In the past year it seems I have limited myself to the number of places I’m willing to shop at, for various reasons. Thankfully I usually shop at Amazon, which is great because I’m generally lazy and they almost always have good deals, like $20 off your next game purchase. That and they’ll even deliver on the day of release, which is also handy because of my laziness.
The other weekend I wanted to try out Move, and didn’t really want to wait the long 24 hours to get the game, otherwise my two days off would be up. So I went to a place called Fry’s, a regional chain of electronic stores. They were being tricky and only selling their Move/Sports Champions bundles with a copy of another game. I wasn’t going to put up with that, so I left. Another store on my “no shop” list. I looked around and wondered who I would get a copy of this thing from if I wanted it the same day. I wasn’t willing to go to Best Buy, Wal-Mart or Target because I choose not to shop at those retailers. So I looked across the street and saw my desperate last choice: GameStop.
It was the typical GameStop: dirty carpets, filthy shelves, boxes not in any order, employees not following any sort of dress code. This one even had a recorded message when you walk in that warned you there were cameras everywhere. How quaint.
Sure there are plenty of GameStop locations that don’t fall into the pile of filth category, but finding those isn’t the easiest task. Finding one where they don’t grill you for pre-orders and discount cards is also a challenge. I got the usual “did you pre-order this?” question when I asked for a Move bundle, of which they had a pile of about 20 behind the counter. “Nope,” I said. The woman said “Oh. Well, that’s fine. But the controllers needed to be pre-ordered. We don’t have enough of those left.” This information was totally irrelevant to the purchase.
Once I left I felt dirty. “Never again,” I told myself. I’d rather just click a button on Amazon and get it the next day, without having to leave my house even if it means a day’s delay. This leads me to my question: if GameStop is so disgusting in so many ways, why do we continue to support it?
Well, it is the only major video game retail chain in the country, now that Game Crazy has closed, and even that was never really “major,” it just happened to be the other chain. All the rest of the chains have been sucked up by GameStop.
Having worked at the aforementioned “minor” chain, I can tell you exactly why GameStop is still in business, and you probably already know the answer: used games. If you go into a GameStop and buy a copy of a new game, that’s $60, however the store probably paid about $50 for it. That gets them $10. That’s actually a generous example. Don’t forget these stores have to pay for rent, utilities, employees, and marketing, so ten bucks a game, if they even get that, isn’t much. Now, say you bought that used instead. Maybe it’s $50 bucks now, but instead of the store buying that game from the publisher for $50, they bought it off of a kid “trading in” some games for probably around $20-$25 bucks. That means they just made $25-$30 on that game.
It’s easy to see what’s running their business. Publishers and developers hate GameStop, but they can’t retaliate in a large-scale way because of how powerful the store is. Not having your titles in a GameStop can be extremely harmful for your business. Why? Because people like you and me continue to cave in and buy stuff there. I may not do it on a regular basis, but now and then I’ll just have to have something 24 hours before Amazon could deliver it and I’ll take a peek in their stores, however I refuse to purchase anything used because the developer and publisher see no money for the game, and that’s less money that goes to GameStop. I also refuse to trade games in because it’s an unfair value for me and the person that ends up buying the game. I don’t like to sell games period, but if I do, I will sell it directly to somebody for like $20, rather than selling it to GameStop for the same amount and have them turn around and sell it to a customer for $50.
Thankfully publishers are starting to get upset enough that they are slowly retaliating. EA has introduced something they like to call “Project Ten Dollar,” which is their method of curbing used game sales. Their sports games are probably the best example of how they’re implementing this. Say you buy a used copy of Madden. That’s about $50 for the first few months it’s out. Sure you’re saving ten bucks, but what you may not realize is that, since you’re the second owner, you need to pay $10 for access to certain features, including the ability to play online. If you buy the game new for that same $10 more, then you get a code in the box allowing you access to all that for free, but only to you. Now buying the new game seems like the better idea. I can only hope this sort of retaliation continues.
My most recent experience at GameStop left me feeling so dirty that no amount of bathing could clean me. I’d rather just wait 24 hours for Amazon’s delivery before going to that pit of darkness ever again. I strongly hope that others start realizing that you don’t need to pre-order games anymore, you can just walk in a Best Buy if you choose, or, like myself, order off of Amazon and not have to worry about what’s in stock. Also please think when you buy or trade in used games. It not only hurts publishers because they don’t see a dime of that money, but it also helps one of the most seedy retail chains ever to light up an “open” sign.
