How the Gaming Industry can "Stop" Gamestop

The Gamestop Battles have been heating up…..again. Before it was the major controversy involving Capcom and EA trying to find ways to prevent resale. Then we had the XBox One and their DRM disaster. And now in the latest news, a PS4 developer is criticizing the practices of Gamestop and its concept of making extra money off of pre-purchased games. He says that the used game sales from Gamestop affects the game development companies and hurts the gaming industry overall.

Now, while I will save this argument for another day (You know, the argument about how the gaming industry seems to be the ONLY one mildly upset at the resales of their product as opposed to movies, cars, houses, electronics, etc. etc. etc.) , there is a fun simple way to combat the supposed business-killing ways of the Gamestop:





Stop. Being. So. ****ing. Expensive.


Pricing is everything, especially in a tougher economy. Nintendo’s battle against Blockbuster was short-lived in the early 90s because a) Nintendo was making fantastic money nonetheless, especially between 1994-1996 leading up to the Virtual Boy disaster and the rise of the Playstation and b) it was the 90s and everybody had money back then. The Clinton Days were good days full of good money flowing left and right.

Nowadays however, we don’t have that type of luxury. The 2000s brought upon some tough times. We are still attempting to recover. And with that the better deal always won, regardless of quality. The last time we had a good system that was the best in the business and the most economically affordable was the Playstation 2 about a decade ago. The best bang for your buck has been the victor in the past couple generations: the Playstation 2, the Nintendo Wii, and now the Nintendo 3DS which is literally eating away at the handheld market.

You are releasing $60 games with $5-$10 DLC packs left and right. And we are not including the increasing prices of online play, controllers, accessories, and other amenities. Games back then ranged from $35-$50 and we were done. Nintendo used to do their Player’s Choice on the SNES-N64 days to great success. PS2 had their share of Greatest Hits. Nowadays they still do it, but with smaller fanfare (Nintendo used to give their games ribbons) and less of a willingness to cut prices to so many games. Madden 2012 is about a year old, and still has the same price. And football season finished back in February. Why?

I am repeating this: if you want to defeat Gamestop and win the Eighth Generation you need to become the most economically friendly of the Big 3. And for the future, you need to be friendlier towards the backwards-compatibility feature. You think Xbox 360 and PS3’s heavy restrictions on what previous-gen games were allowed to be played helped them at all? Hell no. Nintendo took the better route and allowed ALL Gamecube games to be backwards-compatible, and even the controllers themselves could be re-used.

Is it a coincidence that one of the most-played games from the Sixth Generation (XB, PS2, GC, Dreamcast R.I.P.) happens to be Super Smash Brothers Melee? And now it turns out that both the Xbox One and the PS4 will also not be backwards-compatible. I am just saying, we have sent spacecraft to Pluto----it is not impossible to give improving technology the ability to play older games. If there is ANY advantage the WiiU has, it’s being the only Big 3 system to allow the play of Seventh Generation games without having to pay extra.

You wondering why Gamestop is making all this extra money for used games, yet however make it impossible for newer systems to play older games that gamers had already purchased. You think we are going to use the disks to hold paper when they become unplayable in the newer systems? You think lower middle class families would rather fork over $400 on a new system with $60 games as opposed to hitting a Gamestop and purchasing a $75 used older system with $10-$30 video games available? Be serious.

Make your older games available through the DLC. Don’t be afraid to drop prices on older games. Can you believe that Smash Brothers Brawl is still $50? This game is the best-selling fighting game in HISTORY!! Drop the price a little you pricks, you are essentially begging for us to search elsewhere to find cheaper product.

I am not a Gamestop fan by any means, but they will forever be the sexier alternative for poorer gamers and families and people just looking for a quick good game without having to sacrifice too much of the wallet. Gamestop and the other smaller game stores with similar concepts will continue to bust profits as long as it becomes tougher to have access to these older games in modern times. Gamestop secretly loves that the bigger higher-profile games are $60 at least, it makes their job that much easier.

Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, you need more cheaper games. You need to drop the prices on your systems and accessories and extra details if you want the places like Gamestop to supposedly crack into your profits. We need more $40, $30, $20 games. We need more games from the past through DLC and the infamous Virtual Console. We just need more options and opportunities to dish out smaller amounts of money. The video game industry needs to be more like the car industry: an extremely wide variety of options and prices to go with it. If every car was priced the same as a new Mercedes, I assure you more people would carpool or find other ways to get around.



Gamestop isn’t the problem. The ever-increasing expenses of the industry is.

The Bond Villian Syndrome of Sony and Microsoft

Nintendo is like James Bond, a flashy character that's seen better days now he is tied up and inches away from being killed. This is it. The only way to get out of this alive is through other factors beyond his control.






Sony and Microsoft are the Bond villains that have successfully mounted a comeback, successfully had their plan in motion, and now have James Bond on the ropes, inches from his death. All they need to do is pull that one switch. Yet, inexplicably, they delay their death blow, allowing for James Bond to escape.

This is what essentially has happened in the past couple of weeks. Both the Playstation 4 and the XBox One have had their opportunity to unveil their system, and pretty much strip every last ounce of hope from the Nintendo WiiU. Instead, with a series of ridiculous decisions we now find ourselves seeing some hope in Nintendo---while uncertainty faces the gamers that want the next-gen systems but aren't sure how much they have to actually sacrifice.

Let's start with the issue of Backwards Compatibility: there is none. Sony's success with the PS2 as well as the only reason the PS3 had any playing time can be attributed to the ability to play games from the past. The sixth generation saw the PS2 as the only backwards compatible machine as it overtook the Gamecube, the XBox, and the Dreamcast quite easily. The PS3 had an extremely rough start because of its pure lack of games--but with the ability to play PS2 games (at first, not later in the seventh generation) definitely helped a little.

And then there's the XBox One, also not backwards compatible. Now, we have layers of advancements in gaming and production technology and we still can't find a way to play older games? What about downloadable games from the PS3 and XBox 360 days? What happens to those? Well, Microsoft and Sony are still a little iffy on the subject. The answers remained mixed.

And now there's the DRM issue. Nintendo not only has the ability to play Wii games (and games even older, but that feature remains extremely limited and extremely far from reaching its potential) but it does not believe in the DRM technique. The DRM technique is basically charging people money for using someone else's video game----that or not even have the chance to play it unless you buy your own copy or play it over at someone elses' house. Once again, Sony and Microsoft were mum about the issue.

So now begs the statement: why? Why? Why? Why?

Sony, you had it. You are riding so much momentum it looks like a tsunami sometimes. And yet, somehow, you not only manage to minimize excitement of the PS4, but gave the WiiU a good shot. Why on earth did you eliminate backwards compatibility? The PS3 had an amazing underrated arsenal of games that gamers realized only way too late and too deep into the lifecycle. You could have continued sales of PS3 games as well as PS4 games if you had made the smallest of efforts and allowed us to reach into the past. And remaining quiet about the DRM is issue is quite scary.

Microsoft, you also blew it. Your conference came off as company that wants to do everything, which means focusing less on games and gamers. Did gamers really want to hear about the exclusive content of the NFL? Not really. And now you are required to be online at least once a day? Required online connectivity with the Kinect at the helm is a hacker's dream come true, not to mention a conspiracy theorists' nightmare. So instead of us being excited for the upcoming E3, we are now worried about what we might see: Required online, potential DRM features, no backwards compatibility, and a strong potential for a heavy price tag at launch.



Nintendo, you escaped, for now. It is up to you to take advantage of the small breathing room that has just occurred.