I want it to be clear this is not a "rant" as more of telling of my experience with video game retailer. The Nearest Gamestop to me has been good and bad depending on the employees that are working there. The first manager I was friends with or more of good acquaintances since I didn't know him outside the store, but he was a good person. Then he got promoted and went to a different store with he high job. The people who replaced her "crew" where complete asses and didn't last a year before being fired or quitting. They where the type of employee who looked at you and if you where below the age of 16 they treated you like you where two. The current employees are 30x that of the last crew and are equal to the first manager in personality and actually caring about you as a customer. Hell one employee was a customer of Gamestop for nine years and has only been working for a year. Basically what I'm saying is when it comes to Gamestop it all depends on the employees who work there that make or break the store, but as a company Gamestop can go eat the ballocks of a dead dog that died of dehydration in the dessert. So please tell me your stories, experiences, and opinions on Gamestop.
Gamestop, Store to store
- Thread starter southparkdudez
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I had a good experience with the NYC Gamestops. I visited several of them and they were all terribly helpful in guiding me on my quest to get a rare PS2 game, a long time ago. I've kinda liked them ever since.
The 3-4 I've been to in the cities around my town have been pretty good.
Aside from a minimal amount of trying to sell me a GI sub/card ect(which I do not blame them for and thus do not get upset when they ask), they've all been pretty cool people.
One trip I remember was in Ft.Smith where I was contemplating getting Demon's Souls. I'd heard the name a few times, watched Yahtzees review of it, and other than people occasionally mentioning that it was hard and that it was a third person action RPG, I knew nothing about it.
So I get there and the cashier is a kind of manic looking fella. Looks about 25-26, but he kind of has the demeanor of a kid. A slightly hyper one. Still a nice guy, just kind of loud and exaggeratory. So I pick up the game and kindly ask him about it and he exclaims loudly with eyes as wide as quarters.
"Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuudee that game is so hard it's like fun but so fucking hard I hate it but like I kind of love it to sometimes it can really unfair and shit but yeah it's fun."
And that's the story of how I bought Demon's Souls.
Also another quick story. Many years prior, I had been wanting to try out Okami. I'd heard pretty good things from it from a lot of people, and if I could manage to find it, I was going to buy it. This is probably 2 years after it's initial release I think. After scouring the whole city looking for one, me and my friend walk into one of the Gamestops. Nice bald guy watching Venture Brothers on a tiny tv greets us. I go over, immediately start searching for what I'm looking for, find it and audibly announce my excitement.
I bound over to the counter and hand it to the guy who's starting to resemble Dr.Venture every minute the more I look at him. He turns to the cabinet, shuffles some things around for a while, turns around, looks puzzled, goes back and shuffles through again for a longer period, before finally looking at me and saying "I can't find it."
And that's the story of how I didn't buy Okami.
Aside from a minimal amount of trying to sell me a GI sub/card ect(which I do not blame them for and thus do not get upset when they ask), they've all been pretty cool people.
One trip I remember was in Ft.Smith where I was contemplating getting Demon's Souls. I'd heard the name a few times, watched Yahtzees review of it, and other than people occasionally mentioning that it was hard and that it was a third person action RPG, I knew nothing about it.
So I get there and the cashier is a kind of manic looking fella. Looks about 25-26, but he kind of has the demeanor of a kid. A slightly hyper one. Still a nice guy, just kind of loud and exaggeratory. So I pick up the game and kindly ask him about it and he exclaims loudly with eyes as wide as quarters.
"Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuudee that game is so hard it's like fun but so fucking hard I hate it but like I kind of love it to sometimes it can really unfair and shit but yeah it's fun."
And that's the story of how I bought Demon's Souls.
Also another quick story. Many years prior, I had been wanting to try out Okami. I'd heard pretty good things from it from a lot of people, and if I could manage to find it, I was going to buy it. This is probably 2 years after it's initial release I think. After scouring the whole city looking for one, me and my friend walk into one of the Gamestops. Nice bald guy watching Venture Brothers on a tiny tv greets us. I go over, immediately start searching for what I'm looking for, find it and audibly announce my excitement.
I bound over to the counter and hand it to the guy who's starting to resemble Dr.Venture every minute the more I look at him. He turns to the cabinet, shuffles some things around for a while, turns around, looks puzzled, goes back and shuffles through again for a longer period, before finally looking at me and saying "I can't find it."
And that's the story of how I didn't buy Okami.
I love my Gamestop in West Palm Beach. The service is friendly, they always have what I need, give great advice on titles I want or they think I would like since they know my tastes, and they are only about a mile away and next to the McDonalds I always frequent so I never feel like I'm going out of my way when nuggets are so close.
It all depends on the store really. There is one that's really close to me that I hardly go into because there service is awful. I got Red Dead Redemption from them, when I looked at the disk it was covered in jelly. I didn't dare put it in my system, the next day I went to return it because of it's condition. They said they won't return it because I did this to the disk, (all my games are still in mint condition with receipts inside the case when I buy them). I went to another gamestop a good 2 hours away. They replaced the disk and apologized for what happened. After that I kept going to that gamestop.
Individual Gamestops can be very nice. The problem is them as a company. As a company they have damaging policies thet impact both the employees and the customers.
For the past years Gamestop has been my competition. Now there have been ones that have worked well and sent customers my way just as I send customers to them. And for others because of district managers orders they have actively tried to discredit my stores so I have a bit of a bias.
And my biggest problem is that quite a few people there just have no respect for the industry or what they're doing.
For the past years Gamestop has been my competition. Now there have been ones that have worked well and sent customers my way just as I send customers to them. And for others because of district managers orders they have actively tried to discredit my stores so I have a bit of a bias.
And my biggest problem is that quite a few people there just have no respect for the industry or what they're doing.
I've worked at Gamestop. Every single person who worked at our store was a gamer, chosen for the job BECAUSE they were gamers. And since some of us had been customers there before being hired as staff, we made a point of treating every single customer as if it was us walking through that door. We tried to be as helpful as we could, and we were even willing to bend a few rules now and then.
It was a great job. The pay as shit, but the job itself was really satisfying. We took great pleasure in both helping those people who knew nothing about games and really needed help, as we did talking about games with the 'veterans'.
I miss those days.
It was a great job. The pay as shit, but the job itself was really satisfying. We took great pleasure in both helping those people who knew nothing about games and really needed help, as we did talking about games with the 'veterans'.
I miss those days.
Seeing how Gamestops are across the street from other Gamestops the service does vary a lot. The one closest to me is wonderful, and I go there so often I know most of the workers and they're all gamers. You know they're a real gamer when they're tripfagging on /v/, though she was extremely embarrassed when I figured out it was her. There's another one in the mall that has good service during buys and returns, but no one there is a gamer and it's to busy to talk to them. Then you have the one that neglected basic infrastructure, it had no air, had a water pipe burst and ruined the store and they got kicked out of the strip mall they were in. That one also had the worst service so I was laughing when I heard it.
I guess I've never really gotten the whole "Gamestop has terrible service" complaints. I've been shopping there for about 12 years now at dozens of different stores, and I've only had bad service once when a guy was obviously skeptical at me returning a game for reasons I'm not going into (let's just say, he was justified to be skeptical, but not justified to act the way he did), but other than that, even when dealing with that guy, I've never had a problem worth remembering. Normally the people are friendly and at least semi-passionate about games. Sure, some of them have obviously never ventured outside the world of Call of Duty, Madden, Halo, Assassin's Creed, and Gears of War, but they're all still good enough at their jobs that I won't complain.
It might help, though, that I'm generally knowledgeable enough about games I'm interested in that I don't have to test their knowledge. Still, I've had plenty of decent conversations with a lot of Gamestop employees about games we share an interest in.
It might help, though, that I'm generally knowledgeable enough about games I'm interested in that I don't have to test their knowledge. Still, I've had plenty of decent conversations with a lot of Gamestop employees about games we share an interest in.
The Game Stops that I frequent have always been kind to me, and there are only a couple of times when this wasn't the case.
Again, this was due to the people working and not the establishment itself.
Despite this, I remain a savvy consumer; just because something sounds good, doesn't mean that I jump at the opportunity to own/pre-order it. Yes, they do let me know about upcoming titles and whether I would want to pre-order them, but a simple no has always been enough end the conversation and I've never felt "pressured" into purchasing anything that I didn't want.
Again, this was due to the people working and not the establishment itself.
Despite this, I remain a savvy consumer; just because something sounds good, doesn't mean that I jump at the opportunity to own/pre-order it. Yes, they do let me know about upcoming titles and whether I would want to pre-order them, but a simple no has always been enough end the conversation and I've never felt "pressured" into purchasing anything that I didn't want.
The GameStop I go to is rather awesome. I get awesome deals, I know and am friends with almost every employee there, they all do whatever they can to get me the best deal possible and make sure I know about all the best deals.
Whenever I go there, I'm there for at least an hour, talking to the employees more than I am actually browsing and buying games(but I usually do buy lots of games, my power up rewards pro card saved me over $800 last year).
Whenever I go there, I'm there for at least an hour, talking to the employees more than I am actually browsing and buying games(but I usually do buy lots of games, my power up rewards pro card saved me over $800 last year).
From my experience FYE tends to have nicer employees. I frequented the same gamestop for about ten years now, and I've seen so many employees only be there for a short period. Some are cool, but the ones that were there for a year and a half kind of rubs me the wrong way.
In my hometown the GS were pretty good for the most part. They'd try and push pre-orders a bit more than I liked but I had a fine shopping experience.
When I went off to college the GS there was much better. Maybe I just had more time to visit more often since they were a five minute walk from my dorm but I got to know them all pretty well and would shoot the shit with them for quite a while.
I live in Austin now and never need to go back to GS since I've got Gamerz (Just yesterday I got Psychonauts for $30 and Witcher2 for $20).
When I went off to college the GS there was much better. Maybe I just had more time to visit more often since they were a five minute walk from my dorm but I got to know them all pretty well and would shoot the shit with them for quite a while.
I live in Austin now and never need to go back to GS since I've got Gamerz (Just yesterday I got Psychonauts for $30 and Witcher2 for $20).
My local store isn't too bad. Besides the obvious GameStop Pro plugging they have to do, they're not pushy or anything like that, and I've gotten some advice from them about buying games
Plus there's a hot girl working there too, so that's an obvious plus
Plus there's a hot girl working there too, so that's an obvious plus
I don't go to gamestop. I go to Play & Trade. The one I go to has a really nice selection previous generation games, and when I say previous gen I don't just mean the ps2 era, I mean all the way back to the n64, including great condition consoles to buy. On top of which the guys who work in there are actually volunteers. So they want to be there because they love games. They can custom order games for you if you call up for litte extra charge. My whole experience with them has been great. Granted that is just one store, but still, its a really neat place.
I always go to the same gamestop, since we really only have two, one in the mall, which is incredibly cramped, and another near a walmart. I went to the one near walmart once leaving the store to go buy Mirror's Edge. I walk in, ask the guy if he can give me a copy, and he just looked at me confused asking "Are you sure?", like I was some kind of moron for wanting to play the game. Of course I was sure! And it wasn't like I was someones 50 year old mother buying the game because of the pretty colors on the package, I knew what I was buying and was a regular customer in that particular Gamestop. I honestly felt a bit insulted, like the guy thought I had a terrible taste in video games.
Other than that, my experience with them is pretty nice. I do get a little irritated when I already say no to an offer they plug, but yet they keep pushing it, but I tend to not let that ruin my experience. My store stays nicely organized, and other than the one guy mentioned above, I always get along with the employees there.
Other than that, my experience with them is pretty nice. I do get a little irritated when I already say no to an offer they plug, but yet they keep pushing it, but I tend to not let that ruin my experience. My store stays nicely organized, and other than the one guy mentioned above, I always get along with the employees there.
Personally, I never had very much of a negative experience with GameStop. The GameStops I went to have had people who asked me if there is anything I'm looking for specifically, and were never rude to me.
I think the only mildly annoying thing that happened was that this one guy at the counter was talking to the guy in front of me for at least ten minutes. Other than that, I can't complain.
I think the only mildly annoying thing that happened was that this one guy at the counter was talking to the guy in front of me for at least ten minutes. Other than that, I can't complain.