Gamestop opens copies of DEHR takes out promo code

[Dedlok]

The Regular PC edition of the new Deus Ex game comes with a promo code to get a free copy of the game to play on OnLive (in addition to the fact it's a Steamworks game). GameStop, not happy with the fact the product has a promo code for a competitor, tells their employees to open up each and every copy of the PC version, take out the voucher and throw it away. Then sell the game new.

That's right. They are so pissed that a game they sell includes an "ad" for another company they tell their employees to take the code out. Of course the memo gets leaked/customers find out and people aren't happy.

And they don't even have the dignity to apologize or try to spin the incident into a positive light as the following is their official statement on the matter:

Regarding the Deus Ex: Human Revolution OnLive Codes: We don’t make a habit of promoting competitive services without a formal partnership. Square Enix packed the competitor’s coupon with our DXHR product without our prior knowledge and we did pull these coupons. While the new products may be opened, we fully guarantee the condition of the discs to be new. If you find this to not be the case, please contact the store where the game was purchased and they will further assist.

So basically they try to make SquareEnix/Onlive out to be the "evil ones" oin this incident, but in the process, just digging the hole they put themselves in even deeper.

[Warp Factor]

I can actually kind of understand why they're upset, they're already selling a game that requires a competing service to be installed (Steam, obv) so advertising yet another competitor seems reasonable to object to. They should have taken the high road, though, and just refused to sell the game or just sold what they had and refused to order any more. Pulling shit like this just pisses off the publisher AND the customer.

[Dedlok]

Gamestop now has a newer, more sensical tatic that they should have done in the 1st place:

"At this time please pull all Regular PC editions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and place them in your backroom. These will be recalled at a later date.
As GameStop is developing a streaming service in our Spawn Labs Cloud Computing Division, the coupon that was included is for a competing service. We are returning all copies of the PC regular edition to the vendor in agreement with Square Enix.
Any unfulfilled reserves of the Regular PC Edition should be taken care of with the inventory set aside in your backroom.
Please honor any returns with a receipt."

Pulled from here.

Now if they had the sense to do something like this in the 1st place. I.E. Keep the number of copies they had for pre-order (UNOPENED copies) and talked tow Squenix toarrange a ship back and told everyone who didn't pre-order "we only got enough copies for the people who pre-ordered" they would have not had gotten the shitstorm they have gottten in the 1st place. But it's too little too late now.

[Warp Factor]

Agreed. It also strikes me as kind of funny considering Gamestop now owns Impulse, which competes very directly with Steam, but have no problem selling Steam-mandatory games. Then again, given how dominant Steam is in that market they'd be shooting themselves in the foot by boycotting it.

[The Cheshire Cat]

Well, Impulse itself doesn't have its own version of Steamworks, so it's not like they can sell games with competing software. Steamworks is probably the cleverest thing Valve could have done in the PC market; it's basically turned Steam into the console of PCs - sure there's GFWL but everyone hates that. Now it's like "Hey, you want achievements in your game on PC? Better use Steamworks".