[quote name='ragnar14']Yes, be careful with that if you need new sealed games. HMV will randomly gut games like EB does, and hide the disc (+ maybe sealed copies) behind the counter. They'll also randomly reshrink games they gutted, and we've heard horror stories of empty reshrunk boxes on the shelves. So yeah, you should know what factory wrap is like, or open your HMV games promptly.[/QUOTE]
Back when I managed the games department for two of the major Québec stores (including their implementation), we had no choice but to gut because, obviously, the companies would rarely send us their own coloured cases with reprints of the covers (maybe Nintendo with Galaxy, but this was some time back). This applied to new releases and titles that were $49 and up.
I know we always sold the gutted copies last. And if we had to reseal a gutted copy for an immediate purchase, we did so in front of the customer after he approves of the quality of the disc. The rewrapping was important so that the customer could still potentially return the game. If we used just a sticker, we feared the confusion of a non-games personnel or a clerk of a store only newly stocked with games handling the returns. This was much more common than you think, and we got screwed several times by customers trying (an successfully) scamming clerks.
Also, a lot of french versions, especially the ones with an added manual on the back, were resealed very similarly if not identically to how we would. Fallout 3 VF was a very good example of a shoddy sealing job that made "savvy" customers scoff at us despite our assurances to the genuine nature of the product they were receiving.
Those horror stories about resealed empty cases on shelves? Those happened. It's always someone who is not in the games department (such as warehouse) or, in the case of a mall store, an employee who refuses to learn the policies of the games dept. for various reasons (and there were A LOT of them!!! Take these exclamation points seriously. This was very common in 06-07. I cannot say about now though.)
Open your games promptly but don't be averse to purchasing games from an HMV store. If there is a problem just go directly to someone in the games dept. or, in the case of the mall store, ask for the games expert. They will generally side with you, because they are well aware that this shit happens and would rather side with you. More regular games customers means more sales, and being a burgeoning department that is fairly new, actual profits do reflect more financing towards the department because orders are handled by head office instead of local like the other depts.
Wow that was a lot. So... how was your day?
