Impotent Rage: Gamestop

[Tev]

This is nothing new, but I thought I'd share because it struck a chord with me from recently looking into trading some stuff in at my local Gamestop and leaving with a deep sense of absurdity.

So I was on tumblr today and came across this post (http://s-shutup-its-not-like-i-actually.tumblr.com/post/108034927163/grandtheft-autotune-sting-rae11-okay-no) about some Gamestop worker crowing on about how they liked crushing the drams of children and drinking their tears. All in all it was shaping up to be a mildly entertaining read until I hit this section:
The next day I’m working again, bored out of my goddamn mind. There’s only so many times you can alphabetize the store before going insane. As I’m looking out the window I see a car pull up and Mom hops out and then pulls out two huge duffel bags and walks in.

"Hey welcome back to Gamestop! What can I help you with!"

"Oh I’m so glad you’re here! So last night I went through my son’s game collection and most of them are rated M! So I decided to teach him a lesson about why you don’t lie to your mother. Seeing as I bought him these consoles and most of the games were bought with my money, his game consoles and games actually belong to me. Therefore, I would like to trade in all this." And proceeds to pull out his XBox 360, PS3, and every game he had for both consoles (over 50!) as well all the extra controllers and headsets he had.

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely." I will never forget her smile when she said this nor the look in her eye. This is not a woman to be crossed.

So I traded everything in and she got back over $300 in store credit for everything. And with it she bought a Wii, a couple extra controllers, and a couple games rated E.
In what world does an XBox 360, a PS3, and over 50 M-ish rated titles equal out to $300 worth of Wii and some E rated fare? and then I remembered my own recent encounter with Gamestop.

I was just looking into trading out my DS for credit towards a new 3DS, and they offered me maybe 10-20% of its value in trade. I'm glad I was too disgusted to take their offer as I ended up getting a new one over Black Friday from another store for less than Gamestop would have charged me for a used one.

Anyway, nothing here but some impotent rage and fist waving at Gamestop. Outside of continuing to not buy or sell stuff there, all that one like me can really do is fall to my knees and scream at the stars while shaking my fists fanatically. All in all, that won't change anything and thing will continue on as they have. I'll feel better in a bit.

Gamestop!!!!!!! :argh:

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

In what world does an XBox 360, a PS3, and over 50 M-ish rated titles equal out to $300 worth of Wii and some E rated fare? and then I remembered my own recent encounter with Gamestop.


The world where most all of those games are going to be at the least several months old and therefore incredibly unlikely to sell at a good price or within a frame of time that is profitable for Gamestop.

[MSperoni]

50 M rated games? That kid needs to expand his freakin' horizons.

[Flarecobra]

Good on the mother though, keeping an eye on what her kid plays at least.

[Tev]

Oh yeah, the story itself was actually pretty cool and I think the mother was awesome in that situation.

[Bard The 5th LW]

I once had a conversation with a Gamestop manager who said he was pretty much sure that digital sales of games would render Gamestop the next Blockbuster. I still prefer getting used games, but if digital distribution can eventually make things cheaper (AKA if digital sales on consoles ever get as generous as Steam), then I'm willing to believe that Gamestop will go under during the next gen.

[MSperoni]

The last game I remember paying a full 60$ for was GTAV sometime early last year. Used Games or discounted ones are where I get almost all of my stuff nowadays.


I can't remember if Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends came after GTAV or not...I'll buy RTK-themed games new because I am a RTK supernerd.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Reads like a bored employee's fever dream culminating to an event wank that never happened.

That aside, the only good thing to come out of gamestop was the whole used game class action lawsuit fiasco a bit back.

[synkr0nized]

Am I the only one who is actually a bit annoyed at the mother? Why 50 games and a couple consoles into it does she suddenly care what rating her sons games have, instead of being present and on top of it when games came into the home or when her money was being used on them at counters?

This may also be why I am inclined to not believe the story.

[pochercoaster]

Naw, I thought the same thing, Synk. Like, if she was that concerned about the games her son plays, why couldn't she should be arsed to look at the rating on them when he brought them home? It honestly sounds petty, if it's a true story. Like wow good parenting clap clap. Was she surprised that her son would play M rated games if given the opportunity?

[Aerozord]

To me it never should have come to that, she should have checked the games herself first of all, second of all how could you be so unaware of what your child was doing to not notice what he was playing.

As for Gamestop, I'd only pawn off worthless crap to that place. I ebay it myself. Alot of games you can get between 10-20 bucks as long as its a decent one.

[MSperoni]

I tried trading in some sports games I had and they would only give me about 5$ for the lot of 'em...

So I decided to just keep them. My little cousin Jase likes to play them and the baseball game IS kind of fun if you screw around with the options and make it so you can keep hitting the batter with your pitches.

[shiney]

Is there a significant price difference in digital distribution? My experience has been that a game which is $59.99 in store is also $59.99 online.

[Loyal]

Usually, there is no difference, at least for A-lister games. B- or C-listers may end up cheaper online, though.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Is there a significant price difference in digital distribution? My experience has been that a game which is $59.99 in store is also $59.99 online.

Typically not, but it depends on the digital storefront a game is bought from. Steam, gmg, humble, whatever. So I keep an eye out on different storefronts for the best price. As a result, I generally avoid paying physical prices on digital goods on account of it being a shiesty practice to force the price of a digital product as if it were the physical equivalent. Physical product markup being due to material costs of media, ie disks, packaging, box art, manuals, shipping, what have you whereas digital has, well, none of that.

Example: because a buddy of mine made a number of purchases on Green man gaming he received a discount of 23% discount on dying light, which is the standard fare of 59.99.

[Krylo]

I've not, like, done comprehensive studies, but it also seems like digital copies of games drop in price sooner and further than the physical copies? Also digital distribution platforms tend to have more, and bigger, sales, it seems like.

So the release ticket price might be about the same but I'd guess the average price on digital distribution is a little lower over time.

[Aerozord]

Typically not, but it depends on the digital storefront a game is bought from. Steam, gmg, humble, whatever. So I keep an eye out on different storefronts for the best price. As a result, I generally avoid paying physical prices on digital goods on account of it being a shiesty practice to force the price of a digital product as if it were the physical equivalent. Physical product markup being due to material costs of media, ie disks, packaging, box art, manuals, shipping, what have you whereas digital has, well, none of that.

Example: because a buddy of mine made a number of purchases on Green man gaming he received a discount of 23% discount on dying light, which is the standard fare of 59.99.

Not really, printed paper and molded plastic isn't that much of the cost. Shipping is also not too much because its just a small percentage of what they are already shipping. Stores are mostly just taking their share of the cost. Steam or other services will take their chunk.

Its more of something forced on the stores by the developers to keep them from undercutting each other. However thats just in the short term. Notice after a month or two prices often drop even at physical stores.

Now obviously digital distribution doesn't have as much overhead just that price fixing isn't on their end. Thats also why digital distribution has over sea prices as the same but I've heard they are working to circumvent high taxes in places like Australia and Brazil

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Not really, printed paper and molded plastic isn't that much of the cost. Shipping is also not too much because its just a small percentage of what they are already shipping. Stores are mostly just taking their share of the cost. Steam or other services will take their chunk.


Price per unit, no its not much and it's easy to dismiss that. For the amount of sales they want? That shit adds up real fast. Like my business mathematics instructor explained it: it's the little dollars and cents not factored that can sink a business quick. Those examples I listed are the encompassing umbrella of Markup On Cost. Further modified by Markup on Price on the sales side of things.

[Arcanum]

I tried trading in some sports games

Well there's your problem right there. Those things tend to lose value rather quickly since there's a new one out every year. I mean, Gamestop's trade in value for games is still awful, but with sports games it's especially bad.

Is there a significant price difference in digital distribution? My experience has been that a game which is $59.99 in store is also $59.99 online.

On PC, yes, definitely. Or rather, prices can get lower, or receive discounts, much faster. On consoles prices tend to be the same for a long time, or maybe see a brief 20-25% sale.


Example: because a buddy of mine made a number of purchases on Green man gaming he received a discount of 23% discount on dying light, which is the standard fare of 59.99.

I get an email from GMG every month (or sometimes every two weeks, depends on how often they feel like doing these) with a 20 to 25% off code. The percentage varies, depending on the promotion. I've only bought like six games from GMG, but I was getting these emails after my first purchase. The code is also not exclusive to the receiver, it's the same generic discount code sent to everyone, so you might find some sites sharing that code (I know Destructoid does when they do their game deals articles). And while they encourage you to use the code on pre-orders, or newer games (i.e. the expensive ones) it usually works on pretty much any game on the site.

---------- Post added at 04:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:13 AM ----------

Speak of the devil, just got a 20% voucher that's valid on anything (20PERO-FFDIGI-GAMESX), and a 25% voucher that's valid for Life is Strange (25OFFL-IFEISS-TRANGE).

Both expire on the 26th.