GameStop: The Market Needs To Have Used Downloads

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Used downloads? How would that even work? And, if you could sell used downloads, why wouldn't Sony and Microsoft just allow their users to skip GameStop altogether by letting them resell their own games via XBL and PSN?

“All of a sudden you have a situation where publishers can’t charge $60, which we think will be bad for the ecosystem,” GameStop President Tony Bartel tells BusinessWeek. “You don’t see many digital items being sold at a $60 price point. Movies are $5. Songs are 99¢.”
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Don't go away mad, Gamestop. Just go away.

Does anyone actually buy stuff from this place?:confused:
 
Ummm.. no. Has nobody at gamestop ever looked at Steam, GOG, Humblebundle, etc?

New releases are usually the only ones that sell for "retail" prices.

I am guessing that they want to be able to resell stuff for near retail prices like they do now, except they want to add digital downloads to there sad, sad excuse for a company.
 
cyclone3d said:
Ummm.. no. Has nobody at gamestop ever looked at Steam, GOG, Humblebundle, etc?

New releases are usually the only ones that sell for "retail" prices.

I am guessing that they want to be able to resell stuff for near retail prices like they do now, except they want to add digital downloads to there sad, sad excuse for a company.
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$2-5 below new retail at Gamestop for used games. Downloads? No thanks. I'll pass.
 
Don't think used downloads but maybe license transfers if you want to give the game to someone else and relinquish your rights to the game.
 
bigdaveberg said:
Don't think used downloads but maybe license transfers if you want to give the game to someone else and relinquish your rights to the game.
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I could see a marketplace for this. I have so much stuff on Steam, for instance, that I don't play anymore.

If I could sell, or even trade, those licenses away it would be something handy.

Although, really, most of them cost little more than pocket change in the first place, so... it would just be a matter of convenience really, I can't see it being a huge market driver -but hey, if those trading cards that go for a nickle or dime a piece are making something, I could see license swaps/sales doing something similar.
 
My SIL worked for GameStop for far too long. They make mad bank on the "used game" market -- it's a huge part of their business model. They give you $10 "in store credit", sell it for $50.
 
It's a complete of time, judging by how fucking cheap people are.

I'LL GIVE YOU A DOLLAR FOR FAR CRY 4.
 
If Gamestop wants to continue to be relative in this new digital age they better beef up their web site, add a bunch of servers and start offering digital downloads themselves.
 
Translation: "Our business model is obsolete and fucked in the digital age, but we will try to prop it up any way we can"
 
Only way I could see it working is for both the digital distributer and the publisher to receive a percentage of the sale..probably a large chunk and at likely a set price.

Trades wouldn't work cause there would just be open markets where potentially every gamer could theoretically just never purchase games but rather just keep trading them on what would be a very vast market with every game and consistent supplies of each up for trade. Without a lot of stipulations it would damage the ecosystem.

I think DD as it is now is fine, there is no shortage of sales and there is enough reviews, opinions, videos..etc that purchasing a bad game is probably your own fault. Besides, you're not purchasing a game, you're purchasing entertainment value. It comes down to a time spent being entertained to $ ratio. Any entertainment carries risk of you not being entertained for the $ spent but really that's often more of an individual issue. $60 for say 8 hours of entertainment isn't too bad considering many people spend more for less on other forms of entertainment.
 
Scythe said:
Don't go away mad, Gamestop. Just go away.

Does anyone actually buy stuff from this place?:confused:
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Maybe not PC gamers but console gamers buy huge amounts of crap from them. And they will until the console makers get their digital store's respective shit together and start offering the experience that's been on PCs for a long while now. No reason I should have to go to a store to buy my games, even from my consoles.
 
Megalith said:
It's a complete of time, judging by how fucking cheap people are.

I'LL GIVE YOU A DOLLAR FOR FAR CRY 4.
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QFT. Never ceases to amaze how you'll see a sale on a game for $1.99 that was originally $60, and some turd inevitably comes along "Is this the cheapest its been"
 
While I don't disagree with gamestop, I do have to point out one thing. Steam Family Sharing! Kinda makes what they do irrelevant.
 
While self serving it is an interesting problem in the digital age, transferable digital goods. Bitcoin is probably the most prolific example of such a thing to date.
 
I don't think many people buy a $60 game knowing they can get $10 back from GameStop. They buy a $60 game because they don't want to wait for it.
 
Used downloads would be fine by me (don't really care either way), still not reason to have a Gamestop. The last time I was in there they had re-organized the store to stock as little product as possible and filled half the store with tablets (that no one is ever going to buy). They didn't have the 3DS game I was looking for, so I went over to BestBuy and they had 20 copies.

Gamestop is trying very hard with a failing business model. Blockbuster did the same thing, repeating Blockbuster's mistakes is not a good idea.
 
Quix said:
Used downloads would be fine by me (don't really care either way), still not reason to have a Gamestop. The last time I was in there they had re-organized the store to stock as little product as possible and filled half the store with tablets (that no one is ever going to buy). They didn't have the 3DS game I was looking for, so I went over to BestBuy and they had 20 copies.

Gamestop is trying very hard with a failing business model. Blockbuster did the same thing, repeating Blockbuster's mistakes is not a good idea.
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huh its kinda the opposite where I live... BB has one 20' row for PS and one for Xbox... They pretty much only stock new or top selling AAA titles.

Go across the street and GS will have the game, as much as I loathe the store.

I have a feeling the used game market doesn't scare publishers as much as the PC price slide and sales. Thus it probably is going to be up hill for consoles to provide the same steam experience.
 
I love it when you check the Gamestop site and it says there's one copy left of a game you want. You show up and they hand you the display copy, which has already been opened and/or gutted.

FOOL YOU...
 
Hey, you guys can have all of my used, dirty bits. I don't need 'em.
 
Basically gamespot wants "used digital games" like retail ones, where they do not have to give ANY cut to sony/ms or the publisher.

However everyone knows you can buy plenty of pc games at cheaper then retail prices, even new ones (like from GMG, not hard to get 20-25% off them).

I don't get how used games would even work outside of a service like Steam, where you could take a game you bought and then "resell" it to someone (and it removes said game from your account obviously).

LIke you could take a game, make into into an inventory item, then trade them, similar to how they work now cept allow it with games already activated.

I Think consumers would like that, but publishers wouldn't.
 
I really wish steam had an ability to auction off games in our library, too much crap I wish I could get rid of.
 
Scythe said:
Don't go away mad, Gamestop. Just go away.

Does anyone actually buy stuff from this place?:confused:
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Haven't been in that place since 2003. It was Software, Etc. back then but it was the same high priced, full of bullshit place.
 
If this happens get ready for 20Mb game 'shells' with 30Gb of DLCs.
 
This fear is the reason that gamestop has moved into selling used iphones.
 
Only time I ever use Gamestop is for certain collectors editions of games I want that are sold out on Amazon. So.....maybe once every 2 years or so?
 
Megalith said:
I love it when you check the Gamestop site and it says there's one copy left of a game you want. You show up and they hand you the display copy, which has already been opened and/or gutted.

FOOL YOU...
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It's been forever since I've been to a gamestop but I thought that was the status quo for all their used games, I remember they even reshrink wrap the box in a half assed way before the hand it to you.
 
I honestly don't see the justification for a $60 price tag on a digital game. We go from a version that requires a physical copy, testing for the physical copy, packaging, shipping, packaging for shipping, physical security device, and all of the various wage workers involved in that process... to a server and piggybacking on service that would exist regardless of whether or not games are distributed digitally.

The fact of the matter is, the used game market exists almost solely because of this terribly high agreed upon price point for new physical games. The pricing is predatory, and hostile to small developers that can't afford the marketing and package design to compete with the major developers at that price point.
 
There should be a market for used games, though without shitty middlemen like GStp. Marketplaces like steam/xbl/psn could let users sell games to each other similar to steam's card/collectable marketplace. Though in addition to the marketplace cut they could give the developer/publisher a cut of the used digital game sale (as opposed to the 0% they get from GStp).

They could also do a hybrid static/percentage cut to find the best balance.

Though forcing someone to buy a new digital copy is ideal for devs/publishers, I'm sure taking a cut of a digital re-sale is better than getting nothing from a physical sale.
 
spugm1r3 said:
I honestly don't see the justification for a $60 price tag on a digital game. We go from a version that requires a physical copy, testing for the physical copy, packaging, shipping, packaging for shipping, physical security device, and all of the various wage workers involved in that process... to a server and piggybacking on service that would exist regardless of whether or not games are distributed digitally.
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I think the blame goes to the retailers like GameStop who I think hate Steam and similar services as it is essentially competition. It would not surprise me that as part of the agreement between the retailer and the distributor, that the digital copy cannot be reduced from retail price for a few weeks after release so that they can issue the discounted copies.
 
Gamestop is the new Blockbuster.

One day we'll have threads titled "What has your local Gamestop become?"
 
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