While classic retail staples such as Blockbuster and Toys 'R Us failed to innovate after decades of unrivaled success and ended up fading away, one company continues to struggle and desperately try to stay relevant despite changing times. After financial concerns and rumored imminent buyouts earlier this year, GameStop has announced their latest attempt to revitalize their brand. The company will be teaming up with the designer firm R/GA, and plans to renovate some of its stores in order to spice up the "GameStop experience". A few of these ideas include letting consumers play games before they buy them, changing the store layout to "appeal to gamers", offering competitive e-sports sessions in-store, and selling more retro games. R/GA will be implementing these ideas in select stores across the United States. As to whether this is enough to prevent GameStop from becoming a mere relic of the past is uncertain, as one of their previous ventures--trying to pivot into selling mobile devices--resulted in major financial losses for the retailer. It also appears that GameStop's most recent focus, trying to sell more collectibles and toys has not been significant enough to secure the company's future alone.

The partnership with R/GA’s Austin and Chicago teams is part of GameStop’s broader business transformation strategy to evolve its efforts in cultivating innovative customer-centric opportunities to bring video game culture to life in every neighborhood. GameStop’s renewed customer-first focus stems from qualitative and quantitative research led by GameStop and R/GA that identified four major motivations gaming fans have for playing video games – immersion, achievement, creativity and community.

Source

 

[Foxi4]

I still disagree with that concept.

For others playing along at home we met properly a few months back
https://gbatemp.net/threads/bethesd...-game-claims-it-was-to-protect-buyers.514662/

What's the point of disagreement here? In the thread you linked the user purchased a game, aka became its owner, and wanted to resell it, so it was on the secondary market by definition. In terms of licensing it was very much pre-owned - the previous owner was him. It's a bit of an extreme way to interpret this by Bethesda, but I can see their point. I don't necessarily agree with it, to me the copy loses its "new" status upon first use (which would allow for resellers to exist, basically), but I can see it.

 

[FAST6191]

What's the point of disagreement here? In the thread you linked the user purchased a game, aka became its owner, and wanted to resell it, so it was on the secondary market by definition. In terms of licensing it was very much pre-owned - the previous owner was him. It's a bit of an extreme way to interpret this by Bethesda, but I can see their point. I don't necessarily agree with it, to me the copy loses its "new" status upon first use (which would allow for resellers to exist, basically), but I can see it.

The ideas underpinning the law, not necessarily your reading of it. I would much prefer to have use determines status rather than transfer of ownership between the anointed few and then the rest of us get to play in the dust.

 

[Foxi4]

The ideas underpinning the law, not necessarily your reading of it. I would much prefer to have use determines status rather than transfer of ownership between the anointed few and then the rest of us get to play in the dust.

Too hard, my friend. What if I open a game, use it "a little bit" and put it back in the box, no scratches, DLC codes intact? How "new" is it, on a scale of 1 to 10? What about if I used it a lot, scratches galore, but it still works - new? Not new? What is the price of my honesty to you? And how do you enforce it if you can't visually tell the difference? This isn't a matter of "my reading of it", it's either new or it isn't.

I would be a little bit more lenient when it comes to games that are still in cellophane *if* not for a recent scandal where completely fake FIFA 19 discs in foil somehow entered the market, instantly prompting many stores to adjust their trade-in policy, namely removing all seals upon trade-in to inspect the discs thoroughly. Where did counterfeiters get their hands on original, or at least original-looking seals is anyone's guess, but from where I'm sitting, once the game leaves the store it is de facto owned by whoever bought it. If it is ever sold by that person, or must necessarily be pre-owned, by him specifically, which makes that person the guilty party in case something is unexpectedly wrong with it. Nowadays I open my boxes immediately, knowing that this is a very real possibility.

You know what else they also started doing in the UK recently? Destroying all of the paper documentation that comes with the game, codes et all, upon trading it in. Why? Let me enlighten you.

https://www.metro.news/addicted-to-...ng-bag-of-drugs-in-gift-to-young-son/1383491/

It's not uncommon and has happened before, too. People find the weirdest places to put their drugs in. So yes, foil, no foil, a lot of the "content" is getting altered in pre-owned or "second hand" copies nowadays, purely to protect stores from dishonest traders.

 

[FAST6191]

Too hard, my friend. What if I open a game, use it "a little bit" and put it back in the box, no scratches, DLC codes intact? How "new" is it, on a scale of 1 to 10? What about if AI used it a lot, scratches galore, but it still works - new? Not new? This isn't a matter of "my reading of it", it's either new or it isn't. I would be a little bit more lenient when it comes to games that are still on cellophane *if* not for a recent scandal where completely fake FIFA 19 discs in foil somehow entered the market, instantly prompting many stores to adjust their trade-in policy, namely removing all seals upon trade-in to inspect the discs thoroughly. Where did counterfeiters get their hands on original, or at least original-looking seals is anyone's guess, but from where I'm sitting, once the game leaves the store it is de facto owned by whoever bought it. If it is ever sold by that person, or must necessarily be pre-owned, by him specifically, which makes that person the guilty party in case something is unexpectedly wrong with it.

I assume that is supposed to be I rather than AI.

Removal from the wrapper would be a good test, though I am not firm on that if a work should come without it. Simple use would then be the line.
Faked physical measures/tamper detection is largely immaterial in this. Still falls under whatever retail fraud or general fraud statutes you care to have and don't see the law being written/interpreted in the way described as solving a useful problem for the freedoms it costs.

I sense many of the laws were written back when tapes, records or whatever were prone to degradation with use, and copying at perfect quality was infeasible, or at least not usefully updated since then but it is not the first time technology has raced ahead of matters.

 

[calagan]

The move to digital-only content is irreversible, there's really no money to be made selling new games, so I think GS should go full retro-gaming.

But of course, they should do it right, not in the messy, unorganised way they used to. You should not have to dig for hours trough bins full of Madden cartridges to find a hidden gem, you need to present games according to their value, whether or not they are boxed/with manual and make sure any game you sell is properly cleaned, tested and cared for.

There's a lot to be learnt from from those awesome japanese stores like Super Potatoe, Traders, Mandarake or Surugaya. And if you can't afford a trip to Akihabara, there are independent stores in the US like Pink Gorilla in Seattle which faithfully reproduce the layout and atmosphere of those stores.

 

[Foxi4]

I assume that is supposed to be I rather than AI.

Removal from the wrapper would be a good test, though I am not firm on that if a work should come without it. Simple use would then be the line.
Faked physical measures/tamper detection is largely immaterial in this. Still falls under whatever retail fraud or general fraud statutes you care to have and don't see the law being written/interpreted in the way described as solving a useful problem for the freedoms it costs.

I sense many of the laws were written back when tapes, records or whatever were prone to degradation with use, and copying at perfect quality was infeasible, or at least not usefully updated since then but it is not the first time technology has raced ahead of matters.

...and what kind of quality of copying is feasible right now when it comes to console games, @FAST6191? You have a bit romanticised view of customers, there's an ample number of scammers out there, enough to be a problem that needs to be accounted for.

 

[RandomUser]

What you're referring to is the difference between Mint and Non-Mint merchandise which is sometimes discounted. When you "buy a video game", what you're actually paying for is the license to use software, the medium is almost irrelevant and considered perishable. It doesn't matter if the box is open or not, the software is "new" so long as it is not resold on the secondary market. Some stores will discount open box software, but that's a matter of internal store policy.

I don't know if that sits well, I mean the same thing could be said about software like Windows. You're purchasing a license to use the Windows, but here is the crux of the problem arises, if those boxes are open, those Serial keys needed to activate Windows could be posted online or simply stolen, and when a Legitimate purchaser buys the boxed software, that buyer would be in for a nasty surprise not being able to activate Windows due to the stolen serial got activated too many times or something like that. However the purchaser might have his/her red flag rises if the store is selling the software at full price and as "new" status even if the box itself is opened and tampered with. I remember back in the days, if you were to buy a software on the box or cellophane wrap a big sticker would state by opening this package, you accept the terms of the license agreement or something like that. Video games are considered software for the most part as well. But I do get what you mean in terms of the concept.

 

[Foxi4]

I don't know if that sits well, I mean the same thing could be said about software like Windows. You're purchasing a license to use the Windows, but here is the crux of the problem arises, if those boxes are open, those Serial keys needed to activate Windows could be posted online or simply stolen, and when a Legitimate purchaser buys the boxed software, that buyer would be in for a nasty surprise not being able to activate Windows due to the stolen serial got activated too many times or something like that. However the purchaser might have his/her red flag rises if the store is selling the software at full price and as "new" status even if the box itself is opened and tampered with. I remember back in the days, if you were to buy a software on the box or cellophane wrap a big sticker would state by opening this package, you accept the terms of the license agreement or something like that. Video games are considered software for the most part as well. But I do get what you mean in terms of the concept.

That's certainly a risk one has to be aware of, however most retail establishments have the capacity to check the validity of the code prior to purchase, should such a need arise.

 

[Humanity]

They should put small Sub-Ways (the restaurant) in all of its stores.

That should do the trick.

I am not joking, that would make me go in there more often.

 

[Garlifld]

Blockbuster and Toys are some of the best-known retail staples in creating and selling toys and board games.

 

[Blasingame]

If they want to go back into selling retro games, they should resurrect Babbages and FunCoLand they bought out.

 

[Foxi4]

Holy bananas necrobump.

Let me just lock this here thread, y’all are three years late to the party.