As for the other late-night shows, I suspect there was no mention of Jackson's passing because they were taped before the official confirmation of death. I did notice that Jimmy Fallon's show began with a brief message that the show was taped at 5:30 p.m. EST, which normally never precedes the show.
Someone mentioned that the stores could print out cases and never need to gut new games at all. Well, believe it or not GameStop may actually be moving toward that. After the aquisition of EB Games, GameStop recieved the EB Games computer systems for their registers and there is "Cover Art" section on there and according to a manager they are working to get a database of cover art on there. So, maybe this is on the way - we can only wait an see.
And going further into the gutting practice of some games being in the sleeves used for used games - GameStop has a history of not shipping enough materials to their stores so that the employees can properly gut games in shrinkwrap or plastic sleeves. So sometimes these things happen unfortunately.
One of you mentioned the employee check-out priviledge. I've worked at two different stores and while corporate says we can check out new games and play them all of my managers have pointed out how this is completely unfair to the customer and make a store rule that we can only check-out used games. Obviously this won't happen at all stores, but the stores that care about the customer understand where the policies aren't fair and work around them to ensure that you are happy with your purchase/service.
Those of you who are saying you've found saved data on a new DS or GBA game, probably are the "victim" of an employee playing the game. You have to understand that those of use that actually care about the people buying the games don't do this and its just that much more annoying to see all the GameStop bashing when it doesn't necessariliy apply to ALL GameStop stores.
Service_Games: Actually good call on that. During the holidays we do sometimes gut a few extra copies, but how many and even if to do it at all appears to be more at the manager's discretion. However, we typically have more copies at the beginning of the holiday season so the ratio of guts to non-guts remains about the same as compared to the rest of the year. It's all because higher ups put pressure on the stores to make sure more customers have more chances to see certain products during the holiday season. However, with GameStop's aquisition of EB Games... the companies still seem to be toying around with which store's practices they want to adopt and which ones to drop.
So, sadly it's not BS, but true. Some stores may gut a ton during the holidays, others may not. I just assure you that when I gut things I take care of them just as well as I do my own games.
Also someone else pointed out the situation with DS games and how they are gutted - this again is something that appears to be at the manager's discretion. Some stores do put them in sleeves and others shrinkwrap - but either way they are only touched by human hands for a matter of seconds and the next person to do so would be the customer.
While most of GameStop/EB's practices have already been explained in the comments to answer a few other questions:
- Only one copy of a game is gutted and all copies that haven't been gutted are sold before the gutted copy. When a game is a new release there may be an additional two copies of the game gutted.
- You are still buying a new game - it hasn't been used. It's been opened, but the book and disc have been shrinkwraped right after being opened. Yes, you can't return a new copy of a game if it has been opened (meaning the shrinkwrap broken open), but if a game is gutted, as long as the shrinkwrap on the book/disc hasn't been broken, it can be returned. Plus if the game is sold before it's had the chance to be shrinkwrapped, usually (or at least I do and my coworkers do) we make a note on the receipt.
- Display boxes are put out for some games regardless of if we have the game or not. This is to promote the game and is usually sent to us at the request of the game manufacturer. These cases usually say "DISPLAY" on them and feature no price sticker.
- I can't speak for everyone, but while most employees also disagree with a lot of GameStop's practices, a good amount of employees are gamers themselves and are as careful as possible when gutting games to ensure you get the game in the same prestine quality you would if you had opened it yourself.
- Yes, most of these practices are done to reduce the chance of theft. A lot of you commenting are well informed gamers who know what you like, but a large majority of GameStop / EB's clientele aren't so much. You'll be suprised how many empty cases get stolen and other common occurances of the moronic kind. We have to cater to the customer who wants to browse and therefore have to have cases on the floor. Most of you know what you want when you come in and go straight to the employees.
- Lets face it, GameStop / EB are in it just to make money. What you can hope for is that the employees are gamers like yourself and they're the ones who do their best to make sure you're satisfied while still following the requirements of their job.
So hopefully that cleared up a few things. I'm not going to join in in the GameStop rulz/sucks arguments as obviously I'm biased, but maybe now you can understand things a little better from the associates perspective.
The "official" word so far is that the company ***plans*** on doing it tomorrow. They probably will, but as of right now no store has ***real*** numbers as to how many reserves their doing. Those e-mails have not been sent out yet. A delay in this could move it to Saturday or later, but it'll still probably be tomorrow...
I get Daily Show and Colbert Report Multi-Passes and even when new episodes are airing sometimes one of the shows or both of the shows gets backed up for a few days.
Also, apparently the pilot of Heroes is missing yet episode 2 is online for sale...
#5 - Perhaps that's why Nintendo is opting for GameStop and EB Stores for the kiosks. At my store we can keep a good eye on just about the entire store just from behind the counter. We can get busy, but other places like Target and Best Buy may not be able to be watching the kiosk at all times.
#1 - As with the 360 in general media (i.E. local TV news stories and advertisements everywhere) i would think it possible for Nintendo to get their message out there that the console is coming and what it is capable of w/o necessarily having kiosks in all stores. Don't sell the intellect of the non-gamer too short.
You knew someone would joke about Jackson's death (and you kinda knew it would be Kimmel)
Jun 26th 2009 1:02PM (AOL TV)Heroes' Greg Grunberg disses The Listener on Twitter
Jun 10th 2009 4:14PM (AOL TV)Heroes' Greg Grunberg disses The Listener on Twitter
Jun 10th 2009 3:35PM (AOL TV)http://twitter.com/greggrunberg/status/2099581828
Gamestop shenanigans sell open games as 'new'
Mar 25th 2007 4:30PM (Joystiq)And going further into the gutting practice of some games being in the sleeves used for used games - GameStop has a history of not shipping enough materials to their stores so that the employees can properly gut games in shrinkwrap or plastic sleeves. So sometimes these things happen unfortunately.
Gamestop shenanigans sell open games as 'new'
Mar 25th 2007 4:25PM (Joystiq)Those of you who are saying you've found saved data on a new DS or GBA game, probably are the "victim" of an employee playing the game. You have to understand that those of use that actually care about the people buying the games don't do this and its just that much more annoying to see all the GameStop bashing when it doesn't necessariliy apply to ALL GameStop stores.
Gamestop shenanigans sell open games as 'new'
Mar 25th 2007 4:16PM (Joystiq)Actually good call on that. During the holidays we do sometimes gut a few extra copies, but how many and even if to do it at all appears to be more at the manager's discretion. However, we typically have more copies at the beginning of the holiday season so the ratio of guts to non-guts remains about the same as compared to the rest of the year. It's all because higher ups put pressure on the stores to make sure more customers have more chances to see certain products during the holiday season. However, with GameStop's aquisition of EB Games... the companies still seem to be toying around with which store's practices they want to adopt and which ones to drop.
So, sadly it's not BS, but true. Some stores may gut a ton during the holidays, others may not. I just assure you that when I gut things I take care of them just as well as I do my own games.
Also someone else pointed out the situation with DS games and how they are gutted - this again is something that appears to be at the manager's discretion. Some stores do put them in sleeves and others shrinkwrap - but either way they are only touched by human hands for a matter of seconds and the next person to do so would be the customer.
Gamestop shenanigans sell open games as 'new'
Mar 25th 2007 3:49PM (Joystiq)- Only one copy of a game is gutted and all copies that haven't been gutted are sold before the gutted copy. When a game is a new release there may be an additional two copies of the game gutted.
- You are still buying a new game - it hasn't been used. It's been opened, but the book and disc have been shrinkwraped right after being opened. Yes, you can't return a new copy of a game if it has been opened (meaning the shrinkwrap broken open), but if a game is gutted, as long as the shrinkwrap on the book/disc hasn't been broken, it can be returned. Plus if the game is sold before it's had the chance to be shrinkwrapped, usually (or at least I do and my coworkers do) we make a note on the receipt.
- Display boxes are put out for some games regardless of if we have the game or not. This is to promote the game and is usually sent to us at the request of the game manufacturer. These cases usually say "DISPLAY" on them and feature no price sticker.
- I can't speak for everyone, but while most employees also disagree with a lot of GameStop's practices, a good amount of employees are gamers themselves and are as careful as possible when gutting games to ensure you get the game in the same prestine quality you would if you had opened it yourself.
- Yes, most of these practices are done to reduce the chance of theft. A lot of you commenting are well informed gamers who know what you like, but a large majority of GameStop / EB's clientele aren't so much. You'll be suprised how many empty cases get stolen and other common occurances of the moronic kind. We have to cater to the customer who wants to browse and therefore have to have cases on the floor. Most of you know what you want when you come in and go straight to the employees.
- Lets face it, GameStop / EB are in it just to make money. What you can hope for is that the employees are gamers like yourself and they're the ones who do their best to make sure you're satisfied while still following the requirements of their job.
So hopefully that cleared up a few things. I'm not going to join in in the GameStop rulz/sucks arguments as obviously I'm biased, but maybe now you can understand things a little better from the associates perspective.
Gamestop Wii pre-order confirmed for tomorrow [update 1]
Oct 12th 2006 11:13AM (Joystiq)The case of the missing shows in the iTunes Store
Oct 9th 2006 11:44AM (TUAW.com)Also, apparently the pilot of Heroes is missing yet episode 2 is online for sale...
GameStop to be only retailer with playable Wii units at launch
Oct 2nd 2006 3:22PM (Joystiq)#1 - As with the 360 in general media (i.E. local TV news stories and advertisements everywhere) i would think it possible for Nintendo to get their message out there that the console is coming and what it is capable of w/o necessarily having kiosks in all stores. Don't sell the intellect of the non-gamer too short.