Store to would-be "Rock Stars": "Fuck You&qu

[SCRawl]

Here's a an interesting story.

Rare copies of 'Rock Band' sell in Canada for $500

Updated Thu. Dec. 20 2007 11:01 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

The much-anticipated video game "Rock Band" lets you pretend to be a rock star -- but you might have to spend rock-star dollars to own it before Christmas.

The game lets players use guitars, drums and microphones as part of a fictitious band, and was supposed to be delivered to stores across Canada on Thursday.

But the release has been delayed until after Christmas, leaving retailers who did get copies of the sought-after game holding a golden ticket. Edmonton's Play Me Games received 54 packages from a U.S. broker.

Their sale price is $500.

"Some people are extremely shocked. Others understand the basic economics of supply and demand," store manager Mike Jacobson told CTV Edmonton on Thursday.

Jacobson said they had already sold more than half of their supply by Thursday afternoon.

He said the game -- a successor to the successful "Guitar Hero" series -- had a fan base awaiting its release.

"It's way more than 'Guitar Hero.' It includes the drums, which 'Guitar Hero' does not. It includes the microphone . . . so you can actually have a full band," he said.

CTV Edmonton reported that Play Me Games had originally priced the game at $800, but reduced it to $500 later in the day when the product didn't sell as well as expected.

Manufacturers delayed the Canadian release of Rock Band until after Christmas, saying that the packaging and instruction manuals didn't have the required French translation.

Rock Band was originally to be released in Canada in November, but was pushed back until Thursday. Now, producers say it will be released on Dec. 28.

Burton Dickey, the manager of an Edmonton Best Buy, said they will have the product available as soon as it is released in Canada. He says they will follow the suggested retail price of $169.

With a report from CTV Edmonton's Dez Melenka

I'm not a particular fan of this game genre, I don't even own a console game, and I don't even live in Edmonton, so it doesn't affect me much at all. I am nevertheless offended by the naked greed being shown not by eBay speculators, but by an actual bricks 'n' mortar store looking to cash in on a lucky break. I'm hoping that this store's customers will vote with their wallets from here on out.

[Darth Wong]

I have ethical problems with gouging people on necessities of life, such as bottled water during a natural disaster. However, gouging people for a videogame? A videogame is hardly a necessity of life. If someone is willing to pay $500 for a videogame that would probably be a tenth of that price in a month, it's his loss.

[Havok]

Here's a an interesting story.

*snip article*

If dumb asses want to pay out the nose for the game let them. No one is going to die if they have to wait 8 WHOLE days longer for a game that has already been delayed, but if they just HAVE to have it first or NOW, fine. 500 bucks please.

Edit: fixed quote tags

[SCRawl]

I have ethical problems with gouging people on necessities of life, such as bottled water during a natural disaster. However, gouging people for a videogame? A videogame is hardly a necessity of life. If someone is willing to pay $500 for a videogame that would probably be a tenth of that price in a month, it's his loss.

Oh, I'm not suggesting that the poor video gamers are going to suffer (or rather, if they do suffer over this I'm not inclined to care), but rather that I can't reconcile the behaviour of this store with what I understood to be the raison d'etre of this kind of operation: sell products their customers want at (more or less) the MSRP. I can accept someone going to Best Buy, buying a product and flipping it for a profit, but the idea that a store -- which at least in part survives on having some degree of customer loyalty -- would pull a stunt like this offends my sensibilities. I will admit that my sensibilities are easily offended, though....

[Darth Wong]

I can't reconcile the behaviour of this store with what I understood to be the raison d'etre of this kind of operation: sell products their customers want at (more or less) the MSRP.

The raison d'etre of this kind of operation is to make money.

[Havok]

An MSRP is just that, a suggestion. The store manager is right to cite supply and demand. His store has the the only supply and obviously there is a demand. At $500. Note that they were originally asking $800 and the demand would not bear that price, so they dropped it to $500 and promptly sold half of them. Go capitalism! He should get a bigger bonus.

[SCRawl]

I can't reconcile the behaviour of this store with what I understood to be the raison d'etre of this kind of operation: sell products their customers want at (more or less) the MSRP.

The raison d'etre of this kind of operation is to make money.

Well, yeah, that's true, and I clearly misstated my thesis. Without customers, though, making money gets a lot tougher, and this kind of stunt will (I think) piss off plenty of their customers. Why would I, the video game addict with money in my hand, choose to patronize a store who, at the first opportunity, will screw me with my pants on? It's not as though other options don't exist in a city like Edmonton. If this store sells out before Christmas they'll make out like bandits: something over $20k in profit from these 54 units alone. How many of their customers will get their fixes from Future Shop next time?

[Havok]

I can't reconcile the behaviour of this store with what I understood to be the raison d'etre of this kind of operation: sell products their customers want at (more or less) the MSRP.

The raison d'etre of this kind of operation is to make money.

Well, yeah, that's true, and I clearly misstated my thesis. Without customers, though, making money gets a lot tougher, and this kind of stunt will (I think) piss off plenty of their customers. Why would I, the video game addict with money in my hand, choose to patronize a store who, at the first opportunity, will screw me with my pants on? It's not as though other options don't exist in a city like Edmonton. If this store sells out before Christmas they'll make out like bandits: something over $20k in profit from these 54 units alone. How many of their customers will get their fixes from Future Shop next time?

That's the thing though. This is the only store that has them and if you JUST CAN'T WAIT 8 lousy days, and you HAVE to have the game, then you pay the price and you deal with it. If all the stores had it and they were charging 500, then yeah, they will loose customers, or if they went and bought up all the other copies and then resold them with jacked up prices, certainly they would be cock suckers, but they are just making money on a product that only they have and that apparently people REALLY want. Like I said, go capitalism.

[SCRawl]

The raison d'etre of this kind of operation is to make money.

Well, yeah, that's true, and I clearly misstated my thesis. Without customers, though, making money gets a lot tougher, and this kind of stunt will (I think) piss off plenty of their customers. Why would I, the video game addict with money in my hand, choose to patronize a store who, at the first opportunity, will screw me with my pants on? It's not as though other options don't exist in a city like Edmonton. If this store sells out before Christmas they'll make out like bandits: something over $20k in profit from these 54 units alone. How many of their customers will get their fixes from Future Shop next time?

That's the thing though. This is the only store that has them and if you JUST CAN'T WAIT 8 lousy days, and you HAVE to have the game, then you pay the price and you deal with it. If all the stores had it and they were charging 500, then yeah, they will loose customers, or if they went and bought up all the other copies and then resold them with jacked up prices, certainly they would be cock suckers, but they are just making money on a product that only they have and that apparently people REALLY want. Like I said, go capitalism.

I don't think that you've quite gotten my point. This store is in the unique position in that it has a sought-after product when no one else does. And they show their appreciation to their customer base -- without whom they could not exist -- by tripling the price. In other words, they took the first opportunity they had to soak their customers. If I were one of their customers, even one who didn't want this game, I'd find somewhere else to buy my stuff.

[Anguirus]

^ I agree with you. I can't imagine my local video game store pulling a stunt like that...they are big into community outreach and as a result they are wildly popular.

This guy is undoubtedly a better capitalist but a bigger bastard.

[Stark]

Guys, once RB comes out properly nobody is even going to remember. They're making a fast buck off idiots: bully for them. I don't really see it as a problem.

[Flagg]

Guys, once RB comes out properly nobody is even going to remember. They're making a fast buck off idiots: bully for them. I don't really see it as a problem.

It's still a dick move. I hope they lose customers because of it.

Though any Canadian that would pay $500 for Rock Band when they could hop across the border and likely find it for $170 US is a fucking retard. I went to Wal-Mart at 5:30am on a Saturday and they had 2 of them for PS3 and one for 360 just sitting there. I now own one of them.

[Havok]

I don't think that you've quite gotten my point. This store is in the unique position in that it has a sought-after product when no one else does. And they show their appreciation to their customer base -- without whom they could not exist -- by tripling the price. In other words, they took the first opportunity they had to soak their customers. If I were one of their customers, even one who didn't want this game, I'd find somewhere else to buy my stuff.

No, I get your point. But you said it.. unique position... sought after product... no one else... It's like Ebay. If you want something hard to get or not widely available, you pay for it. If you gotta have it NOW, you pay more. It's is a perfectly acceptable business practice. These people hit the "Buy It Now" button, instead of riding out the bidding in hopes of maybe getting a lower price.
How much did a 360 cost when they first came out? Did EVERYONE not know that the price would go down eventually, like it always does? So why doesn't MS just sell them at the price they are eventually going to sell them at? Because they are in the business to make money, pure and simple. They sell them at what their market will bear... Once the initial buyers who HAD to have the new system buy them, they lower the price to get the next tier of buyers.

This is a similar situation, not exactly the same, but similar. The RB fans that had to have it, just couldn't live without it for 8 more days, shelled out what they felt was an acceptable price for a product they could get no where else. The store made money off it's customers.. OH NO!

The people who feel hosed, and won't return to that store, probably didn't buy the game at 500, anyway. They are probably also the customers that can wait for 8 days and buy it at MSRP.

And as for loosing those customers, if they actually do, the profits from the game will more than make up for those lost customers.

[Flagg]

I don't think that you've quite gotten my point. This store is in the unique position in that it has a sought-after product when no one else does. And they show their appreciation to their customer base -- without whom they could not exist -- by tripling the price. In other words, they took the first opportunity they had to soak their customers. If I were one of their customers, even one who didn't want this game, I'd find somewhere else to buy my stuff.

I'd never shop there again.

However, it's not like they got a regular shipment just like every other Canadian retailer and just marked it up knowing full well that the supply was limited. They aquired a shipment from a US supplier before the game was even officially released in the country and marked that up.

I think it's a major dick move on their part to charge that much of a markup (I'd imagine it would need to be marked up due to import costs), but I don't think it's unethical.

I don't even know that I would say it's as bad as the shit US retailers pull with popular console launches. You know, where they only sell them in bundles with a bunch of games and accessories that you might not want, but would have to buy just to get the system.

[Rogue 9]

Oh, come the fuck on. Do you people not get the whole idea of supply and demand? If he has the only supply and his supply is much smaller than the demand, then it would be stupid to not raise the price; the massive quantity demanded against the limited supply makes it much more valuable. If he just left it at MSRP he'd have sold out in a few hours, and then he'd have no more supply, and he'd make no money. Prices are set at the point where quantity demanded (limited by willingness to pay) is about the same as the supply. Stores don't want to run out of things; dropping prices to the point where quantity demanded is higher than supply is the whole point of a closeout sale. You don't want to do that when you're not trying to sell out of a product.

Yes, he'd be a dick if he were doing this with a necessity, such as food, but come the fuck on; we're talking about a video game. If there's any market where there's no moral problem with allowing the market to take its course, it's one for luxuries, and video games are a luxury item. People can either wait for supply to go up (which will dictate him lowering his prices) or they can suck it up and pay what he's asking. Fuck, gas stations do this every goddamned day and I don't see anybody refusing to buy from a gas station because it responded to the supply. Gasoline is a far more essential item than a game, and we all take variable prices for it as a given.

Edit: I forgot the third option: Negotiate with him. I don't know what it is that makes people automatically forget you can do that, but if he's setting the price at something other than (and high above) the MSRP, and he actually lowered his price from a higher price that wasn't selling already, then you can probably make at least some headway in talking him down.

[SCRawl]

If he just left it at MSRP he'd have sold out in a few hours, and then he'd have no more supply, and he'd make no money. Prices are set at the point where quantity demanded (limited by willingness to pay) is about the same as the supply. Stores don't want to run out of things; dropping prices to the point where quantity demanded is higher than supply is the whole point of a closeout sale. You don't want to do that when you're not trying to sell out of a product.

I would accept this argument if there weren't already a set price for the product in question, or if the seller were an entity without a past or a future. To explain the first qualification: clearly the retailer would be happy to sell as many of these games as he had at the MSRP if they were in general circulation. To explain the second: if I were to come into such a cache of products whose inflated value would soon expire, I would think very little of gouging the shit out of whomever I could find, because I wouldn't ever expect to sell them anything again. A retail store usually can't afford that kind of bridge-burning -- they live or die by repeat business.

In other words, I don't have a problem with the retailer's ethics. I simply question the wisdom of this blatant cash-grab, when there is a future to think of. The tactic offends me, but I can't point to it and say that the retailer has done something objectively wrong, in the big picture.

Fuck, gas stations do this every goddamned day and I don't see anybody refusing to buy from a gas station because it responded to the supply. Gasoline is a far more essential item than a game, and we all take variable prices for it as a given.

I don't think that everyone quite takes it for granted; every few months or so some government figure pokes his flashlight around the whole issue of gas price fixing. At any rate, they all do it, so it isn't as though there's somewhere else to buy gasoline; we all suck it up, like it or not.

[Havok]

If he just left it at MSRP he'd have sold out in a few hours, and then he'd have no more supply, and he'd make no money. Prices are set at the point where quantity demanded (limited by willingness to pay) is about the same as the supply. Stores don't want to run out of things; dropping prices to the point where quantity demanded is higher than supply is the whole point of a closeout sale. You don't want to do that when you're not trying to sell out of a product.

I would accept this argument if there weren't already a set price for the product in question, or if the seller were an entity without a past or a future. To explain the first qualification: clearly the retailer would be happy to sell as many of these games as he had at the MSRP if they were in general circulation. To explain the second: if I were to come into such a cache of products whose inflated value would soon expire, I would think very little of gouging the shit out of whomever I could find, because I wouldn't ever expect to sell them anything again. A retail store usually can't afford that kind of bridge-burning -- they live or die by repeat business.

OK then. You DO accept this argument, because there is no "set price for the product in question." for the end purchaser. There is a "Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price". The only amount that is set, is what you can get it from the manufacturer at.

As far as repeat business at a place like a video game store. Loosing 50 customers or even 100, is not going to make a difference, because a store like that will always have a new influx of customers as kids get older and buy new systems. So basically they get new customers every day.

In other words, I don't have a problem with the retailer's ethics. I simply question the wisdom of this blatant cash-grab, when there is a future to think of. The tactic offends me, but I can't point to it and say that the retailer has done something objectively wrong, in the big picture.

Fuck, gas stations do this every goddamned day and I don't see anybody refusing to buy from a gas station because it responded to the supply. Gasoline is a far more essential item than a game, and we all take variable prices for it as a given.

I don't think that everyone quite takes it for granted; every few months or so some government figure pokes his flashlight around the whole issue of gas price fixing. At any rate, they all do it, so it isn't as though there's somewhere else to buy gasoline; we all suck it up, like it or not.

This goes to what Mike said... Gas is a necessity to keep the country running. If you didn't regulate prices, it would hurt everyone. Video game pricing is hardly an issue of national concern.

[neoolong]

How hard are these going to be find in a couple of weeks?

I mean, it's $500, but can't people just buy it, get another one a few weeks later when the price falls to the MSRP, and then return that other one on the original receipt? Sure, that's not exactly ethical, but if the price does fall in a short time a lot, I imagine a lot of people would consider doing it.

[General Zod]

How hard are these going to be find in a couple of weeks?

I mean, it's $500, but can't people just buy it, get another one a few weeks later when the price falls to the MSRP, and then return that other one on the original receipt? Sure, that's not exactly ethical, but if the price does fall in a short time a lot, I imagine a lot of people would consider doing it.

Or they could just wait a couple weeks for the price to come down and laugh at the idiots who spent $500 on it.

[Havok]

A couple of weeks? According to the article it is 8 days. They paid 330 dollars more to get it one week sooner, and probably some of them , for before Christmas.

[Aaron]

It's still a dick move. I hope they lose customers because of it.

Though any Canadian that would pay $500 for Rock Band when they could hop across the border and likely find it for $170 US is a fucking retard. I went to Wal-Mart at 5:30am on a Saturday and they had 2 of them for PS3 and one for 360 just sitting there. I now own one of them.

If you were in Vancouver, Toronto or even Calgary that would be an option. Edmonton however is about a days travel from Idaho or Montana.

[Flagg]

It's still a dick move. I hope they lose customers because of it.

Though any Canadian that would pay $500 for Rock Band when they could hop across the border and likely find it for $170 US is a fucking retard. I went to Wal-Mart at 5:30am on a Saturday and they had 2 of them for PS3 and one for 360 just sitting there. I now own one of them.

If you were in Vancouver, Toronto or even Calgary that would be an option. Edmonton however is about a days travel from Idaho or Montana.

Edmonton is in Alberta. They aren't people.

[Darth Wong]

I can't believe anyone is saying they would be so morally outraged that they would boycott the store over this. Fleecing idiots of their money is not unethical; what ethical principle does it violate? Or has MSRP somehow been elevated to the status of "ethical principle" now?

This is such bullshit; how many products are routinely sold below MSRP, because the market won't bear it? I don't hear anyone complaining about that, do I? I don't see Flagg or SCRawl saying that they go to the car dealer and insist on paying full retail price even though other customers are haggling them down by thousands of dollars. They take their savings just like everyone else, and they probably brag about it too. But when a store charges more than MSRP, then it's suddenly a crime against society!

[SCRawl]

I can't believe anyone is saying they would be so morally outraged that they would boycott the store over this. Fleeing idiots of their money is not unethical; what ethical principle does it violate? Or has MSRP somehow been elevated to the status of "ethical principle" now?

This is such bullshit; how many products are routinely sold below MSRP, because the market won't bear it? I don't hear anyone complaining about that, do I? I don't see Flagg or SCRawl saying that they go to the car dealer and insist on paying full retail price even though other customers are haggling them down by thousands of dollars. They take their savings just like everyone else, and they probably brag about it too. But when a store charges more than MSRP, then it's suddenly a crime against society!

You'll note that I explicitly said that I didn't have a problem with the retailer's ethics. It isn't unethical to take what the market will bear for nonessential items.

You mentioned the example of a car dealer, and it's a worthwhile one. Cars do sell at well below the MSRP, because the market won't bear the MSRP on all cars. Not only is there enough competition to keep the dealers honest, but they tend to be overpriced. Every so often a car comes along that will sell at above the MSRP everywhere, just because it's popular enough to demand it. The Dodge Viper was an example of this, I think. I wasn't in the market for a Viper either, but the concept didn't bother me as much, because every dealer was asking the same price for it, more or less.

I suppose that it's my natural tendency to dislike monopolies that gets my back up over this issue. I recognize that this is a very short-lived and rather inconsequential monopoly, but it still offends me when a company will take this kind of advantage of one. By nothing more than an accident, this retailer managed to get hold of a product ahead of its competitors by a few days. A week from now they'd consider themselves lucky to get the MSRP for this game. As I've said earlier, if I were in the market for this game, I'd be sure to get it from somewhere else.

[Darth Wong]

Ah, so when you refuse to pay MSRP for something, that's because it's "overpriced". How convenient.