Topic: Stop Going to GameStop

[NWR_Karl]

Ugh, the last time I went to GameStop was the worst. I had a cab waiting outside, and the clerk behind the desk kept trying to start a "nerd argument" with me. "Yeah, you know, the best Zelda is actually Adventure of Link."


"Okay."
"... You agree?"
"I just want Ocarina, man."
"Dude, you gonna pre-order Star Fox?"
"Nah, I'm good."
"Can't blame you. They should've put Assault on 3DS. Best Star Fox game."
"That's cool."
"Did you see the Luigi's Mansion footage outta E3? Crazy, right?"
"Yes."
"Okay, well here you go. By the way--"
"Thanks. Bye."


Clerks being chatty can be fine sometimes, but mostly I just want to buy something and get the hell out of there.

[Tanatoes]

I have to admit that I have generally had pretty good experiences at Gamestop.  I do have an Edge card (or whatever they're calling it now) but I don't tend to take advantage of the "special" offers on pre-played games.  I shop at three different Gamestops - two in the South Shore Plaza in Braintree, MA and the one at Downtown Crossing in Boston, and they know my name at all three.  I'm not really their ideal customer because I rarely buy used games (which is what keeps them in business) and I never sell used games (I prefer to keep them indefinitely) but I do pre-order just about every a-list title and that helps the employees meet their goals so they like me.

I think the key to a great shopping experience is to make friends with the folks helping you.  The key to that is shopping in a place with low turnover and regular staff (so NOT Best Buy) and to understand what the sales people need to meet their goals.  At Gamestop I believe that the store tracks pre-orders, edge card sales, and PPGs (which are not a bad idea on used games or games with peripherals.)  So, yeah, strike up conversations with the guys (or gals) helping you about games - you'll discover that they're pretty cool people and they'll appreciate your business if you pre-order three or four games every time you drop in.  (YMMV - I spend about a quarter of my disposable income on games.)

If you have one of the bigger Gamestops near you (like the Downtown Crossing one) you can also sometimes go to special game demo events and meet game developers - which is ultra cool.  I'm hoping they'll have a pre-release event for Bioshock Infinite sometime next year.

P.S. - I love the fact that at the Downtown Crossing store the staff tend to have their 3DS consoles in streetpass mode behind the counter so I can collect diorama pieces every time I drop in.

[UncleBob]

you mention that your copy of metroid prime 2 echos is 20 dollars without the case, where else are you going to find metroid prime 2 though?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0002ILS1U/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&qid=1310842704&sr=8-1&condition=new

$27 and up for brand new, sealed stock.

[Tanshin]

It really depends on the Gamestop. Sure the one here smells kinda bad (mix of plastic and Cosi from next door), but they're never pushy like that and the pre-orders are always in stock.

Now, back when it was EB Games, there was one inexcusable offense. They were giving customers $1 for a used N64. What kind of crap is that?

[TJ Spyke]

The GameStop closest to my college always smelled good because it was right next to a Subway and you could always smell the subs (which might not be good if you are a GS employee and are hungry).

Yeah, they tend to give terrible prices for systems.

[Caterkiller]

Every Gamestop I go to has me ready to kungfu the entire store apart. I refuse to buy from them any more, but I do walk in to glance from time to time. The only time I ever become an evil bastard is when I walk through their doors. Any other store I go to I love when the clerks talk to me and try to have a conversation, but at Gamestop no freakin way.

When ever the Pokemon promotions start it's like mission impossible for me. I get in and stay as far from the counter as possible while I download all my free Pokemon in hopes that no one approaches me.

[Robknoxious1]

Hi all. First comment I've posted. Love the site.


You make a lot of good points but...

[/size]You are a criminal[/color]
[/size]Uhhhh no. Don't want to trade in the game for what GS is offering? Don't. Nobody is forcing you. There are alternatives. As far as GS paying peanuts and selling for a LOT more. So What? Do you see how many copies of certain games they get stuck with? Supply and demand. If someone wants to open their own store and buy a used game for nine bucks then sell it for ten - go for it. See how long the doors stay open. I've worked in retail for over twenty years and the companies I worked for took the cost of the item and sold it at double or triple what the item costs. Bottom line they can charge what they want for the games in their store. If the price isn't competitive guess what? People will start buying somewhere else, like Best Buy or Amazon for example.[/color]
[/size]Best Buy is right around the corner[/color]
[/size]Yeah  last week I saw two games at Best Buy still at $49.99 that had been marked down to less than $20 at GS and Amazon a couple of months back. Magical. I do buy plenty of stuff from Best Buy, believe me.[/color]
[/size][/color]
[/size]I guess my main argument is this. The only thing that will improve GS will be other companies doing what they do better than they do it. If that happens and they improve their stores fast enough they'll survive. If not they won't. No crime just survival of the fittest. [/color]
 

[King of Twitch]

You guys are a bunch of wacky doodles. Are you all like allergic to sales pitches? Aughh the cashier is. ASKING. ME. A QUESTION. I hate being bombarded with passive aggressive betterpreorderorelse stuff but it's not hard to just roll your eyes at it.

The part that bothers me the most is the trashing of perfectly good boxart and manuals. These are the things real gamers cherish and have for decades, and they toss them out by the storefull. For what? to replace them with generic cases and to shave off a few ounces? It's an unconscionable trashing of gaming culture and a window into what defines our humanity that should draw gamers' ire.

This isn't the first post about it either (here. 18 pages-worth here. here.). Surely this is worthy of a letter-writing campaign?

[khfan30]

Actually one of the best places to buy video games is target. Usually when a game first comes out (launch) they have some sort of deal or sale like buy one get one 50% or include a gift card with purchase. Also they always put a ton of games on a bargain rack for low prices (i remember when patapon 2 was still like 3-4 weeks old finding it on the rack for $10) Also they are always having sales in the circular and stores for great deals on games. I like best buy (since i get rewards) too but i usually buy from them if 1)there is no preorder bonus at gamestop or 2)there is no good sale any where else.

[Adrock]

I also like buying games at Target. They often offer deals like gift cards  with purchases (and who can't find something to buy at Target?). Occasionally, they'll offer $20 off certain games and some insane deals like buy 2 games and get a 3rd free with a great selection of titles.

[TJ Spyke]

I've never seen my Target offer any kind of deals, except when they had Portal 2 for $40, but even $40 is too much for that game IMO.

[Adrock]

I got Dead Space 2 for $40 about 2 months ago. Last November, I got Fable 3, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Goldeneye for the price of 2. I see nice deals at Target pretty frequently. Maybe your Target is run by Communists.

[TJ Spyke]

They also might not bother advertising it in the store. The games section there is not well organized.

[Shaymin]

I'm sort of lucky in that I have a decent-to-good EB Games, a Best Buy and a Future Shop (owned by Best Buy but managed separately) all within 10 minutes of each other. I can really play them off against each other for the best deals, and they do drop prices quite quickly - I got 2 Nintendo-published games for $20 combined, 1 at EB on a Deal of the Day and 1 at Best Buy where they were the only ones to have it down that far.

[Chocobo_Rider]

Things I've gotten for free because I'm on good terms with my local GameStop employees (at various locations):

-Metroid Prime 3 Guide
-Metroid Prime 2 box (because I didn't have one)
-an empty white Wii box because my Ghostbusters box got gooey (ironic that it was "slimed" in a sense).
-the Fragile Dreams CD that was left over from lack of pre-orders
-a Super Mario Galaxy poster

Things I've gotten for free from all other video game retailers:

*crickets chirping*

~~~

RE: DLC

Yup, some devs are more responsible with DLC than others.  But the practice of DLC is still a tumor that gamers should have removed from the industry ... instead so many of them insist it feels good!

I will explain further ... even if the DLC isn't on the disc, it was part of their plan before the game was released.  That means that unless the game disc ran out of room, it's content that could have been part of your initial $60 purchase, but is now an additional $5-$20.

"But NinSage," you may ask, "sometimes DLC let's developers add new content based on response from the retail release! Doesn't that justify it!"

No. For several reasons...

1. How often does that really happen? Seriously. I'm open to evidence that this has happened more than say, 5 times... ever.

2. I bought your game.  If you want me to keep playing it, if you want to nurture brand loyalty and increase my perceived purchase value? The DLC support should be a free "thank you for playing."  We shouldn't encourage this mentality that we buy a game just for the priviledge of buying more of it.

... I feel awkward writing this for fear of giving some developer an idea, but I really see DLC as taking steps backwards towards the Arcade model where our consoles are tied to our credit cards (already done) and if we die we have to agree to pay $.25 each time we want to continue playing.

I mean really, I know we're getting off topic hear, but can someone tell me one advantage of DLC? Even the free stuff evaporates into the ether if/when your console dies.  And patches? Could be good, if they weren't an excuse to sell unfinished games.

Bottom line: my copy of Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt still works; in ~30 years, a game held together by downloadable patches and DLC, will not.

[MegaByte]

Things I've gotten for free from all other video game retailers:

Are there actually any other decent video game retailers any more? It seems like Gamestop ate them all.

[TJ Spyke]

At the national level? I don't think there are any left. There are many regional ones. If you live in the Rochester, New York area, this in chain of 10 stores called Game Craze (they took over the old EB Games stores in the local malls when GameStop shut them down) and they are pretty good. They even sell older games like SNES and Genesis, as well as video game related products like a Wii Remote shaped pez dispenser (not real pez, it's pez-like) and the Nintendo Monopoly board.

[broodwars]

I mean really, I know we're getting off topic hear, but can someone tell me one advantage of DLC? Even the free stuff evaporates into the ether if/when your console dies.  And patches? Could be good, if they weren't an excuse to sell unfinished games.

Easy enough.  If you have a game with an experience you really enjoy, DLC gives you an opportunity to enjoy more of it on top of that amazing experience you already purchased.  I have to disagree with your mindset that everything a development team ever creates should be on that $60 disc.  For one thing, if you have a game you really enjoy, are you saying your experience was lessened by not having content you didn't realize existed?  Games are obscenely expensive to produce these days, and those costs are only going to increase.  Really well-made DLC costs funds out of its own budget usually separate from that of the main project, and even in cases of minor things like costumes it gives the artists work when they normally would just be laid off.  It's incredibly naive of us to expect developers to just eat that extra production cost because we as customers feel entitled to it.  Developers have enough problems trying to turn a profit taking games with these huge budgets and selling them at $60, especially with piracy and the Used Game market being what they are (and no, I don't have a particular problem with Used Games, so long as you understand that the original development team doesn't see a dime from your purchase that way).

When I purchase that $60 game, I expect to get my $60 worth out of that experience and so long as that core content meets or exceeds my expectations, I'm content.  If a developer like Team Bondi decides to create or release more cases that supplement that entertaining core experience that was already well worth my money, that doesn't lessen my enjoyment of the main game or make me feel "ripped off".  It just gives me more cases to enjoy in my current game, and thus extend the life of the game.

That, of course, is assuming that the DLC is well-made; reasonably priced; and the game is good.

[famicomplicated]

Could someone from the Americas please clarify something for me:
A preowned copy of a relatively new game costs $55 dollars
A new copy costs $60


If a game requires a $10 online pass to be activated, you are paying $65 to play a used game online??
If that's true that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.


In Japan you get a fair price for 2nd hand games, and they only add $10 or so when they put in on the shelf for resale.


It's been a while since I've done any of this back in the UK, but I don't remember GAME being as bad as GameStop. (someone please correct me if I'm wrong)

[UncleBob]

If a game requires a $10 online pass to be activated, you are paying $65 to play a used game online??

I don't typically buy/sell used, but A) I assume games that feature the online pass probably sell for less used and B) If you don't mind buying used and have no intentions of playing the game online, that $5 discount might still be worth it (not for me though).

[TJ Spyke]

Could someone from the Americas please clarify something for me:
A preowned copy of a relatively new game costs $55 dollars
A new copy costs $60


If a game requires a $10 online pass to be activated, you are paying $65 to play a used game online??
If that's true that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

Well, in New York you come close to saving money. I will do the math where I live (New York, with 8% sales tax on all items including digital purchases):

New Game = $59.99 x 8% = $64.79
Used game = $54.99 x 10% discount = $49.49 x 8% = $53.45 / $9.99 Online Pass x 8% = $10.79 / $54.45 + $10.79 = $65.24

I suppose if you live somewhere with no tax or lower tax you might save money. Still, if you plan on buying a game with a online pass (which I refuse to do as my form of protesting this ridiculous concept), you might as well pay the extra $5+ tax to get the new copy.

UncleBob, nope. I just checked one game that uses an online pass (i'm not gonna check all) on GameStop's site, the used version of Dead Space 2 is $34.99 while the new version is $39.99.

[Chozo Ghost]

About 10 years ago I took my old NES games in and I regret that. Some games got a few dollars each, but I remember some they only gave a few cents. Like Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt I remember they only gave me 3 cents for it and then I came back awhile later and they were selling it for $3 which is 100 times what they gave me. I should have said no, but at the time I just wanted to get rid of stuff. I should have just gave it to people for free instead of giving it to them for peanuts. I was stupid then, but I've learned from that. I've never done it again.

[punchface]

This post was written in ignorance in addition to the other symptoms listed. I used to get games elsewhere, and then I found Gamestop. All of your reasons for not liking Gamestop are the reasons I don't go anywhere else, with the exception of Toys R Us, because they do have really good deals sometimes. Best Buy is the worst. They do in fact ask you to reserve games at Best buy and all of their employees are dumber than a box of rocks. If you ask them a question about anything, the most common response is "I don't know, let me ask someone else." and when they do it's the same response. I have never been to Best buy without the cashier asking me if I have their card or even what my zip code is, as if that's any of their business. Now I know you're just plain ignorant for a couple of reasons. First, The power Up Reward card is $15 not $10 and it's completely worth it if for the magazine subscription alone. The card pays itself of anyways and the points are just a bonus. Second, if you actually knew what you were talking about, then you'd know that Gamestop does give you an itemized list of what your games are worth before the end of the transaction so that you can decide if it's worth it for you or not. All you have to do is look down at the credit card number pad thing that you sign and all of your trades are right on the screen. Don't be so angry at Gamestop because they are more knowledgeable about games than you. Going to Best Buy where they know nothing might make you feel better about yourself, but it isn't really helping you. Lastly, if you want to be distinguished from the pale, obese, T-shirt wearing, acne-laden gamer stereotype in line behind you, then don't be that guy. You should talk to the employees and get to know them and they'll get to know you, I have a great relationship with the guys at Gamestop, they address me by name and know what kind of games I like and it's always a pleasant time hanging out there, and for good reason, because they know what they are talking about.

[UncleBob]

First, The power Up Reward card is $15 not $10 and it's completely worth it if for the magazine subscription alone. The card pays itself of anyways and the points are just a bonus.

First off, a print subscription to a gaming news magazine is not worth $15.. or even $5.  Bleh.  And I have a subscription to Nintendo Power through 2017 or something.  Welcome to the internet.

Second, if you're someone who doesn't buy/sell used games, how, exactly, does the card pay for itself?

[Robknoxious1]

[font=helvetica, arial, 'liberation sans', sans-serif][/font]

[font=helvetica, arial, 'liberation sans', sans-serif]First off, a print subscription to a gaming news magazine is not worth $15.. or even $5.  Bleh. [/font]

[font=helvetica, arial, 'liberation sans', sans-serif]

Is that an objective statement? Obviously some people (myself included) do believe a subscription to a gaming magazine is worth $15 or more. Can you get every bit of information on the internet well before it could be delivered to you in a magazine? Of course. I still enjoy flipping through a magazine away from my computer sometimes. Maybe you should have said "a print subscription to a gaming news magazine is not worth $15 to me".

[/font]