http://i.imgur.com/abXW9.png

GameCrazy tried to slip in “Disc Protection” when I was buying a game without asking or mentioning it. When I caught it, they fought me about it and tried to explain that games suffer from “laser burn” if you play them too much. Is that so? Raise your hand if your game has ever stopped working because of laser burn. Yeah, didn’t think so. After three visits to GameCrazy, I swore them off forever. The GameStop around here knows us at this point, and knows we work at a video game company, so they don’t even try to sell us the used copies, which I appreciate.

The other thing that I always keep in mind (having worked retail), is that you can’t be angry at the people who work there. They’re just doing their job. Feel free to be mad at the evil corporation, but the guys at the GameStop here are awesome guys, and are always really nice. Even if they work for a company with an unfortunate business model.

Sure, they’ll always be able to take in the disinterested parents and such.

However, people even marginally interested in purchasing and playing games will subconsciously act to maximize their utility when buying them. It happens in all markets, and is one of the foundations of microeconomic behavior.

there’s a couple of facets to this that makes Gamestop the way it is that doesn’t apply to most other re-sellers:

1. GS has no qualms about putting recent releases up used for maybe five dollars less than the new retail, after they’ve only given maybe half the retail value to the person that brought it in(incidentally, this half-price was given in store credit, which means the money’s staying in the company).

2. Gamestop doesn’t so much encourage employees to suggest buying used as they REQUIRE it. GS employees can be FIRED if they don’t make a serious attempt to convince customers to buy a used copy.

Developers lose out big time with this kind of policy in place. Most of the people that buy a used copy of a game that just released would have bought it anyway at a few dollars more, but take the used one to save a couple of bucks, especially when GS employees frequently pull a used copy of the shelf by default. Developers and publishers don’t make any money at all off of resales, just the initial sale. Gamestop, however, makes 30 or so USD every time they do it, which is why they do it. And chances are good that Gamestop will end up selling the same copy of a game three or four times this way.

Yes, the industry would be well-served providing better play value, or otherwise making it preferable to buy new. It probably wouldn’t change that much, because GS’s model is based around the inobservant, the ill-informed, the impatient, etcetera. The sorts of customers that will buy a game on release day, beat it, bring it back tomorrow for trade-in so they can grab the other new game, and basically just keep doing it over and over again. Followed by the parent that comes in the day after release looking for that game their kid is on about and doesn’t really notice or care about a used sticker as long as the kid gets the game they wanted.

I see this little dance play out *really* often when I do wander into Gamestop. It’s actually pretty insidious, though some stores push gentler than others.

I was recently assured by a manager at one of the stores in town that they don’t sell used new releases for like a week unless it’s specifically asked for anymore, because of the industry backlash… but then she also turned around five minutes later and recommended I buy Wet used because she didn’t think I’d want to keep it. >.>

What really gets me is how they insist on talking me into buying used if I go to any of the local stores other than my “usual” store. The guys at my usual understand that I want to buy new unless I ask otherwise. they respect that, and that’s cool.

But everywhere else, they’re always pushing used. It drives me up the wall, especially since they don’t take no for an answer easily. Even if I give up and explain the reasons, they argue with me. I don’t often bring up the whole developers-versus-Gamestop issue often, but the last time I did, I got fed a big ol’ company line about how they put forth this big study and analyzed their sales data and it totally proves that the used game market feeds back into new releases, etc, etc.

It drives me nuts. Gamestop’s the ONLY store that does it. Microcenter sells used, but they don’t try and ram it down your throat. Numerous small stores sell used, but only fork a used copy over if you actually ask for one, etc.

Even a rudimentary knowledge of economics should suffice to suggest that trade-ins increase the perceived value of retail games and cause increased sales?

I purchase relatively few console games due to my preferences and cashflow, but I’m far more likely to do so knowing I can trade it in for a reduction in the cost of a game time card when I inevitably tire of it. Perhaps game makers should try to make more games with lasting appeal rather than ones that are fun for a week and then replaced.

Oddly enough, the games that I keep around rather than trade in usually cost less to begin with. Katamari Damacy only set me back 20$ when I bought it new and I’ll keep it and play it forever, but Borderlands, as great a game as it was for a time, lost my attention after a week. Fact of the matter is, I knew this would happen, and would never have purchased it at full retail at all if not for a giftcard burning a whole in my pocket.

There are other reasons to question whether the game deserves hard earned money (http://bit.ly/4bL0yk). Given the approaching holiday season with other deserving games being released soon, I would certainly recommend standing by your initial gut reaction given the fact that they have clearly shown questionable judgement and more importantly, the company has made no real effort to properly address the issue.

The Phasing in Northrend is pretty cool, the kind of system that makes my designer hat tilt at an interested angle. The quest chain you’re looking for in particular to really experience it happens… I think we were around 72-ish? I can’t really remember, but it’s after you’ve been in DragonBlight for a while. I can’t really speak to the alliance side of things, but I’m pretty sure both of them have a parallel storyline involving Alexstrazia in the northern area(there should be a pair of outposts up there near the gate. It’s by far the best use of the Phasing system I can remember seeing. VERY cool. They also use phasing down along the coast in the western starting zone(can’t remember all the names, I left WoW a while ago) with the.. um… viking guys I can’t quite remember. that one’s so subtle, though, that you almost don’t realize it’s phased at all.

Re: CO– I love that about CO myself. Have you seen the Crime Computer 2.0 site? I manage to make about a whole level worth of XP on my 26 just going back through stuff I’d missed using that site as a guide, which was fantastic. I can’t think of any MMOs I’ve played before that let me do that. I like to do it when i just want to play without having to think too much about it.

I don’t blame you on the MW2 issue. Frankly, I’m kind of tired of CoD already, and then they go and do this thing with the ad… to say nothing of the leaked opening sequence. Done well, said opening could be making a point about the political climate and have a great deal of meaning… but as it is, it just seems like a totally gratuitous thing done to garner controversy and cause a stir and some sensationalism, which just makes me care about the game even less.

Achievements/perks/braggign-rights can actually put me off a game, because I get so fixated on getting the A/P/BRs that it takes me out of the game. I find I have more fun when I don’t care about achievements and simply focus on the gameplay.

Which is probably why some of my all-time faves are sandbox games like SimCity and open-ended RPGs like Morrowind. I even approach CO like a sandbox RPG, I can’t see a badguy without taking a whack at them so as to put the world to right.

Which may be why I’m levelling so sloooooowly. And still having fun.

More achievements/fewer achievements, more directed/more open-ended, more this/less that… It makes life hell for game designers.