"Trade in Your Physical Games at GameStop, Get Digital PC Games on Impulse"

[River_Rat_459]

GameStop is to begin offering digital PC game pre-orders in-store.

By Chris Pereira, 07/28/2011

It was inevitable that GameStop would eventually sell digital PC games from its retail stores after it took over Impulse earlier this year. The retailer today announced it will begin doing just that, starting with Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

It might not seem like a big deal on the surface. But doing this in-store opens the door for customers to easily trade in console and handheld games (or hardware) and use that credit to buy PC games on Impulse. That's a decidedly unique feature that Steam, Direct2Drive, GamersGate, and so on can't provide.

"This is a great illustration of how the digital distribution model and in-store experience really complement one another," said GameStop's digital distribution GM, Steve Nix. "We have seen great success selling DLC for console titles in our stores, so expanding on that model and helping customers discover digitally distributed PC games in stores is a natural fit."

A bonus offer for Human Revolution is in place to encourage people to try out this new method of shopping, which isn't entirely new because, as Nix points out, GameStop has been selling DLC for some time now. Besides promising immediate access to the game at launch (presumably by allowing customers to pre-load ahead of its release), pre-orders of the digital PC version will come with digital copies of the original Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition and its sequel, Invisible War, plus the Explosive Mission DLC pack.

The press release notes that it "will soon be many titles" that are available in this fashion.

SOURCE: http://www.1up.com/news/trade-in-phy...-games-impulse

[ASignorelli]

true, but you can never trade in downloaded games. :-)