Last week, GameStop had a sale of considerable merit. There were quite a few deals to be had, but Darksiders, a gem from THQ that apparently hybridizes Zelda and God of War, was going for $19.99. That’s a steal, especially when it’s still going for mid-$30’s used everywhere else. As a fairly frugal individual who rarely buys new games at full price, a discounted Darksiders was justified impulse buy. My problem lied with a means of obtaining the physical copy; do I go to the store, or order it online and eat a few dollars on shipping? The choice seemed obvious, go to the store that is walking distance from my apartment, but the reality of my decision was far more time consuming. You see, I hate physically going to GameStop.
I’m not going to recycle the popular anti-GameStop argument. Used game sales, a source of their profits and greatest contributor to their villainous image, is popular hate fodder, but it doesn’t personally affect me. I’d like to see certain games get better sales and I feel the plight of developers and publishers who see their games sold as used for $55 instead of new at $60, but at the end of the day that has little to do with me as a consumer
My argument is that I hate literally going into the store. Three reasons come to mind
1. Up sale. I understand that retail’s purpose is to sell you what you want and ten other things you might want, but the hive mind managers at GameStop usually default into the same cocaine fueled archetype.
As soon as I walking in the store, “Hey man what games you got to trade in?”
When I’m looking for a game, “Yo you wanna reserve that Madden?”
When I’m purchasing a game, “Okay that’s $20.39, what did you want to reserve?” I understand lowly employees having to obey corporate up sale policy, but human beings with moderate intelligence should be able to grasp the customer’s sentiment on the first round of bullshit. Further attempts do little other than encourage suspicion that the clerk is slightly retarded. Penny Arcade, captured this sentiment quite well when Tycho was bitching about they way they handled Eye of Judgement:
2. I never, ever get a sealed copy of a game when I buy it new. I have no idea when this started happening, but if I don’t reserve a game (a practice I swore off sometime in 2006), I always get an opened copy of the game with an ugly white NEW sticker leaving its dirty stain on the real estate. The clerk takes the box off the shelf and then has to retrieve the disc from the cabinet. When did this become the norm? I get that keeping product on the shelf is thief bait, but they used to have sealed copies of the game in a drawer behind the counter or in the nebulous back area. Now there stock is so thin they literally only have one copy of the game in the store.
I don’t understand how that’s even possible, especially when most stores are right down the street from a Target or Wal-Mart. You’re GameStop; it’s your job to sell videogames. If you can’t do the thing you’re supposed to do, indeed the only thing you do, then your store can be objectively classified as broken. There’s something wrong when I can’t get a game from the game store and I have to walk across the street and get it from the everything store where I can also buy rat poison and condoms.
It’s a pet peeve to have to peel off those awful stickers, but its worse when I’m buying a game as a gift. Sure, the clerk will put a little piece of tape over the gutted copy incase it needs to be returned, but giving someone an opened retail product for their birthday, or whatever, is generally frowned upon. Whenever I ask why this is I am always told that I should have preordered it, which then leads into the aforementioned “what is the purpose of your store” conversation, which typically results in the manager spouting the same corporate line and reinforcing that I should have preordered the game that came out a month ago. It decays my soul.
3. Unsolicited commentary. It’s the clerk’s job be fairly knowledgeable when suggesting a game, but for whatever reason their opinion also comes into play when I’m at the register buying a game. A few examples (paraphrased from memory):
Rhythm Heaven – “I beat this game in like ten minutes”
Yakuza 2 – “It’s like GTA but they don’t let you drive cars.”
Bionic Commando – “This is awful” *
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts – “Pretty much just like the old games on 64.”
Retro Game Challenge – “What is this?”
Nier – “God of War is way better. Have you played that?”
Darksiders – “God of War is way better. Have you played that?”
Bayonetta – “A total Devil May Cry 4 ripoff, but the story makes it worth it. Do you want to reserve God of War?”
Half-Minute Hero – “The graphics are really bad.”
Each trip to the register somehow qualifies as an opportunity for the employee to demonstrate remarkable ignorance. I understand that not everyone reads videogame blogs and forums four or fifty times a day, but their batting average for being able to accurately describe a game is hovering somewhere around .025. I’m going to have to buy two copies of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand for a friend’s birthday next week I can’t wait to see what kind horrific exchange that’s going to entail.
Other nightmare scenarios include (but are not limited to): the litany of kids throwing boxes everywhere, the soccer mom buying Modern Warfare 2 for her eight year old, the guy with a stack of used games that he’s perfectly comfortable with selling back for $2 credit, and the perplexing issue of selling a used game with no box for the same price as a used game with a box.
I understand one can have problems worse than anxiety over spending disposable income on a leisurely activity, but I can’t help but bitch about it. GameStop’s successful business model renders my feelings all the more puzzling (they’re obviously doing quite a bit right), but, then again, so is Wal-Mart. People are willing to put up with a lot of shit in order to pay bottom dollar, which, to be honest, is usually why I’m there in the first place. Bummer.
*This technically isn’t wrong, but I loved Bionic Commando
