Why all the Gamestop hate?

[LobsterFeng]

This one time an employee started criticizing my taste in video games even though I wasn't trying to start a conversation with him at all. (I just wanted to buy my game and he started criticizing me about it.) That was just one employee though and I haven't seen him there since.

Other than that I don't really have a problem with them, I mean besides online they have the best game selections in my town and I hate buying online so that's where I go.

 

[Threeseventyfive]

I have a bunch of reasons to hate gamestop, including the fact that they sometimes screw up my orders and send me the wrong game. These videos will explain why gamestop sucks in more detail:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQfyEdmUQ9s[/youtube]


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS_s9gyjYcQ[/youtube]

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I worked at a local one for a while and while I liked them somewhat before my feelings towards them has soured in recent years. Since they don't have any direct competition they don't really need to worry about extra services or, customer service. Working there I was never trained outside of how to work the point-of-sales computer. As for extra services, I didn't realize how little Gamestop had to offer until I started shopping Play-n-Trade who rents out games, repairs discs and, deals in games from as far back as the Atari generation if not further.

Most of the gamestops in my area do employ great people. They're nice enough and have a good knowledge of what's out and about. Working for them though, it was made perfectly clear by the store-manager that I was replaceable: the first job experience where my job security was threatened by a higher-up.

I haven't bought anything from Gamestop in well over a year. They don't need any of my money and there are a lot of better alternatives. Xenoblade Chronicals is my only real GS temptation but I'll probably just shell out the extra $10 on a 'used' copy on Amazon or wait and see if someone brings a copy to p-n-t.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

I have a bunch of reasons to hate gamestop, including the fact that they sometimes screw up my orders and send me the wrong game. These videos will explain why gamestop sucks in more detail:

Fixed your links for you.

But yeah, I've seen these myself as well as others like it. I've heard TONS of horror stories from former employees about how they treat their employees like shit and think of their customers even less.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Hell, they make BEST BUY employees look good. That is a feat.

Hold on there! Let's not be crazy!

I used to work as a sales associate for Best Buy in the Portable Electronics department, specializing in media. Hell, I think the main reason they hired me was because of my large libraries of games, movies, and music - they knew I had a pretty solid grasp of the products I'd be selling.

After a few months they decided to rotate everyone in Portable Electronics away from their specialties so that we could all be more versatile or something. Notably, this came with no training whatsoever. I got shifted over to Car-Fi first. Notably, the only thing in that department I have any grasp of whatsoever is GPS systems - and they flung me into that department with no training and no guidance for a solid month before rotating everyone again. The second rotation I got Digital Imaging. I've never owned a camera, I don't intend on ever owning a camera, I have no interest in taking pictures, I really couldn't care less about the product... yet that's where they put me. That's the day I resigned, along with a few other coworkers.

So if you're at a Best Buy store and the employee that's "helping" you seems to know nothing about the product, chances are pretty good that they're legitimately unfamiliar with it and attempting to learn it on the fly because management thought it'd be a great idea to make everyone a Jack-of-all-trades, and clearly also a master of none.

 

[Aprilgold]

Because they hurt the industry more and more effectively then piracy ever will.

Mainly, they reward the player, and push the customer to buy used copies at the end of a sale at any time. If you return games, you get a discount, if you buy used games you save tons of money.

At one time they essentially forced me to NOT LEAVE if I did NOT buy a used game, thats just silly.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

It's not the used game sales thing, trade-in prices, or anything like that that bothers me. It's how they treat their employees (from what I've heard in stories) that bothers me about them. Honestly, training them to be pushy assholes, and even possibly let the employee know they're expendable? That's too much of a joke...

I admire them for one little thing though, and I thought this was just way too cool. I pre-ordered Kid Icarus Uprising there over a year ago, and I called them the day before its release to be sure my copy was there. They said "We have one, and it's a pre-order". Being the dumb ass I can be at times, I assumed it was somebody else's. I quickly turned back and asked if it was under my name, and you guessed it, it was! I literally had the only copy of the game that was shipped to them at the time. Something about that just felt so cool :3 Sure that might've happened elsewhere, but it was a moment where I had the one and only copy in the store. I liked that!

 

[Xanthious]

they you jack shit for game trades even with 10% bonus with the card or the new trade in with 3 games=10% extra trade in value,5 games=20% extra trade in value and 7+ games=30% extra trade in value. Even with this extra stuff you don't make much money back and Gamestop sells it for 10X what they gave you.

It really pisses me off

I can certainly see how that would piss you off. Were you held at gunpoint for these transactions? Were you drugged and possibly not in control of your own actions maybe? Perhaps Gamestop was holding one of your loved ones hostage until you agreed to trade in your games for a fraction of their value on the open market?

My point is you aren't forced to sell your games back to Gamestop. Hell, between eBay, craigslist, Amazon, and other such services if you are trading your games in to Gamestop it's only because you are simply too lazy to sell them in proper venue where you'd get actual value for them. I can promise you that if you buy a new game and decide you want to sell it or trade it in you should be easily able to get 75% of your money back for it on craigslist.

Personally I love Gamestop. I use their card and save extra money on used games and accessories. Those used games have a seven day return policy if I don't like them or they simply aren't worth keeping. On top of all that I'm constantly getting coupons for buy 2 used games get 1 free and the like. Do I trade back games I buy? Hell no. I sell any games I've kept past their return date on craigslist.

 

[Xanthious]

It is painful in how obviously little you know about how a gamestop works. Just because you have experience with perishable goods does not mean you know how their business works.

They can do whatever they want without worrying about alienating the publishers. Gamestop and the Publishers both know the amount of people that shop at those god forsaken stores. Even if they piss off the publishers the publishers arent likely to pull their products because they know that people do buy there still in large numbers, and even with the damage gamestop and their usedgame groupies do, they would be hurting themselves more by not letting gamestop carry their stuff. It is also important to know you can trade in a game you bought anywhere to gamestop, so if say EA doesnt let gamestop carry their crap, someone could still buy an EA game at Walmart then trade it in to gamestop for them to resell.

The largest amount of damage used games do are to the tail end of a product, where companies could rely on a longer life of their product by people buying new through weeks and months as price goes gradually down, now people buy it new, beat their games then trade them in, then gamestop pushes these used games, so the games no longer are being bought new a few weeks after they are released.

And the subtle pressure pisses me off about gamestop. "Oh you know we have used copies of this game right?" "Yeah, I want it new." "Why dont ya like saving money? Here, I can go get you one off the shelf for you." "No, just give me my damn game." "Oh, alright, but hey, if you bring this game back within a week we will give you 15 dollars for it, after that you will get only 10." (Actual conversation)

Everything you are saying sounds like it's the publisher/developers problem that they are unable to properly monetize their product even if you do accept the false assumption that Gamestop is somehow damaging the publishers and developers. Sadly though with the gaming industry continuing to post record profits year in and year out that conclusion isn't really one that lends it's self to being very credible.

Again, assuming this bullshit propaganda being spouted by publishers and their unpaid PR team (I hope they at least send ya a hat or tee shirt) is true, as a consumer, their failings in their business model means fuck all to me. The truth is though it's not true and they can kindly go find the rustiest piece of jagged metal available and bugger each other with it before I will ever listen to them whine about having to deal with the same used market that every other maker and seller of goods in recorded fucking history has somehow managed to deal with just fine to this point.

Sadly though this talk about used games is all just propaganda and convenient talking points used by backwards thinking developers and publishers that would probably be better served working as jizz moppers rather than game makers. Because the truth is, as I stated above, the gaming industry is growing at obscene rates and posting record profits even in spite of an economy that's one of the worst since the great depression. Yeah they are really hurting. Now if you will give me a minute I will search my couch for a few fucks I can give about how much they allegedly being hurt by used games.

 

[Nargleblarg]

they you jack shit for game trades even with 10% bonus with the card or the new trade in with 3 games=10% extra trade in value,5 games=20% extra trade in value and 7+ games=30% extra trade in value. Even with this extra stuff you don't make much money back and Gamestop sells it for 10X what they gave you.

It really pisses me off

I can certainly see how that would piss you off. Were you held at gunpoint for these transactions? Were you drugged and possibly not in control of your own actions maybe? Perhaps Gamestop was holding one of your loved ones hostage until you agreed to trade in your games for a fraction of their value on the open market?

My point is you aren't forced to sell your games back to Gamestop. Hell, between eBay, craigslist, Amazon, and other such services if you are trading your games in to Gamestop it's only because you are simply too lazy to sell them in proper venue where you'd get actual value for them. I can promise you that if you buy a new game and decide you want to sell it or trade it in you should be easily able to get 75% of your money back for it on craigslist.

Personally I love Gamestop. I use their card and save extra money on used games and accessories. Those used games have a seven day return policy if I don't like them or they simply aren't worth keeping. On top of all that I'm constantly getting coupons for buy 2 used games get 1 free and the like. Do I trade back games I buy? Hell no. I sell any games I've kept past their return date on craigslist.

Wow I'm quite impressed Xanthious you are one of the only persons on here who understands simple economics. When you involve a middleman in a process of exchange money is lost.

OT: Being an actual Gamestop employee will certainly gain me the title of extreme bias but I have to say most of the stuff on here is either simply explainable or utter crap. No company is perfect and businesses are pretty insane to begin with.

I've seen mention of opening product and still selling it. This is only true of one copy of any new game, and the only reason for it is to have an actual physical case on the wall for people to look at before they buy it, in the end they still get the product it's not some complicated scam. If it bugs people that the game was temporarily left from the case to protect it from theft then they don't have to buy it and can GTFO. Gamestop has always done this so its nothing new and many other businesses do this as well.

As for asshole employees......for anyone who has ever worked a retail job it sucks. And you would be pissed off some days from taking abuse from people who don't understand half the shit you explain to them. I've been threatened multiple times, deal with ignorant customers who question everything that I say, and get cussed out at least once per week. That's any retail job out there, and company's prohibit employees from fighting back and basically just take it.

I read something about pushy employees as well.....its a business and we like being paid to take care ourselves and our families. As long as you can say No there isn't a problem.

And all the used games killing the industry crap. No seriously study the business, while yes used games do divert sales from companies do you have any idea how ungodly large cuts publishers take though? Of all the money that is made on a new game sale the actual creator sees only a few dollars off of it.

 

[Zx30]

The main reason I stay away from Gamestop is because it's overpriced. Even used games. I always get better deals from Amazon or Ebay. The only string of hate towards Gamestop I have is when I tried to purchase Mario Kart DS a few days after its release. I couldn't get one because all of the ones currently in store were being held for Pre-orders. Fair enough...but he had to rub it in my damn face on how I should have pre-ordered and that I wouldn't be able to find it anywhere and next time I NEED to preorder.

I promptly left the store and traveled to the Wal-mart located in the same shopping center and got one there. Plenty of copies to go around. Because of that one guy, I now visit Gamestop a hell of a lot less...I don't even think I've purchased anything there since then because I looked for alternatives...

And I know it may seem petty, but we all do it. We associate the people working there as GAMESTOP, WALGREENS, or WALMART it self. If one person screws us over, we are left with a sour taste in our mouths...we say to ourselves..."Wow...if they hired this douche...they all have to be this way"...

 

[Spearmaster]

at my three (all three) local Gamestop locations Ive had to request "unopened" new copies of games every time and im given grief for my request if they have one at all, they don't have a PC game section at 2 of the locations, the third's is sad if it still exists today, sales people push used games over new every time, push consoles over my PC telling me that consoles will be a better PC than a PC in 10 years and I should "upgrade", they hustle bad games to people because they know you are gonna resell it back to them so they can re hustle it, and the difference in what they pay you for a used game, what they sell it for and what it is new I can usually get it new on amazon for less than their used price, I ask for new its $60 used is like $50-55, mainly hate the hustling of bad games for a quick resell.
My general experience
Clerk-"buy this game its awesome, great reviews I played it for hours, everyone loves it"
Me-"$60 OK ill try it"
play for 2 hours, look at is disgusted
Me-"better sell it back while its still pretty new"
Clerk-"we can give you like..$10 for it, its not a very popular game"
Me-"but your selling it used for $55!?"...never again
Next guy-"this game any good"
Clerk-"yeah man its awesome and we got a deal for you we got a used one that's only a day old for $5 bucks less"

 

[.No.]

On another note: I must be lucky. I've only interacted with sufficently knowledgeable, professional Gamestop employees.

This. It's because of a Gamestop employee that I got into the Fallout series, because he recommended it over a used copy of Bioshock 2, Which costed around twice as much. Most(if not all) Gamestop employees I've encountered are gamers and actually know what they're talking about.