May they enjoy bankruptcy after overcharging and underpaying a generation of avid video game players.
Oh, and you will have CAPITALISM to thank for the lower prices and consequential increased standards of living for their demise.
(language warning)
A great bank bites the dust: http://i.imgur.com/FHnO7QJ.png
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if this would happen.
ReplyDeleteI've been following your blog & youtube videos for quite a while and really appreciate your insights. I do have a question that I hope you can shed light on though -- about the value of SCIENCE/ENGINEERING degrees/careers in our country. A physical science or chemistry degree is generally much harder to complete than an economics or finance degree. Yet our research science jobs are increasingly getting OFFSHORED.....and unless one goes to med school/dental school/other professional health school, someone can go through 10 years of hell -- e.g. 4 years undergrad + 6+ years Ph.D. in chemistry -- and get nothing but LOW WAGE JOBS with little to no job security. Regardless of what Washington policymakers may say about the dearth of STEM folks in our country, our economy clearly does not value scientists & engineers (unless they take their math skills to finance, or apply their CS skills to creating the next app). Research science careers are DEAD in this country. Even scientists are discouraging their own kids to pursue science -- http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/05/dont-become-scientist-philip-greenspun.html
ReplyDeletehttp://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science
I've known a number of employees and managers at EBGames (a subsidiary of GameStop) and you're being unfair here. Most of their policies are driven by markets and legislation. The markup on new video games is ridiculously tiny; "gouging" on the used market is the only way they stay in business at all. Asking for ID? That's not GameStop, that's the hyper-regulatory state - if they accept used goods for resale, then they're a pawn shop under the law and have to follow all the same procedures pawn shops do.
ReplyDeleteYou might also want to consider that GameStop is one of the forces ensuring that you can buy used games *at all*. Software publishers would love to be able to lock your game purchases to your account so you can't resell them, and they have the technology to do it. GameStop threatening to stop using their retail clout to push those games is one of the reasons EA and its imitators has backed away from that.
Except for folks doing as they do with every other product on earth and resell the damn thing their own damn selves. While it is lovely that for some brief periods in time that the interests of decent human beings and the pig fucking mole men that run Gamestop align, I do not think that this is a good reason to excuse the business practices of shysters. Cunts had ought to be called cunts.
DeleteTry again, Anonymous. People may have whined and bitched about Microsoft's aborted relicensing-for-used-games scheme on the XBox One, but the fact is that without GameStop and EBGames pushing back, that would have gone through. Microsoft, EA, and other fee-for-used publishers see no money at all from used game resales, and they know damn well that the people who buy the AAA titles on launch day aren't going to stop doing that because they have to pay $8 to activate a used game. The end users aren't relevant to the bottom line because they don't contribute to it. GS/EB, on the other hand, is a major distribution channel for video games. If they tell MS and EA to knock this shit off, MS and EA will listen.
ReplyDeleteTL;DR: without GS/EB pushback, MS would have gone ahead with the fee-for-used scheme.
Also, I'm amused that a bunch of allegedly laissez-faire free marketeers suddenly start squawking about "overcharging" and "underpaying". The market's not going to drive GS/EB into bankruptcy because this is their business model, and it works.