Gamestop will be closing down stores

[Tanooki]

Gamestop, do they actually communicate to their stores about their promotions? It appears they've had for this week a deal of buy 4 $5 or less used titles, get them for $10 sale. I asked 3 locations in the last 2 days if they had any specials going looking at Wii stuff and they all either were not told or lied to me as I got a NO. Kind of annoying.

 

Yet I can't be too upset, I did get Klonoa for $20 (an up to $40 ebay buy) for Wii. Though had I known of the other I could have snapped up a few cheapies I'd play. They just seem to really dig into the 1st party stuff asking well over retail on them and select few specialized titles like the operation rainfall trio of games.

[Mord]

 

Except I get far more content in todays games than I ever did in the past. Games drop in price quicker than they ever did- if you can wait 3 months you can probably get the game 30-50% off

 

And I know I earn more than twice what I earned in the 90s. The sticker price of new games hasn't doubled since then. In some cases, it was even higher back then

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/10/an-inconvenient-truth-game-prices-have-come-down-with-time/

 

If you're earning only twice as much as you did in the 90's, you're definitely less wealthy than you use to be thanks to inflation. And notice that you get far less with that increasing price tag on games, whereby the rest of it his hidden from you in the form of DLC, season passes, consumable microtransactions, etc in order to get the full game that you would have gotten up front in the past.

 

And that article is BS with people doing the exact same "adjusted for inflation" garbage. As I said, people use that argument incorrectly to support a point of view they wish were true.

[zzip]

If you're earning only twice as much as you did in the 90's, you're definitely less wealthy than you use to be thanks to inflation.

I did say "MORE THAN twice"

 

And notice that you get far less with that increasing price tag on games, whereby the rest of it his hidden from you in the form of DLC, season passes, consumable microtransactions, etc in order to get the full game that you would have gotten up front in the past.

I don't notice that at all. Price tag isn't increasing. I'm getting more now, not less. I don't even bother with buying DLC / season passes /microtransactions for most games, because there is usually more than enough in the base game. I usually get tired of playing it before I run out of content.

 

And that article is BS with people doing the exact same "adjusted for inflation" garbage. As I said, people use that argument incorrectly to support a point of view they wish were true.

And yet you used the 'adjusted for inflation' in your first line, and in the next you say it's meaningless. Which is it?

 

I used to pay $30 in the 80s for new games. Even if you don't adjust game prices for inflation, they only doubled in sticker price since then while my salary more than quadrupled since then. So they are more affordable at $60 now than at $30 then. Some games had higher $70 or $80 price tags in the 90s. By what metric are they getting more expensive?

 

Look at it another way, a 4 KB game used to cost $30, now a 25Gb game costs $60. All those Gb of data requires teams of people years to make, who all must get paid for their time. That 4K game used to be programmed by a single guy in a matter of weeks. So it so costs much more to make a game today, but the price hasn't risen at the same rate as development costs. How exactly are we getting ripped off today again?

Edited March 29, 2017 by zzip

[Flojomojo]

Wages are a bit flat/stagnant

Inflation is real

Gaming is cheaper than ever, considering all the options we have. I buy games all the time, but only very rarely at the $60 asking price.

[Keatah]

Downloadable games is the future (sadly.)

It's a future everyone wants. They suck it up 2-40!

[Tanooki]

Wages are a bit flat/stagnant

Inflation is real

Gaming is cheaper than ever, considering all the options we have. I buy games all the time, but only very rarely at the $60 asking price.

That's a pretty fair statement. I rarely pay the full price too as I see no reason to support it. I'm not so hard up and desperate to play online or be part of the me too gamer crowd I have to get my addiction hit then and there. I'm good waiting months, even a year or two for the real 'final' product where they're not holding back parts to profit further or at least to get the dumb bugs out avoiding GB's of patch downloads. The only time I'll dig in on full price if I know it's either a game that won't drop due to the company (ie: Nintendo -- goes for years IF it hits a players choice/selects line) or it's something I'm so certain I'll finish and get the value out of I'll do it. Recently a third case I guess would be to import a game to get a real copy and not a bs rental download ($43 shipped for I Am Setsuna for Switch vs $40 for an eshop rental.)

 

I don't often finish stuff anymore either, time and kid limits as it is, so I also don't see me paying up a heap on something I likely won't get enough hours of either. I figure if I can buy the same game for $60 and get 20 hours, or buy it for $20 and get 20 hours I'd rather pay a dollar an hour than three.

[Mord]

And yet you used the 'adjusted for inflation' in your first line, and in the next you say it's meaningless. Which is it?

 

I was using inflation properly in my sentence. I was taking into account both the wages of the individual and the prices of goods to determine that - thanks to inflation - people are worse off than they use to be on average. Most arguments using "adjusted for inflation" are completely ignoring the wage side of the issue, making the entire thing meaningless. Such as the article you linked.

 

Now, regarding your "more than twice" pay rate, I'm assuming you've been at the same job with the same employer since the 90's. If you've moved from other jobs that just paid better from the get-go, then it's not a very accurate/fair judge of the effect of inflation. I've been with the same job for the last 10-15 years. During that time my paycheck has roughly doubled. But I can assure you the money doesn't go too much farther than the lower rate I use to have back in the day. Certainly not twice as far. (And naturally if I had the same lower rate today that I had back then, it wouldn't go nearly as far as it use to.)

[Andromeda Stardust]

And often you KNOW it should have been in the game in the first place because it's literally ON THE DISC when you buy it. Which means, it was designed, programmed, and ready to implement the day you took that game home-- the only reason it's not in the game when you first boot it is so the publisher can shake you down another $10 or $20.

you can tell by the size of the dlc pack. If its only a few kb, you are basically getting a unlock key.

[Unbeliever]

Am I the only one without any bad Gamestop stories? I've seem some seriously questionable stuff being done in GS stores (people selling obviously stolen games and whatnot), but I've personally never had a bad experience. I usually go to GS because where I am it's either GS or a non-video game centric big box chain store which may or may not have what I'm looking for. There really aren't a lot of independent game stores around here and few there are look sketchy as hell.

No, you are not. I personally have never had a bad experience at my local Gamestop. It's the only one that's close to me..the others are at least a 45 minute drive to an hour and a half. I hope my Gamestop isn't one they are targeting, but we'll see. Our local Pizza Hut suffered the shut down fate, and now the nearest one is the 45 minute drive. However, there were at least 4 other pizza joints nearby that offered better deals. Shame, really.

[Austin]

Gamestop, do they actually communicate to their stores about their promotions?

 

If it's like it was when I worked from them a ways back, they should have a tab on their main terminal page that lists all ongoing promotions. They wouldn't be "in your face", so employees were (and probably are) responsible for keeping up with that. Of course, if they aren't, it's the manager's job to make sure they are. My manager's were always good with letting us know what was important and what wasn't.

 

That said, I have had multiple bad experiences with GameStop since I left, but it may also be my experience talking. Our stores were run so well with knowledgeable individuals, it really... really pissed me off when I went to stores that weren't. Or, after I left, when I went to stores that kept trying to push stuff on me.

 

I ended up throwing some PSP cases at one of the reps when they kept trying to up-sell me stuff even when I told them I used to work for the company ("Durr, it's a part of my job..." excuse). When your "talent" is that desperate to sell something, your company isn't worth me shopping at. I was kicked out (naturally), but haven't been to a GameStop since. That was about five years ago.

 

I have no regrets.

[Tanooki]

I don't blame you for losing your cool if they were that aggressive even a former employee that got why they did it couldn't handle the push. At least that answers my question that they were lazy or just incompetent if it's something right there easily accessed if someone asks.

 

I'm off work in a few hours, planning to head out to a few spots (goodwill and stuff) and if I cross any GS shops I'll roll in knowing about the 4 for $10 on $5/less games and see if I can scrape up any good cheap nuggets of fun. Their pricing is so wonky but there are a lot of third party titles that seem to be around the $3-7 range so maybe it'll work out. I wouldn't go in there otherwise, but that's the only variety near by until a dry weekend that's free hits I can roll the 2 flea markets in the 2 counties next to here. I know some people with heaps of it.

[Flojomojo]

It seems like a delicate balance -- pushing your stuff and knowing when to dial it back so you don't turn someone off from ever shopping there again.

 

I remember HH Gregg asking for all kinds of home address contact information before they'd let me buy a $99 AppleTV box with my credit card. I pushed back, saying they I didn't want to give them that information, and he countered that in that case, I was welcome to pay cash.

 

"Well, I can buy it online or at the Best Buy down the street without being treated like a criminal. Why should I ever choose to buy anything here ever again?" I walked out, and never went back. I tell this story to anyone who will listen if this place (or the Circuit City it replaced) ever comes up in conversation.

 

Taken on it's own, yeah, I'm just an uppity nerd who likes things a certain way. But in aggregate, enough bad customer experiences make the difference in choosing where to shop. The store is closing because the chain is going bankrupt. Shocking!

[Flojomojo]

Is 2017 the death of retail as we know it? (link)

 

Each day, it seems another beloved shopping icon is issuing bad news as retailers continue to face a challenging environment. Brick-and-mortar stores are struggling to change and adapt fast enough in the highly competitive digital age and retailers are closing under-performing stores, shedding workers and launching new initiatives in an attempt to cut costs and stay relevant.

 

That USAToday article has lists and maps of other stores, including Sears, Kmart, JCPenney, HHGregg, Macy's, RadioShack (again), Payless, and others. Lots of retail employees losing work as a result.

 

This blog looks like it will be a good place to see where the closing GameStop stores are.

[keepdreamin]

Yeah, considering there's 3 near me, all within the same 1/2 square mile.... not a big deal.

[Tanooki]

I'd imagine if there's any inside a mall alone, or like the only one within a 30min drive distance it will be safe. It's the idiotic spots where you have 2 in the same strip(or indoor) mall, or clusters of a few within a 1-5mi radius anyone could walk to between them easily enough. They're so overkill it's ridiculous.

 

I happened by one today, found Heavenly Guardian complete for $5. For anyone who isn't aware, that Wii game was designed entirely to be Pocky & Rocky 3, but then Natsume decided against allowing UFO to license the name and star characters, so they renamed it and reskinned the IP covered visuals. So like if you're a fan of the franchise and hate the awful prices on the games if you buy stuff vs ROMs, it's a sound pick for almost nothing. I'll try and cross a few more over the weekend when I can and see if I can find 4 $5 games(or less) in one location to get that $10 deal. Oddly(or not) on the flip side, they're charging retail or +$5 over retail price on used Wii games Nintendo still sells under their Selects line via their own site or some stores that still take in Wii stuff. That's really uncool.

Edited March 31, 2017 by Tanooki

[toptenmaterial]

Fuck GameStop.

 

I was there yesterday with my niece and my kid. I had taken everyone out to eat and was low on dough but figured I'd see if they had a classic controller for the Wii so we could get into the Super Nintendo games. I called ahead of time and got a price on a controller. When I get there the controller is gone and they want twice as much for a first party model. The guy then offers me a controller at the price he quoted me on the phone, but points out that it's not compatible with the Wii. He could have at least apologized.

[TheClassyGamer]

There are two of their stores here in town. Originally there was just one in our mall, then in the plaza across the street they opened another. After a short while, they closed the one in the mall and got rid of everyone there. Not too long ago they opened a second one in a different part of town. I liked the one that was in the mall as it had great staff, I was sad to see that go, It used to be an EB games for a while before it became GameStop.

 

The other two are pretty good. I've not had any real issue with them and have overall had a good experience and they have pretty good staff.

 

 

I bought a used PS4 they had because it was one of the limited edition white ones and I didn't want another big black 2001 Space Odyssey monolith to look at. Got the warranty with it just in case. A while later the system put out an awful smell and quit loading discs. When I went back they couldn't get me another white system, but offered to give me one of the new white Xbox console bundles in exchange and swap all my ps4 games for xbox games and move my warranty to the new unit. I thought that was pretty good of them.

[HoshiChiri]

Fuck GameStop.

 

I was there yesterday with my niece and my kid. I had taken everyone out to eat and was low on dough but figured I'd see if they had a classic controller for the Wii so we could get into the Super Nintendo games. I called ahead of time and got a price on a controller. When I get there the controller is gone and they want twice as much for a first party model. The guy then offers me a controller at the price he quoted me on the phone, but points out that it's not compatible with the Wii. He could have at least apologized.

 

Now, just to check- you did ask to put it on hold, right? Id've raised a stink and a half if my hold item got sold from under me when I came in within a couple hours of calling. Especially when their only solution was an option at twice the cost.

 

The only issues I've ever really had with our Gamestops involved preorder bonuses (the rare times I did them). Once they actually went out of their way to get me the Xenoblade Chronicles artbook 2 days after the game released because I was out of town & the person I sent to get the game forgot to ask for it (even though I specifically told them too.) Thought that was pretty classy.

[zzip]

 

Now, just to check- you did ask to put it on hold, right? Id've raised a stink and a half if my hold item got sold from under me when I came in within a couple hours of calling. Especially when their only solution was an option at twice the cost.

 

 

Assuming he ever had the other controller in the first place. The whole thing sounds like a bait and switch to get the customer into the store.

[toptenmaterial]

 

Now, just to check- you did ask to put it on hold, right? Id've raised a stink and a half if my hold item got sold from under me when I came in within a couple hours of calling. Especially when their only solution was an option at twice the cost.

 

The only issues I've ever really had with our Gamestops involved preorder bonuses (the rare times I did them). Once they actually went out of their way to get me the Xenoblade Chronicles artbook 2 days after the game released because I was out of town & the person I sent to get the game forgot to ask for it (even though I specifically told them too.) Thought that was pretty classy.

And.... tried one next to my house for the sake of convenience, got the controller and it doesn't work.

 

Now I can definitively say that they suck. I feel a bit silly for giving them another shot.

[Tanooki]

Can't say I hate them at the moment, got a few nice Wii games lower than ebay yesterday, but some of the stores were yappy about pushing the other garbage, some were just chill and it was over with like anywhere else. The whole chain is hit and miss.

[HoshiChiri]

 

Assuming he ever had the other controller in the first place. The whole thing sounds like a bait and switch to get the customer into the store.

 

That's why you ask to put it on hold- if they say 'no', you can pretty much assume that's the case & not go. If they say 'yes' and you get down there & there's no controller, you have a good case to throw at the mananger/DM to get compensation for the mistake.

 

Personally, I always just use the online inventory system. That way, if there's a sneaky employee, you don't tip them off to the good stuff.

And.... tried one next to my house for the sake of convenience, got the controller and it doesn't work.

 

Now I can definitively say that they suck. I feel a bit silly for giving them another shot.

 

Wish I could say I was surprised, but I'm not. Kind of well-known that they don't test anything that gets traded in. I suppose it's sheer dumb luck I can only think of 2 things we've bought from GS that didn't work. Eternal Sonata on Xbox didn't load, but it was new-in-shrinkwrap so that's not their fault. The only other 'new' copy was a gutted one, though. They did offer to just refund it, which was nice- we took the gutted one because we wanted to play asap. The only other time was years ago- a used copy of Landstalker with a dead save battery. The clerk felt my pain on that one when I returned it.

Edited April 4, 2017 by HoshiChiri

[toptenmaterial]

 

Now, just to check- you did ask to put it on hold, right? Id've raised a stink and a half if my hold item got sold from under me when I came in within a couple hours of calling. Especially when their only solution was an option at twice the cost.

 

The only issues I've ever really had with our Gamestops involved preorder bonuses (the rare times I did them). Once they actually went out of their way to get me the Xenoblade Chronicles artbook 2 days after the game released because I was out of town & the person I sent to get the game forgot to ask for it (even though I specifically told them too.) Thought that was pretty classy.

What I did say was something to the effect of "I'll be there in 10 minutes"

[toptenmaterial]

 

That's why you ask to put it on hold- if they say 'no', you can pretty much assume that's the case & not go. If they say 'yes' and you get down there & there's no controller, you have a good case to throw at the mananger/DM to get compensation for the mistake.

 

Personally, I always just use the online inventory system. That way, if there's a sneaky employee, you don't tip them off to the good stuff.

 

Wish I could say I was surprised, but I'm not. Kind of well-known that they don't test anything that gets traded in. I suppose it's sheer dumb luck I can only think of 2 things we've bought from GS that didn't work. Eternal Sonata on Xbox didn't load, but it was new-in-shrinkwrap so that's not their fault. The only other 'new' copy was a gutted one, though. They did offer to just refund it, which was nice- we took the gutted one because we wanted to play asap. The only other time was years ago- a used copy of Landstalker with a dead save battery. The clerk felt my pain on that one when I returned it.

I did exchange the non-working controller, without a slip, and that was good of them. I'm still done with them. Amazon smokes them in every way.

[Unbeliever]

I just don't know if I got "lucky" or my Gamestop is the exception to the rule of being rude and obnoxious to their customers. In light of the fact that I have never had a bad experience there, the only issue I can think of off the top of my head with them is the fact that they always want me to buy used, not new. I make it a point to go in there once a month and guy a shiny, new game or a few used games at a reduced price. Just went in and bought a new copy of the Deluxe version of Mass Effect: Andromeda. They treated me well, as always, and offered me all the perks that they have to (upcoming games to pre order, do you want to buy the new Microsoft Xbox One S, etc.).

 

It's more than just being a customer. I can shoot the shit with them for awhile and discuss games, talk about my favorites, old classics, etc. They always have time to let me bend their collective ears unless they're swamped. I enjoy the one on one customer experience that they seem to offer over and above the sales pitch plans most Gamestop stores have in place. Thinking back, I really can't think of any super bad experiences that made me never want to walk in there again.

Edited April 4, 2017 by Unbeliever