GameStop is Launching a Game Rental Subscription Service
GameStop, the video game store that has fallen from grace in the era of digital downloads, will start offering a subscription rental program. For $60, subscribers will have the ability to rent as many pre-owned games as they want, so long as they only rent one game at a time. The subscription, called PowerPass, lasts for six months at a time, and will include one free game to keep at the end of the subscription period. To join the rental subscription service, users must sign up for GameStop’s Power-Up Rewards program. That program has a free tier, which makes users eligible for the rental subscription. The program will launch in November 19
Total Retail's Take: This move by GameStop has been necessitated by the growth in digital downloads of video games, which have skyrocketed in recent years. The $7.5 billion digital video game market has significantly eaten into GameStop's marketshare, and the retailer needed to find a way to reverse this trend. In addition to offsetting lost revenues to digital game downloads through a recurring subscription service, PowerPass will enable GameStop to leverage its extensive pre-owned game inventory. The retailer is trying to find a way to capitalize on an existing asset, its game inventory, while catering to consumers’ wants for more game options without the fixed cost of buying the game.
