Kotaku 
Enter your username and password.
Denver, 10:33 AM
Mon Nov 16
24 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip us: tips@kotaku.com
Editor-In-Chief:
Brian Crecente
Email | AIM | Twitter
Deputy Editor:
Stephen Totilo
Email | AIM | Twitter
Senior Editor:
Michael McWhertor
Email | AIM | Twitter
Senior Contributing Editor, Japan:
Brian Ashcraft
Email | AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editor, East Coast:
Michael Fahey
Email | AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editor, Oceania:
Luke Plunkett
Email | AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editor, Weekends:
Owen Good
Email | AIM | Twitter
Correspondent, San Francisco:
AJ Glasser
Email | AIM | Twitter
Columnist:
Leigh Alexander
Columnist:
Tim Rogers
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/17/08
11/17/08
11/17/08
11/17/08
Huh? The christmas commercial from last year?
Wasn't that guildwars or something?
11/17/08
11/17/08
11/17/08
11/17/08
And on top of that, why would they care if their son had Pornographic magazines? Shouldn't they be glad the son's not gay?
Goddamn, ADs these days...
11/17/08
"Shouldn't they be glad the son's not gay?"
How do you know it's a guy's room, and it could be lesbian/gay porn.
Also, being gay is a bad thing?
11/17/08
11/17/08
11/17/08
At least no innocent gamers get hurt this way. :)
11/17/08
I love it. Even though it's terribly outdated.
I have a funny story though. Back when I was in my early teens, in the ages of dial-up I did actually have some mags, but I didn't hide them under my bed. I hid them, with other things my parents forbid me from having, in a backpack under a pile of crap in my closet. Not literally a pile of crap, but you get what I'm saying.
Anyway.
Imagine my dismay when I come back from a week vacation that I took without my family to find my room completely cleaned out. Mind you, we're talking about a teenage boy's room here. It would take at least a whole day for one person to clean it this well. I, calmly as possible, for fear of being watched, open my closet to see if it shared the same fate as the rest of my room. To my dismay, it had, and of course, the backpack was missing.
The funny thing about this story though, is that my parents never bring it up, and I dared never ask about the backpack. To this day, I have no idea what really happened to my parents that weekend I was gone. I guess they just figured it best to never ever talk about it.
11/17/08
Once, I watched a tape and some-damn-how failed to put it back where it belonged afterwards. I still don't understand what kind of brain-fart I must have had-- I usually would note the time on the counter so that I could rewind the tape back to EXACTLY where it was... no way I was getting caught...
But yeah. After mom got home, I saw it just sitting there, on the entertainment center. I walked around asking myself 'whattheFUCKiswrongwithYOU???' for a good while. I overheard my mom talking about it to my dad, and expected the wrath of hell to find me... but it never did. Like your tale of woe, it never came up (this was 20+ years ago).
I assume my mom blamed it on my dad, which works by me...
11/17/08
11/17/08
11/17/08
11/17/08
Awesome commercial, yet I find it hard to believe it came from Gamestop. They actually did something that wasn't a failure.
11/17/08
The ogre and rabbit, then our christmas commercials from last year.
11/17/08
What's funny is that no self-resepcting dad of that man's age would look under the bed, without thinking that he'd find somethin' nasty... Shame on him for breaking the Man Code and bringing mom into it...
11/17/08
If I have ever have a son, I'll know better then to inspect his HDD/history.
11/17/08
like most gamers i dont like gamestop.
but this ad makes them worthy of me going in there to browse. but buy nothing!
11/17/08
Every salesperson that frequents this website hates you and hopes you die.
There's nothing more in this world I hate than the guy who comes in all the fucking time, browses and never buys anything. Then when a Gamestop employee gets a question by a parent, the guy has to chime in his two fucking cents.
Also, don't speak for the majority.
11/17/08
And no, you don't have to follow me around the store. Say 'hi' when I walk in, and then feel free to leave me the hell alone. I don't bother you, you don't bother me, everybody wins.
Is it the chiming in that pisses you off, or the browsing?
11/17/08
Does the chimer also annoy you when you are giving out complete disinformation like most other Gamestop employees?
11/17/08
I misrepresented myself. I hate the chime-inners. I hate the "broswers" who completely ignore you. Granted there are some exceptions.
11/17/08
Awww, you think you're cute chiming in don't you?
Get it through your thick skull. Not every Gamestop employee is a pos who doesn't know what they are talking about. I hate those even more than the Chime-inners.
Pisses me off when I get a customer that comes in and says "well this guy at this gamestop said this, this and this." Also pisses me off when we get the customers coming in all "well walmart/bestbuy/circuitcity employee said this, this and this."
11/17/08
I'm not a chimer, but when I do hear serious misinformation, as one very often does from most minimum wage sales associates; IF I happen to see the poor misinformed soul wandering alone I will give them the correct info.
11/17/08
I alerted him about how they were asking me about guitar hero and not guitar freaks, also stating that they more than likely didn't care about guitar freaks as they seemingly haven't heard about it.
He proceeded to say "well, you're just a corporate puppet who just says what the corporation wants you to say."
Took all the strength within my well being to be the better man and not deck the guy across the face.
11/17/08
There's the problem with chimers and customers in general - you're all assholes. Just because the guy is wearing a nametag and making shit money doesn't mean he needs to take any flak from some punk off the street. What makes your shit smell like roses that you think you're better than them because they make minimum wage? Remember, this guy is here to help you out, not be your slave boy or be your bullying target for the day. Quite frankly, those minimum wage jockeys know what working hard is and don't have the luxury of spending 2 hours a day on e-mail before a 3 hour lunch.
Yes, it's true, some GameStop employees... scratch that, some salespeople talk out of their ass and have no clue as to what's going on, but what do you expect when they're being paid bottom dollar to put on the uniform? Game stores are a little bit different because there's people there who are genuinely passionate about games and gaming. Don't write them off because of how much they get paid or how shitty the job is. They're generally not going to stay there forever and in the meantime, they don't need arrogant customers making their working lives a miserable hell.
11/17/08
Yeah, 9 times out of 10 I won't buy anything, but at the same time...I also tend to have a conversation with the guys behind the counter (if they're not busy).
Also, if there's certain clerks behind the counter that do more to help out (even if in some situations it likely is all part of the sales routine) I'll often hold off on a reserve/sell/purchase until that person is available.
It's not like poor employees are exclusive to GameStop. What bugs me more about the store are the policies that turns some of the clerks into the stereotype, and I don't hold that against them at all.
11/17/08
11/17/08
/begin ex employee rant
Just for the record guys, as an ex gamestop employee, I found at minimum wage its better to be a real person than to take shit from customers.
I've gone so far as to tell one lady who was asking me about xbox live that her son was a jerk and I didn't think he should be on it at 13. Her son was in the store at the time and was trash talking (with swear words) little kids who were trying to play guitar hero.
Customer complaint? You bet. But who gives a fuck, its gamestop.
Then theres the chimers. I have a mixed relationship. If theres something I dont know about, I dont mind a helpful conversation with other customers. But if its someone giving a goddamn opinion when I was the one who was asked the question, SHUT THE FUCK UP. They didn't ask you, the guy who picks his nose and buys one game a month, they asked me, the guy who has 10k+ worth of games and gaming equipment in his home.
Before I owned a PS3, I appreciated every bit of info I could get. But I couldnt stand those assholes in line who were 'Oh dont buy that 360, LAWLZ, itll RROD and you should get a PS3' or 'The DS is such a piece of shit, buy a PSP'. I dont tell my customers that. Fuck you if you think you are.
You know what I did? The same thing that the snotty assholes who usually hate gamestop employees do. Acted like a total asshole. Used my superior Kotaku and Internet fueled addiction knowledge to politely use facts to shut them the fuck up or make them look really dumb. You know those idiots who come on here and complain that GS employees are know it alls? Sure, some may be, but usually, I find its because they made you look stupid when you tried to prove you knew what you were talking about, and didn't.
Sure, theres a lot of GS employees who know dick. I've worked with them. But you, the asshole customer, who I NEVER let walk over me and for the record, never got fired for it, are going to learn that every so often, that guy behind the counter actually knows a thing or two about games, and wanted the job because its a passionate hobby of his.
You dont jump someone at the front of a line at mcdonalds and tell them they are getting a shitty hamburger and that your hamburger choice is better, do you?
Man, some of the stories I could tell you, like these guys who were buying up all the used Prime III games and Trauma Center II games at 9.99 and trading them in at Blockbuster for like 30 bucks. They came in all laughing and giggling and wanted every damn copy I had. You know what I did? Sold them one copy and told them it was a new store policy, one per customer. Oh they screamed and demanded a manager, I politely ignored them after that and served the next person in line. Im not depriving little timmy wii fan of a copy of metroid on the cheap because some douchebags bought them all. Same with ebayers. The moment I started to learn the regulars, I would only pretend to have one copy of a game.
Why am I not working there anymore?
Cause I took a shitload of gamestop bags one day and made an Altiar (assasins creed) costume out of them, long trenchcoat, hood and everything, while I was on the job. Then I left the store wearing it when my shift was over.
Some pictures of me made it back to my district manager, who told my manager (who was a total douche) to punish me. At that point, I realized that all those numbers they had been making me push, all that scummy used salesman feeling I had been given trying to push GPGS when I had never bought (or needed) a single one in my entire life, wasn't worth it. It wasn't dealing with all of it for minimum wage, shit hours and extremely understaffedness (you cannot run a store with 6 employees on 120 hours a week, when the manager and asst. manager take 40 each).
So I called my DM and told him to go fuck himself. True story. He was an asshole anyways. I think working for the company for that long does something to you.
Anyways... yep. Big ramble. But thats after a year of being a loyal employee. The first store I worked for, everyone there was a gamer, one of the best stores ever, I would recommend everyone go there for game talks, they know their stuff. The second store, complete retards, would sell total garbage to customers because a profit is a profit.
/end tl;dr rant
11/17/08
11/17/08
11/17/08
With the internet, who looks at paper boobies anymore anyway?
11/17/08
11/17/08
11/17/08
11/17/08
Makes you wonder what happens when the youth of today becomes parents of teenagers themselves, and the kids find out they can't outwit us because we have been there every step of the way with technology.
11/17/08
Hahaha... I bet by then kids will have learned to use free crypto software. :p
...then again it's been around for ages already and no one seems to have learned so far...
11/17/08
11/17/08
Nah, Im just assuming we're more adaptable to it than our parents were, just like our parents were more adaptable than their parents were.
11/17/08
11/17/08
This is why i keep no physical copies =D