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What used to be a store with a couple of friendly, chatty, laid back employees has suddenly been overrun by a horde of uptight, overly formal, unbelievably unfriendly corporate types.

They're completely reorganizing my store. All the NES,Genesis, Dreamcast stuff is gone. There are no more used accessories anywhere.

I had the guy behind the counter price a couple of guides for me that were on the shelf marked at $14.99...the Arc the Lad guide...well...

"We can't sell this, it's garbage."

Me: What do you mean it's garbage? Is it pennied out?

Him: Yeah, we can't sell them. We're not allowed to.

Me: A lot of stores sell them, Best Buy sells them.

Him: Headquarters (or whatever he said) doesn't allow us to sell them, they need to be destroyed.

So instead of getting Five Arc the Lad guides...they are going to be destroyed (or pilfered by the demon spawn taking over the store).

It's a little disheartening. What had been an enjoyable experience is turning into a gross, yucky one.

Oh well, just thought I'd vent. I'll probably add more to this post later, I'll go back this afternoon and have them scan a few more guides for me.

The Arc the Lad guide? That huge, hardbound, beautiful work of art from WD? So they're going to DESTROY them? Um, okay....
Ah, corporate. I'm not against big-business per se, but *stupid* big business....
If you're going to destroy something anyway, stick an el-cheapo tag on it and sell it to whoever buys it. I know, it can't be 'written off' then....
And, yes, if it's to be destroyed, and an employee takes it, that's technically stealing and probably tax fraud too, if you wanted to get technical.

raid their garbage for booty!!

arrrr!!

Stop shopping there and you won't have to witness the corporate sponsored raping of your beloved hobby.

Originally Posted by Theenternal raid their garbage for booty!! arrrr!!

Oh, so you're supporting piracy now?

Originally Posted by donssword Stop shopping there and you won't have to witness the corporate sponsored raping of your beloved hobby.

It probably won't make a difference, but if you take this path, make sure you either go there one more time, or call/write Corp HQ, and tell them why you're no longer going to be their customer. Of course don't be rude, but sometimes--*sometimes*--the voice of the consumer can make a difference.

When I was in retail, I was always of the opinion that, Hey, I'll sell anything [legal] that my customers want to buy. A, that shows I'm reacting to their wants, and B, well, I'm selling stuff, which is money for me and my store.

[quote="dtcarson"]

Originally Posted by donssword B, well, I'm selling stuff, which is money for me and my store.

And it's odd, cuz you'd think they'd be willing to sell those guides for even that purpose alone.

Well, luckily it was NOT the hardbound guide..it was the PS2 Arc the Lad Guide...still something I've wanted but was unwilling to pay $14.99 for.

Through the years I've spent a fortune at this particular gamestop, I've helped the employees getting one of their children into the daycare center I work at, picking up singles for them at the Osco and I NEVER asked for their employee discount.

I was friendly, they reciprocated. Now there are a bunch of unfamiliar, unfriendly faces. I tested it again.

I just walked over there with my 3 year old son who is as cute as shit. We walked into the store...and there was nothing. Not a hello. We perused the various sections of the store with my son pointing out Spongebob and Homer Simpson. Nothing.

I might just have to write corporate and tell them that I'd rather have friendly disorganized people running my store than gestapo trained Uber employees.

It's really upsetting me...way too much for a 37 year old man.

I've definitely noticed the same kind of cahnge in my local (what used to be FUNCOLAND) Gamestop...

New faces...and the service and courtesy sucks....They've also become quite picky lately about which used games they'll buy or trade back....

There's just too many choices of places to get games....I don't need to frequent them.....

the opposite happened for me, the guys at babbages used to be real assholes
but now they got some new guys who are alot nicer, all the used stuff is still there

that's so lame that they would trash the guides and not give them to you. At least they should keep them and give them to people who do pre-orders. I know how they are total pre-order whores, so I'm guessing any help they could use to get their pre-order numbers up would be used.

The Gamestop in Manhattan that I used to go to was horrible. I would go in looking for cheap games/guides only. When I was done, I'd have about 5 games and maybe one or two guides. They used to ask me all kinds of stupid questions hinting at that I was going ot re-sell them. I wasn't like I had a bunch of the same titles, they were all different. It got to the point where when I would go in, this one guy that was most annoying to me would watch me as if he wanted to see what games I looked at. Talk about paranoid. I just stopped going in there - no cheap game is worth that.

Just yesterday I went to both Gamestop and FuncoLand in my area and in both stores, as soon as I walked in, I got a very friendly hello and within minutes, I was asked if I needed help. I bought a few cheap games and a bunch of used strategy guides for $1.99 each and no one questioned me. As a matter of fact, at FuncoLand, the guy showed me a cheap PC game that I had missed and told me about the game and then asked if I had a Dreamcast. I said no and he said too bad because all their Dreamcast games are 30% off because they are trying ot get rid of all of them. I was very impressed.

So, I guess it's not fair to label the whole company. It really depends on the individual store.

Thats's a real shame to hear. Lucky for me, I've got one of the best Gamestops I've ever seen near me. The staff is super nice and beyond knowledgeable. I mean, I thought I knew a lot about gaming but this guy Troy puts me to shame. They always give good advice on games and keep their inventory up to date constantly. If you're ever in Ventura, California, go check them out.

My local Gamestop gives out guides when they've been zeroed out. But alot of it is stuff you don't want...i mean...what would I do with like 12 copies of SW: Bounty Hunter guide book?

The Gamestops around here went to hell real fast too. Before, they were a Funcoland/EB, but now they are both Gamestops... and the EB always sucked, but at least the Funcoland was decent. Now they both blow.

Originally Posted by dr_evil99 New faces...and the service and courtesy sucks....They've also become quite picky lately about which used games they'll buy or trade back....

God forbid a store be picky about a trade in. What do you expect? At least they are trying to put some quality control into the used games. They accept trade ins based on the market. I don't think GameStop needs 50 used copies of RTX Red Rock.

I don't have a problem with picky trade-ins. I have a problem with a sales staff that is full of poop.

I went back to the Gamestop again (3rd time today), actually I was going to Dunkin Donuts across the street and the Gamestop is right there. I peeked in and actually saw a friendly and familiar face. I had to go in and find out what the farg was going on.

So I go in and get some details. They're rearranging the store and there's a lot of outside pressure on this location. Not ony was the district manager there when I had stopped in earlier, but the regional manager was there as well. Yipes. However it was neither of them that had given me the "We need to destroy these..." spiel. That was another employee after the two big managers had left.

I found out that the manager they hired to run this store is...well...not familiar with games. He spent some time as a manager of Hollywood video and then a retail store and now they're bringing him in to run a videogame store. Typical corporate mentality.

I asked the familiar, friendly face why the frock he wasn't the manager. Why did they bring in someone with no videogame experience who does not know how to smile or relate to geeks such as myself? I also asked him about the penny guides. (He knows how much money I sink into their coffers) He said he'd look into it.

So, though my gamestop seems to be on a collsion course with disaster, perhaps the corporate folks who seem to be more concerned with regimen and phony little "Hi,Welcome to Gamestop" greetings will realize that they should promote the people who 1) know about videogames, 2) have worked at the same store for more than a week, and 3) are geared towards being friendly towards customers.

Oh well...later.

Just about all Gamestops are stoping the sale of NES, Gensis, SNES, and Dreamcast games. Damn shame I say.

I've never held out much hope for Gamestop when you look at the store locations. There is a area near me where there are 3 Gamestops within 500 feet of each other. One has been there since funcoland days, the other opened near a Target, and the other next to a Barnes and Noble.

To top that, in another area not even 30 minutes from there, there is a gamestop in a mall.. and another gamestop right across the street from it.

How can these people plan such horrible distributions and not expect to canabalize each other's sales?

Originally Posted by JSweeney I've never held out much hope for Gamestop when you look at the store locations. There is a area near me where there are 3 Gamestops within 500 feet of each other. One has been there since funcoland days, the other opened near a Target, and the other next to a Barnes and Noble. To top that, in another area not even 30 minutes from there, there is a gamestop in a mall.. and another gamestop right across the street from it. How can these people plan such horrible distributions and not expect to canabalize each other's sales?

Wow, thats just about the same distribution in my town. Theres a GameStop thats been around since Funcoland with a GameCrazy across the street. Theres also a Gamestop in the same complex as a Target. But my last GameStop is next to a supermarket, not the mall. They have been opening GS's like crazy this past year. They have the most stores by far.