My first encounter

[pletschee]

Hey everyone, so I started my job at Gamestop today and was going about stacking shelves when a kid maybe no older then 12 came into the store. He asked me if I could suggest anything good thats coming out soon. I said Portal 2 was coming out soon and he should try that. He looked confused and asked me what Portal was. I explained it to him the core concepts and the story. His response, that sounds -blam- (note im too lazy to read forum rules so I'm going to my Bungie roots and using that term) He then proceded to tell me why Call of Duty was "more realistic" and why it was better overall. Now I can understand people having opinions but I've never meet someone so narrow minded. Have you guys ever meet someone like this? Thanks peace

 

[Vonnis]

He was 12. Of course he's narrow minded and thinks his opinion is law, everyone is like at that age. Granted not everyone grows out of it, but cut him some slack.

 

[Netrigan]

I'm sorry, you made a rookie mistake.

You have to figure out what sort of games a person likes before you can know what sort of game to recommend to him. Mind you, you can always toss out a Wild Card like Portal, which appeals to both FPS and puzzle fans... but you have to be prepared for people who don't find that sort of thing interesting.

Kid likes modern warfare shooters, something like Homefront immediately springs to mind, perhaps even extending into more sci-fi territory with Crysis 2 or Killzone 3. By all means attempt to expand their horizons by suggesting games you really enjoy; but if you fail to recommend games inside their comfort zone, they'll likely ignore you.

 

[Radeonx]

He doesn't agree with you. Not every customer has the same tastes.

It is your job to appeal to the customer. If you knew he didn't like the game (I'm assuming you had a general idea of what he would like after his comments on Call of Duty), you could suggest something similar to Call of Duty instead of being so judgmental and un-helpful to him.

Second of all, he's a 12 year old. What did you expect him to be like? Pretty much every 12 year old is narrow minded.

 

[SwimmingRock]

He was 12. Of course he's narrow minded and thinks his opinion is law, everyone is like at that age. Granted not everyone grows out of it, but cut him some slack.

Logic ninja has struck.

Also, peoples tastes differ. Maybe he would genuinely enjoy CoD more if you sat him down and made him play both. In fact, considering he was 12-ish by your reckoning, he most likely wouldn't enjoy Portal nearly as much as his ADHD shooters.

 

[GBlair88]

He's a child so what do you expect?

 

[WorldCritic]

I've never worked at a game store (I would love to though) but I know that when someone asks you that question you should ask them what kind of games they like first. I still remember when I Game Stop guy asked me what kind of games I liked to play and then suggested Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, best reccomendation anyone has ever given me.

 

[Faladorian]

Speaking of narrow-minded, how about those people who thought Portal was perfect? Yeah. It was okay.

 

[GiantRaven]

To be fair, I would also consider Call of Duty to be more realistic to Portal. Not that I think Call of Duty is particularly realistic, mind you.

 

[Giuglea]

Speaking of narrow-minded, how about those people who thought Portal was perfect? Yeah. It was okay.

what made it imperfect?what do you think that could be added to portal to make it better..i`m not trying to be a prick i`m just curious..

 

[Giuglea]

don`t expect 12 year old kids to see games as art..i mean a lot of gamers don`t..most fps players just play a game to shoot things..with little regard for story and characters and environment mechanics conflict drama etc etc etc

 

[Faladorian]

Speaking of narrow-minded, how about those people who thought Portal was perfect? Yeah. It was okay.

what made it imperfect?what do you think that could be added to portal to make it better..i`m not trying to be a prick i`m just curious..

I can't really think of anything, it just wasn't that great. 2 hours long and i was sort of glad it was over. The environment was incredibly boring. Just white... it was just like an adventure game in the Apple store.

The cake jokes weren't funny. Ever. I didn't even chuckle when I first saw them. Then, after that, people act like saying "the cake is a lie" is funny. It wasn't funny when it came out, and it isn't funny now.

It was a fun little 2-hour excursion, but nothing to write home about. It's probably not even in my top 25 games.

 

[Giuglea]

Speaking of narrow-minded, how about those people who thought Portal was perfect? Yeah. It was okay.

what made it imperfect?what do you think that could be added to portal to make it better..i`m not trying to be a prick i`m just curious..

I can't really think of anything, it just wasn't that great. 2 hours long and i was sort of glad it was over. The environment was incredibly boring. Just white... it was just like an adventure game in the Apple store.

The cake jokes weren't funny. Ever. I didn't even chuckle when I first saw them. Then, after that, people act like saying "the cake is a lie" is funny. It wasn't funny when it came out, and it isn't funny now.

It was a fun little 2-hour excursion, but nothing to write home about. It's probably not even in my top 25 games.

that is your opinion..and I can respect that..i think the environment was good..generated the lab-rat feeling...guinea pig..the mechanics were flawless..and making the game longer that it was would`ve made it boring..the difficulty was nice and steady..and why judge a game by a joke..?i never saw it as funny..i thought of it as sarcastic in a way..and the robots lines was great..i really enjoyed pissing her off..this is my opinion..

 

[Faladorian]

Speaking of narrow-minded, how about those people who thought Portal was perfect? Yeah. It was okay.

what made it imperfect?what do you think that could be added to portal to make it better..i`m not trying to be a prick i`m just curious..

I can't really think of anything, it just wasn't that great. 2 hours long and i was sort of glad it was over. The environment was incredibly boring. Just white... it was just like an adventure game in the Apple store.

The cake jokes weren't funny. Ever. I didn't even chuckle when I first saw them. Then, after that, people act like saying "the cake is a lie" is funny. It wasn't funny when it came out, and it isn't funny now.

It was a fun little 2-hour excursion, but nothing to write home about. It's probably not even in my top 25 games.

that is your opinion..and I can respect that..i think the environment was good..generated the lab-rat feeling...guinea pig..the mechanics were flawless..and making the game longer that it was would`ve made it boring..the difficulty was nice and steady..and why judge a game by a joke..?i never saw it as funny..i thought of it as sarcastic in a way..and the robots lines was great..i really enjoyed pissing her off..this is my opinion..

Believe me, I have no problem with someone liking the game. I had fun playing it. It was good. Good. Not the best ever, it was good.

Also, I think the lab rat feel would be felt better if it was less... white and clean. Y'know? I felt more like I was in some weird museum than a laboratory.

Valve already made an excellent trapped-lab-rat scenario. Just look at Black Mesa ^^

 

[Giuglea]

Speaking of narrow-minded, how about those people who thought Portal was perfect? Yeah. It was okay.

what made it imperfect?what do you think that could be added to portal to make it better..i`m not trying to be a prick i`m just curious..

I can't really think of anything, it just wasn't that great. 2 hours long and i was sort of glad it was over. The environment was incredibly boring. Just white... it was just like an adventure game in the Apple store.

The cake jokes weren't funny. Ever. I didn't even chuckle when I first saw them. Then, after that, people act like saying "the cake is a lie" is funny. It wasn't funny when it came out, and it isn't funny now.

It was a fun little 2-hour excursion, but nothing to write home about. It's probably not even in my top 25 games.

that is your opinion..and I can respect that..i think the environment was good..generated the lab-rat feeling...guinea pig..the mechanics were flawless..and making the game longer that it was would`ve made it boring..the difficulty was nice and steady..and why judge a game by a joke..?i never saw it as funny..i thought of it as sarcastic in a way..and the robots lines was great..i really enjoyed pissing her off..this is my opinion..

Believe me, I have no problem with someone liking the game. I had fun playing it. It was good. Good. Not the best ever, it was good.

Also, I think the lab rat feel would be felt better if it was less... white and clean. Y'know? I felt more like I was in some weird museum than a laboratory.

Valve already made an excellent trapped-lab-rat scenario. Just look at Black Mesa ^^

back to the old-school )

 

[ScottyMuser]

I'm sorry, you made a rookie mistake.

You have to figure out what sort of games a person likes before you can know what sort of game to recommend to him. Mind you, you can always toss out a Wild Card like Portal, which appeals to both FPS and puzzle fans... but you have to be prepared for people who don't find that sort of thing interesting.

Kid likes modern warfare shooters, something like Homefront immediately springs to mind, perhaps even extending into more sci-fi territory with Crysis 2 or Killzone 3. By all means attempt to expand their horizons by suggesting games you really enjoy; but if you fail to recommend games inside their comfort zone, they'll likely ignore you.

Just a quick point about this post - it's also the employee's job to *not* make recommendations about games like COD because of the fact that the vast amjority of them are rated M - and he shouldn't be (able to) buy these games. I'd even argue that they would be acting totally irresponsible to do this - certainly in this country an employee could get into a lot of trouble if they recommended something like this, and then the parent came into complain - and quite rightly so.

Portal, because of its FPS gameplay (over here it was a 12), would be a great recommendation for an employee to make to a 12 year oldFPS fan; I'd personally love for young kids to realise there *is* a whole wealth of interesting games out there which are not all about shooting and gore, and these games, due to aggresive marketing techniques (such as, say the Dead space trailers aimed at 12 year olds) are starting to wilt. Games like Sly Cooper, Jak & Dexter aren't on current consoles (other then HD collections), Ratchet and Clank IIRC didn'#t seel bucket loads; games like stacking, limbo, super meat boy show these sorts of gamedo have a place in digital distribution, but won't make it to retail. If they were a couple of year older (say 14/15), then there are games like Assassins Creed, Batman AA, and of coure Uncharter would fit right in. And if they were a little younger, then the Wii, with games like kirby, Mario and DKRC would be great. Its just 12-13 year olds are pretty much the one segment of gamers who are particularly poorly served right now; growing out of the earlier "kiddies stuff" phase, but too young for the 15 ratred games that they'd probably enjoy as they ar "older"

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Um...He's 12. What the hell do you expect?

 

[Netrigan]

I'm sorry, you made a rookie mistake.

You have to figure out what sort of games a person likes before you can know what sort of game to recommend to him. Mind you, you can always toss out a Wild Card like Portal, which appeals to both FPS and puzzle fans... but you have to be prepared for people who don't find that sort of thing interesting.

Kid likes modern warfare shooters, something like Homefront immediately springs to mind, perhaps even extending into more sci-fi territory with Crysis 2 or Killzone 3. By all means attempt to expand their horizons by suggesting games you really enjoy; but if you fail to recommend games inside their comfort zone, they'll likely ignore you.

Just a quick point about this post - it's also the employee's job to *not* make recommendations about games like COD because of the fact that the vast amjority of them are rated M - and he shouldn't be (able to) buy these games. I'd even argue that they would be acting totally irresponsible to do this - certainly in this country an employee could get into a lot of trouble if they recommended something like this, and then the parent came into complain - and quite rightly so.

Portal, because of its FPS gameplay (over here it was a 12), would be a great recommendation for an employee to make to a 12 year oldFPS fan; I'd personally love for young kids to realise there *is* a whole wealth of interesting games out there which are not all about shooting and gore, and these games, due to aggresive marketing techniques (such as, say the Dead space trailers aimed at 12 year olds) are starting to wilt. Games like Sly Cooper, Jak & Dexter aren't on current consoles (other then HD collections), Ratchet and Clank IIRC didn'#t seel bucket loads; games like stacking, limbo, super meat boy show these sorts of gamedo have a place in digital distribution, but won't make it to retail. If they were a couple of year older (say 14/15), then there are games like Assassins Creed, Batman AA, and of coure Uncharter would fit right in. And if they were a little younger, then the Wii, with games like kirby, Mario and DKRC would be great. Its just 12-13 year olds are pretty much the one segment of gamers who are particularly poorly served right now; growing out of the earlier "kiddies stuff" phase, but too young for the 15 ratred games that they'd probably enjoy as they ar "older"

Point taken... but I still stand by my over-all point. You really can't do anything to change someone's tastes. They like what they like. You can attempt to broaden their gaming horizons, but you have to earn their trust first. Give them a couple of safe recommendations to establish that you understand what is they like, then hit them with a "if you want to try something a little different..." and aim them at the XBL demo of the original Portal.