A lawsuit has been filed on the part of James Collins in regards to Gamestop 'deceptively promoting used sales'. The plaintiff walked into a Gamestop, purchased a USED copy of Dragon Age: Origins (54.99 versus the standard 59.99 MSRP) because it had advertised on the box 'Free DLC with purchase'. Purchasing the item, he played the game weeks later to discover that the game DID NOT offer free DLC, as the box stated. When he went to return his item to Gamestop, he found out that he could not and was stuck with a 54.99 purchase, followed up by him paying 15 dollars for said DLC. The content has been cited as the Stone Prisoner side quest with character Shale.

Typically, Bioware and EA have been promoting new sales of games like Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect 2, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 with free DLC downloads. And it has helped them get those sales. They also offer the same DLC that was packed free with these new copies for an MSRP price on their respective online services for those who purchased used copies of said games. After all, these companies spend lots of money to ensure that everything they sell has legal backing behind it.

First off, this guy walked into Gamestop, saw the USED copy sitting on the wall with the FREE DLC ad stamped upon it, as was a part of the game case's box art, and bought it with the pretense he was getting FREE DLC. It wasn't a sticker that could have easily been removed from the case. It was part of Dragon Age's cover art. However, the fine print reads 'good for one time use only' or something like that. That was his mistake: presuming that somebody who bought the game BRAND NEW and already got guaranteed the FREE DLC would opt to just not use it and sell the game back and let some random individual profit from that unused voucher. Now, if he had been misled by an associate who told him, 'oh yeah, the used game comes with the DLC just like the new one', then he might have had a case against Gamestop and the associate in question. But that wasn't the case here.

Secondly, Gamestop states explicitly their policy on their receipts: 'Any USED item purchased may be returned or exchanged within 7 days from purchase date; any item purchased that is defective may be exchanged for the same identical item within 30 days'. This individual waited 'weeks' before playing the game to discover the supposed FREE DLC was not free at all.

Thirdly, he states that Gamestop refused to return his item when 'weeks later', he discovered the item did not have everything that he expected. In other words, he tried to return an item for a refund outside of the stated return policy, as was listed on his receipt. Obviously, Gamestop was not obligated to do said refund.

All in all, is it just me or did this guy just make some foolish mistakes and take too long to rectify them? Although Gamestop may have had its issues with consumers on some instances, they were completely in the right in this case. What do you guys think?