GameStop Starts Selling Steam Vouchers

Couchpotato

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Well it's a sign of the times. Gamestop who shunned the pc in favor of the used console market has taken an interest in the PC again. First they purchased impulse and now offering steam vouchers.

Maybe now all the Gamestop naysayers have a reason to buy from Gamestop again. Oh who am I kidding.:mwahaha:

Link-http://kotaku.com/5909109/gamestop-admits-defeat-starts-selling-steam-vouchers

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Maybe now all the Gamestop naysayers have a reason to buy from Gamestop again. Oh who am I kidding.:mwahaha:

Nope :) I won't support a retail chain that reminds me of a flea market whenever I look at their PC gaming "section". If I absolutely, positively must have a retail, day 1 purchase, I'll go to my local Best Buy which still offers some modicum of PC gaming shelf space.
 
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Nope :) I won't support a retail chain that reminds me of a flea market whenever I look at their PC gaming "section". If I absolutely, positively must have a retail, day 1 purchase, I'll go to my local Best Buy which still offers some modicum of PC gaming shelf space.

Can't blame you. Sixteen years ago I loved going to Babbage's as it was called before Gamestop was formed out of it's sale. They had a whole wall for pc games then.

I used to buy from BestBuy also before there stores restructured and looked like Circuit City. Lately I either purchase games off amazon or one of the various online download services.

I did a quick search and found Gamestop now owns most of the older chains I loved as a child.
 
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Software Ect. was the only place I'd go for a long time and before that it was Egghead. Both went the way of the dodo....well Egghead lives on the internet sorta, but I never liked their site. Amazon was just easier to navigate.
 
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Yeah I used to go to a local chain that did PC game rentals (can't remember the name), Eggehead, Software Etc., Babbages (not to be confused with Baggages, a short lived retail chain specializing in video games and luggage - I can see why that didn't last in retrospect.)

It was kind of nice having all those competing stores within a few minutes of my house - but besides the option of PC game rentals I don't think I was actually getting better deals from it. Based on my later experience doing the pc/software section of my college bookstore's product ordering I don't think software/video game retailers have ever had all that much wiggle room in terms of the markup on new titles anways.

Really it was kind of funny - companies like Lenovo, Microsoft, Adobe, Apple and even pen/pencil manufacturers like Staedtler (awesome german pen/pencil company - their high end mechanical pencils were exam-induced-anxiety proof) gave better margins and would do reasonable buybacks of product that didn't sell or offer price protection to help us mark it down. The only product that neither of those things held true for were video games and wholesale liquidation items. I guess that's because the publishers and distributors know if a retailer wants to have a selection of video games they have no choice but to order the current popular range of products.

Regardless of what competition exists at the retail level, there is no incentive for the publishers to outdo each other; if you didn't like the terms for your pre-order of Halo 2 it's not like you could just shift to carrying more valve titles because of an advantageous purchasing agreement. I can see why brick and mortar video game stores and software specialty stores had such a rough time even before things like Steam and Amazon made them seem less relevant.
 
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gamestop sucks.
I still go there once and awhile tho because it's the only place my gramma/stepmother/etc associate with gaming and end up getting me a gift cert for it.
 
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I don't avoid Gamestop because of any moral objection to them, or because I'm angry at them for reducing the size of their PC section. Businesses do what will earn them the most money and I accept that.

Instead I avoid Gamestop because the service there is awful, at least at the ones near me. The inclusion of a Steam gift card won't change that.
 
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Any time I see this thread's title, I read :

"Game Stops selling Steam vouchers".
 
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For people with no online payment means?

Why would a player walk to a store to buy a voucher from it to be used on the home computer later?
 
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For people with no online payment means?

Why would a player walk to a store to buy a voucher from it to be used on the home computer later?

No credit card, or to be used as a gift certificate.

It's also more secure. This will be getting more common as games become only digital. I'm fine with and we only win in the end. I hate using credit cards myself.

Here I'll let EA explain -

"A lot of our consumers don't own credit cards. A lot of our consumers are still afraid of what happened to the PlayStation Network when 77 million accounts were accessed by Anonymous in 2011," Moore explained. "A lot of our consumers prefer to go into retail buy those Xbox Live or PlayStation Network cards, and retail gets a very strong margin on that. For retail, if they can evolve to be not just a physical media purveyor, but a digital media purveyor, it'll play a very strong role in our business going forward."

I expect to see origin vouchers pretty soon also.
 
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Here I'll let EA explain -

"A lot of our consumers don't own credit cards."

Germany. Especially. I don't think american developers (especially Indie developers) actually realize how uncommon credit cards are still in Germany.
I think that's one of several reasons (the PC retail market is still strong in Germany compred to other countries, as far as I know) why several smaller publishers have begun in Germany to release Indie games in retail. Almost exclusively "steamed", though. Which - I fear - is not widely regocnized (recognized ?) through more casual gamers, though.

(Sorry for my greammar & spelling. It's late here and I'm tired.)
 
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