Gamestop's shenanigans.

Gamestop is pulling some real shenanigans.

I don't even think this is legal.

Oh, Gamestop. You and your craziness.

Honestly, it suprises me that publishers haven't just got together and outright pulled their support from them. I'm really sick of their crap at this point, and this is just another nail in the coffin.

What have they pulled before? Hadn't been following it.

Heyo, a chance to shoot down Gamestop! Yay...

They earned this hate themselves through stupid actions.

I've always had a sour opinion of Gamestop ever since a few years ago I walked in looking for a PC game, and the manager said "Oh, we don't have very many, PC is a bad word here."

Fuck you Gamestop. Fuck you and your console slutting.

I work there. It's a horrible place to work, but I do it mainly because it's one of the few places around where I can still get a job. For one, those new games you buy are almost certainly not new. We employees get to rent games out and try them, and when we return them to the store they are still filed under new. The management is rather draconian as well. Our store is doing quite well, we still get very good business every day. I'm rather positive that we're one of the best stores in the Dallas region, but all that matters is that you get preorders and Game Informer subscriptions. If your numbers fall below average, you'll get axed, at least at my store. There is huge, huge employee turnover.

The rest of my complaints mainly fall under "taking advantage of customer stupidity", which happens at pretty much every store that has ever existed, but my last is their incredibly aggressive business practices. They have bought out an absurd amount of other video stores. When I was younger, smaller stores where everywhere, and now the only one within 10 miles is Entertainmart and that's going out of business. I know things like that are inevitable, but it is still incredibly frustrating when you see far superior shops being forced out by corporate muscle.

With PC games you can't resell. Almost all of Gamestop's profits are off the used game market. Hell, you're lucky if you can find small games at all there now. We didn't even get any copies of Odin Sphere when that came out. It's all about the money there. Understandable, but frustrating.

edited 24th Aug '11 2:42:33 PM by YoungMachete

There's a preorder quota? No wonder the cashier guy's always happy to see me...

I never really had a problem with GameStop's business practices before because once you sell a game to them, it's no longer your game and the new owner can sell at whatever price they wanted to. Sure, I heard horror stories, but you can't say that every store out there is like that. I've never had a bad experience whenever I've gone.

But even I know this is a dick move.

I don't like Gamestop because the one by me has a distinct lack of customer service. I also like to buy my games new, because, you know, good for the developer, so we get more games, yay...

I don't think we HAVE a gamestop over here. We've got a lot of different places that "do" games (and a number of places that rent them, including libraries).

My wife's got a shenanigan story too:

About two years back she went to a group job interview at the Gamestop just up the road. One of the questions asked was "What can you tell us about Gamestop that you think we don't know?" First off, that's a terrible question, but when no one else spoke up she decided to leave an impact on the interviewers and pipe up. She said she can at least tell them something about a game they might not know. So she talked about how Resident Evil 4 took place in Spain, that they spoke (and cursed) in Castillian Spanish, the police at the beginning bore the Spanish royal crest on their lapels, etc.

The district manager's response was to dismiss her and tell her the game actually took place in Portugal. My wife has been studying Spanish for 13 years. Words can't describe...

edited 24th Aug '11 3:12:16 PM by Ratix

...that... just makes them incredibly stupid...

And this is why I apply for jobs in the heritage sector.

@OP: I started to dislike Gamestop when it became apparent that you'd have to pre-order there if you wanted to get contenton your games, this fuckin stund is the last straw. I'm glad I only buy used games.

@Bur: You play videogames?

Kino, this is TV Tropes. We all play video games...

Lies.

The people who don't play video games either 1) would but don't have time, 2) can't afford a console, or 3) are blasphemers.

I don't really play video games. I don't really find a joy in it anymore.

I stopped playing completely around December, I think.

I'm an occasional customer at Gamestop, since I hate waiting two weeks for a game to be delivered, but at this point I've pretty much given up on them. (It doesn't help that their prices tend to be ridiculous.)

I just realized that they open games beforehand when I went to buy my copy of Bad Company 2; seriously dudes....WTF?!

In this situation though gamestop has a point. You see Squenix put those codes in without telling anyone.

So? Gamestop can't control that, can they? It's an offer from Square Enix to the player. Gamestop isn't involved in that particular deal in the slightest, I'd think...

I've been buying mostly indie games these days. Cheaper and more fun and innovative. They take chances, and I pay like 10-15 for a game, so even if half the games I buy suck, it's still cheaper than buying 60 dollar large publisher games. So buying direct helps the developer with a larger profit margin and don't have to deal with Game Stop.

I'm unhappy that Game Stop bought out Impulse though.

WHAT?!

Fuck. I thought Stardock still ran that! Dammit, I don't want to have to deal with Gamestop all the time...