EBGames – The Art of Successful PR and Marketing
by DarkAmarda:
©2008 Lee Edgerton
We’ve all heard about the recent “leak” of an employee close to the relationship between EB Games and Microsoft. If you haven’t, you can read up about it here. Basically there was a claim that, to cut a long story short, Microsoft had essentially given EB Games the cold shoulder in regards to $10 million worth of “faulty consoles” that were pending to be returned / repaired by Microsoft.
The next day, EB responded and announced that all was well between the two giants in gaming. Even announcing the outrageous claims as “99% bullshit” by Steve Wilson, Chief Executive at EB. On the face of it, cased closed, no?
Well, coming with the first announcement of the strain, the interwebs lit up like a Christmas tree. Many gamers became worried that EB Games could no longer meet the agreement set out by their originally purchased extended warranty or “ESA”, meaning that instead of benefiting from a console swap over, users experiencing issues with their consoles would have to work directly with Microsoft and essentially, lose the value of their $85 purchase.
Emerging from this mayhem was the option for those experiencing issues (and not able to exchange their faulty consoles with an equivelant Arcade or Pro SKU) to upgrade their faulty consoles and pay the difference to earn themselves an Elite. In the face of an apparent “Pro Console” shortage, many users rushed the gates at EB to take advantage of this excellent value offer. This seemed to be a gift from above, take in their dead Xbox 360 Arcades or Pros and upgrade them to Elites. I mean, EB are already losing out and according to this announcement, they won’t be selling Xbox anymore, right?
Well, with a high ranking executive practically debunking this claim only 24 hours after, the fires were put out and it seems that in reality, EB Games was just experiencing a shortage of consoles, but this doesn’t remove the doubt from the minds of loyal EB gamers. Then, as if conveniently timed, Thursday night, 6.30pm, Channel 7 – Today Tonight airs a story about reliability of some of our more entertaining devices focusing on, you guessed it, the Xbox 360.
One of their interviewee’s, Andrew Rogers, had suffered the blight of both a faulty Xbox 360 and an iPod. Working his way through four faulty Xbox 360 consoles, his view was -
“There are so many people out there who are so much worse off. I’m only on my fourth and I’ve been compensated by EB games. But not Microsoft? Microsoft just gave me the finger…”
Really? Compensated by EB Games? To be perfectly honest, this claim is one of the more difficult things to understand. Here in Australia, generally speaking, the Microsoft Service team is responsive and quick to get your console back to you. In some cases, with less than a week turn around (far better than our US friends). This is along side the numerous examples of in article advertisement for EB Games.
So, just to give a recap, in two days there has been almost damning (and strangely convincing) evidence of a rift between Microsoft and EB. Then on the following day, the announcement is that all is well, nothing to see here. But only hours later, a story is aired on Today Tonight with positive reinforcement that EB Games will replace your console, neigh, take extra special care of you. This is all accompanied by increased sales of the Elite (which was strangely in stock while the Pro and Arcades weren’t).
Am I calling foul? Well, of course not. This is just an excellent example of EB Games flexing their PR muscle in what is nothing but an elaborate publicity stunt aimed at making a few extra dollars from their loyal customers fear. When swapping your faulty Pro console for an Elite, you essentially pay the difference, generally around $80. Sure, $80, so what? Well just remember, EB Games then take your faulty console and after returning it to Microsoft, come back with a perfectly good “brand new” console which they can then resell – at full price.
And we all wonder why they are #1 in Australia.
©2008 Lee Edgerton
Filed under: Console gaming, Hardware News, Microsoft Games Tagged: | $10 million, Channel 7, EB games Australia, EB Games loses $10 million, MS refuses hand back, Today Tonight
Yeah – I’ve never trusted store based extended warranty agreements. 3rd party backed warranties are fine, but not just “give us $$$ and we will help you in case something happens”.
This is just a pure coffer filler for the store. In this case, it’s backfired pretty badly for EB, although, it doesn’t cost them anything to take back your faulty unit and replace it for a brand new one…
Again, it’s just free money for them.
Comment. well… Ive had to go through the horror that is the EB ESA. when my first xbox died during its first year. EB refused to deal with me saying “the ESA only complies in the 2nd year of use” For 2 months the store kept telling me this, until my xbox officially died, and then I started to have to work to get my replacement.
I called about half the stores in Victoria, and pretended that I bought my console from their store on Launch and will they replace my console with the ESA?
about 60% of the stores said they would replace, and 40% said they wont. Anyway I wrote down the name of each person that said they would replace it. And I went down to my local store with the list. They still of course said they cant do it. Until I said I wont leave the store basically. Then they finally call Head Office who gives them the go ahead.
Finally I got a replacement phew.
-Whats worse is I got sucked into buy a EB PS3 warranty for $130!!!! – waste of $$ i think now.