Gamestop stories

[HappehLemons]

Anyone have any? Here's mine.

As a Chirstmas gift for my brother I decided to get him a psp, so I went to Gamestop the other day to buy a PSP-1000. Where I live there's quite a few Gamestops in my city (About 4) but only one of them had the 1000 model PSPs. As I'm checking out she rings me up and asks for my debit card and I tell her I'd like to actually look at the system first before buying it. Lo and behold it's missing it's analog numb that she somehow forgot to mention.

I tell her that it's missing a part, and ask her to get me another one or to just grab one off the other PSP. She comes back saying that she can't find it and that the other PSP is missing it's analog nub too! So I tell her I'd like to see the manager and see if I can get some kind of discount because of the flaws on this one, and while she is gone the other casher feels the need to butt into things and tell me straight up that there's no way I'm going to get a discount and that I should just take the PSP the way it is. I respond by simply asking is she's the manager and she responds "...yes, i'm one of them" although it was obvious that she wasn't the store manager. She then begins by giving me a real attitude about how there's nothing they can do about it and then actually tells me that they don't accepted used ones like that! So how the heck did it end up like that? Oh that's right, they must of lost it. I tell her is makes no sense that you shouldnt be selling that PSP at it's full price if it's missing a part and she then takes another customer in line.

My casher comes back and tells me that they can't give me a discount and I tell her "Okay then" so I turn to the girl that was giving me attitude and I say "I'd like to know your name". She then begins to tell me that there's nothing they can do about it (again, lol) and I said that it was fine, I'd just like to know your name at this point. After saying that the REAL manager pops up (Most likely because she realized that I was going to call in about this issue because I asked for a name) and tells me if it's a problem that they would give me a PSP Slim at the price of the PSP-1000 and of course I accept.

Seriously. What a scam... What if a parent came in looking to buy it for their kid and didn't know that it was missing a part? At least I ended up with a good deal in the end.

[Enigmus]

I once went in to get a used copy of Metroid Prime 2. I only had three hours of sleep, so my train of thought was borked. I took the case off the shelf, and it had everything (manual, warranty/terms booklet, poster). I take it up, and know what I forgot? They take the cases and swap them. I get the case and I look, and know what it was? The case and the disc. No manual, no poster, nothing I could've used. I ended up confused as hell control-wise while playing in my sleepless daze and didn't touch it for a week.

And that's just the start.

I once got a copy of Wind Waker (missed out on GCN until 2008- I was an Xbox supporter) with the case AND manual stuck with an unknown substance (possibly peanut butter). Luckily, I just went to the display case and switched manuals, and the dumbasses at the desk were too busy arguing over the meaning of the tagline "the official video game" to notice.

I also once bought a fat PS2 in early 2008 (once again, Xbox). It broke after two days. Turns out that not only did the drive wear out during a session of Guitar Hero 3, but the system jolted, frying my memory card. The next day, it didn't even turn on. Why? I opened the PS2, and there were approximately 18 large dust bunnies. Imagine if those caught on fire.

Also, I was nearly banned from a GS in Indiana for finally angrily telling the clerk to shut the hell up about Edge cards. Turns out he was a hyper sensitive type of person, meaning he got offended by my telling him to shut the hell up about the cards (I counted 15 to 17 mentions of the damn things). I left after trying to calm him down, which led to him whining for a manager. Everyone nearby could tell the guy had serious issues. I even saw a woman near the PSP games shoot a "WTF?" look at him.

Once again, just the tip of the iceberg about GameStop.

[Hwj_Chim]

I have not bought from them for a long time. I tried to buy Shinobi for the Ps2 some years back from them. The only copy the had was a New copy that had been used as a display and they could not find the disk. It had been checked out by an employee, and they were trying to sell the game as new. I told the employee at the cash register never mind, left and never went back.

[sebastiankirchoff]

I know I'm a dumbass, but when I was 11, I sold a few X-Box games (Halo, a couple of other games too) for I think two dollars and fifty cents. At the time I didn't know anything about video game values, and ended up buying a couple of burritos at the Del Taco next door with that money. That is the extent of my stories there.

[maxlords]

I have nothing but great experiences now since I've made friends with one of the local ones. It's about a 30 min drive for me, but it's totally worth it. Never had a single issue. I get every promo item, they hold stuff for me as long as I need (I'm a regular and they KNOW I'll buy it)...everything a store SHOULD do.

Before that though....every single store was a hassle, from "we didn't get any of those promo items at this store" to "oh, you preordered that, we're all out" to "this new copy only has a few scratches" and on and on and on. If you can find a store with a GOOD manager....you're set, other than that, they're ass.

The store I go to, the manager bashes the fuck out of em too...but not too many stores have employees that are with it. It's like they purposely hire douchebags at most of em.

[Zthun]

Your experience isn't really Gamestop fault though. It sounds more like the incompetence of the managers and workers there.

The only thing anyone can really burn Gamestop for is their crazy policy for trade in prices. I understand why they are that low, but still...I guess if a person can't figure out how to use eBay, they're better off going to gamestop.

I had an interesting conversation about game informer before, but that's about it. Never really had any scruffles with the people behind the counter, or any real major scores at it. Though I remember when the place was called EBGames and I used to know the guys who worked there.

[maxlords]

Yeah, rule of thumb is trade nothing in there. However, that trade 3 get one free deal that's ALWAYS running and they don't advertise is awesome. Trade any 3 games worth $8 or more in credit in and get a brand new preorder up to $70 fully paid for, no tax? Always a steal if you can get decent trade stuff cheap enough.

[SpaceHarrier]

Though I remember when the place was called EBGames and I used to know the guys who worked there.

This for me is the key difference between what used to be and what is.. I could have a conversation with knowledgeable, enthusiastic staff at EBGames before Gamestop slithered out here. Now even the small, independent videogame dealers in my area are staffed by idiotic, lazy teenagers. The whole culture of game retail has changed.

I don't have any nifty GS story, but I did buy a "new" copy of F-Zero GX that turned out to be a re-shrinked display copy, complete with so many greasy fingerprint smudges on the cover that I had to wash the case with soap.

Didn't notice at point-of-sale because they pulled the game from the rear case and it was in the bag before I could inspect it. And why would I? It was supposed to be NEW.

[wfnjstallion]

I guess I am fortunate that the Gamestop I frequent has always been run by really cool people. Friendly, knowledgeable, and willing to go the extra mile. All I have to do is ask for promo items and they hand it over no questions asked. I guess it also helps that I served my time working in retail and know how rude the general public can be, so I always try to be that nice guy that helped a cashier get through their day. Seriously some people are just assholes. 2 quick stories that come to mind are while working at Border's a customer refused to pay the tax on a book simply b/c he felt books should not be taxable. Thankfully my manager threw him out before I threw the book at him and paid the tax portion myself. While at Blockbuster I had a "dad" come in looking for Gilmore Girls for his "daughters". I explained the particular season he was requesting did not release till next Tuesday and I could not break street date by selling it to him. He became furious and actually threatened to come behind the counter and kick my ass. he eventually tucked his tail between his legs and walked out without attempting to kick my ass.

[dao2]

Your experience isn't really Gamestop fault though. It sounds more like the incompetence of the managers and workers there.

It really is their fault. Their terrible policies (for employees), terrible pay, force most of the people that would normally be interested at working there into hating it. That's on top of the stuff they force employees to annoy customers with and other stuff like guts. They have terrible managers and workers because of their own doing and the ones that do work there are usually miserable cause it's such a shitty store.

[exit]

Yet another "Gamestop Sucks" thread? There's about 1 million of them all over the internet, no need to bring that trash here as well.

[Zthun]

It really is their fault. Their terrible policies (for employees), terrible pay, force most of the people that would normally be interested at working there into hating it. That's on top of the stuff they force employees to annoy customers with and other stuff like guts. They have terrible managers and workers because of their own doing and the ones that do work there are usually miserable cause it's such a shitty store.

You'll have to elaborate a little more. I've never actually worked at a Gamestop, so I can't really debate this, meaning I have to take your word for it.

I don't know a lot of retail stores that have fantastic pay. I assume you mean that terrible pay = minimum wage, which is pretty common for most retail stores. Maybe I've been very lucky, or maybe I've only had the opportunity to come in contact with really good actors; nobody I've ever seen work at Gamestop is butt-hurt about working there. It's just another job.

[Flashback2012]

Yet another "Gamestop Sucks" thread? There's about 1 million of them all over the internet, no need to bring that trash here as well.

This isn't the first and I'm absolutely sure it won't be the last of these type of threads. Though Gamestop's ill reputation is entirely self-inflicted, I would love for a change of pace in these kind of threads. I would love to see one that had posts from former employees such as myself detailing their regular patrons, their good (and bad) management/co-workers, and odd interactions they've had with customers.

I guess I could hijack this thread and do just that...

We had this older fellow who came into my store and would just hang out. He would come in and make a beeline for the XB360 kiosk every day. He never spoke and we never learned his name so one of my part timers dubbed him "Grandpa Tiddlywinks". He had a younger friend or relative who would sometimes come in with him and the only game this fellow would play on the XB360 kiosk was Guitar Hero. Eventually, we dubbed him as "THE Guitar Hero" because when he played, he played with passion! He would stand in something of a wishbone stance with his feet far apart. He would arch his upper torso back and cradle the guitar on his stomach. When he strummed, he would sometimes raise his arm in the air after a particularly hard sequence (even though he always played on Easy).

In all my time there, I never saw "Guitar Hero" or "Grandpa" ever buy a single thing. They would hang out for 15-20 minutes and play, then leave, and not be seen again till the next day or the day after. If they came in during the morning while my part-timer wasn't there, I would remark to him when he came in "You missed The Hero and Grandpa today" to which he would throw a faux tantrum for having missed them.



I remember another time right around the Wii's release. In the store at the time was semi-regular who was massive in both height and weight. His appearance was unkempt and spoke in a rather boisterous tone, preferring to shout across the store rather than walk over to his friend and talk at a reasonable tone. Based on his appearance, I would say he had more in common with a basement dwelling 360 fanboy that pwns n00bs on Call of D00ty and gets into fights over the internet than a normal, functioning member of society. But anyway, I had a customer who was asking about the Wii and I explaining a few of the features such as the Virtual Console. I told them "You can download games from older systems such as the NES, SNES, Genesis and Turbografx-16." When the customer heard TG-16, their eyes mildly lit up and they remarked "How did Nintendo do that, I thought it was made by another company?"

It was at this point our basement dwelling "friend" jumped into the conversation he was eavesdropping on and proclaimed "That's because Nintendo bought and owns Turbografx and can put those games on their system!" I was unable to correct the mouth breather on the misinformation he had just spewed out as the inquiring customer turned their attention to him fully and I got called away by another customer seeking assistance. It pained me as a lifelong TG/Duo fan to hear that nonsense and though I've no proof, I have to imagine said dweller had never seen an actual TG16 in his life nor played any games for it.



One more...

For a few years, I transferred to a mall location not far from my original store. This was a few years before Gamestop bought EB and they were still competitors with us. They also happened to have a location in the same mall just down the hall. I knew the manager as he worked with me at Funcoland and also worked with me when GS first opened up. We had this regular customer who came into both our stores that they dubbed "Stinky Pete". I'm not sure what it is about the regulars we had but the pattern they all had was they always looked but never bought and Pete was the exact same way (and while I realize Stinky Pete is a Toy Story character, this individual did have body odor issues ).

Since me and the manager were friends, I would regularly send people to his store if they had something we didn't and I would stop in on my lunch break to talk with him or whatever. I got to know and befriend most of his keyholders and part-timers, in particular a girl he hired who was his friend's little sister, Lana. I remember one time where I was on lunch and went over to chat with him and Lana was working with him. As soon as I set foot in the store, she runs up and gives me a big hug and proceeds to walk with me around the store with her arms around me. I noticed Stinky Pete was in the store when I walked in and I happened to look up at him right when she hugged me. I swear to God, he gave me THE mother of all nasty skunk-eyes one could get. I mentioned the look he gave me to Lana and found out she's the one who dubbed him Stinky Pete in the first place! She said she was creeped out that he always came in and never bought anything and wondered if he was a stalker. I guess in retaliation and to better identify him (and because he had odor issues), she dropped the Stinky Pete moniker on him.

A couple of years later I had transferred back to my old store and was working with the assistant manager that day. Stinky Pete came in, looked around, again bought nothing, and walked out. I mentioned to the assistant as he left "That's Stinky Pete" and relayed to him the story about the skunk-eye. Apparently, a few days later, Stinky Pete came in and actually DID buy something. The assistant was the one who rang him out and at the end of the transaction said "There you go Pete", not thinking anything about it. "Pete" then flips out and goes "WHY DOES EVERYONE CALL ME THAT?! MY NAME IS NOT PETE!"

[dao2]

You'll have to elaborate a little more. I've never actually worked at a Gamestop, so I can't really debate this, meaning I have to take your word for it.

I don't know a lot of retail stores that have fantastic pay. I assume you mean that terrible pay = minimum wage, which is pretty common for most retail stores. Maybe I've been very lucky, or maybe I've only had the opportunity to come in contact with really good actors; nobody I've ever seen work at Gamestop is butt-hurt about working there. It's just another job.

I worked there for a grand total of 10 days before I decided to screw the noise, and my manager was actually a really chill guy. Of course the employees won't display their anger at the job, and I don't know how cool the store is where you guy but the one where I was and the one on the level above are pretty crappy. They're not the cleaniest and nobody really went out of their way to help people.

It's been a few years since I worked there so I can't remeber everything I hated but a few of the crap policies. First their pay, yah it was minimum wage and where I live that's not the average. It was 6.50 and you could get more than that almost anywhere, Starbucks paid 9 + tips (terrible job though I hated it). Giant Foods 9.50, and CVS Pharmacy 10.00. How they paid you? On a maestro card, the most useless thing ever. You want to your money? Gotta pay to get it out as there are no maestro atms that I know of nearby and you gotta pay for a check and from the other people working there good luck getting your direct deposit any time within a year.

Preorders, they pushed these really hard, good luck if you were in negative or at 0 or even low. That means less shifts for you and you know everyone you say it too is just annoyed by you. Same with the edge card. And like I said I don't remember everything I was young but there was other annoying stuff. Like every time you left the store you had to get your pockets checked by someone, that includes going out for lunch and stuff.

If you wanna hear more I remeber someone made a bunch of youtube videos in zero punctuation style about it. But it really is a shit job and while most of the time it isn't a bad experience if you keep going there you'll eventually get one. If it's buying used games, trying to return something, buying new games, buying used or refurbished systems. When you have a problem chances are they aren't gonna try and fix it. Also I'm pretty sure most people that work there hate customers. You do at any retail job for sure but a lot of the parents and others that come in there need some serious help.

[betamax001]

I went to GameStop and bought some used games. It was ok, the cashiers weren't really annoying or bitchy. I did go the day after Christmas and it was crowded as hell, but I didn't mind. I don't like that whole shelf copy new thing. It makes sense if there are a bunch of new copies behind the shelf, but when you are on the last one, put it on the freaking used shelf. It's not new, and I wont mind if you consider it as such. I don't mind so much if it's in decent condition, though I do remember buying Street Fighter Alpha Anthology and returning it because it had light and numerous scratches on it after buying it new.

[G-Boobie]

I have an Amazon Prime membership and I don't trade in games. GameStop doesn't sell anything older than PS2, and some of their used prices make Ebay at its worst look reasonable. There is literally ZERO reason for me to ever step into a Gamestop again.

[portnoyd]

I have an Amazon Prime membership and I don't trade in games. GameStop doesn't sell anything older than PS2, and some of their used prices make Ebay at its worst look reasonable. There is literally ZERO reason for me to ever step into a Gamestop again.

IBTN. With Amazon, I get direct to my door for free, don't have to deal with slapnuts trying to sell me discount cards and power points cards and no sales tax. It's really rare that I have a reason to go there anymore.

[jdc]

We're lucky enough to have two EBs in our city....one of them is of the "nightmare" variety, but the other one is staffed by fantastic people who actually play all consoles and genres. I'm on a first-name basis at the good location and it DOES pay off. I had preordered the Gran Turismo Collectors Edition as soon as it was possible to do so. Because we live in a smallish city, this store was unfortunately allocated one lousy copy of the CE. I'm sure they took plenty of preorders for it before the release date......but the staff were kind enough to ensure that I was the recipient of the single copy that they did get.

[zyo]

I've had missed experiences at Gamestop. The main one that comes to mind was when I went to buy Mario Galaxy and the counter girl asked "For which system"?

The thing that pisses me off the most is not just that they use price stickers that are hard to get off, but that half the time they pull the paper insert out and put the sticker on that, then slide it back in, permanently damaging the product. I've even seen that on their "new" copies, you know, the ones that have been opened with light scratches.

I miss babbage's and funcoland. The people actually knew about games and you could talk to them. I have a play n trade near me but it's not much better, the manager/owner is awesome and great to talk to, very knowledgable, and his video game music collection that he plays in the store rivals my own, however his employees all suck. They either don't know anything, or if they have any small amount of knowledge they act like they know it all even though I was playing games when they weren't even born yet.

But back to gamestop, the constant badgering for preorders, limited edition versions, edge card memberships, has kept me away for a long time. I've had them tell me "Well if you don't preorder this game, you might not get a copy". It's like, I'm pretty sure if you don't have enough copies of Tekken 6 I'll just walk NEXT DOOR to best buy where they have a table full of them on release day, not the day after like you.

Gamestop also has worse prices than most other retailers in my experience.

Oh one thing that happened recently, my friend went to buy a used 360 when they had them on sale for 99 bucks, they refused to let him check the manufacture dates to see what chipset it was before he bought it, and made sure to remind him it's only a 30 day warranty unless he pays extra.

Also in the past I've bought games from them with scratches used, went to trade them in at the exact condition I bought them, and had them say they wouldn't take them, although they did take them after I made a scene.

[Parodius Duh!]

there is literally 4 gamestops in the same exact mall near my home. Dont know why.


I would get pissed at them for putting stickers directly on the cart labels....Like, REALLY FUCKING pissed to the point that I got the district managers number and bitched him out. BUT, they dont sell carts anymore therefore I no longer need to go to gamestop.


Also when I traded in a copy of MvsC2 for ps2 the guy at the counter was all like "this is the rarest game" and I was all like "No its not, its just in demand, Ive had 3 copies that all came from WAL MART!!! you jack ass" .......It would be cool if they hired people that actually knew anything about games.