EB Games is an evil place. This evil can be pinpointed: EB Games is a business, specifically a bricks and mortar retailer. And though all businesses are susceptible to many different kinds of evil, EB Games has a special kind of contempt for the other businesses it deals with before making so much as a sale to its customers. Specifically, the publishers and distributors that provide the games for them to sell.
EB Games has decided that instead of paying publishers the $50/60/70-odd (depending on the title, it's somewhere in that range) for a new release game and selling it for $100, it's cheaper to coax people to sell their games (read: trade in and save!) for $25, after which they're pushed onto anyone and everyone even remotely interested in a copy of the game for slightly less than the RRP of a new copy.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
you should apply in MS PR team buddy, I think you will do a great job in my humble opinion :)
I can tell people like you are an absolute minority..
If service is up means their fans and fanboys accepted this model and subscribed to it. The near future you will see a big decline because the service is saturated.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
Activision: "we gonna need a bigger rucksack/backpack please"
Microsoft: "why's that"
Activision: "to carry yo' weak ass'
Top brass have also wanted to start seeing returns on the 100 billion they have put into various Xbox related moves so seeing more multiplatform games is highly likely especially from abk
It's basically saying that PlayStation is the reason Xbox is afloat right now thinks to Ps5 versions of COD
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
Eventually they’ll realize the value is with the employee not the company. Buying an IP means nothing if the people who contributed are let go. They’ll get it one day.
tech is different because they buy threats and then kill them. Twitter bought Vine and did nothing with it. Despite people seemingly liking it. Could've had tiktok a decade before bytedance. go figure.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
GL compiles a list of some of the most mind-blowing video game narrative twists in recent memory, from The Last of Us to Outer Wilds
With articles like these cant you tag the games mentioned so that we can know ahead of time if there’s a spoiler to avoid?
Not clicking on your article otherwise.
is that EB games has a monopoly of games business at many places in the US. EB games is the only place around my area solely focused on video games. Now, if I had a game crazy or something by my house, i would SURELY go there instead. I too hate EB games and how they just rip everyone off.
Ya know it kills me whenever I read crap like this.
First of all I don’t ever recall a Gamestop employee putting a gun to my head to either trade in my used games or to buy a used game.
If you want to be a Dumb A$$ and get a $20.00 credit for a once played $60.00 game then that’s your problem not GameStop’s.
Bottom line if you feel it’s a rip off (Which BTW I KNOW it is) then keep your games (like I do).
Share them with your friends,sell them on Ebay/your friends, save them for a rainy day or whatever but don’t blame Gamestop or any company for that matter for trying to earn a profit.
Honestly, I love it when one of you fools trades in a brand new game and I get it for a nice little discount.
I just dont like how developers dont get as much moey as they should. However most people dont go out and buy EBs 55$ used games cause it a rip off. If eb sold relativly recent used games for like 30 dollars then developers would be worried and alot of people(me to) would actually buy the used games that arnt old as crap.
I work at EB part time. I have to say, yes, it is an evil company, but not just for the reasons in the article.
1) No incentives. At all. Want to know what the highest GTA4 + guide attach rate store in the district gets? The MANAGER gets a gift card to EB. What do we get? Nothing. Tell me why I should care then?
2) Our "performance" is rated on stupid things like subscription sales and reservations. You think the district managers care that I just alphabetized the entire PS2 wall? Nope.
3) Stupid company policies. We are required to get certain counts and other jobs done during our day, WHILE ringing understaffed. Wasting time gutting games when far more intelligent anti-theft measures could leave more time to help customers and get actual work done is but one of them.
4) Take in every game you can as a trade, offer them crap for it, even if its scratched to hell. Then try to push it on someone else at a huge markup. $110 for your Xbox 360. Enjoy.
5) Our discount is a joke.
So yeah, easy job, but people looking to actually advance in that company? The one that is screwing over hard working developers? Good luck to them, for theirs is an insane lot.
I'm even worse. I usually rent games on GameFly, and then buy them if I like them for the much smaller used cost. Though I guess GameFly had to buy the games at some point, so at least the game companies get that initial purchase.
Sorry, but as long as game companies keep releasing 8-12 hour games for 60 bucks, I'll keep buying used.
Games with enough bang for my buck, either through addictive multiplayer, replay value, a huge open world, or good old-fashioned length like CoD4 or GTA4 or Oblivion or Final Fantasy will continue to get my $60 for a shiny new copy. Games like Heavenly Sword or DMC4 will not.