fujishig

I'm still not sure how they make more money off of preordered games... unless we're talking about gauging demand.

I still believe that the industry needs these kinds of stores, though, as annoying as some of them are. Best Buy and the like carry a lot of games, but they don't carry every single game. The obscure, smaller titles, especially for older systems like the GBA are hard to find. Sure, you can find them online, but you have to wonder if they would even be released if there were no Gamestops/EB Games to distribute through. For instance, I've never seen Super Robot Taisen 1 and 2 or Yggdra Union, three GBA games, at any big box store.

darkside

This is very true. Granted you can get them at Amazon, but it is nice to have a retail store to find a copy of Summon Night in. Also, I have taken advantage of their B2G1F many times and that combined with the 10% off makes their used games well worth buying. I just wait until they have a sale to buy games. Usually by the time another one comes around there are several titles I will want at the sale.

If you are patient they will eventually discount games and its nice to go through and pick up stuff I passed on a year or two ago cheap.

taffer

If you preorder a game a year before it comes out, then that is one year that they can invest your money and draw interest on it. If you don't preorder, they get no interest.

darkside

Even if its only $5, all that money adds up and is basically an interest free loan. Not a big deal, but a good business practice. It also insures you buy the game there so they can sell you a strategy guide to go with it. That is where they make the real money on the sale.

BravesMG

This whole thing really intrigues me. It's obvious that EB/GS really wants you to preorder games, I don't see any downside at all for them. But if the margins are so low on selling new releases, I just can't understand why they don't severely limit the opening week new releases outside of their preorders. By using the preorders as basically guinea pigs for testing demand, I don't understand why they would want it both ways.

It seems like they should either order a good deal of excess up front to make sure they've got what they need for a while, or order so few that it's almost impossible without a preorder. Aside from the games that you don't expect to be terribly popular, and I think Suprmallet gave good examples above, they don't seem to be giving enough reason to preorder for how hard they push them. BB/CC/WM... are going to flood the market with new big releases, so they're going to be easy to find no matter where they are.

And on another note, do you know why EB/GS calls you the night before their expected new release delivery instead of when they actually receive them? I'm getting sick of getting a call the night before, stopping by and saying their shipment hasn't arrived yet, and having to yank my preorder cash out to go elsewhere.

Supermallet

They can't call when the shipment arrives because every store gets the shipment at different times.

Josh H

The stores themselves used to call when the actually had the game.

dgmayor

Orlando huh. Which store?

Michael Corvin

Yep. Back when customer service meant something.

KurrptSenate

well, they pay their associates about 7 /hour

realistically speaking, I can't really assume the average associate gives a shit.


Its the same with McDonalds employees. Given their hourly rate, you can't really expect them to care about the fact your cheese wasn't melted, or that you ordered your burger without pickles.

Harsh reality

discostu1337

Wanna come to my store and call 700 people for Halo 3?

Michael Corvin

It's a whole otter topic, but wage should not be directly correlated to quality of service. If it does, that person needs to find something better to do. You have to start somewhere and to get higher up the chain you have to be better than "I don't care, I only get $7 an hour." Otherwise they will never make much more than that.

Don't take preorders a year before it comes out. Can't handle the business hire an extra person. Or look at it like this. Those employees finally have a couple days of real work to make up for the 364 days they've been sitting on their ass playing games.

KurrptSenate

im just being realistic Corvin. That doesn't give them an excuse to act in such a fasion, but again, thats the harsh reality of it

Josh H

That part is kind of irrelevant as it isn't that the associates are too lazy to call. Its that the company decided to stop that practice and replace it with automated calls.

700 Halo 3 preorders? Fuck there's a lot of dumb people out there. That game will be easy to find everywhere and will probably be cheaper/and or come with freebies in the big box stores.

KurrptSenate

well, i was responding to Michael's statement regarding customer service

Josh H

I know, but I think he meant more in the lines of when customer service was something the corporations, stores, managers etc cared about--not when the associates cared about.

The associates play little role, the Manager's are pretty much always around so the associates have to do what they are told--which is why they are so fucking pushy with trades, preorders, warranties, game informer etc.

If the company wanted them to make the calls, they would still be making the calls.

Michael Corvin

Josh got it right in the first sentence. Back when the companies cared about service.

I worked in restaurants for 15 years where all walks of life people pass through. You can tell pretty quickly who will make it and who won't. Typically the ones that last are the ones where wage is irrelevant to quality of service. They are there to do a job to the best of their ability, because that's what they were hired for. Just like anywhere I would assume. Anyone who ponders, "hmm... $7 an hour? That is exactly the quality of service I will provide" is an idiot and deserves their low wage.

We have about a dozen EB/Gamestops around here, and I'm sure I've been to all of them. Only 1 employee out of all those places in the past few years knew what service was and always struck me as out of place.

So it is more of a general rant valid in any industry, but the game stores seem to be infested with these low life employees. So much so that when one employee provides exceptional service he seems out of place.

KurrptSenate

granted Corvin, I think that more than anything is what deters people from not frequenting those stores and going to the big chains in response

Honestly, if it weren't for my manager-friend, and I've told him 'straight-up', I would never purchase another game from their retailer again.


As far as "doing a job to the best of your natural ability", I think there are some circumstances involved with that decision. Sure, if you are a new hire with that attitude, you won't get anywhere, but there's also the other side of the coin where people do a job to the best of their ability, and it continually goes unrewarded. In that event, its pretty obvious the employer doesn't care about the employee, so the inverse also rings true from time to time

Josh H

There's also the issue of selection bias in terms of quality of service. You're going to get more of the "low life" employees that don't care about providing good service, working their hardest etc. because few people who are motivated to work hard, do a good job and put a lot of effort into their career are going to go into the retail industry.

So you get a bunch of kids that can't get any other jobs and don't give a shit as they just want some spending money, and adults that are too lazy or unskilled to get other jobs.

Obviously their are exceptions, and those are the instances where you get the occasional person who provides good service.

boredsilly

Amen. Sure wage is an important factor, but being someone who works retail part-time, I always look at it as - I'm here to do a job, so I'm going to do the job. If I don't want to do the job, or feel like the compensation for the job isn't fair, I'll quit. Simple as that. People who say shit like "They don't pay me enough to do that" WHEN IT'S IN THE FUCKING JOB DESCRIPTION really aggravate me. You weren't too good to take the job, so don't be too good to do the job.

I just saw this posted on Digg and I think it's pertinent to this thread. Memoirs of a Gamestop Employee

So this guy tries to rebut a lot of the negative ideas usually associated with Gamestop, without realizing he (and his kind) are a big part of the problem. It's ok for them to call you at home because he gets crank phone calls? Insists that a lot of the customers are "idiots". As well as other fine nuggets of "information".

Here are two excerpts that just baffle me.

Excerpt, the first:

"Life for the GameStop Employee
What do you think it's like to be us? How about the fact that we can't test game systems to see if they work anymore, because our TV broke and corporate refuses to get us a new one? We have to sell questionable systems to people and have them take time out of their day to return it when it doesn't work, all because we couldn't test it. And when we give them another one, we just have to hope that this one works. And if it doesn't? They get angry at us.

How fair is GameStop to us when I can't bring a hot meal to my job because our microwave is broken, and they refuse to get a new one?

How about our shrink wrap machine? It's been broken since I started working there, and they haven't made an effort to fix it yet. So we have to hear customers complain about games being opened because we have to put the cases on the shelves to display what we have...because if we didn't, they'd complain about that too. Some downright refuse to buy games because they're not shrink wrapped. If they want to get a game as a gift, they don't want the person receiving it to think (or know) that it's used.

How about the constant calls when we're entirely too busy, with not enough people on a shift, asking how much money they would get if they traded in certain games? And then I'll hear complaints for 5 minutes about how they should get more. And all of this is while I'm trying to do 10 other things or I getting yelled at by my managers.

How about the GameCrazy employees that come in and walk around our store, telling our customers how much better their prices are for certain games, or trade-in values, like anyone gives a rat's ass? Then they'll turn around and buy something from us! Please, stop constantly nagging at me like I care about what you and your shitty little company does. You don't even have your own stores! You're employed in cages inside of Hollywood Video!

And I'm supposed to chase a promotion that I'll never get. Or do a bunch of other important things only to get around a dollar raise to be a manager. What the bullshit is that? My managers (other than the ASM and SM) get around a dollar more than I do...and they do just about the same amount of work that the SM and ASM do, if not more sometimes.

How about when I didn't work most of January? Because in December, they gave us 100 more hours than we needed to staff all of our employees for 40 hours and we went over budget. Therefore, I barely worked in January and my last paycheck was $18. $18! And we're not even allowed to work overtime, or we could get in big trouble. For 80 hours work in 2 weeks, my max net was $390."

Ok, you read all of that? Any of it? Ok, now this.

Excerpt, the second:

"The Real Problem and Solution
And what pisses me off the most is that I can't even stick it to this company by quitting because there are a million other geeks/nerds that think GameStop is this wonderful company that would be an awesome place to work for, when in reality, GameStop knows how disposable you are and treats you as such.

So please, next time you have a complaint about GameStop, don't take it up with me like I give a shit. And don't think that you're saying something new to me, because you aren't. There isn't a single thing I can do it about how this company is run. If you really have a problem, ask the Manager on Duty for the corporate number, and give them a complaint. Please, don't tell me. I already hate my job enough as it is."

Umm...what? How does that make sense? You can't quit because other geeks will do a job you hate? The hell? Or does he think he's a Jesus like figure taking the sacrifice so others won't suffer?

Look, I know this guy isn't every GS employee (the one here seems like a good guy) and is probably just venting more than anything, but I thought this was funny after reading this thread.

Mopower

Everyone that has ever worked retail in the history of retailing has those same complaints about where they work. Here's a hint: Find a different job if it sucks so much working at Gamestop.

SteelgearX

Well, do you let someone know when they've done a great job? Do you treat retail employees with respect or do you walk into the store with a stick up your ass?

Not attacking anyone here, but I work in hospitality and it amazes me how everyone is so quick to complain and bitch but so few will let you know when you've done a good job.

I'm also not defending EB/GS. I worked at EB for two years along with one of my best friends. We both hate the place.

Josh H

I'm very polite and courteous to employees who do their job, not so much with ones that aren't.

That's all the respect they deserve. I don't need to actually stop and say "good job" when they're just doing what they are paid to do.

Of course when a retail person goes the extra mile to find something for me etc. I'll thank them and say I appreciated their help.

But that generally doesn't happen in Gamestop. What am I supposed to do, stop and say "Wow thanks for not hounding me about trade ins and preorders today!" the 1 out 100 times the employees don't annoy me about that shit?

Josh H

No kidding. He really comes out looking like a loser taking the time to post that online.

Life is what you make of it. If he hates the job so much find another one. Even if he's a lowlife with no marketable skills, he can at least get a better retail job. There's plenty of stores that are better places to work and have less pressure on forcing extra shit on customers.

xmiyux

As a side note to all this i make it my personal mission to call DM and tell them when a worker does a great job and ask that my comments get added to their personnel file. There is a Hollywood Video by me that is just phenomenal in how they have treated me and i have called their DM a time or two about different employees and the manager herself. I figure that if i ever bitch about a crappy transaction then i need to go the other way and try to get a good employee some recognition.

Try doing this, take a minute or two to get the DM number make a positive call. I know when i worked retail someone did that for me once and the company acted like i had won them a trophy. I think my manager at the time even gave me some screeners she had received in a meeting as a prize. While not money it made a shitty job at Suncoast a little more bearable for a week.

All that being said, i think EB has had the same 5$ of mine for months and months. I reserved a game with them, there was a better deal at CC so i bought it there then the next time i was at EB i just rolled the 5 to another title. I have done that on like 3 titles so far. I like having the 5$ reservation as a backup - like when i feared not all Crackdowns would have the Halo 3 beta invite.