GameStop and Xenoblade

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - This really speaks for itself.

Look, it's another GameStop article. This one is in response to my colleague, YoshiRider123's article, which can be found here. Check it out if you haven't already. Anyway, it seems like every videogame-minded forum in existence has a thread (or a lot more than one) complaining about GameStop, or having some sort of GameStop negative storytime thread. All except Planet Koopa, strangely enough, which had one GameStop problem but it was really the Wii's double-layered disc drive problem.

Now that you got past all my hard work linking a ton of websites (and the search engines will think this article is a spammy attempt to get attention), I would like to direct your attention to this screenshot from GameStop's website, of Monolith Soft's Xenoblade Chronicles.

...Do your double-take.

Go ahead and figure out all of the things that are wrong with this picture. I'll wait.

Well, for one, Xenoblade Chronicles was not a GameStop exclusive, as Nintendo's online store also sold it. Right now I hear you can only find it used or being sold under arbitrage, still in a second-hand market.

Another thing that's quite strange is that GameStop believes that the game being used appreciates its value, as opposed to every other organization in the world's accounting method for assets, which depreciates the value of those assets over the time that they are used. Observe how "pre-owned" is $59.99, while "new" (which doesn't exist) is $49.99. It's certainly both deceptive and disturbing.

As for my own experience with GameStop, it's been positive. Maybe gamers don't go out much, don't shop at many places, and aren't used to the normal retail experience in America that everyone else has gotten used to. It's hard to compare the GameStop experience with other videogame retailers because GameStop bought out all of those other retailers.

Maybe GameStop's anti-consumerist practices is why Microsoft is retaliating with its own anti-consumerist practices with the new Xbox One. Do two wrongs really make a right here, or are we all just going to be screwed?

So if anyone has stories to tell, go ahead and tell 'em here or YoshiRider123's article. I just liked that Xenoblade Chronicles screenshot.

Ludwig doesn't post about GameStop on Miiverse, where his NNID is PrinceOfKoopas. Go ahead and follow him. He has no preference for any of the forum links he spammed in the first part of the article.


It turns out that Xenoblade Chronicles's main protagonist is tied to GameStop as well.
GameStop still doesn't know how to do math years after this.