lol he brings out his "this has nothing to do with Gamestop" line and then proceeds to base his entire "revolution" on boycotting the store and encouraging others to do the same.
A number of his points are rather misleading. Yes, Gamestop bases most of its business model around buying and selling used games, but what choice do they have? Gamestop barely turns a profit on most new games, and unlike big retailers, they can't rely on other products to keep their head above water. Does Gamestop pay very little for used and mark up a lot? Yes, but keep in mind that no one is forcing you to sell used games to Gamestop ... Amazon, Mega Media Xchange (in some states), local mom and pop shops, and, now, Best Buy will also take in used games. Lets not forget that you can sell used games yourself through Ebay and Amazon. At Gamestop you are getting less back yet people still sell there all the time because it is more convinient than the alternatives, and that costs you.
In regards to the industry itself, it is just sad. I am not the type to have boat loads of sympathy for the poor old game developers. Every other form of media has to contend with used sales and pirates. The solution, in my opinion, is not to take away our ability to actually own our games by transforming game developers into a giant rental service (which is what digital distrib will do), but actually give us incentive to own our games again. For example, I am going to pick up Call of Duty Black ops day one because I know I will get well over $60 worth of entertainment out of it. When I finish the story there is multiplayer and when that gets boring there is zombie mode ect. ect. When I consider the fact that I will get a lot of entertainment value out of a product then $60 new doesn't sound so bad anymore. This is one of the only thing I like about JRPGs ... 50-60 bucks gets you over 100 hours of gameplay. A game doesn't need to have a uber long story or extended multiplayer to make me purchase tho ... if it has a GOOD story and is memorable enough then I will never sell it. They can have my original copy of Silent hill 2 over my dead body.
The jury is still out on EA's solution to all of this for me at least. I suppose half digital distribution and half retail still lets me own my game ... sort of.
Let's not forget that Gamestop also gives out an incentive for getting games day one with preorder bonuses. Most of them are garbage I know, but it is something at least. Keep in mind I am not saying Gamestop is perfect, but making them out as the root of all evil in the game industry is absurd.
