Slashdot Mirror
Spy Girl In Game Stores
1up.com has a great feature up detailing the exploits of a young woman they sent in to various game stores under the cover of a clueless girlfriend. The results are both informative and hilarious. From the article: "Spy: When are the new systems coming out? Clerk: Sony just came out with a new version of the PlayStation. It's smaller, more compact, that's about it. Xbox--they haven't mentioned anything about something new coming out."
I'm not meaning to troll or anything, but this just isn't that funny.
... let alone interesting to anyone but the idiot poster.
the quality of the answers probably is related to the labor available at minimum wage, rather than any kind of gender bias because the customer is female.
The only interesting thing about the article was that in four tries, they managed to find someone who worked in retail who wasn't a rude clueless prick.
I subscribe to EGM and this section with the exact same content came out months ago. In the corner of the section on the site it even says "*Interviews conducted before the PSP's release." So that just shows how outdated this is.
You can hardly laugh at the Clerks when nobody really knew about the next-gen consoles at the time
I'm not sure the clerk was actually clueless. Consider:
Clerk: the new PS3 and the new XBox/360 are both expected within the next few months.
Customer: ok, I'll keep my money in my pocket and come back some other time (maybe). Bye!
vs.
Clerk: well, there's this new, small Playstation that we have in stock, but I don't know of any plans for a new XBox.
Customer: cool, I'm going to pull out my wallet and buy one each of the machines you've got right now. Ring me up!
I mean, duh, these guys are trying to sell stuff, not keep you up-to-date with the latest industry gossip! If you go into a store and ask questions, you should expect to hear answers designed to separate you from your money. It's that simple.
Why is Zonk allowed to post?
That my girlfriend doesn't read /. I have a birthday coming up and would NEVER want her to get the idea to go to a store and talk to a clerk about games I might like (which is exactly what she would pull from this article!)
It helps if you picture Comic Book Store Guy while you read the article:
Spy: Can you surf the Web on any of these systems?
Clerk: No [clearly disgusted].
Spy: How about movies? Can I watch movies on any of them?
Clerk: [Deep, horrified sigh] Yes, but you'll need to buy an extra remote for the Xbox.
I found this informative and humorous.
While not scientific, it does bring to light the issue that those of us with clueless girlfriends or wives, or clueless boyfriends or husbands, or siblings, parents, etc. need to be concerned with.
Your family knows you like games, but to surprise you they might not ask you but some knucklehead retail guy. Perhaps trolling around town for a good game shop, and letting your family know which one to go to, or even better using something like an Amazon wish list, is highly recommended.
Unfortunately we all have friends and family who don't game, and this is what the first line of defense for information will likely be for them.
Oh, and Iwata had best get some good info out to retail clerks if they'll ever change anyone's opinion on Nintendo...
That article is extremely short and not really informative. Obviously a serious study would involve more than one random encounter at each store. People have bad days, or there are new hires, and that could be in effect here.
I work at one of those stores, and we aren't obligated to recommend anything that we ourselves wouldn't buy. There's a fine line between getting sales and taking advantage of people. Biased opinions are always going to exist in game retail, you don't need to play dumb to figure that out.
and it's the only console that can hook up to a PC (through the Xbox Media Center).
:)
The Xbox Media Center is a homebrew program requiring a softmod or modchip. They might have meant "Media Center Extender for the Xbox" (Microsoft product, works with Media Center PCs), but at least we know that 1UP.COM uses and endorses mod chips now
More and more game shops are hiring normal people. Back'in my day, only the nerdiest of the nerdy were fit to hock games. Just look at 'em now. Straight teeth, good complexion, boobs (and not man-boobs either, real honest to God female breasts). I tell ya it's a crying shame.
Seriously though it is annoying. I had a friend get told that Wild Arms Altercode F was out and the store just didn't have any copies. He wasted a bunch of time trying to hunt down a copy before checking online and finding out it doesn't ship till later this year. 5 years ago that didn't happen.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Did anyone else find it odd that none of the clerks had anything good (or factual) to say about Nintendo? Most of them stated blatant mistruths in favor of the PS2 and Xbox. The Toys 'R' Us guy made up a bunch of stuff about the PSP, the Best Buy clerk claimed that the GameCube is "for toddlers" and that Nintendo makes games for other systems, and the EBGames salesperson recommends the PSP hands down, no questions asked.
Is there a valid business reason for this, or is it just personal preference? I just find it odd that three out of four of them recommended anything but Nintendo. At my local game stores, most of the clerks at least try to figure out which console fits the customer's interest, rather than trying to sell them on one specific product. Maybe they get paid more commission for selling PS2s?
The quality of the answers was directly related to how dumb her questions were.
I used to work in retail, selling PCs, and I have to say that I quickly used a triage system for customers. Being asked a relevant and technically accurate question (ex: Does this machine have an AGP slot? or What kind of memory does this one use?) would get friendly and helpful service. Being asked a bizarre question (ex: How many bauds can I fit in this hard-drive? [to which I responded "All of them, if you buy the extended warranty."]) would get less helpful responses from me. Why?
Because customers who ask random noise questions like that have no fucking idea what they're talking about, but it is clear that they either think they do, or at least want to portray the idea that they do so they don't get taken advantage of. People who approach a purchase with that kind of idea are not going to take well to being (gently) corrected by the person they're asking the questions of. They will, almost universally, go and bitch to the manager that the salesperson was throwing all kinds of complex jargon around like "mouse" and "keyboard" around, trying to confuse them.
If I worked at a game store, and someone asked me about progressive scan and online gaming, I'd give them answers. If they asked me which one had more polygons, I'd make fun of them - I'll get bitched at anyway, might as well get to enjoy myself first.
So, their article showed that, if you act like a moron, you'll be treated like one. What a shock!
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
GF: All of the software is free?
Slashdot Guy: Why are you even at the installfest? Yeah, the software is free, as in Freedom. Unlike your spyware windows free beer shit. You can download an ISO image, or RPMs, or yum install, or apt-get, or compile from source.
GF: Um, could you explain what some of that means?
Slashdot Guy: (Big sigh) Oh for fsck's sake! Download it and RTFM. (under breath "Dumb bitch")
GF: RTFM? Isn't an installfest where I'm supposed to be able to ask questions?
Slashdot Guy: Yeah. If you're not a windows 'tard.
And still people persist in thinking of gamecube as a kiddy system.
Morons.
Vermifax
Logout
I have to say the the coverage of the Gamestop employee was right on: PS2 and XBox fanboys almost exclusively dominate. Rarely will an employee even consider that a Gamecube is worthy of anything other than contempt. It's clearly only designed for children. I find most tend to be in the XBox camp though. The number of Halo-junkie frat-boy gamers is pretty heavy. Now, finding PC gamers, people who respect the Gamecube for having a strong library, or someone who played anything before the PSX came out are increasingly rare.
On the other hand what can you really expect of minimum-wage earning teenagers who don't give a damn? Ever go into a Blockbuster and start asking them about a movie that doesn't feature explosions or *gasp* came out more than a year or two ago? It's like hitting a baby with a pipe wrench, but not nearly as much fun. Then again I'm lucky, my last two trips to my local video shop got me involved in a conversation about the French New Wave with one clerk and another gave me double punches on my card for picking up Friday the 13th (way to pick out the old-school loving horror fangirl).
If you want knowlegable employees who actually give a damn try shopping at a smaller, local game shop... though honestly I'll admit that they're very, very rare.
As I have been and continue to be an employee at EB, despite my better judgement, in a Canadian city, whose only competition are a single piss-ant local run video game store and the usual Wal-mart/Future Shop/Superstore trimunitive, I can say that we're the only place that does things like: Hey, I see you're buying a PS2/GC, I bet you'd like a memory card to save your progress. Or (and we had a 3 hour staff meeting about this one, so the new girl would learn this): if someone wants WoW, ensure they know it's on online only, pay-to-play game. Just because they hear it's shit hot, doesn't mean it's right for them.
Part of making "quality sales that last" is making sure you get as close to 0% returns as possible. That means you don't sell Shrek and an Xbox to someone's 6-y-o when they'd be better off with a GameCube. Perhaps the stores are mismanaged in your part of the world, but in Saskatchewan they are not, and our district is very strongly focusing itself on this.
Additionally, and unsatisfied customer is an unhappy, not returning customer. Anyone with sales experience knows this, and EB has a whole retail training program about it (not unlike Future Shop, or other places).
I worked at EB and I own over 400 video games. Ironically, I own no N-Gage games despite owning 2 N-Gage systems.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
You hired a new girl - good on you - but then you had to have a 3 hour meeting to explain something that should be patiently obvious to anyone working in a game store. Could you do me a favour and send out a chain-wide memo with notes from that meeting? It took me half an hour and two websites the other day to convince a guy that you have to pay for Final Fantasy 11 on the PS2, as those fine fellows at my local EB told him it was free - "They don't charge on consoles, only on PCs!".
As to your "quality sales that last" and "0% returns", what I hear from my customers is that the local EB does that by refusing them any returns whatsoever - even on unopened merchandise that hasn't left the store.
How exactly are these people kept happy again?
I don't need to be made to look evil. I can do that on my own. - Christopher Walken
First this is old news I got it in my EGM months ago. At that time it was kinda funny and points to a problem in customer service.
My wife shops for games and tech items sometimes. She is not dumb and know some about games and tech. But many times when she asks questions she get treated like she is stupid.
Some people are saying that its not clerks fault its just there job, but if I ran a store I would hire people that know about what they are selling or train them.
I admit that I get fustrated with people who cant tell a harddrive from a CD Rom but I dont let on that they are clueless and give them the help they need.
im sorry but thats no the way you do a objective critisism. also some of these places they work on commision so of course there going to hype the psp.
The fact is, I've seen with my own eyes people being ripped off by a clerk, once that clerk got wind that the customer is clueless.
;)
E.g., there was this older guy in front of me a few years back, who just wanted a simple machine to send emails and surf the web. He explicitly said he never plays any games. It was pretty much an experience watching the clerk talk him into buying a rig that was more powerful than my gaming rig (and I'm a gamer and a compulsive upgrader!), had twice the RAM I had, and had the latest top-of-the-line Nvidia graphics card too. (Apparently you need a very powerful graphics card to see your grandson's photo, don't you know? Well, I certainly didn't.)
Would that guy buy from that shop again, after his son (who gave him the original pointers as to what to buy) finds out what the guys at the shop talked him into buying? Probably not. But then with computers being bought for 3-4 years or more (there still are people on Cyrix 300+ machines), does it even matter?
Or there've been stories like the older lady who got sold a sound card upgrade, and they just loaded some different drivers on her machine... which didn't actually work with the old card. Turns out after the "upgrade" not only she had the same model of sound card as before, it had the same serial number sticker too once someone opened the box. Now that's a funny coincidence
I don't think it's necessarily sexist as such, though. Some people are basically sharks. If they smell new blood in the water, they'll be all over it, regardless of whose blood it is. If you look like you have no clue, you'll get royally scammed, regardless of gender, race, age or religion.
Women just run into the stereotype of being clueless about cars or computers, and I might add that some are _happy_ to perpetuate that stereotype. For some it's like it's a thing of pride to know nothing about that nerdy stuff. Makes them more socially acceptable or something.
So anyway, once you're stereotyped in that category, you get scammed. You get car mechanics charging you twice the price, you get sold a PS One as the newest game console, you get talked into buying a Quadro professional OpenGL card for your web surfing computer, or in really extreme cases you get your old sound card back as an upgrade.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Most game stores are full of "industry experts" who are only too willing to tell me what they think is the best game or best system that I should buy. They're usually regurgitating the latest rumours they've heard from the internet as facts and they seem to think that by just working in a games shop they must be a much more hardcore gamer than myself. It's that air of superiority they have that makes them think they know more than anyone who comes through the door that frustrates me. They're usually the kind that go to clog up E3 too.
There are a few good guys out there, but there are a so many annoying wannabe "insiders" who just tell you to buy whatever machine they own, which inevitably means a PS2 or sometimes Xbox. The way Nintendo gets completely dismissed is bad as well. Give the customer a choice, don't just assume because you think the PS2 is the "best console evar" that everyone else will agree with you.
You're not entirely correct about that. There's always the old "burn and churn" philosophy to sales. You make a lot of money screwing people over and then you move on. You run up a bad reputation, sure, but there will always be people who have never heard of you. And if you're making enough money per screw jod you don't need return business.
-KD
I had a similar experience when I went to buy an N-Gage QD at Gamestop. The price had dropped (to $99) on this second revision of the much hated N-Gage. This new revision fixed allot of the issues with the old, and I wanted to get a phone with more than 2 built in games. A little internet research showed that the N-Gage QD could play mp3s and xvid movies off of standard MMC flash cards, and even better, it emulated various gaming systems such as NES, SNES, and Gameboy Color.
So I figured that it was a good upgrade to my current mobile phone, went to Gamestop to buy it, and the clerks there gave me the most crap I have ever gotten FOR TRYING TO BUY SOMETHING FROM THEM! You'd figure somebody would try to make a sale, not discourage a sale. In a disgusted tone, one clerk asked me why the hell I would want an N-Gage. I replied that I just wanted a phone that can play MP3s, movies, and Gameboy games so that it can replace my current ipod, phone, and gameboy.
The guy looked at me as if I were crazy, and asked "what do you mean", in a tone implying that I am technologically illiterate and the N-Gage can't do that. I realize that you can't know everything about all of the products you sell, but if you don't know anything about the product, don't try to tell the customer that they shouldn't buy it and don't treat them like an idiot for doing so.
The clerk at best buy forgot to sell her the Monster cables, the wireless setup for the ps2, and the customer dis-service plan. he won't last long. Not like the extra expensive gold plated shieled cabling makes a difference to 99% of the gaming population 15 and under.
Actually PS2 is the only one that doesn't have progressive scan games. Gamecube does 480P on most games and of course XBOX will do that and higher scanrates.
fuck, thanks for another informercial you smelly cunts.
This is fucking news? You waste my time, now I wasted yours by making you smell my nut sack.
I didn't see any gender bias implied in the story's lead-in. Maybe in the Slashdot header, yeah, but not in the 1up story itself...
Perhaps it's my fault. You start off with, " Your local "piss-ant" video game store. Cute. " .. you seem think that piss-ant means something other than small. You've obviously a lot of meanings in your mind for that which are negative and are putting you on the defensive.
On the other hand, you now have the benefit of knowning what it's like to be on the receiving end of a stereotype. Stop being an asshole, please. Not all EBs suck, just like not all Gamestops suck, or all Wal-marts suck. Generalizations suck.
"I stopped shopping there due to an employee asking me to leave my bag at the front of the store ".. Perhaps they didn't handle that correctly, which in easy to do. The fact is, if you're a potenial LP issue, I'll ask you to leave your bag at the cashwrap. I can't guarantee anything about it, and if you make a point about the contents, I'll let you hang on to it (I know what the experience is like), but I'll also watch you. External shrink is never cool.
"Could you do me a favour and send out a chain-wide memo with notes from that meeting? " That training is mandatory within 45 days of employment as a condition of exmployment. If you are a key holder (management or a sales associate with a store key), it's a huge hot button -- I don't think you get 45 days to get versed, it's a within 3-week deal from start of employment.
"but then you had to have a 3 hour meeting to explain something that should be patiently obvious to anyone working in a game store. "
Something is only obvious if you know it already. Not everyone has the same experience as you. As someone working in customer service, you should know that you spend all your time educating your customer about the offers that may interest them, after talking to them trying to determine their needs. Nothing is ever obvious, no one reads signs, etc. It's important to review such things, otherwise you'll never know if everyone is on the same page.
Also, don't take my remark to mean we had to do it because she was female. With the exception of myself and the store manager, all the staff are female, and they know their stuff. The meeting also covered a fair bit more than I mentioned, but that's you making generalizations again. Stop that!
Now, if the managers are trouble at the stores in your area (which they are if they're not reigning in bad employees), you should feel free to contact EB customer support and complain about them. My district doesn't involve the eastern provinces, but in my district, they're firing people for not being good at their jobs.
1-800-800-5166 is the best I can find online. I don't think it's the Canadian one (which starts with 877), but they can probably give it to you. If you can't get that 1-800 # to work at all, just ask politely at the stores in your area until you get it. Bitching about a store will only cause people to not shop there. To actually improve a place, you have to tell someone who cares. If no one cares at home office, then feel free to rag on the company for not having people who care. But don't generalize across all employees.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
But you know, they're people, and you were frustrated by the whole situation partly because you decided to write them off. That's what your "triage system" was. Spend your day learning to shut yourself off from idjits, and it'll drag you into a low place.
We had some pretty nuts regulars at one of the stores I worked in; one of whom was a squeaky-voiced little guy who prefaced every sentence with your name and the words "Could you please tell me...?" ("Ian, could you please tell me this? And Ian, could you please tell me...?") I actually kind of liked the guy after a while. Didn't wear my soul down any to do so, either.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.