Best Buy GCU is being Discontinued?

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ShadowAssassin said:
So why cut GCU now? Why not 6 months ago or 6 months from now? I'm just curious why they decided now was the time to do it if they've been losing money for so long. I mean, the subscription used to be like $200. Once they dropped it to $30 they had to know it was gonna kill them.

Unless it was a long-term pre-planned strategy of stealing "regular customers" from Amazon and Gamestop, knowing well in advance they'd axe it eventually once those customers settled in with Best Buy.
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Why not now? Of they've been gathering data on the program's effectiveness for a set time, then the plug had to get pulled eventually. They probably did it as an experiment to see if gamers would go to the store and buy other things: they would be ok taking a loss/breaking even on games if they made it up on other purchases. Clearly they decided it wasnt worth it.

Much like MoviePass, which likely isnt long for this world, just enjoy it while it's still available.
 
David Hibiki said:
So your in denial that the majority of games are selling digitally these days? Pretty sure Activision and Ubisoft have a rather large foot print on the market share. Why would Sony or Microsoft be any different? Have you looked at GTA 5 sales? The revenue from GTA 5 online? Microsoft with gamepass? Bueller?

But that's fine yell at the cloud old man.

I understand people don't like change but the new generation has been growing up on phone games. Digital is a way of life as are those big day one patches.
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You are all over the place. Now you're changing the argument to where I denied companies are selling digital games. Where exactly did I say that? No shit all companies are selling digital but the original statement that physical games are going away is, in my opinion, completely wrong. You're grasping at straws with these shitty sources to make your original statements right. While digital sales may be rising for some companies in no way correlates to physical discs going away.

But I'm sure you'll continue to act like a child and make stupid statements about old men yelling at clouds.

 
RabbiHick said:
They probably did it as an experiment to see if gamers would go to the store and buy other things: they would be ok taking a loss/breaking even on games if they made it up on other purchases. Clearly they decided it wasnt worth it.
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those cheapass gamers... they only care about saving money and not buying things with those savings

 
In other news, Gamestop stock should be getting a boost. Love the staff at my local GS compared to BB. If I'm gonna be stuck paying MSRP if I want something at launch guess I'll be buying there.
 
dontBlink86 said:
In other news, Gamestop stock should be getting a boost. Love the staff at my local GS compared to BB. If I'm gonna be stuck paying MSRP if I want something at launch guess I'll be buying there.
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There's no way I'm buying their (((new))) games. I've seen those guys unwrap a game, throw it in the display consoles to play with friends and shrinkwrap it again.

 
I hope this helps me in the long run.  I buy more games with bestbuy when I know its 20% off.  Reality is I dont have enough time to play all the games im buying.  Ill only buy a fraction of games if I gotta pay msrp.  Was an amazing deal while it lasted.

 
dontBlink86 said:
In other news, Gamestop stock should be getting a boost. Love the staff at my local GS compared to BB. If I'm gonna be stuck paying MSRP if I want something at launch guess I'll be buying there.
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The Dead Texan said:
There's no way I'm buying their (((new))) games. I've seen those guys unwrap a game, throw it in the display consoles to play with friends and shrinkwrap it again.
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Agreed.

I had hopes that GCU would put GS out of business for good... Must be a GS spy working for BB now.

 
Well, balls! Mine runs out in  5 months and I didn't plan on renewing until a few days before it ran out. It was a great program for an insanely great price. No doubt I would not have gone for a complete Vita collection and massive PS4 and 3DS collections without GCU. Now that the Vita is near the end of its life and 3DS games are at a trickle it's not a huge loss to me, as I generally wait for PS4 games to hit 19.99 anyway. But, it was pretty damn nice to be able to grab those 19.99 games for 15.99. Many of them I had no intention of buying, but gave them a chance since the price was so low. I guess for the few PS4 games I buy at launch I will use Amazon Prime now, while they still have a discount. Amazon has no reason to keep their 20% discount now that Best Buy is ending the GCU discount. Really sucks, but I guess on the bright side I will be saving money by not making as many impulse game purchases.

 
Well, It was fun while it lasted...

PartialLikelyHeron-size_restricted.gif


 
RabbiHick said:
like MoviePass, which likely isnt long for this world, just enjoy it while it's still available.
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Yea GCU reminds me a lot of moviepass. It probably won't last and when it ends people are going to be entitled bitching at the company because they can't get a steal of a deal anymore.
 
Chuck Stank said:
You are all over the place. Now you're changing the argument to where I denied companies are selling digital games. Where exactly did I say that? No shit all companies are selling digital but the original statement that physical games are going away is, in my opinion, completely wrong. You're grasping at straws with these shitty sources to make your original statements right. While digital sales may be rising for some companies in no way correlates to physical discs going away.

But I'm sure you'll continue to act like a child and make stupid statements about old men yelling at clouds.
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They aren't shitty sources they are from the companies mouths themselves. You said discs will NEVER go away. If I hurt your feelings so much you can use this CAG feature that has been here since the dawn of time called the ignore button.

 
My GCU doesn’t expire for quite awhile. But on the website I don’t see the discount applying at all. Anyone else having this problem?
 
rdigit said:
Pre-ordered all the available switch games just in case...
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Just got home from BB picking up State of Decay 2 Ultimate Ed... get home and came here to see about maybe trading the decay 1 code for cheap... see this BS

Back on BB website and bought Hyrule Warriors with my rewards points just in case. So tempted to do the same with any game I remotely wanted, Hell all but 1 Switch game was purchased from BB just because of GCU...

 
ShadowAssassin said:
So why cut GCU now? Why not 6 months ago or 6 months from now? I'm just curious why they decided now was the time to do it if they've been losing money for so long. I mean, the subscription used to be like $200. Once they dropped it to $30 they had to know it was gonna kill them.

Unless it was a long-term pre-planned strategy of stealing "regular customers" from Amazon and Gamestop, knowing well in advance they'd axe it eventually once those customers settled in with Best Buy.
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Because you know no business out there does anything shady or crafty except Best buy. Who the fuck cares, go shop at another store who pretends to give a shit about you.

In the end, truth is no one does.
 
David Hibiki said:
They aren't shitty sources they are from the companies mouths themselves. You said discs will NEVER go away. If I hurt your feelings so much you can use this CAG feature that has been here since the dawn of time called the ignore button.
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The game developer themselves is not a good source.. as has been pointed out, the game itself sells physical and digital, but ALL DLC/Season pass/Loot box etc are all digital.... Thats a SUPER easy way to manipulate the numbers.

Digital sales are up i'll give you that, but 50%? i don't buy that just yet.

Many people like to resale the games when done or trade them back in after they beat that $60 game in 3 days... Digital you just can't do that.

greenwingzero said:
My GCU doesn’t expire for quite awhile. But on the website I don’t see the discount applying at all. Anyone else having this problem?
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Applies in cart only, and it doesnt even tell you "GCU" at all, just "Saved $12"

 
dizee said:
so they could have raised the price a little bit. people would have been fine with a slight price increase. i personally would have gladly paid $60 for the same 2 year membership.

instead they just canceled it and are trying to sweep it under the rug. screw that and screw best buy.
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*shrug* I paid the original $120 and would do it again.

 
Paying full retail when we've had it so good is going to be a hard pill to swallow. Demand for used games (cheaper) may rise due to this game-changer. The used games market could be set for a boom if Gamestop would ease up on their pricing. If Gamestop is smart, they would give deeper discounts to used games right now, just to get the foot traffic back in their stores. More foot traffic could mean more sales of their dumb collectibles. There is an opportunity here, but I doubt they will loosen their grip on this. I think their existing Elite program already gives 20% discount.

I used to buy new all the time but I don't hang onto games anymore, so I just consider buying used as a long redbox rental.

Should have expected this, when Best Buy Canada discontinued their GCU program, and Best Buy has been seriously lacking in the video game trade-in department.

I think we can all safely assume Amazon's discount will be gone as well. They have been having problems stocking even physical copies.

We'll have to do a post-mortem for the best deals once the fallout clears. I'm guessing Target's 5% RedCard will be the best deal for new games. Amazon also has a Store card that gives 5%. That's not taking into account any specific retailer pre-order bonuses that sway a gamer one way or the other. I think for the most frugal of us, like myself, buying used with TC at GS is gonna save the most, but we'll see. I enjoy not paying 7% tax when using TC.


Chuck Stank said:
Lol, physical games aren’t going away, like ever.
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As long as there are people like you and me brother, this is true. We'll keep physical in business.

No way I'm downloading 50GB game, or giving up consumer rights for "convenience".

 
You have to wonder if Best Buy, at some point maybe later this year, will cancel all open GCU accounts and refund them.  I hope they don't since I just renewed until 2020, but it almost feels like the next step.

RIP GCU.

 
ck0 said:
No way I'm downloading 50GB game, or giving up consumer rights for "convenience".
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I like having physical games, too, but you don't bypass the storage issues by buying physical anymore. Every time I put in a new PS4 game I always have a 40gb dump of information plus whatever day one patch it comes with.

 
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The Dead Texan said:
I like having physical games, too, but you don't bypass the storage issues by buying physical anymore. Every time I put in a new PS4 games I always have a 40gb dump of information plus whatever day one patch it comes with.
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i think when he said downloading he was referring to how it takes a day to download a ps4 game even if your internet connection can do it in 45 minutes because sony bottlenecks it.

 
Tyrok said:
In case anyone was unaware. Games typically cost Best Buy between $45-47 a piece so they were already making almost nothing on any game sold with GCU. In fact, first party Nintendo games actually cost $48 so they are already losing a penny on all of those plus whatever it costs to ship them.
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It's kind of nuts that GCU went from being $120 for two years when first introduced down to $30. I wonder if it would've been more viable at a price point somewhere in the middle. I would've paid twice the usual asking price without batting an eye if I had to.

 
Sonicyogurt said:
It's kind of nuts that GCU went from being $120 for two years when first introduced down to $30. I wonder if it would've been more viable at a price point somewhere in the middle. I would've paid twice the usual asking price without batting an eye if I had to.
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$30 for 1-year seems okay
 
No one is talking about this: prior to GCU, Best Buy had great sales and right now they don’t really discount that much. With GCU ending maybe they’ll go back to more frequent / earlier game sales.

And for those who do still have an extended GCU benefit, that would be a special bonus.
 
coolduck said:
i think when he said downloading he was referring to how it takes a day to download a ps4 game even if your internet connection can do it in 45 minutes because sony bottlenecks it.
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The only time I've experienced this is peak hours or holidays. Most of the time I see my max internet speed used. Maybe it's a regional issue since my PS4 is a first gen piece of shit that randomly ejects games and sounds like it's going to explode when it plays any games.

 
Sonicyogurt said:
It's kind of nuts that GCU went from being $120 for two years when first introduced down to $30. I wonder if it would've been more viable at a price point somewhere in the middle. I would've paid twice the usual asking price without batting an eye if I had to.
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It was also free during certain promotions that people, ahem, kind of took advantage of.

 
awp said:
You don’t get charged on preorders until they ship, right? I was thinking of doing huge order just to lock in my GCU discounts but don’t want to get charged $1000 at once.
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If it's a debit card they'll do temporary holds. If the order is full of stuff that won't be out for awhile, they'll also keep doing holds every couple weeks or so, just to be sure. So if they bank is slow in releasing those funds, and you don't have a lot in the bank in the first place, it's possible to overdraft (assuming you have that "service"), and it's possible for Best Buy to get alert that there isn't enough money to cover the balance, canceling the order.

I think if you use paypal they'll immediately charge it, no matter what payment method is funding that paypal service.

If it's a credit card, there shouldn't really be a problem. They'll probably do a temp hold (though those are less common when using credit), but unless you have a shit credit line and never make payments, that shouldn't be a problem.

 
Only one game up for pre-order that I want.  Ugh...mine expires on the 24th.  Wanted to pre-order Madden for the brat....

I'm blaming Neuman.

 
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Thebacklash said:
The game developer themselves is not a good source.. as has been pointed out, the game itself sells physical and digital, but ALL DLC/Season pass/Loot box etc are all digital.... Thats a SUPER easy way to manipulate the numbers.

Digital sales are up i'll give you that, but 50%? i don't buy that just yet.

Many people like to resale the games when done or trade them back in after they beat that $60 game in 3 days... Digital you just can't do that.
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Yeah that's a good point. Earning calls are to fluff up the company's prospects to the investors, but you need to delve into the reports for the more meaningful points. The 40-50% number is what I commonly see floating around, though. I do think it will taper off (the full digital game downloads, excluding DLC and other digital content).

Just because it's trending, doesn't mean that it's going to shoot up to 100% conversion.

A second important point: publishers still need retailers in the sense that it helps them advertise and keep the mindshare. When you see a game on the shelf in the store, it's advertising. The companies are still competing for floor space. This is especially emphasized during new console releases.

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As for the next gen of consoles, I highly doubt Microsoft would be stupid enough to pull another stunt like they did that killed them with the Xbox One Reveal in 2013. They lost all marketshare; Sony is outpacing them with over 2:1 consoles units sold. It would have to be Sony that makes the move to eliminate physical (of which no doubt Microsoft would happily follow). With the shift to 4K, the size of games are going to be astronomical, which also means downloads would be ridiculous. I don't see Sony being stupid enough to eliminate physical, but history always shows it's the one on top that makes the stupidest mistakes.

 
Oh well. This sucks but I’ve been opting to spend $60 on digital just to avoid physical games in general. Only unless the physical to digital price was huge would I care enough to buy physical. I really only buy physical movies at this point. I’m good til the end of next year at least so I’ll savor the deals while I can.
 
I'm just hoping they honor it until subscriptions lapse. I only have 2 active preorders (tomb raider and DQ11), but am waiting to order octopath traveler, RDR2, KH3, Last of us 2, etc. Guess I should be proactive during these uncertain times.
 
The Dead Texan said:
I like having physical games, too, but you don't bypass the storage issues by buying physical anymore. Every time I put in a new PS4 game I always have a 40gb dump of information plus whatever day one patch it comes with.
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I have a monthly data cap I need to keep tabs on.

Installation from disc is also much faster. So if your storage ever gets full (and with an expanding library, it eventually will), I have no second thoughts about deleting a game I bought physically. A large digital game means I need to have second thoughts -- because of more downloading time and bandwidth considerations if I ever want to play that game again.

 
I hope I can pre order a Red Dead Redemption 2 special edition before they get rid of it. Mine expires in November, hope they allow it until then.
 
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It's soooo ironic that yesterday I was going to Gamestop to try to find something to use my $50 gift card on and was explaining to my wife why I hardly ever go to GS because of GCU at Best Buy. Why buy anything at GS when its almost always full price and you can get a discount at BB on day one? Then this news comes out today. SMDH

Like everyone else, my shopping with them will dramatically decrease once my membership runs out.

 
1. So this means the pre- gcu Good Old Days lots of jackass on here like to complain about should be coming back, right? “Best Buy stopped having good deals once gcu began!”

2. Lol x infinity at people saying “they didn’t have to cancel it, just raise the price!” Let me direct you to a recent Amazon Prime thread...

3. Cheapy dee or whatevertheshaq should be very pleased.

4. https://www.statista.com/statistics/190225/digital-and-physical-game-sales-in-the-us-since-2009/
 
If they are replacing it with a new program, I wonder what it would be. Maybe every however many so game purchases in one calendar year you get a free game. Like every 15 brand new games at retail price you buy you get a cert for a free game. Maybe that's too much. I'm too lazy to calculate what that'd cost them in relation to GCU.

Maybe a new program would simply just up the point bonuses. Like for for a $50 subscription you get increased points for certs or something.

 
Wow. And I just renewed my GCU literally yesterday.

Kept the POSA card, too, thinking just in case something went wrong......now it's going to end up a memento of a lost age.

R.I.P. Gamers Club Unlocked. You will forever be missed.

 
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