GameStop Responds; MW2 Broken Street Date a Corporate Decision

[Kantham]

-Source- On Kotaku

This past weekend, GameStop made the decision to break street date and sell reserved copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in select markets where other retailers had broken street date. Our decision followed many conversations with Activision and was an effort to protect our customer base.

I'm currious to know what you guys think.

Personally, I'm not sure how you protect your customer base by breaking street dates. Oh wait, it gives more profit. That's the worse excuse I have ever heard from a representative.

No lawsuit?

[Slainchild]

You protect your customer base by giving them what they want.. if another store is selling it early, people are going to cancel their orders at Gamestop and buy it from them instead. By offering the game to them early, they keep their customer base.

[Sjosz]

A similar thing happened when for the first few days when Batman: Arkham Asylum was released, it only cost 40 bucks (CAD) instead of the full 60-70. Once those plans were announced for one retailer, others were quick to adjust their prices to something similar to not be outdone by their competition.

[Lola Lufnagle]

Originally Posted by Kantham

-Source- On Kotaku



I'm currious to know what you guys think.

Personally, I'm not sure how you protect your customer base by breaking street dates. Oh wait, it gives more profit. That's the worse excuse I have ever heard from a representative.

No lawsuit?

Oh no a game was released early, I demand internet justice!

[Zxanphorian]

At least they didn't delay it like what Valve did to the L4D2 Demo OMGOMGOMG.

[Jackal]

I wonder what the idiots thought of that, that were camping outside gamespot for the past 3 days.

[Kantham]

Originally Posted by Slainchild

You protect your customer base by giving them what they want.. if another store is selling it early, people are going to cancel their orders at Gamestop and buy it from them instead. By offering the game to them early, they keep their customer base.

By breaking the publisher's therm. By looking like greedy idiots.

Originally Posted by Sjosz

A similar thing happened when for the first few days when Batman: Arkham Asylum was released, it only cost 40 bucks (CAD) instead of the full 60-70. Once those plans were announced for one retailer, others were quick to adjust their prices to something similar to not be outdone by their competition.

I can understand that, how they managed to pay the difference, though?

Originally Posted by Lola Lufnagle

Oh no a game was released early, I demand internet justice!

Go make me a samwich.

[Sjosz]

Originally Posted by Kantham

I can understand that, how they managed to pay the difference, though?

It's not so much the profit margin that was the problem. They pay the difference in lessened profit margins by selling more units in those opening days, and actually selling units on those opening days instead of being screwed out of sales because the other guy offered it for 20 bucks less.

[Jackal]

so why bother if they plan to do that. Just ship them and when the stores get them, sell em.

It's a internet debacle!

[Kantham]

I guess that can work well, it's supposed to be a good deal for both the retailer and publisher, so that doesn't really seem to be a problem compared to said recent event.

I'm not in love with Activision right now, but it was stated that they never allowed the game to be released before Street Date. What Gamestop has done and ignored to get more profit.

I'm posting this, because I'm mostly extremely annoyed by how not-so-seriously publishers seems to handle broken street dates. It's nearly becoming something where there really shouldn't be any street dates at all! Might as well just put the game on the shelves as they receive it.

There doesn't seem to be any lawsuit either, same happened to Borderlands.
I'm curious to know why exactly. Any retailers are free to break Street Dates and go hands-clean with it?

Now before Ranbowjo freaks out again, I'm not demanding justice, I'm just curious.

[KaiserWarrior]

Originally Posted by Kantham

There doesn't seem to be any lawsuit either, same happened to Borderlands.
I'm curious to know why exactly. Any retailers are free to break Street Dates and go hands-clean with it?

Now before Ranbowjo freaks out again, I'm not demanding justice, I'm just curious.

A) Street Dates aren't a big deal, as long as the units are legitimate units. The game sells when it hits shelves, whenever that may be. There are arguments to be made for bigger sales in certain time periods, but on the whole if someone's going to buy it, they're going to buy it whenever they have money and opportunity.

B) What are they going to do, sue Lamestop? All that will do is piss them off, get them to stop carrying Activision titles, and effectively dooming the publisher to a slow death. You can't threaten the vehicle for your profit, because it'll just stop funneling you money, and then you're boned.

[-Jes-]

Originally Posted by Kantham

By breaking the publisher's therm. By looking like greedy idiots.

You're realizing that now?!!

[Sjosz]

I think a good reason why there actually *are* street dates for games is because like every other form of visual/audio media the production/publishing house taking care of the distribution can plan and execute advertising and marketing towards a release date. It's been that way for movies (be it cinema or DVD release), music CDs (and older formats) and it really makes sense from a business perspective to have a solid date like that so that the marketing for the product can build up and inform consumers. Having a solid release date that gets broken is still better than 'we're shipping out the products to retailers so it should become available within about 2 weeks from now, or something'.

[Kantham]

A) I can only now think other retailers will do it, and eventually it'll become a pathetic competition. I think it's completely unfair to release before Street Dates, makes you look like greedy cows. Like if GameStop owns the market big time and they're free of doing whatever they please.

B) Lol, okay. Fair points I guess. Again, like I said above, I can only see this becoming a competition issue.

[Kantham]

Originally Posted by -Jes-

You're realizing that now?!!

I never liked GameStop for many reasons, this one just adds up.

Originally Posted by Sjosz

I think a good reason why there actually *are* street dates for games is because like every other form of visual/audio media the production/publishing house taking care of the distribution can plan and execute advertising and marketing towards a release date...

Yeah I totally understand where you come from - a solid date is required otherwise it would be completely out of hand. But still, "feeling free" to break these dates for profit is completely getting out of hand. Especially when the publisher didn't give the permission.

[Sjosz]

Originally Posted by Kantham

Yeah I totally understand where you come from - a solid date is required otherwise it would be completely out of hand. But still, "feeling free" to break these dates for profit is completely getting out of hand. Especially when the publisher didn't give the permission.

Still, looking at it from GameStop's perspective in this particular case, is it really all that strange it happened? Activision may not be able to do a whole lot about it in the end, but it's not exactly GameStop's fault completely, their hand was forced due to smaller retailers breaking the street date first. What do you do when the others break street dates and reap the profits that you could be having?

I'm not defending GameStop's actions, nor am I happy to see that game street dates get broken. There must be a better way to prevent this from happening. I don't think I've heard of any major film release in cinemas breaking street date as far as viewings go, but then the amount of cinemas showing films is more limited and less 'free market'. Perhaps the time will come where there are more stringent contracts between publishers and retailers to prevent it from happening in the future.

[Kantham]

Originally Posted by Sjosz

I'm not defending GameStop's actions, nor am I happy to see that game street dates get broken. There must be a better way to prevent this from happening.

Securom on Xbox 360!!!!!!!!!!!!11

[Sjosz]

Not on the consumer end, obviously. SecuROM is effing terrifying.

[shoptroll]

Originally Posted by Kantham

Personally, I'm not sure how you protect your customer base by breaking street dates. Oh wait, it gives more profit. That's the worse excuse I have ever heard from a representative.

The only competition they have left is digital distribution and big box stores like Target, Best Buy and Wal-Mart. We already know Steam (I think the only place you can get it on PC since D2D and Impulse dropped the title) isn't unlocking until the 12th so this was a pretty stupid move on their part. MW2 will probably sell well but it's going to be a drop in the profit bucket for the big box stores.

[TossMonkey]

If Activision didn't charge retailers so much then they wouldn't have to make underhanded decisions just to turn a profit. Even worse when everybody is undercutting each other on an overpriced game. Seriously, no wonder games retail is slowly going digital... it's in a sorry ass state because distribution and publishers are money grabbing arseholes.