Ben-DutkaIf you can't beat 'em, join 'me. Or, at the very least, acknowledge the threat and maybe even embrace it as a positive thing.
As we all know, downloadable digital content has rapidly become more and more popular this generation and many analysts are expecting that eventually, most all video games will be delivered in this fashion. Obviously, for the world's #1 game retailer, which of course thrives on selling the physical game software, this could pose a huge problem. But GameStop COO J. Paul Raines actually says the advent of DLC is a "good thing," and that consumers should be educated on the issue. In speaking on a panel at the Game Business Law conference at Southern Methodist University, Raines said DLC "enhances and extends games" and that customers should remember that GameStop "does offer retail releases of some high-profile DLC." Raines wants everyone to become a little more schooled on the subject, which for many casual gamers still remains a bit of a mystery. Therefore, as "customer acquisition continues to be a huge part of the spend in this business," you can expect GameStop employees to be well versed in the available content on the PSN and XBLA. They'll be able to tell you what is online that can "enhance and extend" the game you just bought.
Lastly, Raines says that despite the lower-than-anticipated holiday figures, nobody is panicking at GameStop. "Rumors of our demise have been greatly exaggerated," he said. "We'll release financials in a few weeks so you'll see if we're still in business." Well, yeah, I think they are.
@Highlander,
You hit the nail on the head. I agree that the ISP could probably find a way to charge for bandwidth coming from particular sites but that would be too much work. If the cap doesn't come before Digital Distribution becomes mainstream, I could definitely see them doing something when everyone starts hitting the PSN for their games.
>From the point of view of net neutrality, enforcing hard caps on net access seems to me to utterly ignore the concept of net neutrality.
Setting a usage limit on the number of GB that are downloaded/month per service plan is not a violation of net neutrality. No website is getting treated any differently.
Blocking access, or limiting download speeds to any given site, such as blocking Warez and Torrent sites, THAT violates Net Neutrality.
I understand your point though, people illegally downloading movies and games is why some companies had to start enforcing download caps.
The reason I say that a hard cap isn't compatible with net neutrality is that from a consumer's point of view, access to email, the Web, e-commerce, Netflix, and other content services and of course online gaming are all equal services provided by third parties over the Net. If my ISP were to impose a 5GB monthly cap, it would immediately remove the possibility of me using Netflix. By setting low caps, the neutrality of the 'net as a delivery mechanism is broken because now a consumer has to pay twice for the same service. They have to pay the troll under the bridge (the ISP) for enough cap space to pass, and they have to pay the service provider (Netflix) for the movie. With phones being provided over IP networks such as Vonage, a hard cap on my data could also interrupt my phone service, including my ability to dial 911.
How can there be net neutrality as long as the troll under the bridge can effectively hold particular services hostage for more money?
Preach on Highlander.
Are you running for office anytime in the near future?
You got my vote.
@Highlander
Couple of things:
1st) It costs an ISP money to bring you internet access. Do you consider it a violation of net neutrality that you have to pay for internet access? Do you consider people with dial up access, who don't have anywhere near the bandwidth to use Netflix's Watch Instantly to be victims of companies violating net neutrality?
Does it make sense to you to charge someone who only checks their e-mail and uses 50 MB/month as much as someone who watches Netflix all of the time and uses 50 GB/month?
2nd) If you had a crappy ISP that limited you to as low as 5 GB/month, you could still use netflix and all your other services. I do know you can watch netflix pretty decently at 100 KB/s, which gives you about 14 hrs of video if your limit is 5 GB/month and all you do is watch netflix. At 15 GB/month (more of a realistic cap), that means you can watch 42 hrs Netflix/month.
Finally, what you are getting at, really is not at all what is meant by net neutrality. Some company isn't paying off your ISP so that they limit bandwidth to certain websites and give you higher bandwidth to other sites.
@Bridgera
I see what you're saying, and I know that the classic sense of net neutrality is simply preventing ISPs from treating traffic from one source differently from another, for example throttling traffic from a competitor while allowing traffic from allied organizations to flow with ease.
However since most ISPs are associated with either telephone companies or cable companies, there is an interesting wrinkle in Net neutrality. If Comcast were to set lowish caps on their base 'net service that could affect the ability of consumers using their service to use bandwidth hungry services from companies such as Netflix, or even You Tube or Hulu. Since Comcast is a cable company there is a clear conflict of interest there. I think that is a problem with respect to net neutrality.
I have no problem with the concept of ISPs having to pay for the infrastructure to bring Internet service and passing that cost on to consumers. There's no other way. But, it's possible to do that by offering tiers service based on the bandwith (speed) of service offered. Hard caps are a way to squeeze more money out of consumers who didn't reckon on that extra movie download and get hammered $0.10 (or whatever surcharge the ISP has) per extra MB by their ISP. That has nothing to do with paying for infrastructure, it's simply taking advantage of consumers.
I still stand by my saying that hard caps are not compatible with net neutrality because they have a cooling effect on that neutrality.
Last edited by TheHighlander on 2/2/2010 9:54:41 PM
Gamestop and educating in the same sentence? If there is one area where Gamestop completely fails, it's Educating consumers. I can't count the number of blank, deer in the headlight looks you get from the sales staff at GS when you ask simple questions. Add to that, the fact that in our area they almost always push Xbox in the most fanboy of ways, it was enough to drive this consumer to shop mostly online for my games…and for the gameday release copy that I can't live without I go to bestbuy.
The Gamestop I visited in Arizona actually had 2x the games and 2x the space for the 360 compared to the PS3.
I almost walked in and asked, "why the hell don't you guys have any PS3 games? What's up with having 2x the number of 360 games on hand?"…
… but I decided not to, obviously it was 360 fanboy run at that point.
@Bridgera
Indeed!
This kind of 'squeeze' on the PS3's shelf space is part of the problem for the PS3. Because less shelf space is available, a smaller number of titles can be stocked, so unless your title is oe of the select few chosen, good luck getting sales through Amazon. I also notice that more and more GameStop devoted as much or more space to used games compared to new games, so again the variety and availability of new games is affected.
That's one of the reasons I seldom visit GameStop anymore.
Agreed Highlander.
I rarely buy anything from them anymore with their high prices for 2-3 year old games, misinformation, and fanboyism.
I actually got my PS3 from a Gamestop, but that's only because PS3s are the same price pretty much anywhere you go.
Last edited by bridgera on 2/2/2010 3:13:58 PM
they do give you crap prices for trade-ins and then turn around and jack it like 10 – 20 bucks or more… I traded in MXvsATV Reflex for $15 and put a little red X on the back barcode, I then went in a few days later to find it and see what they priced it at for a 'used' game… well I found my red X MXvsATV reflex and behold they put it out as a NEW GAME! $59.99 I was like thats was a bunch of BS. I dont know if its just the ways of Gamestop or the people working in there doing the pricing but that really ticked me off.