As someone who actually worked (past tense) for gamestop, I can tell you a few things. One, there's some really shady stuff that goes on between regional and store managers, up to us actually being asked to lie to customers about whether or not we have something in stock. This sort of tactic is used to artificially boost sales numbers at certain times to make the managers look good. The degree to which we were expected to interact with customers bordered on harassment. About half of the "refurbished" used games aren't actually refurbished. You see, when a game disk gets sold back to gamestop that is damaged or scratched, it's supposed to be sent to a facility that fixes it up. The thing is, this gets that game labeled as shrink, which is the equivalent of theft. As a result, managers who don't want their stores to look bad (something that disqualifies them from bonuses and promotions) will simply put the damaged disks back into cases and put them on sale.
The complaints with gamestop aren't limited to these sleazy in store actions, but can also be justified looking at their overall business strategy. Their goal is to sell games used, because when they do, all profits go to them. The way they do this, however, is detrimental to developers and gamers alike. They brow beat customers to return new games literally hours after they purchase them (don't give them your cell number if you can avoid it, I now get at least one text every time I buy a game new less than 24 hours later asking if I want to return it). They want the games back so soon so that they can cash in on the biggest portion of sales for a new game, within the first two weeks. Sounds good for the customer, right? Wrong. They usually knock off 5 dollars from the price, but neglect to tell you that many new games will be missing content if you buy them used, sometime even leaving stickers on games advertising said content. A friend of mine, working at a different gamestop actually told me he'd been lectured for informing a customer about this situation, which caused that customer to buy a new game instead.
There's a erroneous assumption that developer fears about used games are invalid because of similar situations in the film and book industries. The thing is, developers aren't concerned with the sales a year or so down the line when you clear out a part of your library to get some new games, they are concerned with the fact that some games are literally loosing up to 30 percent of their sales to used games. That's a massive hit. This isn't entirely responsible for, but is certainly involved in creating the incredibly tense and financially tight games industry that results in a lack originality and risk taking for fear of losing what little profitability games still retain.
Final point. The reason a lot of people hate gamestop is despite their "Power to the Player" facade, they don't give a damn about their customers, only their bottom line. Considering how much (deserved) flak EA and Activision take for this mentality, it surprises me that so many escapists are willing to give gamestop a free pass.
