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Stupid Gamestop :(
Overloaded
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So I was sufficiently enticed by the Bioshock/Halo 3/Price drop combo to pick up a 360 this week. I popped into the nearby Gamestop on the way home from work.
The guy said they had a 360 in stock, so I asked if I could get it with a copy of Bioshock, and he said "Oh, sorry, we only have enough for preorders."
I said "Are you sure? I mean, I'm buying a $370 system with it, and it's not like you guys didn't know this game was going to be popular."
He said "Sorry, we don't have any extra. You should really preorder Halo 3 now."
So I left, walked 4 blocks to the Virgin Megastore in Union Square, found shelves full of copies of Bioshock, and dropped my $400-whatever there. And that's what I'll be doing when Halo 3 comes out.
I'm so sick of Gamestop/EB I could cry. I remember the days when it was actually exciting to go into those places and watch the trailers, play demos, and generally not be driven to rage. Now all you get is "You should preorder everything! Oh, and sell us your used games so we can steal revenue from the people who actually created them! And if you don't submit to our moronic corporate imperatives we will refuse to sell you what you want!"
Stupid F$(@ing Gamestop
The guy said they had a 360 in stock, so I asked if I could get it with a copy of Bioshock, and he said "Oh, sorry, we only have enough for preorders."
I said "Are you sure? I mean, I'm buying a $370 system with it, and it's not like you guys didn't know this game was going to be popular."
He said "Sorry, we don't have any extra. You should really preorder Halo 3 now."
So I left, walked 4 blocks to the Virgin Megastore in Union Square, found shelves full of copies of Bioshock, and dropped my $400-whatever there. And that's what I'll be doing when Halo 3 comes out.
I'm so sick of Gamestop/EB I could cry. I remember the days when it was actually exciting to go into those places and watch the trailers, play demos, and generally not be driven to rage. Now all you get is "You should preorder everything! Oh, and sell us your used games so we can steal revenue from the people who actually created them! And if you don't submit to our moronic corporate imperatives we will refuse to sell you what you want!"
Stupid F$(@ing Gamestop
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You are voting with your dollars. Well done.
So why the drama?
Other than the potential accessory and game sales that go with an initial purchase, the only reason retailers compete for stocks and sales of consoles is so that they can inflate revenues like a baloon. They weren't "stupid" for turning down a $370 console sale that wouldn't have profited them any, but they are stupid for not ordering enough copies of BioShock... as if there's any danger of ordering too many of a game destined for Platinum Hits! They lost a sale.
Only pre-orders.
Which you may or may not get fulfilled on time.
I dunno, I suppose I've just now finally realized that the store I used to love going to as a kid has been replaced by disgusting, money-grubbing corporate fucks living in its decaying skin.
It made me sad.
No one refused to sell you anything. They can't sell something they don't have.
Lately I've come around to EbStop's way of thinking with pre-orders. Now I pre-order everything that I think I'm going to want to play. Once a month I go into my local store with a list of games and pre-pay for everything I'm getting that month. Then, on release day, all I have to do is walk in, grab my game, and go.
As an added bonus, since I pick up 3-4 games a month, I generally fill one lucky employee's quota in one visit so they start treating me right and go out of their way to make my visit enjoyable.
Big box stores are hit or miss at best...
He's right, though; it's ridiculous how often EBStop will only order games that've been pre-ordered. The only justification I can see is if there simply weren't enough copies published for them to get more than that.
Well the thing is, EBGames/Gamestops have really fucked up distribution metrics.
Basically they only stock enough copies to maybe satisfy preorders. Where as every single other brick and mortar on the face of the earth stocks as many copies as they think they can sell.
The store has not changed. It has always been a money grubbing entity. News flash: that's was businesses do.
Again, I applaud you for spending your money where you feel you recieve a better service, but being angry with a business for doing what it thinks will make it money is pretty stupid.
That simply doesn't fly for most games. Maybe for Atlas games, but not for Bioshock, no way, no how.
I was pissed last week because one of the versions of the new Megaman was only available there, and I am addicted to Megaman.
Friend Code: 3178-9186-1924
Wait, don't tell me that you are unaware of Gamestop's business model: To avoid haing a glut of older sealed games taking up shelf space and costing them serious money when they have to be reduced from $50 ($60 these days) to $under $10 in order to sell, they limit quantities to preorders only with usually about 1 or 2 extra (if even). This also encourages their used sales, where they make much, much, much more profit. That's INCENTIVE to limit new copies. They didn't simply sell out, they designed it so that you would have to preorder OR suffer, wait, and buy used; both of which help their business model. It's not stupid: It's smart.
What *is* stupid is that they could do this selectively and then earn the buying power and new-sales profit potential of the large electronics stores like Circuit City and Best Buy. BioShock is one of those titles that they were stupid to not buy enough for the holiday season. It's a guaranteed Plat. Hit title, so that means that they will get reimbursed when the title drops in price.
Lets say you receive 10 pre-orders for a game. Do you only get 10 orders in? Or do you get more and its store policy to say the whole pre-order speech? As with Bioshock, people kind of knew it was going to be a big hit, why not order extra copies?
My 360 is [strike]back[/strike] [strike]bricked[/strike] back!
That doesn't seem like it'd be very profitable.
Well, they seem to be doing something right.
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6930&Itemid=2
I'd assume that their distribution metrics are based on pre-orders and previous sales. For example, the gamestop that I go to is in an "urban" area so they get tons of copies of sports games and only one or two copies of an RPG.
The manager told me that he had trouble getting people to pre-order Bioshock so they only got in enough to fill pre-orders and then maybe 2-3 more. They think in terms of profit so they are going to tailor their orders for maximum profit while keeping in mind that their stores are small so they don't have a lot of space to store things.
So, you are a heavy game buyer and yet you happily pay full price for everything? I typically buy over eight games a week and I can't remember coming close to $50 since Wii Play for $45 - Reward Zone points. The closest since was BioShock for $34.66, and that's the most expensive PC game I've purchased all year!
And yes, stores run out of things, but the thing that made me so annoyed in this case is that there was absolutely no reason for them to run out of this particular thing. Super-hyped game + launch day = Maybe you should order a few extra copies? The fact that they're attempting to create false scarcity just disgusts me.
My point is, because the chain has become so greedy and unpleasant to deal with, they lost not only the sale of the system + game, but my good will and future business as well. Which, yeah, probably isn't going to knock their bottom line into the red, but I don't think profit margins should be the only thing a company looks at when trying to decide how well they're doing.
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As for their business model, yeah, I get what they're doing, but I hate it. It's especially stupid in places like New York City, where if store A doesn't have what I want, there are 25 others within a mile radius that do. Basically, I resent the attempted manipulation.
And god, don't get me started on used game sales - personally I think it's worse than piracy. Vive le online distribution.
Protip: Babbage's, EB, Gamestop and Funcoland were not always part of the same corporation
I remember buying Where in Europe is Carmen Sandiego at Babbage's
Seriously.
My store got eight extra copies of the game.
They sold out in about an hour.
There were employees without pre-orders who wanted a copy, and got turned down.
Sorry you missed out, but popular items do tend to sell out in places. Personally, there don't seem to be ANY stores in my area with copies of Bioshock. I was out shopping for Zuneaccessories last night, and casually checked 360 sections at Bestbuy, Circuit City, Target, and another Gamestop. Nothing.
This should answer suadeo's question as well.
Here's the deal, stores don't just get what they preorder. In fact for most large releases(like Bioshock) it's not based on preorders at all. Let's talk. Brain Age 2 came out this past week. We didn't have any preorders. We got 20 copies.
Bioshock came out last week on the 21st. But here's what happened, all gamestops actually got the game a week before. When we got the box with the games in it, we had significantly more copies than we had preorders. But, with the pre-release hype at it's peak during that week, it became very easy to get people to preorder our remaining stock.
"Hey when does Bioshock come out?"
"Next Tuesday, but I'll tell ya what, we only have X copies left available for preorder, so you want to preorder it?"
"Sure"
So it's not like we didn't get extra copies, we just got A LOT more preorders. And honest to god, I worked that day and we sold out of our remaining extra copies at about 3pm. I had to turn down 2 people the entire day and 1 person on wednesday and we got restocked yesterday and I didn't sell a single copy.
Guess what though, JRPGs don't sell well. Persona 3 we only got like 8 copies of and 4 of them were preordered. We've only sold ONE of the extra copies so far.
Gamestop purposefully only gets enough games to fill pre-orders that way they can lock you into their retarded pre-order system where they take $5 from thousands of people and put that money into high-interest accounts to get a little bonus profit.
I've been buying my new games at Best Buy recently just because I'm tired of getting grief every time I buy something from Gamestop.
They didn't say they were "sold out", they said they only had gotten in enough for preorders.
Gamestop doesn't recieve all of the stock they will ever have or a particular game at one time.
Do you know how crazy you sound?
Honestly, that would be an absolutely horrible business model.
Sold out.
A pre-order is (theoretically) a guaranteed sale. They're not going to piss off a customer who pre-ordered something so that Joe Jackass will buy a game from them and continue to NOT PRE-ORDER.
double points on games, music, and movies shows up from time to time. Combine that with a double points coupon and you're doing pretty good. The RZ MasterCard earns points everywhere and can earn quadruple points sometimes at Best Buy (even more when using the same coupon). Then, there's the other promos, like "x-amount of points with purchase!" coupons and deals. The real reason I get so many is that I pricematch every single deal I can at Best Buy and make them almost the exclusive place I go for games and game stuff.
The Summer of Entertainment program they are running for RZ members is pretty good too (last day). I've got certs to print and use today. Because RZ is now free, it doesn't make sense to do Circuit City's rewards (credit card) or their 10% off gamer card ($20). RZ members get 12% off coupons every month (which I save for major purchases) and the 10% off coupons are always around.
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My favorite is the gaining interest thing. It's hilarious.
The REAL reason is to rope you into paying full price instead of shopping the lowest competitor at launch AND to enforce their preorder business model. They want to enforce it for the reasons already mentioned (used game market, no $5 games clearances like the electronics stores, etc).
When a movie theater says that they are sold to capacity, that doesn't mean that everyone is already sitting down.
They had a whole shelf full of copies. What were they thinking? "Oh a bunch of people pre-ordered this game, that must be everyone. No need to stock extra, i'm sure one else could possibly walk in and want a copy."
Atleast Toy's R Us came through for me like they normally do. TRU seems like they're the only company that wants my business. And i'm all too happy to give it to them.
I'm not suggesting they should sell off preordered games to walk-ins.
I'm suggesting that if you have 25 preorders, maybe you should order a number somewhat above 25, you fucks
Now, as I said before, I realize there are certain mitigating circumstances: There might not be enough units out there, or maybe GameStop doesn't want to distribute 100 copies to one store if it means only shipping 10 to another. But I kinda doubt that's the case with Bioshock.
Also correct. Let's not forget that the reason Best Buy and other stores get so many copies is because their business model let's them. They don't sell games for profit. They sell games because they want you to come in and buy other shit.
Gamestop, sells, well, games.
Maybe if EB/Gamestop marketed them as agressively as they do halo three and actually ask if they want to pre-order "insert JRPG here" in every game purchase like they did/do like, oh I don't know Bioshock, Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto 4 then maybe it will sell well enough.
Yeah. It's about keeping your business in-store, not some conspiracy involving high interest accounts and all that.
Also, you DO recieve a service through pre-ordering, which is more or less entirely free (opportunity cost of interest earned on five dollars not withstanding.) You get a guaranteed copy of the game at launch. If that's not worthwhile to you, then pre-ordering just isn't for you, but the number of people who seemed to get pissed off that they can't buy a copy of the game at Gamestop at launch suggests that it IS something that they care about.