Scribbles by W. Patrick

Things Gamestop Does Not Want You to Know

Things Gamestop Does Not Want You to Know

     Who doesn’t love video games?  Let me rephrase that:  Who, under the approximate age of 68 years old does not love video games?

"See that guy I just shot in the face?  That's you, Marge."

  

     That was an easy question.  Let’s try another, and I will wager that the answer will be just as easy.  Who doesn’t love Gamestop?

Yep...looks like pretty much everyone!

     Now, I understand that Gamestop is, like any other retailer, in the business of making a profit.  This being the case, there will always those who are very vocal about their dislike for them.  Look at Walmart, or even Macy’s and Gimble’s department stores before them.  There have been, and currently are hordes of people out there who can’t wait to tell you what its wrong with any large, successful retail chain. If you are in the business of making money from the public, there will always be detractors within said public.

Graphic depiction of "No one cares what you think."

     Gamestop, however, seems to have gone above and beyond the “Call of Duty” (get it?) to have well earned the hatred and discontent of their customers.

     The following are some of the practices that Gamestop regularly puts in to play to let you, the customer, know that you are most certainly not their most important asset.

GET XXX% MORE ON YOUR TRADE-IN DEALS

These deals are very sneaky and insidious, like a rattlesnake who has stuffed his tail with cotton balls.  You see, when you look on your receipt and it shows that the item you just traded in, let’s say a Wii system, would have normally traded in for $14, you are, in fact receiving a whopping $21, instead!  Well traded, right?  Well, not exactly.

"He may have the 'Power,' but I got the bonus, suckers!"

Registers are no longer those clanky, metallic iron devices with bells and buttons anymore.  Today most, if not all retailers utilize a proprietary computer system for their registers.  The system at Gamestop knows when any sale or special is going to take place and adjusts its programming accordingly.  In the case of the “extra for your trade” deals, it reduces the amount of the original trade, usually on the day the deal goes in to effect.  That’s right.  If the deal starts on a Wednesday, then odds are on the Tuesday prior, that $14 Wii was trading in for much more…sometimes more than what will be offered after the new deal is applied!!!  Simply stated, even though you think you are getting a deal with your $21 dollars, odds are the day before, one could have possibly traded the very same system for $23 or more!  What’s even more egregious is, after the “special” is over, the trade-in price goes back up!  The customers, (Gamestop hopes), are never the wiser.

NEW GAMES AREN’T ALWAYS AS NEW AS YOU THINK

Contrary to popular thought, there aren’t a whole lot of advantages to working at Gamestop.  You don't get many hours, you work for minimum wage, etc.  Sure, you’re surrounded by video games all day long.  But, ask yourself this:  When is the last time you saw a Gamestop employee actually playing a video game?  It’s like being the guy who gets paid $8 an hour to sell diamond jewelry to rich patrons.  He doesn’t wear the jewelry at the store, and he certainly doesn’t get to take it home with him at the end of the day.

Or, maybe he does...what the hell do I know?

This is where your average Gamestop employee has an advantage over your average jewelry broker.  At the end of the shift, provided it has been over a week since a game’s release and there is more than a single copy of the game available, the employee can sign out any game and take it home for four days.  Pretty sweet, huh?

"Played it.  Beat it.  Now, give me your $60 and get the hell out."

 

 I mean, it’s sweet if you aren’t the person who purchases this “new” video game for $60 after the clerk at your local store has already taken that same game home with him, played it and beaten it.  What difference does it make if the game was already used for a few days if you get your enjoyment out of it?

"They'll never know..."

The difference is that the game is now USED and Gamestop is, in addition to being a retailer of NEW games, a re-seller of USED games.  And these pre-owned games, don’t forget, are usually at least ten percent cheaper than their new counterparts.  Customers are being bamboozled in to purchasing a used game at a new price.  Now, the term Gamestop uses for “used” is “pre-owned,” and technically, the games in question were never actually “owned” by the employees who had signed them out.  Remember the last person who tried to use logic like that on a technicality?

Call me crazy, but I kind of miss this S.O.B

PRE-OWNED GAMES AREN’T ALWAYS PRE-OWNED

We’ve all had that one game from our past that we thought would be cool to play again, only to find out it had become a “collector’s item,” or a “rare” game.  Think “Baldur’s Gate II,” the PS2 masterpiece, that, though used, still brings in at least $40.  This is a game for a system from two generations ago, for crying out loud, and before it left the shelves years upon years ago it was selling for $19.99!  Why the exorbitant price?  Because this game, and many like it are actually rare.  They are the kind of game that customers tend to archive in their collections rather than trade in for a six-dollar credit.  Therfore, whenever a copy does surface, the price reflects its rarity and demand.

Pictured: Two years college tuition.

Here is where Gamestop plays fast and loose with this idea of rarity a bit.  A little while back, there was a very good game for the Nintendo Wii called “Xenoblade Chronicles.” It cost sixty bucks, but more importantly, it was a Gamestop exclusive, meaning that no other retailer sold this particular game.  This sounds like a recipe for rarity, right?  Sure it does, and given the proper amount of time, that’s exactly what would have happened.  Gamestop, however, tried to expedite the process of making this game a hard-to-find gem.  First, they stopped selling new copies of the game and waited for almost a year.  Then, they released a new batch of “used” copies at a whopping $90 a pop!  When asked about this unbelievable price point, Gamestop told the public that the game was, in fact, rare and their price reflected supply and demand.  Sound reasonable, right?

Seems right.  Honestly, I kind of slept through that class, though.

Except, the “used” games were never used.  Copies of Xenoblade Chronicles came pouring in to Gamestops around the nation from their massive distribution center.  Each and every one of these games was still factory sealed, i.e. not used!  Now, take the logic from their “pre-owned” argument, where the copies that are used by employees were never owned, and therefore do not have to be sold as pre-owned at a lower price and apply it here.  These games had never been owned. They were factory sealed!  How then are they able to sell them as rare, pre-owned merchandise?  The two arguments that I imagine Gamestop is sticking by are, “because we want to,” and “because we can.”

Yeah, okay...or maybe that.

HAVE A GAME RESERVED?  WELL, MAYBE AND MAYBE NOT

Make a purchase at any Gamestop and you will receive a laundry list of requests and offers.  Do you want to become a member?  Will you do the survey?  Do you want to insure your game or system?  Will you, in fact, give them any more money for anything at all?  The most common question that a customer is asked, however, has to center around the reserve of upcoming games.  They go after that reserve dollar like a piranha goes after a cow crossing the river. 

So, you reserve your copy of “Call of Gears War-Duty 3” that comes out in three months, and you think you can relax now…your game will be waiting for you when you go back and get it.  Heck, you even paid for it in full, so it must be sitting in a drawer, wrapped and ready to go with your name on it, right?  Actually, no. 

Nope.  Not even almost.

If you read the little print on the back of the receipt, you will find that Gamestop is only responsible to hold reserves for customers for the first 48 hours after the release of the item.  That means, if you come in three days later because you weren’t able to make it before...you know, because you work so hard to make enough money to afford these video games, your game may not even be there.  If you question the employee about it, they will direct you to the back of the receipt.

And you can direct them to the back of your hand.

To be fair, every attempt will be made to get the customer the game as soon as possible, but it will not be immediate.  The person who just shelled out their hard-earned cash to decimate zombies will have to wait until another shipment comes in or one can be ordered from another store before they can do so.  A good example of this sort of debacle is the recent release of the Playstation 4.  These were the hot item of the year, and many people put down a minimum of $100 to ensure themselves a system.  Though they were in short supply and high demand, the Gamestop company decision was to sell as many systems as they could to “walk-in” customers, as well.  This resulted in many customers, (those who were forward thinking enough to put down good money to reserve a system), going home with nothing.  Their friends their neighbors, the “non-reserve” people, however were quite possibly playing their PS4’s before dinner.  It’s this kind of practice that backs up the theory that video games do, indeed cause rage and violence…just not in the way that one would think.

"Let me show you what I think about $4 for my trade-ins, maggot!"

Now, many people certainly have their own horror stories about their individual experiences at Gamestop.  As previously stated, this is not an uncommon occurrence for a retailer of this size.  The points above, though, do not address issues such as “that rude kid behind the counter,” or “I swear the line moves so slow!”  These types of complaints are specific to the stores one visits and to the employees working therein.  No, this article is focused upon company practices and how they have been designed to, at the very least fool the customers and at the most, outright cheat them.  These are the types of things that consumers should be aware of and, hopefully, complain about.  It is only through these complaints and the refusal to be party to such shady operations that any change will ever come.