Heh. When I was at UT in the early 1990s, there was a place on 29th and Guadalupe called Floppy Joe’s. You could “rent” software from there. It was like $3 for a game or an app… and if you could crack it, or find a serial, or it didn’t require a serial at all… well, you know the rest.
'Course this was before the Internet was huge and you could just Google for a serial. So I suppose they didn’t have too much of a problem with piracy. I guess it was the brick-and-mortar version of trial software.
Oh, and Gamestop and EB? They royally suck. If I can’t wait for a PS2 title to come in the mail, I do occasionally haunt their premises. Mostly because I’m not a huge PS2 fanboy and outside of the NCAA Football franchise, I usually catch wind of games way after they’ve been released. So when it’s NCAA Football release day, I’m usually at one of those stores, cursing their existence, the clueless staff, and the gangs of 12 year olds with the enabling moms asking if they already have MorboEater 25 with the TurboBear expansion pack. Ugh.
I’ve never had much experience with GameStop, other than dropping $5 on a couple-years-old sports game every once in a while, but I’ve heard a lot of bad stuff. I have a friend who used to work there and he said the mismanagement on a national level is incredible–the example he gave was of the national office only shipping 40 copies of FF7 to his location for the release, which as I’m sure you remember was easily one of the most hyped games of the decade–and the utter inebriated madness on the top levels only leads to unchecked fraud, waste and abuse at the lower levels.
Plus I was in a GameStop by my school the other day, and a black former classmate of mine walked in–one of the geekiest dudes I’ve ever known, who wouldn’t play or watch a competitive team sport if his life depended on it–and the cashier made small talk with him by asking if the nearby gym had a basketball court. :eek: The guy took it in stride, but I couldn’t believe it. I don’t know why I didn’t tear the cashier a new asshole; I must have been half-asleep or something.
I thought they would give you money for your games so I took them to Gamestop. But of course they only did store credit and for the 2 games I sold them I got an amazing $7 of credit with a receipt for proof. I washed my jeans with said receipt. I might as well have just left the games in a basket at their doorstep.
Why are they so keen on pushing pre-orders? They don’t really seem to give a damn if I buy a game already in the store but they get pretty hot and bothered if I ask about a game that isn’t out yet.
I really hate Gamestop, those ratfuckers. Especially after they bought EB Games. Ratfuckers. Not that the small stores have been any great shakes these last few years. I used to want to patronize EB Games, because I actually liked them, but if I didn’t put in a preorder for a game I was shit outta luck. Ratfuckers. On at least one occasion, I went into EB Games on a game’s release date and asked for it. Obviously they’d given their stock to the pre-orders and didn’t expect more for a couple of weeks. So I went over to the Target, where they were unpacking at least two boxes of the game. The employee just handed me a copy straight out of the box. That right there pushed me more to being favorable toward big box stores than I ever had been before.
Semi un-educated guess here:
Gamestop doesn’t want to keep excess inventory of new games it won’t move after the first 2 or so weeks the game is out, so it keeps its initial orders to what it knows will sell. Additionally, every release has the same problem, be it hardware or software. The company releasing can only make x many from the time it goes gold. It has to allot those x to stores nationwide. The company releasing doesn’t want to incur inventory storage costs and wants to see cash inflows, so there will often be a run on a product on initial release simply because they can’t match supply with immediate demand. Smaller outlets, which include EB/Gamestop, often end up with the short-stick in these cases.
This next part is not a semi-uneducated guess, rather a statement of fact:
No store manager nor corporate exec wants to see a potential customer walk out the store without product. Pre-orders will help them match up supply to the demand, and then it will be a scramble to get enough copies to fill walk-in requests.
I am never hassled about preordering when I go into gamestop. Probably because I am a middle aged man who would laugh in their face and go elsewhere for the game. I cannot believe that they are able to get people to pre order software. If I have to preorder I might as well buy from amazon and have it shipped to my door.
Sometimes you want the one, sometimes the other. PLus, you can preorder something and get it guarranteed on street date.
Aside from everything said here, I’m a lot friendlier to Best Buy and so forth. They usually have a decent selection of PC stuff, good prices, and actually keep stuff in stock for more than a week.
What really burns me about Gamestop is their return and buy-back policy. I could live without it, but I’m NOT going to be treated like a second-class customer because they’re obsessed with console sales. I’ll take my business down the road, thank you. For console stuff, I prefer Game Crazy in Hollywood Video. I’m surprised, but my local one has a fantastic used game selection and price things competitively. They don’t bug me and are often willing to chat. And they pack the whole thing in about a quarter of Gamestop’s space!
I’ve never understood the GameStop/EB Games hate (EB was actually a great store before the merger) but I have a theory as to why it is the way it is:
Gamers shouldn’t work in a game store.
The GameStop in the mall is filled with friendly employees (not gamers) who will let me browse and not feel the need to talk to me about the latest release (which is usually something I’m not interested in) or attempt to get me to pre-order anything (because they don’t know when anything is coming out and what they should be pushing anyway).
But the GameStop down the street from where I work is staffed almost exclusively by gamers and all of them feel the need to talk up the latest releases (“Pokemon is so great! You should buy it!” “I don’t like Pokemon games.” “Why not?”) or pushing pre-orders every few minutes because they’ve got the list memorized. And no, I don’t believe you when you say the only way to obtain any of the newest Wii releases is to pre-order them. There’s a Blockbuster, KB Toys, Target and two indie game stores less than a mile from here. I think I’ll be OK.
I sold around 20 games there because I was desperate for money. Looked at the reciept when I got home, realized I only got 80 cents for some games. Also you can apparently not trade in games unless you are nineteen. Luckily my father was nearby. Next time I’ll take them to a Flea Market or something
What I don’t understand about Gamestop has been their refusal to accept in-store pre-orders for the Wii console. Their policy seems to be to call and annoy the store clerks on a daily basis to see if their stock has changed or to go to the store in person.
I disagree, having gamer employees is helpful. I like being able to say “I want C&C3” and having the salesperson instantly know what I mean. It’s frustrating as hell when you get a person who doesn’t know the merchandise he’s selling.
Only problem is that gamers often come in the Comic Book Guy form.
