Gamestop acquires Impulse

[tgr]

We need the Impulses of the world, as shitty as they may be so that Steam still has some reason to try and keep their shit on the ball rather than getting completely fat and lazy and useless and broken.

This.

I have about 5 games on impulse, main of which is SoaSE (much like HL2 was for steam), and I think close to 200 on steam, and I don't really foresee that changing much, but steam does need competition to make sure they keep updating and keep the sales etc going. It would also be nice if steam also took on even more of the smaller studioes/games, and to be honest it would be nice if they were to fix the storefront so f.ex if I go into top sellers, look at a game, and hit back, I'm not suddenly back to the new releases tab.

[UnSub]

Apart from those too small or too big, Steam pretty much is the PC gaming industry from a sales point of view. It is controlled by one company. Every now and again rumours are raised about someone buying Valve and in one fell swoop picking up 70% or so of all games digital distribution.

There needs to be alternatives for that reason. If you don't like GameStop buying Impluse, imagine EA / Microsoft / Apple buying Valve.

[TripleDES]

Apart from those too small or too big, Steam pretty much is the PC gaming industry from a sales point of view. It is controlled by one company. Every now and again rumours are raised about someone buying Valve and in one fell swoop picking up 70% or so of all games digital distribution.

There needs to be alternatives for that reason. If you don't like GameStop buying Impluse, imagine EA / Microsoft / Apple buying Valve.

Newell said he'd sell Valve over his dead body only. Well, he better get on a goddamn StairMaster, but you get the point. Valve's also not publicly traded, so no one can do a hostile take-over.

And the reason Impulse was sold is because the Stardock CEO is a money grubbing dickhead*. He probably figured that he'd not get closer to Steam and went the easy way out. Also, GameStop would theoretically have more to offer to publishers than some shitty indie studio.

(*: You can check him out on the Neowin forums to see what a humonguous power-tripping faggot he is. He owns large part of Neowin, too, FYI.)

[sinij]

So much for gamer's rights....

1...2...3 until DRM, spyware and all other crap getting bundled via Impulse.

[schild]

So much for gamer's rights....

1...2...3 until DRM, spyware and all other crap getting bundled via Impulse.

Are you... retarded?

[tgr]

Since when did gamestop deal in DRM, spyware etc? I mean jesus.

I'm ambivalent to the whole takeover, really. I'm being hopeful that gamestop'll end up giving impulse the added monetary clout it might need to get more titles so it gets more attractive. While I like steam, it does need competition.

[Rendakor]

So much for gamer's rights....

1...2...3 until DRM, spyware and all other crap getting bundled via Impulse.

It's more likely that they'll let you sell back your rights to play whatever game you downloaded for pennies on the dollar. 

[sinij]

So much for gamer's rights....

1...2...3 until DRM, spyware and all other crap getting bundled via Impulse.

Are you... retarded?

Have you been to a gamestop before?

[sinij]

Since when did gamestop deal in DRM, spyware etc? I mean jesus.

These are the same folks that try to squeeze every buck out of the stone; pushing useless warranties, pushing used games to customers trying to buy new, pushing exchange used for more used games schemes, pushing preorders... list goes on. Nothing good will come out of that corporate thievery culture getting unleashed on Impulse.

I actually enjoyed Impulse, unlike Steam its not intrusive and you don't even have to touch it unless you are downloading something. This all is likely to go away, and yes I am pissed about it.

Here is what likely to happen to Impulse:

1. You will have to keep Impulse on and connected to play games because....
2. They will pump adds via Impulse client, if are forced to run Impulse to play your games you will be exposed to some adds every time you play...
3. Used games model will get refined in some way - unless they get sued to stop it, expect them to sell the same game multiple times... likely they will sell "access" (see #1) to "cloud gaming".

[Paelos]

I fully support your batshit crazy crusade against a gaming delivery system that is based entirely on speculation.

You sir are a pioneer, and a God among lesser men.

[ezrast]

So much for gamer's rights....

1...2...3 until DRM, spyware and all other crap getting bundled via Impulse.

It's more likely that they'll let you sell back your rights to play whatever game you downloaded for pennies on the dollar. 

For April 1, Kongregate (which got bought by Gamestop a while back) implemented a silly "KongStop" feature that let you "trade in your used Flash games" for Kongregate points. Kind of made me wonder if GS is realizing how outmoded their MO is becoming. At a guess I'd say it's more likely that somebody at Kong was poking fun at their new overlords, but who knows.

[tgr]

These are the same folks that try to squeeze every buck out of the stone; pushing useless warranties, pushing used games to customers trying to buy new, pushing exchange used for more used games schemes

Oh dear, cheaper gaming for the masses, these people most be really evil.

I support the whole reselling of games bit. There's no reason at all why that shouldn't be possible.

pushing preorders... list goes on.

Steam is pushing preorders these days as well, pretty hard. They can't push preorders without the support of the publisher/developer, though, especially not when they offer lame in-game "boons" such as "extreme range sniper rifles" in deus ex 3, etc.

You can't really blame that on steam, though. That's just the way the gaming industry is heading.

I actually enjoyed Impulse, unlike Steam its not intrusive and you don't even have to touch it unless you are downloading something. This all is likely to go away, and yes I am pissed about it.

I have steam and impulse running all the time, and impulse is actually the more intrusive of the two, popping up sales of little-known games for 20-30 NOK. I don't mind that, actually, I like seeing what's out there.

I'm sure you'd never see any ads if you kept steam in an offline mode, but I understand you don't know how that works. vOv

3. Used games model will get refined in some way - unless they get sued to stop it, expect them to sell the same game multiple times... likely they will sell "access" (see #1) to "cloud gaming".

Oh, you mean kind of like onlive?

[Margalis]

Edit: Gamestop sucks. That is all.

[Musashi]

A challenger appears.

 

[UnSub]

I support the whole reselling of games bit. There's no reason at all why that shouldn't be possible.

It should be possible, but it's a massive conflict of interest that a major seller of 'green title' new games and then resell second hand copies of the same title. Great for gamers to get the game cheap and then be able to trade it back for store credit, bad for the publisher / developer.

[Margalis]

Even "new" Gamestop games are used.

[Azazel]

You mean gutted, or actually used copies being resold as new?

[Minvaren]

If it's anything like it used to be at Babbage's, employees can check out games for personal use, return them, and sell them as new.  The easy way to tell was to check the shrink-wrap - folded versus seam style.

[Ginaz]

I support the whole reselling of games bit. There's no reason at all why that shouldn't be possible.

It should be possible, but it's a massive conflict of interest that a major seller of 'green title' new games and then resell second hand copies of the same title. Great for gamers to get the game cheap and then be able to trade it back for store credit, bad for the publisher / developer.

I haven't found the price difference between new release used games to be that much less than the same game that is brand new.  Maybe $10 cheaper at most.  If theres a game I want at release, I will spend the extra $10 to get the brand new copy.  The price difference between older used and new games isn't usually that much, either.

[kildorn]

re: used game prices:

It seems based on the popularity of the game/difficulty in obtaining it.

Want Gears of War 2 used two weeks after release? You're going to save $5. Want used shovelware? Probably 50% off. Want a used import that never sold well in the US? Good luck finding it in a store, and it'll probably be near full price.

It's accurate as far as they price what the market will accept, but it means that the sales pitch of "zomg, used games, save a bundle!" is usually pretty oversold. You save a ton of money.. if you want to play things you probably shouldn't spend any money on.

[HaemishM]

Or if you want to play games that are older than a year - there's actually a decent markdown on older used console games. When you're talking about paying $10 for a used game as opposed to $15 or $20, the percentages are better there. But yes, buying a used copy for $5 less is really kind of silly.

[koro]

Remember when Gamestop would robo-call you to try to buy back the games you just bought from them two or three days before?

I stopped giving them my home phone number very quickly after that lapse of judgement.

[Strazos]

I too never bought in to the practice of buying recently-released games used - I'd rather the dev get their piece.

Not to say I don't buy used, but it's not normally my first choice. For instance, I bought all 3 Shadowhearts games used, years after release. Same for Disgaea 1 and 2.

[Kageru]

Same reason I'd prefer to buy online. There's more chance of a smaller dev getting both a release and a bigger share of the money. With less of the money going to someone who does nothing but move boxes around and pay for some magazine adds. I'm not sure if steam is perfect in that regard, though I'm pretty sure it can offer a better deal than retail, but it can only improve as online sales are the focus, have even more volume and people challenge steam for a slice of the pie.

[Paelos]

I'm almost to the point where I buy everything online and refuse to pay big shops full price for anything. I will buy almost anything that isn't a platformer or bizarre puzzle game from an indie shop if it's $9.99 and not a buggy POS on the forums.

[Strazos]

Most of my purchases are online as well now. I think the last two console games I bought were NHL2011 and Mass Effect 2 (to go with my ME1 console playthrough).

[UnSub]

I'm shifting online, even for console titles, as the Australian dollar hits US$1.04 and new games are STILL over AU$100. To buy Dead Space 2 (Xbox 360) off the shelf in Australia costs US$114. Ridiculous.

[Ingmar]

Wow, that is  .

[Muffled]

Is the price of games in Australia tax related, a legacy pricing issue from when the Aussie $ was weaker/US $ stronger, or something else?

[Merusk]

Or if you want to play games that are older than a year - there's actually a decent markdown on older used console games. When you're talking about paying $10 for a used game as opposed to $15 or $20, the percentages are better there. But yes, buying a used copy for $5 less is really kind of silly.

Depends on the popularity/ availability of the game, too.  FF re-releases were selling for $5 less as used than new if you could find them almost two years later.   The God of War collection is only $3 less used vs new right now, too, and that's been out about a year.  (Wife wanted to look at the 3ds yesterday so it's fresh in my mind.) 

[UnSub]

Is the price of games in Australia tax related, a legacy pricing issue from when the Aussie $ was weaker/US $ stronger, or something else?

I've seen some gaming sites try to break down why it costs so much, but actual publishers remain completely quiet on the issue.

It isn't tax-related, and I expect there to be a bit of an import-related cost added to the bottom line. However, not that much. There's also some talk on Australia's  parallel import restrictions, but I don't entirely buy that either given that games actually manufactured in Australia end up costing less outside of Australia.

There's also an argument that operating a games store in Australia costs more than operating one in the US due to things like a higher minimum wage, so games have to cost more. I doubt that too - EB would shift a lot more units if they dropped the price of their games that would likely more than offset that price reduction on total revenue.

In Australia I've traditionally paid $70 - $80 for games going back to Amiga days iirc. So I think this increased cost is a historical effect from when the $AU was in the US$0.70 range - we've always paid more.

On one hand, it's pure profit chasing - there's a limited amount of competition in the market and the consumer is used to paying it, so gouge, gouge, gouge. On the other, the expectation was that the $AU would never go over US$1, or that it is going to drop sharply in the future. So dropping prices now would see a backlash when the exchange rate isn't so favourable and prices rose from $60 a title to $80 - it'd still be lower than the $110, but that's not the anchor point most buyers would be thinking of.

In a more general sense, Australian retailers are all complaining that consumers are importing products rather than buying locally. The problem there is that for books, for games, for electronics equipment et al it is cheaper to have them imported than to buy them locally.

[Ingmar]

I wonder if Canada sees a lesser version of the same thing, since their dollar was a bit weaker than the US for a long time. I know that books always had a higher Canadian price listed on them.

[Arinon]

We've generally had about a $10 premium on game prices for 15+ years in Canada and that seems to have remained the same at brick-and-mortar stores despite the looney moving up to parity and then some. 

Anything available digitally is good now though.  Nothing to move across the border, the credit card exchange isn't bad, and there is never any release date issues or issues with differing code or censorship/localization nonsense.  I paid the same $50 the US guys did for Rift even after the exchange.  Steam is excellent for this as well.

[KallDrexx]

Is the price of games in Australia tax related, a legacy pricing issue from when the Aussie $ was weaker/US $ stronger, or something else?

I've seen some gaming sites try to break down why it costs so much, but actual publishers remain completely quiet on the issue.

I'm pretty sure (at least from when I lived down there) that the reason is much simpler than what you think.  The prices were set for when the AU$
 was worth much less than the US$, and now that the US$ and AU$ have come to parity they never adjusted the price (because it gives them more profit without doing any more work, but the average Australian sees no price difference unless they calculate how much it would cost to import it).

There's no other reason for it, since I would buy games from the UK and have it shipped to AU for much less than the retail stores had it for, there's no way publishers can't get decent shipping rates themselves in bulk.  It's a pure profit money grab.

[Azazel]

Is the price of games in Australia tax related, a legacy pricing issue from when the Aussie $ was weaker/US $ stronger, or something else?

It's kind of a legacy issue, but it's more related to the fact that we're a big fucking island isolated well away from our cultural neighbours. Before the internet, there was no way to get anything other than at retail, or old-school mail order. So we got fucked hard by the retailer oligopoly. They're currently bitching in the media about how more and more people buying from overseas is hurting local (retail) jobs. The kinds of local jobs they didn't give a shit about when they stoped buying locally-produced items and manufactured goods and started to gouge us by buying low-selling high from Chinese, etc suppliers. (Hence our local manufacturing base pretty much doesn't exist anymore).

So a legacy not so much related to the dollar, but to them wanting to maintain the status quo in regard to (almost all) consumer goods, which is where KallDrexx's point comes in.