Sometimes the employees at the game specialty stores like gametop and eb are knowledgeable and friendly. This was the case for me two years ago when I was in Champaign, IL. It is a college town so there are a lot of young adult gamers around.

Anyway, I bought a joystick from them, and then a year later one of the buttons stopped working. I was in a casual conversation with one of the employees at the EB store, and he offered to take my broken joystick, swap it with a joystick in a new box, and return the broken joystick with the box to the manufacturer as a "defective" item.

Plus I had lots of fun just hanging around the store and looking around, chatting with the employees. Most of the employees I knew were knowledgeable, friendly, and not pushy at all.

All these mall game stores suck anyway - at least the ones near me do... They open all their new games (with the exception of the ones they keep behind the counter locked in the case) and separate the disc from the case. I don't consider that a new game. I never took advantage of the return a new game thing, but I liked the idea that I could. Oh well... one more reason not to shop there.

That's a big reason why I hate EB. I like OPENING my games. Even when a brand new game comes out (The same day!), it's already opened. Then I have to wait a few minutes for them to find the actual game. The last time I bought a game from EB that was still shrinkwrapped was Pokemon Snap (Yeah...shutup!).

Also, another thing I hate is when they sell there last 'new' GBA game from the shelf. Its been sitting on the shelp, un-shrinkwrapped for months. The box always looks like crap. Still the same price as a new one. Bleh!

EBGames doesn't do this consistently though. at the King of Prussia mall, there are 3 ebgame stores. only 1 does it all the time (for security reasons )

i learned to just go to one of the other stores to pick up a new NEW game.

Well, at least at Wal-Mart and Circuit City, they don't beg you to buy a "strategy guide" for only $15 more. Plus, CC and Wal-Mart don't have any games priced at $54.99, like I've seen at Gamestop. They have to price match because they are higher than everyone else. And, I don't need a geek asking me every 2 seconds if I need help. Like their "expertise and opinion" in the gaming world could ever convince me to buy Batman: Dark Tomorrow...

FYI- There are 3 different types of Gamestops. A mall store, a strip center, and an EB competitive. They all have different prices. Strip centers have all standard prices, $49.99, and EB competitive are the same but with better prices on used.

My local Gamestop must be in its own special category, its a Gamerape store. They charge $54.99 for new releases. Why the extra $5? I can tell you it's not for the "special" service because the service there sucks. And on top of that, what I mentioned earlier is that they try to sell you opened games as new for $5 over MSRP. I've seen them selling just GBA carts in ziplock bags with no box or book for $35. I never go there anymore, but if its opened, they should mark it down.

I know that getting the last copy of a game with a sticker on the cover sucks, but the alternative is to lock the games up in those plastic security things like at Best Buy. You can easily get the sticker off with a hair dryer or ask an employee to use the heatgun in the back and do it for you. I think game stores still have plenty to offer especially when it comes to freebies when you reserve stuff and employees who know what they are talking about. A lot of the policies and general quality of the Gamestops tends to vary from district to district depending on what the DM in that area requires of the managers/mooks. I feel that my store (well not really mine, I'm a 3rd key, which is 3rd in command behind Manager and ASM) doesn't have any employees who spout off useless garbage about games they know nothing about.

Dave the problem arises when you put in the 3 games and mark one down to 0.00, and the original fund is gamebucks. It always attempts to charge tax on the free one for some reason. I know that on gamebucks you have to do the return and then the sale rather then all on one transaction, but the buy 2 get 1 deal tends to screw stuff up.

As if EB employees know more about games...

Well, the only reason I go to Gamestop is their trade in 3 (Xbox, PS2, GC) Games and get an extra $10 credit promotion they run from time to time. It's definatley not because of "knowledgeable" employees.

All I know is that at the three Gamestops (and 1 Gamecrazy) in my immediate area stocked up on employees that rode the short bus to school.

My favorite was when someone asked about why Sega doesn't make consoles anymore. According to this genius they went bankrupt and went completely out of business. Apparantly he failed to read the SEGA NFL2k stand up sitting next to his register.

The last time I bought something from Gamestop, it was the Ocarina of Time, for N64. Up to that point, I had never needed a memory card, and asked them specifically if Zelda needed one. Instead of trying to verify it with someone that knew, the salesperson gladly sold me a crappy third party memory card, when Ocarina of Time saves everything to the cartridge.

Anyway, I'm sure we all have horror stories about places like Gamestop, EB, etc., and I'm sure a lot of people take advantage of the "free rentals", and even more get screwed over with "used" games. But I really hope they don't go away. Best buy, Walmart, Target, etc. will almost always have better sales, but without the niche stores, it'd be impossible to find the niche games. It's hard enough to find a non top-of-the-line title at Best Buy as it is, let alone out of print games. For example... if not for EB, I would never have found a copy of Ultimate Muscle for the gamecube, which other stores seem to not have ordered at all (I still haven't seen another copy, though I hear Walmart has them in). Mom and pop stores are great, but are few and far between.

Sure, the five buck markup is a ripoff. But so is everything else in a mall. They do it because rent in a mall is expensive, and buyers who go to a mall will pay a premium to shop at one place. Gamers like us, who go from place to place looking for the best deals, aren't the kind of customers they live off of anyway.

I think the employees at all stores that sell games (EB, Gamestop, Best Buy, Circuit City, Etc.) are equally knowledgeable. The problem is that game stores like EB and Gamestop are small enough that the employees are always nearby. At Best Buy you'll be lucky if you run into any employees in the media section. Therefore there are less stories ignorant Best Buy employees and more stories of ignorant EB and Gamestop employees. Just my theory.

I agree with your theory. I go to Best Buy, because I can grab a game and get to the register without encountering any employees. The employees are all concentrated in the big money areas (TV's, computers etc.).

EBs are like closets your stuck in with 3 or 4 morons asking if you need help and spouting misinformation every 2 minutes.

All I want is to be able to return a game I dont like. In mint condition. Once in a while. I buy A LOT of games every year. I dont want to research and rent and demo and piss around with every title before buying it. I may return 10 games a year but I buy and keep 60 or 70.

There, fixed it for ya.

Good theory.

You guys are going way overboard with the free rental stuff. I never abused the policy, but I loved having the piece of mind that came with it.

I liked the idea of being able to exchange it for another game one time as long as you returned it in mint condition. There are times when I would research a game, talk to a store employee about it and take it home to find out it was nothing like what I was told or read. I returned maybe one game out of twenty (probably less), but it was still nice to have the option if the game turned out to be a major let down.

Consumers should have some limited protection against all the crappy games on the market. NBA2K3 for the GameCube is a good example. Its a defective piece of junk the freezes up all the time, but what if you could only exchange it for another equally buggy copy. In cases like that you should be allowed to exchange it for something else.

Another point is EB and Gamestop are going to go right on selling games they have opened themselves as new, so whats the difference if they take back my game and sell it that way.

Wow... 60 to 70 games a year! Geez...

I don't agree that we have a right to "try before we buy" for free. Any more than it's right for them to repackage "used" games and sell them as new (isn't this illegal?) Defective games I can understand... they should take those back and issue store credit, and return it to the manufacturer. But if you're that concerned, you'll spend the five or so bucks to rent the game from Blockbuster or any of these other online rental stores... or get some demo disks or something. It's just a policy that too many people abuse...

So if you buy a game that's buggy and freezes up, you don't think you should be able to return it?

Almost every other product you buy you can return if you don't like it - books, clothes, electronics, etc. with the notable exceptions of CDs and DVDs. Guess which of those products I rarely buy anymore? It's too much money to plop down on something essentially sight unseen without the ability to return it if it sucks or doesn't work properly.

Two different arguments...

Defective yes

Dissatisfied no

I mainly go to these game stores to look for DVDs. Once in awhile I'll see a game thats priced great so I'll pick it up. IE - I got Lord of the RIngs for the PS2 for $8.

Also, the game stores near me actually have girls running the registers all the time. Especialyl the one at our local HUGE mall tourist attraction spot. Its funny watching all the VG dorks hit on em. lol

But if every copy is defective (like NBA 2K3 on the Gamecube) and no stores allow you to do anything other than exchange it for another copy of the same game (which will be the case when Gamestop changes their policy) you're screwed.

Now do you honsetly believe, for the one time out of 100,000 that this happens, they're going to just tell you "looks like you're screwed!"? Let's come back to reality.

FS

That will totally happen. Wal-mart, Best Buy, etc. have "only for same item" policies now, and I guarantee you if you went there and bought NBA2K3 for the GC and tried to take it back and explain that they were all defective, they wouldn't budge and give you your money back.

The gamestores will be the same way. Idiot retail employees don't know anything but the company line, they aren't going to be willing to budge and break the rule to give you your money back or a different game.

The only option would be for the developer to issue replacements, which in NBA2K3's case hasn't happened, eventhough Sega has acknowledged the problem.

I mean it's not the end of the world, I just liked having the piece of mind that came along with being able to return it. And this just gives me one more reason not to put up with the geeks working and shopping in Gamestores.

1 out of 100,000? There are plenty of games that experience these problems - NBA2k3 for GC, Enter the Matrix for XBox, and the new Tomb Raider game have all had users experience crashes and hangups. And that is just consoles - for the PC is 100 times worse. A good number of games you have to patch to fix critical problems - what if you don't have Internet access? Too bad?