273: Confessions of a GameStop Employee - Part One

[Mr. Grey]

I understand the gutting thing. It makes sense to me. What I don't understand is why people complain that a game isn't new when only the shrink wrap is off. To me as, long as the disc is pristine, I get an instruction manual, and the box isn't dented, it's new.

Same here. The shrink wrap is just something I have to waste my time cutting open with a knife or razor blade back home. You think I want to waste that much time?

But it preserves the scent of a newly opened case... the glorious scent.

I haven't smelt that in a while.... I almost always get Collectors Editions.

That hasn't stopped me.

Then again, I have the nose of a bloodhound.

 

[bimbley]

No... the games used by employees were sold on as preowned.

As far as you know. You can't account for the actions of all Gamestop employees nation wide.

Quite true, but seeing as tigermilk's statement was an incorrect reading of one of mine I think it's worthwhile to correct him or her. It might well be true of other stores, but it isn't what I was suggesting.

I also can't guarantee that your local bookshop employee isn't reading a book and putting it on the shelf, that your accountant isn't skimming off the top of your profits, that your cafe waiter hasn't jizzed in your juice, and so on. I don't see any reason to just assume all of these things based on the possibility though.

-Bim

 

[Neferius]

"If you have any interest in gaming, however remote it might be, and you have a pulse[...]"
--Damn you GameStop! ...why you gota' hate on us dead folk

 

[Jenny Decimal]

This is a question for anyone reading who may have worked at a gamestop. DO YOU GET COMMISSIONS!

Didn't work for Gamestop, but mostly, no, we don't. But we do have targets that we're supposed to hit, and managers and head office will keep an eye on them. If the store underperforms it can affect a manager's end of year bonus, so you can be damn sure that if head office remarks on underperforming preowned sales, the manager will take it out on the till monkeys. So there's a stick, rather than a carrot system, but it's a hazy relationship that you don't generally worry about.

I personally also like to advocate preowned because it's cheaper, and I like selling people cheaper things to people. Particularly in the case of new releases which are traded in almost mint condition - I mean, if it's a recent title, you might only be getting it for a tenner cheaper, but a tenner's a tenner.

 

[adderseal]

Gutting sounds absolutely fine to me. Maybe because in England, that's the normal thing to do! Shrink wrap is an epic pain in the arse and you waste a fair few minutes scrabbling around with the wrapping to get it off. Gutting = less theft, which is good because thieves are WANKERS. Is this another strange American attitude towards games? That they refuse to buy them unless some piss-annoying extra packaging has been slapped on it? Good lord.

 

[N3Burgener]

If I want new games, I just don't buy them from GameStop; I buy them for cheaper online, factory-sealed and all. What bothers me most about "gutting" is when I'm buying used games.

I'm a bit of a collector, so I like to have the full case with original artwork and manual, in good condition. I recently bought a bunch of old PS2 games from GameStop---I'd hunt down a near-mint condition case with pristine art and manual, and the GameStop employee would then rifle through their drawers and pull out a disc at random, and it was frequently a disc which had been used as a frisbee, or a hockey puck, or a coaster on a concrete table---a disc which obviously didn't go with the pristine box I'd picked up---and I'd have to request a different disc. Other times I'd buy a black label case and get a red label disc, and once again have to request a different disc.

It's not much of a problem, because I can always make the request, but some employees have hassled me about it, and it's just annoying to me.

 

[squid5580]

Woah hold the phone!!! Scott Jones wrote this??? The Escapist just won the internet. Any luck convincing Vic that it is OK to give bad games less than 5?

 

[squid5580]

Gutting makes sense to me. The disc is still new, just put in a sleeve. You're only going to tear the shrinkwrap off later, anyway.

But you lose the new game smell. I mean that is a big part of my retail experience. Tearing through the shrink wrap is like the christmas mornings from years ago.

 

[Sexy Street]

I got kind of confused on the gutting aspect.

 

[likalaruku]

It's kinda like walking into a Best Buy & finding out that you know more about hardware & tech support than the people who work there, & you're a girl who doesn't look even remotely geeky.

The "gutting duty" reminds me of this long story about stupid customers, mainly one who decided to rob a video game store. The fool returned the bag of stolen game boxes upon discovering that none of them had discs in them.

 

[MRCAB]

"'Every GameStop store should have a huge library of blank display cases to be used instead of the actual product. That way, they could just put photocopies of box art in those empty boxes and put them on store shelves. PROBLEM = SOLVED. WHY THE HELL DON'T THEY DO THIS? (BALLZ = GAMESTOP!)'

The people suggesting this solution have obviously never worked in retail. They are ignoring several important issues here.
[...]"


Best Buy does it. Granted, they're a much larger corp., right?

 

[Furrama]

This reminds me of WhistleBlowerZero from a while back. I wonder if it's the same guy.

 

[British-Hobo]

This story just reminded me of the shitty system that the British store Woolworths had (before it tanked, went bankrupt and closed up all it's shops), wherein they WOULD have a load of empty game cases on the shelf, which you would, first time round at least, take up to the desk, only to be given the shrink-wrapped copy of the game, and have to return the first one back to the shelf.

This I learned on my long and weary Quest For Mario Kart Wii back in '07 where, after weeks and weeks of looking, with every other store being out of stock, I came across a Woolworths with, no kidding, about fifty Mario Kart Wiis on their shelf. Got it up to the desk, so hyped to have finally found it... it was out of stock. They didn't put stickers on the boxes, they didn't TAKE THE BOXES AWAY when the game was out of stock... they just left them there.

 

[uncanny474]

Solution for Gutting:

Do what the people are suggesting, but don't waste your time with glossy, expensive, high-rez photos of the cover. Arrange the games in alphabetical order, and replace them with slips of cardboard (not very wide ones--as wide as the end label on a game case will do) displaying the name in nice black on the white and a little sticker with the barcode and price.

Problem = Solved

Humanity = Retarded

 

[RJ 17]

Interestingly this is very different from my perception of the games retail industry in the UK. I've known a few people who've worked in Game and Gamestation shops, and all of them have been keen gamers. A friend working for Game also told me about how employees were encouraged to take the new releases home, for free, to play through so they knew what they were talking about to customers. For those who didn't own a particular console, (despite the decent hardware discounts) each of the current generation static and portable machines were there in the staff rooms to be used on breaks. Finally, I don't think I've ever encountered an employee in one of these stores who wasn't able, and willing, to engage in a reasonable conversation on games. Very often they'll express an opinion, be it 'Buy Arkham Asylum now' or 'Yeah I'm not surprised you're trading Haze in'. It would quickly become apparent to me if someone had played nothing but Madden and Dead or Alive.

As for the whole 'gutting' thing, I can't see what the hell people's problem is. It's not like there isn't a very, very good reason for it. Thieves are arseholes, anything that prevents theft is a good thing. In the long run, prevention of theft keeps costs down for all of us. And what, you think those disks were born inside the box? Of course it's still a new game, long as it hasn't been played/scratched/pissed on by anyone! Long as it works, no issue.

Edit: Oh, I guess the whole 'gutting' thing is pretty dull for the employee, but what are you expecting when you take a low grade position in high street retail? It's really no different from stacking shelves. The narrator even starts out saying he wanted something low-pressure, low-effort, low-responsibility. I'm not being snobby, these are the jobs most of us start out in and build up from. Hell, I wish mine had been in a games shop rather than a burger bar!

-Bim

Really I've gotta agree with pretty much everything he said. With the exclusion of Best Buy in which apparently none of the sales reps know anything about what their department sells (my local Best Buy's customer service is indeed as horrible as many of he articles out there describe), I don't think you can judge all GameStops by what happens in a single GameStop.

My local GameStop seems to be inhabbited/employed by gamers who enjoy all sorts of games and genuinely look forward to games like Mass Effect 3 and Bioshock: Infinite. They seem to have a good/passable "general" knowledge of gaming (I use vague termonology here because I haven't ever really picked their brain about any game in particular) which would be expected from an emloyee of such a store.

Granted, I realize there's still 3 more parts to this story, all I'm saying is that at he time being I realy can't say any of the revelations this GameStop employee has offered really apply to my own local GameStop (at least nothing so far that would make me think badly of the store). As for the whole practice of gutting, "f" yeah I can see the reasoning behind it. My "local" GameStop is actually half-way right it he middle of the gehto for my city...if you really have a problem with buying a pre-opened game that's marked as new, then you are apparently vastly underestimating how easy it is to steal games right off the shelf. Really the only thing to complain about in this case is if your "new" stuff is covvered with scratches/otherwise unplayable.

For all the illitterate tl/dr losers out there: while I see the validity and points behind the artice's writings