Welcome to Beyond Co-Op, a weekly piece that talks about industry stories that may or may not be related to co-op gaming.
The stories for this week:
- Gamestop and the Deus Ex Situation
- Twisted Metal Arriving on Valentine's Day
- Kinect Star Wars and Corresponding System Pushed to 2012
- PAX Prime This Weekend
- Madden 12 and Bodycount This Week
Gamestop and the Deus Ex Situation
I’m not a big fan of Gamestop anymore because of a situation that goes back to around the release of the 360. I’ve rarely stepped foot in one since and really wish it and EB were two separate companies again because I never had a problem with EB. This week Gamestop went and shot itself in the foot and have backtracked quite a bit on it.
With the release of Deus Ex: Human Revolution on Tuesday, Gamestop found out that there was an OnLive coupon in every PC copy of the game that allows people to download it on that service as well. OnLive is considered a direct competitor to Gamestop’s recently purchased Impulse and future plans for a possible system that is like OnLive. In their infinite wisdom, the Gamestop brass decided to send an e-mail telling all their workers to open up the boxes and take out the coupon and then sell the game for full price.
After they felt a bit of heat from that they decided to take the game off the shelves all together for a future recall. Then late in the week they decided to give a $50 gift certificate and a Buy 2 Get 1 Free coupon out to everyone that purchased the opened box sans the OnLive coupon. That was a nice reaction, although it may have been too late. Although I never had an EB that sold an opened game (even a display model) at full unopened price, I know there were many EBs and Gamestops that did such a thing and maybe they continue to do such a thing. It was one of the biggest problems I had with the company outside of the aforementioned 360 fiasco.
We’ll see if there will be any future fiascos like this. I’m sure this gave Gamestop a PR hit and honestly I’m surprised they still sell PC versions of games. The Gamestop closest to me didn’t even have any PC games the last time I was in it a while ago.
Source: Joystiq
Twisted Metal Arriving on Valentine's Day
After the announced delay of Twisted Metal I’m sure many were bummed out. David Jaffe came back this week and announced that the game would be released on Valentine’s Day, meaning those of you without a loved one will be able to experience destruction on that day.
Source: Joystiq
Kinect Star Wars and Corresponding System Pushed to 2012
I’m not really surprised with this considering the relatively poor previews given by the games press at E3 in regards to Kinect Star Wars. It was announced that the game and the R2D2 system will miss the holiday release window, but no new date was given. I’d say it is a good thing that they’ll take more time with the game because it could certainly be something special if they give it some extra love.
Source: Joystiq
PAX Prime This Weekend
PAX Prime is this weekend. I’ve personally never been to one although I’ve read Penny Arcade since pretty much the beginning. One of the news items that did come out is that the third episode of Precipice of Darkness will indeed be coming out and is now being made by Zeboyd. I would expect other news items, especially on all the projects the PA boys have been working on. Is it just me or has PAX not seemed as hyped as it has in the past?
Source: me
Madden 12 and Bodycount This Week
The yearly Madden game comes out this week. I’ll probably pick it up since I own every release since the Genesis days, but it’s not something I’m going to pick up right away. Codemasters’ Bodycount is also on tap this week. I downloaded the demo, but have yet to play it. It sounds interesting though, but will probably fly under the radar when compared to games releasing in the weeks to come.
Source: me