Why work at a video game store?

[Taintsaw]

I know we all complain about it, that we hate people who work in stores who don't know ANYTHING about where they work.

(ADDED AN UPDATE AT THE BOTTOM!)

IE: Lowes, Bestbuy, Gamestop, Gamecrazy, Stereo stores.


3 Weeks ago I preordered Rockband2 & Drums. I checked a week ago they had a 9/10/08 release for the drums.


I called tonight, to ask if they would have them tomorrow.
"Uh, it probably means it ships tomorrow, and be here on thurs/friday"
Ok, thats fine.
"Are you having a midnight release for rockband 2?"
"Uh, I don't know but I don't think because they come in those big boxes and we don't normally do that.
I respond
"There not releasing the box set yet, only instruments seperate with the game"
"No, there releasing the box set first, and then the games seperate later"
I respond
"Then how will I pick up the drums on thursday or friday if there not releasing till after the game?"
"I don't think you will be able to pick up the drums"
"So then no midnight release?"
"Probably not"

UPDATE!!

So, I called gamecrazy again today, to see if they came in. And he said No.
So I called GameStop. The first store conversation went as this


"Hi, Do you have the xbox 360 rockband 2 drum set in yet?"
"No sorry, those won't be in for a few months"
"No, I think there coming out this week"
"No, they will be out later on after the game comes out"
"The 360 ones?"
"Yes"
"Can you check your computer?"
"(Frustrated he checks and replies )Well it says here they should have been here yesterday, but there not, so I don't know when, maybe tomorrow"
"Fantastic"

I then called the other gamestop in the mall
"Hi, do you have the xbox 360 rockband 2 drum set?"
"No, you can only buy it through the website"
"The website? Which one"
"The one thats selling them online"
"Is this all game stops?"
"Yeah, I think so"
"So you mean to tell me you won't be selling the 360 rockband 2 drum set?"
"No, we won't be"
"How much do they cost on the website?"
"Around 300 dollars"
"Are you sure the 360 one costs 300$?"
"Yeah, plus shipping"

I just said thanks and hung out. How could they possibly make these kind of mistakes?

Thanks asshat.

[schmeankman]

My Gamecrazy employees are generally knowledgeable (Spellin'?) and nice.

[Lord_Mhoram]

I hear your frustration.

Back when I worked at a comic/RPG/card shop, I made to point to familiarize myself with the games I didn't play, the state of the industry, and who and what was going on in the comics industry.

For a job that paid in store credit.

If you work in a specialty store you should know your product.

Thankfully the entire staff at my local Gamestop know about games.

[Oz1215]

I dont see why theres so much hate about the people at gamestop...from my experience, and i may just have a good part of the chain, the gmaestop employees here know their games..

[Mystlyfe77]

I've just learned not to stop at the Gamestop/EB franchise if I can avoid it. They treat their employees like crap and they tend not to have great customer service. I've watched them tried to fleece parents into buying crap for their kids that they really don't need constantly. "Oh, well you really need this disk doctor to go with that XBox. That way they can fix scratches to the disk."
"And then there's this charging station for the PS3 controllers."
Etc.

[ExpertDrummer]

Yeah I know what you mean.I had the same experience(thread or post,cant remember) about calling Wal-Mart and the person knew NOTHING,ABSOLUTLY NOTHING! :mad:

[mlothar16]

I've just learned not to stop at the Gamestop/EB franchise if I can avoid it. They treat their employees like crap and they tend not to have great customer service. I've watched them tried to fleece parents into buying crap for their kids that they really don't need constantly. "Oh, well you really need this disk doctor to go with that XBox. That way they can fix scratches to the disk."
"And then there's this charging station for the PS3 controllers."
Etc.

when Mario Kart for the Wii was coming out I decided to get it for my girlfriend. I knew it would be a fairly large release so I tried to preorder it the week of its release and the employee there told me I could not preorder it and good luck finding it. I was like well ****, so I went back the day of release (the midnight release) to ask if they would have extra copies that night, a different guy told me that I could just preorder it and not worry about it. Obviously frustrated I told him of my earlier conversation and he was like o yeh that guy likes to mess with people sorry.

I so let their manager have it hehe good times, o and a free 2nd race wheel for me

[jak0b27]

lol awesome

[The_Wurm]

My Gamecrazy employees are generally knowledgeable (Spellin'?) and nice.

WORD UP!

I'm a gameswazy employee.

err, was. I'm at school right now, but ill work during christmas.

Some kids that worked with me don't know much about games, which really pissed me off, cause they would make **** up. Then I would crack their head in for being ignorant.

[kiggidykev]

My fiancée manages a game store, so the perks are very, very nice :)

[Zeleii]

I hear your frustration.

Back when I worked at a comic/RPG/card shop, I made to point to familiarize myself with the games I didn't play, the state of the industry, and who and what was going on in the comics industry.

For a job that paid in store credit.

If you work in a specialty store you should know your product.

Thankfully the entire staff at my local Gamestop know about games.

Same here, my dude at my local gamestop has said "If someone returned the game I garuntee you we tried it one point or the other. You could ask me about any game here and I can tell you about it... accept animal crossing"

And all I know is I called today about the drums and the shift manager said "I don;t know, they were shipped yesterday so we will ahve it either tomorrow or Thursday"

[Grimlouis]

to answer the OPs question in a obvious way : to make money ?

[ffwarrior47]

well i work at a gamecrazy soooo to clear things up:

we know about the games. we all do. we just choose one customer a day to fcuk with, and act like we know nothing as our co-workers giggle in the back- round....


hope that cleared things up :D

[Hokonoso]

well i work at a gamecrazy soooo to clear things up:

we know about the games. we all do. we just choose one customer a day to fcuk with, and act like we know nothing as our co-workers giggle in the back- round....


hope that cleared things up :D

THIS is what is wrong with todays society. the fact that ppl would do this to an unsuspecting customer JUST to have a laugh about it is sickening! go tell a joke and laugh at that, laughter has no numerical value, ALL laughter is the same, there is ABSOLUTELY no reason to do this just to laugh!

sorry im just ranting now, i'd really be upset if this happened to someone i knew and would do my best to get the person(s) responsible fired.

[ffwarrior47]

THIS is what is wrong with todays society. the fact that ppl would do this to an unsuspecting customer JUST to have a laugh about it is sickening! go tell a joke and laugh at that, laughter has no numerical value, ALL laughter is the same, there is ABSOLUTELY no reason to do this just to laugh!

sorry im just ranting now, i'd really be upset if this happened to someone i knew and would do my best to get the person(s) responsible fired.

i was being sarcastic.

[Taintsaw]

Well, walmart I feel is a "Mega" store and not a speciality store. I would never ask a person in walmart anything beyond wheres the bathroom when looking for specifics.

The guys at the shop do play a few games, but that's it. You would think they would all know about the biggest titles out on any system. All these kids care about at this game crazy is Nintendo DS.

[killer_roach]

About the only time I've ever had an issue with GameStop employees here was that one of them had never heard of Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner, but that's pretty excusable in the grand scheme of things. :)

[Colt_Steele]

They treat their employees like crap and they tend not to have great customer service.
The latter usually springs from the former. Turds rolling downhill and all that.

I don't doubt that there are some Gamestops and other game retailers that are well-staffed and customer friendly environments, but sadly the old retail idiom has become reality for me: It only takes one horrible shopping experience to keep someone from ever walking through your door again.

Even if the handful of douchebags that made me swear off the Gamestop chain have long-since been sacked, the damage was done. If Gamestop had selected their hourly's, management and business model more carefully the widespread "bad experience" word of mouth probably wouldn't still persist today, effectively keeping me out of their establishment.

[killer_roach]

Something that business managers tend to impress upon employees, especially in the service industry... if you do something right by a customer, they'll tell one person about it. You do something wrong by the customer, they'll tell ten people. Just the fact of the matter.

[Mystlyfe77]

The latter usually springs from the former. Turds rolling downhill and all that.

I don't doubt that there are some Gamestops and other game retailers that are well-staffed and customer friendly environments, but sadly the old retail idiom has become reality for me: It only takes one horrible shopping experience to keep someone from ever walking through your door again.

Even if the handful of douchebags that made me swear off the Gamestop chain have long-since been sacked, the damage was done. If Gamestop had selected their hourly's, management and business model more carefully the widespread "bad experience" word of mouth probably wouldn't still persist today, effectively keeping me out of their establishment.

I agree 100%. There are probably plenty of good Gamestop/EB locations around, but a few bad incidents has just made me swear off the franchise.
Both the way I've been treated when I'm there and the way some of my friends were treated while they worked there. And it doesn't help that they now have at least 4 locations within 10 miles of me (2 of which are barely more than a block away from each-other), which thins out the quality employees even more.
I'd much rather just buy a product from a massive chain (Target) or online than deal with them anymore.

[HMXDave]

About the only time I've ever had an issue with GameStop employees here was that one of them had never heard of Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner, but that's pretty excusable in the grand scheme of things. :)

BWA HA HA HA HA!!!

The employees at my local Gamestop know their stuff and are really friendly for the most part.

The store manager is a cross-eyed tool with a superior, condescending attitude, but even he know a crapload about games.

I've actually seen one of the employees talk someone out of getting something that they wouldn't need.

[FloodOne]

BWA HA HA HA HA!!!

The employees at my local Gamestop know their stuff and are really friendly for the most part.

The store manager is a cross-eyed tool with a superior, condescending attitude, but even he know a crapload about games.

I've actually seen one of the employees talk someone out of getting something that they wouldn't need.

word, at my gamestop i watched an employee talk somebody out of buying the turd-in-a-box known as time crisis 4

i will never visit a different gamestop

[Colt_Steele]

And it doesn't help that they now have at least 4 locations within 10 miles of me (2 of which are barely more than a block away from each-other)
Only 4? If I were to look up the number within a 10 mile radius it would probably be closer to quintuple that. They are the only business chain apart from McDonald's that seems to persist through sheer number of locations.

Sadly, their business practice has probably improved since I was an employee of EB Games(not recently--I left there around the time some of the forum members here were born). During my tenure, there was nowhere to go but up. In terms of a passable work environment at least.

[HMXDave]

And it doesn't help that they now have at least 4 locations within 10 miles of me (2 of which are barely more than a block away from each-other), which thins out the quality employees even more.

I just did a quick search by my zip code and there are 36 Gamestops within 5 miles of my house.


At 15 miles, the number skyrockets to 144.

[Taintsaw]

So, I called gamecrazy again today, to see if they came in. And he said No.
So I called GameStop. The first store conversation went as this


"Hi, Do you have the xbox 360 rockband 2 drum set in yet?"
"No sorry, those won't be in for a few months"
"No, I think there coming out this week"
"No, they will be out later on after the game comes out"
"The 360 ones?"
"Yes"
"Can you check your computer?"
"(Frustrated he checks and replies )Well it says here they should have been here yesterday, but there not, so I don't know when, maybe tomorrow"
"Fantastic"

I then called the other gamestop in the mall
"Hi, do you have the xbox 360 rockband 2 drum set?"
"No, you can only buy it through the website"
"The website? Which one"
"The one thats selling them online"
"Is this all game stops?"
"Yeah, I think so"
"So you mean to tell me you won't be selling the 360 rockband 2 drum set?"
"No, we won't be"
"How much do they cost on the website?"
"Around 300 dollars"
"Are you sure the 360 one costs 300$?"
"Yeah, plus shipping"

I just said thanks and hung up. How could they possibly make these kind of mistakes?

[TomInOregon]

I went in earlier this year to buy an Xbox 360 Elite, a second controller, 5 games and a Wii if they had one (they didn't). We also picked up the Rock Band bundle while we were there since the kids wanted it and we preordered GTA4. One of the games we bought at the time was Final Fantasy 11(?) for the 360 and you have to install it on the hard drive. The manager at the Gamestop talked us out of the Elite because he said that we didn't need a hard drive that big. He told us he hadn't filled up his 20GB hdd yet and he had it since release. We questioned him multiple times about how much space saved games take up and how much space the Final Fantasy game would take. He did tell us that we would have ~13GB of actual usable hdd space, but he said none of the saved games or Final Fantasy would take more than a few hundred MB on the hard drive. Anyway, I still had misgivings, but bought the 20GB version of the 360. After a few days, my daughter installed the Final Fantasy game and it took ~7GB of space. My son downloaded a few game demos and we all created profiles and we came close to filling the hdd. I had to buy a 120GB hdd in less than a month to make sure I had enough room for GTA4 DLC (which hasn't shown up yet), and that was before we even started buying Rock Band DLC. I refuse to shop there again because I ended up paying ~$40 more to add a 120GB hdd than I would have spent if I had just gotten the Elite to begin with. I don't know if he was hoping we would come back and buy the other hdd from them, or if he really was clueless. At any rate, they lost our business for good.

[Mystlyfe77]

I just did a quick search by my zip code and there are 36 Gamestops within 5 miles of my house.


At 15 miles, the number skyrockets to 144.


Only 4? If I were to look up the number within a 10 mile radius it would probably be closer to quintuple that. They are the only business chain apart from McDonald's that seems to persist through sheer number of locations.


My 4 is from my suburban home. If we look at my urban college environment it's 42 within 5 miles (according to google), and 173 within 15. There are also 5 EBs and 2 Funcolands within 5 miles, and 10 and 7 within 15.

[Wolfee360]

Hell when I have my midlife crises this is the job I'm going to get lol No brains no stress lol