Try this little experiment in a Gamestop store then. Buy a game that you know you're going to keep anyway, making sure it's a sealed copy. Open it right after you buy it, then tell the cashier you just changed your mind and you no longer want the game. See what they say. I did this just to prove a point the one time during the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube gen.
I was told (and I quote), "Once you open a game it's no longer new, it's used. You can trade it in for store credit."
Yet when the stores employees open it to make a display copy it's still somehow "new"? Fuck that. Opening it makes it USED, whether I open it or they open it.
Target and Best Buy both use those magnetically sealed security cases for their higher priced games to keep the boxes on display with live product inside. For the $19.99 and under ones they typically forgo the security cases. Heck. Even Toys R Us used to have dummy cases with black DVD type cases with printed up 'not for resale/display' artwork in the plastic sleeve on those cases. Before that system they simply had a printed up artwork in a plastic sleeve with a bunch of paper slips that you took to the register to get a SEALED copy of a game.
So if these other retailers can, did and do these sort of things why does Gamestop do it in a way that causes a new copy or copies of games to be opened to make display cases?
Yeah there literally is no difference between that. But the thing is with Gamestop is they don't do it like that anymore. They use to only have one out as a display copy and now they seem to open every single one except for the high ticket games. ---