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GameStop Selling Games Played By Employees As New

Posted by Soulskill on from the for-sufficiently-played-values-of-new dept.

Kotaku reports on a practice by GameStop which allows employees to "check out" new copies of video games, play them, then return them to be sold as new. Quoting: "When a shipment of video games initially arrives at a store, managers are told to 'gut' several copies of the game, removing the disc or cartridge from the packaging so it can be displayed on the shelf without concern of theft, according to our sources. The games are then placed in protective sleeves or cases under the counter. If a customer asks why the game is not sealed they are typically told the the game is a display copy. The game is still sold as new. When check-out games are returned, we were told, they are placed with the gutted display copies. If a customer asks about these, they are typically told they are display copies, not that they have been played before. Since the copies are often placed with display copies, even managers and employees typically don't know which of these games have been played and which haven't."

17 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. How about DRM? by mcvos · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The site seems slasdotted, so I can't RTFA, but my first thought is: what about games with draconian DRM that allows you to install it only a limited number of times? Employees playing those games may destroy the usefulness of those games.

    1. Re:How about DRM? by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Gamestop has pretty much abandoned PC gaming in favor of console games. Going by the local ~50 odd gamestops I doubt most of their employees even understand what they're selling beyond "Yo I so own at halo brah".

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    2. Re:How about DRM? by DrEldarion · · Score: 5, Informative

      The only games they'd do this for are console games, which don't have DRM worries. PC games, AFAIK, are all sold sealed.

    3. Re:How about DRM? by Hadlock · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Optical media almost never gets scratched unless you're eight years old and still can't care for your toys. I lent my beloved copy of Parappa the Rapper to my 8 year old cousins and it came back unplayable, I'm still angry about that 8 years later. All of my optical media from high school is still in great shape, mostly sitting in old CD-R spindles (the best way to store media IMO)

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    4. Re:How about DRM? by zakkie · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Someone who can talk intelligible..." - and they say yanks don't get irony? ;)

    5. Re:How about DRM? by sshuber · · Score: 5, Informative

      I used to work at Gamestop and we could only check out console games for obvious reasons. Everything else is true though, except my manager pushed that we check out used games as much as possible and he inspected new games when we brought them back. If it was scratched at all, you got the pleasure of buying it. It was a pretty sweet perk to have though. Obviously Gamestop's thinking is that they want a staff who knows what they are selling.

    6. Re:How about DRM? by drzhivago · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I worked at Babbages in the mid-90s. The policy of employees taking products home to become familiar with them was encouraged. And really, from a standpoint of being able to inform the customer better, it was a great idea. PC products were not excluded from this policy. Granted it was in '96 or so, and there was an equal amount of disk-based products as CD-based ones, the internet wasn't that big of a deal, and games/products were connected as most are today.

      As for the "guts", when I was there we generally only gutted one copy, and that was what got put on the shelf for display. If it was the last copy and we had to put the game back inside the box, we'd tell the customer we were doing that. I don't remember anything sneaky being done regarding that.

  2. This is just now news? by the_nightwulf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I cannot believe this is just now becoming a "scandal."

    I was a Gamestop assistant store manager in the early 2000's. This was policy way back then, and we abused the shit out of it. Yes, policy said you could only check out one thing at a time for a certain period of time (I remember it being six days, maybe things have changed ...) and you could only check out any given product once, and no products like OSes or consoles. In practice, we took whatever we wanted whenever we wanted for however long we wanted. All the managers covered for each other and the other employees when the district bigwigs came by. On inventory days everyone brought in a list of things to add to inventory. This was SOP for all the stores in my district, and pretty much every store nationwide if you believe the chit chat at the annual store manager meetings.

    "Gutting" has been policy for at least that long too. Per policy, you'd "gut" one copy of a game and when it came time to sell, you'd repackage and re-shrink wrap it. We were supposed to shrink wrap the shit out of everything (Dreamcast software for example: pull the entire CD tray out of the jewel case, shrink the case and put it on the sales floor, shrink the CD tray and secure it behind the counter), but in practice that was too much work once there were 500+ PSX titles, 200+ DC titles, etc. I made sure there wasn't anything obvious left over (stickers with SKU numbers on CDs, for example), but many people didn't. We were also instructed when selling the gutted copy to just walk it to the back and shrink wrap it without offering any explanation. The old pre-EB POS system (which was written in QuickBASIC Professional, and I swear I am not making that up) used to say "Gut checks save lives!" as a part of the screen saver.

    This is been going on for well over 10 years. CD-based software borrowed out and scratched. Cartridge-based software borrowed and sold as "new" with saved data on it. Ask any Gamestop employee if they pay for magazines or tax software. Ever wonder why every Gamestop has a shrink wrapper in back? Do you not know how to tell the difference between factory shrink wrap and re-wrap? Factory wrap is "crinklier" ... and there's always a seam somewhere where a small machine with a glorified hair dryer can't produce one (usually down the middle of the back of the package).

    Oh, and my apologies to whoever ended up buying that one copy of XP Home we had. I didn't realize at the time that the product key couldn't be reused.

    1. Re:This is just now news? by fahrvergnugen · · Score: 5, Informative

      This policy has been around longer than that. I was an employee exercising the checkout policy back in the floppy / cartridge days, at several of the stores which would eventualy merge to become Gamestop (c. 1993-1997) This is old news, the lawsuits about it have come and gone. The policy has been disbanded, then re-instated several times. There's no use getting your panties twisted about it now.

      Look: If you're reading this article, it's safe to assume you've been in a Gamestop (or EB, or Babbage's, or Software Etc., or Funcoland, or whatever your local store was before being devoured by ConGlomCo). So it is because of your undoubted nightmare customer experience in such places that when I tell you the following, you will know that it is true: working there was a fucking horrorshow. The hours were terrible, the customers obnoxious, the colleagues irritating, the stink from the shrinkwrap machine quite literally poisonous, and management incompetent, malicious, or both. Mind you, I'm talking about how bad it was 15 years ago when the stores were competing with each other. I can only imagine that it's gotten worse for employees since the industry consolidated completely, and you can no longer just walk up to the other side of the mall and get a job with the competition.

      These stores pay minimum wage, offer employees almost no discount on the products they sell (and indeed often restrict employees' access to hot items like new-release consoles), and employees are forbidden to hang out mucking about with the in-store demo kiosks during downtime or off-duty hours. Yet at the same time, the customers and management demand that the employees somehow be knowledgable about all the product in the store. These products have consistently sold for $50 - $80 apiece for years. As an employee, you're supposed to have played everything, yet as an employee, you're subject to the same "you broke the shrink, you own it" return policy on $140 a week for the average part-timer. It's an impossible situation for a 19-year-old trying to make rent, groceries, and tuition, much less a sad-sack 30-something manager with kids, pulling in $25k a year on a 70-hour work week if they're lucky.

      Gamestop didn't post record profits by paying their line employees well. Everyone's a disposable cog, and they'd just as soon fire you as look at you. Don't think as an employee you aren't constantly reminded by management about the eager stream of salivating 16-year-olds who think working in a game store would be SO COOL, dreaming of replacing you.

      Given all this, do you think anyone in their right mind would work at that store if they didn't offer employees what amounts to a free lending library of the newest titles? What other incentive could there possibly be to irritate people with membership clubs, pushy pre-orders and used game pitches, and the soul-crushing pain of listening to the loop of that piped in tv network all day?

      If it really bothers you, shop elsewhere. I certainly do, those fucking vultures won't ever get my money again. If you do decide to shop there, use some common sense and check your disks for scratches before you leave the store. It's not that hard.

      But seriously, quit the whining about the "used sold as new" crap. The checkout policy is the price you pay for having specialty knowledge behind the register at minimum wage prices.

      --
      Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
  3. Re:Does it matter??? by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or, maybe it's "I'd rather not have had someone else's machine (or kid brother, or whatever) scratch up the disc I spent $60 + tax on." Beyond that, it's simply a matter of integrity. If someone else has played the game, it's not a virg... I mean, it's not new anymore.

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  4. Not a "new" problem.. by _hAZE_ · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm quite surprised that the rest of the world is just now being made aware of this practice. I worked for two competing shopping-mall chain video game stores in the mid-to-late 90's, and both of them had policies almost identical to this. The shrink-wrap machine in the back room made the fact that an item was "checked out" very simple to conceal from the customers.

    To be completely honest, I really don't care, as long as:

    - The materials are sold to me in a "new" condition
    - If it requires any sort of registration key, I better not ever find out it's already been registered

    Without this policy in place, I'm fairly certain a lot of video game stores would simply stop having employees; it's one of the best perks of working at one. Discounts are nice, but playing for free? That's even better.

    --

    Don Head
    UNIX/Linux Administrator
  5. Re:Does it matter??? by bugnuts · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hate to break it to you but...
    wait, no, I'm ecstatic to break this to you:

    Your new car has been driven by several other people. Someone else popped its cherry.

    And that $35,000 new car you just bought (that isn't really new) is way more than the $35 disk you just bought. And when it comes down to it, you can usually tell if you didn't get all the bits you paid for on a CD, but it's more difficult to tell if your new car has been abused.

    In some ways, it's probably better to be played. At least you know there are no immediate catastrophic errors on the disk.

  6. Scratch cards and proper shrinkwrap by DrXym · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Not saying I necessarily agree with the following suggestions but they seem like fairly clear ways for the games industry to fight back against Gamestop.
    • Shrinkwrap games and slap a holgraphic sticker on the wrap or on the case that must be broken. It would stop Gamestop or anybody else palming off a used game as new. Lots of games already have a holo sticker on the insert, so why not one on the whole box. Also insert a page in the manual telling owners to report stores if the seal was broken.
    • Send each store plenty of dummy case inserts for display to relieve stores of the bullshit excuse that the game was the "display model".
    • Use scratch cards. They work once and it's obvious if someone has already scratched the code off.
    • Use scratch cards even on multiplayer console games. The user can use it to unlock the base map pack or on first play. Employees can't borrow any game without using the code. Additionally Gamestop is screwed because second hand users don't get their map pack essentially crippling the game. GS would be forced to buy refresh codes, or the user would have to buy the pack online. Either way, the game company gets money from a second hand sale they wouldn't have otherwise.
  7. In the UK... by djsmiley · · Score: 4, Informative

    In game they dont have any kind of check out procedure which I ever had the power to use - sometimes we got promo copies of games which would be handed out as prizes to staff and then the staff would share them, but they were mostly shit games and no one gave a crap (I got sega superstars tennis hahaha).

    From my friends, gamestation (which game now owns) DOES allow employees to check out disks, paying for them if they break it etc. But now all GAME and gamestation stores have a disk cleaning machine which will remove like 75% of scratches leaving the disk looking "as new".

    Both stores "gut" games and put real boxes onto the shop floor, along with inserts sent from H/O. Some inserts are crap/unreadable/wrong and so you sometimes need the real box for the customer to be able to see what they are really buying.

    However, even if we didn't gut games, i'd still say that about 5% are scratched IN the box, due to them falling loose during shipping etc. Luckly we can just disk clean them for free in that case and the customer is happy 99% of the time. If they kick off we might swap the disk for them for a brand new copy, but note it and if they return that too then we will refuse to return it again generally - all this is at managers disgression.

    I no longer work for game, but this is how it was up until about 2 months ago.

    --
    - http://www.milkme.co.uk
  8. Happens all the time by UnrefinedLayman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The same thing happened to me when Assassin's Creed was released for 360. On release day I did not pre-order and called ahead to make sure they had copies in the store. They assured me they did.

    When I got there and asked for it they said they didn't have it. I said I had just called and been told there were copies. The guy behind the counter turned to the guy next to him and said "Hey [co-worker], were you, uhhh..." and trailed off. He replied Lumberg-style with a "Yeeeahhhh, I was going to take it home... Naw, that's ok, sell it."

    I was all like what the fuck man, and asked them if it was an open box copy that had been taken home by employees and played. He said yeah. I asked if I would be charged full price. The guy said of course and looked at me like he was the confused one. The three other employees nearby were similarly non-plussed. "If there's anything wrong with it you can return it." ...just like I can with a new copy?

    I took the cash in my hand and put it away, said no thanks. There was another Gamestop on the way home that had it, nevermind the two Best Buys with obscene pallets of copies.

    It was a braindead move on the employees' parts and I'd hate to think the manager would approve of that going down in front of a customer. But that's what happens when you have a bunch of kids running the front of house, unsupervised and with a shrink wrapper, and it's no surprise it's happening everywhere.

    I treat the Gamestop sales counter like a casino chip-exchange. I watch every hand at every time, especially when they ask a co-worker to pull out a game. The kids back there do stupid, careless shit with your credit card/license/games/money, and they spend most of their free time dreaming up scams to get more money and more games. That's the business!

    No offense to any upstanding Slashdotters working at Gamestop. I'm clearly talking about your slovenly coworkers.

  9. Re:Does it matter??? by WankersRevenge · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And that $35,000 new car you just bought (that isn't really new) is way more than the $35 disk you just bought. And when it comes down to it, you can usually tell if you didn't get all the bits you paid for on a CD, but it's more difficult to tell if your new car has been abused.

    A video game is not a car. When a consumer buys a car, he has different expectations than buying a video game. The other neat item that destroys your equation is a little thing called an odometer that tells the user precisely how much wear and tear is on the vehicle. And if the odometer reads a high mileage, you can negotiate a lower rate. When a consumer buys a "new" video game from gamestop, the price is always 59.99 even if the box has been opened.

    In some ways, it's probably better to be played. At least you know there are no immediate catastrophic errors on the disk.

    So you are saying it is better to buy a used copy of a game, seeing as how the early adopter has already tested the game for you? Sure, I have no problem with that. That's why I buy a used copy of the game. I don't need a "food taster" for my crap when I buy it new.

    Look ... when I buy a product, I expect it to come in its original packaging straight from the factory. When its out of its packaging, I have no idea where the product has been. Sure, it could have been safely stowed in drawer, but seeing the assholes who work at my local gamestop, I can only assume the game has been used as a coaster for a cigarette stuffed bottle of stale miller light. How am I to know otherwise?

    And I still haven't reached you ... hey, if you are looking for new games to buy, I got a bunch of them at my house. Give me a buzz sometime and I'll warm up my shrink wrap machine.

  10. Re:Does it matter??? by LandoCalrizzian · · Score: 4, Funny

    All little wordplay for you:
    Hate to break it to you but...I checked out your [game/wife] out sometime ago. Yeah, yeah I know you thought [it/she] was untouched and paid full price but we barely had 10-12hrs of passionate [gameplay/lovemaking] together. This was long before you decided to [buy it/marry her]. I didn't leave any marks...well that's not entirely true but you can barely see those [scratches/scars]. Don't worry, you'll still get to have your fun. If it doesn't work out there is a [sequel/sister] and my buddy says [it/she] is much better and he's only 8 hours in. I hope you like store credit.