I am now on the GameStop hate bandwagon

I used to defend GameStop but not after so many bad experiences. Today was the last straw. I went in to ask if they have any PS2s and the guy just stared at me. I thought he was being funny because they probably didn't sell them anymore. Then I asked him if they had the newer model (the one that's half glossy "scph 90001") and before I could finish he asked "What did you say?" And I said "Do you have any PS2s?" and he said yes. Under my breath I said "Yeah, that was my original question".

I know this may not seem like the worst GameStop horror story but I can't stand when people just stare at me like that after I'm 100% sure I spoke loudly and clear enough for them to hear me the first time. I was going to go back and say something but I thought that would be pathetic to get upset over something like that.

I have rarely had a good experience with Gamestop employees. I know there are many here on the boards and I'm sure you guys are cool, but most I've encountered seem to be brain dead or over-caffeinated Gamestop-fanatic bros.

@manicraider said:

I used to defend GameStop but not after so many bad experiences. Today was the last straw. I went in to ask if they have any PS2s and the guy just stared at me. I thought he was being funny because they probably didn't sell them anymore. Then I asked him if they had the newer model (the one that's half glossy "scph 90001") and before I could finish he asked "What did you say?" And I said "Do you have any PS2s?" and he said yes. Under my breath I said "Yeah, that was my original question".

I know this may not seem like the worst GameStop horror story but I can't stand when people just stare at me like that after I'm 100% sure I spoke loudly and clear enough for them to hear me the first time. I was going to go back and say something but I thought that would be pathetic to get upset over something like that.

All i can say is, welcome to the club.

i thought they would have loved to sell you a ps2.

I read the title as gamespot. Doesn't matter I'll hop on a gamestop hate train too chooo chooooo

I've been on that bandwagon for a while now. I actively try to avoid their piracy.

Friday I went in there to buy Ass Creed Brotherhood. The girl went to the used drawer and started trying to find a game that wasn't "disgusting" as she put it. I asked sarcastically, "Can you give me a NEW one?" then she said "I don't think they make new ones anymore" and "I can go in the back and look for some if you want". I was in a rush so I just got a used one. But I was pretty annoyed that she tried to give me that shit.

welcome aboard brother!!

I can't understand the active hate. It's not like they force you at gunpoint to buy from their store. And, well, P.T. Barnum said "there's a sucker born every minute", and unfortunately suckers are beyond help.

I'm not even sure what you just said.

Most of my problems with GameStop are policies handed down from management.
I'm positive that the typical GameStop employee doesn't want to ask about preorders 10 tines while you are buying something.

That must be a pretty damn big wagon. Also, I imagine Staind as being the performers on board. No idea why, but there you go.

@manicraider:

I used to defend GameStop but not after so many bad experiences. Today was the last straw. I went in to ask if they have any PS2s and the guy just stared at me. I thought he was being funny because they probably didn't sell them anymore. Then I asked him if they had the newer model (the one that's half glossy "scph 90001") and before I could finish he asked "What did you say?" And I said "Do you have any PS2s?" and he said yes. Under my breath I said "Yeah, that was my original question".

I know this may not seem like the worst GameStop horror story but I can't stand when people just stare at me like that after I'm 100% sure I spoke loudly and clear enough for them to hear me the first time. I was going to go back and say something but I thought that would be pathetic to get upset over something like that.

Heh, not sure why this rubbed you the wrong way but everyone reaches that point.

For me it was trying to return the xbox 360 wireless racing wheel. $150 or so and it just wasn't working to set it on my lap and use the pedals on the ground, it needed to be secured to a desk and planted to the floor so I figured I was screwed. I checked the receipt and it said there was a 7 day return policy for hardware. Woo hoo, I'm in luck, I can pack this up and return it because I'm on day 6. I think I argued with the guy at the store for at least 30 min. The verbage was printed clear as day on the receipt but he kept repeating that we're not allowed to take returns, can't take returns, it's open we can't take returns, you can't return, no, can't, sorry. Every time I just pointed to the receipt and said this says you can return hardware within 7 days, it's printed on the receipt, it's your store policy, it's written on the receipt.

I had time to burn so after 30 min he just gave up and did the return. He was so pissed though, I had no doubt that the store manager or regional manager was going to crucify this guy for taking a return. It was obvious to me that the mantra in the store was never take returns. EVER. I'd like to say that was the last time I bought anything there but there have been a few random purchases when they are the only option.

I prefer Target's approach, hand them the receipt, they scan it and give you your money. I've never had a problem with target. Even without a receipt they can usually do something. Gamestop by comparison will refuse to honor their own policies even when you have a receipt and are fully covered by said policy. The only thing you can depend on with these guys is that if you want to spend money they will take it. If you want anything else then good luck.

Uh... fake your own death?

My last straw was the other week when i went in to see if they had any old ps2 games that i was missing. I had called before hand to ask if they had ps2 games still in stock since the time before hand, they guy said that they might be getting rid of them soon. The person on the phone said yes, they still had 2 shelfs of them. I Arrived not even an hour later to find a shelf of controllers and keyboards that can be used for the ps2 and the guy who was on the phone had "Just" got off work and had already left. Told them to go to hell and thanks for wasting my time and gas.

Once I went to Gamestop to buy a used game. The copy they pulled from the drawer was scratched and looked horrible.

They said it was the only copy they had left, and if it didn't work I could return it.

I said no thank you, and left.

I was just in one earlier today and I just can't stand how much they lie. Telling unknowing parents how if they don't pre-order the collectors edition they will not be able to find a copy anywhere and will have to shell out $400+ for a copy online. I'm looking a Dark Souls collector's edition on Amazon for $100 you douche (directed at anonymous Gamestop employee). Im sure I could pre-order that at BestBuy too. And then how they push the strategy guides on them is sad as well. I should have said something :(

Repeats question to Gamestop employee, Hates the store forever.

Yeah, Some Gamestop Employees can suck balls. I got criticized when I said I didn't want to preorder Bioshock 2 cause I didn't really like the first one.. Then he went off saying that was weird and basically saying I lack good judgement. But there's this one guy that works there that seems like he knows his stuff for the most part.

@Example1013 said:

I can't understand the active hate. It's not like they force you at gunpoint to buy from their store. And, well, P.T. Barnum said "there's a sucker born every minute", and unfortunately suckers are beyond help.

I agree with this. I never spend the mental energy to actively hate anyone.

So really, you aren't on the Gamestop hate bandwagon, you are on the "Gamestop hires friggin idiots" bandwagon.

Which, honestly though, what do you expect? You come into a retail store, chances are you are dealing with some schmuck kid being paid minimum wage that was hired because he plays games. He probably was dazed out with boredom when you asked him about PS2s, and then you decided to throw some random gibberish number at him, expecting, for no reason, that the kid would know it.

The Gamestop Hate Train baby, woo!

Welcome to the club.

Well this isn't pathetic...........God forbid they actually do something offensive to you.

@James_ex_machina said:

Most of my problems with GameStop are policies handed down from management. I'm positive that the typical GameStop employee doesn't want to ask about preorders 10 tines while you are buying something.

As an employee this is exactly the case. We're forced to push that stuff because our "performance" is based on % of extras (preorders, Game Play Guarantees, and Power-Up Rewards Cards/GI subscription) sold per transaction...it's an unpleasant experience having to do that with every single customer.

Most of my problems with GameStop are policies handed down from management. I'm positive that the typical GameStop employee doesn't want to ask about preorders 10 tines while you are buying something.

I've never had any problem from my gamestop. The employee's know what their doing. It seems most people hate them for ignorant employees. Well, alot of places are like that. When i go to Sport Chalet they only have ignorant girls working there that don't know what i want, so it's nothing new.

@manicraider: wow.... ive never heard a more whiny non event story.

i feel like most these "i hate gamestop because they try to sell me stuff i dont want" people are young and never had to work a real job and support themselves.

sometimes you have to do shit you dont want to do. you think they like asking you to preorder and buy magazines? i bet they would rather just talk to you about gears of war or uncharted but they have a job to do. just buy your shit somewhere else and shut the fuck up.

OP sounds autismal as fuck.

@GreenBeret3 said:

I've never had any problem from my gamestop. The employee's know what their doing. It seems most people hate them for ignorant employees. Well, alot of places are like that. When i go to Sport Chalet they only have ignorant girls working there that don't know what i want, so it's nothing new.

yea dude i train MMA and own my own MMA school. i go to stores to buy headgear and boxing gloves and shit all the time and i get the hot little 19 year old that obviously knows nothing about boxing but draws in the guys. its business and i dont cry like a baby about it all day. just do your own research, know what you want to buy and buy it. when they ask me if i need hand wraps and a mouth piece i just nicely say no thank you and take my stuff and go.

Pretty much all the Gamestop employees I've talked to have been friendly, and more often than not reasonably knowledgeable. I've never had any problems with returns, missing preorder content, or anything. They always ask about preorders when I stop by, but it's not really a big deal. So yeah, I guess I'm just lucky, and all my local Gamestops hire nice people, but I've got no personal problems with the chain.

I don't think I've ever had a problem with the gamestop staff at either of my local gamestops, well, EB Games but same thing. They're always really good. The people who work there have good attitudes and they often give me a preorder bonus even if I didn't preorder. For example, I bought Gears of War 3 four or five days after it released but they had preorder Commando Dom codes left over so the manager slipped one in the bag.

Last weekend I bought Demon's Souls and as I walk in the guy at the counter asks if he could help me with anything and I said, "I think I wanna buy Demon's Souls." he was arranging stuff on the wall behind the counter and turns around slowly and replies, "Do you think you're up to the Challenge?" It was corney as fuck but it was pretty funny and put me in a good mood.

I dunno maybe I'm lucky but EB Games is the place to go if you don't want to deal with the asshole punk teenagers who work at Walmart, Futureshop or Best Buy.

Whenever the gamestop clerk, still employed today, argued with me that final fantasy advent children was a video game, I lost all faith in them. Besides, if you're buying a used ps2, why could they complain hmm? They're getting every penny of the profits. Speaking of, I'd highly recommend to find a 20gig/60gig ps3 anyways. You wouldn't believe how much the upscaling and smoothing options help ps2 games. Find em for like 200$ or less nowadays.

I'm all about hating things, but this is dumb.

My problems with Gamestop lie in their policies; most employees I'd run into were all pretty cool. That said, be a little understanding, guy; he might honestly have missed your question. Even if YOU'RE sure you were audible, that doesn't mean the perspective of others will match that. Be considerate.

Man I have yet to run into any of these problems when dealing with gamestop. Than again im friends with most of the people there and stop them from trying to sell me used games.

My original hatred for Gamestop came from some overzealous employees trying to pass of used games as new. Not in the "open display box" way either, but simply taking a used game off the shelf and ringing it up after I brought a new box. Was it his way of trying to meet some quota? It's not an accident after about three or four times and getting the "oh I'm sorry I thought you brought me a used copy" line each time. Even after ringing it up he was very reluctant to grab the new copy and was trying to hustle me to buy the used, hoping that because it was already there and rung up that it wouldn't be a further wait. It was a dirty sales tactic through and through.

Now I avoid the place despite the employees being fairly competent. It's more of the constant badgering of pre-order bonuses, strategy guides, and warranties in addition to some underhanded business practices on a corporate level that make me just not want to give them my money.

well that sucks. he probably thought you were kidding because nobody buys ps2 anymore. o well on that. 
 
gamestop near me has a hot girl that works there from time to time. i'm sure everyone flirts with her.

Yeah! fucking GameStop with their… with their not hearing you properly… oh…

@Torrim said:

My original hatred for Gamestop came from some overzealous employees trying to pass of used games as new. Not in the "open display box" way either, but simply taking a used game off the shelf and ringing it up after I brought a new box. Was it his way of trying to meet some quota? It's not an accident after about three or four times and getting the "oh I'm sorry I thought you brought me a used copy" line each time. Even after ringing it up he was very reluctant to grab the new copy and was trying to hustle me to buy the used, hoping that because it was already there and rung up that it wouldn't be a further wait. It was a dirty sales tactic through and through.

Now I avoid the place despite the employees being fairly competent. It's more of the constant badgering of pre-order bonuses, strategy guides, and warranties in addition to some underhanded business practices on a corporate level that make me just not want to give them my money.

I used to work at Gamestop.

There was no quota for used games. Most of the people that work at any outlet fall under one of two categories:

a) Overworked.

and

b) Incompetent.

For either of those two groups, it's quite easy to mistake whats printed on a sticker, even more-so when they changed the used sticker from yellow to the same white as the new copy sticker.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to make a mistake like then when somebody comes in around two hours to close, when you have to finish all the work the day crew left for you, and still find time to do whatever category count is needed for that night and rep the store for the next day, while being either the only person closing, or one of two (and usually the only competent one.)

I don't really hate gamespot, but I tend to avoid them and I don't exactly agree with what they're doing to the gaming industry. Kinda lame to turn around on devs like that and sell recent games for 5$ less than the new asking price.

The staff there tend to occupy this annoying middle ground where they make really awkward game-banter that I can never relate to. I mean I like playing COD, but I really don't case about your K/D or that time you totally knifed that entire team, Mr. Cashier. I'd rather have a Mom N' Pop shop run by a super-nerd who'll geek-out with me Mr. Comic Book Guy style, or just shop where the cashier wants to finish the transaction as fast as humanly possible.

@James_ex_machina said:

Most of my problems with GameStop are policies handed down from management. I'm positive that the typical GameStop employee doesn't want to ask about preorders 10 tines while you are buying something.

This. I've worked in retail (though not in Gamestop) and have had to ask each and every customer annoying questions to try to upsale or get them to preorder. It just pisses the customers off and makes the people working feel like ass. Like everything dictated by managers who no longer have any idea what it's like to work on a shop floor, it makes life more difficult for everyone involved.

Hrm. We haven't had a good "I HATE GAMESTOP" thread in quite a while. It's almost to the point of tradition. I think at this point this subject should be pinned to the top of the boards. Maybe the mods can put it all under one banner.

@manicraider: Pretty much an experience I had in every retail. Just try to find a wal-mart employee that fucking cares. That is if you can find them in the first place. I remember my first GameCrazy experience where the Asst. Manager was on the phone the entire time he was "helping" me. That was the only time I left a store while the clerk was pricing me out.

I just want to buy games, I dont want to be involved with these game retailers in anyway except handing them 60 bucks and walking out. Preferably without talking.

The only problem I've had was when this annoying 16 year old kid kept trying to push pre-orders on me. I said, "No thank you, not interested" at least 3 or 4 times. He kept saying "Ah, well, you save 5 dollars, you're losing money blah blah". I stared at him and said "NO, NOT INTERESTED!" and he finally rang me up. God, that kid annoyed me.

Also, I foolishly went into a store wearing my MW2 shirt...Guy asked me like 10 times if I wanted MW3 because of my shirt. I mean, I understand that he assumes I'm a Call of Duty fanatic and stuff but, asking once should be enough. The guy working there always seem really excited when I pre-order something. Generally I don't have a problem with Gamestop though. They also gave me a copy of "Risen" that didn't work, it froze my Xbox 3 or 4 times. Brought it back and the guy gave me a new copy without a problem.

Almost forgot that time where the same 16 year old was eating and decided it would be better to finish what he was doing before serving the customer. Customer first, food second!

We had someone like that where I work except that he always said something dickish instead of asking to repeat the question. He got fired very quickly.

One time I went into Gamestop and the guy behind the counter flung a "Next time knock, jerk" at me, his mouth so vilely foaming of bile that I'm surprised he didn't hurl onto the sunny yellow carpet mid-sentence. I don't really go there any more.

@allworkandlowpay said:

@Torrim said:

My original hatred for Gamestop came from some overzealous employees trying to pass of used games as new. Not in the "open display box" way either, but simply taking a used game off the shelf and ringing it up after I brought a new box. Was it his way of trying to meet some quota? It's not an accident after about three or four times and getting the "oh I'm sorry I thought you brought me a used copy" line each time. Even after ringing it up he was very reluctant to grab the new copy and was trying to hustle me to buy the used, hoping that because it was already there and rung up that it wouldn't be a further wait. It was a dirty sales tactic through and through.

Now I avoid the place despite the employees being fairly competent. It's more of the constant badgering of pre-order bonuses, strategy guides, and warranties in addition to some underhanded business practices on a corporate level that make me just not want to give them my money.

b) Incompetent.

For either of those two groups, it's quite easy to mistake whats printed on a sticker, even more-so when they changed the used sticker from yellow to the same white as the new copy sticker.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to make a mistake like then when somebody comes in around two hours to close, when you have to finish all the work the day crew left for you, and still find time to do whatever category count is needed for that night and rep the store for the next day, while being either the only person closing, or one of two (and usually the only competent one.)

I think they must have been pressed to sell used games, because the "mistake" entailed the exact same dialog every time, going from apologizing to asking if I'd just like the used instead to save time, and then telling me how much money I'd save after buying so many games new. If there was no quota on the individual employee, there had to be one for the store overall or at least some push for used game sales. It's the only explanation, I'm not buying that the guy was incompetent because the phrase was spot on. He was good, albeit with shady tactics.

I don't have that problem any more, it was about 2004-2005 that I swore off the retailer after going there for years. Now they just seem to be more about asking the same twelve questions when I buy something but seem less pushy about it. That's good, I guess, but Gamestop is part of the reason I have to put up with your dumb pre-order bonuses and online passes in the first place.

Yea, that was confusing. Why are you buying a PS2 in 2011? Also, my experiences with GameStop have generally been OK. Granted, I've been asked if I wanted to pre-order games, too, but those were games that I was gonna get, anyway, so it kinda balances out.

@Example1013: What is it with people thinking that as long as you're life isn't being threatened, it isn't worth their time? As if you've never been bothered by something similar... There aren't a whole lot of other options unless you want to go somewhere like Best Buy, which means dealing with employees that are better groomed, and somehow even less informed. And other than small local places which don't really exist anymore, there aren't a lot of options. I dunno if you've ever seen the Freddies electronics section but it's pretty dismal.

Kind of odd that he just stared at you. Maybe he was new or something? Doesn't seem like the worst thing ever, just sounds like a baked ass gamestop employee who's reaction times were at about 3 minutes because he was just thinkin about the munchies.