So much hate for GameStop - is it justified?

[Crystalchild]

Yo there folks,

like many others, the following article also jumped on the train to complain about gamestop's business model.

http://n4g.com/news/980597/inside-gamestops-ridiculous-used-games-business

 

But i am asking myself a couple of things, reading this;

1.) Following is an example I sadly see on a daily basis: “I would like to return this game for my money back.” “Well, we can't actually do that. Our policy is that all new sales are final.” Occasionally you might get a cool employee that won't mind doing the return for store credit, but your usual corporate kiss-asses aren't going to be much help (it literally came out less than week ago).

- I dont see a problem with that, isnt it common that you can not return unwrapped media in general? (In other words, why is it gamestop's fault?)

2.) “The trade in credit is going to be $18. I see you don't have one of our rewards cards, which would give you an extra 10% credit if you purchased it today.”

- If they see that a certain Game (may it be a brand new release) is hated by critics and Fans alike, why the heck should they buy it off your hands for a high price tag? This is business we're talking about, and i do not know a single company where this would be any different. (And for games that are actually good, the pricetag tends to be a bit higher - of course, you'd be better of selling a new released game on Ebay or else, but with gamestop, a third party is involved, meaning that the money gain is simply cut by half.)

3.) The worst part of this story, GameStop is going to turn around and sell that used game for somewhere between $50 and $55, just less than $5 under what it would cost brand new.

- i agree with this part, this is the only thing that kinda bugs me about gamestop, and i'd say everyone in the world has a right to complain about this - especially Publishers and Developers, who might really loose a nice chunk on money while gamestop getting a veeery nice profit out of this. (Then again, imagine Mass Effect used for 39.99$ the week it came out. wouldnt this hurt the industry much more?)

So i think we can say that Gamestop is darn greedy, yes, but - at least in my opinion - its not devil incarnation. Its how  business runs nowadays, just like within most companies nowadays. (And i think that one or another 20$ purchase at gamestop from prequels of certain games actually may have been advertising for upcoming releases, motivating people to buy the next sequel of Series X new and for full price., even if they didnt intend to before.  .. Yes, this is a rather small part helping the industry, but i think it exists.)

EDIT: I think it MIGHT be worth pointing out that i only have experience with the european Branch of GameStop (Germany), due to my location. If they do some cheap things over seas i do not know about, sorry. (But getting a Gamestop employee telling unaware mom's and dad's that Buying Item XY used is stupid becuase you would need an Online Pass and therefore make a loss, while they make a profit is priceless. And it happens quite often over here, and they arent forced to do so.)