Keep your hands off of my games, Gamestop!

Once again Gamestop’s continued existence makes for the best argument against video game distribution through retail.

Unless you’ve spent the day chewing through your internet cables, you’ve probably heard about Gamestop’s apparent new policy of mandatory skullduggery. I’m speaking of course about the company’s removal of OnLive activation codes from PC copies of Deus Ex: Human Revolution followed by selling these opened copies of the game as new.

Yeah. That’s actually a thing that’s happening. Honest.

Originally reported by a Gamestop employee via Gamespy, the laughably villainous company has since gone on to explain their actions. Now, one would hope that one of the largest and most publicly well-known video game retailers in the world would have a good excuse for essentially turning itself into a cartoon villain. Perhaps they had some kind and benevolent reason for stealing from their own consumers. Perhaps the vouchers, (probably) placed lovingly within each and every boxed copy of the game by Mr. Clause’s own personal elves had been mistakenly printed on asbestos? Or perhaps these delightful, free slips of concentrated goodwill had accidently come into contact with the inevitably onrushing zombie virus that will one day claim civilization?

The truth is that Gamestop, like every other corporation on planet Earth, is greedy and doesn’t want a competitor (OnLive) giving away free, digital copies that the consumer might otherwise buy from them; presumably via the company’s newly acquired Impulse digital distribution service.

Now, if it were just a matter of refusing to give traffic and publicity to a rival company, I think everyone would be a little more understanding. That’s just capitalism. However, actually cracking the seal on new copies then draining the content from the box like a chupacabra by the light of the moon, only to turn around and market these defiled units as new (see, un-tampered with) all in the name of keeping someone from getting something for free? Yeesh!

Perhaps what’s most unfortunate about this is that it should be a time of celebration. The release of what is by all accounts a superb follow-up to a beloved franchise coming with a free digital copy should be a feel good moment for everyone. However, a quick Google search for ‘Deus Ex Onlive’ will let you know that very few people are happy about this. From Kotaku to Giantbomb to Joystiq and back, the backlash from the journalistic community has been swift, sharp and almost universal.

Personally, I’m given to wonder how someone in Gamestop’s PR team didn’t just nerve-gas the entire building where the memo requesting the voucher’s removal was conceived. How could anyone have thought that this was going to be a good idea?

And, in a way, that’s the problem. No one could have thought that this news would go over well when the journos got a hold of it. Instead, I’d be willing to bet that the higher-ups in the corporate machine just didn’t really give a damn. Despite providing just about the worst conceivable costumer experience imaginable (irritating employees trying to shove five dollar discounted used copies, magazine subscriptions, Edge cards and pre-orders down your throat every time you so much as breath near them) Gamestop remains one of if not the the top brick-and-mortar game retailers in the world. They’ve come to expect the lowest common denominator when it comes to their consumers’ intelligence. As I have been known to tell less gaming inclined friends, if they really knew anything about video games, they wouldn’t be shopping for them at Gamestop.

And why shouldn’t they think so little of their costumers? They’ve already been getting away with half of this little scheme of theirs for years. As part of company policy employees are allowed to take games home, play them and then sell them as new when they’re done.

The sad truth of the matter is that most people never hear or care or even realize why they should care about these sorts of issues. Most people who buy or have bought copies of Human Revolution from Gamestop will probably never even know that they were cheated. And while the legal side of the argument between Square Enix (publisher of Deus Ex: Human Revolution) and Gamestop will no doubt be settled in time by people far better equipped than I, these increasingly bold acts of corporate douche-baggery should invoke a real reaction.

If they are allowed to set this precedent, what’s to stop them from engaging in even shadier practises in the future? Many retail copies of PC games come with CD keys required to be registered and played but also allow for the games to be tethered to accounts on Steam which, just like OnLive, became a direct competitor to Gamestop after they acquire Impulse. Or how about the Playstation 3 copies of Portal 2 which come with voucher codes for free, PC versions also through Steam?

Of course, the only viable method for getting the Scrooge-McDuck-esque attention of the Gamestop entity is by voting with our dollars.

Thankfully, while the voices of gaming journalists, which have sort of become the voice of the hard-core gaming community in recent years, isn’t as widely heard as consumers deserve it to be they do seem to have come together as one, combined force over this issue; something that is quite rare on the internet. In this day and age the slice of consumers still buying hard copies of PC games is miniscule and if that’s any indication of the public perception of retailers like Gamestop we seem to be on the right course. And if this increasingly low perception of the unacceptable, irritating and just plain inconvenient business practices of Gamestop and its ilk has anything to do with these community voices then I for one am very proud of the community for making a difference.