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GameStop has admitted to pulling Deus Ex: Human Revolution off shop shelves after finding a voucher for streaming games service OnLive inside it.
Publisher Square Enix revealed on Tuesday that copies of the latest Deus Ex title in the US would include vouchers to access the same game via OnLive.
Whilst the move seemed a good idea for consumers – the idea being that if they discovered the game couldn’t play on their PC, they could still access it online – GameStop wasn’t so keen.
The retailer is developing its own streaming service and responded by sending emails out to staff, first instructing them to remove vouchers, then another telling them to take the game off shelves.
Acquired by various sites including Ars Technica, the first email read:
“Please immediately removed and discard the On Live coupon from all the regular PC versions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Our desire is not to have this coupon go to any customers after its announcement.”
Then they received the second instruction:
“"At this time please pull all regular PC editions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and place them in your backroom. These will be recalled at a later date. As GameStop is developing a streaming service in our Spawn Labs Cloud Computing Division, the coupon that was included is for a competing service. We are returning all copies of the PC regular edition to the vendor in agreement with Square Enix.”
Square Enix itself said it respected the rights of GameStop to remove the voucher: “As part of Deus Ex: Human Revolution’s boxed offering on PC, Square Enix included a third party coupon. GameStop was not made aware of this inclusion and Square Enix respects the right of GameStop to have final say over the contents of products it sells and to adjust them where they see fit in accordance with their policies.”
