Best Buy GCU is being Discontinued?

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No wonder why their sales have been utter garbage lately

This is incredibly stupid because this was the main reason so many still do business with them. For other electronics, even though they're cheaper elsewhere, I would buy at BB knowing I'd get even more rewards to spend on gaming. No gaming, no incentive to shop there for anything.

Used to spend $3-5k per year, easily, and half of that was gaming. Now they're gonna get...$15? When my GCU expires in November, that is.

Why don't you just hand the torch over to Amazon. Wrap it up in a pink bow.
 
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MilesDP5 said:
20% off everything (even older games already marked down) was probably not the best idea to begin with. I'd be alright with a system that gave 20% discounts to preorders. But if GCU is completely gone then BB is about to lose a massive amount of sales.
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That's their fault for lowering the price so much. It used to be 120 and worth it. I knew this wasn't sustainable when it went to 30.
 
Sucks, but honestly, we’re (mostly) all pretty patient people here. This may save us even more money in the long run, we just won’t get games as quickly.
Which isn’t really a huge deal for most of us, as we have backlogs that stretch further than the universe itself.
 
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I don’t think they’d let it run past 2018, forget 2020,2021,2022,and 2023, most people who abused GCU are already members till 2030
They won’t honor past this year, but question is, will the guys who have paid $15 for 2 years be honored...most likely not, BBY is taking a tip,from GS
 
Helldweller87 said:
Well i am still good till Nov of 2019. With this happening i may even stop using my BB visa i have as well. It doesn't seem as good with not having GCU combined with Certs.
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Definitely something I'll be thinking about as well. I have a Sony Rewards credit card around here somewhere so I might switch to using that for most of my purchases.

 
Obligatory:

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I guess we should have seen this coming when they stopped doing trade-in deals which is when I quit buying from them unfortunately. I miss the good ol’ days.
 
I'm a little concerned with the reply someone posted by best buy.. "At this time, current members still get the discount."  I can totally get why they would get rid of the program but that would be pretty low to take it away from people who have an active subscription.  The best we can hope for is that they continue to honor the discount until all GCU's expire.

 
It seems like Best Buy is in the death spiral.  They went through a silly logo rebranding exercise.  They got rid of CDs to use the floor space for stuff no one wants.  And now they are cutting very popular programs to try to save some money.  It's a death spiral because the more stuff they cut to save money, the more it drives away the customers they need to make money.

CompUSA, Circuit City and Toys-R-Us all went down too.  Best Buy was the only good physical store to buy games at.  I don't consider Gamestop to be a good option.  If Wal-Mart or Target were smart, they would use this opportunity to start their own "gamers" club with a reasonable annual fee (~$60) and a good discount on video games.  It would drive traffic into their stores and people would likely buy other stuff at Wal-Mart or Target.

 
My sub expires on 5/27 and I was planning to renew when I get paid next Friday, *sigh*.
I guess I'll just buy up some games I've been sleeping on instead and maybe put in a few pre-orders in the hopes that they'll still honor the discount when the games are released. :???:

 
Screenshot_2018_5_19_Best_Buy_Support_on_Twitter.png


Looks like those of us with time left to our GCU (2 years for me), it will function as usual, with no changes, until it expires. It only affects those who's GCU already expired.  No new renewals. 

And while it is within their right to cancel at any time, as stated in their Terms and Conditions, it would alienate their customer base...and by alienate, I mean mightily piss off their members.  Most wouldn't sign up to any new program, or rarely shop there again. 

It would be fair and reasonable to let those who already renewed keep the usual benefits until it expires, and then move forward from there within the parameters of any future program. 

 
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SmileyMcSmiles said:
Screenshot_2018_5_19_Best_Buy_Support_on_Twitter.png


Looks like those of us with time left to our GCU (2 years for me), it will function as normal until it expires.
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If that’s the case, lucky for people that have it until 2020 or later. I’m guessing support doesn’t know much ‘yet’ though. Could just be what they’re telling people until they figure it all out.

When they see their video game sales drop drastically, I’m sure they’ll reimplement some sort of discount program, but I doubt it will be 20%.
 
DaShaka said:
If that’s the case, lucky for people that have it until 2020 or later. I’m guessing support doesn’t know much ‘yet’ though. Could just be what they’re telling people until they figure it all out.

When they see their video game sales drop drastically, I’m sure they’ll reimplement some sort of discount program, but I doubt it will be 20%.

Possibly. Or they could go the Amazon route and only utilize 20% off for pre-orders only and no bonus RZ Certificates. Maybe after the pre-order window ends, it will be 10% off new games from there. Which wouldn't be too bad. But who really knows?

One thing I do expect 100%, if there is a new membership program, it will definitely cost more. ;)
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DaShaka said:
If that’s the case, lucky for people that have it until 2020 or later. I’m guessing support doesn’t know much ‘yet’ though. Could just be what they’re telling people until they figure it all out.

When they see their video game sales drop drastically, I’m sure they’ll reimplement some sort of discount program, but I doubt it will be 20%.
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As long as they don't try to bundle it up with Total Tech Care like rumors I read. That sub is $200/year alone already.

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I went ahead and preordered KH3. I see they took down the RDR2 and Last of us 2 pages, which sucks. Only other game I want to preorder is Octopath traveler, but I'm holding out for the $10 savings code from buying one of those gift cards. Hope it lasts until then.
 
Best Buy also stopped allowing purchases of PSN/eshop/etc. credit when using a BB gift card recently. Closing all bargain loopholes and alienating their CAG customers... I probably won't shop there again until Black Friday.

 
BB forums and reddit both saying that benefits will remain intact until your GCU expires. We will see.


You’re a member through
Feb. 9, 2022.
 
DaShaka said:
When they see their video game sales drop drastically, I’m sure they’ll reimplement some sort of discount program, but I doubt it will be 20%.
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Only if it actually causes profits to drop. As others have pointed out, the GCU price on many games was almost the wholesale price for BB. Add in overhead and ten thousand angry gamers no longer buying 20% off games might be breaking even or even a blessing.

 
This will hit my Switch library the hardest. GCU was the only thing that took the sting away from Nintendo games that NEVER drop in price.

Have fun trying to unload $60 copies of “ARMS” for the next few years, BestBuy 🤣
 
People were saying that games were going digital-only back in 2013 and how did that turn out?  Sure digital sales are on the rise but physical media ain't going anywhere as long as people keep buying it.  Blu-rays and 4K UHD are a good example.  Maybe it'll become more niche.  But five years later physical game sales are still quite substantial and most gamers like us want to own their products, both for their collections and for resale purposes.  It's not going to stop until Sony and MS stops including a disc drive in their systems.  I just don't see these companies alienating their customers when they have the option to not do so.  It's still a competition afterall. 

I can promise you on the day that happens that new game sales are going to absolutely plummet.  Yeah Steam is digital only.  The last time I paid full price for a game on Steam was......I can't tell you because I honestly can't even remember.  Maybe never?  I don't pay full price for digital.  I don't even buy new release digital games.   I have my Humble Monthly subscription and that's about it.  Because for a large portion of the gaming population there is no immediacy to pay anything close to full price for digital games. 

Like others have said, maybe when PS6 comes out they decide to go full-digital.  I don't see it happening unless Microsoft drops out of the console business entirely (which is a real possibility).  But Sony execs know what got them to the forefront of the competition in the first place.  Nintendo fans also know that the company can't be trusted with a completely digital library either.  They flock to buy physical games party due to Nintendo's very poor digital ownership management.

Think of your giant backlogs.  You never would have bought those games digitally unless you were planning on playing them right away.  All those $15-25 clearance game sales go bye-bye. 

 
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Best Buy Corporate Offices:

8402 Penn Ave.

South Richfield, MN 48393

Everyone book your plane tickets now, our riot goes down tomorrow 1:00 P.M. til the time we get GCU back up and running. Try your best to get your pitchforks through airport security. Make posters on the plane ride.  

Thank you,

Your Leader

 
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The site says I'm a GCU member through February 2023. I don't remember paying for it for that long though - maybe it was some kind of mistake in my favor at checkout. 

Has there been anything to indicate they'll cancel memberships that are that far out? 

 
tomwaits1 said:
Best Buy also stopped allowing purchases of PSN/eshop/etc. credit when using a BB gift card recently. Closing all bargain loopholes and alienating their CAG customers... I probably won't shop there again until Black Friday.
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When the hell did that happen?! I JUST picked up a gift card I was planning to flip for Steam credit...
 
teharistocrat said:
In trying to renew my own sub, and buy a friend a sub, I got reupped to 2023. I can only pray they honor it til then. Maybe I'll squeak in FF7 Remake by then...
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a hahaha yeah the registers are going to be giving YOU 20% off of new game purchases in 2021. Yeah nope. You aren't thinking clearly.

 
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Sakura3210 said:
When the hell did that happen?! I JUST picked up a gift card I was planning to flip for Steam credit...
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Maybe 2-3 weeks ago. I want to say this month though.

Oh, and the max value you can have on a giftcard is $200. Same applies for those variable ones that go from $25-$500.
 
Staind204 said:
I'm a little concerned with the reply someone posted by best buy.. "At this time, current members still get the discount." I can totally get why they would get rid of the program but that would be pretty low to take it away from people who have an active subscription. The best we can hope for is that they continue to honor the discount until all GCU's expire.
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When I purchased GCU for the first time over four years ago for $60 I knew very well they could end this program at any time. It was right there in the info when you signed up. You should have known as well. It was a good run while it lasted, and historically GCU will go down as the best deal of all-time.

My best guess is they allow active memberships the 20% discount through the end of the year and then cancel the discount application. I have no idea what they are going to do with people who bought multiple 2yr extensions, but I imagine that they'll get compensated in some form.

 
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If you really want to get down to brass tacks, the whole reason people bought multiple 2year extensions is that they knew the program price could have been increased or that it could have been cancelled or modified at any time.

 
I'm good till June 2021, sucks its ending but figured it would at some point. I find it odd people want to boycott after this announcement who else gives you rewards points/credit for buying things? Sometimes the discount somewhere else is better so I buy elsewhere but I'll keep buying TV's, movies and games from them till they don't do rewards anymore the GCU was kind of icing on the cake imo. 

 
Many others do rewards points etc. CC that doesn't restrict you to one store...

Hell GS does rewards as well.

Most of my rewards from BB is from game purchases anyway, rarely do I buy anything not game related there. Now I have zero reason past my GCU end date.

Nintendo hardest hit, once GCU ends... My Switch purchases die.

 
Good point I guess you can use a credit card if they have something similar my PS credit card gives me some benefits nothing on all purchases that I remember though. Amazon did start doing some type of rewards/cash back program recently I'll have a look at that. 

 
As someone who dropped GCU because it was causing me to buy too many games I normally would have waited on, I'm happy because this means Best Buy should start doing better overall deals (as opposed to deals that are really only good if you have GCU).  To those who still have subscriptions, if Best Buy doesn't outright cancel / refund, you guys should be getting some really good stacking deals.

 
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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I'm wondering...are these sources stating that 50% of their revenue is from digital sales of games or does that include all digital sales (loot crates, dlc, etc.)? That would be a huge difference.

 
paulwekiva said:
I'm wondering...are these sources stating that 50% of their revenue is from digital sales of games or does that include all digital sales (loot crates, dlc, etc.)? That would be a huge difference.
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This is what he's not grasping. He's posting info from company earnings calls, where they would indeed include all digital sales, including dlc/loot boxes to prop up numbers.

 
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