273: Confessions of a GameStop Employee - Part One

[Bobipine]

In class so I skimmed through most of the posts (the replies, not the article, I read that one), but interesting view, not that far from what I imagined (I didn't expected a big 'storage' room, but at least bigger then what was described, around, I dunno, one lane about 10 feet long? depends on the size of the shop). My main and only grip with gutting, is not the fact the box is already open, the disk is still as new, no the thing that annoys me is that blasted price tag that leave so much glue residue on the box, it's just aesthetic for the box collection (it's pretty much all it comes up to) but it's a small annoyance, really small though, especially now that they changed the type of glue, i think, it shows up a lot less. I still prefer a sealed one if possible, to avoid the glue.
(quick note, I never went to a gamestop, just to EB games, which is pretty much it's equivalent)

 

[SaintWaldo]

Thanks for not getting this person fired by revealing his/her identity in the rush to a brand-name sourced article.

 

[beema]

interesting series, I will be keen to read the next installment. None of this is surprising to me, however. Retail sucks ass pretty much anywhere you work, managers are assclowns, and gamestop is evil.

 

[Meggiepants]

Well, the fact that the managers mostly don't know anything about games might be why those busty beauties who know nothing about gaming seem to be staffing the campus Gamestop where I live.

Me: I'd like Mass Effect 2, please.

Clerk: *girl twirls hair* What?

Of course, I suppose even if geeky gamers were in charge, that would also lead to the same ladies being hired. So... I guess I'm going to have to spell out the game title to the girl clerk either way.

And then I'll have to point to the 200 copies of said game on the shelf behind her. *sigh* Such is life.

 

[Necromancer1991]

Let me think, people who think gutting is a bad plan, your imbeciles, it's neccasary to prevent theft, I also remember Games Radar doing a feature like this a while back, let me post the link... there: http://www.gamesradar.com/f/confessions-of-a-game-store-clerk/a-2007040314469812037

 

[Yukichin]

This is interesting, especially because I've actually asked the employees if they have a copy of a game that they didn't have up on the shelves... and they did.

 

[Sgt Pepper]

I used to work on the videogames department of a Toys R Us store here in the UK.

We generally had a quantity of empty DVD cases and were provided with copy sleeves for titles to put in the cases for display purposes.

Officially we didn't have a gutting policy but sometimes sleeves for some titles wouldn't arrive or would arrive late.

In those cases I took it upon myself to gut the contents from the game stock, shrink wrapping the manual with the disc inside - not ideal but better than people thinking we were crap when they saw no boxes for a new game on the shelves when we had stock of the games.

I think the official line was that sales floor staff were supposed to approach every customer, thus giving the customer the chance to ask if we happen to have that title in stock.

In reality a lot of people just want to browse and if they don't see the title on the shelf they go - they don't want the hassle of dealing with a sales person, they just want to pick the game up and go.

 

[Zamn]

Personally, I don't give a toss. I'm going to open it anyway. On the off chance the disc is scratched or something, I'll return it.

 

[littlerudi08107]

I'm in the 'I don't care if the wrap is off it as long as it isn't scratched camp'.

On another note though, the hiring process for the GAME store near me seems to be very strange. I recently applied for a position there (Sales Assistant, nothing fancy) and despite having nearly 10 years of face-to-face sales experience, they didn't even give me an interview.

Even more mind boggling is the guys they hired, 3 new guys, all about 18, all nervous as hell and without an ounce of gaming knowledge between them.

....Dammit I really wanted that job

Corporations would rather hire new people because they don't know any better about the corporate world. They will purposefully forget to tell people certain things because they don't want to spend the money on you.

example: When I worked at a Mcdonald's in New Jersey. They were required by law of the state of New Jersey to wash that uniform for me. They purposefully left that little detail out and I had to wash all of my uniforms myself. I could've saved at least $200 from all the times I had to do my laundry if they had just washed it for me, and I was already struggling to pay rent.

tl;dr Corporations will hire young people simply because they don't know any better.

 

[Falseprophet]

Wait a second...

When I walk into an EB or GameStop, a month or two before a new release comes out, they have displays of empty boxes with cover art that reads "Coming Soon--Preorder Today!" all over it. Where does this custom cover art come from, and why can't it be used for in-stock titles instead of gutting?

I'm personally opposed to shrink-wrap because it's wasteful. I'm not a crazy tree-hugger, but neither am I a fan of all the excess packaging made of non-recyclable and non-biodegradable materials that's just going to straight to landfill. On the other, neither am I a fan of a brand-new "gutted" copy not being returnable because it's an opened copy.

 

[Uber Waddles]

Wow. I knew that people in general were stupid, but I never knew that so many were dumb enough to just happily pay full price for a used, gutted game which is clearly not new once you remove the shrink wrap. Why the hell anyone would accept that when you can go to any of the other stores that carry games and are franchised like GameStop (Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc) is beyond me... Man people are dumb.

I understand the gutting thing. It makes sense to me. What I don't understand is why people complain that a game isn't new when only the shrink wrap is off. To me as, long as the disc is pristine, I get an instruction manual, and the box isn't dented, it's new.

Okay, go buy any new game from any other store, take off the shrink wrap, and try to return it and see if they think it's still new. HINT: They don't, because it's not. Even if you get a shrink wrapped copy at GameStop, they won't take it back under a return policy if you remove said shrink wrap. Hypocrisy much? You'd sell an opened game as new, you should return an opened game as well. Hell, unless they do something special to say you bought the gutted copy, you might not even be able to return that because it's got no shrink wrap.

And if you actually get a clean disc with no damage to the box or manual AND all of the DLC codes in the box and haven't been used yet, congratulations, you seem to have found the one GameStop on the planet that doesn't suck as much as the others.

Its not hypocracy, its business.

Nothing is stopping me from buying a game, burning it, and then returning it back to GameStop for full price. Lets remember they are a BUSINESS, and if people did that, they would lose MONEY. Once that plastic is gone, they dont know or care what you did to the disk, just know your not getting full price for it. You could have burned it, you could have played and beaten it, you could have just taken the wrap off. Either way, its considered used.

As for a gutted game, those games were handeled by an employee. Meaning if I take it back because of a problem, they replace it. Period.

As for the DLC codes being missing, that depends on the integrity of the employees, not the company as a whole. You can USUALLY get the person fired/the DLC if you complain about it. Seems like you have a bad experience with GameStop? Its a store, just like every other retail outlet. Not every Walmart has great service, doesnt mean there arent any good ones out there. Judging a company because they can turn profits is pretty bold.

 

[Wolfram23]

You're going to make us wait a whole week for part 2? I wish it was only a 2 part series, this was a very short and barely informative read (but I can tell it's getting good).

 

[Samurai Goomba]

Based on my experiences with Gamestop, I tend to favor as harsh a stance on them as possible, especially considering how they basically drove Gamecrazy out of business. Well, that and the fact that nobody rents movies from a store anymore, which probably hurt Gamecrazy's partner company, which I believe was Hollywood Video.

Still, I would like to say that employees are usually part of the problem rather than "on my side." GS doesn't pay them enough to care, and many times I've had an employee forget to actually put my freaking disc in the case so I can own the product I laid down cash for. I try to double-check their work, but I shouldn't have to considering the whole reason they are there is to serve the customer (and by that I mean make sure I buy something, which tends to imply I receive what I pay for). I've also had employees treat me like dirt for not spending a bunch/preordering, etc, and just be generally lame.

Not to say Gamestop isn't terrible, 'cause it is. It's just... They hire from the bottom of the barrel and treat their employees like crap, which I think negatively affects the behavior of their employees.

Another thing that bothers me about GS is that they do price jacking on old games. Sometimes it's because an old game gets rarer, other times I'm convinced they're trying to manufacture a fake shortage or demand where none exists. And since they are the only game store in town for many folks, they can get away with this provided people don't know how to use online websites to buy games.

I've gotten better deals for superior products at places like Fred Meyer. Just a day or two ago I saw Assassin's Creed for PC new at Freddy's for 10 bucks. Shortly after it came out KoF XI was $10 there, and I've seen copies of Super Gunstar Heroes (it was a while ago when the game was newer) for as little as $5 (this is all new prices).

Oh, and the flat pricing GS does is crap. I should save money if I buy a game in a crappy cheapo GS dvd case with no manual.

 

[mParadox]

A very interesting article.

It's nice to see that there is another side of the argument. Good job.

 

[pneuma08]

-snip-

This makes no sense from a corporate level, let alone a store management level. For every gutted game sold, they have to gut another one (unless they have extra for some reason, but even that is wasteful) - less people are happy, it results in *more* work having to be done, and it's just plain bad customer service (it reeks of pure laziness to ask a customer to do one's work for them). You should really find someone over the head of this guy to complain to; hell, it's super sketchy that he actually had the balls to lie to you about it, which implies that more is going on than he wants to let on.

OT: Every GS store manager I've talked with are gamers, except possibly one. Most game less since they got a full-time job, but that's understandable.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

I worked at a EB Games (Canadian Gamestop) for about 2 years, and the memories are flooding back. I actually enjoyed gutting, because it got away form the morons asking about games, or who think that I want to stand around and talk about their World of Warcraft characters.

Seriously: Guys would walk in, read your name-tag, and think you want to hear about their epic killstreak on Call of Duty last night, or every detail of your 4 hour raid. Guys, they just want to sell games. Get out of here.

I'm glad I'm done with it.

Oh I'll be asked by an employee if a game was good or bad, I'll summeriaze it quickly and be done, but I don't understasnd why people whould tell you that shit... Retarded...

OT: I don't mind gutting, I've simply never thought of it. I mean... You're getting the game right?

 

[mattaui]

It doesn't surprise me one bit that a national retail chain staffs its stores with people who aren't particularly, deeply passionate about games. Why? Because that's not their job. Their job is to sell product and mind the store, and they don't need to have a life-long love affair with games anymore than a guy who sells cars needs to be some sort of huge car nut, or a waiter (or even the cook for that matter) serving and making your food needs to have been, from birth, wanting to serve or cook food. Certainly there's a minimum level of competency and service required, but that's really a different set of criteria.

For what retail chains pay people, how can you expect there to be some stringent bar to qualification? I absolutely love games of all sorts, but the last thing I ever wanted to do was to work retail, nor would I suggest it as a career path to anyone - they're jobs you take because you have to, in most cases. Or, in the author's case, for spending money I guess, though I'd think anyone headed to graduate school might find a better way to fill those months before he starts classes unless he really, really needed the money.

All that being said, I don't hold the same sort of contempt that a lot of gamers seem to have for retail game sales outlets or their employees. I don't excuse poor customer service or shoddy merchandise, as some of the previous examples state, but I don't go there with the expectation that I'm going to be dazzled by the passion and interest of a game store clerk. I go there to buy things, and as long as I'm getting what I paid for, I'm happy.

 

[pneuma08]

The problem with TFA is that, contrary to "Ben's" opinion, Gamestop doesn't need to open games. They only need to have enough empty cases to cover the shelves, and can then swap out box art as is necessary. Imagine that, a way to have only a tiny number of "spare" game cases in the back of the store (5-10, to replace damaged display cases), and never open a new game.

I don't know what kind of thinking leads to "They'd need to keep one display box for every single game ever produced," but that's just idiotic.

Gutting USED games is fine, gutting NEW games is not.

And who produces said box art? It's not a small cost, especially when you factor in all games across all stores (the DS in particular has a large number of small releases); merely replacing one section and shipping it across the country is going to cost.

Publishers don't want to do it because they have bigger fish to fry (namely, the game itself), and it favors the bigger ones that are already cranking out the things for marketing to the smaller publishers (who need a higher bottom line like I need flooding in my basement). Gamestop can't or won't do it because they need to have the art given to them before the game ships, and assuming that's possible then they need to foot the bill to print it, and all of the above might not even be viable to them given the margins of new games, again especially for the smaller releases (who perhaps ironically stand the most to gain from said system). Such a system also favors fewer, larger stores as opposed to many, smaller stores (of which Gamestop is the latter).

A lot of this cost is maintaining such a system, as well - the cost of implementing a system is much higher (in both dollars and manpower).

Moreover, the fact remains that the current system works, and not enough people care for the companies to initiate sweeping changes. Plus, as someone mentioned earlier, Toys R Us had such a system in place and they *still* gutted games every now and again when it failed them.

 

[ritchards]

Being as one who a) doesn't tend to buy games(*) anyway and b) lives in another country, but I'm wondering does the gutting process also happen to movie DVDs? And yes, I mean when you go into an actual store and buy one, not get it via Amazon or Netflix. Over here they gut the movies, because of the theft issue (and may be others, but I'm going with theft as it's an obvious issue), so we get non-shrink wrapped versions (they have some behind the counter) and they usually carefully handle the disc. But, and this might be an important but, as long as we have the receipt, they will exchange a problem disc with a new one.

(In one case, I had a DVD it took me about 6 months to get around to... I have a lot of DVDs, still haven't watched it in fact, got distracted by other ones... and found that there were no DVDs inside! I went back, showed the lack of DVDs plus receipt, and they put DVDs in (from sleeved discs).)

I accept the gutting issue as to me it has a sense to it. But is this just a Gamestop phenomena or common retail practice?


(*) And when I do, I get huge box with one solitary disc rattling around inside... what's up with that?