Reality's Fringe said:
[quote name='Acidevil']
i've been told by a gamestop employee that their stores get rated and compared with other gamestop stores by the # of pre-orders they get, which is a pretty lame method. I've even heard of some store employess holding out on games on the day of release just so they can tell customers "we're sold out, you should have pre-ordered it". I've even called gamestop on the release date of a game and I was told that no, the game will be there tomorrow, but I should go in and pre-order it right away. Now why should I go pre-order it the day before it comes out? It would already be loo late for them to change the # they would be receiving, so I just figure that it'd make their store look better. Anyways, I find that other stores are usually cheaper.
This is absolutely true...all of it.
I work at a GameStop, and I can tell you that's not entirely true. Allow me to say than any employee that lies about not having a game out of spite should be fired, but often times, we REALLY don't have the game. Why PreordeR? Well, why the hell not? If you know you're going to get the game, why not just slap down a fiver on it to insure that you'll get it. It usually forced me to realize that I'll be shelling out a few bucks in the future and I thus budget my money better during that time, and it shows my support for a title as the number of presales is sent back to the companies. As for the "I don't know if it'll be good" arguement; how do you know it's going to be good AFTER it comes out unless you rent it first? That's fine, but often times people base their opinions off of magazines and that my friends pisses me off. "EGM SED IT SUX!" Jesus Christ, at least RENT it first. Reservations are usually made for big name titles, and titles where there may be limited quantities and I don't see any probalem with that.
Now, why do companies push it? Well, EMPLOYEES WILL BE FIRED IF WE DO NOT MEET A QUOTA. I'm surprised by the amount of people who do not realize this. Our store managers get rewarded, and we get fired. Simple as that. Why do the companies do this? Well, think about it. It's basically $5 paid to the company at the time for nothing, and it pretty much guarantees a sale. How many times have you reserved a game and then decided to cancel it at the last minute? Why would they NOT push it? I just know I'm tired of people acting like the employees are doing this for commision or something. We seriously, truly, honestly, get nothing. When we meet our quotas, the SM is patted on the back and rewarded with games/systems. It's disgusting and it aggravates the customers.
Once again, you don't want to preorder? Well, that's cool, but I personally think it's a good idea for certain games and promos make it all the sweeter. Just remember the next time you go into a gamestore, and an employee(not a manager) is acting like a Game Nazi for a reserve; look into his eyes and see the pain. Then, if you will, turn him down politely.[/quote]I'll have to agree with you. It is not absolutely true, but it is true. And it goes from the lowest on the totem pole, all the way to the top management of each store, sometimes the district. Its all about making the store look better in the company's eye. I couldn't believe all the BS going on at the store at which I worked. I often wondered how GameStop stayed in business. But there is a lot of lying and uncouth practices exhibited by GameStop employees. Some get caught and fire (read the e-mails), many do not, often because the manager condones the practice(s). Bottom line, IMO, is that retail sucks.
Pre-ordering also happens to be a convenient service, esp. if you live in a small market. If you live in a market where you do not have the amenities of a "big city" and everyone is vying for the same game, you pre-order if you want it immediately, plain and simple. Otherwise, you end up driving all over Kingdom Come just for a videogame -- BLEH!
The free items are not in inventory (unless it is a free item from Nintendo such as the Zelda pre-order disc or Pokemon Colosseum pre-order disk) so when you ask for your reservation money back, the store isn't likely to ask for the free item they gave you.
A cool trick that stores can do to increase the number of freebees they receive (since employees usually take them as a fringe benefit first) is to actually run them throught the register as a item sold at $0.00. It increases the chances that the warehouse will send you more quantities of freebees to give out as incentives for pre-orders.
