Gamespot’s Profit(eering?)
Despite the recession and falling stock in the USA, the video game industry has been booming. In times of stress and woe everyone likes a bit of escapist fun. One company that’s been both helping and harming the industry simultaneously is GameStop. Many of us have bought low-priced used games from their shelves and have traded in old games towards new ones. For those unfamiliar with their business practices, they make piles of cash by buying low and selling high. Games you managed to beat in a week will often net you less than 50% of what you paid for them. They then sell the titles back for nearly what they’re worth brand new. Titles like Gears of War still retail for $50 or more used on their shelves, despite the used section having more than ten copies lined up. Where the harm comes in is that while a portion of the games sold as new goes back to the publisher and developer which can then be sunk into development for new projects, the profit from used games goes straight into GameStop’s coffers. Matt Matthews of Next-gen has done a rundown on the numbers and it seems that GameStop is selling more used games than they are new games. Take this all with a grain of salt of course, because Mr. Matthews is making a few assumptions and only has access to a limited range of information, but it seems that there’s a whole lot of money that’s going straight to the middle man.
February 12th, 2008 at 11:10 am
i used to work for GameStop here in NY. and i can tell you that after all of my experiences there, i have no doubt that they couldn’t give a crap less about their employees! anyone who has worked at GameStop knows that higher management is only if favor of making an extra dollar. i was working at a GameStop location in Brooklyn when the store was robbed at gunpoint. fortunately, the police were able to make it on time. but my poor store manager was so shaken up that she had to be taken to the hospital. despite her trauma, managers on the higher-up actually gave her a hard time for wanting to take a couple of days off to gather herself together. furthermore, this is their common attitude! I hope GameStop gets outdone by a vicious competitor. unfortunately, however, it won’t be me.