Gamestop Under Fire

It could be said that GameStop is on a roll. In the past year their stock price has more than doubled from 25.50 to its current home, hovering around 60. In September, the company began turning most of the remaining EB Games stores into GameStop stores. And just last week the company opened their 5000th worldwide location.

But not all is well with the world's largest video game retailer. Over the years they have slowly been ostracizing the hardcore gamers of the world with insulting business practices and annoying employees. When GameStop and EB Games "merged" in 2005, most of GameStop's corporate policies won out and even though the stores were always very similar, gamers felt betrayed that EB Games would eventually go the way of the dodo. I strongly doubt the same number of tears would be shed if GameStop were to disappear tomorrow.

More....

[Lightning Mr Bubbles]

All I know is that games are $59.99 plus tax and they give you $25 in credit for trading in brand new releases.

Gamestop/EB games = ripoffs.

[TeaDouble_E]

Try working over there, you will hate it even more.

[green_ghost5]

How exactly is that a ripoff? Everything you buy decreases dramatically when you leave with it. Just like a brand new car. You drive it for three days, and decide you don't like it you want to trade it in, you'll get only a fraction of the price for that car. That's just how life is.

[XxZxX]

you want to compare with cars, try resell your car after 30 days, you still have at the very least 80% of your original cars value. Try it on games, you only have less than 20% of your original games value. Now that's a ripoff. Life suck if you don't know how to count.

[squallsoft]

and i would also like to add a couple of my own:

8. Offer competitive wages. Minimum wage can't even buy you a weeks worth of gas anymore.

9. Raise the trade in value. Its ridiculous that a game that is only a day old and retails for 60 dollars only trades in for 15. Give me a break. They are gonna resell it for 55 anyway...

10. Old school love. Why shun all the oldies? EB used to sell NES games for god's sake! Now I can't even go to Gamestop and buy PSone games! For shame...

If these things change, there still might be hope for Gamestop yet. As it stands now, i hit Amazon for all my gaming needs...

[smirx]

So, it's starting to sound like Gamestop is the "Wal-Mart" of video game stores. Just what we need.

[Lightning Mr Bubbles]

you can have 100 reasons for hating Gamestop. Employees say they don't pay enough, some say the employees are fanboys, others even say something stupid like no respect for old school games. Sure whatever works for you...

There's only one reason that matters. They rip you off!

[Lightning Mr Bubbles]

...

[PS360WII]

Well I'm sort of the baddy here. I go to gamestop and do all the pre-order crap pay it off in full so I can walk in and walk out day of. Most of the employees there I talk gaming with and talk shop with the managers a lot. The store I go to they are pretty informed and knew most of the stuff I threw at them. Don't know about the pay since I don't work there but the store I go to they know the games and the upcoming and the changes that happen.

[d3l33t]

you really dont have a choice, i know i dont. Its that or target/bestbuy/walmart, noneofwich deserve my gaming business.

[RelloC]

The pieces of sh!t took over my neighborhood Rhino Video which kicked much ass before these dildo's came rolling in. Trade Value is like half what Rhino used to give, employees don't know jack sh!t about games, all the GS generic label crap is cheap as sh!t, I could go on and on. If you couldn't tell, I absolutely despise this corporation. I hope it callapses and the bastards that started it starve to death.

[d3l33t]

we need a new gaming chain to show them how to really do business!!

[CadDad]

This is a pretty spot-on assessment of the couple Gamestops near me.

Every time I'm in there I see them giving bad or just plain wrong advice to customers that are expecting them to know what they are talking about.

I'd really like to see them lower the used game price and trade-in price as well. It's almost guaranteed they sell the trade-ins for 3-4X what they give you for them. Make it 2X. Give you 5, sell for 10. That's ridiculous profit and they'd get more of my business.

-CadDad

[goodganja]

I called up to Gamestop and asked them how PS3 sales were doing. One fanboy tried to say that they've sold NO PS3's SINCE LAST MONTH. So I drove up there to call his bluff and pretended I wanted to buy one.....

They were sold out. And he tried to tell me that Sony will be making games for 360 in 2008. It was officially announced. What a douche and a fanboy.

P L A Y B 3 Y O N D

[ItsDubC]

My general experience w/ Gamestop has been unpleasant. I've ran into some of the most condescending retail employees at Gamestop chains. I heard employees get a bonus or pat on the back for racking up preorders so I refuse to preorder there out of spite.

[Fade_Walker]

acually we dont get $hit for preorders...no bonus...no pat on the back...it just means we get to keep our job for another week
and biching that we dont get more

if i had an option to leave you bet it would...but at this time of year i really dont have a choice

[ItsDubC]

Damn dude, that sucks. Well if that's the case, I may preorder there in the future as long as the employee taking my preorder has earned it.

If an employee's being too pushy trying to get me to preorder, I may just have to call over a coworker and have that person ring up my preorder right in front of him/her lol.

Or is that not how it works?

[Lightning Mr Bubbles]

You paid $59.99 plus tax and just two days later you trade it in at Gamestop for $25

And the same employee who sold it to you takes your trade in. And you know they probably remember you buying it, but they don't say anything and just give you your $25. How do those people sleep at night?

And then there's always those female Gamestop employees, who usually take their clerk job too seriously. But then you can probably say that about all female employees. So that's not a knock on Gamestop.

[Fade_Walker]

drugs...thats how we sleep at night...j/k

but serioulsy i dont know how, i feel REALLY bad, i try to advoid ppl trading things that are worth ALOT or just new

and that thing about and i know what you mean by female employees take there job too seriously and then we get the corporate breathing our necks...in the end the job isnt even worth stressing about

[green_ghost5]

I still go to the "used to be EB" by my house, I still go there only because it's still the same store manager, and he's really professional, all the employees he hires are great, none of them are annoying or stupid.

@ itsdubc....Are you kidding, it's called commission, do you know what that is? If your job allowed you commission to get preorders what would you do? It's more money, right, so why not.

[ItsDubC]

Trust me, I know what commission is. But there are ways to make a sale w/out being pushy and overbearing. Did YOU know that?

[Hagaf22]

...its nice having some where that will take my used games i dont plan on playing any more, the only places i have around me is gamestop or gamecrazy, and i tend to get more from gamestop because of me rewards card. so i know they are a greedy monolopy in the gaming sales category but until some one finances a new store.... theres nothing we can do...

[Eclipticus]

the whole opened display case, the way i see it is, its an open box item. if you got to any other electronic store. and they sell you an open box item. you get 5 -10 % off. its usually an open box item, cuase its refurbished or its a display model. how is this any different.

[rbanke]

wasnt this posted yesterday?

http://www.n4g.com/industry...

[Covenant]

Yup. Verbatim.

[Proxy]

I trade a game in for 25, and they sell it for 55, what a load of crap. Furthermore, half the used games you buy have been scrated to hell. I can't imagine what conditions some of those disks have been in; maybe it was used as a coster, got some Pepsi spilled on it, got a little grape jelly mixed in there too, then they traded it in for 25, and I have to buy it for 55. (Well, actually I don't have to buy it....)

If I bring in a flawless disk, I should get atleast 40 as a trade in value, and then you can resale it for 50. And stop taking back games that are all scratched...

If I could buy a used game, and know it came in a decent original case, and had the original manual in good condition, and a unblemished disk, I'd always be buying used games.

[SwiderMan]

Really? This got posted? ...REALLY?

This is a word-for-word repeat (read: ripoff) story of http://n4g.com/industrynews... which was up on the front page's top stories a couple of mins ago.

I *love* how this site, "wayofthegamer," rips the ENTIRE article from my site and editors here actually approve it again with zero reports.</sarcasm>

Be more aware people... and if you run a site, don't copy and paste some one else's entire body of work.

[Proxy]

LOL, they did copy it didn't they. :(
Although it does say "From: gamingtarget.com" at the top.

Atleast N4G wont post the entire article, but actually makes you visit the original site for the whole story. It just gives you a intro so you can tell if you're really interested or not.

But yeah, this is a duplicate.

[Maddens Raiders]

Game Stop Blows.

P.S. - I'll have a follow up story on this ((soon)) available exclusively on N4G.com. Also, to the masked, friendly neighborhood Swider man above: Don't feel bad dude, my body of work is copy and pasted all the time - the Internet is the wild, wild West of any and all journalism, history, facts, photos, etc....

[vaan]

But, some of them also have no clue. But the one real pisser I hate about EB Games (GameStop) is when they try to convince me to buy a $hitbox 360, and tell me how great Live is and paying money to play online is fine etc...."unified friends list.....yadda yadda .............STFU! If I come in for a ps2/3 game, that means I'm NOT FKN INTERESTED IN A DIFFERENT CONSOLE!!!!!
STOP WITH THE MS BS!

[Halo3Guy]

The only thing I do agree with is that they only drop the price of a used game by $5. (Ex. Halo 3 new: $60, Halo 3 used: $55) I'm of course going to pay $5 more to get my copy new. As for selling PC Games, GameStop is a business not apeople pleaser. They sell what they know will sell.

[2paclives]

While I don't hate gamestop...I think there are some issues. I find it troublesome that when you trade a somewhat new game, bioshock for example, you get less than half of what it cost to purchase. Then they sell it as a pre-owned for $5 less than retail! That is upsetting. Also, no I don't want to put down $5 for a gotdam pre-order!! "But you won't be guarenteed to get it on release day if you don't" BS!

[2paclives]

Get a grip tool, your undercover expose on gamestop is not going to garner you a noble peace prize.

[Shaka2K6]

Sucks.

The only reason i used to past by the Gamestop at my local mall was beacuase there was a cute girl working there and she was always flirting with me.

[Covenant]

Luckily I have Game Xchange, Slackers, and two or three other small gaming stores in my area, and I usually get a reasonable amount for my trade-in. I avoid the three GameStops in town.

Plus, Slackers also takes CDs and DVDs, and you can use your store credit for anything in the store...so I took in a handful of CDs and got enough in trade to get Prey (Special Edition) and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Not bad.

My Best Buy store has hired three former GameStop employees in the past few months, and they have told some verrry interesting stories.

As someone said above, GameStop has become the Wal-Mart of game retailers.

[Dogswithguns]

now I HATE it, hated years a go, all they do is buy your games and resell as nearly fullprice.... I dont go there anymore, I get my games at my local BestBuy or WalMart.

[IPlayGames]

1. Pre-orders(PO): something that you people dont know is that our Hrs. are determined by the # of pre-orders and subs to GI we get. And the number of copies that are PO they add about two for non-PO (so if 1 game is PO then we get 3 copies). Besides it only cost $5 to PO a game and if u dont have fun driving to all the stores around your house to find 1 when you could have a copy waiting for at your local gamestop.

2.Obscure stuff: You have to think about that from the companies point of view. Yea it would be good to do it but why when they would sit on the shelf for months. This has affected me as well I wanted a copy of Kengo for 360 but we only had 1 since its not a top seller.

3.Game Informer: Keep buying subs ($15 for 12 issues) and they'll keep making them.

4.Lower Prices(Used Games): I agree sometimes we sell a gain 3x the amount of the trade in. I just laugh nothing else i could do.

5.Display As New: Yea that would change if they sent Box art display for every game that comes out but until then you have to buy display its not like its played just put into a protective sleeve.

6.PC Games: The best way to get PC game back to your store is to Pre-order. But since you dont like doing that in your region there is one store that carries the abundance of the PC games find that store and u should be happy.

7.GS idiots: Yea a lot of my co-workers dont know a lot about games but Higher Ups do send books and DVD with sells pitch info on up coming releases and in our free time its ok to read GI to get more info. I do what i can to inform them on AAA and not so hot game but i dont have all the info.(Ive been playing games since be4 nintendo) So i do what can to keep there eyes open.

There you have it Hardcore Gamers, you don't have to listen to me and you don't have to like what I say. But you know that a lot of gamestop employees are saying it and as H.G. Wells once said "Adapt or perish."

[jared81799]

agreed.

[jared81799]

Some Gamestops are great. Mine is amazing. Went to go to the midnight of GH III and they had a band, hotdogs and everything. It was a great time.
And Ill just say 25-30bucks sounds like a good deal when you get a game you think your going to like but dont. Cant return it anywhere, freakin sucks. I usually just wait for some trade special then take everything in and rape shop. I dont think Ive paid over 20bucks for a new game in a really long time...
But if you want top dollar at a moments notice, ebay it. Stop whining.