GameStop Selling "Rented" Games as New

You know, this really irks me. As much as I enjoy the convenience of shopping at and pre-ordering games from GameStop, some of their practices really annoy me. I've always disapproved of their practice of selling display copies of games (the ones where they open the game, remove the disc and put the case on the shelf for people to look at without risking theft) and I never buy these copies. When they try to sell me one, I just tell them "no thanks, I'll go buy it somewhere else". Luckily this doesn't happen with pre-ordered games, which is the route I take most of the time anyway.

As if that wasn't enough, now comes news that they're trying to pass off "rented" copies of their games as new. See, apparently GameStop allows employees to "rent" out games for a few days. These "rented" discs often get mixed in with the "story display" copies and all of them are sold as new. In fact, it seems to be against company policy to sell these in any other way besides new. The good news is, this may be against federal law.

I really hope something comes of this, because either of the above practices really should not be happening. A new game should be defined as one that is still inside the factory seal, not some cheap shrink wrap or GameStop logo seal the store puts on these opened games to pass them off as new. When you buy a sealed game, system or just about any other product imaginable, you can return it as new only if the factory seal is not broken. I can sure guarantee you if you bought a sealed game from GameStop, cracked the seal and tried returning it for a full refund, they would force you to sell it to them for the (incredibly low) price they would pay for trade-in. They seem to think they're special and have the right to make the customer pay full price for a copy of a game with a broken factory seal. This is wrong in my book.