GameStop: The Thread

[Kiddington]

After reading this shameful article, I figured these guys could use their own thread. Observe the utterly disgusting act of shitty business practices at work:

The battle over digital game distribution just took a turn for the ugly.

Video game retail giant GameStop has been opening up brand new PC game boxes of the critically-acclaimed shooter Deus Ex: Human Revolution and removing packed-in coupons granting free copies of the game to users of the OnLive cloud gaming service.


OnLive and Deus Ex publisher Square Enix announced the coupon deal yesterday, which would let buyers of a boxed PC copy download and play another copy of the game, for free, via OnLive's cloud based network, a $50 value.

But apparently GameStop, which has its own digital distribution platform, wasn't on board with what it believes is helping to promote the competition. A letter sent out to GameStop employees instructing them to "immediately remove and discard the OnLive coupon from all the regular PC versions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution" has been widely circulated, and GameStop has since officially confirmed the practice.

"Regarding the Deus Ex OnLive Codes: GameStop's policy is that we do not promote competitive services without a formal partnership," GameStop says on its Facebook page. "Square Enix packed a competitor's coupon within the PC version of Deus Ex: Human Revolution without our prior knowledge and we did pull these coupons."

It's pretty upsetting news for those who like to believe that when they buy a new product, they are actually, you know, buying a new product.  Knowing a retailer tampered with a game box simply to thwart a promotion geared at saving gamers money is, to say the least, a little worrying.

GameStop, however, assures you that while they're breaking the seal on your new game box, your game itself should be fine.

"While the new products may be opened, we fully guarantee the condition of the discs to be new. If you find this to not be the case, please contact the store where the game was purchased and they will further assist," the company states.

So is it illegal? That's a bit fuzzy. Wired reports that Square Enix and OnLive might be able to make a case for "tortious interference," which occurs when one party intentionally damages another party's contractual or business relationships.

GameStop has raised the ire of gamers before. Just last year, the company was hit with  a class-action lawsuit over what consumers considered deceptive used game sales.

Square Enix and OnLive have yet to formally respond.

Wow.

Sooooo... yeah. Use this thread as your official soap box to vent upon how much this store sucks. I dunno about the rest of you guys, and how your shopping experiences here tend to fare, but I absolutely cannot stand this store. I simply stopped bothering with them long ago. Between opening up factory sealed boxes and then listing said opened box as "new" condition, used games being in horrendous and unplayable condition (seriously; it's scary how many times I've bought a used game from these assholes, only for it to not work whatsoever when I get home), and just generally shitty business practices, these guys suck. In my most humble of opinions, anyway.

Anyone else?

[Eddy]

Wow. That's just.. really?

I haven't had too many bad experiences with GameStop, but I tend to avoid getting games from them new because too often they aren't new at all. When I got Metro 2033 from them it wasn't in its original case (it was a black box) and yet I still had to pay the new price for it. What the fuck?

If the game has been opened in anyway, as far as I'm concerned, that makes it used.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I still go to Gamestop to pick up my retail games because I hate the hassle of buying shit online and I can usually find games for cheap and used at Gamestop. To be honest I've never had any problems buying games from them on my end, since I usually buy used games and so far they have always worked for me. I suppose it depends more on the individual stores in terms of how shitty the service is over there.

That said its not really surprising news to see GS pulling shit like this. It is a business after all so any business will resort to whatever desperate measures they can to save money. In the case of retail game stores they are also in danger of being threatened by downloadable games (its not a big threat right now, but in the future I can almost guarantee that most games will be downloadable on demand, and a bunch of people will probably buy them online like that). That said while I can understand that they need to be ass-holes in some regards to keep up their business, it doesn't excuse some of their more horrendous practices that just plain need to stop. Doing shit such as literally tampering with boxes and removing packed-in coupons is going way too far, and openly admitting that they are taking stuff that is supposed to come with the full package is an even dumber thing for them to do since its like openly admitting that the company is run by a bunch of jerks. In that case most people will seek out that particular game elsewhere if they plan to buy it new (though, I never buy a brand new game from GS, myself).

I think part of GS's problem is that they make bad business decisions and openly act like ass-holes about it, turning off a lot of potential customers in the first place. If the people running the business could actually think smarter and maybe try to make formal deals with other companies in regards to their coupon policies, or at least try to work something out, I'm sure that it would achieve a lot more for them than what they are doing now. Their customers aren't as stupid as they probably think. If they do stuff like that to tick people off than people can easily just buy their games from a different source. They'll have to realize that eventually when decisions like this come back to bit them in the ass.

[talonmalon333]

I will some up my opinion and experience with GameStop in one word:

Ugh.

[Daxdiv]

I rarely ever had a bad shopping experience with them in my entire life. Whenever I go in regularly, I'm on good terms with everyone there. Sure, I do agree that them opening the box, then that box happens to the be the final copy of said game and I get that box is a little retarded, however I do notice that there aren't an scratches on it or anything and that I do get most of the free stuff that's supposed to come with the game, like Persona 4 Soundtrack and the promo Yu-Gi-Oh cards when I bought them from their Gamer Days Sale or whatever it's called.

I didn't buy Deus Ex from them, I bought it off Steam to take advantage of digital items for TF2. However, I do plan to play the game when I get a better video card, since mine is crap and can't handle most games out there.

[Kiddington]

As much as I hate using this trope, I guess your shopping experiences here are very much a "mileage may vary" situation.

Honestly, I've never had a good shopping experience with these guys. They've ripped me off on trade-in's in the past (back when I was young and stupid enough to believe whatever they told me something was worth), and again, the used games. I absolutely cannot buy a used PS2/GameCube game here, without it being in horrible condition. I had come to the point of checking the discs before I buy them, and even if they didn't look bad or have any scratches on them, I'd get home, and the fucking things STILL wouldn't play (and I know it's not my consoles either, as the games I already had at home still play perfectly). I can't explain it, but whenever I buy games online or from the mom and pop store here in town, I never have these kinds of problems.

I can't stand the place myself. But, again, I guess it all depends on the location. 'Tis my luck, I suppose.

[Commode]

I've never really had any bad experiences with GameStop either.  I've only bought one game from them that didn't work(a GameCube title that had a crack near the center, so it wasn't readable), but I took it back to the store and exchanged it for another copy.  No sweat.

I dunno, I always hear these horror stories about the store, but I don't understand it honestly.  I mean, if you look around the internet at super old postings(I'm talking N64/PSone days here) about GS's predecessor FuncoLand, they are almost always negative, talking about how the customer service is shitty and whatnot, yet the store is revered and greatly missed for some reason.  The only thing that I really don't like about GS personally is that they don't sell anything older than GCN/PS2/GBA, and even then the selections for these games is becoming slimmer.  With all the locations the store has(seriously, it seems to rival Subway with how many are around), I wish they would sell old NES or SNES games.

[ToonFaithful]

I remember when Gamestop didn't have that "Power to the Gamers" gimmick, they were just....Gamestop and I mostly shopped at EB Games. Now, EB Games is extinct around here(my area, I know they're still around). Don't have any problems with Gamestop, they're cool with me.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I mean, if you look around the internet at super old postings(I'm talking N64/PSone days here) about GS's predecessor FuncoLand, they are almost always negative, talking about how the customer service is shitty and whatnot, yet the store is revered and greatly missed for some reason.

My god....FuncoLand was HORRENDOUS! I still remember the nightmares I had to go through with that store, as a kid. With them, they'd hardly give you anything for games that you traded in (I once brought in a new game that I had only bought a month ago for full price to trade in, and they said it was only worth $3 because the disc had scratches and crap like that, which it didn't at all, BTW....yeah, even as a kid that shit didn't fly by me), and overall they got away with pulling a lot of shit that even GS wouldn't dare do these days. To me, while GS partakes in a lot of shitty practices, they still practically look like saints compared to FL. Such a terrible store. I'm glad that its gone. Good riddance, I say.

[Rosalinas Spare Wand]

I always feel bad for being bros with the GameStop guys and yet hardly ever buying anything from the store. I'm super anal about those price stickers they put on games, so for the most part I'm always buying at stores like Target or Kmart.

I also have an Edge card I didn't end up using. I got more use out of my old GameCrazy MVP card than this thing.

[Commode]

http://www.poweruprewards.com/PUR/Index/RetroGameVault

GameStop is offering retro video games now.  Good news, right?  Ehh, not exactly.  First of all, you have to be a PowerUp member, and you have to use your PowerUp points to purchase the games(which I guess you get by making purchases at the store).  Which leads into the second problem, the sheer amount of points some of those games cost(30,000 points for the SNES Mortal Kombat; according to a poster on NeoGAF that's $30 for a game worth maybe ten to fifteen bucks).  And third, the laughable selection.  I know, the program is just starting out and if it turns out to be successful they'll likely add more stuff, but as it stands if those are the games they are offering they can keep them as far as I'm concerned.

[talonmalon333]

My thoughts on GameStop...

-Their products are also scratched up
-Said products are overpriced
-Their cases for games are pieces of junk, and from some of my experiences, are just black cases with a picture of the game on the front
-Their preorders are useless, as they don't guarantee you'll get what you want as soon as possible
-They barely give you anything when you trade anything in
-A movie my brother got there years ago (didn't even know they sold movies before this) was an old, cheap, unofficial clear disk
-They are run by pricks
-I'm never supporting them again, and they can go die in a lake somewhere in hell

So... yeah. 

[Foggle]

I agree with all your points except these two:

-Their preorders are useless, as they don't guarantee you'll get what you want as soon as possible
-They are run by pricks

-I've never had a problem with pre-orders there.
-Corporate, yes. But the guys at my local GameStop are really cool people.

[talonmalon333]

-I've never had a problem with pre-orders there.

Lucky you.

When I preordered Twilight Princess years ago, it was hell. The game was out for, like, weeks, and we still weren't able to get it. Eventually it got to the point where we were told it would take a while, so we just got rid of the preorder. Then we went to Best Buy, picked up the game, bought it, and left... That easy.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The guys who actually work at my local Game Stop are pretty reasonable and down to earth guys. I go to browse around there whenever I happen to be visiting home, and they never hassle me for signing up for membership or anything like that. I have encountered GSs where the workers are total pricks, but I'd never stereotype an entire company's set of employees as all being ass-holes. Its more of the higher-ups in corporations who run GS that end up making it such a rip-off store and force their employees to follow such policies, but not all of the employees are really actually ass-holes themselves. It depends on the actual people working there, really.

I do have a problem with their game packaging, though. I absolutely HATE how they put those hard to remove stickers on ALL of their game boxes. Maybe if its a pre-owned game I can understand and some cheap sort of incentive to buy it new in case you're a collector and want your box art in perfect condition in some shit like that, but why the fuck do they have to punish you with that if its a brand new game. When I bought Sonic Generations from them brand new, they needlessly stuck that "New" sticker on it even though it wasn't there in the first place before scanning it and handing it back to me. I mean, what the fuck is up with that? I managed to remove it but there are still some sticky spots around that area and little shit like that actually does bother me. I mean, if I bought the game brand new I kind of want the whole package to look like its in neat condition for when I stick it onto my shelf. I know some might say that I'm nitpicking here, but that unnecessary sticker-labeling system really drives me nuts, personally.