Kotaku, which is usually a sensible and practical bunch of folks, has fallen into a germaphobe mindset in which they proclaim it a scandal that GameStop allows employees to take new games home and return them as new. InsideTech weighs in with the concern that employees may steal single-use activation codes that will hobble the customer’s enjoyment of gameplay. -Well, since many games are already cracked open in order to place cases on the floor, I hardly think the latter matters.
The real issue is this, though; most things can be returned even if the case is opened, but generally not videogames (for full value anyway). This is a remnant of videogame’s heritage as software, because clearly once PC software is opened it can be installed, so the software cannot be returned with the opened box. But that’s not the situation with console games, a returned game in an open box is a full return. Being weird about the purity of “newness” would just be amusingly neurotic, but it drives more games to be re-sold as used, instead of just returned, either to the retailer or the manufacturer under a more reasonable model.
The GameStop situation sort of epitomizes the silliness of the current mindset; prissy store employees take home the disks, and test them in no doubt pristine consoles, and folks think it’s some sort of ripoff to sell these disks as new.
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