Following in the wake of a recent lawsuit incurred by rival GameStop, high-street outlet GAME are to introduce stickers for certain products that clearly inform potential buyers of second-hand games that certain DLC offers as advertised may not be applicable.
The furore relates to the pre-owned market, a considerable section of game-stores’ profit margins, which has come under attack by publishers through the practice of making once-off DLC only available to the original purchaser of the title. GAME now hope this transparent process will prevent events such as the aforementioned GameStop incident where a customer initiated legal proceedings after discovering their pre-owned copy of Dragon Age: Origins failed to state that exclusive content would not be included.
“We have been developing a policy for notifying customers at the point of purchase which was implemented last week in-store. Pre-owned copies of applicable titles have stickers on them saying ‘check with staff for availability of downloadable content’, giving staff the chance to explain clearly the difference so that our customers understand the benefits of buying both pre-owned and mint.”
Reports of scallywags planning to surreptitiously remove the new tags in order to get their mates who work in the stores into trouble could not be verified at the time of writing.
Source: MVC