Confessions of a Gamestop Manager

The site Consumerist has up a lengthy post from a former Gamestop manager, listing some of the sins, boons, pitfalls and promises perpetrated while he was on the job. Includes a discussion of the 'gutted' display game, pre-orders, the 'discount' card, trades, and lots of 'pro-tips' on how to get the most out of your Gamestopping experience. "19) Don't be afraid to sell things on your own! The going resell rates for any current games or accessories online is usually close to what we resell for. If its a much newer title and you don't mind listing and shipping it, you could make a small handful more selling it online yourself. Ebay and Amazon.com are obvious choices, but you may find other outlets that work for you."

Comments

Penny-arcade

[Gregb05]

Penny Arcade springs to mind.

Re:Penny-arcade

[Major Blud]

This totally happened to me last week. I was sold a pre-order for Guitar Hero II when I wanted Guitar Hero III. How in the hell does somebody sell you a pre-order for a game that you've already had for months?

Re:Penny-arcade

[aichpvee]

I've been to the Northgate EB (now with Gamestop signage) and it sucks, but that comic is not funny at all. If we wanted to see something unfunny we all know how to get to penny arcade, so why don't you idiots stop linking that garbage already?

Selling policies

[ZorbaTHut]

I have to say, the thing I've always wondered about is the business side of things. I've heard, although I have no hard evidence, that Gamestop/EB stores don't make any significant profit off new games, which is why they're always pushing used games. Their profit sources are "used games" and "product placement" - publishers pay big bucks to have things like Halo 3 in the front-and-center of stores.

What I'm curious about is what they would do if you went to them and said "I have a game, I would like you to sell it, we've been doing advertising and it should sell quite a bit, we can't afford to pay you for placement but we'll sell the actual copies to you for $15 less so you can actually make a profit on it". Would they give some of that front-and-center space over to it in the hopes of selling more, or would they just relegate it to the back shelves because it's not paying the bucks?

Unfortunately it seems impossible to actually get information on the big business policies. Ah well.

Re:Selling policies

[zegota]

I doubt it. Gamestop strikes me very much as a company that sticks to the guidelines they have layed out for themselves. They make a very small profit off of new games, but beyond that, the new games will get people into the store. "Hey, buying Halo 3? Why not pick up a used controller or strategy guide?" That sort of thing. As much as I'd like independent game companies to be able to get their games into stores this way, it seems unlikely that Gamestop would accept anything outside of a regular distributor, given that they don't buy games unless its going to absolutely sell (which is why they require preorders to allot shipments).

Worth a try, though. Call corporate, of course -- retail stores/managers will have absolutely no idea.

Re:Selling policies

[jandrese]

Luckily, my local Gamestop seems to have backed off of the whole strategy guide pushing. It was real bad there for awhile, you couldn't walk in the store without them trying to pawn off some completely worthless Prima guide on you.

For that matter, for a company that supposedly gets inside info on a game before it is released, Prima continually puts out some really poor quality material. Frequently they're little more than a slightly expanded version of what came in the manual and a bunch of screenshots that don't tell you anything. You'd thing they'd be great for giving you actual hitpoints or types of attacks or something, but they're usually far more interested in holding your hand through some already ridiculously easy tutorial puzzle or something. "Jump on the button to open the door!".

The final nail in the coffin of the whole Strategy Guide business is that you can almost invariably find far better guides online, usually much more complete and completely free. Gamefaqs alone renders Prima's whole business model obsolete, and it's far from the only gameplay resource online.

Re:Selling policies

[Sciros]

Guides can be worth the purchase for the convenience (if it's well-laid-out and thorough), the aesthetics of the design of the book, and the art inside it. The Final Fantasy XII guide is fantastic, IMO, in every respect, and I was very glad I purchased the collector's edition with the included Concept Art Book.

I also have this hardcover, gold-border Twilight Princess strategy guide but it's more of a "thing to have and admire" for its design because it's the opposite of useful when it comes to actually being used as a guide. Waaay too thorough or something. Hard to read through. But attractive.

Re:Selling policies

[king-manic]

Guides can be worth the purchase for the convenience (if it's well-laid-out and thorough), the aesthetics of the design of the book, and the art inside it. The Final Fantasy XII guide is fantastic, IMO, in every respect, and I was very glad I purchased the collector's edition with the included Concept Art Book.

I also have this hardcover, gold-border Twilight Princess strategy guide but it's more of a "thing to have and admire" for its design because it's the opposite of useful when it comes to actually being used as a guide. Waaay too thorough or something. Hard to read through. But attractive. The downside is strategy guides are often wrong, using info from a beta version or a pre-release version. It's only important if your a pedant, power leveller, completist or a obsessive item collector. But some Guides have so many glaring errors that it's often better to take a trip to gamefaqs then buying a guide.

Re:Selling policies

[sadr]

Assuming you're not discounting the wholesale price to other retailers, and assuming that the preliminary buzz is reasonable, I suspect Gamestop senior management isn't very picky about when they get paid. (i.e. at the sale or in advance.)

Of course, you can't discount the price to other retailers, because then they could sell it for $2 over wholesale, and suddenly Gamestop won't sell any...

And you'd have to check with a lawyer to see if structuring the deal in any specific way causes collusion / anti-trust problems..

Re:Selling policies

[orclevegam]

Going to tackle this in reverse order. First, individual stores don't order games (disclaimer: I have never worked for EB/Gamestop, but I have talked with employees). Stores place pre-orders and other than that what they receive in their shipments is decided by someone in corporate. Presumably they have some sort of system, that probably involves big sweaty rolls of money from other large corporations being left in certain key CEO pockets, and possibly dart boards at some step to help determine exactly which games and what quantities will show up. As far as not making money on new releases that's not entirely true. They of course make profit off them, otherwise they wouldn't stock them, just like any other business. The key thing is that new games are not their most profitable item. They have essentially perfected a formula for squeezing the maximum profit out of each store that they possibly can. They start by reducing orders of new games to nearly the exact amount demanded. They do that by only carrying 1 or 2 new copies of any given game beyond what's pre-ordered. That ensures that they have enough on hand to meet the initial demand (assuming everyone pre-orders, and they probably order a certain percentage of the pre-orders extra to meet demand of those that didn't, say 10% of the pre-orders), but that they won't have many or any extra copies laying around. That's the initial investment, and they do make a bit of profit there. Where the big profit comes in though is in the re-sells. They give you something like $5 credit on a game that they'll turn around a re-sell for $40, that's 700% profit! That's why they want you to trade games in and buy used games, they make insane profit off each one. As for the strategy guides and accessories, those are just icing on the cake. They like to sell them of course, it's all profit after all, but the big bucks come from the re-sells. I'm what EB would consider a nightmare customer. I buy nothing but brand new games, rarely pre-order (unless I think it'll sell out, I'm usually right on that call to), and never buy guides or accessories. I also never trade in used games.

Re:Selling policies

[Orange Crush]

I never understood the appeal to pre-ordering a game at a physical store. I mean, if you *must* have it on launch day, I suppose that makes sense. I don't mind the few extra days shipping would take and save a few bucks on sales tax by ordering online.

Re:Selling policies

[MaineCoon]

Your numbers are a bit off, from my experience. I've usually received about half what the used game sells for - for example, in one case with a recent release of a hot game still selling for $60 new, $50 used, I got $25 store credit. Of course, YMMV.

Re:Selling policies

[Darkforge]

What I'm curious about is what they would do if you went to them and said "I have a game, I would like you to sell it, we've been doing advertising and it should sell quite a bit, we can't afford to pay you for placement but we'll sell the actual copies to you for $15 less so you can actually make a profit on it". Would they give some of that front-and-center space over to it in the hopes of selling more, or would they just relegate it to the back shelves because it's not paying the bucks?

No; consider the question you're asking. Right now, EB/GS get paid for product placement. That money is 100% certain to materialize regardless of the quality of the game. If Sony pays big bucks to get excellent placement for Lair, and then Lair tanks, EB/GS still get paid for giving it lots of shelf space.

What you're asking is: Could I get product placement ("some of that front-and-center space") by giving EB/GS a larger cut of the revenue of the game? Revenues are risky; if your game is a flop, EB/GS will get a large cut of peanuts! So you're asking EB/GS to accept more risk in exchange for (potentially) greater reward.

If your game is a guaranteed success (not a guaranteed "hit," necessarily, but enough to pay for its costs and then some), then you can certainly afford to pay EB/GS for regular product placement, if only by getting investors to fund your advertising budget (which is where product placement is normally charged). If you have reason to believe that the game will sell well, that's exactly what you should do.

If you don't have reason to believe that the game will sell, then neither does EB/GS. In that case, they would get a larger payout only if your game sells more than expected; ideally, your expectations are spot on, so unexpected successes are supposed to be unlikely. That deal is not in their favor.

Re:Selling policies

[antifoidulus]

Not to mention that many online places often times actually put it in the mail a few days before the official release date. I've ordered games from Amazon that have arrived on release date or maybe the day after. Much more convenient, and depending on where you live(sales tax and all) usually price competitive with brick and mortar places(even moreso if you manage to snag it in your gold box or something like that).

Re:Selling policies

[Sciros]

Your criticisms are very valid but I think apply mostly to non-first-party guides. In other words, a Final Fantasy guide produced and released *by Square-Enix* is going to be a quality product, as would a Zelda guide produced and released *by Nintendo.* They're also most likely going to be up-to-date and their production quality is very high so the paper is usually pretty nice.

Oh and some guides are just plain well-written. Take for instance the Elder Scrolls guides. Whoever wrote those is a clever guy, and it's sometimes fun to just read through some of it because it's half-decent story telling ^_^

Guides are rarely "important," that's definitely true. But they can enhance the playing experience a bit, and often help you get a better appreciation for a game. Bad guides (like the one for Guild Wars Factions, for instance, which I was a *researcher* for but nothing we ever submitted made its way into the final omg-it's-due-tomorrow-and-I-haven't-started release; shame on ArenaNet but I digress) are certainly a total waste and can be exactly what you describe. But good ones are often the equivalent of a "movie guide" which make for at least some interesting reading.

Re:Selling policies

[eison]

That's funny, I got the impression that refusing to stock what I want to buy and insisting that I make reservations and wait/come back later was the perfect formula for driving me to online stores and putting their bricks and mortar store out of business. Why should I pre-order with Gamestop when Amazon will have it delivered right to me?

Re:Selling policies

[orclevegam]

No clue, and I'm inclined to agree, but apparently a lot of people aren't, to judge by the way EB/Gamestop stores are popping up on every other corner.

Re:Selling policies

[edwdig]

Amazon also has a habit of screwing up their warehouse deliveries and sending out your game late. For example, they got Metroid Prime 3 out about a week late.

Re:Selling policies

[Beardo the Bearded]

Two points in agreement:

1. My brother bought an old dreamcast game from EB. The game cost $2. The clerk said, "Would you like play insurance for $3? I have to ask in case you're a mystery shopper." I used to work retail - the people you see are just doing what they're told to keep their job. I did work for a really nice place that said, "remember, it's not your money. It's theirs. Give them whatever they're asking for, because otherwise, they'll just call head office, and we'll give them what they were asking for in the first place."

2. I was wondering what kind of people pay for game guides when you can find:
      a) better guides online
      b) more entertainment value playing the game yourself.

Re:Selling policies

[LWATCDR]

"What I'm curious about is what they would do if you went to them and said "I have a game, I would like you to sell it, we've been doing advertising and it should sell quite a bit, we can't afford to pay you for placement but we'll sell the actual copies to you for $15 less so you can actually make a profit on it". Would they give some of that front-and-center space over to it in the hopes of selling more, or would they just relegate it to the back shelves because it's not paying the bucks?"
Back shelf.
The simple reason is the old bird in the hand. They get the money up front for the product placement. Your game "should" sell well but it may not.

Re:Selling policies

[jonwil]

The Command & Conquer 3 guide is a good example of this, there have been so many balance changes to the game since release day that the guide is now useless.

Re:Selling policies

[cgenman]

Guides are frequently written by developers at the end of the development cycle. Which means, when we're all busy, and everything keeps changing. Because of this, they usually get outsourced to the kind of people who write the manuals, and have little additional information. The game not being released yet, there is little understanding of the problems that real players will encounter. And, of course, not being final the tips in the guide are frequently out-of-date by the time the game actually ships. Did I mention that most of the developers who are supposed to be providing information are too slammed to contribute anything at all?

Similarly, because the original company is involved, you won't see any of the really cool tips that break the game... like how to get over 210% completion in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Or shield jumping in Halo. Or those lovely tricks people use in speed runs. Dan's infinite hit combo in Street Fighter Alpha. All of these things are discovered once you get the game in the hands of millions of gamers, and the company responsible for them would never disclose them.

It's too bad the post-ship magazine guide died out. I remember some amazingly thorough guides to Street Fighter II which had more helpful visuals than GameFaqs could provide.

Re:Selling policies

[aichpvee]

Depends on the game, there definitely are games that these stores sell that they make $0 on. A lot of the EA sports games, particularly Madden, were sold like this. Considering how many people buy Madden though, could you imagine EB not carrying it even if they had to lose money on each copy sold to do so?

Re:Selling policies

[aichpvee]

Don't you mean $55 used? I thought the current practice was to take off $5 from new, at least that's the case with Wii games.

Re:Selling policies

[macrom]

have to say, the thing I've always wondered about is the business side of things. I've heard, although I have no hard evidence, that Gamestop/EB stores don't make any significant profit off new games, which is why they're always pushing used games. Their profit sources are "used games" and "product placement" - publishers pay big bucks to have things like Halo 3 in the front-and-center of stores.

You are correct. The margin on new games (systems as well) is razor thin. Everyone wants to maximize their profit from the developer and publisher all the way out to the retailer. I only have experience with Gamestop; other retailers, I would have to assume, operate under the same margin constraints.

This is one of the major reasons behind used games and accessories. The margins are much higher (in some instances; not if you take a trade on out-of-date systems and titles) on used items, and you also gain the possibility of repeatedly making money off of the same physical game if your customers trade-in on a regular basis.

As far as product placement, sure, Gamestop works with publishers to advertise their products. They are no different that any other retailer. The next time you visit Target or Wal-Mart look at the end caps. Do you REALLY think they just happened to have a whole load of extra Coca-Cola products sitting around that they wanted to discount? Companies help subsidize their profit margins with marketing dollars all the time; Gamestop is no different.

What I'm curious about is what they would do if you went to them and said "I have a game, I would like you to sell it, we've been doing advertising and it should sell quite a bit, we can't afford to pay you for placement but we'll sell the actual copies to you for $15 less so you can actually make a profit on it". Would they give some of that front-and-center space over to it in the hopes of selling more, or would they just relegate it to the back shelves because it's not paying the bucks?

I think this would be a complex business transaction. Gamestop is a corporation that exists to make money -- it's not going to shell out hundreds of thousands (or millions) in marketing dollars for someone that walks in off the street saying, "Hey, I've got this great game, but no money". They mostly deal with publishers, so for a developer to get a game like that out they would first need to convince a publisher that it's worth their time. At that point the publisher could then use their muscle to potentially get better product placement. Keep in mind, too, that games generally do well because they're good, not because of marketing. Sure you can find exceptions, but I've can't think of a title that went from zero to AAA with millions of sales just because Gamestop stuck in it in their window and hung signs from the ceiling.

I'm no longer an insider, and this is my personal opinion, but hopefully it helps.

Re:Selling policies

[DeepZenPill]

Good luck getting the game on the release date from Amazon... there are no guarantees there.

Re:Selling policies

[volpanic]

I'm in total agreement. The preordering thing is a hassle, especially when you actually have to show up at the store and wait 30 minutes in line for some mouth-breather to take your preorder and payment in the first place. The last two times I preordered a game, I didn't even get a phone call to let me know it came in, so the advantage of getting a game the day it's released is gone anyway. I just order online now, since there is no actual benefit to going to the store - no selection, no good deals, and no customer service.

Re:Selling policies

[PhoenixOne]

There is a better explanation of this further up, but the simple reason is this: Gamestop wants to sell used copies a lot more than it does new.

Their ideal customer is somebody who will pre-order a $60 game, play it for a couple of days, then sell it back to them for store credit. Somebody else will come along and buy the game again for $55. Bang, double sale.

Re:Selling policies

[Phisbut]

2. I was wondering what kind of people pay for game guides when you can find:
a) better guides online
b) more entertainment value playing the game yourself.

Pffff... playing the game yourself is overrated, plus it's soooooo last-year. Get with the times dude, this is the 21st century! Games aren't meant to be played now, they're meant to be watched.

Re:Selling policies

[Phisbut]

Don't you mean $55 used? I thought the current practice was to take off $5 from new, at least that's the case with Wii games.

Which is precisely why I buy all my games brand new and factory sealed (none of that gutted stuff). Buying used to save $5? You gotta be kidding me. I wouldn't consider buying a used game that's worth $60 new for anything more than about $35 or maybe $40. $55 is a rip-off and you're better off buying new.

I'd rather see my money encourage Nintendo by buying new than EB-Games by buying used.

Re:Selling policies

[hey!]

Any merchant tries to steer people towards goods which maximize his profits.

If you aren't paying a placement fee, then if you want the same prominence for your game, you'd have to sell it at a lower wholesale price to get the same placement. The whole point of the placement fee is that you, the wholesaler, expect a lot of these games to be sold, and you want to take as much of that money as possible from the retailer. But if you take too much, the retailer won't place your product as prominently, or maybe wouldn't bother stocking it at all.

You could probably do a game-theoretical matrix here between you and the dealer, although the payoff is not fixed. Basically, payment for placement makes the situation somewhat assymetrical, with you absorbing the risk for low sales and capturing the upside where there are high sales.

acts of gord

[farkus888]

http://www.actsofgord.com/ excellent reading. all the horrible things he did to customers in a undisclosed video game store.

Re:acts of gord

[Anonymous Coward]

If undisclosed means "By the time he closed the store, he regularly had people coming in and being jackasses just to try & get on the website because a few stories had uncensored local area code + exchange phone numbers that tipped off local readers", sure.

Re:acts of gord

[Grandiloquence]

The difference is that those people richly deserved it.

Re:acts of gord

[b1ad3runn3r]

Not really. From his website the guy is either a liar or a dick, and some of the things he said happened were illegal. Beating up kids isn't a citizen's arrest even when they steal. Whomever that person is needs serious anger management therapy. Either that or to stop putting testosterone on his cheerios every morning.

Re:acts of gord

[Anonymous Coward]

While certain things such as 'accidentally' bonking a shoplifter's head on the door while physically removing the person from store premises might be something you could get in trouble for, the shoplifter isn't going to press charges because a) they'd get charged with theft themselves b) they almost certainly wouldn't be shoplifting if they were legal fuckery-inclined c) a conviction, based on "removing proven shoplifter from my store, head bonk was accidental" etc is extremely unlikely and d) even in the extremely unlikely event of conviction for assault (vs simplistic conviction for theft) the sentence would be inconsequential.

Welcome to the real world.

Re:acts of gord

[TheSpoom]

Actually, the store was "Gamer's Edge" in Penticton, BC. I don't know if it's still open (the final story in Acts of Gord suggests it's not), does anyone know? I know Gord himself is in Japan or something now.

Re:acts of gord

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to stop putting estrogen in your Cheerios.

Re:acts of gord

[Digital Vomit]

More accurately, it's about all the horrible things customers did in Gord's video game store.

Re:acts of gord

[Akaihiryuu]

I read some more about Gord somewhere (can't remember where now) that said his real name is Gordon Hadrell, and that he did in fact spend several years in Korea before returning to Canada. He opened a place called PC Bang (which is based on a Korean phenomena and translates to "PC Room"), that's kind of like an internet cafe. http://www.pcbang.ca/ is the place.

Re:acts of gord

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhere on the site, there was an addendum - basically, the person he left in charge, a shady accountant and the landlord tried to screw Gord over by claiming he 'abandoned' the property. It took some friends to sneak in and retreive what was left and teh police to sort it all out if I recall correctly.

Ah - here we go: http://www.actsofgord.com/apocalypse/index.html

Re:acts of gord

[Raenex]

I just read the entry where Gord supposedly knocked around some shoplifter. Maybe it's true, but at this point I believe it's pure fantasy. I'll pass on the rest.

Yeah right

[Tridus]

From TFA: "Preorders are only taken when their allotment can be guaranteed. I cannot stress this enough. There are burps in the system here and there, but for every one or two preorder gaffes you read about online there are literally thousands of beneficial ones. Preorders do not cost any additional fee (only a base 5 dollar deposit) and are fully (though reluctantly) refundable for cash at any time. Yes, cancelled preorders count against the employee ringing it in and they will be reluctant, but it is your right to cancel for cash refund if you choose to and they can't decline it."

Care to explain then how my local EB took several times more orders for the collectors edition of Burning Crusade then it was actually getting?

Re:Yeah right

[Blakey Rat]

To answer your question, that would be explained away as a "burp" in the system.

That said, I've done pre-orders twice at Gamestop and both times the actual game was sold out on release date. I don't bother; where I'm at it's easier to get a hold of a game from your typical Fred Meyer or Target department store on release day than it is from Gamestop/EB.

Re:Yeah right

[shlepp]

So far what i have experienced with pre-orders is its a first come first serve basis. For example Gears of War on the 360, I pre-ordered a tad late, the first shipment was already sold through pre-orders so i was supposed to get mine on the second shipment (the next week). Anyways Im at home not expecting a call when the dude from EB calls me and tells me that a few copies had not been picked up (this was after the 48hr period) so i drive in and pick up my copy. I pre-order every hot game that comes out (CoD4, Assassins Creed, Mass Effect, GTA4) months before they release, this way I can be sure I'm in the first shipment. I'm now expecting a call from EB to pick up CoD4, but might not be until tomorrow because they usually get their shipments a couple days later than the big city EB stores, either way its faster than the Zellers or Wal-Mart her which don't get them for another week or so (have called and checked on new releases a few times), but i have never had a problem with EB games here.

Re:Yeah right

[Tridus]

Thats my experience too. Want a game but didn't pre-order? Sorry, you should pre-order. (I've been told this.)
Try pre-ordering? Sorry, so did everybody else.

Yet for some strange reason, Future Shop down the street somehow manages to have copies on a shelf that I can walk in and buy, without planning two months in advance.

Re:Yeah right

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, it's a burp, and it's BS.

There are 5 Gamestops within 15 minutes of me, two of which are less than 2 miles from me (one in each direction). Whenever they're sold out of new games, I can almost always call around to:

Wal Mart
Circuit City
Target
FYE

And find a copy. All these stores are on the same plazas as the Gamestops. We just did it the other day with Guitar Hero III. None of the Gamestops had any, so we called the nearby Target and they had several in stock.

Why do they maintain such a ridiculous density of stores rather than combining some and running fewer, larger, better-stocked stores?

The pre-order excuse-making in this article is BS. They're either just trying to collect payment without a product for their own benefit or they're trying to streamline the distribution chain to ridiculously slim margins without any regard to the obvious negative impacts it will have on customers.

I also love the commentary on the used games and trade ins. Yea, you'll give me $15 for SSMB because it's in demand, but you'll also charge me $50 for a used copy of it, what's your point? It's not my fault you insist on taking unsaleable items, stop wasting money and give more reasonable prices on the used games you have in stock that people actually want to buy.

The whole article is crap. "It's not our fault the policies suck, it's your fault you won't kowtow to them! If you'd just do what we tell you and quit yer gripin' everything would be chocolate sprinkles and rainbows!"

Re:Yeah right

[SydShamino]

Somehow, our GameStop ended up with 3 extra CE copies. Alas, we hadn't preordered it, and they sold the three to those who stood outside the longest before the midnight opening. (We had an ice storm that night here in Texas, and I wasn't going to stand outside in below-freezing temperatures when I had a regular one on preorder. On the good side, work was closed the next day so my wife and I got the spend the whole day playing before the kiddies got home from school and clogged Hellfire Peninsula.)

So anyway, yeah, our store got yer copies.

Re:Yeah right

[oDDmON oUT]

"Care to explain then how my local EB took several times more orders for the collectors edition of Burning Crusade then it was actually getting?"

Two words:

Unsecured loan

That's right Sparky, your hard earned pesastas can go into a floating fund for 30/60/90 days, during which time the company in question makes interest off it for nothing, pays down higher interest loans, funds a corporate fly by of Strippers'r'Us World Domination Tour©, or any other thing they f*cking well please.

What's a little gamer angst when stacked up against that, eh?

Re:Yeah right

[MBGMorden]

Same here. I hate to be commending *Wal-mart* of all places, but the local Gamestop here is right in front of Wal-mart. ANY hot game that Gamestop doesn't have will always be in stock at the Wal-mart a short walk away.

Of course, the company that really pissed me off with Pre-orders was Blockbuster. I pre-ordered Zelda: Wind Waker for GC. The only reason I did this was because pre-orders were supposed to get a copy of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask on disk along with Wind Waker. When I went in to pick up Wind Waker, I was given just that game. When I asked about the bonus disk, I was simply told "Sorry, we don't have any.". After unsuccessfully petitioning the manager I got a refund on my deposit, and just out of spite drove over to another store and bought the game (which was in plentiful supply everywhere - I wasn't preordering for availability).

Re:Yeah right

[KDR_11k]

That's interesting, here the Gamestops start selling games on fridays or so (often have the preorder boxes up until then) while every other store starts selling on wednesday or thursday (and often a few Euros cheaper). If I were to preorder that'd mean I'd get the game a day or two late and at a worse price than I'd get at a larger retailer.

Re:Yeah right

[AvitarX]

I'm pretty sure you were supoosed to get that disk when you placed the pre-order (they were being touted as limited availability first come first serve).

As a place that probably doesn't pre-order many video games, they probably didn't get any at any point.

Re:Yeah right

[sanosuke76]

Exactly why I've never pre-ordered in my life. Although I'm a bit different; I just can't bring myself to spend $50 on a game, when I can wait six months and spend $18 at most. And by the time it's at that price, gamefaqs has a bunch of free walkthroughs available too!

Re:Yeah right

[amuro98]

This is something I don't understand either...

Why is there such an emphasis on pre-ordering? Unless you're buying the game as a gift, or you know it's going to be a hard-to-find title, like most of Atlus' RPGs, your local Best Buy or Frys (Future Shop, etc.) will more than likely have a stack of them on release day. Heck, Frys even gives 20% off on new games on the first Friday they're released sometimes... So, why pre-order at GameStop?

Re:Yeah right

[macrom]

Care to explain then how my local EB took several times more orders for the collectors edition of Burning Crusade then it was actually getting?

I'll take a stab at this one.

1. The publisher miscommunicated the number of copies when the pre-order program started. They said 200,000 but the number was more like 50,000. Gamestop can't really do much about that other than communicate that pre-orders should be stopped when that information becomes known.

2. Your particular store kept taking pre-orders long past the cut-off. Call it miscommunication, bad management, etc. I would say that this is not the norm, but I'm not longer at Gamestop.

3. Miscommunication from the DM/corporate on how many copies your store was to receive. Again, this happens, though it's not the norm.

I would be willing to bet that it's human error at some point, and nothing sinister. From working on the other side, I was always surprised to see the number of people that insisted a store deliberately went out of its way to harm a customer. I'm sure there are dipshit managers around (name a retail establishment that DOESN'T have that problem), but most try to take care of their customers.

Re:Yeah right

[Scherf]

I don't really get all of this. Where I live (germany) I just walk into a store at release date and buy the game. If it's a big game they are going to have tons of the game in stock, if not they are going to have like 10 which nobody is going to buy before me anyways.

The last time I actually did anything close to "pre-ordering" was for the World of Warcraft release, and that was going to the store before work instead of after. Could have bought the next few days too before they simply didn't give out any more copies because the servers couldn't handle the load.

Re:Yeah right

[KDR_11k]

Yeah, that too but there's the occassional game I buy at full price.

Re:SLASHDOT SUX0RZ

[spocksbrain]

You would like Fark.com, I suggest checking it out.

I don't know how obvious this was.

[vertinox]

I think my only qualm with Gamestop is the need for a sales person.
Why should the customer be constantly reminded for a pre-order? If you want it that bad, they'll pre-order it.
I go to Gamestop pretty much to see if they have anything interesting used. Beyond that, I answer any questions they have without listening with a "No!"

Of course I've learned that at all places... Any cashier asks you any question, no matter what it is, you say no. No protection plan, no zip code, no date of birth, no pre-orders, no nothing other than maybe my license when I purchase something with a credit card (and some places are pretty slack on that)

Yeah... I'm sorry you'll get fired if you don't get your numbers, but you work for a company who has an annoying business plan then you are going to deal with irate people.

As far as new games goes... If I happen to be in Gamestop/EB and see a new game I want... I'll go to a local comic shop that has them or Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart who is always cheaper.

Again... I'm pretty sure the only reason to be to Gamestop is the used games. Stop pushing and people won't push back.

Re:I don't know how obvious this was.

[king-manic]

I'll go to a local comic shop that has them or Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart who is always cheaper. Over here, EB is the same price on all games but has a greater variety on the shelves as well as having much older games for sale used. Best buy, Target, and wal-mart always stock the AAA and a variety of easy to find titles but if I want a copy of a Atlus game or any other obscure niche title I normally can find it at EB. My last resort is online.

Re:I don't know how obvious this was.

[KDR_11k]

I usually have the opposite experience, Gamestop only stocks very few copies and often ends up with a game not on shelves (well, they have almost no shelfspace if you subtract the used games so that's no surprise) while larger retailers (I'm thinking department store or electronics retailer here, not hypermarket) have much more shelf space and consequently more games.

So does Ctrl+Alt+Delete.

[andreyvul]

But I forgot the specific comic (to link to).

Just make it easier...

[FadedTimes]

Gamestop should just change policy and practice to make it easier for the consumer. People should not have to have a specialty method or use a guide to get the most out of the experience.

Re:Just make it easier...

[Anonymous Coward]

Gamestop should just change policy and practice to make it easier for the consumer. People should not have to have a specialty method or use a guide to get the most out of the experience.

Simple solution. Just shop at BestBuy or Target instead. Problem solved.

These are my confessions

[Anonymous Coward]

Just when I thought I said all I can say
My customer got a return on the way

Revervations are pointless

[harl]

I see no reason why they can't have more copies. They're reservation policy is why I haven't shopped there for years.

On release day Gamestop has no copies, except for preorders. Then I go across the street and grab one off the shelf at my choice of stores. Hell I can grab one for in store pickup right now. Oh and those store do preorders too which indicates that they're receiving more total copies.

This just makes Gamestop look amateur. If department stores can have multiple copies of a game then why can't a store with game in their name have enough copies? Amateurs.

Re:Revervations are pointless

[Ogive17]

The Wal-mart in town doesn't accept pre-orders, but the Gamestop does. Of course the Gamestop will be sold out of the next "hot" game instantly because their entire allotment of games were pre-ordered by people who wanted the guarentee to get it on the 1st day. Sure Wal-mart may have a few copies on the shelf still because everyone who HAD to have the game right away paid $5 to reserve their copy elsewhere.

As for Wal-mart being cheaper... If Gamestop has the game for $39.99 then Wal-mart has it listed for $39.88. That $.11 isn't worth wading through the waves of scary people that shop at Wal-mart all the time.

Re:Revervations are pointless

[EtoilePB]

Because of the warehouse distribution model they use.

Warehouse has 1000 copies of Game X for distribution to all the area stores. Store A has 150 pre-orders, so they get 200 copies. Store B has 12 pre-orders, so they get 15 copies. Store C has 247 pre-orders, so they get 350 copies.

I don't know if it's changed since the merger, but that's how it worked back when I worked at GameStop. Pre-orders are construed as "local area interest," and so in a store with low pre-orders, no extra games. It's a self-perpetuating cycle sort of thing.

Re:Revervations are pointless

[harl]

My point is that method is stupid. By short changing the stores it caused me to go else where.

If they don't send copies then I will go somewhere that has copies. This is trivial to understand.

I can't be arsed to keep track of what's coming out when. I used to do that. I find it a waste of time now. Rather then make extra trips to GS to preorder I can just walk into BB, CUSA, CC, Target, Wal-Mart, or whoever else and grab one off the shelf.

Gaming has reached main stream enough that copies are available. Gamestop fucks with supply to move pre-orders. The other stores simple have enough supply that pre-orders are meaningless. BB still had Halo 3 on the shelf when I walked in 5 days after release. They appeared to be from the initial shipment because the still had the do not sell until 9/25, or what ever it was, stickers on them.

Re:Revervations are pointless

[harl]

Preorders are obsolete. Supply is at the point where they are not needed.The big box electronics stores have more than enough copies. It's simply a vendor lock in tool. You go to GS to grab game and they ask you to pre-order. Lather, rinse, repent.

Re:Revervations are pointless

[king-manic]

Preorders are obsolete. Supply is at the point where they are not needed.The big box electronics stores have more than enough copies. It's simply a vendor lock in tool. You go to GS to grab game and they ask you to pre-order. Lather, rinse, repent. Sure, for something like Halo 3. But what about an obscure title like Odins sphere or Etrian Odyssey? If your tastes runs into niche products then the big box stores will leave you wanting. Although I have never pre-ordered and have never been pestered to pre-order by the EB I frequent or actually by any EB in town. However it may just be that Canada is different.

Re:Revervations are pointless

[harl]

Niche items are an exception. That's what makes them niche items.

Re:Revervations are pointless

[Ogive17]

I've never pre-ordered because the area I live in (sprawling suburbia) has plenty of retail stores per capita... but I can see why people living in a densely populated area would want to pre-order. If it isn't going to cost the consumer additional money, why not?

I don't get asked to pre-order at the gamestop in town anymore. In fact, I don't hear them ask other people who are in line. They do have signs up at the register though to ask about pre-ordering.

Re:Revervations are pointless

[k8to]

My experience is that if your tastes run to niche products, or products over 2 months old, EB and Gamestop will leave you wanting as well. Physical game stores are a waste of time for me, I sometimes find myself with time on my hands and a game store, and I go in, hoping. I typically have around 5-6 titles I might want to buy, and the game store typically has none of them, or maybe has a scratched used copy with no manual for 40 dollars (it's rare, yo!)

Sometimes asking about a game *they have* will produce the response "oh, that's *old*" as if I'm stupid for wanting to buy it. This means, you know, it's over 3 months old.

I like physical stores that you can browse through. I think there's real value in being able to poke around a place where you might be able to talk to someone about the product. I buy bicycle parts, books, music, tea, meat, and so forth in stores where there is someone competent that is interested in the product and is not being a jackass. Amazon, performance sports, tea.com, and so on really lack something a real store can offer, though they *are* cheaper, if you buy a sufficiency of items. It saddens me that physical game stores are apparently incapable of offering any of this value. The result is that I order games from online stores like estarland.

Re:Revervations are pointless

[Nevyn]

Best Buy, Target, Toys R Us, Gamestop. All else being equal I shop for games in that order, and I never have to give gamestop money. I even bought my Wii at Toys R Us, on release day, when gamestop pre-orders didn't get filled.

Re:Revervations are pointless

[harl]

To further illustrate my point.

Call of Duty 4 came out yesterday. Former game fo the year franchise. People are talking about this iteration as a game of the year.

Yesterday after work I walked in and grabbed it off the shelf. Just now I checked the web pages of some stores. There are copies available at all BB locations and a scattering of some of the other electronic/department stores.

For comparison. Only one of the six gamestops in a 50 mile radius had copies available.

Pre-orders are pointless. Gamestop needs to fix their supply issues/bussiness model. They can't keep, or choose not to, product on the shelves to meet demand. They're compeditors can/do. Gamestop looses sales. This is basic economics. No that's wrong. This is bad logistics.

Re:Revervations are pointless

[Phisbut]

As for Wal-mart being cheaper... If Gamestop has the game for $39.99 then Wal-mart has it listed for $39.88. That $.11 isn't worth wading through the waves of scary people that shop at Wal-mart all the time.

That is true. I bought a NDS-Lite last week, and I did some shopping around to see if I could get it cheaper. BestBuy had it at $139.99, and I reluctantly went to Wal-mart to try and get it cheaper. Wal-mart was selling it at $139.82, a whole 0.1% off! I went back to BestBuy and paid the extra $0.17 to clear my conscience.

Re:Revervations are pointless

[Phisbut]

I can't be arsed to keep track of what's coming out when. I used to do that. I find it a waste of time now. Rather then make extra trips to GS to preorder I can just walk into BB, CUSA, CC, Target, Wal-Mart, or whoever else and grab one off the shelf.

Plus, I don't know if that's the case everywhere, but around Montreal, BestBuy stores and FutureShop stores are HUGE. Their video games section alone is larger than the average EB store, and only stocked with new games. I don't think I've ever seen a (new) game at EB that I couldn't find at BestBuy.

Re:Revervations are pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same in the States.

gamestop just isn't worth it for me anymore

[DragonTHC]

I now buy all my games from amazon prime. $3.99 overnight shipping. Yes, I have to wait an extra day, but not I can afford all my games in collector's edition instead of regular due to the shipping costs. I used to pre-order from ebgames. No more.

Re:gamestop just isn't worth it for me anymore

[ECMIM]

Amen, except that I go for the 2-day for free route--between the no sales tax and (mostly) free shipping, I actually end up getting a free game every 10-15 games (depending on retail price.)

Doesn't it all sound a bit

[joeflies]

like it was ghost written by the corporate marketing guy? The whole thing is written about "benefits of doing this vs that", just like the regular marketing fluff. A real article might have a word or two of dirty laundry in a article this long on confessions.

Re:Doesn't it all sound a bit

[plague3106]

No, it didn't read like that to me. Marketing wouldn't ever dare say that under certain cases the discount card is not for you. They'd try to explain why everyone needs it.

Resell

[Pxtl]

The Gamestop trade-in business is based on on key tenet; we hardly turn down ANYTHING. For all the rage and screaming we take from people getting one dollar for years-old Madden games, you need to remember one key fact; we are taking in games that are often unlikely to EVER resell.

17) Outdated consoles are traded in every day. Almost every gamestop literally has fifty or more used Xboxes and Gamecubes in stock at any time. They do not sell and we get one at least every day, so they are worth very little. The new slim PSP is in much higher demand than the original, and so the trade-in value on the old model has since dropped. If you want the hot new version of anything, trade in as far before its release as you can stand so you can get the peak value.

in other words: we pointlessly hoard crap that we're not planning to ever resell, because we'd rather it go into a landfill than to actually sell it to people for what it's actually worth. I mean seriously - every game store I've ever seen has a huge stack of games they wouldn't give two bucks for if you brought them in, sitting in a bin, unsorted... and still priced at $30 each. I think they need to learn the meaning of the word "clearance".

Also, Don't lose your receipt and expect us to find records for you, it is quite difficult.

Our IT Structure Is Still Suck In The '70s.

Re:Resell

[Billy the Impaler]

in other words: we pointlessly hoard crap that we're not planning to ever resell, because we'd rather it go into a landfill than to actually sell it to people for what it's actually worth. I mean seriously - every game store I've ever seen has a huge stack of games they wouldn't give two bucks for if you brought them in, sitting in a bin, unsorted... and still priced at $30 each. I think they need to learn the meaning of the word "clearance".

This is precisely what gets my ire. I'd love to leave work today and pick up an original Xbox to mod and turn into a MythTV frontend for $15-$20. However, the sticker prices are nuts even though they have no fewer than 30 of them behind the counter at my local Gamestop. What sane business manager decides this policy? I reckon the only way it would make sense is if they determined that by selling one for $75 they reap a greater net profit due to invested costs than if they'd sold five for $15. I doubt that's the case but it leaves me scratching my head.

Re:Resell

[porcupine8]

No shit. I have trouble ever buying even used games from a Gamestop because I can almost always get them cheaper on eBay - and I haven't traded in used games in over a decade because I can *sell* them for more on eBay. Both of these things should not be able to be true at the same time, yet they are, usually for the exact same games. I can't believe anyone buys/sells via these stores.

Re:Resell

[Anonymous Coward]

in other words: we pointlessly hoard crap that we're not planning to ever resell, because we'd rather it go into a landfill than to actually sell it to people for what it's actually worth. I mean seriously - every game store I've ever seen has a huge stack of games they wouldn't give two bucks for if you brought them in, sitting in a bin, unsorted... and still priced at $30 each. I think they need to learn the meaning of the word "clearance".

Everything sells (unless they're sports games). Not immediately, but eventually. Three years down the road we put them on the bargain rack near the front door for $10 per console and $2 per game, but I assure you, they do sell.

Also, Don't lose your receipt and expect us to find records for you, it is quite difficult.

Our IT Structure Is Still Suck In The '70s.

Would you rather we closely track everything you buy, and keep detailed records of your spending habits? I'd rather have "Suck in the '70s" than "Big Brother in the New Millenium."

Most customers are usually quite happy to hear we don't track this information.

Re:Resell

[VGPowerlord]

I can think of three reasons right off the top of my head:
1. Instant Gratification. People don't have to wait for games to be shipped to them.
2. Verifiability. You can verify that a product is the one they said it is before you even leave the store.
3. Warranty. Bought a used game that doesn't work? You can return it.

Re:Resell

[SQLGuru]

I never bought any of the Myst games because the price stayed too high for too long and now it's too old. I never bought the DVD remote + dongle for my Xbox because the price is *still* higher than I think it's worth. A lot of games that weren't worth the current price have aged beyond my desire to buy them.....

Layne

Re:Resell

[KDR_11k]

How do you propose retrieving a transaction when the only information you have is the product purchased? They don't ask your name or address at the register so there's no way they can generate a key they can reconstruct just from you and the product because their transaction database does not include any unique identifiers for either. Any key for your transaction is printed on the receipt.

Re:Resell

[Anonymous Coward]

And on the other hand, when I reserved a PS2 (4th person in that location to do so) the manager lost track of the receipts, gave my reservation to someone else, and offered nothing at all as compensation for my loss. So yeah, the IT is stuck in the 70s.

Re:Resell

[Anonymous Coward]

Well they actually hoard the crap for as long as possible until it's not profitable to take up store space. Then they ultimately end up shipping it to 3rd world countries like those in Central/South America(because it's closer).

Having managed an EB Games at one point. I remember one time we sent several Gameboy Advance units along with several other old(Non-selling) games to the corporate headquarters for one massive shipping out of the country.

Oh and the application that runs on the POS(point of sale) machines is definitely the suck.

Re:Resell

[amuro98]

And then the stores get clogged with overpriced stuff that isn't going to sell.

I really don't understand their policy of using small, poorly organized stores in malls that are straight out of the 80s.

There's just not enough room to store all the new games, not to mention the 1000s of used games, accessories, and DVD movies. I'm glad to hear they're phasing out DVDs - after all who goes to a GAME store for movies?! The stores in the mall always look like a cyclone hit them. You can't find anything. There are new and used titles mixed together. There are Wii games in with the Xbox360 titles. Even the employees have given up trying to find anything on the shelves.

The mall stores are one thing, but why are the strip-mall stores the same size? Why can't there be a GameStop that's larger than my first apartment's living room? Seriously, Best Buy has more square footage dedicated to video games than Game Stop does - and Best Buy's selection STINKS (at least the ones in my area do...) Even WalMart has a larger game section than GamesStop.

While I'll still buy used games (if I've got a coupon) I won't sell my games to GameStop anymore. Even for a rare-ish PS2 RPG in pristine condition, they'll give me $2 or $3, then put it on the shelf for $45. Seriously, I'd rather just sell my titles at a garage sale. $7-10/game. More than what GameStop would give me, and less than what GameStop would charge you. Win-Win.

Re:Resell

[rtechie]

I never bought the DVD remote because the one thing I wanted it to do, turn the XBOX on and off from across the room, it can't do. You're better off with a wireless controller.

Confessions?

[EveryNickIsTaken]

More like "A Guide for Shopping in my Store" or "Dealing with Gamestop's ridiculous policies." Gamestop is one of the few stores I've ever been to where it appears their policy is to treat the customer like shit.

Re:Confessions?

[Harlockjds]

exactly i don't care why you have stupid and annoying policies, just get rid of them. or i show elsewhere. I find it comical that a gamestop is unable to stock enough games for a walk in customer (for something basic like the orange box) and the FYE's next door will be swimming with copies.

It's even more comical when they act snooty about it by saying "see you should have pre ordered" when the store RIGHT NEXT to them is selling to anyone.

Re:Confessions?

[king-manic]

Gamestop is one of the few stores I've ever been to where it appears their policy is to treat the customer like shit.
[ Reply to This ] Depends on the store. In my town there are only EB's. I've been to about half the ones in my city and everybody has treated me well and gone that extra step to make me happy. But I live in Canada so it might be more common for younger people here to respect you. One of the stores knows me by name, and gives me a very wide berth in enforcements of store policy (on returns and such).

I refuse to buy from Gamestop

[justinlindh]

After several bad experiences, I stopped buying altogether from Gamestop over a year ago.

The pre-order sales push is ridiculous. I was literally called a "retard" for not pre-ordering Halo 3 when I tried to pick my copy of Gears of War up from the store. There wasn't even a confirmed release date for the game at the time. I couldn't believe I was called a retard, and asked the clerk, "excuse me?" to which he repeated, "yeah, only a retard wouldn't pre-order that game... man, it's going to be impossible to get!".

Another time, I had walked into a Gamestop (different store) and asked about the new SSX game for the Wii. The store employee said, "Oh, do you have it reserved? OF COURSE YOU DON'T OR YOU WOULDN'T BE ASKING IF WE HAD IT!" to which he laughed at me, and then told me that they did have some extra copies but that they were only going to be selling the pre-orders on that day.

One of my pre-orders that I DID place was 3 days late and I got a different excuse each time. Finally I demanded my refund for the pre-order back and went to Target and picked a copy up off of the shelf.

GameStop doesn't treat customers with any respect whatsoever. I shouldn't have to feel like I'm walking into a used car lot when I want to buy a video game. The sales tactics, lies, and pressure make me loathe the place, and I refuse to buy anything from them. Hastings and Target have always had the title ready for me on the day of release (yes, even Halo 3), so I will shop there. I will also tell anybody that I possibly can about the above stories so that others may also avoid this place.

Gamestop employees: I don't care if you're "just doing your job". You're a puppet made to act like a pushy asshole. Get a new job. They're out there.

Re:I refuse to buy from Gamestop

[twistedsymphony]

Why I stopped Shopping at EB years ago... and why I started Shopping at Gamestop again

I used to pre-order the occasional game, but mostly just poked my head into a local EB to check out the used stuff.

On about 3 separate occasions I had placed a pre-order with EB only to show up on release day and they were sold out. Once such time I saw a guy buy a copy of the item I pre-ordered (and he did not have a pre order) and walk out of the store only to be told that they were all out and I would have to wait for the next shipment, even worse was that this was a pre-order I had paid for in full...

I swore off the store for quite some time. There is different store, a Gamestop, roughly the same distance from my house but in the opposite direction and I had stopped in a few times, they of course asked if I wanted to pre-order anything to which I told them NO and WHY, recalling the story from EB. They claimed that their store was run much better than the other one. I shrugged it off. When the Limited Edition of Bioshock came out I decided to give them a try pre-ordering it. It was a large-ish cardboard box and risking a day-of purchase at walmart mean it was probably going to be beat up by the ham-fisted employees there.

Two days before the release I caught word that a large percentage of the Limited Editions were damaged (the included figurine had a broken are in 60-80% of them). I called Gamestop where I had placed the pre-order and the assured me that they would not be selling any of the broken ones and that they had checked their shipment and had enough good ones to cover the pre-orders. When I arrive to the store on release day to pick up my copy the clerk handed me a copy of the game and said "check this over and make sure your happy with it before we ring you up"... I was extremely impressed that they actually gave a sh*t. Every time I go in there they're friendly and unlike some other stores the actually know what they're talking about. Instead of regurgitating misinterpreted forum banter.

I believe that the quality of the store comes down to the management 9 out of 10 Gamestop/EBs I go to are total garbage with rude employees and lack luster selections.... on occasion I'll step into one where that's not the case and I'm fairly certain it's due to a management staff that plays Gamestop corporate instead of the customer and holds their staff to some semblance of a standard instead of allowing them to be rabid register jockeys hocking pre-orders.

Re:I refuse to buy from Gamestop

[Alzheimers]

You know that EB is a wholly owned subsidiary of Gamestop, right?

Compare: EB Gamestop

Re:I refuse to buy from Gamestop

[twistedsymphony]

yes I do know that... I used the different names because it was easier to draw a comparison between the two different instances of the same franchise instead of saying "store#1"... "store#2"

Re:I refuse to buy from Gamestop

[CatPieMan]

I recently purchased a 360 Elite from GameStop. I was told by 3 different GameStops that it had a built-in HD-DVD player.

Sure, I looked online, but they were inconclusive. Amazon.com even said that buying this product would make you elegible for 5 free hd-dvds, which implies that it had a built in player (there is an offer to recieve 5 free movies by mail if you buy a certain HD-DVD player).

Also, xbox.com didn't deny that it was built in. It also did not mention an included player, so I suspected the GS employees were lying.

There is no included HD player in the 360 Elite. Not that it really mattered, as I wanted the system anyways. I just take offence to being lied to by 5 employees of 3 different stores (Vienna, VA; Reston, VA; and Herndon, VA).

I talked to a friend who used to work at a GameStop in Texas who said "We lie to customers all the time".

-CPM

Re:I refuse to buy from Gamestop

[KDR_11k]

I think that's fraud. I've seen fastfood sellers correct customers when they called a meat by a wrong name (e.g. calling calf lamb) with the remark that if they don't correct the customer before the purchase happens it's fraud. If an employee advertises features of a product that don't exist and sells it to you he's liable for fraud.

Re:I refuse to buy from Gamestop

[LWATCDR]

I have never had that happen to me at my local EBGames. The people there are polite and actually seem to know about the games they sell.

Re:I refuse to buy from Gamestop

[jonwil]

Having been into and bought from several EB games stores here in Australia, I have never had a problem with them. The last game I bought was bought from a JB Hi-Fi though (only because the JB Hi-Fi was cheaper)

Re:I refuse to buy from Gamestop

[Vacardo]

I don't think this is a simple case of the employees being pushy old-school salesmen - it's more prevalent to me that some game-store clerks either a.) don't know much about video games or b.) aren't aware of competitors offers and the game industries' multiple cogs in general.
 
When trying to pick up Bioshock: The Collector's Edition from my local EB (I'm an Aussie, so we don't have Gamestop) I was told "Oh, we only have reserved copies left. It's totally sold out. The best chance you have of getting it is on E-bay." Mind you, I was told this on the launch day of the game. And videogames are definitely not at the stage of getting totally sold out its the launch day (yet)
 
Long story short, I picked up a copy from DVDCrave.com (who stocked about 10+ copies at the time, mind you.)

That's one reason I avoid these kind of stores unless it's absolutely necessary: there's too much smoke and mirrors, and defiantly too many clerks trying to pull a fast one on a sucker.

Re:I refuse to buy from Gamestop

[jollyreaper]

I recently purchased a 360 Elite from GameStop. I was told by 3 different GameStops that it had a built-in HD-DVD player. I find that Wikipedia is a great source for debullshitting this sort of information. I recently purchased a 360 and the info there was excellent for helping me figure out which unit to get and when. Specifically, I wanted to make sure I got the one where the heating issues were resolved. Found out the right manufacture date, whether or not it would have HDMI, etc. And it also told me that the HD player would be a separate unit that plugs into it.

In the past, you would get so much BS information by going to multiple different sources. When it comes to factual information like this, Wiki really rocks.

Re:I refuse to buy from Gamestop

[TeraCo]

At EB Chatswood I watched an EB Sales dude swear to a customer that he needed the wireless network adapter to use xbox live. I probably should have said something, but.. eh.

Gamestop corporate sucks

[StarvingSE]

FTFA: 7) Everybody decries the nature of the Gamestop employee to push reserves on the uninterested consumer. Please understand, no matter how dedicated an employee may be, on the district level and higher, he is of no value beyond his reserves and Game Informer subscriptions. Nearly any employee is the sum of their reserves, and unfortunately good people who treat customers well will see their job fade away because of poor numbers. A Gamestop worker pushing a reserve on you is trying to keep their job, literally.

What's sad is that the employee pushiness is the reason I don't shop there, even though I could walk to it from my apartment. I wonder if corporate knows they're actually losing customers because of this?

Glad to hear the truth about the company - employees are nothing but numbers. I really want to know why companies do this to their employees. It makes the employees unhappy and pissed off, and the customers irate. I used to work at Sam's Club way back in the day, and if we didn't process 2 credit card apps a shift, we'd get written up - 3 strikes and you're fired. My next job was Micro Center, they kept a daily percentage on how many people you successfully added to their customer database. Not only that, but if you mistyped the address and it came up as bogus, you get dinged for that as well. This is because Micro Center is too cheap to just mass mail their flyers, they rely on the customer data entered at point of sale.

Despite what the article is trying to claim, there really is no reason to shop at Gamestop. Their used prices are way too high, and their new games aren't any cheaper than other retailers that don't hassle you as much.

I would shop at gamestop if they differentiated themselves a bit from other retailes (besides being annoying). They could do this by doing things like hosting lan parties in store, or gaming tournaments, something that would make it fun to go there. For now, I just avoid it like the plague.

Re:Gamestop corporate sucks

[gfxguy]

I agree - I don't care whose policy it is, but it's even worse if it's corporate. That way I know to avoid ALL Game Stop stores.

When one opened very near where I live a few years ago, we started going in pretty often. The gutted game policy sucks. I don't care if they put a sticker on it - that just means the game box is not pristine, even on a brand new game, and has a messy residue of you try to take the sticker off. Yes, I'm anal retentive about it.

If we bought the logic that it's all OK because it's corporate policy, I'd still be shopping at the electronics stores that try to ram extended warranties down your throat.

In fact, even my last experience buying a game at Toys R Us really put me off... now they are pushing warranties on the games themselves. The guy wouldn't take "no" for an answer, he said he had to tell me the entire spiel before he was allowed to ring up the game. I actually got in a minor shouting match with him, as I'd heard him do the spiel to the customers before me, and there's a line of people waiting to check out.

It's a good thing I don't care much about games, I really wouldn't put up with that crap for long.

And used games? I'm sorry... the 10% discount isn't enough to make me buy used, which is about all you got with good games.

Re:Gamestop corporate sucks

[porcupine8]

I have to take this opportunity to advertise for a former employer of mine, Borders Books. The main reason I loved working for them was a complete lack of this kind of policy. I never felt like I was pushing anything on any customer. Yes, we were supposed to make suggestions - but they were just that, a suggestion for another author or series or section of the store/genre that we honestly thought the customer would find interesting - OR mentioning a current sale or coupon. I always felt like I was actually providing useful information, rather than pushing for a sale, and it was quite common for people to thank you for it.

I moved somewhere without Borders, and got a job at Books-A-Million. The first day of training was all about selling the discount cards, and how every customer who walks through the door must be offered one, and they track how many you sell per month, etc etc. I don't know what the second day of training covered, b/c I didn't go back. I could never work in that kind of environment.

So Borders is at the top of my bookstore chain list for life, b/c of that and other very customer-friendly policies that made me happy to work there.

Re:Gamestop corporate sucks

[StarvingSE]

Oh, EBgames and Gamestop both try to push the game warranties on you as well. Who the hell ever heard of a replacement policy on a piece of software anyway?

I just buy on amazon or other online retailers. For the most part, I'm disgusted with brick and mortor in general (well, big-box brick and mortor). I'd rather wait a couple of days to have to shipped to my door, and not pay taxes. There are other perks as well, such as getting the uncensored UK version of The Witcher (I hate the US sometimes).

Re:Gamestop corporate sucks

[analog_line]

Their used prices are way too high,

You know, I gotta stop you there.

I buy a lot of used games at Gamestop. In fact, after one horrific recent incident of "new" gutted games, used is the only thing I'll ever buy at Gamestop. The last time I went into Gamestop and bought something, I paid $25 for 5 Xbox games, all of them ones that actually got decent reviews. I got Splinter Cell, Max Payne, and Max Payne 2 for under $5 TOTAL one day. Yeah, if you're trying to get games that are new, or a lot of people want you're certainly not going to get a deal, but there are plenty of used games out there at a reasonable cost. Even then, prices on eBay or other used outlets are generally even worse, especially if you're paying what most of them want for shipping.

Re:Gamestop corporate sucks

[Applekid]

employees are nothing but numbers. I really want to know why companies do this to their employees. Personally, I see it as if they can't take care of their own, why would they take care of you?

I have a completely untested conjecture of a hypothesis that suggests, with salt, that the larger and farther removed stakeholders are from the actual customers: physically, financially, and otherwise, the more dehumanizing the whole organization.

You simply don't find locally owned and operated shops treating employees as worthless drones, customers as sheep to slaughter, and their business as just a couple of numbers in an investment portfolio. They put their own personal stake into the success of it. They take pride in providing a beneficial service to the community they serve and carve a chunk of the dream for their very own. Nothing at all like CEOs taking over a company making 4000 the salary of regular employees and shareholders trading with others because they're not being aggressive enough and not posting a large enough profit year over year.

If you care at all about how people are treated (and I recognize that not everyone would care and, while sad, it's ok), you owe it to yourself to find those kitchy little places and buy your games or hobby gear or clothes or hardware or whatever there. It does involve putting your money where your mouth is since they can't command Huge Huge $avings (tm), but following your ethos isn't always easy.

Re:Gamestop corporate sucks

[GreyyGuy]

You are making a simple mistake. You are assuming that the company WANTS to retain employees. What value does Gamestop get if they keep an employee? Valued, long-term employees will expect raises and if fired get more/longer unemployment. Do they give the company more value? Are they hard to replace? Will there be more eager of age high school workers there each year? Is interviewing and training a new employee very costly?

Unfortunately, long term employment is no value to the company, as they see it. At least not compared to the simplistic view of valuing the people who sell high-margin items, regardless of the value to the customer.

Re:Gamestop corporate sucks

[Schnapple]

I wonder if corporate knows they're actually losing customers because of this?

They probably do, and they don't care because ultimately they make more money. Sure, you are pissed off enough to not shop there anymore but for the people who either tolerate the policies or better yet, really do buy more stuff or spend more money, it makes it worthwhile. I worked for Babbage's ages ago, it's remarkably easy to talk some kid into spending more money on the strategy guide to the wrestling game he's also buying. Sure, VERY long term it might have negative repercussions but in the meantime it brings in money, which is all that matters. I'm not saying it's right but some companies that put their customers above profits have been known to crash and burn.

I really want to know why companies do this to their employees. It makes the employees unhappy and pissed off, and the customers irate.

Because retail employees are exchangeable, easily replaced cogs. Seriously, these aren't heart surgeons. GameStop doesn't even really care if you know what you're selling (though, it does help). If one talks back you fire him and replace him with some unemployed sap who will sell video game guides without giving you any lip. And as we discovered previously, the customers who do get pissed off and never come back are handily outnumbered by the ones who will spend more money as a result of being snookered.

I would shop at gamestop if they differentiated themselves a bit from other retailes (besides being annoying). They could do this by doing things like hosting lan parties in store, or gaming tournaments, something that would make it fun to go there.

All of which take up time, floor space, and money, and none of which are necessary when you're pulling in record profits. And none of which will make one lick of difference when digital distribution eventually takes their legs out from under them. Look at all the stories of record stores that have tried similar tactics and still go out of business.

Despite what the article is trying to claim, there really is no reason to shop at Gamestop. Their used prices are way too high, and their new games aren't any cheaper than other retailers that don't hassle you as much.

There's one reason - they probably won't screw up your preorder. Best Buy will have some handful of the collector's edition and the odds are some retail moron there will put your preordered copy on the store floor. Or they won't get any. GameStop, though not infallible, will keep your preordered copy for 48 hours and get it right most of the time. Best Buy and Target couldn't care less.

Re:Gamestop corporate sucks

[Dmala]

My next job was Micro Center, they kept a daily percentage on how many people you successfully added to their customer database. Not only that, but if you mistyped the address and it came up as bogus, you get dinged for that as well. This is because Micro Center is too cheap to just mass mail their flyers, they rely on the customer data entered at point of sale.

Totally OT, but I find this hilarious. Before I moved, I used to get no less than four Micro Center fliers: one to my wife's maiden name, one to her married name, one to my name, and one to a mangled version of my last name, all at the exact same address.

Re:Gamestop corporate sucks

[RESPAWN]

Sadly enough, sometimes you have to be able to come up with firm metrics to measure employees so that you have valid reason to terminate underperforming employees. In this day and age of litigious society, it's not unreasonable to think that somebody may attempt to press a lawsuit after being terminated. So, although the employees hate the metrics, creating and enforcing metrics are sometimes the only way you can give yourself enough ammo to fire a troublesome employee. It sucks, but I've had to do it for a group of my employees in my office, all because I need to cover my ass when I do finally fire my one troublesome employee.

Re:Gamestop corporate sucks

[Raenex]

Ah, the dirty truth. How refreshing!

Warcraft III

[WorselWorsel]

My friend Rob used to work for the local EB. Corporate lowered the price on the Warcraft III Collector's Edition to, I think, $15. The regular edition was selling for $30 at the time. Every time someone would come to the register with the regular edition he'd try to point the collector's edition out to them, as a courtesy, and EVERY person told him no and just ignored him. He was trying to save them money and they reflexively just saying, "No." I always at least listen to the sales pitches because it might be in my best interest.

Re:Warcraft III

[Anonymous Coward]

You know why those people reflexively say "No"? Because 99.9% of the time the sales man is trying to trick you. Even if you catch the trick 75% of the time, you're still getting screwed lots. The people don't say no because of some group think. They say no because they've been screwed before. Just because you've been screwed a few times and the salesman managed to make you think you won don't make you smarter.

Re:Warcraft III

[flitty]

He must be a slobbering monkey then not to be able to sell a half price version of the same game with extra stuff.
I bet his conversation went something like, "Hey Jerkoff, why are you buying Warcraft 3. Boy, you are such a n00b. WC2 was so much better. Wanna preorder World of Warcraft? It's gonna be sweet, and you RTS people totally want to play an MMO. Oh, and this game SHOULD be half price it sucks so bad. In fact, it is half price! Boy you are a n00b. Wanna buy it?"

Re:Warcraft III

[stewbee]

I always at least listen to the sales pitches because it might be in my best interest.

I think therein lies the problem. How many times does a person hear a sales pitch in any given day/week/month? It gets old. However, I definitely recognize when the salesperson is trying to push a product/warranty/etc. My normal reaction is to not buy that product/etc at all. I will also at least listen to what the person has to say. To me, that is just being a decent person. But maybe I have too high of standard of how people should act. Some people will not change and will be bitter no matter what. They will have a grudge against salespeople, because they have been burned elsewhere by other salespeople. It's just a defense mechanism which overrides civility.

Re:Warcraft III

[windex82]

I agree, theres no excuse for disrespecting someone for doing their job. Anytime any of these posts come around I wonder how any one posting on any of these types of discussion are capable of buying anything. Theres no way in hell your always going to be happy with service provided every time. On top of it a lot of the excuses used in these discussions are almost always immature bull shit. You do enough business with anyone and somethings going to happen to piss you off eventually. It an unfortunate side effect of being human and dealing with other humans.

Your always going to be annoyed by something. Why show such disrespect for others by being a dick for them doing their jobs. Get a fucking clue and politely tell the sales people you aren't interested or as part of your greeting let the sales person know your not interested in any of the sales you know they have to pitch. They aren't doing it to annoy you its their job, let them be. Half the time they will thank you for letting them know before hand and frees you both up for small talk instead of the pitch.

I worked at a video store for a while in high school and they sold pre-paid rental cards. cost 19.99 and were worth 25$ so you got 5 for free... I was always amazed at the dick heads who would come up with over 20$ in rentals and wanted no part of hearing how you could save them 5$. Most of the time they would have used the value of the card in one shot. Suckering them in wasn't my goal. I'd even have people listen to the whole thing, then say "So, this 24$ worth of movies would only cost me 19.99?" "Yes." "No thanks." then pay the 24$.

If you looked hard enough you could find a way to give everyone at least one movie for free every time they were in, something I was famous and praised for. You could get one if you weren't in for 3 months, you could get one for saying you didn't like the last movie you watched, the movie was out last time you were in, birthday, anniversary, day that ends in y, first rental ever, being out of state, renting from our store when you regular the store in another city. I could almost guaranteed if you listened to what I was forced to pitch I would find you a way to get one of them for free.

Re:Warcraft III

[tighr]

I can definitely understand this. Back when I was in High School, I had a part-time job at a Blockbuster Video. One summer, they ran a promotion where if you donated $1 to the Boys and Girls Club of America, you could rent any movie from the "Family" section for free every single day until Labor Day. At this time, all movies that weren't new releases (including family) were $1.99 plus tax, which came out to about $2.15. The dollar was also tax free. I agree with everyone else that I hate sales pitches myself, so I didn't push it to anyone who didn't have kids. But any time someone brought up a family film and I noticed they didn't already have the promotion on their account, I asked them if they would like to save at a minimum $1.15 today, with the option to get FREE movies every single day for the rest of the summer. You would not believe how many people turned me down. Sometimes they would say "I don't rent children's movies that often," or even worse "This will be the only children's movie I rent all summer, my neice/nephew is in town". It doesn't click to them that no one cares if they only rent one movie, its still free with the $1 donation. I could understand if the donation was $5 or $10 or any amount more than two bucks, but not when the donation is less than actual rental price.

I'm sure I could have gotten fired if the mgmt found out, but after a while I just started activating the promotion on their account and giving them the movie for free without the sales pitch. None of the customers were ever brilliant enough to actually read their receipts, so they never noticed that they got that movie for only a dollar. They were probably pleasantly surprised the next time they rented a family film that summer and it was free. I'm sure none complained that they would rather just pay the $2.15.

Doesn't sound good

[KDR_11k]

I like how many of the problems Gamestop has are considered inevitable by that guy yet other stores don't exhibit them. Lack of preorders not getting any copies shipped to your Gamestop? BFD, go to a bigger retailer that actually stocks games. You'll even get it in the original wrap and without employees tampering with it or trying to sell you any extra shit. Forcing employees to meet quotas of reserves and subscriptions is probably one of the worst policies I have heard of although I haven't encountered the results here. The stores are still annoying and cramped (and overpriced) so I avoid them when possible.

Fry's vs. Gamestop

[Anonymous Coward]

Two evil corporations, but when a new highly hyped game comes out, you have to have a preorder with Gamestop, and even then you're not guarenteed to get it. Fry's on the other hand, has a stack, and it's usually $10 bucks off the first day as well. What's up with stores that only sell at MSRP? Gamestop should change their name to "YOU WILL BUY ALL YOUR VIDEO GAME STUFF HERE!!".

Only EB in the whole region

[shlepp]

I guess numbers don't matter much when they are the only EB in the entire region, as far as i know the EB here does extremely well due to them being the only one for 400km, people drive to the EB from Invermere, Creston, Radium. They don't really need to push sales of stuff because everything sells so quick there, and they are literally 100Meters from Wal-Mart and a Superstore. I could see EB stores in cities pushing sales due to other competition.

Re:Only EB in the whole region

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the one at home, only it's 1000km.

Loosing reservations

[safiel]

Our local gamestop used to keep all of it's reservation records in a little file folder, there were no computer records. They had this great policy that if THEY lost their half of the reservation ticket, yours was worthless. Over a couple years a few of my buddies lost there deposit money because gamestop had misplaced their reservation slip and said that the customer side alone was worthless. Thanks guys, that was the end of reserves for me. Also, it's not the opening of games that I hate so much it's the tons of stickers they stick on the game. And not even on the plastic on the outside. I bought Touch Detectives 2.5 last week and demanded a new one. Their floor copy had 3 large 'new' stickers on the paper cover for the game. That's just a pain in the ass and sounds way more prone to messing up a nice new game cover when removing. When I was little, I remember that gamestop was always the cool place that had the semi obscure games that they wouldn't stock at the bigger department stores. But now, most of their stock is used games and it's pretty rare that they have what I want. I've got a much better chance looking at Fred Meyer while I'm there to pick up milk!

Re:Reservations... It's a TRAP!

[tcolberg]

It seems to me that Gamestop's preorder and lack of games on launch day is to create an artificial supply problem-- they aren't amateurs, they're cons working their marks. If their clerk can say to the multitude of idiots that walk through their doors that "there's going to be a shortage" or "it's going to sell out" and make sure it does, at least in Gamestops, they can habituate consumers into preordering. Only stocking enough games for preorders reduces overstocking costs for Gamestop and encourages consumers (who are afraid of not getting the product on launch day) to preorder at MSRP rather than comparison shop.

I have friends who preorder habitually because rather than waiting and saving themselves some cash, they want to make sure that they have the game the instant it comes out. I waited until the day of the launch of Orange Box and got it for 40% off. I got Halo 3 four days after launch for 25% off. Money in my pocket > Launch day mania.

This guy is completely full of shit.

[ivan256]

Gutted games:

I can't stress this enough; to remain a browsable, accessible small shop, 'gutting' a single copy is essentially unavoidable.

Complete bullshit. Gamestop has enough clout to get a few empty boxes for display purposes. They have empty boxes for the games on the wall to advertise pre-releases. "Gutting" a game is entirely unnecessary. Furthermore, nobody is forcing them to sell the gutted game at full price. If they feel they need a gutted box on the wall to sell a game, then when it comes time to sell the gutted copy, they are completely free to sell it at cost instead of taking full retail profit. It is also unnecessary for the store manager to give the customer a hard time when they change their mind and refuse to buy because the game is opened.

Reserves:

Preorders are only taken when their allotment can be guaranteed.

Complete bullshit. Preorders are taken for systems and games which haven't had their release-date or retail price announced yet. Are you telling me that those allotments are guaranteed? Did everybody who pre-ordered a Wii from you last Christmas get their system before the new year?

More importantly, if you're going to tell this blatant a lie, why should we believe the rest of the trash you're spouting?

DVD Trade-ins:

Many Gamestops don't take DVDs any more, and the company as a whole is phasing them out. DVDs are worth very little and you shouldn't bother.

Gamestop corporate just started a new chain called MovieStop where all they do is DVD trade-ins...

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[hibiki_r]

Complete bullshit. Preorders are taken for systems and games which haven't had their release-date or retail price announced yet. Are you telling me that those allotments are guaranteed? Did everybody who pre-ordered a Wii from you last Christmas get their system before the new year?

You went for exactly the wrong example. Every Gamestop in the US had a 'no preorders on Wii or PS3' since E3. Preorders campaigns lasted a whole 15 minutes. The stores advertised when they were taking preorders, and a ton of people lined up just to preorder the consoles. Store employees were banned from getting a console from the store, even if they were off duty and camping out with everyone else.Plenty of stores had triple the amount of people in line for the preorders as they had preorders to give away, and they left with no preorder ticket. A few weeks later, stores opened at midnight, and as far as I could tell they just enough consoles to cover preorders, no more.

Why all of that order and sanity? To avoid what had happened a year before with the 360, where people that preordered even as far back as June didn't get their consoles until new year, precisely because they accepted preorders with no bounds, and came back to bite them. It's hard to make people to preorder anything if then they are not sure they'll get the game/console at launch. They learned it the hard way.

I've also noticed that the stores are pushing crap less and less than they used to. I stopped going there with any regularity when they started doing 3 or 4 up-sells per purchase: Do you want a protection plan for your game?!? How about buying it used for 4 bucks less? No? Then what about this magazine subscription? Do you want to preorder X or Y?. Last time I dropped by for a game that BB retailers didn't have, they didn't try even a single up-sell.

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[ivan256]

Give me a break. Every "Gamestop screwed up a pre-order" story is an exception to the rule.

Fine. Replace "Wii" with "Nintendo DS Lite", or "PSP", or "Final Fantasy X", or...

The point is, they take pre-orders for things before they can possibly have any assurance that the order will be fulfilled.

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[Chosen Reject]

And that's not all. I personally liked confessions 21 and 22, especially in light of each other. #21 essentially says to never buy used off-brand accessories as they are unreliable. #22 then goes on to say to consider buying new off-brand accessories, especially Gamestop branded stuff. These aren't confessions. These were written by Gamestop marketing.

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[MeanderingMind]

Complete bullshit. Gamestop has enough clout to get a few empty boxes for display purposes. They have empty boxes for the games on the wall to advertise pre-releases. "Gutting" a game is entirely unnecessary. Furthermore, nobody is forcing them to sell the gutted game at full price. If they feel they need a gutted box on the wall to sell a game, then when it comes time to sell the gutted copy, they are completely free to sell it at cost instead of taking full retail profit. It is also unnecessary for the store manager to give the customer a hard time when they change their mind and refuse to buy because the game is opened.

Most of the time, those empty boxes aren't the real deal. I can't say I've worked at a Gamestop and have special knowledge, but it doesn't take an insider to look at them and tell they aren't official. Often enough they don't even have anything on the back.

Nobody may be forcing them to sell at retail price, except for corporate. Corporate has decided that since the game has essentially been untouched, the price should match accordingly. That, or they decided that they like screwing with people. It's not a decision any particular store's manager gets to make.

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[ivan256]

Most of the time, those empty boxes aren't the real deal. I can't say I've worked at a Gamestop and have special knowledge, but it doesn't take an insider to look at them and tell they aren't official. Often enough they don't even have anything on the back.

So they should have the publisher ship them some real ones....

Nobody may be forcing them to sell at retail price, except for corporate. Corporate has decided that since the game has essentially been untouched, the price should match accordingly. That, or they decided that they like screwing with people. It's not a decision any particular store's manager gets to make.

"Corporate"?

Who cares if an individual manager gets to make that decision or not? Am I supposed to make a sympathy buy because "corporate" forces a GameStop manager to do things that make me not want to shop there?

It doesn't matter to me at what level of the chain the decision was made. The fact of the matter is that I don't want to pay full price for a game with an open box, or a case with stickers all over the front. Especially when the game has a registration key.

If they go out of business because they won't change their policies, and enough people like me stop shopping there, that would be fantastic; because that would mean some other game chain could move in and take up their lost market... Or, you know, they could go back to not-sucking like before Electronics Boutique turned into EB Games... Or back to how Funcoland was before GameStop killed them...

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[MeanderingMind]

So they should have the publisher ship them some real ones....

It's cheaper and easier to send a box of entirely blank cases followed by e-mails containing mock ups to print. The best part, the cases are reusable.

When the game actually launches, it's cheaper and easier to open a box and remove the game. You can't sell an empty box.

"Corporate"?

Who cares if an individual manager gets to make that decision or not? Am I supposed to make a sympathy buy because "corporate" forces a GameStop manager to do things that make me not want to shop there?

That wasn't my point. My point was you were railing against an article told at the local level, while claiming "Furthermore, nobody is forcing them to sell the gutted game at full price." This wasn't about sympathy buys, but about understanding where the manager was coming from.

It doesn't matter to me at what level of the chain the decision was made. The fact of the matter is that I don't want to pay full price for a game with an open box, or a case with stickers all over the front. Especially when the game has a registration key.

That's a fair enough position to take. You don't want to pay full price for a game with an open box. You can express that opinion, and refuse to purchase the game at that price. You have that power as a buyer.

But at the same time, I have the power to say, "Hey, the only real difference here is I didn't have to take the shrink wrap off myself." If they're out of the game otherwise, I can walk home with a brand new copy, or I can throw myself at the mercies of whatever used copies they might or might not have.

If there are enough people who hold similar opinions to yours, you might see things change. However, as long as there are a significant number of people like myself you're going to be charged full price for gutted games.

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[MeanderingMind]

Games are pretty much guaranteed if you preorder. Despite the excessive worldwide popularity of the Halo franchise, and the fact that it only went gold less than a month before the game was launched (Aug 29th - Sept 25th) there were ample copies for everyone on launch day and more than enough for the weeks after. Quite simply, the demand for games hasn't reached a point yet where the rate of manufacture for games has been significantly challenged. If a game is in short supply, it's because of a lack of perceived interested (i.e lack of preorders among a plethora of other things).

Hardware is where they really can't make any guarantees, hence the care they put into the PS3 and Wii launches. These being the most recent examples, it's probably safe to say they won't be returning to the same preorder insanity we saw for the 360 or any other prior hardware.

The only other preorder problem is if a game isn't released. I've only experienced this once (StarCraft: Ghost) and as it was only $5 I never bothered to drive from Texas to Pennsylvania where the GameStop holding my preorder stands.

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[ivan256]

The fact of the matter is that GameStop frequently doesn't receive enough copies of a game to cover its pre-orders. After the third time in as many years that it happened to me, I simply stopped shopping there. Plus you don't contest my assertion at all... This guy said pre-orders are taken only if the allotment is guaranteed. You start off by saying "pretty much guaranteed", which is exactly the same as "not guaranteed". Then you provide an example from your own experience of being sold a pre-release when the allotment wasn't guaranteed. You're agreeing with me, and you don't even realize it.

Lastly, there is no reason for game publishers not to operate like book publishers. In other words: Ship way too many copies, and take the extras back when they don't sell. It costs a very small amount to produce a disc and case, no matter what is on it. Yet they don't require this of the publishers they deal with.

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[ivan256]

That wasn't my point. My point was you were railing against an article told at the local level, while claiming "Furthermore, nobody is forcing them to sell the gutted game at full price." This wasn't about sympathy buys, but about understanding where the manager was coming from.

The article was supposedly told at the local level, but so what? That's irrelevant. The article implied that we should tolerate the policy because it was made by "corporate", but how does it matter to the customer who made the decision? Why aren't the managers pushing back to their district managers, or further up the chain about these policies? The fact that an article like this has to exist should be evidence enough that this is a bad policy for them, and a significant number of customers complain about it.

But at the same time, I have the power to say, "Hey, the only real difference here is I didn't have to take the shrink wrap off myself." If they're out of the game otherwise, I can walk home with a brand new copy, or I can throw myself at the mercies of whatever used copies they might or might not have.

Did you miss the part about the checkout policy? That's right, your "gutted , but still new" game may have been taken home to be played by a store employee. Not only does that make the game "not new" by even the most generous definitions of "new", but it is also technically illegal for them to sell that game as new in many (if not all) states. So yeah, you didn't have to take the shrink wrap off yourself, and somebody already played that copy of the game. Those are the only differences though. Coincidentally, they're the only differences between the non-gutted games, and the games on the used rack too... except that there's a "lifetime" guarantee that the game works when you buy it used. They don't offer that courtesy to the suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H customers who buy the gutted game.

If only a couple people in a store's region purchase a new game from Target or Wal-Mart instead of GameStop because of the gutting policy, they are probably losing more profit than they would if they ponied up for some mock boxes on the shelf. Keep in mind that they not only lost the sale of those few game copies, but the possibility of any up-sells they may have made to those customers on that visit. They may not lose enough to get put out of business because of it, but I'd bet they're losing enough to make the policy downright bone-headed.

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[ivan256]

Incidentally, there's a reason that GameStop doesn't pressure publishers to use the book publishing model instead of the pre-order model that they currently use:

The inability to return unsold games to the publisher makes it impossible for an independent video games store to turn a profit. By abusing their customers with the pre-order policy, they are able to ensure that competition is economically unfeasible. That way you continue to shop there even though they abuse you. Nice, huh? They actually manage to perpetuate their business model by having poor stock levels, and a small (relative to the number of games on the market over a few years time) selection.

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[MeanderingMind]

The fact of the matter is that GameStop frequently doesn't receive enough copies of a game to cover its pre-orders.

You anecdote would be more helpful if A) you specified when this happened B) you specified with what titles and C) you specified what GameStop tried to do to appease you, however unsuccessful it was. As it stands, it's entirely your experience against the experience of anyone who disagrees.

Plus you don't contest my assertion at all... This guy said pre-orders are taken only if the allotment is guaranteed. You start off by saying "pretty much guaranteed", which is exactly the same as "not guaranteed".

I didn't want to get into an argument about semantics, but unfortunately I find myself in a position necessitating clarification. When I said "pretty much guaranteed" I meant "guaranteed to the full extent of the ability a company has to guarantee that another company will deliver a product as stated". I didn't mean, "I guess the manager has some vague idea how many copies they'll be getting, and won't preorder too many more than that". In short, the only reason I didn't say "fully guaranteed" was due to the possibility I described later. Which brings us to the next bullet point.

Then you provide an example from your own experience of being sold a pre-release when the allotment wasn't guaranteed. You're agreeing with me, and you don't even realize it.

Within the definition given, the situation I described is still "guaranteed". It is only a misinterpretation of my intentions by which you have come to the conclusion that I agree with you.

The point of my anecdote was to show that the only experience I've had over dozens of preorders where it was not filled was when a game with a promised release date was completely canned, a situation beyond the control of the organization I preordered from.

Lastly, there is no reason for game publishers not to operate like book publishers. In other words: Ship way too many copies, and take the extras back when they don't sell. It costs a very small amount to produce a disc and case, no matter what is on it. Yet they don't require this of the publishers they deal with.

This kind of market existed in the Atari days, and when Nintendo first attempted to rejuvenate the video games industry. However, due to the mechanics of this it was nearly impossible for a video game company to make a profit. Books and video games are simply not interchangeable.

It might be possible to somehow modify the book system to be more appropriate for video games, but there's isn't enough reason for this to happen currently. It doesn't have a big enough benefit for the big players in either retail or in publishing to make the drastic changes necessary for it to work. Until there is a clear motivation for them, it won't happen.

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[MeanderingMind]

The article was supposedly told at the local level, but so what? That's irrelevant.

It's certainly irrelevant to what you have been saying, but then again what you have been saying is only tangentially relevant to what the article was saying.

The article implied that we should tolerate the policy because it was made by "corporate", but how does it matter to the customer who made the decision? Why aren't the managers pushing back to their district managers, or further up the chain about these policies? The fact that an article like this has to exist should be evidence enough that this is a bad policy for them, and a significant number of customers complain about it.

If the manager believes a policy is bad, who's to say they don't? Complaining does not necessarily warrant change. On the other hand if the manager agrees with the policy, they'll leave it up to the customers to complain.

Did you miss the part about the checkout policy? That's right, your "gutted , but still new" game may have been taken home to be played by a store employee. Not only does that make the game "not new" by even the most generous definitions of "new", but it is also technically illegal for them to sell that game as new in many (if not all) states. So yeah, you didn't have to take the shrink wrap off yourself, and somebody already played that copy of the game. Those are the only differences though. Coincidentally, they're the only differences between the non-gutted games, and the games on the used rack too... except that there's a "lifetime" guarantee that the game works when you buy it used. They don't offer that courtesy to the suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H customers who buy the gutted game.

I didn't, and I'd still take the gutted game over a used copy. Call me gullible, but given that there is generally a long line of people wanting to work at GameStop, they can afford to terminate anyone who has a consistently bad performance (i.e bringing back gutted games in a condition more akin to used, warranting complaints from customers). I'd much rather trust an employee hired for their ability to not manhandle games on a daily basis than the people responsible for the unplayable disks at Blockbuster.

If only a couple people in a store's region purchase a new game from Target or Wal-Mart instead of GameStop because of the gutting policy, they are probably losing more profit than they would if they ponied up for some mock boxes on the shelf. Keep in mind that they not only lost the sale of those few game copies, but the possibility of any up-sells they may have made to those customers on that visit. They may not lose enough to get put out of business because of it, but I'd bet they're losing enough to make the policy downright bone-headed.

Given the following assumptions, your strategy can not possibly make a profit.

1. The only time they need to sell a gutted game is when they are out of shrink wrapped, new copies.
2. Shipping empty boxes requires excluding an actual game from current shipments.

With these conditions, the gutted game wouldn't even be there to purchase under your system. We must assume #2, because it doesn't make sense to ship a box of empty boxes, as there aren't enough games coming out on a given week to warrant that. Not only that, this doesn't include the necessity of storing lots of empty boxes for titles you do not have in stock because you sold out but might eventually see one of them in the future.

Your proposition is not as economically sound as you think it is.

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[ivan256]

This kind of market existed in the Atari days, and when Nintendo first attempted to rejuvenate the video games industry. However, due to the mechanics of this it was nearly impossible for a video game company to make a profit. Books and video games are simply not interchangeable.

I don't know if you've noticed, but expensive cartridges have been replaced with dirt-cheap optical media. It used to cost orders of magnitudes more to "print" a video game compared to a book, and now it costs at least one order of magnitude less.

You anecdote would be more helpful if A) you specified when this happened B) you specified with what titles and C) you specified what GameStop tried to do to appease you, however unsuccessful it was. As it stands, it's entirely your experience against the experience of anyone who disagrees.

We're going in circles here. I don't need to give you an anecdotal example, because *all* GameStops were taking pre-orders for the items I listed in this post before the release dates and/or prices of the items were announced.

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[ivan256]

Given the following assumptions, your strategy can not possibly make a profit.

1. The only time they need to sell a gutted game is when they are out of shrink wrapped, new copies.
2. Shipping empty boxes requires excluding an actual game from current shipments.

With these conditions, the gutted game wouldn't even be there to purchase under your system. We must assume #2, because it doesn't make sense to ship a box of empty boxes, as there aren't enough games coming out on a given week to warrant that.

Your assumption #2 is absurd.

For PC games, empty boxes could be shipped folded up. They certainly wouldn't take any more space than the other enormous cardboard promotional materials that get sent for a game.

For console games, they could just ship a label to insert into an empty, appropriately colored DVD case.

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[MeanderingMind]

At last the power of logic has shown us there is an equitable solution. Excellent refutation of #2.

I agree. That should actually be a very viable method.

Re:This guy is completely full of shit.

[MeanderingMind]

I don't know if you've noticed, but expensive cartridges have been replaced with dirt-cheap optical media. It used to cost orders of magnitudes more to "print" a video game compared to a book, and now it costs at least one order of magnitude less.

I have noticed, but the point remains. Video games and books are not interchangeable because books do not operate on budgets in the millions of dollars. Books don't have to recuperate those costs. Books are also cheaper, but don't lose value over time the way video games do. They can afford to sit on a shelf for a much longer period of time without mark down, because the number of people waiting for a book to get cheaper before buying it are few and far between.

They are not analogous media, and what works for books will not work for video games without turning the system into the ship of Theseus.

We're going in circles here. I don't need to give you an anecdotal example, because *all* GameStops were taking pre-orders for the items I listed in this post before the release dates and/or prices of the items were announced.

And as I and others responded to that list, they did not take preorders of the Wii before the release date was announced, Final Fantasy X is a non-issue because games are cheap and easy to manufacture, and for the DS GameStop stopped taking preorders when they reached the limit of their incoming shipments.

Hence, what I said many posts back...

Hardware is where they really can't make any guarantees, hence the care they put into the PS3 and Wii launches. These being the most recent examples, it's probably safe to say they won't be returning to the same preorder insanity we saw for the 360 or any other prior hardware.

GameStop vs. Barnes and Noble

[safiel]

Had a friend that worked at one and then the other. According to him: apparently GameStop is owned by Barnes and Noble. However, it appears that Barnes and Noble treat their employees way better (guess because there's always more people willing to be abused by gamestop). Working at Barnes and Noble both your book/game reservations and magazine subscription numbers can be lower (which probably makes it nicer to buy stuff at Barnes and Noble). Also, you get a higher percentage off of items AT GAMESTOP then if you work at gamestop. I think the difference was a good 10% of the cost too. Guess you don't get check out privileges though.

Re:GameStop vs. Barnes and Noble

[Fatal Fungus]

From what I understood, Barnes and Noble had at one time had a decent chunk of GameStop's stock. They sold it off, but the employee benefits continued. At GameStop, employees get 15% off of everything but new systems. At B&N, it's 40% off of everything. Not a lot of people in either company knew that you got a discount at both places. In a couple of years, I had one B&N employee come in. I was in B&N every other week.

I spent a couple of years managing a GameStop, and had a friend at B&N. He had decent things to say about them. For me, though, above the store manager positions, everyone is completely inept at GameStop. Most of their retail people are inept, too. They say they are structured from the bottom up. Maybe that's how it looks to someone who has their head up their ass. There was immense pressure to sell reservations and subscriptions, and if you didn't meet certain percentages your hours were cut, and eventually you were let go. How sad. The worst part is these idiots don't get commission on any of it, yet they still act like belligerent assholes! Working minimum wage with zero bonuses while being forced to meet quotas. What a joke.

Gutted games?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gamestop policy is, for better or worse, that employees may check out new games that are more than two weeks past their original release so long as they are returned in mint condition.

Good thing that game manufacturers don't check if serial #'s are used multiple times.

Re:Gutted games?

[Pranadevil2k]

When he says mint condition I'm assuming he means "returnable" condition. That means no opened games with serial numbers or CD keys. I've never seen an opened or used PC game at any of the gamestops in my town.

Believable to some extent

[Thyamine]

While I also think it needs to be taken with a grain of salt, my wife worked in retail as a store manager for a well known mall store. They had a policy in place that they're not allowed to stop anyone who they see shoplifting. They can see stand there and watch someone put it into a bag or a pocket, and corporate flat-out refuses to allow store employees to do anything because it can potentially create negative feelings or negative publicity or some such shit. They are told straight-out that corporate won't support them in any way should they attempt to call security or the police, and most likely will have negative job repercussion. And of course, then somehow they are responsible then for those missing items come inventory or what have you.

So I can completely believe that corporate policies dictate bizarre policies, and that they aren't going to receive 20 copies of every possible new game that comes out. If you haven't seen a mall store's storage area, then you clearly can't understand the very limited space they generally have to deal with.

Re:Believable to some extent

[CaseM]

They had a policy in place that they're not allowed to stop anyone who they see shoplifting.

Hmm, where did your wife work? For, uh, research purposes only, of course.

Re:Reservations... It's a TRAP!

[harl]

I haven't pre-ordered a game in over 5 years yet I still get things on launch day. Other places have enough supply to meet demand.

What is the big deal?

[VoxMagis]

I worked in retail for more than 20 years, and I can tell you that every store I ever worked at had the same policies, in their own way.

This comes down to:
  1. Make a profit.
  2. If you don't have it, get it.
  3. If you have it, sell it.
  4. Your job is to make money for the company.
          a. Sometimes this means being really nice to a customer
          b. Sometimes this means being a bit pushy
          c. Sometimes it means saying NO.

EB and Gamestop OWN NOOBS

[Sciros]

It's one of the few jobs where you mostly loaf around all day straightening up re-sealed PS2 controllers hanging on the wall and dusting off "Ninja Gaiden 2 preorder" boxes that have been up since 2006, and on occasion get to abuse a stupid customer that had the nerve to come in and buy something terrible like last year's Harry Potter game for their middle-schooler because the game he really wants is rated 'M'. Hehehe and you can reward the non-morons with super niceness and treat them like kings in order to even things out.

Too bad the pay is terrible and the management is usually hilariously bad. Problem with these stores isn't so much the setup as that it mostly attracts dumbasses to apply for work there. So you're stuck shopping from dumbasses and that's really where the aggravation comes from.

Re:EB and Gamestop OWN NOOBS

[flitty]

Sounds like you used to manage the EB by my house.

Problem with these stores isn't so much the setup as that it mostly attracts dumbasses to apply for work there.

Yes, if only cool guys would have worked there with you....

Re:EB and Gamestop OWN NOOBS

[Sciros]

Hehe I've never worked at one of those stores; I'd probably have gone crazy if I did. But I've shopped at them enough (yes the good old preorder-then-come-in-on-release-day method I've been using for ages) to get a feel for what goes on. And yeah, the reason I don't *enjoy* visiting the stores (go in, ask for game at register, pay, purchase the limited edition strategy guide on top of that O.o wtf, get out) is that I'm forced to listen to kids ask their parents for some decent game and the parent going "oh no that's rated T go pick a game that's E" and I'm like "agggh my brain!" and then the guy at the register starts talking to me about how he wins euchre tournaments by cheating and I'm like "dude either STAFOO or at least try to push some preorders on me for the 'upcoming' Banjo Kazooie 3 because I don't want to listen to you talking about cheating in competitions like an ass."

So.. yeah woo ranting!

Re:EB and Gamestop OWN NOOBS

[Anonymous Coward]

You do sound a lot like a dumbass.

Re:EB and Gamestop OWN NOOBS

[Sciros]

Cool you should register on Slashdot so I can add you to my friends list and we can both be stupid together!

Re:EB and Gamestop OWN NOOBS

[PhoenixOne]

Wait, a job who's great reward is being able to lord over middle-schoolers mostly attracts dumbasses? You're kidding!

#19 - DUH

[Anonymous Coward]

"19) Don't be afraid to sell things on your own! The going resell rates for any current games or accessories online is usually close to what we resell for. If its a much newer title and you don't mind listing and shipping it, you could make a small handful more selling it online yourself. Ebay and Amazon.com are obvious choices, but you may find other outlets that work for you."

All I can say is, DUH! People like convenience. People hate hassles. So if that means getting a little less money while avoiding having to list and ship a game, that's what they do!

Good relationships

[RogueyWon]

I see a few comments in TFA about things you can do that will ingratiate you to the staff in a store. My own experience (UK-based) is that this really, really does matter. As a "good customer", you shouldn't count on automatically receiving any favours... but valued customers are always going to be more likely to pick up unexpected little bonuses.

My own case in point here revolves around the launch of the Wii. I hadn't actually planned on picking one up, to be honest, but these were in seriously short supply in the UK right through to the middle of February in most regions. Now, I've gotten into the habit in recent years of buying most of my games from a small branch of GAME (our equivalent of Gamestop) that I pass in the morning on my way to the office. It saves me the stress of having postmen or neighbours steal games I've ordered online during delivery (this has happened a few times now), it's convenient and the staff in this store are good; older than the average straight-out-of-a-Mickey-Mouse-degree-at-university types you often get, deeply knowledgeable about games and generally not too pushy. Because they're a small store and often don't get much stock in, I tend to pre-order most games that I know I'm going to want. I buy enough games that the Loyalty card is worth it and I don't mind getting the odd junk-mail from them (they sometimes throw in vouchers). In short, from their POV, I'm more or less the ideal customer.

Now, as the only person in the team without family committments, I got roped into manning the office between Christmas and New Year. These are typically graveyard days - you come in late, take a long lunch and don't hang around in the evening, but you're there just in case anything goes wrong (always a major concern in my line of work). On the way into the office that week, I popped into GAME to pick up some title or other; I forget what it was now... some fairly crappy expansion pack I'd been putting off buying for a while, I think. When I get in, the manager tells me that they're expecting a shipment of a half dozen Wiis in some time around 11AM. At this point, my "shiny toys in short supply" circuit goes in and the Wii moves on my list from "meh, I'll pick one up cheap in a year or two" to "MUSTHAVEMUSTHAVEMUSTHAVE". He warns me to get over for 11AM, as they'll vanish in seconds when they arrive.

I go to the office, sit down and wait out the morning. At about 10:50AM, I'm getting my coat on to pop out. Suddenly, one of our senior managers (who has also decided to work these days) decides that it's time to have a long, in depth discussion with me about a project I've been working on. My heart sinks as the clock ticks around... 11:00, 11:15, 11:30... 11:45AM. Eventually, just before noon, I finally make it out of the office. I walk into GAME and the manager says "Sorry, they all went in minutes." I think I swore at this point. Then he says "But we held one back for you".

Gaming store staff are under an obligation to treat all customers equally and most will do their best to do so. You should never expect any favours. But don't be surprised when genuinely good customers do get the odd little perk. :)

Days Are Numbered

[p0tat03]

GameStop/EB's days are numbered. I don't even go to them anymore. The local big box electronic retailers like Best Buy constantly have a massive stack of them in stock on release day, no pushy sales guys, no constant badgering for product service plans (it's a disc, leave me alone). I walk in, pick the game I want, and walk out. I recall making the mistake recently and pre-ordering Halo 3 at the local EB. By the time I got to the mall at 10:30pm the line was already easily 100 people long, their tills went down, causing even more delays, and it was 1am by the time I smartened up and went to the local Best Buy (who also had a midnight release event) with the guy next to me in line. We both just waltzed in, and 5 minutes later walked out with our copies of the game. Both of us got our preorder money back from EB the next day.

The only thing they're good for is rare games and used games. IMHO they need to convert themselves to a "classics and used" shop, which should make them more customer-satisfaction oriented. I'd like a game shop in town that specializes in collecting older, proven classics. God knows I'd kill for a copy of the old Master of Orion 2 if I could still find one.

Re:Days Are Numbered

[Emetophobe]

GameStop/EB's days are numbered. I don't even go to them anymore. The local big box electronic retailers like Best Buy constantly have a massive stack of them in stock on release day

From my experience here in Canada, it's the exact opposite. I've giving up trying to find games at BestBuy on release day, because they never have them. I then go over to EB Games and they have lots of copies.

Personally, I hate EB Games, it used to be good 10 years ago, but it's absolutely horrible now. They have one guy working the till and there's always several people in the store waiting atleast 15 minutes at the counter. Also, I absolutely hate their policy of opening new games and keeping the discs and manuals in the backroom, I just don't trust them. I want a sealed product, there's no reason for them to open the games and mess with the innards.

Re:Days Are Numbered

[p0tat03]

Where do you live in Canada? I've lived in Ottawa and Toronto, and the Best Buys and Future Shops there have always had every new release in stock on launch day.

Re:Days Are Numbered

[Emetophobe]

I live in Markham. I guess I just have bad luck, because the local BestBuy never has any new releases in stock. The Seinfeld box set just came out today and I'm going to go to BestBuy tomorrow to see if they have any in stock. Otherwise, I'll probably have to order it through Amazon... I really want that box set, 9 seasons of my favourite show.

Your EB games may vary

[C. Alan]

Locally, we have a couple of EB games. Like most people, I just buy used games there. The ones in the mall are pretty bad, but there is one in a strip center on the edge of that has a lot more used games than most, and the employees are pretty nice.

My 4 year old son loves to play lego Star Wars. I bought Lego Star wars 2 off of Amazon, and we had a good time playing. However, we had never played the original Lego Star wars. So I put my 4 year old in his car seat, and we made the trek to our local game stop.

According to the employee, they had 1 copy somewhere in the store. Unfortuanly, their Xbox games were all piled into one of those 4 foot by 4 foot bins, and in no particular order. The employee and I started leafing through all the game in search of the star wars title. We were just getting started when my 4 year old son walked up, stuck his hand in the bin, and pulled out the only copy of the game in the store. I still don't know how my son knew THAT was the game we were looking for. I suspect it was the Lego people on the box though...

Wow

[Cervantes]

Wow, I sure wish my company had a horrible reputation, so I could be a marketing droid who spent weeks writing up a longwinded guide on how to shop nicely at my store and then post it anonymously on the internet. I'm sure that would turn the reputation completely around, as well as net me that nice bonus trip to Florida.

RTFA

[SailorSpork]

I like how the SlashDot summary frames it as a scandalous tell-all of a former employee, when its actually a current Manager standing up for the company he still works at.

Anyway, as a former GameStop manager myself, I have to say that everything the article says is true, especially the part about choking on old copies of Madden that will never ever ever sell. The fact that they trade in for $1 is actually a relatively new policy (from about the time of the EB-GS merger). Sports games that were over 4 years old commonly traded in for under a dollar; Madden '02 traded in for $.05, which was more than it was worth considering how many copies we ever sold (it resold for $0.99 at the time). What's sadder is that we still had *new* Maddens from that year, with yellowed price stickers, for around $16.99 that no one ever even looked at.

And yes, if you want to get a GameStop employee's undying love, tell him when you come in that you were considering reserving some games but that you're gonna walk around and look first. He'll help you with anything. If its been a slow day, he'd prolly even blow you in the back room. Be sure to ask about pre-order bonus crap, Atlus sometimes has a pre-order soundtrack available for upcoming RPG's that they send out with preorders, and there's usually some random stuffed animal hanging around the pre-order crap drawer or box, and prolly random tshirts. Decks of card were popular around the time I left, I had one for Gun and the last Hitman game. There's always some vaguely cool crap hanging around, especially for games that just came out that no one preordered. Sometimes we get more swag then we ever see copies of the game...

Pirating Used

[MWoody]

Stores like Gamestop like to dance around this topic, but it's important to remember: if you buy a used game, the creators of the game don't get a dime. That's why, after all, the stores push it so hard: minus the amount they paid for the trade-in, it's 100% profit for them. These days, though, the only reason to pay for a game/movie/whatever is to support the original authors; if you're going to buy used, why not just download the game off the 'net? Pirating a game is actually BETTER for the developers than buying it used, really, as while pirating a game you honestly never intended to buy new is a wash, buying it used supports and encourages the store to try to push used over new copies, resulting in a net loss over time for the creators.

Sure, some will whine about how supporting the store is as important as supporting the devs; I call bullshit. Every Gamestop in the country could close shop tomorrow and I doubt most gamers would bat an eye. Between online venues, digital distribution, and large chains like Best Buy and Target using economics of scale to have more than enough copies at release, there are other alternatives to the pawn shop Gamestop has become.

Frankly, I'm surprised we haven't seen a massive backlash against these sorts of stores by the game publishers; I anticipate one in the near future, as other methods of distribution shrink Gamestop's market share. Why should a game company continue to work hand-in-hand with a store that's stated goal is to push used, creators-don't-get-a-penny versions over new ones?

(Note: I buy games new. You should buy games new, if you'd like to continue to see good games being sold. Please don't take the preceding analysis as an argument to always pirate games.)

Re:Pirating Used

[Ryunosuke]

I have to agree with you on this, but maybe for differing reasons? I buy used because I can't bring myself to pay $40+ for any game that doesn't use online tracking stats/mmorpg type of play styles. Ut3, Eq2, Battlefield2, etc I have no problems with ... but single player console/pc games? Hell no. While I'm up in the air on the whole "may as well pirate it" mind set, they can't make money off of used games every time in the same setting as the cd I borrowed from a friend didn't net the riaa the cost of the album again, either. Hope that made sense.

...okay

[Talgrath]

Am I the only person who simply doesn't give a fuck about this? It's a retail store; I go in, buy my stuff and leave. Yeah, I miss the old EB Games from ten years ago that was more like a hobby store; but if I go to Gamestop to buy something, I get it and get out. If they don't have it, I go elsewhere; that's called capitalism, if you don't like their policies, don't shop there. As for the pre-order stuff, I call bullshit; you should get a few copies in, even if you aren't sure of the demand, I shouldn't need to lay down cash to get the game. If it is honestly the case that they won't get any copies in if nobody pre-orders them, I'll bypass their ass and go online to get it, sorry but I shouldn't have to dance to your tune just to purchase a game.

Gamestop's return policy is illegal

[rtechie]

Just so people are aware, at least in California, Gamestop's return policy is illegal. In California you have the right to a full refund within 30 days for defective merchandise if you present proof of purchase. In practice, this means you have the right to a full refund within 30 days on anything because if the retailer objects you could just break it before you return it. The obligation is on the retailer to prove that YOU broke it as opposed to the customer breaking the merchandise. This applies to both new and used merchandise unless the used item is specifically described as non-functional or is obviously non-functional.

I have successfully sued Gamestop on this very point.

Re:Gamestop's return policy is illegal

[rtechie]

Though, for the record, I strongly recommend voting with your wallet and staying the fuck away from Gamestop. They are good for the industry in an abstract sense, but the price the customer pays is too high.

Former Software Etc. Manager

[yerktoader]

So I figure this isn't as relevant as the new article, as I understand from my gamestop friends the current polices and environment at Gamestop are much more Draconian than Software Etc. ever were. However, as a former Software Etc. manager, I definitely brought tons of games home to check them out. I'm pretty much a hard core gamer. At least I was till I got hitched. :) I even once, after quitting, brought a game back that I had opened and found "didn't work with my pc." I leveraged the fact that I knew the managers having worked there before. However, I did take care of the product knowing it would be sold again. And back then, all we needed was a shrink machine, and usually we received sheets of factory security stickers so we could repack the box without the customer knowing.............

He forgot the number one tip!

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Never shop at Gamestop, because it's an embarassingly pathetic shop which admits it values brain-dead sales types over knowledgeable staff.

*Finally* I have a list of reasons straight from the horse's mouth why NEVER to shop there.

Re:Pirating Used

[Anonymous Coward]

When buying a used game, you (indirectly) give money to whoever bought it new in the first place. Therefore, they'll have more money to buy other new games. So money still ends up in the game devs' pocket, which is good.

...now obviously it's best to cut the middle man and buy used games directly from their previous owners, but my point for buying used games still stands.

It's a pretty sad state of affairs...

[xalres]

when a store manager feels compelled to write what is essentially an instruction manual for shopping at his store. What the hell happened to customer service?