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GameStop's new and used game sales policy could be considered "deceptive"

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Dallas-based attorney Mark Methenitis has told Law of the Game that GameStop's policy of selling opened games as new may be "deceptive".

Kotaku claimed yesterday that Gamestop was taking discs from new games before putting them on shelves - presumably to prevent theft - but that staff were allowed to take them home to play.

Dodgy? Methenitis thinks so.

"From a legal standpoint, ignoring any pragmatic analysis, it certainly seems that way from the letter of the law. Certainly, it's something the FTC could investigate, but more practically, it may be a matter for state deceptive trade practices law," he wrote.

"In Texas, for example, it is a deceptive trade practice if you are 'representing that goods are original or new if they are deteriorated, reconditioned, reclaimed, used, or secondhand.'"

Methenitis said that GameStop is not "as nefarious as many people seem to think it is" but in theory it is deceptive.

You can read the full back and forth on all of this through the links.

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Stephany Nunneley-Jackson

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Stephany is VG247’s News Editor, with 22 years experience (with 15 of them at VG247). With a brain that lacks adhesive ducks, the ill-tempered, chaotic neutral fembot does her best to bring you the most interesting gaming news. She is also unofficially the site’s Lord of the Rings/Elder Scrolls Editor.

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