More EB employee opinions

Lorik

Lorik

CAGiversary!
I'm not a big fan of all the EB/GS employee hate that's going on here. Remember, we're just trying to make some cash to fund our own cheap-asses. I do try and sell extra things, and I do occasionally have to sell crap titles. I never lie though, if I'm telling someone a crap game came out, and they ask if it's good, I say no. I just do what I have to to keep my job. Some people just havta understand, we don't like some of the crap we have to do, but we do it to keep our jobs. Give us a break sometimes.

As for gutting games, I'm right in the middle. I can understand why it's done, and I do my best to keep the games in mint condition. If someone wants a sealed game, I won't insult them, I'm the same way myself. "Renting" games has never happened at my EB, and I'm amazed that it actually happens at all. Everytime I do sell a gut it has never been used, unless we put it in a demo system (in which case I notify the customer).

While it bothers many people to not get sealed games, many others could care less. THAT is the main reason the companies continue to use this practice. There's always someone who doesn't give a damn. You should see some of the cases that get traded in. People don't peel off the seal, the cases are smashed, and has been used as a coaster. This is how many people treat their games. And those people don't care if the case is opened.

I stand with you in respects that I prefer to buy my games sealed. I just understand why gutting is done, and I don't get all worked up over it.

One last comment, please don't give your local game store employees crap about gutting unless they openly give you crap. It really ruins your day when a customer starts bitching you out over policies you have no control over. EB employees are people too, try treating them like it sometime.
 
Crap sorry this was meant as a reply, my apologies to everyone. Still getting used to these forums. If a mod couls just delete this it would be cool. Thanks.
 
I had to throw in some Gamestop employee "love" here. I've had nothing but good experiences at Gamestop, especially with one particular employee. I swear he has played every game known to man and is very good to offer his opinion on a game. Last week my son and I went in to get in on their buy 2 get 1 sale and my son wanted a game that I didn't think would be particularly good. The employee said to try it and if we didn't like it to just bring it back within 7 days. Well, we got home and the game was so difficult (another thing he had warned us about) so we took it back with no problem at all. The game we took back was the free one and the game we picked to replace it with was $2 more and instead of making me pay the $2 he rerung up the sale to make the new game free. That kind of thing makes me want to go back to the store again and again.
 
(Most) Game Store employees try to do the best they can, as they genuinely love the trade. The problem is dealing with certain customers on a day after day basis, trust me, it can REALLY ruin your favorite hobby. I sincerely try to be honest about everything when a customer asks me a question, and I won't push anything I don't believe in; even to meet a quota. You just have to give us some respite, as people have already mentioned, we don't control policies. As someone else alos mentioned, if you don't like it, call and complain, but do so ABOUT the policy, NOT about the employees otherwise nothing will change.
 
How can you understand the need for gutting a game?

I went in to EB just yesterday and there was an entire vertical shelf dedicated to display boxes - say about 10 Star Ocean 3, 10 GTA:SA, etc..

Their new stock isn't that big - they could easily STOP carring 50 GTA display boxes and get one of each new title - low cost, efficient, no more gutting. There's no need.
 
[quote name='Sartori']How can you understand the need for gutting a game?

I went in to EB just yesterday and there was an entire vertical shelf dedicated to display boxes - say about 10 Star Ocean 3, 10 GTA:SA, etc..

Their new stock isn't that big - they could easily STOP carring 50 GTA display boxes and get one of each new title - low cost, efficient, no more gutting. There's no need.[/quote]

Agreed. I went into an EB a week ago, and they had 45, count them, 45 game cases gutted for three full rows of display. That's excessive, and it's unnecessary. I don't blame the employees for this practice though. It is corporate America's, EB's, and managers' faults.
 
I have purchased a display disc that has been dirtied, badly scratched (ie: not like new). I don't like the fact that EB/GS do gut multiples copies of one title. I personally cannot understand why, either. I don't yell/complain or lecture the employees about it, though as it's a managerial (possibly higher up decision). My only problem is that when I ask for a new/sealed title and they pull out some re-shrinkwrapped copy, I'll tell them I don't want it. Then the annoying part comes ... you have to argue with them for a minute or two about why you don't want a re-shrinkwrapped copy. I'm not asking that they look for another copy, I just don't want it (period) as I assume if they're giving me this re-shrinkwrapped copy, it's their last copy.

EB/GS can gut as many copies as they want. It's the consumer's choice as to whether they'd like to buy it or not, as much as it's EB/GS's choice as to whether they want to open them for display or not. But EB/GS has to let the consumers walk when they choose not to buy the opened games instead of giving dirty looks and arguing, and that's where my problem lies.
 
If you guys took the amount of time you spend stewing and bitching about this frivolous case gutting "problem", and applied it to something useful, the world would be a beautiful place.
 
EB sells every inch of space of their store to other companies. Everything in the store is laid out according to a floor plan. For example: Activision buys space on a side of rack for the month. That month, that space must be filled with only activision titles or else they break contract. They have secret shopppers that make sure that they are getting their advertising space. I agree that having 10 boxes of a game is crazy but that is all planned by business people that know nothing about games. They think that smothering people is the way to sell. I was not very well liked at EB. I used to put more upcoming game boxes out instead of 10 of the same. I refused to sell garbage. My problem is not with employees but the company itself. They treat employees and customers like morons. I sold 8 Xbox in a shift one day and they asked why not 10. No one else sold more than 1 that day. That is the crap they do. I had some great people working with me, but then they hire people that have no interest in gaming. It makes it very hard to sell customers product when the employee knows nothing and is not interested. As a manager it can get old being told you have no power whatsoever. EB managers are not managers, they have no decision making powers, they can't change anything. They are nothing more than the person responsible.
 
[quote name='Tromack']If you guys took the amount of time you spend stewing and bitching about this frivolous case gutting "problem", and applied it to something useful, the world would be a beautiful place.[/quote]Same can be said for your frivolous post...


This is the reason these store's do not get my business unless I'm in the market for a used game.
 
The gutting issue is sore because people are right, they have to listen to the employee try to convince them it's new. It's annoying to gut 45 copies of a game and then have to reseal each one and sell it as new. The problem is the storage system on the discs and many employees just shove them in the bags. These are the same employees that will only by a sealed game.
 
I never said my post wasn't frivolous. You guys act like the gutting of these cases is like the gutting of Jesus during his second coming or something. It isn't a big deal. If you don't like it, don't buy from them. Vote with your dollar. Just stop bitching.
 
Just to addrss the whole "But you guys get TONS of display boxes form the publishers!!!" this is not always true. Yes, we do generaly get display boxes, but they are only from certain publishers, nd often times they only have some images and tell NOTHING of the gameplay/amount of players etc. They also usually change around the artwork on it too, so that's another reason we gut one, to avoid "This isn't that game". Where I work, we only gut one, maybe two copies, I think 10 is hilariously excessive.
 
Reality's Fringe]Just to addrss the whole "But you guys get TONS of display boxes form the publishers!!!" this is not always true. Yes said:
Point isn't that you could get them - EB could make them with little cost - but it doesn't really matter since they can get away with gutting the games.
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Whoever started the whole 45 gutted copies has been mislead. The game companies have become much better about sending in marketing inserts that are essentially the regular game inserts and empty dvd cases so that their games don't have to be gutted. Also, if you just reserved new games before they came out, you wouldn't have to buy the last copies. I agree about not wanting to buy gutted games, but the chance of the game I want only having 3 copies left is pretty slim.
 
I understand the situation. I fail to see the problem. If a store has a policy you don't care for (or more strongly, absolutely hate), then you can fix this easily.

DON'T. SHOP. THERE.

If you make a big deal (or worse, make a scene with an employee) over new games being opened then sold as new, resealed or otherwise, and then you show up at the same store the next week, what message does that send? That message is this: you are a bitch-ass customer.

I worked in retail for almost eight years. I saw more than my share of pissed off customers (some rightly so, but most were not), yet the ones that stand out are the ones that made the loudest noise AND continued to bring me their business. Those are the ones whose complaints I took with a hefty dose of salt because if they were REALLY that upset, they wouldn't be spending their money with me.

Now, for those of you who actually complain and then avoid EB/GS, good for you. Unfortunately I don't know what the solution will be. On one hand, the companies want to give the consumer a chance to hold the packaging in their hand (I want this too). On the other hand, if they left the games in those same boxes, a good number of them are going to walk out the door. They could put the games in a glass display case, but then you can't hold the item in your hand without hogging an employee. Display-only boxes sound good, but the ones I've seen are often vastly different from the actual box, and often have little info on them (see: Full Spectrum Warrior). Also, your smaller publishers are going to be less likely to make display boxes (think Disgaea) due to budget constraints.

I'm actually a little sorry for you guys that suffer from having a bad EB or GS. The two nearest EB stores for me are pretty damn good, and you can tell most of the employees are actually knowledgable about gaming. I also recently discovered a GameStop near those EBs and the guy that was working at the time was super nice and very much a gamer.
 
Reality's Fringe]Just to addrss the whole "But you guys get TONS of display boxes form the publishers!!!" this is not always true. Yes said:
Same here, and we both work at GS. Maybe this excessive gutting of several copies of games is EB only.... Also, at GS, I do not think we rent out spaces in our shelves to particular companies either.
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I pretty much stopped shopping at EB B&M and only shop at local stores and gamestop.

MAinly because of the employees and the fact that they usually have better sales
 
We had to gut like 30 Enter the Matrix for each system at my store. I have seen it go higher in some stores but normally it is like 4-8. Display boxes or inserts tend to not have enough information on them to be really useful. GS doesn't seem to gut more than two at my local store. As for gutting, the issue started because some people have tried to sue EB over misrepresentation for selling an opened game that has been resealed as new. They have a good point but it is really a stupid lawsuit. I do agree that you don't have to shop there but it does tend to upset customers and is not good for business. I still pick up things at my old store. I like the new manager and assistant but it is rare since I can get a better price elsewhere.
 
Normally i dont care about getting one of their 'demo' copies of a new game. But one time i bought a new game from Gamespot that was the last copy. The next day i desided that i didnt want the game and wanted to return it. The sales person at GS gave me the hardest time returning it because he said i couldnt return an open item. I explained to him that is how they gave it to me. After a frustrating conversation he finally gave in. If their selling games opened allready as new, they should definatly mark it on the receipt or something so that the employees dont give you a hard time returning something.
 
Okay one quick question. Someone said they ordered from ebgames.com and received a used game that had been resealed as new. How can this happen? There are no display copies at ebgames.com It is a freakin website! If the stores are shipping their gutted copies to be sold at ebgames.com as new then that is just wrong.
 
[quote name='Ericnmel99']Normally i dont care about getting one of their 'demo' copies of a new game. But one time i bought a new game from Gamespot that was the last copy. The next day i desided that i didnt want the game and wanted to return it. The sales person at GS gave me the hardest time returning it because he said i couldnt return an open item. I explained to him that is how they gave it to me. After a frustrating conversation he finally gave in. If their selling games opened allready as new, they should definatly mark it on the receipt or something so that the employees dont give you a hard time returning something.[/quote]

Yes, I have never had that happen to me but I always wondered what would happen.... apparently it is what I would expect. They claim that it is now used. Even though they sold it that way.

If they marked something on your receipt then that would be admitting that your copy is not "New" so that can't do that either.
 
first a rhetorical question:

how many of the people who complain about eb selling opened games as new complain about eb not giving money back on opened games?

then the post:

[quote name='Lorik'] please don't give your local game store employees crap about gutting unless they openly give you crap. It really ruins your day when a customer starts bitching you out over policies you have no control over. EB employees are people too, try treating them like it sometime.[/quote]

thank you, i'm glad to see that at least some people out there feel this way. when i'm working, if someone is nice to me, or at least cordial, i will bend over backwards to help them, but if someone's being an asshole, i could care less if they get what they want. a lot of people don't really seem to care about common courtesy anymore, and that counts for more than just eb/gs/wherever, you don't have to be perfect, but a "thanks" will suffice.

and this one is more about parents than anything, my name is not "boy," "kid," "you," or "hey."
 
Also, if you just reserved new games before they came out, you wouldn't have to buy the last copies.
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See here's the problem with that. In many cases people don't know if they want the game enough to drop $50 on it. Sure it's easy to say that about Halo 2, Madden, GT4 or something like that. What about a Disgaea, La Pucelle Tactics, Gitaroo Man or Ico that becomes a "maybe" to a "must buy" because of message boards, reviews or word of mouth?

That's where I always run into problems with gutted games. It's always stuff that I would NEVER have considered pre-ordering. They're also usually games that Wal Mart, Target, Best Buy or others don't carry so my retail options of finding a new and sealed one at a different retailer are limited. Now in cases like that I usally just suck it up and take the game because I know they haven't been played. What kills me at that point is that I have a brand new game that I need to take home and spend 15 minutes with cleaning off stickers. That's the real reason I hate gutted games.
 
[quote name='Indiana']Okay one quick question. Someone said they ordered from ebgames.com and received a used game that had been resealed as new. How can this happen? There are no display copies at ebgames.com It is a freakin website! If the stores are shipping their gutted copies to be sold at ebgames.com as new then that is just wrong.[/quote]

That's exactly what happens. If stores have too much stock that's not moving, EB'll pull them from the B&Ms and sell them on the website. I've received re-seals with the "Trade In Your Old Games" stickers and price stickers on it (those also don't make sense to put on there if it's strictly from warehouse stock).
 
Here's how my Gamestop works with Guts and all of this other stuff:

Something new comes in...we have to gut one. Standard. If it is deemed a "hot title", then we gut 3 MAX. We only do that for 4 games for each system. These all get put up before each section starts, in a Top 10 style, with 2 games on each side. Under the top 4 there are Hot Games at Hot Prices! Generally games that are 20 bucks or less.

We do not get to pick these! These are all mandated from company headquarters. My manager, my district manager and my regional manager have no say in anything. When the new marketing kits come in, they tell us exactly how to put them up. Almost everything you see is paid for by some company. Sometimes we choose things to promote, that we don't have to, but we should. GTA: San Andreas for example.

As for customer service, my store actually steals customers from our other Gamestops in the districts. It's why we are one of the best in our region and always number 1 in the district. If you want to see a store that is run great and has knowledgable employees, that's my store. We each have our own strengths and weaknesses, but combined we are awesome.

I know a lot about how Gamestops work, so if there are any more things posted about their policies I would be glad to reply to them.
 
Reality's Fringe said:
Is it just me, or do any of you Gaes eetop employees hate the whole "HOT" thing? God, I know I do.
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No, I actually liked it, but I only liked it up high in my displays which were still sealed copies so I could peal it off easily. I didnt like putting it on copies that were gutted in the Top Titles fixtures.

But that will soon be coming to an end I think. You cant order those anymore from warehouse. Once you are out, its done :lol:
 
Reality's Fringe said:
Is it just me, or do any of you Gaes eetop employees hate the whole "HOT" thing? God, I know I do.
Click to expand...

No, I actually liked it, but I only liked it up high in my displays which were still sealed copies so I could peal it off easily. I didnt like putting it on copies that were gutted in the Top Titles fixtures.

But that will soon be coming to an end I think. You cant order those anymore from warehouse. Once you are out, its done :lol:
 
Gutting is a fact of life for EB/Gamestop. Most don't have the fancy alarm systems so they can't put the product out full. Best Buy, Circuit City, and any other retailer that puts them out full gets ripped off quite a bit more than EB/Gamestop. While in a perfect world the stores would get display boxes for every game, the game companies just dont seem to be able to get them out on a consistenet basis. Sure they get them sometimes, but usually for bigger games only, rarely for smaller releases.
Moral is quit bitching about it! If you dont like the "gutting" policy, shop somewhere else. It's not the employees fault, they are just doing what the company wants them to, which to protect the inventory the best way they know how to.
 
I don't th8ink we have a problem with the employees it the whole store in general. And I don't shop at eb or eb.com anymore. I bitched about the problem then voted with my dollar. The problem is everyone eles just keeps on spending their money in the stores. Stop buying from them is the only way to make them change. If the stop seeing the money then thet will start to listen and change their polices. I don't hate most of the eb employes. Just these prick ones who think they are god cause they work at a video game store! The videogame Generals persay. My three ebs around and eb.com acy like they are the only game company around. That if you don't buy from them you will never get the games you want.
 
i didn't feel like reading all this but my gamestop/eb employees have never been jerks to me. come to think of it, BB/CC has never been jerks. my local FYE...eh they kinda follow me sometimes, and i feel that they are watching over me (to be honest i think it's my appearance, i'm a 19 year old hispanic male, with a good bit of tattooing) i don't care what people say, but i really think that's a reason, and i guess i can't blame them. i'm rather sketchy looking, but i'm not gonna steal stuff.

anyway, i've once recieved a "gutted" game. i check the disc over and everything, and i was fine with it. he told me it was for display and it was the last copy. i saw him gather the manual and disc, which had been stored safely. the game was very new. naturally if the game was beat to hell, or scratched, i would've just taken my money else where. but it was all fine with me
 
At my EB in Tulsa, they don't gut games at all. They have racks in the middle of the store that have inserts in empty dvd cases. In fact, I've asked before and beeen given the inserts as a sort of collector's item once the game came out. They reuse the dvd cases. Maybe you guys should try starting a collection, too! :)
 
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