Feel Sorry for the Uninformed

This got buried, it seems, but I'll bite.

I don't 99.9% of the time. I can't help but seem to think I would come off as the annoying "uh, actually..." guy. I only visit a store a few times a year -- I try to get everything from online unless it's total impulse, "it's-8:25-at-night-and-I-just-found-out-I-don't-have-anything-to-do-tomorrow-and-I-got-some-extra-cash-to-spend" -- but the few I go to always have at least 1-2 people who do that. Sometimes people like crap, and sometimes it isn't "bad advice" if the customer ends up liking the game. It goes back to this whole discussion of people being somewhat informed with the purchasing decisions they make. I don't know everything, but I don't feel comfortable going into something completely blind.

There was one time when an 11-year-old kid asked about a game and the employee responded positively (all the employees that I've come across are perfect for the store: love everything all the time), but didn't give the kid any reason as to why it was good (he had more important things to do like, I dunno, put empty Blu-Ray boxes on a shelf). The kid looked worried, like the worried face a child has when he's going to spend all of his allowance for the past month in one motion, so I asked him what he liked since I was near and the employee walked off. We spent about 10-15 minutes talking about stuff he liked and I tried to give him a recommendation more suited to his tastes. I don't know if he ever liked the game, but he seemed a lot better about his decision as he left the store (don't know where the fuck his parent/guardian was). I felt bad and had to say something; he reminded me of me at that age.

Its kind of sad that going to a specialist shop and asking for advice from an employee is not considered doing enough research, and that plenty of people would consider it your fault if you ended up with something you didn't want.

How are companies like Gamestop still in business if they offer such consistent poor service, to the extent that the words of their employees are just straight out not to be trusted?

I understand why people think this, but to me it seems kind of fucked-up that you can go into a shop, ask for advice, and then get blamed if the product you bought turns out not be what was advertised. Seems completely arse-backward to me.

If Gamestop are actually that terrible that any consumer who takes their advice is naive to the point of incompetence I truly don't understand how they have stayed in business so long.

haha yea i just re read what i wrote and it makes it sound like watching this episode i said fuck south park and turned it off in disgust because of just this episode , its more this was the 5th episode in a row ive just turned off due to it not being as good but if it does go in the way you say that does not sound so bad

In front of me I watched a store clerk tell a mom that she should be getting an Xbox 360 and not a Wii since the Xbox was going to have the Zelda game her son wanted on it only in HD. He also told her MS is buying Nintendo soon so there's no point in buying anything from Nintendo until that happens. I called him on the bullshit though and he seemed so surprised. I sometimes wonder if they make shady deals with MS because so many people have similar stories with slight alterations. But of course that's impossible. OR IS IT?! ♫

I get that people could be more informed, but some of you need to realize that it's not cool people are being straight up lied to by some of these game store employees. That's the point.

This isn't common for a lot of other retail situations... besides like used car sales and car mechanics I guess.

@artisanbreads: Welcome to Electronics. The world of attachment rates and 20 dollar 3 foot HDMI cables being pushed on people.

Yep. Doesn't make it right. That's all I'm saying.

Some people are basically saying "Well fuck that woman". Maybe she has multiple children and a job and doesn't have time to look up information on stupid video games. Or know that video game retail is enough of a shithole that they encourage employees to lie to customers.

Amen. One of the only reasonable responses in here.

"Would you like to pre-order Batman: Arkham Origins? It's the next logical step for you after purchasing Grand Theft Auto 5, our superiors say."

I probably would shake my head and have a disgusted look on my face if I heard a sales men say something like that but wouldn't intervene...maybe if the sales person left but I doubt it. Do some research before you purchase.

Are GameStop employees trained to sell games based on comparisons to two other games? I remember overhearing two separate occasions of this...

Crysis 2 = Halo + Black Ops

Dead Island: Riptide = The Walking Dead + Dead Rising.

I generally ignore every offer a gamestop employee tries to make me when I go in there (I think I give off the impression of a man with a mission when I go in, and I look informed so they don't press me too much).

FWIW though, I remember years back I was thinking of getting Dark Cloud 2 for the PS2 because I'd heard it was good and similar to Zelda; I asked the employee if this was true and he said "I don't know too much about the game but I've heard it is good, and while it is somewhat similar to Zelda it places more weight on character interaction."

I got the game and it turned out to be my first PS2 game I really loved :)

I was going to respond with this, and you did the job for me. Well said, and this is a story that still gets brought up a lot by people needing to confirm a bias. The coffee keeps flavor longer when hotter, and McDonalds kept it that way to squeeze money into the equation. The burns are horrific if you see photos, and she required skin grafts and still lives with pain. The money awarded wasn't to just award her like she won the lotto. It is one of the few ways the judicial system has to influence business behavior without jail. Large awards/punishments have very little to do with prices for other consumers going forward, but a lot to do with curbing harmful or unfair practices.

That's kind of how it is for practically every single major retailer in the U.S. and probably the world. There isn't a whole lot of instances like going to a local general store and the person behind the counter knows every square inch of the place.

These are extremely low paying jobs with high turnover (I imagine Gamestop stills pays minimum wage for part-time; it was minimum wage when I worked part-time as a second job during college 8 years ago). They need to fill spots and don't seem to want to spend too much time on the hiring process because it's apparently a hassle. As long as you know something about video games, you applied at the right time, and aren't crazy, they'll hire you. Or they'll hire some jackass' friend, probably.

Also, from personal experience working at retail -- I may be wrong -- but they don't spend an awful lot of time on training anymore. It costs too much and why bother when most employees (kids) aren't going to stick around. I go to a grocery store, the kid in produce isn't going to know where the cooking aisle is because he was only trained to know produce (and that's a small miracle if he can remember everything in produce).

I visit Giant Bomb everyday, and other sites periodically through the week. I play games, but certainly not all of them. I like to think I know my stuff, but I don't always do and that was proven when I worked at one of those stores.

The example the OP gave was ludicrous, totally. That person should not work there. But we live in an age when, unfortunately, people will give opinions on things without barely knowing anything about it. It's a habit. Instead of "Sorry, I don't know," it's "Oh, I heard that game is like the Guy Game crossed with Ico," or whatever. People do it all the time here; I probably do it too. Also, companies discourage employees saying "I don't know" to customers. The grocery store I go to forbids employees who aren't managers from saying "no" to customers (saw it on a sign on the deli counter).

It's a shame, but unless something better comes along, companies like Gamestop will manage. There has to be a Netflix to completely ruin a Blockbuster.

@wjb: I get what you are saying, but I just find it strange that in our supposedly perfect market driven economy, supposedly useless business like this can continue and expand. Either they are not as bad as people are making out, or we are prepared to really put up with some awful shit and go back for more.

Also this idea that companies encourage staff to give any answer, rather than 'I don't know' I find a bit hard to believe. I have never run a big company but I imagine the people that do are not all dummies, so the idea that they would rather their staff told lies to the customer than said ;i'm not sure' and then went and checked with a colleague baffles. - Its not a good way to get return business.

I have worked in wine shops for part of my working life (just starting a new job Monday) and all the basic shop assistants there are paid minimum or close to. I worked for a chain called Oddbins for a while (in the UK) and it would be almost unheard of for a staff member to just outright lie or even have a guess at a question they didn't know. If we didn't know we would try and check it or just apologise and customers were generally happy. From my experience the people I worked with had a lot of passion for wine, but no more than a Gamestop employee would have for games I imagine.

The only thing I can think, if it is actually true that Gamestop (and videogame retail in general) offers such bad service is that for some reason the customer either doesn't care or doesn't notice that they are being treated so miserably. If a customer came into my shop and asked for a full bodied red wine and I sold them a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc or Red Burgundy they would either come back and complain or just never come back at all. My guess about video game retail is that you have one section of the customer base like ourselves who get information from elsewhere and so don't need advice from shop staff, and the other portion are mums and dads who think they whole thing is so complicated and indecipherable that they feel intimidated to complain, or just don't understand when they have been sold a turkey.

My main issue is that I think it is crazy that we seem to have got ourselves into this situation where the customer is to blame if they come away from a shop with the wrong product. Everyone says the internet is killing off the high street. My hope would be that what the internet is really killing of are all these big chains who employ staff with no training, knowledge or passion who don't offer any service to the consumer other than ringing up the till and bagging their purchases. Its probably a dream, but I would love it if all the faceless retailing could be done online and we were left with small shops who care about and understand what they sell, and realise that the secret to a long lasting profitable business is building a relationship with the consumer based on serving their needs rather than pushing them out of the door with a cart full of junk they didn't want.

TLDR: What i'm saying is that it is a pretty shitty world if we have to shop with the idea everyone is either lying or ignorant, and there has to be some profit in offering a good service.

@leebmx:

Working at a wineshop is a silly thing to compare to a store like Gamestop, Best Buy, or Toys r' us. I bet I dealt with more customers in an hour at Toys R' Us than you did in an entire day at Oddbins. At a certain point I didn't have time to act as personal shopping assistant to every soccer mom who wanted me to help her find a DS game in the $5 bin.

I think there is definitely a difference but it is more in the kind of customer than the store themselves. They are both chain stores specialising in a certain product which needs a good store of knowledge to confidently offer advice. I see a lot of similarites in that way. They essentially offer the same service. I am talking about Gamestop here, not the other two stores which are more wide ranging I think.

Also some days we would do hundreds of customers and it could get very busy indeed. There were plenty of times I was just sat at a till ringing through one sale after another.

Game/Gamestaston the UK version Gamestop (owned by the same people in the end) I have heard some weird stuff.

A woman asked about "Mario" on the 360. Dude checked the entire store for her and then said "hmm..i dont think there is Mario for 360...which is weird cos youd think they would make alot of money with it." I felt like braining myself.

The weeks before GTA 5 was to be released I preorder GTA 5, the girl tried to get me to by the strategy guide saying "You know that the achievements for GTA 5 is only going to be collectables. No story progression achievements." I replied "huh thats weird." then said no. Utter lies.

@leebmx: I suppose I should clarify...

Companies don't want their employees to outright lie; they want them to go to a manager for information. But what if the manager is preoccupied in the backroom or on the phone with another customer? There were several times when I didn't know something, and I was a deer in headlights because no one was around to help me and obviously, the customer would rather leave instead of wait another five minutes. Why bother going through that awkward situation when an employee can just say something? I don't think a lot of people think ahead about their actions...

And I think that's why people lie in addition to the "Oh, I heard..." bullshit. When I was younger, I'm sure I was guilty of it, as well. In fact, I know I was. I was a fucking punk when I was a kid. Just give any recommendation (even if it's shitty) and hope the customer doesn't come back to complain or return the item. Surprisingly, a lot of them don't. Problem solved, for now. And if they go through the trouble of coming back, there's the defense of having an opinion. "Oh, I'm sorry you did not like our recommendation." Or hopefully they'll come back when you aren't working, which is possible if you're only part-time. Now if it's something completely not true, that's another thing entirely. But all managers have to do is say they're sorry, claim it was an honest mistake, and give the customer a refund or some incentive like a gift card to come back again.

It is a shitty world. Companies are shitty to their employees; employees are shitty to customers; customers are shitty back; and sometimes some customers are downright shitty people in general, which exacerbates things and causes employees to be shitty to innocent people. It's a stressful job, and it doesn't help when low-level employees are (constantly) pressured into convincing every single customer to buy a store card, magazine subscription, and pre-order. I remember being an assistant manager at Blockbuster when I was younger (man, I had some thankless jobs growing up), and the district manager and people in corporate would treat you differently if you didn't sell enough movie passes or memberships each week. There was a quota, and I was encouraged to try to convince every customer in getting at least something, even if it would not benefit them at all.

Basically, a big ol' :(

Some of the shit that my local game store clerks say makes me shake my head. I'm not sure if they believe the BS they sometimes spout, or if they're just misinformed...

I've not really seen this myself but I picked up Damnation a while ago from Game, the look on the dudes face was priceless. I knew what I was getting into I love that jenky piece of crap.

I was recommended gears 2 once which annoyed me. Anyway ye its bang out of order and probly happens a lot less in other industries.

@wraxend: To be fair, if the customer does not know better it will not necessarily disappoint them if they end up with whatever the store has in stock on hand.

Though I don't personally go to pawnshops, so I've never purchased at a Gamestop (and have started avoiding Bestbuy - the local ones have gotten really trashy in the video game area).

It is a gamestops employee's job to make sure the customer happy, because that is good business and that brings business back later. Lying or misinforming customers of products will deter the customer from coming back and there you are failing your job. That person is responsible for their own work, don't make excuses for them as if they didn't chose to work there or are being forced there just because it is in entry level.

I am a Manager in a store and I tell my cashiers that if they have any questions, that they should get me. Guess what? They do. Whenever I or they don't have information about something where we work, we let the customer know that and/or get another employee/Manager who might have a better idea. This is a part of the job, whether you like it or not that is what you're being paid for and if you don't like it, well tough.

It is funny to me that you're criticizing the laziness of the customer, but are excusing the laziness of someone who is being paid to do a specific job.

I excuse the laziness of minimum wage hourly employees for the same reason I excuse the quality of a nickel shoeshine. You get what you pay for. I don't know why you expect knowledge, effort and competence at entry level, menial labor positions. If I expected the kind of wisdom and motivation I get from my tailor or my broker, I would expect it would be as expensive as they are. You pay these people to be stock clerks and custodians and then you expect them to be salespeople too? Go to a dealership, I bet you the guys selling the cars aren't the ones scrubbing them down. Real companies that require real salesmanship do not hire kids out of high school, they hire communications grads and pay them like professionals.

If you run the place like WalMart, don't expect your employees to treat it like Tiffany's.

Keep in mind, I didn't defend the employee in this specific case. Employee is incompetent, absolutely, but of course they are, because they're a minimum wage employee. I just said that the woman should have known to do more than just take the word of a single wage-slave, because of course she should have. If I had a peanut allergy, I wouldn't bother asking the woman at the McDonald's window, I would just look it up, I have access to every extant piece of information ever recorded in my pants pocket.

Anybody know how many paid hours of training and/or education the average Gamestop employee receives each week?

That is not a great comparison because she is in a game/electronic store asking for the appropriate merchandise that is sold there. Maybe she should have had more knowledge but at the same time that doesn't excuse that the employee misinforming her just because of his pay rate. If these people work bad because of that I hope they don't get upset when looking for another job and that don't get a good recommendation. Being paid minimum wage sucks but a lot of people do it and they do their jobs.

I'm still depressed people think it is a bummer that someone is buying someone they love a gift even if it is slightly off.

Am i the only person here who's gamestop doesn't try to screw them? I mean they ask if you want to preorder a game but if you say no they just drop and they are actually nice, i have never heard them say anything outrageous like this.

@brodehouse: some people don't wear pants, you sexist monster.

Its kind of on you if you buy something and dont do the research, and think the person trying to sell you something behind the counter is the person to ask about the quality of something. That's like you go to a restaurant and ask the person working there, hey what's good here. Well shit, dude, everything's good here cus I work here.

@zekhariah: Well I think knowing what games he liked was good enough research to be honest as she had no idea what games where in the offer, which turned out to be Knack, AC4, Driveclub and Watchdogs... and we all know the state of those two last ones. But for the shop assistant to lie about what type of game Knack is really takes the piss. I mean I work in a shop myself and if I ever misinformed a customer I would get in serious trouble, plus we have this whole educating the staff so we can help our customers to make the best decisions for themselves.

This is what happens when there is insufficient competition. Gamestop essentially owns the entire retail segment and can basically do what they want. It's also why the EB/Gamestop merger was very bad for consumers.

As more and more industries consolidate into fewer and fewer International conglomerates we are going to see a lot more of this in every industry.

I remember a guy at a store here telling a mother that the PS2 is more powerful than the Xbox.

What a stupid cunt.

I'm in the market for a new phone and I had a super cool customer service experience from a dude who dissuaded me from getting a more expensive phone (Lumia 1020) because he didn't think it was as good as some cheaper ones (Xperia Z1, HTC One). I guess people in phone shops probably aren't dealing with the same volume of customers as people in game shops, but it's nice to know there are people in retail who aren't just trying to mislead customers and sell them the most expensive thing they have in stock.