Aliens in the Desert

GameSpot is more or less buying EB Games.

This sucks. Companies buying other companies is nothing new in our society, and I might be looking nervously at Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia and shaking my head. That does make me a bit fidgety, but whereas I’m not yet sure what the future of my favorite Macromedia programs may be, I know for a fact that GameSpot buying EB is going to impact me in an annoying way.

First of all, although EB and GameSpot aren’t all THAT different, I tend to be able to find a better selection at EB. I also have an EB Edge card for 10% off used games that I don’t know the fate of. In my experience, EB tends to stock a wider selection of games for older platforms. And EB’s game magazine GMR (actually, this is already dead) is a far better magazine than GameSpot’s GameInformer. In fact, I liked GMR better than EGM, or any other multi-platform magazine.

In general less competition is never a good thing. Right now if you go into GameSpot or EB and look to buy a used copy of a new, blockbuster game, you are going to pay $44.99 instead of $49.99 for a new copy. That’s pretty stupid. But hey, GameSpot doesn’t have to compete with EB now. What if they just decide to up it to $47.99? Hey, it’s still cheaper than buying it new! Or what if someone runs the numbers and decides oh hey, our margin on used games really isn’t that great and we could fill that retail space with more new games. They don’t have to sell used games. And without anyone else selling used games, this is no longer something they have to do in order to compete.

Well, hey. I’ll just go buy my games…at…CompUSA? WallMart? Toys R US? Uhmmm…

These are all just OTHER big chains and usually their selection sucks. Alot. The last independantly owned store I bought games at was in Atlanta. Actually its a pretty good store, too. GameSwap USA. If you are in the Atlanta area, shop there instead of GameSpot. In the SF bay area, I used to go to Reckless Records on Haight St. THEY sold used games. But now Amoeba moved in and shoved them out. Even though Amoeba has a phenomenal selection of DVDs and CDs, they do NOT sell games.

I believe Rasputin Records in Berkeley also sells used games, but again their selection is fairly limited.

When I returned to SF from living in Atlanta, I was amazed at all the EBs/GameSpots that had sprung up all over the Bay Area. Games are big business, as we all know. But it sucks that now all that business will be funneled through one source.

Oh well. There’s always the internet.