GameStop lays out digital plans
The gaming industry’s leading brick and mortar retailer has
an intriguing plan to take advantage of the growing digital distribution field.
GameStop COO Paul Raines, speaking at the BMO Capital Markets entertainment conference today, detailed plans for the company to install kiosks in its stores next year, letting people buy digital add-ons for titles as they buy the retail game.
In other words, as you buy a game, you’ll also be able to purchase add-ons for Xbox Live and your PS3 and have them waiting when you get home.
It’s a unique take on digital, but there is a method in what some may see as madness. GameStop plans to leverage the relationship its store clerks have with customers to upsell add-on packs – boosting the bottom line for them, publishers and console manufacturers.
“We believe we can convert a significant portion of our in-store traffic to digital downloads for publishers,” said Raines.
For hardcore gamers, there is an upside here. You’ll be able to use your trade-in credits for add-on content.
GameStop will begin in-store testing the concept in the first quarter of next year.
Oh – and as for full game downloads? The company still isn’t too worried about those.
“We believe a large market for full game downloads is not imminent in the near future,” said Raines.
Chris Morris reports on the business and culture of video games and offers analysis of recent events and industry trends.
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Hi guys. Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal,
Posted by: rolex watches | November 27, 2009 at 06:27 PM
Because you can't already use your credit at gamestop to buy psn network cards, live points or wii points cards and buy whatever dlc you want from the comfort of your home.
Posted by: BigDaddy | November 13, 2009 at 04:27 PM
The second sentence should've read "Any DLC that's available at launch..." Post-launch DLC is generally downloaded, but I've seen quite a few post-launch DLC content unlocks, even a couple months afterwards. Why they're waiting is unknown, although I suppose they're trying to make the uninformed think that they'd been working on it the whole time, when it was actually already on the disc waiting to be unlocked at a future date specified by the publisher.
Posted by: John | November 13, 2009 at 06:22 AM
And yet nobody's mentioned the fact that this means that publishers will remove or lock even more content from the disc. Any DLC that's available is typically already on the disc; that's why the size of the download is only ~100K. $5-10 to unlock content that's already on the disc, content that *used to* come with the game years ago, has become the norm.
It's only going to get worse next everything goes digital. Games will rarely go on sale, and you can't sell or trade the overpriced games you've purchased. I wouldn't be surprised to see even more content remove from the games so that the publishers can gouge you even more.
Isn't progress great?
Posted by: John | November 13, 2009 at 05:37 AM
I don't think this is going to work out all that well.
The only way people are going to buy at the store is if it is cheaper buying at the store or is the same price but I doubt that because then where and how is Gamestop going to see any profit from this? The only way Gamestop will see any profit from this venture is if ...
1.The prices of DLC at Gamestop are higher
or
2.Publishers & developers give up a piece of thier profit to gamestop.
Does anybody here see any of that happening? I know I don't
Posted by: Wolf26pack | November 12, 2009 at 09:31 PM
STEAM is still better.
Posted by: anonymous | November 12, 2009 at 04:25 PM