Before I even clicked on this story I thought "well, wouldn't that prevent issues from the game's reliance on a physical book?" Sure enough, that's the reasoning.  So this makes total sense.

Ideally, each and every GameStop would inspect the books upon trade-in and make sure to keep one book allocated for each game in stock.  But, what's more likely: that actually happening, or people accidentally being sold a game they can't finish and the sh*t storm that would follow?

If people want to sell their game (and book!), since there is no 3DS used-game blocking, there's always eBay!

Assuming this book is used for AR purposes? Its not like someone couldn't go online and find a scanned copy of the book. Over half of the AR cards for Kid Icarus were scanned and online after all.

I like how the makers of this game have come up with a very ingenious and original method to crack down on used game sales, without resorting to the cheap and predictable methods of using things like single use codes and things like that. Kudos to them.

With all fairness, the Kid Icarus AR Cards are purely optional and doesn't affect the ability to complete the game, unlike the Spirit Camera book, which is required to play through it. I wonder if Gamestop's system has a prompt that comes up when they get games that requires an accessory of some sort, like Guitar Hero on the DS with its guitar grip.

Except I've read about gamestop selling other DS games over the years as used that had some other book, cards, whatever that apparently was required to play/complete game fully, but seemed to have no problem selling the game used without those items.

It is extremely likely that the problems they had selling similar items in the past is what caused them to not sell it now. Good for them for saving their employees needless headaches.

Why, exactly, would this be infuriating? It's actually quite thoughtful and reasonable.

Because the game sucks and they want to get rid of it?

Yeah, I know (Should've phrased it better), since I remember seeing a couple of "Master of Illusion" carts banded up with a deck of cards as well (although I don't know WHAT they are used for since I don't play the game). Since they usually just throw the game into a disc sleeve, they should be able to just throw the book in there as well. Maybe since a book is much more fragile than a guitar grip or a tilt sensor cart, it's too big a risk to get it traded in.

Didn't stop GameStop from selling me the demo version of Minish Cap as a full game.

@Chozo Ghost
@ResettisCousin

+1

@joshnickerson

Really? Wow.  But that's exactly why they need rules like this to prevent that kind of stupidity!

Somehow I find this to be depressing. It's like a foretelling of used games to never be sold again one day..