Tell Gamestop 'no reserves' with this geek chic shirt

rotflmao

you do know publishers rely on reserves to guage how many items they should ship at launch.....good one though...more shortages! yea! support idiocracy!

funny shirt though

I'd wear that shirt if it was free

That shirt is full of truthiness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

From the link:

"Availability:
Pre-Order"

The irony police have already been notified.

Well, if you don't reserve stuff, you're not guaranteed that you'll get the game you want. So don't complain if you can't get some game the first few days.

It's funny but come on, we all reserve stuff all the time. Lots of times there are good things in doing so. Plus why single out gamestop, blockbuster and best buy do it to.

now if we can just get them to stop hiring either

1) Mumbly goth kids into anime who are opinionated about everything

2) People that snort 40 grams of caffeine every hour.

Pre-ordering is fine by me, I'd rather change it to "NO, I DON'T use your card!".

I really can't stand it when Gamestop employee's try to defend the pre-ordering crap. Bottomline is unless the game is going to be rare there is no reason to pre-order. Face it, Best Buy will have 50 copies of Spider-man 3 for the 360, I don't need to go to Gamestop to get it. Yes, pre-ordering doesn't cost me extra, but it doesn't do anything for me, gamestop gets my money early to guarantee that I have to spend my money at their shop.

I just don't shop there anymore... At least the people at BestBuy don't care enough to take advantage of my hobby

i hate being harassed about reserves saying no thanks is never enough, you have to repeatedly tell them no and explain why you don't want to and even that doesn't always stop them.

nate: Really? What about DVDs? When's the last time you preordered one of those? They don't seem to sell out en masse, do they? Why are video games so different. They're (almost all) mass produced optical-based media -- there's no reason for sell outs just like there's no reason to pre-order. You want the 10% off the strategy guide, good for you. That choice is assisted by that offer, not by the altruistic urge to help enormous video game publishers gauge demand.

" id like to reserve nothing!"

"we've got nothing 2!"

just to get that out the way.

No, it's "We got Nada 3!"

Actually they are begging for your preorders because it will cost them their jobs if they don't get them.

As much as you like to hate on the employees at Gamestop they are all gamers like yourselves and I guarantee you'd be no different if you worked there.

Of course, you are all successful entrepreneurs so you won't ever have to worry about that.

even before I worked there for a little I saw and still see absolutely no problem with pre ordering.

If you're going to buy it anyway, why the fuck not? In fact, most times it's better because you won't remember you already put some cash down so it feels cheaper in the end.

However, I have been screwed over 2-3 times out of my pre order which REALLY pissed me off and I don't think they should be able to get away with shit like that.(wrong version of BF2, No LE ver of UT2k4 even though I pre ordered it, etc.)

But seriously, if you want to buy it and know you will probably go back to the same store for it.. why not? At least they get their games day one unlike most of the best buys out there. (in my area there's not many alternatives besides that.. and there's no way in hell i'm going to a blockbuster for games).

I do, however, think it's wrong for them to bug the fuck out of you about it, but shit, that's their job. If they don't bug the crap out of you they get fired. That simple. So just understand and stop being pricks (pre ordering helps them out too), let them bug you and have fun with it. Even change your mind on them a few times to get a laugh. It's fun. They get excited then you bring them right down, if you want payback, there you go.

"As much as you like to hate on the employees at Gamestop they are all gamers like yourselves"

oh man, I had to comment on this.

No, no they aren't.

I just went into a GS around here and wanted to reserve pokemon pearl:
"Can I reserve pearl please"
."..what's that"
"uh, pokemon pearl"
."oh..ok.."
....."what system"
"um, nintendo ds >:|"

after which he proceeded to tell me I didn't have it reserved. NO SHIT.

Then the next time...
"When do you have Mass effect in your system to come out?"
."mass..effect?.. for ds?"
"uh.. no. For 360"
."Oh, I shoulda known that"
"...."

and last but not least, once again, I asked to reserve odin sphere, only to have them stare at me blankly trying to figure out what it was.

Ugh. Not all of them are gamers. There should be a test or something, it's so fucking annoying.

Best... shirt... ever

If they bug you about reserving I just say "No thanks, I'm going to just download the pirated version" That shuts em up.

Tell the thousands of people still looking for guitar hero 2 for 360 that it's pointless to reserve

"wanna reserve gh2 for 360? kinda a big item, probably won't get many "

"nah ill just get it when it comes out"

same kid is in a week later, or calling every day looking for it.

scott, that's an irrelevant argument since pre-ordering at GameStop doesn't guarantee you squat. All it does is give GameStop some extra money to invest for free without ever actually guaranteeing you even get the game.

The irony is that games that you have the best chance of actually getting don't need to be pre-ordered because they make so many of them. However, games that are severely limited, and need to be pre-ordered, are the ones you may not get even with a pre-order. GameStop wants to change their image? THEN STOP PUSHING PRE-ORDERS SO MUCH THAT YOU OVERSELL THE ACTUAL AMOUNT YOU WILL GET IN.

"same kid is in a week later, or calling every day looking for it."

Guess they should stop by my local Circuit City. They had several copies of it sitting on top of the pile of Elites.

So people will pay money to complain about a service in a video game store? That's awesome. As someone who works at EB, I admit we do push the preorders. Of course we do. We don't have our jobs banking on the sales of them, generally we push them for two reasons: To get head office to shut up about numbers, and to prevent the customer from coming in on December 23rd and bitching about us having no copies of Halo 3 or whatever. I don't see what's so difficult or awful about preordering: you guarantee a copy on the launch, you sometimes get bonus stuff, and if you decide against it, you can get your money back. Oh no, that's awful.

And also, if the people are dicks at your local store, go to a different one. Man, seriously.

@scott

...

Scott's right. I'm one of those people still searching for GH2.

Nowhere.

But Gamestop does tend to go overboard. When I worked for them, I never asked a soul if they wanted to reserve anything. It bugged the hell outta me - why would I want to put anyone else through that torture. Now I'm sure they threaten to fire you if you don't.

Does Gamestop have annoying attributes? Yes, but what could possibly be more irrelevant than the business practices of Gamestop? If you don't like Gamestop just don't shop there. You can go to:

Best Buy
Blockbuster
Circuit City
Costco
FYE
Sears / Kmart
Target
Toys R' Us
Walmart / Sam's Club

Hell, I've even seen console equipment at Radio Shack.

Or if you hate Gamestop but your parents won't let you ride your bike across the street you can shop online at most of the above or Amazon, EBay, or Buy.com.

It amazes me how it's so easy to get kids so worked up over things.

thanks for making such a horrible job for part time college students even harder, crapbags

I appreciate what #15 said. I work at EBGames (with competent and good people no less). I don't really like pushing people so much to buy our card with the Game Informer or to reserve something, but it's something we have to. We don't even get commission, we just don't lose our jobs if we have reasonable numbers. We theoretically have to have one of each for every ten qualified transactions. If you want to blame corporate, that's fine, because we do fuss about it. Don't give us a hard time for it though. If you don't like to shop there or you don't like the employees are your particular local store, hat's one thing. But if you still go there, you could help them out. You'd be surprised how much reserving a game you know you're going to get will brighten our day. Things get even better if they get to know you.

"Oh I'm sorry we didn't have enough games shipped, so we can't honor your pre-order."

"No we can't give you your money back so you can go across the street and buy the game, but we can give you store credit so you HAVE to come back."

@Diskoboy

Yeah...they fired me already, for that and for not offering GI subscriptions...they lost a great employee modesty apart. Just go to my ex-store and ask anything about Xbox Live and you'll see....

the shirt is funny...

but we are just doing our jobs. I hate nagging customers to get pre-orders as much just as much as customers hate being nagged, but the reality is that if I don't get 10% of my customers to pre-order and 5% to sign up for an EDGE card, I lose my job. It sucks. I hate it...but it's work.

I will not be pushy though. I no when to take no for an answer. In fact, I advise my employees not to be pushy. Gamestop knows they are getting a bad wrap for this stuff. I get emails on a weekly basis on how to prevent the customer from feeling "forced" into a pre-order. You should hear the stuff they want me to do. For instance, one of the tactics to the immediately kiss the customers ass as soon as the pre-order the game or buy the GI until they leave the store because (according to gamestop) they will forget about the sales pitch and only remember the good customer service.

What a joke. I mean, I'm a nice guy. I like to think of myself as the kind of EB employee that people DON'T hate. I'm not pushy, I'm not condescending, but I am just doing my job. I have to pay the bills just like everyone else. When I leave EB though, I have made it lifes goal to hurt EB/GS business in any way that I can for the rest of my life. So I will be ordering this shirt and wearing it in to work on one of my off days when the big-wigs are in town.

I never have and never will pre-order a game.
...especially if there's a chance that they might open the game for me. Damnit, that's like paying $50 bucks to let someone else open your Christmas presents.
I'll usually just go to Best Buy or Toys 'R' Us. Sometimes I like to go to a little mom 'n' pop shop called Fun Land here in Cleveland, because I like to support small businesses, but parking is such a pain in the ass.

"But if you still go there, you could help them out. You'd be surprised how much reserving a game you know you're going to get will brighten our day."

WTF? The gaming community has to front GS/EB full price 3 months in advance so you get to keep your job? I'd prefer if video game retailers not go the way of used car salesmen. Thanks.

I mean cuz we all know only gamestop has annoying employees and one or even 10 or 20 peoples experience speaks about a company as a whole doesnt it?

Come on get real people, yeah GS employees can be annoying, but most of em arent, apparently no one has dealt with problem employees in any other retail store then, which shows how little some of these posters go out into the real world. ANY and i mean ANY retail outlet will have crappy employees and will receive crappy customers, just the way the world works, everyone thinks their the most important being in the world.

"
WTF? The gaming community has to front GS/EB full price 3 months in advance so you get to keep your job?"

wow talk about misinformation.

It's 5 bucks and you can get the money back. yeesh.

@ 36 jj
the people ranting about gs/eb are those crappy employees working at the other retail stores... irony at its fullest.

the REASON games sell out if you don't pre-order them is because it's in gamestop's managers interests to MAKE them do so.

Gamestop managers are rated on their pre-order percentage.. so they actually get rated better if they order a tiny number, and have a huge percentage of pre-orders... vs if they just order the number they know they really need.

Plus, if they never have enough games then they can use that as a stick to force their customers to pre-order "its the only way to guarantee you'll get one!".

the thing that really bugs me with games shops these days is that its almost impossible to get OLD games. Apart from a tiny selection of junky budget games.. they never stock anything more than 2 months old... even all time classics.

I am a former employee of gamestop, who was high enough up to see some of their more guarded practices, and since my non-compete agreement has run out I have no problem in posting this; yes gs does use the number of reservations they receive at a given store to determine how many to ship to said store, and of course they feel as though they have secured your business by having you put money down on the game ahead of time. Added to that, publishers are more likely to allot more product to a company if they have more presales.

What you may not realize is how much money they make off the reservation process. What normally happens is about 5-10% of reservation customers never come and pick up their game/money, and if it's a huge title, say like, Madden or a new halo where they take rez for a year or so, that number can be more like 15-20%. Multiply that by 5000+ stores, and you have yourself a very large chunk of change. Ask any of the employees that post here, they will back me up on this.

Well you may be asking "wow, that sounds like a lot of money that customers never come back and get, wonder what gamestop does with that money"? Well legally, gamestop has to put that unclaimed money in an escrow account with some bank, Virginia based bank if I recall, for 2 years. When that two years is up, Gamestop gets to keep the money as a profit.

When I was worked for them I believe we were profiting around 1.2 million a year in unclaimed reservation credits. Still wonder why they push them so hard?

Also I feel I should mention this: The customer facing employees are not the ones that you should be mad at, do not give them grief for asking for res or gi cards. These people gain nothing from selling these things other than continued employment. And quite frankly they get paid peanuts, and if you ask anyone who works their 9 out of 10 will tell you it's because of their love of games.
If you shop there regularly and you know your going to buy an upcoming game, help a fellow gamer out, pre-order it. Just don't forget they have your money! =P

The last time I was in a Gamestop, as soon as I walked in the door the employee practically yelled "Hi! Are you here to trade?" He then proceeded to follow me around the store, constantly hawking random games and pre-orders for them. And I noticed as I left, he immediately turned around and did that to the next customer. I know this isn't common or even normal practice for the chain, but I'd sooner gouge my eye out than go back to THAT particular store.

@retail wars


ahh demolition man was such a good movie

All of you GS/EB employees that are on here whining about this...STFU. I've pre-ordered numerous titles from you store, and guess what....there were plenty of times where I STILL DIDN'T GET A COPY. That's why your stores suck, and no one wants to pre-order your crap. Quit lying and say it "garuntees u a copy", becuase you know it's bullshit. EB was good, til the buy-out.
Funny thing is, I still pre-order all of the time, from Game Crazy...and I get my game every time! Besides, their used games are ALWAYS cheaper than yours. None of this $5 cheaper BS. And their card is actually worth having. I still have my EB card....and it barely saves me crap

They should make "No I don't want your card", "No, I don't want to subscribe to GI" and "Quit ripping us off with used games prices"

This is a poser shirt. Only posers wear it.

I think the most heinous thing GameStop does is gut a PC game so that you have ZERO chance to bring it back . If you are buying it as a gift... wtf? What if you need to return it but its opened? Or its a multiplayer game with a key and they refuse to take it back because it was open... but THEY are the ones that opened it. Its kinda bullshit...

I also used to work at GameStapo. The company is founded on the principal of "shit rolls downhill." If you don't make your numbers, then your manager reams you because he or she gets reamed by the district manager who gets reamed by the regional manager. In the end, the pay is horrible (because they know there is an army of kids who want the job), the hours suck, and corporate expectations can never match up to anything closely resembling reality. So what is one to do? Easy... I quit. Now I plan on buying that shirt. :)

Wait, people are still looking for Guitar Hero II on Xbox 360? My wife just walked into Gamestop and picked it up yesterday (best gift to come home to ever).

I have to say, though, as a British ex-pat, I really am not used to all of the constant upselling in Gamestop stores. They pitch the membership, then trick you into talking about games you want that aren't out yet and twist your arm into pre-ordering.

That's kind of off-putting, and it's the reason I'll favour Best Buy over Gamestop in future.

Indeed, pre-ordering is a waste of time. I was in a GameStop a couple months before GHII was out for the 360 and the guy there kept trying to push a pre-order for that on me. I asked how much it was going to be and when he told me, I passed on it. When the game finally came out, as someone else pointed out, Circuit City had plenty of them. That's always a pretty good store to go to when a game launches, as I don't think as many people think of that store when it comes to games like they do Best Buy, Toys R Us, Target, or GameStop.

Bottom line is I've never had the need to pre-order a game, and never see myself doing so. And if I can't manage to get a game the very first day it's out, big deal. There will eventually be more surplus in a fairly short amount of time.