Home Gaming The “White Label” debacle – Official Response

The “White Label” debacle – Official Response

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promocopy

Earlier today I was browsing the local PS3 Forums and came across a thread about White Label games and the legality around them.

The thread has now been locked as it seemed to drift into the personal accusation stage which is never pretty but it did raise an interesting point that has been cleared up for me by one of the local distributors.

Okay so you see that image above? Well that is what we class as a “White label” title and it is normally what the reviewers are given to work with. The game is 100% complete but it doesn’t come with a nice box or manuals or any of that good stuff.

Now the question was raised whether you can sell these or not. Well take a look at the full picture and let me know what you think.

promocopy

As you can see it clearly states that this disc is Not For Sale in pretty much every language required.

The next question was whether or not it is legal or ethical to give them away in competitions. I put my big fat foot forward and said I disagree with giving them away and that while it may be legal I didn’t like it.

Well I have been duly chastised by a distributor and informed that it is firstly completely illegal to sell White Labels, but we knew that and then secondly perfectly legal to give away white labels… Which I suspected.

However they also raised a valid point, and bare with me while I put words in their mouth here. Each distributor is given a limited amount of marketing cash from the main international distributors and with this they need to do the normal advertising as well as building hype around the games.

One of the best ways to build hype is by engaging with the community and running competitions to give away prizes, seeing that White Label games work perfectly and are perfectly legal then there really is no point in not giving them away.

99% of people who win games are happy with their winnings and the few who would rather not have won the title should not have entered to be perfectly honest.

Gaming is an incredibly expensive hobby and we really shouldn’t look a gift distributor in the mouth.

*Please note the fact that the game above is a PS3 game or Soul Calibur means nothing. These White Label titles apply to all the consoles and all the distributors.

Last Updated: December 4, 2008

17 Comments

  1. Scotty777

    December 4, 2008 at 14:09

    ha ha ha… ok? so what really is the point of this? I mean, how do you debate around 2 points being:
    1) you can’t sell them
    2) you can give them away

    Reply

  2. LazySAGamer

    December 4, 2008 at 14:19

    It’s a community service announcement 🙂

    Reply

  3. Scotty777

    December 4, 2008 at 14:34

    ah… ok:D. that explains it i guess… (sorry if i antagonized you there lazy)

    Reply

  4. Inferno888

    December 4, 2008 at 14:48

    I’m won’t complain, I’ll take as many White Label games as you can give!!! 😀

    Reply

  5. ewie

    December 4, 2008 at 14:54

  6. ewie

    December 4, 2008 at 14:57

    And.

    http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080612-judge-record-labels-cant-stop-sale-of-promotional-cds.html

    Now in south africa it may be illegal (Don’t know law here) – but not in the usa.

    Reply

  7. spl0it

    December 4, 2008 at 15:45

    I would buy it at a hugely discounted price

    Reply

  8. PO7H3AD

    December 4, 2008 at 17:15

    It really isn’t ethical to sell the game considering reviewers get the game for free in the first place.

    Reply

  9. xyber

    December 4, 2008 at 17:44

    I dont think its neceseraly the reviewers who try to sell it, they normally give it away in competitions. All this was triggered when a lot of white label games that was won was being auctioned off on ps3za.co.za . Think there was two copies of the latest MotorStorm which people won on ps3blog.co.za .

    As Lazy said, these people should not have entered i the first place if they did not really want the game. Lot of other players would have loved to get their hands on a copy in the competition that these guys are no trying to sell off.

    So, how lega is it to trade these white lable games for another game?

    Reply

  10. BHW

    December 4, 2008 at 17:51

    So thats why LBP sales are’nt as expected its all those review copies being flogged

    Reply

  11. LazySAGamer

    December 4, 2008 at 21:24

    Good question, I would guess that trading is perfectly legal but who would trade a White Label for a retail copy?

    I don’t think there are any laws that cover trading to be honest

    Reply

  12. trin

    December 5, 2008 at 08:47

    Where does it say in that Motorstorm competition that the prize is a white label copy? Infact – I have NEVER read in any game competition that only a promo copy will be given away! I think all of us entered expecting a retail copy as a prize. I still think distributors are cheapskates for not giving away retail copies as prizes

    Reply

  13. DarkOcean

    December 5, 2008 at 10:15

    Trin I think you may have a point perhaps going forward all competitions should state whether its a retail copy or a white label copy.

    And I dont think its cheapskate at all it means more competitions and promos can be had. Would you rather have a better chance at winning or smaller chance?

    Reply

  14. LazySAGamer

    December 5, 2008 at 12:03

    I half agree…

    A comp should state if it’s a promo copy but you also need to be aware that the sites themselves (or magazines) often don’t see the prizes personally and don’t know.

    We will now verify every prize going forward and make sure we state it.

    On the second point I answered it in the post, free games are free games after all

    Reply

  15. xyber

    December 6, 2008 at 10:59

    Oh, sorry. I assumed that those games where from the recent motorstorm compo as the auctions on the ps3 forum poped up a few days after that and the sellers mentioned it was copies they won and did not want.

    Reply

  16. Wolfy

    December 8, 2008 at 15:53

    i wish i knew a game tester that could give me white label games lol

    Reply

  17. EchoZA

    December 8, 2008 at 17:12

    I used to get the PS2 review copies, when done with them I would give them away…

    Reply

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