An Economists view oh bad publisher/retailer tactics.

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collegeboy69us

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Okay, so everyone (me included) has had fire on their nuts about retail stores turning customers away that want to buy a game they have in stock.

Well, with less then one semester till I graduate from Texas A&M here, (i guess i already consider myself an Economist/Geek) It makes no logical sense for the publishers/retailers to withhold an item the public wants. (except to build demand or heighten interest) However I dont think thats the case here... demand is out the ass at this point.

"Give the consumers what they want" -- Law of Business

I realize there may be a thread on this somewhere floating around, but it's just not smart business practices to hold back something if a store has it. One major thing that comes to mind is lost business. God knows Doom3 is all over BitTorrent and other places... i'm on a 56k so god knows I couldnt download it and play it early. Even if i were able to do that, I'd buy the game for multiplayer and from the fact that "DOOM" was the first computer game i ever played as a kid. So its only natural to continue the support of it.

However not everyone in the world is as honest as that, stores dont want to sell the product to person X, person X gets on high speed cable and downloads a pirated copy, person X plays doom3 loves it, person X kinda forgets to go fork over 60 bucks to store.

I'm assuming the whole "street date" thing for the game is setup by the publisher (Activision in this case). If they are willing to ship a boxfull of coveted Doom3 games to a store, there is no reason store can't sell them. All comes back to demand, and possible lost funds, beacuse after all, arent the game publishers the FIRST to complain about piracy and lost sales?

I'm ranting yes... mostly due to the fact that the best buy i stopped in on my way home from class tonight around 8pm told me "oh yeah we have them just sitting in the back, but can't sell them till tommorow"

Idiots, is there some secret mystic event happening between 8pm and the four hours till the next technical day? No.
 
I just read the first part of this post, but having talked to some guys at Software ETC(Gamestop) today, they told me that there are severe repurcussions(sp?) for selling a game before the official street date. To sanction those that do break street date, the game publisher, if they find out(and they will) will halt shipment of those games for a few weeks to a few months. This is especially hard for the smaller chains like Ebworld. I call it small because in terms of Wal-mart, they're small. Wal-mart was mentioned in the conversation as well. They said that Mal Wart has been notorious for breaking street date, but the publishers let them slide because they're such a huge retailer. So, if you want DOOM 3 now, I suggest you go find a 24/7 Wart.
 
UnholyOne said:
I simply dont get what the harm is in selling items earlier then a street date
Click to expand...

I dunno. You can say the same thing for dvd and music releases...and also movies(cinema).

It's a stupid question, really. They give a date for a reason. It goes both ways. You don't get the problem with early releases. How'd you feel if the release was late?

It's an enigma.
 
well hawkamus... would have been nice if you would have read the WHOLE post...

i know there are contracts.... blah blah, i heard how best buy (savea few that did "accidentally" sell it early) are very strict with their release... i was semi-bitching about that

my MAIN point was the existance of the contract to NOT sell in the first place.
 
I'm not an economist, but I'm pretty sure they set a specific date so all the retailers have time to receive their shipments so they can sell on a level playing field. If stores could sell the game as soon as they get the product, it would have a negative effect on stores that are the last ones to receive the shipments.
 
heh, my Best Buy had 144 copies on Friday. 143 today. (somebody did a bad bad thing...) But I agree totally, hard street dates (Doom3, most movies and CDs) make no sense, at least for games. The biggest real reason I see is for hype. The stores that were open at 12:01 to sell Doom3 had radio coverage and, in some markets, reps from id signing stuff. Some stores even had Doom3 VIPs that got to come in and play Doom3 on some computers set up in store (that was the plan anyways, this was confidential until the first store opened today at 12:01 EDT, and might not have gone through. I'm in a non-midnight store). So basically, for 6 markets across the country, Best Buy got to have a little party and some crowds. The other 600 or so stores (we have over 600, just not sure how many...) didn't get crap. Well, they did, but only if the sold them early. Supposedly (this is semi-rumor) it's a $25,000 fine per copy sold early, which seems kinda harsh to me. Maybe it's a $2500 or something. I'll find out next time I work. But for the most part, there are NO advantages to hard street dates. A soft street date is where Best Buy or id says the game comes out Aug. 3, but can sell it before then. I like those better.
 
To counter the "lets have a strict release date so all the retailers can play fair" argument... whoever said the free market was fair? This countries economy is built on competition, whoever has it first, fastest, cheapest, highest quality will "win" in the long run.

If Activision has a strict policy on release dates because they want "all retailers to have a fair chance" whoever is telling them to do this must have went to some community college. I'm arguing now on the basis of buiness not doom3, i get it tommorow so "meh", im not pissing myself anymore.

If activision is SO worried about making sure all retailers have them at a common start date, it's money out of their pocket. Every day they aren't selling, they are losing money, and that's bad business. (well, wouldnt say bad just not smart)

Another argument is that, any retailer that does not recognize the power of this particular piece of software to bring in revenue is in the long run going to fail as a business anyway. If activision, and us as consumers have to wait for ALL the retail chains to be setup before they sell, thats just wasting time and money.

the purpose of a business is to make a profit, the way to profit is to provide a good or service people are willing to pay for. Activision as a company should make the product (stamping CDs and boxing etc in this case) and distribute it. If they start mixing up distrubtion dates, allowable sale dates, etc etc (for assuming the purpose of level playing field) The only thing it's doing is hurting them and us. Lose-Lose situation

Honestly, what is the point of waiting for a "mom and pop" shop to get a shipment of 25 doom3 games? If they dont pay for overnight shipping and lose sales that's their fault. :p

The old saying of "Good things come to those who wait" is NOT true in the business world. Your responisble for your own ass in the business world, it's harsh thats why whoever is being an asshole about these, whoever is the one that dreamed up "hey! lets have a contract made up so no retailers can sell these 500,000 copies of DOOM3 we just made for another few days!"


Well, I get my copy tommorow, I hope :)
 
I'm not talking about Mom and Pop stores. Not ALL Best Buy stores get the shipments on the same day. Not ALL Wal-Mart stores will get the game shipped on the same day, etc. So if in City A Best Buy gets the game first, they will cut into Wal-Mart's sales, then WM gets pissed and won't stock their items.
I'm just speculating, as I don't know what the real reason is. But there IS a reason why they do it, or else they wouldn't right? Since you're going to be dealing with that stuff as a career, why don't you find the reason and explain it to us.
 
Lets say Alex has a warehouse in California, Bob has a warehouse in New York. Now lets imagine Carl is shipping his Doobot to both Alex and Bob from his shop in Utah.

Alex gets the shipment in California in two days, Bob gets the shipment in three. Now Bob sends some of his large Doobot order to his stores in California. Lets say Bob's got a real smooth operation running and his California stores manages to get the product in two days. Meanwhile Alex's stores have had them on the shelves for those two days and sold most of their inventory, supplying the majority of the initial demand in the area.

Bob sees the poor Doobot sales in California and next time only buys enough to supply his stores in New York. This means Carl makes fewer sales, so he's not as happy about it.

Now, when Carl rolls out the Doobot2, he tells Alex that if he wants the Doobot2 he's going to have to wait until date X (giving Bob--and others--enough time to get his copies distributed to his California locations) to put them on the shelf. This keeps Bob happy because he sees higher sales for Carl's product, and Carl's happy because he's shipping more.

Yeah, Alex isn't going to be happy about losing some sales, but Carl is the one who controls the distribution of Doobots. If Alex doesn't play by his rules, Carl doesn't sell to him. Why would Carl refuse a sale? Because by only supplying the manufacturers that play by his rules, he keeps a level playing field nation-wide and ensures his other customers will continue to buy his Doobots.

But then, I'm not an economist, so what do I know? :)
 
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