA executives who need to be measured for tumbrel seating.
Mark S.
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
Actually, they’re admitting it:
Gamestop is going to get their asses sued off for doing that. At the very least they have to tell their customers what they did before they sell it.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
I played Deus Ex; Game of the Year Edition and thought it was a pretty good game. The graphics sucked for the time but it was still enjoyable to play through. Now that graphics tech has progressed much further, this ought to be a kickass game.
Looking forward to user reviews of it.
@Bnut:
Yup, Steam rules for gaming. I’ve been with them since almost the beginning and have never had a problem, client-side. I wish I could say the same for their support of the server community though.
In that regard they flat out suck donkey balls.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mark S.:
Exsqueeze me? You will tamper with the products of someone who sells something in your store without a formal partnership, though, right?
Asshats.
Bnut
@Odie Hugh Manatee: I also get pissed of that I can’t access some games when my internet is down. Other than that, they rock.
Jon Marcus
I kinda think GameStop’s getting a bum rap here. Square Enix tried to use GameStop to promote GameStop’s competitor. GameStop (quite understandably, IMHO) didn’t want to do that. They’re mistake was responding to Square Enix’s dick move by pulling one of their own on their customers. If they’d been smart, they wouldn’t have just yanked the coupon, they’d have replaced it with a coupon of their own.
Marc
They could have also refused to sell the game. That would be normal – as opposed to taking away something that people expect. Note that people are buying the actual game from the store and the online download is a freebie. Gamestop isn’t actually losing any sales from the coupon.
arguingwithsignposts
@Jon Marcus: I sort of understand your point, but perhaps GameStop could have negotiated some kind of deal with Square Enid to host the game on their platform, too? Besides, I don’t think customers will see GameStop’s move as a logical business move, as you say.
And if GameStop should have learned anything from business school: The Customer Is Always Right. (not that I always agree with the sentiment, but there it is)
BTW, your decipher exercise for the day, from last night’s deBoer sighting:
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Might as well be Farsi!
JGabriel
@Mark S.:
Yep, that’s what I’m thinking too. First, there’s the company, Square Enix, who include the coupon as part of the product they are selling — who should be able to sue on the grounds that Game Stop damaged their product and reputation with its actions.
Then, of course, there are the customers. A class action reimbursing every. single. customer. for the $50 coupon plus triple damages should be instigated ASAP.
Game Stop screwed the pooch on this one.
.
JGabriel
@Jon Marcus:
That would be inviting a civil suit too.
If Game Stop didn’t want to sell the product as packaged by the producer, then they should have refused to sell it.
That’s it. Absent an agreement to sell copies without the coupon, that was Game Stop’s only recourse. They could have returned all copies to Square Enix, or they could have refused to order it in the first place. But opening and removing part of the product — or replacing part of the product with a different piece — is beyond the bounds.
.
Pococurante
I did some consulting work for them at their Grapevine headquarters a few years ago. They are truly one of the most poorly run companies I’ve witnessed first after over twenty-five years in the industry. While I was there their CIO quit after barely six months in her position.
They make very little revenue off new games. Their primary revenue is recycling and reselling old games.
Gamestop is dying and they know it. No doubt the execs figure they can cash out before facing consequences from these sorts of decisions.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Bnut:
Every time I close my client I switch to offline mode. If you have installed new games (or a clean install of Steam & games), make sure you open each one once in online mode before trying to run them in offline.
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
Pig Latin is the extent of my ‘foreign languages’…lol! I like playing online games and it’s funny when kids find out that a 50+ year old guy just kicked their ass.
It keeps me young. ;)
RossInDetroit
Oh, let’s hang on to market share by tampering with a product. That’ll work. Gamers are the wrong people to pull this stunt on.
Pococurante
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Ah good to know I’m not the only one…
Mark S.
@Jon Marcus:
No, they can’t do that either. If they really had such a problem with the coupon, they should just refuse to sell it.
@arguingwithsignposts:
What in God’s name?
JGabriel
@powderfinger:
Yes, that too.
.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Jon Marcus:
The item was provided to them to sell and they decided to take it on themselves to modify the terms of sale. They should have refused to sell the product if that was their position.
Fuck GameStop. Full stop.
Jon Marcus
@arguingwithsignposts and @JGabriel: AFAIK, Square Enix didn’t tell them they were including the coupon. So there was no chance to negotiate, or to refuse to sell it. They got the product, put it on the shelves, and then found out that Square Enix was screwing them over on every sale. At that point, they had no good options…and from that set of bad options, they picked one of the stupider ones.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
The free market isn’t free.
Luthe
@arguingwithsignposts: I clicked your link, but all I see is PIE. I think it’s better for my sanity that way.
NonyNony
@Mark S.:
IANAL, so can someone explain why this would be an issue (under the assumption that GameStop advertised that they were going to do this and didn’t just spring it by surprise on their customers)?
I thought “right of first sale” covered this and so long as GameStop actually purchased those copies for resale they could do what they want to the packaging. There could be a false advertising claim by the consumers, but that would be it. (Otherwise how could the used game market operate at all – the “online coupon” isn’t going to be a part of any of the used versions of the game.)
(Now if GameStop works like a grocery store and the game companies are paying GameStop for shelf space then there’s definitely a contract violation going on. But I didn’t think that GameStop worked that way.)
Pococurante
I suggest Square Enix is allowed to promote their products within their products, and there is no reasonable expectation they have to get permission to do so.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Jon Marcus: So you had to buy the game to get the coupon. Therefore, Game Stop wasn’t getting screwed out of that sale.
ComradeDread
For a company that’s already unpopular within the game manufacturer community for selling used copies, I can’t imagine this won’t make future manufacturers think twice about foregoing this chain.
ChrisWWW
And now they’ve given OnLive tons of free publicity! Good job GameStop.
JGabriel
@Villago Delenda Est:
Do you mean tumbrel in the cart’em off to the guillotine sense, or the tie’em to a shit-chair and duck’em in a river sense?
Right now, it’s a little vague, and I think it’s important to be clear on this point.
.
Jon Marcus
@ Mark s: Why couldn’t they do that? I don’t know squat about retail law, but it seems like it’d be okay to me. At most it might be a contract violation.
Though it’d probably be a good idea to notify customers that they done it.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@ChrisWWW:
GameStop is playing a game of their own; Need for Greed: In Hot Pursuit Of
I think they are losing this event.
@Jon Marcus:
From what I understand, the customers found out in the worst way.
After they purchased it. If the box advertised the coupon and GameStop pulled it without notifying the buyers prior to sale, then I think they screwed the pooch.
JGabriel
@NonyNony:
I assume that Game Stop does work that way for new games, which Deus Ex: Human Revolution is.
.
Jon Marcus
@Belavon: I didn’t say Square Enix was screwing GameStop out of a sale. I said they were screwing them on every sale. It’d be like if Walmart got a supplier to include a Walmart coupon in every product they sent to Target. Target would get the sale, but subsequent business would go to Walmart.
Pococurante
@Jon Marcus: No, it would be like the supplier included a coupon back to the supplier and it was sent to both Walmart and Target.
Moik
A. Square didn’t notify GS that they were including a competitor’s promo.
B. The coupon wasn’t advertised on the packaging.
C. GS has reversed course, and is returning unsold stock to Square.
Legal? Probably. Poorly handled PR nightmare? Definitely. Personally, I’ll continue never shopping at GS again.
Jon Marcus
@JGabriel: Hey look, I just figured out how the reply button works! (DUH!)
If your assumption is right, maybe it would be a contract violation. And maybe Square Enix violated the contract by not telling them. Neither you or I have any real idea what’s in their contract. And I don’t much care. That’s something the corporate lawyers could’ve had fun arguing over. Keeps ’em off the streets.
Even if a lawsuit had eventually gone against GameStop, they wouldn’t have lost as much as they pissed away on bad PR with their stupid response.
JGabriel
@Jon Marcus:
Perhaps. I don’t know what Game Stop did or didn’t know, but there’s a question as to whether the option they chose was legal. I strongly suspect that it was not, and that they should have pulled the items off the shelf and sent them back to Square Enix if they felt that strongly about it.
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Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
Lots of weirdness going on with this story:
Gamestop first pulled the cards out of open games, by direction from above.
Next, After outrage of the policy, Gamestop decided to pull the game off the shelf entirely, and return the stock to Square-enix.
Square-enix is reportedly totally fine with this option.
The weirdest thing about this, though, is that the Real, “official” version of the game, not the coupon, is the real competitor to Gamestop’s Online Retailer, called Impulse. The “offical” disc version requires a program called steam for install (IIRC), which is a large storefront for buying and directly downloading games online, same as impulse.
Think of OnLive and it’s coupon more like a Video On Demand service, for games. You don’t own a local copy, you just get to “stream” the game from a server.
Gamestop’s move is more like Wal-Mart removing a free rental coupon out of a dvd that they sold because they are afraid it might hurt sales.
Marc
We can argue if this was legal or not legal, but hopefully we’re all together in agreeing that it was extremely stupid.
JGabriel
@Moik:
Probably not. If it was legal, Game Stop wouldn’t have changed course and returned the stock. They’d have continued the practice, maybe with a sign at stores to inform customers of the change.
The fact that they changed course this quickly suggests that someone in the Game Stop executive suite just got a tongue lashing from legal.
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Pococurante
Looking over the OnLive detail, I suspect their market will be folks with FIOS-quality broadband. DSL customers would likely not be as happy, and forget the various flavors of wireless.
Personally, I like downloads. I like being able to play games while someone else in my household is streaming media.
Moik
@JGabriel:
Possibly. Though considering the firestorm of bad publicity that’s ensued, I could as easily see the tongue-lashing coming from their marketing staff.
Regardless of their legal standing, removing the coupon was the dumbest possible move they could make.
*Edit: I also have to wonder, what were the employees directed to do with the coupons once they’d removed them?
me
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac: I don’t think the disk requires Steam although you can buy the game from Steam as I did. Portal 2 does require Steam though and GameStop doesn’t seem to have a problem selling that.
drkrick
@JGabriel:
Not necessarily. From a PR standpoint, going forward they pretty much have to put the coupons back or stop selling the game whether pulling the coupons was legal or not. Since they appear to be committed to protecting their online product, returning the stock is the only option. Next question – does this kerfluffle damage the reputation of the GameStop online product so badly that it’s more or less doomed anyway?
JimF
I’m just sad that impulse was sold to GS. I like Stardock games. I hope they start bringing them out on other distribution networks.
mike in dc
Well, as a video game enthusiast(PC, Console, portable, whatevs), this sucks. It also sucks to hear GS may be slowly dying. They bought out Electronics Boutique, and now they’re basically “it” as far as dedicated video game retailers go. Sure, there’s Target/Walmart/ToysRUs/BestBuy, but none of those are “pure” video game retailers, and none of them carry used product for sale. If I go to a really good, well-organized and well-stocked Game Stop, I can find a bunch of hidden gems–niche PC and console games that were well-regarded but didn’t sell too well. I can also talk to clerks who are actually fairly knowledgeable about specific games. The only other place that comes close to that is Best Buy, and even then it’s a crap shoot. Sure, I can buy online, but there’s a certain nostalgic pleasure I get from browsing the shelves, reading the verbiage on the back, and picking out what I want.
RoonieRoo
@mike in dc: Our Best Buy in Austin sells used games now. It’s a relatively new development but it’s now an option.
Steve
Legally, I think GameStop can do what they want to the product as long as they tell customers about it before they buy, which obviously they didn’t do.
But I’m not sure I even buy GameStop’s motivating principle. They don’t want to promote a competitor, okay. So if the coupon were printed on the box, would they black it out with magic marker? If the coupon were included on the disc, would they pop it into a computer and delete it? As someone said above, you have to expect that the software company is going to include its own advertising in a product.
Derf
So who would you prefer to be the next Prez Cole. Romney or Perry. I know it’s gonna be a tough decision for you. Being a twice voter for bush I’m guessing Perry is your kinda guy eh?
jibeaux
I don’t even understand why it makes practical sense. If I, the consumer, find out that a vendor is selling a popular product I want after having removed a coupon from it — which will happen very quickly in this interweb age — if I’m at all interested in that coupon I’m going to another vendor who will happily sell me the popular product as packaged and vendor #2 will then make the profit from said popular product. I’m not a gamer, but surely the immediate sales of a long-awaited game have to outweigh any theoretical interest you have that someone who might possibly be a customer of your whatever will choose another service because of their coupon, no?
Nylund
GameStop has been accused of other questionable things in the past. I’ve heard accusations that they allow employees to open up new games, play then, then seal it back up and sell them as new.
There are also accusations that they’ll lie about being sold out of new copies so they can sell used copies (where their profit margins are higher).
I’ve also heard that they purposely take pre-orders of magnitudes higher than the amount of copies they’ll actually get, viewing the money they’ll hold from customers as a form of an interest free loan.
I don’t know how true any of that is, but, if one believes the rumor mill, they apparently have a long history of doing shady things to their customers.
Scott
Derp, meanwhile, will be voting for Ronpaul.
DKF
Where GameStop could get into real trouble is if it can be shown that they knew or had reason to know that customers were purchasing the game in the expectation of finding the coupon inside the box. It they knew or should have known this and pulled the coupons anyway without informing their customers, they may be in quite a pickle.
boatboy_srq
This brings up an interesting Glibertarian conundrum: Assuming we all think this was nasty all around, do we a) play informed consumer and boycott GameStop for screwing its customers and messing with vendors’ products, b) play informed consumer and boycott Square Enix for screwing its retail channel, c) renounce gaming altogether as a pointless transfer of wealth from the gamers to the publishing industry, or d) get over ourselves and just buy Deus Ex from Amazon?
Just curious…
b-psycho
These kind of shenanigans, plus hassle with games being temperamental about what graphics card you have (and even the driver for it), are why I gave up PC gaming.
mattH
<My impression is that they didn't advertise it at all, it was only after people began comparing that it was found out and they respeonded on Facebook.
I thought “right of first sale” covered this and so long as GameStop actually purchased those copies for resale they could do what they want to the packaging. There could be a false advertising claim by the consumers, but that would be it. (Otherwise how could the used game market operate at all – the “online coupon” isn’t going to be a part of any of the used versions of the game.)
They sell both used and new games. These ones were new, yet had been opened, coupon removed, and presumably been resealed, then sold at the new price. SquareEnix might have claim to sue them based on tampering with the package, depending on what the contract they have says, or OnLive may very well be able to sue depending on it's contract with SquareEnix. GameStop has also sent back all of the unopened copies they had left after this got out, I think it's safe to say they probably realized that the initial approach was wrong.
mattH
Sorry about the misquoting. It won’t let me edit and I forgot my paragraph tag.
And it seems I was wrong about SquareEnix:
“As part of Deus Ex: Human Revolution’s boxed offering on PC, Square Enix included a third-party coupon,” the gamemaker said. “GameStop was not made aware of this inclusion and Square Enix respects the right of GameStop to have final say over the contents of products it sells and to adjust them where they see fit in accordance with their policies.”
swbarnes2
@arguingwithsignposts:
Hey, I know this one. C57 Black 6 and Balb/C are inbred laboratory mouse strains.
Arclite
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Yeah, Steam is evil. I own SO MANY games I haven’t even downloaded yet b/c I keep buying AAA games on sale for $5-$10…
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Arclite:
Sounds like the same habit of someone I know…lol! Yup, those special sales and indie bundles are great deals but there isn’t enough time for me to check out all of my new toys!