The GameStop Experience

Elvis Starburst

Unprofessional Rant Artist
Legacy
Aug 9, 2011
2,732
719
118
The sky-high divorce rate has been driven precisely by the cultural idea that marriage is the default end-point. This leads to people pursuing a direction in life that will not suit them or result in a comfortable existence.
Marriage and having kids is a total non-starter for me. Money's definitely one thing, but, lord knows I'll ever be able to emotionally and mentally handle a long term relationship, let alone marriage, and ESPECIALLY having kids. But if I was less self aware enough (like some of my neighbours) to actually go through with all of those, I'd be completely screwed, and it'd absolutely lead to a divorce.
Being self aware enough to see all the cons associated with it that'd lead to it not going well, why would I even bother?

The world itself is so volatile that it's no wonder"relationship culture" isn't what it used to be. Who can get into such a thing, let alone maintain it, with the way everything is these days? That includes both people and society as a whole
 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
26,691
11,192
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
To get this thread somewhat back on topic: I have another story that just happened. I went to my local GS to pre-order Bayonetta Origins. As soon as I get there, it's closed for lunch. Now the problem with my local GS is that even on weekdays, upper management keeps only one clerk and does not have two like they used operate beforehand. Only 1 person can do so much. Those at corporate and upper management, can you please stop short changing people that want to work?! If not, fuck off! This is another reason why you guys are losing money. This isn't the only GS to have this problem in Michigan. I know this, because other GS employees have told me. The only GS I know that almost always have two or more clerks is one in Troy, and one by my job. When you have more than one person working there, they won't have to close it early just so they can eat properly!

I know the clerk there, and she's a cool gal. I'll give her some extra time on top of that hour, because she cares about getting shit done. Rant done right now!

Update: Store opened back 42 minutes ago. This time she has some help. Why couldn't they just done that in the first place. I am glad she does, because the people at ground floor go through enough shit as it is. I did my pre-order and left the store. I'll finish my RE4Remake pre-order later when I get paid this week.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: hanselthecaretaker

hanselthecaretaker

My flask is half full
Legacy
Nov 18, 2010
8,738
5,905
118
Why do you say "usually weathy"? Because that wealthy usually comes after the fact. Think of all the pro sports people that come into these national leagues from being fucking broke as kids. Shaq grew up from nothing. These people work incredibly hard to get to that status, and millions more athletes never go beyond high school. Luck has a lot to do with it, but so does killing yourself to be the best player you possibly can be.

Actors, musicians, all of them have much the same origins of being waiters in shitty restaurants. Chris Pratt was homeless when he got onto Parks and Rec. Like You guys tend to see the end result and never consider where that story began.

What i mean by people being fucked, is relationship culture has been ruined. People aren't staying married to raise kids anymore, and kids aren't being raised in stable household and instead being raised by watching social media influencers and spoiled by whomever is actually raising them. So they expect the world to just give them shit.

When divorce offers more value to people than being married, that's a fucking problem.
In fact, wealth does not usually come "after rhe fact". Professional athletes are an infinitesimally small and unrepresentative sector. The vast, vast majority of wealthy business owners, investors, and highest earners of almost all stripes inherited a gigantic leg up-- either in the form of direct money, familial connections, controlling interests, or highly expensive education that automatically opens doors from youth.





Categorically untrue. You are far likelier to succeed in the performing arts if you come from wealth.



The sky-high divorce rate has been driven precisely by the cultural idea that marriage is the default end-point. This leads to people pursuing a direction in life that will not suit them or result in a comfortable existence.
Geez, you guys both make good points. Which leads me to believe there’s more of a middle ground to all this.

Here’s the thing: the sooner people are will to acknowledge and accept that the equality they yearn for is realistically a pipe dream, the better off they’ll be. Yeah it sucks, and so does exorbitant cost of higher education to better oneself, but if the solution is just for people to say, “Fuck it all”, well, it doesn’t take much to see where that’ll lead.

My dad had said before that we will need a catastrophic event to happen before things will truly get better, and I can see why sometimes. Maybe the solution to a better system is either tearing the current one down (which would be up to the powers that be, sooo good luck there) or waiting for a natural event to do it for us. Either way, in the meantime it’s up to people (individuals) to decide if they want to wallow in misery or figure out some way to escape a good chunk of it. Last I checked, as shitty as modern day America can be it’s still one of the best places in the world where that’s possible, along with a higher standard of living.

 
Last edited:

sXeth

Elite Member
Legacy
Nov 15, 2012
3,301
675
118
Stories like "Chris Pratt was homeless before getting on the show" have two problems.

One its a fractional percent of a percent of a parcent story.

Two, it's using a baseline defintion of "homeless" that is drastically different from what most people would use. On the street, bankrupt, begging for food to survive you ain't finding out about no auditions for big network tv shows. Also he was living in a van on a beach in Hawaii (presumably by permit, they don't just let you do that. Also moving to Hawaii and bringing your vehicle is ludicrously expensive, I know people who've done it) by choice with a full time job at restaurant (where he met the person who got him into acting, starting with small roles, well before Parks and Rec)... all this by his own words in the article with the clickbait title.

There was a point in 2021 where I was "homeless".... in a literal sense. My lease had come up, despite having money was unable to ifnd a place. But in a practical sense? I was sleeping on the couch in my aunts basement, terrible lack of privacy, shitty internet. Still had my (smart)phone, a comptuer, internet access, regular daily meals, was ironically closer to my job, and transportation to go look for other places.


I certainly detested the situation and had a high level of stress during it. But I would never be so self-oblivious as to compare it to some kind of destitution.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

Dreiko

Elite Member
Legacy
May 1, 2020
2,694
896
118
CT
Country
usa
Gender
male, pronouns: your majesty/my lord/daddy
Man, this thread is a downer.

Anyone got any standing in line for a midnight release gamestop stories?

My most fun one has to have been waiting for smash brawl. So many people, it was a college town so I guess it's to be expected. The staff would actually hang out with us too, there was a manager there to handle the release, and they had a copy of smash running leading up to the release, so they let us in, couple people at at tiime, despite the store being officially closed to play a bit against the store manager as we waited when they didn't need to do that. I met people with psps and tekken so we would also play tekken while waiting on line. Must have been a good 40 strangers, all hanging out like we were friends for years pretty much. The only thing I can liken it to is the vibe at an anime convention, that instantly happy vibe.
 

wings012

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 7, 2011
853
305
68
Country
Malaysia
Man, this thread is a downer.

Anyone got any standing in line for a midnight release gamestop stories?

My most fun one has to have been waiting for smash brawl. So many people, it was a college town so I guess it's to be expected. The staff would actually hang out with us too, there was a manager there to handle the release, and they had a copy of smash running leading up to the release, so they let us in, couple people at at tiime, despite the store being officially closed to play a bit against the store manager as we waited when they didn't need to do that. I met people with psps and tekken so we would also play tekken while waiting on line. Must have been a good 40 strangers, all hanging out like we were friends for years pretty much. The only thing I can liken it to is the vibe at an anime convention, that instantly happy vibe.
It's not gamestop related, since we didn't have gamestop down here in Malaysia. Also piracy was so rampant that it was a sorta social/cultural norm - to the point most people don't realize its wrong. We're just buying the cheap games/movies/shows that everybody is selling everywhere in broad daylight! Anyway you could still get legit software if you tried hard enough but I think in general because of how things worked - it prevented the emergence of any gamestop style game shop chains. Things are different now though. With fast internet and online storefronts, a lot of people have shifted to just online purchases(I know I have). And there was a period of harsh piracy crackdowns that snuffed out a lot of the businesses engaged with it, and they also have to compete with regular old online piracy.

Anyhow the closest thing I have experienced to the whole midnight release thing was my friend calling me and saying that his copy of Halo 2 had arrived and to come over quick. Malaysia is not a very walk/public transport type country, and I was still in my teens and lacking the ability to go anywhere - so I had to convince my mom to last minute send me over to some mall. I did succeed and met up with that friend to pick up the game and I spent an all nighter playing coop.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

hanselthecaretaker

My flask is half full
Legacy
Nov 18, 2010
8,738
5,905
118
Stories like "Chris Pratt was homeless before getting on the show" have two problems.

One its a fractional percent of a percent of a parcent story.

Two, it's using a baseline defintion of "homeless" that is drastically different from what most people would use. On the street, bankrupt, begging for food to survive you ain't finding out about no auditions for big network tv shows. Also he was living in a van on a beach in Hawaii (presumably by permit, they don't just let you do that. Also moving to Hawaii and bringing your vehicle is ludicrously expensive, I know people who've done it) by choice with a full time job at restaurant (where he met the person who got him into acting, starting with small roles, well before Parks and Rec)... all this by his own words in the article with the clickbait title.

There was a point in 2021 where I was "homeless".... in a literal sense. My lease had come up, despite having money was unable to ifnd a place. But in a practical sense? I was sleeping on the couch in my aunts basement, terrible lack of privacy, shitty internet. Still had my (smart)phone, a comptuer, internet access, regular daily meals, was ironically closer to my job, and transportation to go look for other places.


I certainly detested the situation and had a high level of stress during it. But I would never be so self-oblivious as to compare it to some kind of destitution.
Not that it’s much to boast about -

Regardless, not sure if any other country would even crack above a fraction. The old saying “If it was easy, anyone could do it” seems to be universally applicable. Maybe if we focused on worth more than wealth it wouldn’t matter so much.

Anyways on topic, kinda funny-
 
Last edited:

Dreiko

Elite Member
Legacy
May 1, 2020
2,694
896
118
CT
Country
usa
Gender
male, pronouns: your majesty/my lord/daddy
It's not gamestop related, since we didn't have gamestop down here in Malaysia. Also piracy was so rampant that it was a sorta social/cultural norm - to the point most people don't realize its wrong. We're just buying the cheap games/movies/shows that everybody is selling everywhere in broad daylight! Anyway you could still get legit software if you tried hard enough but I think in general because of how things worked - it prevented the emergence of any gamestop style game shop chains. Things are different now though. With fast internet and online storefronts, a lot of people have shifted to just online purchases(I know I have). And there was a period of harsh piracy crackdowns that snuffed out a lot of the businesses engaged with it, and they also have to compete with regular old online piracy.

Anyhow the closest thing I have experienced to the whole midnight release thing was my friend calling me and saying that his copy of Halo 2 had arrived and to come over quick. Malaysia is not a very walk/public transport type country, and I was still in my teens and lacking the ability to go anywhere - so I had to convince my mom to last minute send me over to some mall. I did succeed and met up with that friend to pick up the game and I spent an all nighter playing coop.
It was like that in Greece too so growing up you would mainly either buy games at large toy stores that had game sections or at computer stores. There was the odd gaming paraphernalia shop too, and a proto-version of gaming cafes but for consoles and not pcs, but those were nowhere near the chain size of GS and more like a mom and pop thing. But yeah for the most part to get games you just chipped your ps1/2 and then you knew a guy who knew a guy who you could get cheap games from. I did it that way up until around 2002 or something, when I figured out how to just find everything online and burn it myself lol.

But yeah moving over to the US and growing older I didn't need to keep doing that thing any longer. An aspect of it too is how expensive the games were. I still remember paying like 60+ euro for pokemon leaf green (with the exchange rate that's like $80) for the GBA cause while you could play those on an emulator it lacked portability and you couldn't trade and stuff so those you still had to buy normally. It was legit cheaper having relatives from the us send me pokemon ruby a few years back.
 

Gordon_4

The Big Engine
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
6,045
5,347
118
Australia
Man, this thread is a downer.

Anyone got any standing in line for a midnight release gamestop stories?

My most fun one has to have been waiting for smash brawl. So many people, it was a college town so I guess it's to be expected. The staff would actually hang out with us too, there was a manager there to handle the release, and they had a copy of smash running leading up to the release, so they let us in, couple people at at tiime, despite the store being officially closed to play a bit against the store manager as we waited when they didn't need to do that. I met people with psps and tekken so we would also play tekken while waiting on line. Must have been a good 40 strangers, all hanging out like we were friends for years pretty much. The only thing I can liken it to is the vibe at an anime convention, that instantly happy vibe.
I have some fond memories of a few World of Warcraft expansion and Pokemon midnight releases I went to. The WoW ones tended to be like a bit of a convention where we'd be around shooting the shit and the more hardcore among us would be discussing strats and even building new guild relationships and recruitment.

Pokemon was always a bit lowkey, but it was seemingly universally agreed upon that you brought your handheld of choice to do some PvP and trading. Always good fun though.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

CriticalGaming

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 28, 2017
10,753
5,297
118
I remember having to wait in line for midnight launches of WoW expansions. Those were good times.
 

Drathnoxis

Became a mass murderer for your sake
Legacy
Sep 23, 2010
5,433
1,892
118
Just off-screen
Country
Canada
Gender
Male
What’s this @ nonsense?
@ sends a notification just the same as if you'd been quoted.
Geez, you guys both make good points. Which leads me to believe there’s more of a middle ground to all this.

Here’s the thing: the sooner people are will to acknowledge and accept that the equality they yearn for is realistically a pipe dream, the better off they’ll be. Yeah it sucks, and so does exorbitant cost of higher education to better oneself, but if the solution is just for people to say, “Fuck it all”, well, it doesn’t take much to see where that’ll lead.

My dad had said before that we will need a catastrophic event to happen before things will truly get better, and I can see why sometimes. Maybe the solution to a better system is either tearing the current one down (which would be up to the powers that be, sooo good luck there) or waiting for a natural event to do it for us. Either way, in the meantime it’s up to people (individuals) to decide if they want to wallow in misery or figure out some way to escape a good chunk of it. Last I checked, as shitty as modern day America can be it’s still one of the best places in the world where that’s possible, along with a higher standard of living.

I think we need AI to advance to the point we can put it in charge and get a genuinely honest, impartial decision maker that can't be bought. Also stop the global population explosion.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hanselthecaretaker

Trunkage

Nascent Orca
Legacy
Jun 21, 2012
8,684
2,879
118
Brisbane
Gender
Cyborg
Now you're just being vindictive over extreme articles.

I pay $25/hr for my warehouse, and we pay a shitload of tax, i personally pay a shitload of taxes, and despite running my own business i live in a studio apartment and drive a Nissan. I'm not exactly living large.
Vindictive?

It's got nothing to do with you, personally. Except that is what capitalism is asking from you.

If you are deciding not to listen to this motive, good on you. Still not going to stop people from following that motive to success. Because the laws have been designed for you, personally, not to suceed.
 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
26,691
11,192
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
I went to pick up Bayonetta Origins yesterday at my local GS. When the clerk was getting the game out of the drawer I saw a whole bunch of copies of RE4 Remake for PS5 and that exact same drawer. They got the game a week early. Obviously, they won't have that game on sale until next Friday. At best for people that reserved, they might do a midnight release on Thursday.
 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
26,691
11,192
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
So much controversy leading up to this game's release that just didn't have to happen.
The guy is at fault, but firing him ain't gonna do much. People will still leak Nintendo stuff either out of spite, curiosity, or shits and giggles.
 

Samtemdo8

Elite Member
Legacy
Apr 25, 2020
1,501
608
118
Country
Private
The guy is at fault, but firing him ain't gonna do much. People will still leak Nintendo stuff either out of spite, curiosity, or shits and giggles.
Nintendo has been more anal about leaks after the GIGA LEAK
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

Chimpzy

Simian Abomination
Legacy
Escapist +
Apr 3, 2020
12,190
8,435
118