Like most things in life, it can be good or bad depending on how it's used.

zorikin

None of their sales were to me. Fuck Gamestop. They don't care about the hobby even a little bit.

Kainy

Not when you're invested in them it isn't.

Tuxy79

Bando

tehFluffz

Also if you guys think Gamestop is so evil, go watch the documentary on Wal-Mart "The High Cost of Low Price" and you will see TRUE evil.

Also, if I remember right it was BEST BUY, not gamestop that let people wait all night for Wii's and 360's knowing good and well that they didn't have enough systems for all of them.

Stop bitching for the sake of bitching.

SoulPunch

As far as systems go they're supposed to be tested when they're taken in. I know some problems can't be known when testing a system for a minute but that's why the systems can be returned as defective.

@burpingcat: Nope. I'm only defending the polocies to the extent that I agree with them. I hate the fact that GS basically charges people for extended return policy period (aka Product Replacement Plan) instead of just extending the current one by a couple more months which is more than reasonable. They're making free money off of people, since all console manufacturers have their own free warranties. I only mention them when they come up on screen; I never recommend them unless it's a parent buying stuff for their young kids. And then only because kids like to break things.

sanyo

Hazzy

Hazzy

Also, as for trade-ins, I have completely given up on trading games in at GameStop. It's a kick in the pants when you see the game you traded in for $8 on the store shelf with a $24 price tag. Why not just sell your copy for $20 to someone, effectively undercutting GameStop and STILL making more money?

It's also especially crappy that your mint-condition copy of a game gets no more credit than a copy that might as well be in the trash.

burpingcat

With the $5 off coupon and 10% for being a long term memeber, no hassles with the goofballs at Gamestop, it's win/win.

Damn, I'm sounding like a commercial.

JohnnyLA

I don't understand why people sell games to these stores though, considering you get so little in return. I'd rather just eBay it and get more.

kojirodensetsu

@GOLD5: Those are entirely seperate things. First of all, houses and cars are more than 60 dollars, and buying them used saves you more than 5-10 dollars off what you would have spent. And furthermore, are you suggesting that Gamestop isn't a corporation themselves? The difference is, publishers are providing us a service in the form of putting forward the massive investment necessary to put out a video game in this era. What service does Gamestop provide that we couldn't get anywhere else? I know which of the two I would choose to give money to if I wanted more quality games made in the future, and it's not the people who do nothing but take games that are already out on the market and mark them up for pure profit.

Stormrider

Nothings better, to me at least, then getting a big "thanks" for a game I recommended to a customer or a Mom telling me I'm quote "One of the nicest and helpful salesmen" she's had since she began her Xmas shopping.

It's a part time college job and yah that have some practices I don't even like, but it's life. I need to try this gamefly thing, though...

Oh and good choice on Jeanne D'Arc, amazing title!

Ken

GOLD5

The store had a handful of customers wandering around. I had one of the parasitic sales staff latch onto me the second I walked through the door. The guy kept trying to convince me to pre-order Halo 3 I told him I lived out of state and that my hometown didn't have a Gamestop. I then told the guy that I'm a game geek and just wanted to peruse their games and see if I could find any gems. The guy then follows me around the store for the next 20 minutes still trying to convince me to preorder some games. So annoyed by the overly pushy employee I left, walked down the street a ways and stumbled across a small comic/video game store on the end of a strip mall and picked up Joan 'de Arc for the PSP and the Watchmen Graphic Novel for the 20+ hour plane trip back to Alaska.

lostalaska

Electroqueen

misterthou

misterthou

NeoAkira

i'm just glad we have a play n trade where i live. i would rather give them money than Gamestop/EB

jerrt

AsWater

Kaemon

tk.

Example
Bioshock new: 59.99 (still sore about the new 60 buck price point for next gen)
Bioshock used: 49.99 (last week was 54.99)

I guess they can't drop the price to low or else nobody in their right mind would buy used, but they keep the price inflated for so long it's annoying. Guess what...I have a kid, a mortgage, vet bills...hell I'm poor. I can't afford to pay that much (and yes I have the card, I like to have something to read while I drop the kids off at the pool) so I wait...and wait until they drop down until the 30's.

So I guess what I'm saying is the place isn't all bad, the guys are pretty cool at my local store actually, but corporate needs to stop squeezing blood from a stone on those used games.

(of course I'm still bitter about only getting $4 for Crackdown...but it's 4 more dollars than I'd have otherwise)

djudd

Of all of the GameStop (and GameCrazy) stores around where I live that I've been to, only the ones in the mall have poor customer service. All of the others have good, knowledgeable employees that while, yes, they have to hawk their wares, are also genuinely helpful.

What are my serious alternatives? There aren't any "locally owned" game shops in my neck of the woods, and I don't really see the advantage to fighting through cattle-like crowds in Wal-Mart or Target to go to the back of the store where I can hopefully flag someone down that has a key to the cabinet.

Best Buy at least doesn't lock everything up, but it can take forever to find someone to actually work the register for you, and they push magazines that I'm far less interested in than Game Informer. Also, being able to pre-order can be nice, in the case of something like Rock Band or a CE.

tk.

TowelFight

Place is a joke.

mva5580

crapsh00t

I should clarify my thoughts on points 1 and 2 a bit:

1. I wasn't simply referring to release day purchases, but the fact that many less than blockbuster titles will only ever be stocked at a given location based on their initial number of pre-orders, and that once their allotment of "Title X" is depleted it will never be restocked.

I can't count the number of times I have walked into a Gamestop with a list of at least 10-15 titles I would be interested in purchasing - only to find out that none were ever carried there to begin with or they have blown through their meager supply with no more on the way.

2. The condition that Gamestop is willing to accept used goods in is deplorable. Against my better judgment I've bought several used systems from them - all of which were defective in some way.

If someone doesn't care about a missing case or manual - fine. But at least appease those of us who do by offering some sort of discount on "disc only" titles. Or better yet, penalize the little fuckers who lose the case, mangle the manual, and (seemingly) blow a load on the disc before they return it. Perhaps if people were getting docked credit because of merchandise that's in less than stellar shape they'd be less inclined to take such piss poor care of their stuff.

And don't tell me it's not feasible. I lived in Japan and shopped in Den Den Town (and elsewhere) for long enough to know that high standards for returns on the part of the retailer are neither unreasonable nor unrealistic. Hell, I bought used copies of games that were over a decade old that were in better shape than many of the "display copies" sold by Gamestop.

TowelFight

But forreal, i can understand some of the complaints people have for gamestop, but some of them theres just no reason to be that upset over. It's like you people want to pick a fight with GameStop so you'll complain about anything.

Case in point, the whole display case for the new game. A lot of you complain that you're getting the last copy of some new game but the case has been already opened and what not. Does it really matter? You're going to open it anyways right? They just did have the work for you. And for those of you who say "oh but the people who work there play and scratch them up!" here is my solution for you. Check the disk and see if it has scratches. The end.

And thats just ONE complaint of many.

ArmyofJuan

v00deux

Flashfire

1. cost cutting techniques. yes, its unfortunate that the average gamer is unable to pick up a game when they walk in, but i have always wondered this: if you're sure you're going to buy it, why not preorder? i have like 6 games reserved because i know im getting them. if you're not sure, then popular games will likely get more copies in a couple days later. not the day of, but its not like you wait forever. also, call the store ahead of time, see if they have it. saves time.

2. if the employee isnt terrible, they should know that if a game even looks damaged, they need to send it back to the factory to be repaired. i cant tell you how many games i marked as defective in my time there. sometimes the employee doesnt care, sure, but you have time to return it, no questions asked, so its not a total shot in the dark.

3. ill give you this one. i dont really understand their exact policy for putting games into our little list, but i know i cant preorder some of the things i want to and its annoying.

a lot of it comes down to the employee. bad employees make a horrible Gamestop. good ones make the experience worth going back. i like to think mine has pretty good ones, hence my working there for a year.

@NeoAkira:

spend 15 on the card, buy three used games over the course of a year, done. i think i got about $200 extra or so out of my card through trades and purchases last year.

Flashfire

Here's the thing, the only area where I feel most retailers are generally evil/bad are their personnel policies...the employees get treated like garbage.

That being said, there are many, many policies that Gamestop has in place which are a slap in the face to both gamers and casual customers:

• The policy of stocking based on pre-orders makes walk-in/casual purchases almost impossible at many locations.

• The willingness to accept goods which are in some way damaged or incomplete - this creates a number of bad situations on its own.

• The fact that in many, many cases the games which would (by Gamestop's own design) be most in need of pre-order don't even have an in-store SKU.

Others may nitpick and quibble over minor annoyances, but I feel that the three above points are all serious and legitimate problems. And one which can, at times, make shopping at Gamestop a difficult or even annoying experience.

TowelFight

But that means that we have to BUY the discount card to get a used game at a lower price, which kind of defeats the purpose. If gamestop makes so much money off of used games then it makes more sense for them to stop pricing them only 5 dollars less than a NEW game and mark it down 10-20 bucks, that way we'd have more incentive to buy a used game instead of a new game.

NeoAkira

nxp3

nxp3

Believe me, I'd much rather have a new copy, unmarred by the hands of another, but sometimes beggars can't be choosers. I'm fully aware of my other options.

Malthius

Get over it guys... they are a corporate chain that is huge and run by suits,... like many other corporations in the world. Deal with it... I think Walmart has far greater evils than Gamestop and big box stores are so wide spread that general knowledge base can be quite iffy, at times. They might know quite a bit about TVs and how what cable goes where, but asking about which game is good or not and the perks of each system and you usually get a blank stare.

$5 less on games? If you buy a lot of games,... imagine this... if you actually HAVE that discount card, you get the joy of some printed gaming material whilst dropping a duece and you might (read most likely will) save some dough off used games. $10 less is a good difference and at our store, we stand by our policy and unless you're being a real douche to us, we realize that keeping a customer happy keeps them coming back...

Sorry for the Wall of Text that will most likely get "too long, didn't read", but you know what,... there has to be SOMETHING done right to come out #1.

Ken

Okari

The reason they are popular is just like any other massive company that people hate (MS, Wal-Mart, etc) is still popular: It's familiar, easy to find, and you can usually get what you want. I try to shop elsewhere for games when I can (the couple of GameCrazy's here in STL when I'm in their neck of the woods) but for some reason I always go to GameStop.

Libertariot

thats exactly the problem, its more expensive for the exact same game.

i worked at Gamestop until just last week. ive seen all sorts of customers and such. most dont care about the developers or anything. anyway, i have bought used too, and i dont see why it offends some people. when you buy clothing, you know it has been marked up at least 50% over what the retailer bought it for, right? at least the new games dont see a markup like this. they may treat their employees like shit (and they do!) but i dont have a problem with the way they do business.

maybe its just because im an accountant.

Flashfire

I get pretty miffed with the whole "pre-order on major release titles" thing myself. Super-niche and obscure titles are one thing (although I still think policy should dictate that each store gets in at least a half-dozen copies of any title regardless of pre-orders), but when I'm getting treated like I've committed some sort of faux-pas because I neglected to pre-order New Super Mario Bros. or Assassin's Creed...well that's just ridiculous.

This type of treatment (this has included lectures) is all the more maddening considering the it's common knowledge that I can walk into any local Target or Best Buy and pick up said major release with absolutely no hassle.

TowelFight

Besides that, I am a bit concerned with this pre-order garbage that DPB mentioned as well. I am no longer preordering games through them. In fact, my CoD4 is going to remain unsold, and I'm just going to transfer the fiver to a walk-in purchase. I think I might do most of my game shopping in Best Buy. They may be evil, but not AS evil.

Sammael

Dracula Feet

Kuraudo

DPB

Arthois

Lucky you. I sent in an email the day the game released because my figurine was broken and I never heard anythng back. Bastards.

pyrealnova

I don't know what it's like for folks in other areas, but here in Chicago they're pretty much the only option if you want any title that's even approaching the term "niche". (For some reason indie stores have a really tough time staying afloat here. I've never seen one last for more than a year.)

TowelFight

TheNocturnalSun

Slab

Furious_Liver

thebluick

spartan789

I work at Play N Trade Video Games in San Antonio, one of GameStop's franchise-based competitors (in fact, I'm typing this on a work PC). On average, the store makes anywhere from $3-$10 on a new game, as opposed to about 50% of the price on used games.

Really, new games make money for the developers, but for smaller businesses like us, we have to sell used games to stay afloat. That $5 or so that we make on new doesn't get very far with rent and payroll added in.

RedRaptor

I understand your point - but it's an argument better saved for piracy issues. And if the development teams were that worried about used sales affecting their bottom line, they'd just offer non-transferable downloadable games or content that could never be resold but yet came at... at a... pre...premium price...

hmm.

Tonx

radink

woah

BigChiefSmokem

Minister of Fun

kyosen

Madeira

brennan

Okari

Stormrider

Kyle81