Gamestop Refuses to Sell Spirit Tracks on Release Date

Many gamers are now happily playing their new Spirit Tracks game, but not so for those who ordered from Gamestop. Try taking your pre-ordered game from there and you will encounter a problem, in the form of them not giving you the game.

Apparently, many stores are refusing to sell Spirit Tracks on its release date, with such reasoning as "because most games come out on Tuesdays", even though they already have the game in stock.

Before you ask, the given release date of the 7th is perfectly correct. Even the official Spirit Tracks site claims the release date as the 7th, as do all of the promotional posters for the game that you will find at the shops themselves.

A cinema worker refusing to sell tickets to a movie because they like Tuesdays better would never be accepted, so why is this situation accepted in the sale of video games?

[DragoonCody]

Also, in case anyone claims that that was just the shipping date, a lot of Zelda fan testimony contradicts it:

"Gamestop in my area, in wisconsin, has had the game since saturday"

"New York, which is east coast
Had a MIDNIGHT RELEASE today"

[sakura2009]

stupid gamestop

[bacon13]

Ugh, Gamestop is such a sh*t business. Working for Blockbuster and Gamestop was like having my soul ripped out of my eyeballs everyday. I learned my lesson and just buy all my games online. Amazon same day release delivery FTW. And if anyone on this forum works at Gamestop or a similiar crappy establishment and reads this, your advice sucks, your sales pitch sucks and you suck.

[Polluted]

Yeah, let's all use take the actions of a few misinformed tools working for minimum wage at a Gamestop and use them to crucify the whole company. That sounds about right.

[Unicron]

I used to work there. The misinformation and BS goes all the way to the top. trust me on that one. Gamestop's practices are, in general, disgusting.

[HDgamer]

I actually work there currently for gamestop, yeah I can say that it's a rip off to trade games there or even reserve anything. My manager told me that you can sell someone's preorder then delete it from the database. Making double on the game with only one customer getting what they want.

[Polluted]

@3.1: So when you were sitting in on the board meetings, all those suits were a bunch of idiots? Good to know.

Guys, I'm not saying their trade in values are anything resembling "fair", they're bullcrap, in fact, but we gotta stop finding stupid reasons to hate on them. Focus on the issues at hand. Don't hate because some tool took a pic of an xbox sitting on the toilet at some EB in Des Moines or because some tool somewhere else wouldn't give a guy his copy of Spirit Tracks. It's a big company, there are bound to be some arseholes.

All the hate's really getting pretty sad. So disagree or bubble me down or whatever for not jumping on the bandwagon and hating EB for all the wrong reasons, but try and stop and really think about why you're so upset over this crap as you do so.

[Unicron]

Work at one for a while. I don't have to defend my experiences. "Those few arses" aren't the ones who write shady company policy.

[Daishi]

Polluted, people hate gamestop because it is the biggest symbol of the gaming community and it's a horrid place with horrid practices. I personaly had my district manager tell me to hold back reserves of Smash Bros. Brawl for "walk in" customers and to just tell them that Nintendo didn't send us enough copies to fill the reserves! That never happened before the merger (EB, Gamestop). It truely sickened me to my core that someone would encourage that, especialy someone in a position to make it happen. I don't want Gamestop to go away by any means, but I would hope that people would make a big enough deal to make them change back into the place I used to love.

[mastiffchild]

Whatever. So, they're a company that doen't give one crap about it's gaming customers is it? Wow! That's SO rare these days. Chalk them up alongside Activision, EA and IW and even Capcom and Valve, yes?

Why do they all treat us like sh1t? Because we take it and still bend over, open wide and ask for more. Our "community" of consumers is the weakest in the world, imo, we fight amongst ouselves with PC gamers feeling superior to console gamers and PS360 fanboys blinded to companies treating them like crap in order to keep scoring points off each other! We rarely think, for a second, that it all grinds to a shuddering halt the very monet we say "enough' enough" and refuse to put up with any of it, stand together and realise we have ALL the power in the industry.

But no. We allow IW./Acti to release MW2 ith price hikes and P2P nonsense(as the biggest online game of the year it went backwards from last time!). We allow MS to get away with Live subs and RROD. We allow Sony to be arrrogant on occasion and we always allow store chains to rip us off over trades and stuff likt preorders too. Why? Because we're divided, because we're(many of us) fanboys with too much loyalty to blind brands who only want our cash and because we've got no community, no backbone and no willpower. We get exactly what we, as a "community" deserves and will continue to do so til we grow up and get it together to some degree. Were we so lazy and eager for the shiny new game over MW2 that we couldn't support the demand for dedicated servers(on ALL platforms) for a week or so? Would MW2 have vanised? Honestly, we all moan but very few want to stand up and be counted and say that they had way too much of being ripped off.

I'm sorry, I get that they have shady practises, trust me, but it's OUR fault as we allow it to go on. If we stop buyung games there this would end tomorrow but we still don't know that it's us who propel the industry and when we do I hope we start looking out for each other a little better.

[bacon13]

@Unicron

Hit it right on the nose with your posts. The business structure of places like Gamestop are ridiculous. Work at one for a while like Unicron and I and you will see the light. Gamestop blows the biggest dongs in the land.

[hades07]

We have EB here in Canada and I don't remember them ever pulling anything like that, maybe its the canadian in us haha.

[lepolohuevo]

I don't why they'd do that, but that's like refusing money. ^^ Never heard of a company complaining about having too much money. Is the crisis coming to an end? XD

[DragoonCody]

That's certainly a nice way of looking at it :3

[Shaka2K6]

.

[beeeffess]

I'm British so we don't get GameStops here but am I right in thinking this is the game shop where the employees constantly badger people into pre ordering games?

What's the point in pre ordering if you can't get the game when it comes out?

Though I can sympathise with you Americans. Only very rarely do games come out on a day other than Friday. Enough time for people to spoil certain games as they had the game the previous Tuesday.

[dabri5]

I like to look at pre-orders as a advance layaway. I can pay on several games a little bit every few weeks until the game comes out and I only have to pay 5-10 $ to pick it up. It's a mind game really but it makes it feel like I'm not spending as much on a game.

[firelogic]

This is the company breaking street dates to release MW2 among other titles and yet they're refusing to sell Zelda on the date they're supposed to?

[DarkBlood]

yeah gamestop or eb games *whatever the hell u wanna call it* said the game would come out on monday only for my parent to call for me *since im hard of hearing* to find out that its push back to wensday i mean WTF i payed the money in advance i expect it to come on release day

[DragoonCody]

Wow, Wednesday? They're pushing it back even more in some places, I guess.

[Setekh]

Gamefail strikes again, honestly the sooner people realise that this company simply doesn't care about it's customers, the sooner they can go out of business and stop pissing people off.

The whole damn point of pre-ordering a game is so that you can get a hold of it on or just before the official release date, NOT AFTER.

What a load of rubbish.

[pacowles]

If they tried this nonsense with me I'd make them refund my deposit and purchase the game elsewhere. Not like anyone needs another reason to avoid shopping at GameStop; I haven't bought a game from there in years. Amazon generally runs specials (with free shipping) on new releases and if you're not too impatient you can always score a used copy on eBay/Half within a few weeks for dirt cheap. Stop encouraging shady retailers, there are many superior alternatives.

[Neo Nugget]

The game got pushed back to the 8th on gamefly a few days ago. I lived with it, but then saw that it got bumped back another day to the 9th. What the hell?

[DragoonCody]

Haha, guess they just don't like you :P

[GigaGaia]

Those morons sells Call of Duty and some other games a few days early, but they can't sell this on the release date? Man, the gamestop people are beyond stupid and idiot, those people shouldn't be allowed to breath the same air as we do.

[dabri5]

Gamestop wont break street dates normally. I hear they broke street date on MW2 because some rogue managers were trying to compete with some mom and pop local places that started selling the game early. I believe those managers were reprimanded. As far as this, my local store has their copies in and are selling them. Sounds like a missinformed employee.

[Scary69]

I just called my local Gamestop and they have it. But I refuse to buy from them since the last time I tried to do their trade 2 games get MW2 for $20 they gave me the run around to then at the end have to give me the deal even though they claim it was not working. So i will be buying my Zelda game at Best Buy and if I need to pre-order then I will do so at Best Buy as well.

[The EDGE]

they're probably going to play it first and sell it as a new game when its used.... i hate gamestop, never buy games from there

[djfullshred]

This is what happens when coroporate policies & processes take precedence over logic & customer service. Many upper management type people lose sight of the reason they are in business, and make following the process become the most important part of their focus. I work for a large corporation, and see this type of failing from individuals that make these decisions all the time.

[JeepGamer]

Gamestop being pricks again? They don't really want to sell new games anyway.

[Enigma_2099]

... the f***ers.