Gamestop stories?

I love Primal Rage. Great game gimped by crap ports and censorship.

is the Saturn version close to being arcade-perfect?

Back when I worked for that awful company I used to transfer rare games I was looking for into the store to buy for myself. Best deal ever was getting Ninja Five-0 for under $5.

I just changed jobs and there is a Gamestop next store. I am frequently going in and talking to the employees mid day when they're all bored. One time they had some sales tape on about the "circle of life" and it was going in depth on how to sell like some shitty Amway commercial or something. Sounded like a brainwashing tape.

One guy who works there is all about VR so we talk about that. I do feel a bit creepy being a mid-30s dude ... but that problem will only get worse with time.

RBjakeSpecial said:

I just changed jobs and there is a Gamestop next store. I am frequently going in and talking to the employees mid day when they're all bored. One time they had some sales tape on about the "circle of life" and it was going in depth on how to sell like some shitty Amway commercial or something. Sounded like a brainwashing tape.

One guy who works there is all about VR so we talk about that. I do feel a bit creepy being a mid-30s dude ... but that problem will only get worse with time.

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take them back to your home pizza rolls and rare gameplay and then torture them to death. then you can go back to the game stop, tell their boss "those boys skipped out,looks like you've got me" and he's like, "... sell me some games!!!!" and you impress him. you become the one true employee of the game stop

Dr Shroom said:

why would anyone go there?

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I'd agree but if it wasn't for Gamestop, I wouldn't have gotten a lot of Gamecube games for pennies on the dollar years ago for games that are worth way too fucking much now.

Sylvie said:

take them back to your home pizza rolls and rare gameplay and then torture them to death. then you can go back to the game stop, tell their boss "those boys skipped out,looks like you've got me" and he's like, "... sell me some games!!!!" and you impress him. you become the one true employee of the game stop

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Good idea. Good plan.

At 17, I went in to trade in the game Unreal Tournament 2003. I didn't have a strong enough computer to play it (I didn't understand the concept of video cards) so I went to Gamestop to trade it in. I was only going to get $4 back and I wasn't too pleased. The manager said "All right, how about I give you $2 back instead? Would you like that?!"

I backed down like I punk. I didn't understand a store clerk wasn't supposed to talk to their customer like that.

These days, I buy at Fry's and take advantage of their internet match pricing. If they don't have it, i'll look on Amazon.com, Play Asia, or see if the game is on sale via digital purchase. Hell, i'll even look at Craigslist.

Want to know how to alleviate circle of life issues? Stop taking trades, and doing resales. GS near me is a glorified toy store. Lots of action figures, hoodies, toys. Not very many games. Seems to be going new stock/pre-orders only. Good. Pre owned should be an online only thing. Leave it for Ebay/wherever else. Save your brick and mortar shops the hassle of gouging people. The risk of taking something broken. And the headache of being overrun with sports games.

BonusKun said:

I'd agree but if it wasn't for Gamestop, I wouldn't have gotten a lot of Gamecube games for pennies on the dollar years ago for games that are worth way too fucking much now.

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I bought about half of my Gamecube collection during that blowout sale, good times. That was probably also the last time I spent any significant coin there, other than taking advantage of some trade in promo.

Went to Gamestop with my nephew today totally hate going to that places, never again after I get that Resident Evil t-shirt.

Worked there as a shift manager... It was an easy job, especially when the kids were in school and I just had to deal with moms in the AM. But a lot of shitty (sometimes literally) things happened there. Here are my horror stories.

1. Our storage room was so packed that we started storing consoles in the bathroom.

2. There was a septic leak in the storage room and used toilet water would seep up through the floor. Corporate wouldn't allow it to be fixed because the store would have had to close for a day. I had to hose my shoes down after every shift. And yes, the consoles and accessories got shit on them. We were ordered to sell them anyway after wiping them down. I never touched them.

3. I was "written up" on GTA IV's launch day. We got an email order saying to sell through all copies of the game, regardless of the number of pre-orders we had. I didn't comply and got one of three strikes before you're fired.

4. Same thing happened with some Mario game. Mario Party for the Wii maybe. Got my second strike.

5. We had our schedulable man-hours cut each month because we didn't reach our ridiculous pre-order and subscription goals.

6. I had to kick a lot of people out of the store. I also had to call the cops a few times because customers told me they'd be waiting outside in their car for me.

7. A shady guy came in and sold (cash) a binder full of games. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He came back in the next week with another binder and my suspicions rose. The third time, I figured I'd do something. While he wasn't looking, I wrote his info down (we have to enter in name, address, license #, etc. for cash trade-ins). I looked him up and he came up as a hit on Florida's sexual predators list. I called the cops and never saw him again.

8. Madden '08 came out and someone bought a collectors edition. He came back a week later and traded it in because he didn't like it. I told him to sell it on Craigslist because the system would only give him $5 for it. He said fuck it, just do the trade-in. I complete the transaction and the price sticker printer spits out a $65 price tag.

I've got more but have to go to bed. I'll leave my story about raw meat and my story about a girl who got turned into a lamp for tomorrow night.

EDIT:

Cornerb0y said:

Back when I worked for that awful company I used to transfer rare games I was looking for into the store to buy for myself. Best deal ever was getting Ninja Five-0 for under $5.

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Duuuude I did the exact same thing for Ninja Five-0. I looked it up and called the store that had it and the guy was like "Aw man, I didn't know we had that. I would have bought it for myself!" And so I said "Yeah, the customer seems really excited to find it," so he couldn't call me out

Kim _Kaphwan said:

Want to know how to alleviate circle of life issues? Stop taking trades, and doing resales. GS near me is a glorified toy store. Lots of action figures, hoodies, toys. Not very many games. Seems to be going new stock/pre-orders only. Good. Pre owned should be an online only thing. Leave it for Ebay/wherever else. Save your brick and mortar shops the hassle of gouging people. The risk of taking something broken. And the headache of being overrun with sports games.

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Their merch strategy is a sign of their desperation. They know they don't have much time left before physical media is gone. So that have to sell the lulz instead. But I agree that pre-orders are, for the most part, ridiculous. I can't remember ever running out of a game other than GTA IV. I worked the Halo III launch - midnight and the first full day of availability, and we had enough copies for everyone. Alienating customers by pushing pre-orders is not worth the longterm cost. And magazines? It's fucking 2017. I love magazines, but I can only assume most people laugh at the idea, since they can just, ya know, go on the internet.

They should just go full used games and not even carry new ones. New games only have a margin of about $10 or $15 per game at full price. There's really no point in allocating shelf space, paying for shipping costs, and spending on corporate buying and logistics manhours. I hope they don't do that though, because I want to watch them burn.

GS is good for getting games on the cheap after the hype. You can also do this online but I'm happy just paying cash and walking out with a game as opposed to waiting for mail.

As much as I like physical media, I cant wait for digital to take over. I hope it's like XBL Arcade on 360 where each game can be played as a trial before purchasing. That's the best way to sell a game IMHO, let the game "speak" for itself.

The only GameStop story I have is actually me exploiting them.

Like ten years ago they used to have this standing pre-order deal, if you traded in two games (any game on the same system) you got to pre-order any upcoming game for $0.1.

So what do you do? You hit the bargain bin the closest Walmart, buy every shitty title you can that is $9.99 or less. Remove the plastic wrapping, walk into GameStop, profit. It was pretty amusing to see the cashier slowly understand all the games are brand new when he takes your 10 pre-orders. Good luck trying to sell your new games!

Six months later, to counter everyone doing like this, they released a list of games they accepted. All of them were of course recently released AAA games.

I don't think there was a time when Primal Rage wasn't mad shit. I'd rather play Time Killers. Seriously, if you own Time Killers put that shit on during a night of beer, it's a great party favor.

GameStop was awesome back in the early '00s, I pick up tons of SNES games b2g1 free. I also raided their Dreamcast games when they are 50% or something like that. In fact, I seem to enjoy going there most when they are cleaning out system stock. I did it with GBA back when they cleared all that out and got most of the good stuff cheap. I did it with DS when they were clearing out games online for $1-2 each with free shipping (where every game came individually too- not sure how they made anything on that.) I picked up quite a bit of Wii games cheap last year too, but that stuff seems to be drying up. I think the selection right now is pretty terrible, and I hate all the junk in there now that is not games.

Sometimes you can still catch them slipping- just yesterday I picked up a first print Cave Story 3DS for $15 with slipcover- which brings about $40 online.

I remember being behind someone in line who was trading in snes megaman x, and x2. I don't remember what they offered him. I think it was something around 15-20 bucks. It was a really piss poor and unfair offer. Whatever the case, I tapped him on the shoulder, doubled their offer in cash right there. And got the games. I got kicked out of the store.

Also when I was a teenager they used to keep the nes and snes games on shelves in the back of the store. I'm fairly sure I'd shoplifted at least 20 games over different visits, to different stores, for me and for friends of mine. They would hand me a game because they were too chicken to do it. So I'd walk out with pockets full of games.

Very informative post OP, thanks for sharing the info.

I don't go into GS that often but I have had some good experiences in there in the last few years with a manager helping me find used titles I was searching for (calling other local stores for me when they were too stupid to find their own inventory, etc).

It is sad to think that this guy (and I am sure many more like him, such as the folks in this thread that have worked there) has to work in this environment.

I am passing this info on to others.

We've a Gamestop here, and there is this little girl that works there. She is kind of cute maybe early 20's. I partly feel bad for her after having been in there a few times and watching all the kids try to put their moves on her, though on the other end she seems to do good on getting the pre orders.

It's basically like she's a captive audience for all the young guys to come in there and talk about their gaming conquests in hopes of getting their dick wet. Kind of funny to watch in a way.

FAT$TACKS said:

It's basically like she's a captive audience for all the young guys to come in there and talk about their gaming conquests in hopes of getting their dick wet. Kind of funny to watch in a way.

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imagine how i feel strutting around as Morrigan every halloween

Sylvie said:

imagine how i feel strutting around as Morrigan every halloween

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You should totally work at a Gamestop.

FAT$TACKS said:

You should totally work at a Gamestop.

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i honestly would. i don't even care about etiquette, i'll happily lie to people and con them into things that exist so i can keep my job that i hardly even care about

FilthyRear said:

It because theyre run by investors.

"Circle of Life" is nothing new. They were pushing that shit back when I worked there. They were shitty metrics then and they're shitty metrics now.

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It's basic "Cumulative Customer Profitability" skew chart bullshit.

So, continuing from last night...

9. There was a somewhat regular customer who was clearly on H. He'd never buy anything but would look around all the time. One time he brought his kid. The cops started rolling up outside, he saw them from the window, and goes "Yo, watch my kid!" and sprints out of the store.

10. I had the store manager hire one of my friends. He had my friend come in early one Saturday for training. This store manager would sleep over at the store rather than drive an hour and a half every morning - corporate wouldn't let him transfer closer to home. So, my friend knocks on the door that AM. The shutters are still down, store manager comes lifts the shutters and clearly just woke up. Friend walks into the store and does a double-take. He sees deep red blobs on the floor. He tells himself that they're just mushed up cupcakes. They go through the training regimen. At the end, as the store is about to open, store manager goes, "So you probably saw that raw meat on the floor. It's not weird, it's just that when we would grill, my dad would give me a tiny bite of raw meat as a kid." My friend was like "Oh, OK, yeah, that's cool............"

11. We hired this girl that was one of what was referred to as the "loser kids" in elementary and middle school. Her name was Liz. I hadn't seen her in years, and I rarely talked to her back in the day, but when they hired her, I said, "Oh, hey Liz." She death-stares me and goes "My name is BETH now." I'm like, "K." She makes a big deal about how she's a lesbian now, has us kick out any kids who use "gay" as an adjective, blah blah blah, but I can tell that she's what I refer to as an "attention lesbian" - she liked the idea of being a lesbian, but really wasn't. I was proven correct when, a few months later, she says her internet boyfriend is coming to visit her. I say, "Not that I care, but I thought you were gay." She just shrugs. He shows up to the store and he's kinda creepy. She calls me a few days later and says she needs to take a vacation because she and the boyfriend are taking an impromptu roadtrip back to his state in the midwest. I tell her the schedule is already finalized and she says she's going on this trip no matter what. I get someone else to take her hours. She calls the store a week later and says that she's calling from the hospital in the boyfriend's state. She says she broke her back and is on full-body pain killers. I can tell she's lying and I ask how she can speak if she's on "full body pain killers." She just changes the subject and says not to schedule her until future notice. She calls back a week later and says she's not coming back. I ask, "What, you mean? For the rest of the summer?" And she says, "No. Never." I say "OK then. Bye." and hang up. A few days later, her dad comes into the store looking super depressed and cancels all her pre-orders and takes home all of her stuff that she had left at the store. That's the last I ever heard of Liz/Beth, but it became a running joke that she was used for upholstery.

I was friends with the assistant manager, and after he transferred, my friend (from the previous story) and I called him up. My friend used his stereotypical cop voice and I whispered lines to him. He goes, "Hi, Mr. XYZ, this is officer Jenkins from the town police department. Could you tell me, when was the last time you saw Elizabeth XYZ alive?" The AM laughs and goes, "Hey guys, how's it going?" And my friend says, "Sir, this is no laughing matter." Dead silence. He eventually caught on though. A few weeks later, we had gotten a pizza and knew that AM was closing his store that night. We got a sharpie, wrote "Betharonie and Cheese" on the box, and left it outside his store's door.

I got a lot of stories, but I need drugs to muster up the will to relive them to

The highest I got there was assistant manager - I wasn't too keen on the whole "work 50-60 hours a week, but only get paid for 40" salary bullshit. They get away with because they call the managers "junior executives" so they can skirt around having them work so many hours.

I went through 7 managers, and watched-like clockwork-the enthusiasm about the job leave them. It was fantastic.

There was this guy that would come in with stacks of DVD's to trade them in for cash. I knew exactly how he would steal them from Wal-Mart because I asked him. He seemed nice enough (and I would just take a lot of the new releases when he brought them in), but then one day he mouthed off. Then he starts coming in with his cousin (whom I went to high school with). After that I called the stores around me and had him shut off. A few years later I heard that the cousin did some jail time and I never heard from the other one again.

I saw people do some shady shit to make those COL numbers, from cancelling old preorders that were never picked up and putting them on new pre-orders to adding 2 or 3 preorders to a customer's trade-in transaction without telling them. I never did it because I didnt give enough of a shit to worry about it. I still can't figure out how I had that job for 10 years, and how I was able to keep the same low-performing staff for most of them.

My last manager hired this girl, who wasn't much to look at and didn't have much of a body on her, but her tits were enormous, aand she always liked to show them off. Couldn't stand her, but god damn I wanted to smack my dick on those things. He told me that was the only reason he hired her, and would always fail miserably trying to hit on her.

There was this kid named Wayne that would come into the store with his mother/grandmother or his dad. He was special needs/severly autistic, and his sort of "security blanket" was a pair of scissors that he would hold in his retarded hands. I didn't ask why he needed to have scissors, because one time i saw his dad try to take them and he LOST it - screaming, knocking shit over, showing off his retard strength, etc.. He would often cut up the manuals to the games, and asshole me would make his parents buy the games. The joke was "little Wayne is coming back in to cut up some fresh tracks." I guess you had to be there.

My last day was the day of the Madden '13 midnight launch. That also happened to be the time when the manager's were at their onference. I was there 1 years and I didnt even get a fucking phone call from anyone to say good luck or anything. Fuck that place.