Rumor: GameStop, Steam and the Dawn of War II Mystery

dow2Man. Every time I think I’m starting to like GameStop a little more than I used to, they go ahead and do some foolish thing that reminds me why I constantly campaign against them in the first place. On top of overcharging for used video games, it seems the video game retail chain may now be blocking certain games due to their association with Steam.

Yes, you read that correctly. Kotaku is reporting that Dawn of War II pre-orders were recently removed from the company’s website, and the stores themselves are no longer taking pre-orders either. Why? A source close to the situation claims that it has to do with Dawn of War II being packaged with a mandatory install of Steam.

Once again, this is a rumor, but if it’s true, it’s just beyond me. It’d be one thing if it installed a Best Buy promotional offer, but GameStop, contrary to what it thinks, is NOT in a war against digital distributors. To me, anyone that was going to purchase games online is someone that you’re not losing brick-and-mortar sales to. I guess nobody told GameStop that digital distribution is the way of the future.

This is the corporate equivalent of “I’m going to take my ball and go home”. So what do you guys think?

Source- Kotaku