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June 16, 2005
Greedy Gamestop Loves The Preorders
Joystiq has a piece up today about retailer Gamestop's latest entry into their catalog: The Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo Revolution. The store will gladly take your $60 today to preorder the game so you'll be guaranteed a copy when it's released on March 1, 2006. The problem, of course, is that not only has a Legend of Zelda not been officially announced for the Revolution, but the Revolution itself won't even be released until sometime later next year. This is obviously a ploy by Gamestop to pick up $60 in exchange for a product they won't have to hand over to you for at least one year. While definitely slimy on Gamestop's part, should this behavior be illegal?
Joystiq proposes some kind of gamers' rights movement. There is a simpler way to handle this situation, however: don't give Gamestop your money. I feel silly even having to spell that out here, but my hope is to quash debate on this pitiful question before it starts. Nobody's forcing customers to take Gamestop up on this preorder opportunity. It's a nonissue. No matter how much you may want a game, if the terms for purchase spelled out by the publisher or the retailer are terms that you do not want to agree to, then put your money back in your pocket and walk away. Existing consumers' rights trump any need for a new gamers' rights movement.
Posted by MattG on June 16, 2005 at 06:18 PM in General | Permalink
Comments
On the other hand a vintage pre-order ticket for Duke Nukem Forever...? That's gotta be worth something.
Posted by: Belgand | Jun 16, 2005 6:35:52 PM
i think they make money off the interest
Posted by: reies | Jun 17, 2005 12:33:19 PM
Add that item to your cart then read the information at the bottom of the Cart page...
"Pre-Release
Make sure you're the first to play the newest games! Your pre-orders go in the same cart as your regular orders, but will be billed and shipped separately. All pre-orders require no money down and are charged to you just before they ship.
Note: Multiple pre-order items delivered on different dates will be individually charged for shipping. Release Dates are set by the game manufacturers. We are not responsible for changes in release dates.
Billing Your Credit Card
We only charge your credit card for items which we ship to you. If you order items which are on "Back Order" or are "Pre-release", we will not charge you until they ship."
Neither GameStop nor any other retailer is allowed to charge your card for merchandise that is shipping more than X days in the future (the actual number of days depends on the type of card - Visa, MasterCard, etc.). In many cases it's 30 days. Doing so would violate credit card association rules and they wouldn't be allowed to accept credit cards anymore.
Now if you were to go into a b&m GameStop store, to reserve something you have to put money down. (Then again they aren't taking reservations on the Revolution or any games for it yet.) But the games that are actually reservable at GS b&m are games that have been confirmed as being in development. In the rare cases where a confirmed game is cancelled, the customer is notified and offered a refund of their deposit or they can apply it to another pre-order.
Posted by: tubedogg | Jun 19, 2005 11:39:51 PM
MattG, you don't even understand the situation. Sure, Gamestop may be taking the preorders on Zelda now, but that's to help out the customer so they are guranteed a copy, and if you do pay it off and Zelda doesn't come out on the revolution, you get your money back. Be sure you get your facts right before slandering a company that could sue for making negative comments about them. And tubedogg is right, there is no way to preorder the revolution or any of it's games at this time. I would know, seeing as I work at a Gamestop.
Posted by: solidsnake505 | May 17, 2006 5:44:26 PM
Your GameStop must be better than the ones I visit, Snake. I'm always being told I should preorder some yet-to-be-official game or hardware when I stop in.
Posted by: MattG | May 17, 2006 6:17:45 PM
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