Gamestop Giving Arkham City Online Pass to Used Buyers
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In a move that seems like one hell of a bitch-slap towards Warner Bros., Gamestop is apparently going to give out a code to unlock Catwoman’s levels in Arkham City. Normally Catwoman would only be unlocked by buyers of a new copy of Batman: Arkham City, while people who buy used would have to pay $10. Well, according to a recent memo being sent to Gamestops, a code to unlock Catwoman will be printed on the receipt.
Gamestop has actually done this before, with another Warner Bros. game no less, with Mortal Kombat. It remains to be seen if Warner Bros. will do anything about it, or just quietly accept it. Via – Hot Blooded Gaming |
The question is: how are they getting the code?
This is an incredibly sneaky but ultimately wise move. I can’t say I have much sympathy for publishers when they cry foul about the used games industry, especially when cars, books, music and more have dealt with it. Moreover, in Australia retailers make maybe $7-12 (out of $100-110) on a new title while large department retailers can afford to order in bulk and sell games as a loss leader. I guess the only option for publishers then is to push towards the online market where they don’t have to worry about used sales at all.
Dylan makes a good point though: these passes have to be coming from somewhere. Are there a bunch of new copies of Arkham Asylum sitting in a warehouse with their online passes removed?
I would also love to know where they’re getting the codes. Sadly nobody really knows. I think that they may be buying codes from publishers and giving it to the consumer that way.
Gamestop already makes a massive profit from used games, so $10 codes would be a small price to pay to keep customers coming back and buying used.
If I were to guess, Gamestop got the codes… from Warner Bros.
I think it’s kinda obvious considering the only other example of Gamestop doing this is another Warner game. Now, as for the reasons Warner would let Gamestop do this, I’m not sure. It could be a simple matter of strength, it would be worst for Warner to see its game boycotted by a major game reseller than to give up on some percentage of the used game sales. Or maybe Gamestop is offering Warner some kind of compensation, who knows?
I read a related article that Warner Brothers and Gamestop agreed to this arrangement. Not sure if it’s true or not but that seems like the most likely scenario.