GameStop Selling Games Played By Employees As New

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."

Comments

How about DRM?

[mcvos]

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.

Re:How about DRM?

[DrEldarion]

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

Re:How about DRM?

[zakkie]

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

Re:How about DRM?

[sshuber]

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.

This is just now news?

[the_nightwulf]

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.

Re:This is just now news?

[fahrvergnugen]

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.

Happens all the time

[UnrefinedLayman]

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.