EB: Play Haze for a week, then get your money back

by Scott Jon Siegel on Mar 12th 2008 10:30AM

In what's bound to be one of the most bizarre trade-in deals ever, EB Games in Canada is offering a unique deal for customers who pre-order the PS3 FPS Haze: they can return it a week later for a full refund.

The deal, as seen on their website, states that customers who pre-order the Ubisoft game will be able to pick it up on the release date and play it for a full week, then be able to sell the used game back to EB for full retail price. The deal only applies if the game, case and manual are kept in good condition, and if the game is returned within a week of purchase.

If we were Sony or Ubisoft, we would be less than thrilled with this promotion, which seems to suggest that Haze is only worth a week's investment of time. Then again, a sale is a sale, and maybe more Canadians will be tempted to purchase the title, if they know ahead of time that they don't have to keep it.

Source

Tags: eb, ebgames, haze, PS3, ubisoft

Reader Comments (56)

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Looks like they're just going to sell them, take them back for instore credit,w hich means they get your money on another game anyways and then resell the game for the huge profits that come with used games. Pretty smart if you ask me. Be interesting to see how this affects profits.

Obviously, more Haze sales and returns should occur, but more people will probably buy the used copies for $10 less and EB will make 100% profit on the used sale. They should also get a sizeable increase in pre-sales, giving them a nice influx of money from the money down on the pre-order, which they are then free to invest for more profit. Finally, you have to trade in Haze for in store credit, meaning you need to buy something else. If it's a new game, EB gets the small profit from that. If it's a used game, EB gets 100% profit off that and the returned Haze they will just resell again. Retail games are very small profits, as many reports show the used game market being the top dollar getter for Gamestop and the like. I'd wager if they did this with a more popular game, they'd see some ridiculous profits.

It about fcking time some retailer started to do returns but this is a one time gimmick so screw them, i want my right of return back you bastards!

im confused by some of your responses..as a gamestop employee
I see it as this

Gamestop buys this game for say 55..54 bucks.....maybe 56
Gamestop Sells you Your game for say 63.59 after tax.
You bring it back 5 days later and get 63.59 back. NOW, you get that $ and buy GTA4 new.

I know they will then move this item to USED and sell it for 54.99.

they spent 112 on GTA4+haze.
sold them combined (the 1 used copy(haze) and 1 a new copy(gta4)
and then get 115.
a Measily 3 dollar profit after buying the games. they could not do this..and make 5 bucks more..nearly double the profit on what they get from you. but they are willing to break Even on haze.

HOW is this ripping you the consumer off? If this works well this could become something more common....