“Some people will be left behind, it's evolution.” - David Sarif, Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Cloud gaming firm OnLive had quite a bit of a recent coup when they announced that retail copies of Deus Ex: Human Revolution would come with an OnLive code of the same game. It's a great example of the platform's prominence and a nice reward to those consumers that would purchase a PC version of the game at retail. There was a dark cloud [no pun intended] to this silver lining however: GameStop.
A gamer tried to sell his PS4 Pro to GameStop USA and found out that he would actually have to pay the store.
Well there’s no stop like GameStop I’m surprised they didn’t go deeper into the hole with their USED cables and controllers prices.
Edit:
For those that don’t know if you go to trade a console you need it to be ready to go with all the controllers and cables if you don’t have them they ask you to buy them and deduct the price from the monetary appraised for the console
That makes perfect sense really, why would you be selling your console without all the things it came with and needs to actually be used.
Not always I've seen plenty of refurbished units go cheap because people have picked them up broken then repaired and onsold with no controller or cable. When they are this old many people just want to replace the main unit
In the UK, eBay has removed selling fees, letting you list and sell any item for free.
I love gamestop. I still shop there. I prefer buying a game from a game store than a department store.
I preferred goin to Circuit City but that died out. Years back I'd go to Best Buy cause of Gamer Club, now Best Buy barely sells games and doesn't sell Blu-rays and looks dead most of the time. Same with GameStop, these stores look like a barren wasteland of Funko Pops and anime figures. These retail stores don't seem to care about pulling in customers. Those figurines are neat, I collect them too but they ain't pulling me into a GS. Rather than attracting gamers they've pay walled everything behind a subscription. As if they weren't already cheapskates back then with their trade ins.
I still go in there and browse, but never buy anything, the video game section is getting smaller and smaller, even the PS5/Series X/Switch game selection is getting tiny.
I miss Best Buy's Gamer Club, I used to get pre-orders for like 20% off often with other discounts then get points I could trade into discount rebates. It was so good, getting day 1 games for like $30.
When they shut that down I stopped buying games day 1 almost completely.
I stopped going to GameStop when they no longer let me use my monthly $5 rewards points towards PS network cards.
Weird I live in Canada and the Gamestop near me says you need the console, controller, controller cord, and an HDMI cord before they will take a console on trade. And if the console shows signs of being opened they still won't take the machine. And if you upgrade the PS4 HDD from 500 gig to a 1TB they will count that machine as modified and label it as a 500 gig model. Better to just sell it on Facebook Marketplace.
I also live in Canada. I had a similar experience trading in an Xbox One S. Gamestop would give me a pittance for it, so I sold it on Marketplace for almost as much as the original selling price.
GameStop has announced plans to shut down stores across the country after closing 300 locations just last year.
The popular gaming retailer says net sales have fallen 20 percent, now sitting at $860 million - a drastic change from its $1.08 billion in 2023.
Also giving you about $5.00 off for buying a used game is just bullshit. For example: https://www.gamestop.com/vi... New is $59.99, if your going to sell it for a used price it needs to be at least $10-$20 less. I hope GameStop just goes away.
Same nonsense they were doing 20 years ago. 🙄
Time to take old yeller out behind the shed...
One of the reasons I went digital. I used to trade games in back in the day when money was tighter. Trading a game in for 10-15$ isn’t worth the trouble. Especially when they turn around and sell it for almost full price.
Not surprising, but sad. WooT is killing it with their game discounts...on new games.
This is just market forces adjusting for GameStop’s long-time practices of nickel and diming the consumer. I feel bad for the workers though. It’s not good that they have to lose their jobs over this.
Not too surprising. Lots of people buying digital.
And GameStops trade in and resale pricing strategy is awful for customers. I will miss them when they are gone though.
Most I will miss being able to trade in a console, get a couple hundred towards the new model like PS5 to PS5 Pro.
I’ll miss the midnight launch parties. Standing in line with strangers sharing our excitement about a video game. Digital took that from us. I wish younger audiences could experience how joyful it was
I often think about times like that and how good we had it, before social media and smart phones gave way to a generation that expects instant gratification.
GameStop is one of the last remaining relics from a bygone era where stores like Blockbuster, Game Crazy, Hollywood Video, and many others were found on every corner. If you…
OnLive may or may not be the dominant player when it's all said and done, but I agree that games are going in the online, on-demand service direction. GameStop will no longer matter.
It's not about so called "evolution", to put it simply digital distribution or cloud gaming offers few advantages to the consumer compared to the retail model and is simply not needed. They most significant advantages a consumer will get from digital distribution is possibly a somewhat cheaper cost and instant gaming. But when compared to the disadvantages I can't comprehend why anyone would support that system.
- Internet connection required, internet is not water or electric it's not a standard for living and not everyone has it or can get it. Things happen your internet can go out or go down for days or even weeks.
- Full control to the companies offering these digital products... if they want to take the game away from you they can.
- With "cloud gaming" you have to depend on these companies not going to out of business or removing your game from there servers... retro gaming will most likely disappear. Basically the worst type of DRM possible.
- No portability, you cant take your game to a friends house and you would have to carry a harddrive or your system anywhere you go to game.
- Streaming offers lower quality, compare in any game or movie that is streamed to it's physical counterpart and you will see the difference.
- No resale of old games.
- Most internet services have caps, and this is getting worse... so it "could" potentially cost you more to download or stream a game than just buying the game from the store.
- More trouble for streaming services than download services but if there system is hacked no game playing period, basically the PSN x 10. Why would anyone trust putting all there eggs in one basket? Its asking for trouble.
At the end of the day, the people that are rooting for the digital age are corporations that want more control of the products consumers buy and tech sheep who move to the new technology even if that technology isn't really needed or beneficial to them. So why should I as a consumer move to digital vs retail with the amount of disadvantages it offers me?
This article is nothing more that guesswork about a future that nobody really knows if it "will" actually happen... it's all still up in the air. Until these companies solve these disadvantages I don't see everyone embracing this future.
I fear the day when people no longer need to leave there house to buy things... are we really that lazy now?