In the world of Deus Ex it's the pro-augmentation crowd versus the precious bodily fluids-ish "purists" that would like to leave well enough alone. A similar battle is happening between online and retail game distribution, and GameStop is exactly in the thick of things. The retailer just got caught red-handed issuing orders to its employees to remove coupons for the OnLive version of Deus Ex: Human Revolution from brand new PC copies of the game.
According to a GameStop representative, speaking to GameSpy, "Square Enix packed the competitor's coupon with our DXHR product without our prior knowledge and we did pull and discard these coupons." This makes a bit of sense -- GameStop has its own online distribution platform (Impulse, bought earlier this year), and it has balked at tie-ins with Steam in the past. Still, tons of titles have Xbox Live Arcade "coupons" that go along with the game... isn't that a "competitor" as well in this sense? Besides, the model of buying a physical copy of a game and getting the OnLive version for free reminds us of a similar model that's working surprisingly well for vinyl of late.