GameStop's Zork 'customer acquisition engine' experiment was a success

One reason they were pushing it was because the stores were competing for numbers to win a prize. Top store (who ever get the most people to play and reach level 5 - the level you have to reach in order to win the chance to win free games) gets like $100 for every employee and the managers get a trip to Ireland. I played to level... whatever it was, to be entered twice for the free game contest and stopped playing.

@Jerry

Gamestop's parent company is the same as Barnes and Noble...

They have a lot of the same horrible practices when it comes to employees...Sales are monitored, you are expected to reach a certain average sales figure/average number of items per sale...Regardless of changes in the economy or the general situation of the store, the projection that set's these numbers is the best previous year. There is pressure place on employees to reach a certain percentage of promotions in some cases. An example of which would be how many edge card sign-ups you get, e-mail captures they get or magazine subscriptions you push. The employees are/can be punished for not meeting this required percentage...Loss of hours most likely and loss of your job if you are horrible.

All I am saying is this...They are people just like you and they are trying to put food on the table! The people who do best in pushing promos get more hours. If you want to hate someone, don't hate the employee [most of them only see people who don't want to be sold something and hate selling it to you themselves], hate the company that pushes their employees to see their customers as an obstacle between them and their paycheck!

I lament over the fact companies no longer see the correlation between happy employees and good sales, but do notice that if someone has a piece of plastic in their pocket with the name of their store on it...They are three times more likely to return and buy more [this statistic, like most, is total BS, I would kill the man who said it if I met him]. Service and deals make sales, not the kind of aggressive tactics that makes people avoid eye contact with booth vendors at malls or puts the customer in a bad mood before they even reach the checkout!

That's one of the reasons I was really worried when they started talking about microtransactions with Fable 3. Will I need to buy items with my actual money to get the full experience.

It's possible but it could also be early unlocks. Similar to some games on the 360. For example Magic The Gathering you can purchase completed decks, but you spend money on something you can unlock just by playing the game.

That's where they make their money. Why would ANYONE spend months designing a game just to have it "play for free"? So in its stead; we get membership levels/items needed for progression/trinkets to help give them the revenue they need.

I'm not saying that it's bad to make money but if your going to rape my wallet, at least give me the courtesy of seeing it coming so I don't waste my time in feeble means.

Well that's good to know. As of now, I'm just really hoping the best for Fable 3.

Yeah let's hope. I dislike item malls and such in games.

Last comment directed towards Spike.

The same things can be said for many things in this world.

And we also have to establish the difference between milking and pleasing the customer. Releasing 8 Guitar Hero games in one year is milking, where as releasing a new Assassins Creed game this year is simply pleasing the fans.

I guess my Gamestop is cool. I've been in there a few times over the last couple of months and I've never even heard of this until now.

Just one? Damn.

They shoved three into my bag. Hell only reason I played that horrid excuse of a game was for the chance of winning that $600 gift card. Now that its over, I'm done with it, and glad I don't have to log onto it anymore.

@devilsei
have to?