Gamestop Rental Service starts Monday

[IkePoR]

LudicrousSpeed said:

IkePoR said:

Fair enough on the debt vs. profit for the two companies.  It doesn't make sense to compare them in that case.

On the matter of this losing them money - it absolutely does, with simple pattern recognition.  If loads of people sign up for this, say, 100 per store, that's 100 used games off the shelf.  And since you can choose any used game - even the 50$ ones - that's profit walking out the door for however long it's gone.  That's potentially every used copy of Assassin's Creed Origins and Fifa 18 gone from the store. 

And that's where I think I smell the rat in this deal.

Gamestop is notorious for lying about how many copies of new games they have in order to sell used copies of said games.  I get the impression this program will only be upsold to people purchasing multiple games at a time.  Those already in the program will be told they're "all out" of the Fractured but Whole and GTAV when requested for rental, meanwhile football mom Sally will be able to plonk down 45 quid for used Mario Kart 8 no fuss.

I know I sound conspiracy as hell here, but it's Gamestop.  We all know their history of doing things exactly like this.

Yeah but then that’s at least 100 people guaranteed to come into the store many times throughout a 6 month span. And that’s at least $60 spent by each of them. What they’re going to count on is those people buying something else while there. I’ve rented games from GameFly or on Blockbusters Game Pass program and ended up switching games out but buying the game I had because I enjoyed it so much. Or buying expansion cards/gift cards to buy extra content for the games they rent.

I mean, if I rent a game on this program and enjoy it, and then return it for another AAA game still retailingnhigh, id probably be much more inclined to buy extra content or microtransactions for that game because at that point it almost feel a like I’m getting the game for free. Also these are used games, so if the games good, I’ll want to support the dev somehow. On Xbox I would just use my debit card, but there are loads of people who only buy the digital cards for content and currency.

Seems like a good initiative to get people who normally shun Gamestop into the store to spend more money.

Solid points all around. I suppose we'll just have to see how it goes.  For now I'm giving this a wide berth until the dust clears and we see if Gamestop can offer an honest deal.