GameStop to start publishing its own games, which you can then sell back to GameStop
GameStop is the world’s biggest retailer for video games that somehow lose their value faster than one of those “clean diesel” Volkswagens. But it has always been forced to suffer the indignity of selling games made by other people. Much like a drug dealer or hot dog vendor at a baseball stadium, GameStop had to get its supply from another company before it could sell the product to consumers, holding it back from monopolizing the entire video game making/buying/selling cycle. Now, though, GameStop has officially announced a new corporate division called GameTrust that will publish and market new video games, allowing the retail arm to suck up the profits like that vacuum cat from the beloved Xbox classic Blinx: The Time Sweeper.
According to an Associated Press report, GameTrust has lined up publishing deals with four developers: Trine studio Frozenbyte, God Of War: Chains Of Olympus developer Ready At Dawn, Deadlight developers Tequila Works, and Ratchet & Clank’s Insomniac Games. The plan is for GameTrust to publish smaller, budget-priced titles and release them at quieter times of the year than the big publishers tend to, which means it’ll probably avoid every month from September to January.
The first game to be released as part of this program will be Insomniac’s Song Of The Deep, a Metroid-style side-scrolling adventure about a girl in a submarine. It’ll be available on July 12, at which point used copies will drop in value by about 50 percent. You might be able to get a sweet deal on a strategy guide or Game Informer subscription if you pre-order it, though