GameStop Is Launching An Unlimited Used Game Rental Subscription, Says Report (polygon.com) 38
According to a leaked advertisement, GameStop is rolling out a used game rental subscription service. Subscribers will be able to pick any used game, play it, return it and get another as often as they like. The service will reportedly cost $60 for six months, and players get to keep the last game they borrow. Polygon reports: The advertisement was first seen at ResetEra, the new gaming forum. It appears to be from the newest issue of Game Informer (which is published by GameStop). The "Power Pass" subscription lasts six months and costs $60, according to the advertisement. Sign ups will begin on Nov. 19. The fine print says the Power Pass must be activated by Jan. 31, 2018, possibly hinting at when this service will go live. The subscription requires that the user be a PowerUp Rewards member, and the offer will be available only to the used game catalog in a store (i.e. physical discs), not from GameStop's online library. The PowerUp Rewards requirement apparently is there to help GameStop track the game currently in a user's possession.
ResetEra (Score:2)
Don't forget, ResetEra is the new echo chamber that was NeoGAF, famous for banning any dissenting opinions or wrong-think. Created by it's users when NeoGAF's owner was outed for sexual harassment, the ban-happy mods quit or ate their own, and the forum shut down.
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Don't forget, ResetEra is the new echo chamber that was NeoGAF, famous for banning any dissenting opinions or wrong-think. Created by it's users when NeoGAF's owner was outed for sexual harassment, the ban-happy mods quit or ate their own, and the forum shut down.
I would like more details!
Did they OK this with publishers? (Score:2)
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Gamestop could structure this as a $60 used game sale with $50 pre-approved buy-back in 1 month, followed by a $50 used game sale with a $40 pre-approved buyback in 2 months, etc.
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Several games have a single use code (Score:2)
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I had to look up the online passes thing, as I have not paid for what people call AAA game for a while. I remember the Cerberus Network for Mass Effect 2, a not worthy feature if you ask me. By the time I played that
Please don't start your sentence in the subject (Score:2)
and finish in the body. It's confusing.
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The first sale doctrine has it covered.
There's an explicit exemption for music (only) recordings, and an exemption for computer programs. But computer programs that are part of a physical product that can't be copied during normal use are exempted from the exemption, and so are non-pc video games.
As far as I know, you can buy and rent out VHS tapes, and you always could. I remember hullabaloo about it in the 90s, but as far as I know it was just Hollywood kicking and screaming. They also spread FUD about
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Last I heard you can't just buy off the shelf and rent out.
Where did you hear that?
I know you can't do that with video cassettes.
You heard wrong [entmerch.org]. You absolutely can do that with video cassettes or anything else. Many of the video cassettes I have rented over the years were absolutely ordinary retail tapes, because I've rented many tapes from neighborhood video stores.
What the law actually says is that you can't make a copy and distribute it, nor can you make a backup copy and distribute the original. You are allowed to make backup copies in some circumstances, but you must either destroy them or transfer poss
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All I know is that my local video store back in the 80's told me they HAD to buy special for Rent copies of their movies and that those copies cost WAY more than ones we could buy in a store.
A video store told you? Did it flap its door, and words came out? I'm guessing you talked to some employee who had no idea what the hell they were talking about. Even if you talked to the owner, though, they had no idea what the hell they were talking about [entmerch.org]. Once you own something, you can rent it out, and the law never stated otherwise. Some of the studies tried to assert otherwise, but they were unsuccessful and they were not suing video store owners. As for video games, Nintendo (of course, they are usua
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does that still apply once the game is used? I'd think first sale doctrine would mean that once it's been sold as new, what happens after that is not for the publisher to decide.
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I see someone else already made my point. I should read more before commenting :)
In other news... (Score:2, Informative)
GOG will sell you games outright, DRM free, no spyware, no post-sale disabling possible, which are yours forever with no phoning home or other shinanigans, and if you buy on sale they have unbelievably good prices.
As a bonus, if you make stores like that "THE place to get games", as in that's where the buyers all went, then companies will have to follow and deliver DRM free product.
Or, you can just bend over and take it from the likes of Steaming Origin etc etc and teach companies that you are OK with the a
Re: In other news... (Score:1)
Gog = PC games
This service = console games
Obviously they are targeting a different market with a different eco system. But yeah gog is awesome along with humble bundle in my opinion.
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GameFly Is Worried (Score:2)
I've subscribed to GameFly a few times, I bet they're crapping their pants about now. Let's see, I can pay $16/mo. to rent one game at a time via GameFly, or what works out to $10/mo. through Power Pass. With the former, I have to wait for the post office to deliver the game, and it's usually a surprise which of the games in my queue I end up getting; with the latter, I walk into any GameStop, find out what they have right now, and get it immediately. If I don't like the selection at one GameStop I can driv
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If a game costs sixty bucks new anyway, you have literally nothing to lose by getting it via power pass. This could actually get me to go into a gamestop again... if I still had a game console :)
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