GameStop Openly Admits Policy that May Be Violating US Anti Trust Laws August 24, 2011

Say what you will about GameStop’s policy of opening all new games, scratching the discs as they move them into paper sleeves, then having to pay full retail price for these damaged discs when you can pay the same price for a still sealed and working copy of a new game anywhere else. You can also say whatever you want about them refusing to stock new copies of games and instead only keeping stock of used products so as to maximize profits, cutting out potential sales from game developers and publishers. But today, various news organizations have uncovered an official GameStop policy, (which has been openly confirmed by GameStop as official policy to various organizations) regarding the new Deus Ex game which may be a violation of US law.

New copies of the PC Version of Deus Ex: Human Revolution include download codes for a free copy of the game to be played through OnLive. This kind of practice is not unheard of, new copies of the PS3 version of Portal 2 came with free codes to a full copy of the PC version through Steam. Well, GameStop has decided they don’t like their customers are getting OnLive codes and are telling all their retailers to open the new copies of the game and discard the OnLive download codes. Their defense is that OnLive is a competition and they have the right to prevent their customers from having access to them.

Actually, they don’t.

This policy sounded worse than just bad news for customers, this sounded illegal. So I started doing some research of US Anti-Trust laws and discovered that what GameStop is doing FITS THE EXACT DEFINITION. For those of you who don’t know what the specifics of the US Anti-Trust laws are, here’s some general information about it.

Antitrust laws protect competition. Free and open competition benefits consumers by ensuring lower prices and new and better products. In a freely competitive market, each competing business generally will try to attract consumers by cutting its prices and increasing the quality of its products or services. Competition and the profit opportunities it brings also stimulate businesses to find new, innovative and more efficient methods of production.

Consumers benefit from competition through lower prices and better products and services. Companies that fail to understand or react to consumer needs may soon find themselves losing out in the competitive battle.

When competitors agree to fix prices, rig bids or allocate (divide up) customers, consumers lose the benefits of competition. The prices that result when competitors agree in these ways are artificially high; such prices do not accurately reflect cost and therefore distort the allocation of society’s resources. The result is a loss not only to U.S. consumers and taxpayers, but also the U.S. economy.

–justice.gov

It would seem this confirmed policy is a textbook example of unfair business practices. Now, Anti-Trust laws are enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the United States Department of Justice (Anti-Trust Division). If you bought the PC version of Deus Ex: Human Revolution from GameStop new and your game has been opened before you bought it and does not have an OnLive Code, the US Department of Justice does have reporting information on their official website for violations of the three major anti-trust laws. This is a federal law, but you can also contact your local state Attorney General and see what the laws are in your state to see what your rights are.

This is something that would be argued in court. While this is does seem to be a violation of the general spirit of the law specifics can be argued by various legal teams. However, citizens do have the right to report anything that may be in violation so the federal agencies can investigate it themselves and make a decision about if they wish to pursue it.

UPDATE: GameStop has ordered the recall of all regular PC copies of Deus Ex: Human Revolution from their shelves in agreement with the publisher.

UPDATE 2: GameStop is offering $50 gift cards and a coupon for affected customers that are unsatisfied.