Gamestop UK Lets You Trade Battlefield 3 for Modern Warfare 3

The rivalry between Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 has been, up until now, innocent enough. Silly little pranks like modernwarfare3.com redirecting to the Battlefield 3 home page provided us with laughs and the current advertisements for BF3 featuring Jay-Z’s oh so delightful 99 problems gave us yet another reason to hate EA marketing.

This offer from Gamestop UK, on the other hand, is borderline diabolical. UK gamers who buy BF3 before October 27th will be given the opportunity to trade in the game before November 7th and receive MW3 for a mere £0.99. Talk about sleazy business practices. It’s sad to see what has been an entertaining exchange of jabs culminate into this.

My first inclination would be to feel sympathy for EA, but when you think about it, this will essentially boost the initial new sales of BF3. Since Activision recently increased the RRP of Call of Duty games to £54.99, leading to BF3 and MW3 costing £36.97 and £41.97 respectively, many gamers who have chosen MW3 will likely consider this offer since it will net them the game of their choice for a reduced price with the bonus of playing a similar game to tide them over until it comes out.

EA gets more new sales, Gamestop gets a ton of used copies of BF3, and Activision loses a lot of money. I can picture it now, some visual metaphors for EA and Gamestop UK sipping wine glasses filled with puppy blood atop their floating castle powered by the broken dreams of children.

Disclaimer: Jordan Hedges is by no means a financial analyst of any sort and is merely speaking out of observation. Any flaws or outright untruths in his observations deserve to be crushed by people smarter than he is.

Source: Eurogamer