Stardock sold Impulse

[zespri]

http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/24/screw-you-gamestop

[Cyborg]

Probably to avoid class-action lawsuit. Honestly, if you bought the game there and you had your copy looted by gamestop, you deserve a refund.

I don't see how this isn't theft.

[Rustayne]

This to me seems an outrage.  How is this any different from lets say what Arcen does with steam.  You buy a copy from them, pop it in steam, and it is a free copy on steam effectively.   I can't believe they are so greedy to do such a move.  This just proves to me they can't be trusted, and I'll personally never set foot in their stores again.  That is very shady, and completely uncalled for, regardless of a "competitive edge".

[x4000]

The one thing I would like to remind folks of: corporations are not people. There are bad folks and good folks everywhere. It looks to me like this policy was set by one guy, and another guy at the same gamestop brand was so offended by this he felt the need to post it online. Impulse and Gamestop are also still pretty separate entities in terms of staff, etc -- I know some really good folks at Impulse, and would hate to have this held against them, as hey had nothing to do with it.

The actual act itself is... well, you know. Everything that has been said.

[zespri]

The one thing I would like to remind folks of: corporations are not people. There are bad folks and good folks everywhere. It looks to me like this policy was set by one guy, and another guy at the same gamestop brand was so offended by this he felt the need to post it online. Impulse and Gamestop are also still pretty separate entities in terms of staff, etc -- I know some really good folks at Impulse, and would hate to have this held against them, as hey had nothing to do with it.

The actual act itself is... well, you know. Everything that has been said.

I can understand this, but imagine this, a game stop representative comes forward and says "guys, majority people in our company think we should not have done this,  it's just happened that the guy who is making decisions is not one of them, so please don't hold this against us". I'm exaggerating on purpose, but I think you can understand what I'm trying to say. It doesn't matter that much who thinks what in the company, what matters is what the company does and says. So if company is known to make evil policies, there is nothing wrong to try to shy away from this company. And Impulse it's just a facet of the company, like many others, so company policies applies to it as well. If it's known that they do evil things about games they sell in store, it would be naive to think "impulse people are a different department they would never do something like this", they will apply any policy that the company will impose on them, so I would not be surprised seeing shady things happening on impulse too.

[zebramatt]

As much as I find this to be a rather underhand trading practice, I think calling Gamestop evil might be a little over the top!

[x4000]

I'm not saying you need to patronize their store.  But in terms of the statement "guys, majority people in our company think we should not have done this,  it's just happened that the guy who is making decisions is not one of them, so please don't hold this against us," that actually would work on me if it was followed with the bit "because that guy has been fired and we've clarified our corporate policy to make sure there's nobody making a similar decision out of a misunderstanding in the future."

That isn't of course, what they said.  So it's moot.

[Echo35]

As much as I find this to be a rather underhand trading practice, I think calling Gamestop evil might be a little over the top!

I hate Gamestop with the fury of a thousand dying suns, but technically they are in the right here. OnLive is (sort of, not really) a competing service, and Squenix did admit to not telling them ahead of time that the coupon would be in there. Gamestop receives their copies of product weeks in advance, so this very likely could have been done an entire week before the game was even supposed to be released, and it only got leaked later. Legally they're (mostly) okay.

That said, however, doing this has damaged their reputation beyond belief (Such as it was in the first place) and even though this is in theory, completely legal, it's still super shady and sketchy.

[Cyborg]

You can't really trust or buy from impulse either because the decision-making at the top clearly shows that they think it is okay to loot my products that I buy.

The only way to send a message is to boycott impulse and gamestop. Honestly, the whole industry is going to hell right now, with bad ports, DLC mischief and misinformation, persistent online connections and other annoying DRM... send a message. Corporations might be composed of "nice people," but that's not a good reason to patronize those kinds of businesses.

[Echo35]

The only way to send a message is to boycott impulse and gamestop. Honestly, the whole industry is going to hell right now, with bad ports, DLC mischief and misinformation, persistent online connections and other annoying DRM... send a message. Corporations might be composed of "nice people," but that's not a good reason to patronize those kinds of businesses.

This is why I buy mostly indie games.

But anyway, came here to post this - http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/08/gamestop-apologies-to-deus-ex-buyers-offers-50-gift-cards.ars

Apparently Gamestop is apologizing for screwing people's Deus Ex copies over... by offering htem a $50 gift card (To the store which isn't selling the game they paid the $50 for anyway) and extra deals on used games. ::golf clap::

[eRe4s3r]

Just goes to show that Brad Wardell really shot the ball in the wrong court. First he's telling us that Gamestop isn't evil and now these news, i hope theres such a thing as karma. I absolutely detest Stardock for selling Impulse to Gamestop. Now i don't buy there anymore, and the only one who is hurt by that are indies who can't get their games on steam.

Companies are not all evil, but Gamestop is.

Also, opening boxes that you then buy to REMOVE CONTENT is not evil? Let me just sell this car to you, oh but i took the engine and wheels off since those are competing products...

[zebramatt]

Again, I'm yet to see any indication of them being evil.

Bandying terms like that around belittles real evil.

[eRe4s3r]

Theres no such thing as unreal evil. Which means theres no such thing as real evil.

Evil is subjective, and subjectively Gamestop is evil. 

[zebramatt]

It's not evil at all!

[Cyborg]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil

"Evil is the violation of, or intent to violate, some moral code. "

I think we have a winner.