I don't have any experience working in actual game retail but I did work at Blockbuster. And whenever these anti-GameStop threads pop up at least 95% of the complaints aren't actually GameStop specific. Individual corporate policies aside, the employees and general "personality" inside is going to make or break the overall shopping experience at any store.

Retail jobs are retail jobs. Generally speaking, they're populated by young college age people looking to earn a few bucks before moving on to the next step in their lives. Turnover is going to be pretty high.

They're going to be doing their best to strike a balance between the employee handbook way of doing things and the real world way of doing things which often don't quite match up. And if they swing too far in one direction they risk either getting in trouble (or getting their managers in trouble) or alienating customers who get freaked out by the Stepford "Welcome to X, my name is Y, how can I help you today?"

They're looking to help you purchase whatever you're going to purchase and that's about it. They're not there to take any verbal assault from a customer upset over something like opened shelf copies or trade in values. And, truthfully, they're not really there to opine on the finer points of the hobby, either. They should have a working knowledge of the merchandise to help a customer but there's no reason they should be expected to be gurus of field.