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Gamestop's policy of destruction (trashing boxes and manuals)
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A flawed system, but for a long time pre-orders were used as a profit control system. They would use them to 'rate' the general popularity of a game in order to stock an appropriate amount. This shot them in the foot more often than not, and elicited a similar reaction to yours by many people. They have since stopped this nonsense, last I heard.
No. Gamestop, if anyone didn't know this, is a conglomerate with Barnes & Noble... more to the fact, when Gamestop bought out EB, FunCoLand, Babbages, Software Etc., and yes, etc., they were in a lot of debt (many have said that this is when by and large Gamestops were actually good) or needed the money to do so, or something. Barnes & Noble bought them either directly before or directly after the massive buyout.
At any rate, GS owed B&N a lot of money. GS has been showing enough of a profit (especially compared to B&N's much lower profit) that GS at the corporate level is in talks to buy themselves out and become their own entity again. That's a whole shit-ton of profit, btw.
So, tl:dr, GS is here to stay. Does this mean that the break from B&N will allow them to go back to "the good ole' days" when it was considered a good store? Probably not, customer service will probably still suck, but I'm sure they're going to stay in business.
Also, customer service is dependent on the employee, not the corporation.
This Subway next to me has a dude that seems like he's always pissed off and skimps on the veggies. I do not automatically think Subway's service sucks. That dude sucks. The Subway close to work is great, has nice people.
PSN & XBL - OFRunner | SS FC - 3782 1420 3176 DIA FC - 2150 0629 4353 | Steam ID | LoL
Quite, unfortunately there have been a rash, nationwide, of douches employed by GS.
Douches might be excessive. Apathetic is probably the word to describe them. I've heard tell that this is due to the job itself, like they've been grown into being apathetic about their job, so if that's true it's a big problem with upper management.
Most of the time, yes. However, when one of my major gripes about the service is the constant harassment that their employees are forced to do as part of their job (for discount cards, disc guarantees, used games, pre-orders, ect), then no, it's the place and not necessarily the people.
I actually make a longer car trip to go a small chain called Microplay instead of the local EB games that I can walk to when I get games. The guys at Microplay actually know their games, aren't tools and aren't forced by their bosses to harass me.
Need to clarify some things here.
Software Etc and Babbage's were the same company, called Neostar Inc, back in the mid 90s. In 96 the company filed for bankruptcy and was bought by B&N shareholders, keeping the company afloat, and it was renamed Babbage's Etc. The company finally switched to Gamestop around the time they bought Funcoland, and at the time had a shitload of banners under the company (I'm sure I'm forgetting at least a couple):
Babbage's
Software Etc
Funcoland
Gamestop
Planet X
Planet Comics
Super Software/Supr Software
Moviestop
Gamestop + Movies Too
Gamestop spun off of B&N completely around 2004, I believe (edit: it was 2004, I remember the announcement at the manager's conference that year). The two companies kept their discounts in place for employees out of a mutual respect, but the companies have been entirely separate for over six years.
Makes sense.
"No, really dude, the new call of duty game is shit. You'd be wasting your money."
"Why are you buying the strategy guide for a game that requires the internet to play?"
LP hates people who are passionate about games because they see them as shrink risks (they're old assholes, and their attitude is seriously "kids who like games are gonna steal!"). Most managers won't care... if you can be passionate about what you're selling, you'll sell more, the numbers will be better, and that manager will look good.
Honestly, would you hire the people who post comments in Kotaku to sell games for you?
It's a problem with the pay rate of the employees. If you barely work your entry-level employees and pay them minimum wage and expect them to be stock boy/girls, salesmen and custodians all within normal store hours, of course they're gonna be jaded.
As a part time manager, I'm pretty jaded by the huge work expectation I have compared to my tiny paychecks and benefits and the people I have to put up with. The problem is until I can latch onto a better job, I have to keep this in order to pay bills.
Then they're also expected to push stuff they don't believe in. I support our discount card fine, most of my customers MAKE money from it. however, I'm sick of being expected to push the stupid 3DS when I live in a lower income part of town where people try to haggle the price of a $1 ps2 game.
Edit: Also the gamer pool that they DO hire from is pretty awful. You have two awful options: Hire from the gamer pool/customer pool and get people who are socially retarded or you can hire people who are socially capable, but have little to no game knowledge. Neither is ideal (and yes there are in-betweens).
I have never heard this, and it frankly sounds stupid.
How could they stiff you? It came in the box with mine.
PSN & XBL - OFRunner | SS FC - 3782 1420 3176 DIA FC - 2150 0629 4353 | Steam ID | LoL
I'd say the exception here is a cute girl that's also enthusiastic about games. Gamestop loves that shit, it's like crack to them.
No, they would want people that are enthusiastic and can talk to people about games to get them excited and reserve the game.
PSN & XBL - OFRunner | SS FC - 3782 1420 3176 DIA FC - 2150 0629 4353 | Steam ID | LoL
It's actually a bit more than that
For used games, GameStop gives you a seven day grace period to return it if you just don't like it. Once new games are opened, they don't do returns unless it's defective.
3DS: 3007 8087 2767 | Nintendo ID: AngryFrog
That's fucking weird
How does that even happen, that's like complete incompetency
You should've raised some hell about that
@Green, yeah, that's pretty convenient to have
PSN & XBL - OFRunner | SS FC - 3782 1420 3176 DIA FC - 2150 0629 4353 | Steam ID | LoL