Mama’s Combo Packs
GameStop isn't exactly renown for great business practices, especially those tageted at people who consistantly buy their games used. Well, you can breathe a sigh of relief, in California at any rate. For the next two years, GameStop is required to put warning labels on used products with online pass DLC, as many games that have come out in the past few months do, such as Mass Effect 3 or Batman Arkham City. The upshot of it all was that GameStop was selling these games at five dollars less than retail, despite the online pass that cost around ten dollars, making the game cost more than it would new for the full game. This even extended to games that had "free DLC with purchase", which required a new game rather than a used one.
Law firm Baron and Budd headed a class action law suit to stop these actions by GameStop, alleging that they were doing this to simply markup prices and not pay royalties to game publishers and developers.
"We are pleased that as a result of this lawsuit, we were able to obtain complete restitution for consumers, with actual money paid out to people who were harmed by GameStop's conduct," said Mark Pifko, Baron and Budd attorney and counsel in the lawsuit, in a press release.
"The in-store and online warnings are an important benefit under the settlement as well, because if GameStop discloses the truth to consumers, it is unlikely that they will be able to continue selling used copies of certain games for only $5 less than the price of a new copy. In fact, we already know that not long after the lawsuit was filed, GameStop lowered prices for used copies of many of the game titles identified in the lawsuit."
Baron and Budd also said that customers who were wronged by these actions should be able to claim store credit or a check for the $15 dollars that they were stripped of by these practices. +1 for the California gamer!
Source: Kotaku
