GameStop Employees are Arrogant and Biased, Porn Wars?
I’m a video game consumer. I know about video games and the news behind them. When I write, it’s more to inform the public of what’s going on. I don’t try to brag about the things I know, or experiences I’ve been through. Those kind of people make me sick. I’m a journalist who likes playing video games. On the other hand, there are some critics in the industry who try to belittle the rest of us. Since I never name names (after my Godfather II review) I will classify this bunch as a whole. In my experiences, GameStop employees are the rudest and most arrogant gamers I’ve ever spoken to.
There’s never a time that I walk into a GameStop and rebuttal with an employee on certain games. No, I never start it. But their opinions are always to non-looking gamer. Oh yeah, and they LOVE to chime in during your gaming conversations with friends.
I take you back to the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD debate. At the time, Sony’s PS3’s Blu-ray was battling against Microsoft’s Xbox360 HD-DVD and it became apparent to me that fanboyism was at an all time high. I walked into my local GameStop retailer when I heard this “Xbox 360 will always be a better value. You have the top games, XBox Live and now there will be an HD-DVD add on.” I laughed under my breath because I knew the total value for those items would be more than the PS3. So I asked “How much would all that equal too?”. The GameStop employee looked at me quizzical and said ” $399 for the 360 and $199 for the HD-DVD”. I then said “Xbox Live isn’t free. That’ll run you an additional $80, right?”. To which he replied, you get what you pay for man.
I was ok with what he said, until the “man” part. That was him saying “PSN and those who use that FREE feature are garbage. So I came back to him and said “Mark my words, the Blu-ray will survive this format war and Microsoft will back peddle.” While it’s easy for me to say this now, at that time I knew about the previous media format war Sony lost with the Beta-max. Difference now is gamers WANT their games. In HD, with extra content and stored in one media. Unlike the 4 discs PC games come with or some Xbox 360 games.
Soon came this part-time, heavily pronounced Adam’s apple, “teeth to large for his mouth” co-worker was “chiming” in, he mentioned “Porn Wars”. As the main antagonist of the story and I looked at this new villain, he continued and mentioned “Sony lost the war due to restricting the pornography industry from marketing their movies on Beta-max”. As I just processed what he just said, I brought my copy of Leisure Suit Larry to the register and walked out shaking my head.
While I can go on with this rant of GameStop employees, have you ever experienced a “difficult” one? If so, drop it in the comments, I’d love for corporate to read it.
I think you lost because you bought Leisure Suit Larry.
Agreed on the Fan boy 360 folks, but you have to realize all the free stuff microsoft gives employees and also the utter crap that sony gives. Gamestop employees are bought off. He who gives the most stuff gets talked about more you see that in every industry.
I honestly play more 360 games than Ps3. It just happens that way but I believe charging for Xbox Live is wrong and that is why I have held back getting gold again for so long. Though it pains me to not be able to play with my friends only due to that and their dumb live parties. I think xbox 360 owners should get off the gold bandwagon forcing xbox to make going online free like the ps3! Who is with me?
@babylinda
If paying for it means better service, better everything from head to toe then I don’t mind it. But at the same time if for free I get the same level of service then Microsoft should look at lowering their prices.
@knight28
I concur!
what is so much better in LIVE than PSN. I can pretty much do everything that LIVE offers in PSN. Which the exception of Cross Game Invites and Cross Game Chatting.
So what is so much better. I hear reports of the famous games suffering from LAG (Gears of War 2 come to mind).
So what is so much better. If all you have is the way you connect to friends and stuff, that is just preference. It does not make one service better or worse.
@VinTheDream
Yeah I’ve always wanted to know about this LAG every game I play online on PS3 from CoD to Resistance 2 and it’s 60 players online, they always run smoothly for me
I heard GeOW2 suffers from LAG but since I’ve never owned it I won’t judge it.
Ironic that I made a similar topic about a month ago =) But I agree completely, you can read what I wrote here http://kezins.info/2009/04/why-i-despise-gamestop/264
I used to work for this company, and I would like to think that I did not fall into this category…maybe that’s why I’m not there anymore.
I agree that there is fanboyism in the stores. The managers should really be addressing this at the store level but it actually goes higher than that. I see the problem more of an HR and organization issue. That said, the people that are there at least a few days a week are at minimum current with the games because they are stocking and inventorying them on regular basis. This does not mean that they are unbiased though. If gamestop wants to address this bias they need to provide more resources for training – and then hold employees accountable. It also has to do with the fact that some of the managers are 19 years old and they hire their 17 year old friends. Something I think upper management WOULD address if they actually cared.
As for employees coming up to you and trying to push the hot 360 game or something, that is just them doing their job (poorly). Employees are told to walk around and strike up conversations in an attempt to sell more (used) games, as well as gameInformer and to mention trading. This is what gamestop calls “customer service.” So if you are badgered by an employee while scanning the ps3 wall – tell him/her you are fine or just looking. Or just $ from amazon and sell on half.com if the game is not for you after a month like I do now.
Considering they are the ONLY major specialty videoGame retailer it is actually pretty pathetic that they only control about 20% of US market share. Perhaps it is because of their “customer service” model and their hiring practices.
okay you are lost just because some gamestop’s have bad and rude employees does not mean they all do have you been to every gamestop you prick no you have not so untill you have shut you face ass mouth
@gman7557
Alright first off, check your spelling if you are going to make an argument. Secondly , if you got offended by this you probably work at Gamestop yourself and sound like the biggest jerk of them all with your attitude.
Me, I just prefer buying games and other products online. No long lines, no jerks to deal with and usually lower prices and better service. Issue then is solved!
@babylinda
I definitely agree with buying certain things online. Especially if the product is going to sell out quick or the store isn’t taken pre-orders yet.
@gman7557 – I think you’re the lost one. When we have 5 or 6 GameStops in our area and all of them have these asshole employees, it leaves a bad and stale taste of customer service in your mind. Pretty much sums up your idea of what GameStop is when all you get is crap service, regardless if you’ve been to every single store. In an adult world that you probably don’t live in yet, when you get bad customer service repeatedly, you do not want to support that company. Next time your mom drops you off at the mall, try to piss off a store employee and see what happens.
Wow. You sound like a spoiled little child. Why are you rehashing an argument that you clearly had, what, 2 years ago?
Sad, really.
@babylinda
Yes i do work at Gamestop, and yes i am rather offended by this. While i will agree that there are some employees who certainly are lacking social skills,God knows in the five years i’ve worked there I’ve met more than my share. But i don’t really think that it is truly representative of EVERY Gamestop employee. Why put so much stock into what some punk kid has to say anyway ?
@rayearthblue
Are you gman?
@babylinda
no.
@rayearthblue
I was just curious why you @ at me, that is all. To be honest though I have dealt with many a douche at gamestop, you may be the exception but all in all I know a lot of shady stuff goes down there.
thank you for the info