Game stop really taking the piss with their monopoly

Doctor DooM

*Doom walks into Gamestop

Dubstep BLARING

Looks at injustice

60 first hand, 55 second hand

16 year old staff comes over and talks to me like I'm a grand dad looking for a game for his son

Walk out instead*

You know what? I've no problem paying day 1 prices for day 1 games. I go out of my way to do so for franchises and companies I enjoy.

The last time I tried to buy a game in Gamestop, I was met with a blank face because it wasn't some generic FPS I wanted, and was basically told the game I was looking for didn't exist (I then walked over to the XGC and played my friends copy). Amazing product knowledge! Good thing HMV had it.

I'm not an unreasonable person. I've been a retail manager for 4 years. When I walk into a shop I am observing with that knowledge. I understand it's a difficult market. But shopping in gamestop is by and large an unpleasant, difficult experience and they're not far off walking into Tesco and checking the top 10, tbh, save for the second hand games.

I'm actually being driven to buy online.

C14N

Doctor DooM wrote: »

*Doom walks into Gamestop

Dubstep BLARING

Looks at injustice

60 first hand, 55 second hand

16 year old staff comes over and talks to me like I'm a grand dad looking for a game for his son

Walk out instead*

You know what? I've no problem paying day 1 prices for day 1 games. I go out of my way to do so for franchises and companies I enjoy.

The last time I tried to buy a game in Gamestop, I was met with a blank face because it wasn't some generic FPS I wanted, and was basically told the game I was looking for didn't exist (I then walked over to the XGC and played my friends copy). Amazing product knowledge! Good thing HMV had it.

I'm not an unreasonable person. I've been a retail manager for 4 years. When I walk into a shop I am observing with that knowledge. I understand it's a difficult market. But shopping in gamestop is by and large an unpleasant, difficult experience and they're not far off walking into Tesco and checking the top 10, tbh, save for the second hand games.

I'm actually being driven to buy online.

I think it largely depends on the shop you go into. I've gone into various Gamestops or even the same one at different times and gotten different experiences with the staff. Sometimes I've gone in looking for a game they don't have and they're basically looking at me like "I don't care if you get your game", other times I've actually had the staff call up other shops nearby to check if they have it and hold a copy for me there. Other times they even recommended I check Game or HMV. Sometimes the staff will even have a friendly chat about the game I just bought which is nice.

By the way, what was the game you were looking for?

johnny_ultimate

Let's never forget the role gamers play in both encouraging and maintaining these practices, especially a widespread perception of games as products rather than something of actual cultural worth. Really, demanding developers make their games worth holding onto (whatever that means) or it's an insta-trade-in is the kind of attitude I'd take with a washing machine, not a piece of entertainment or art. Gamestop are responsible for some regrettable practices, but the consumer partially sustains it.

Sure, gaming is a damn expensive medium to be a fan of. Yes - hands up - I refuse pretty much point blank to shop in Gamestop. I am not supportive of their 2nd hand policies which I think hurt both developers and the quality of games overall, and I think their ridiculously high mark up compared to competitors is largely down to taking advantage (if commercially sensible advantage) of more casual consumers who will wander. That, and the attitude of the workers in my local store is absolutely appalling. But I have long-since grown to simply not buy there. I also realise several of these policies are what's allowing them to survive in a harsh retail world (except the rudeness, but that's a specific branch problem) - that's not to mention the people here whose livelihood depends on them. Personally, I choose not to support them, which is my right as both a consumer and gamer.

It's a shame there's so few high street competitors these days - I work on the Southside of Dublin city centre, and a Gamestop is basically the only shop within reasonable lunchtime walking & browsing distance. But there are still options, whether that's Smyths (who, alas, have recently got rid of their loyalty card scheme ) or more frequently online. I don't feel I have to endure the high prices as I will rarely have to wait longer,except for certain premium titles, to get it cheaper - whether that's Playstation Plus or an online sale. I'd love to support but can't realistically afford every single day one title I'm interested in (I still do whenever I can, especially for smaller titles), so rather than buy it for an outrageous but slightly cheaper second-hand price I'd rather wait a few weeks and still have some chunk of my cash go in the general direction the production team. A great game - whether that's a short single player one or a constantly changing online epic - is always worth buying new.

returnNull

The only reason I'd use gamestop,hmv,game would be for the the impulse buy(I want the game and i want it now dammit!:) ) apart from that it'd be online

C14N

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Let's never forget the role gamers play in both encouraging and maintaining these practices, especially a widespread perception of games as products rather than something of actual cultural worth. Really, demanding developers make their games worth holding onto (whatever that means) or it's an insta-trade-in is the kind of attitude I'd take with a washing machine, not a piece of entertainment or art. Gamestop are responsible for some regrettable practices, but the consumer partially sustains it..

This is true and without really thinking about it, I realize it's actually the reason I never trade in. A lot of people (and even worse, critics) tend to factor in the length of a game in their judgement with the mind of "this will keep me entertained for more hours, ergo it is better value" and this is a really bad way of looking at it imo. I've never heard anybody thinking a film was better because it had a longer run time or a book was better because it had more pages. Nobody says "if this play isn't at least two hours long, there's no chance I'll pay €30 to see it" or "I'm not spending my money on an album shorter than an hour long".

So why is it that we say that if a game can't keep us going for long enough, we'll be sure to trade it in while the price is high? Why does it need longevity in the form of shoe-horned in multiplayer to make us hold onto it? Also, here's an idea, get some longevity by it being a good game that's worth playing through again. If I buy an album that's good, I listen to it loads of times. There's plenty of films good enough that I've gone back to sit through them again and even with games, I've gone through some a second time because they were good enough to warrant a repeat play.

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

gaming is a damn expensive medium to be a fan of.

I think this can vary a lot between people and it also depends on what you're comparing it to. The start up cost is relatively high, around €300 I think would generally be an average console price. Once you've gotten past that though, I don't think it's particularly expensive. Amazon day one prices are generally €50 at most and if you want to be a little thrifty and wait just a few months, these drop quickly. I have maybe 30 games on PS3 and maybe 150 on PC and out of those, I think I could count on one hand the number of times I've spent over €30 on a standard-edition game; I'm sure the median is about €10-15 at most. Consider that compared with music or film, you'll probably be buying far fewer titles too, and I don't think it's that expensive in comparison.

Grumpypants

The costs of games is high but I do think it is usually pretty good value. 5 trips to the cinema would get you around 10 hours of entertainment for the same kind of money that you would spend on a game and most games have at least 10 hours entertainment value. Games with multiplayer like BF3 has hundreds of hours of entertainment.

It is rare that I will trade in a game as I like to collect them. Usually it has to be a pretty poor game that I have zero interest in holding on to.