When I lived in the states I shopped there almost exclusively. There was one less than a mile from our house and it got to the point that everyone in there knew us on site and by name. Most of the employees are still on my Xbox live friends list. The last time we were in the states we even made a point to stop in and say hi. I like that they tend to be very knowledgeable about games and I've never had anyone at game stop act like I shouldn't be playing a game because I was female. Usually it's just the opposite and they think it's very cool. I also like their Game Informer magazine.
Unfortunately in Switzerland games are super expensive. There is a Gamestop in town and I've gone in a few times but when I see game prices that are twice what they are in the states I just end up leaving empty handed.
I'm kinda like kwynn. I am in the one up the road so often that they know me by name and whatnot. I don't even have to hand over my rewards card or anything anymore lol. I do like the magazine cuz it's a pretty good read most times and it's a lot cheaper than most gaming magazine subscriptions plus it comes with the rewards card which makes the value even better. I have been in Gamestops where the employees made the experience less than desirable but I usually just deal with it by leaving empty handed. I've never lived in a place where there weren't several around town so it wasn't much trouble to simply find a different location where they treated people better. Normally there's only one in whatever city that I would direct people away from, they are usually pretty good about hiring people who are passionate about the hobby as well as knowledgeable. I don't really shop anywhere else for games unless it's something I can't find at Gamestop or an older game I'd prefer new that I know they'll only have used. Then I hop on Amazon.
Now that I have steam I rarely find myself at gamestop. I go there for console only games or games i wanna play on 360 or to trade. I used to go to game crazy until gamestop sucked the life out of them. I also like Toys R' Us for games too because sometime they just have some ridiculous sales.
I might stop in if they have a good deal, I have 6 game stops in my local area, and a best buy, etc.. so I'm not particularly loyal to any one store, online or off.
No I do not for the following reasons. After being a manager for that company for upwards of five years I discovered the following
-There are one of the worst companies in the world for treatment of employees. My friends working for Walmart were on average treated better then those of us working for gamestop and that is saying something. They try to get you to pay into their health insurance and if you do you are locked into paying for it for x number of years (unless you quit) no matter what. Every three years they jump the insurance prices up by a few hundred dollars. I know people that were losing money working for gamestop because they were forced to pay five hundred a month for insurance that they signed up for at less then a hundred a month.
They are currently one of the strongest companies as far as profits yet keep cutting hours and pay to workers. One year their profits went up 50% so no small amount, that was the same year that they decided every single story in our region was going to get less then half the hours then the years before. They made it so you literally could not have more then one person working a day for the vast majority of the day. This was also the year that they decided that the max you could get from a yearly raise was 10 cents. The MAX mind you. This was also the year that all bonuses to non managers were completely cut and if you were promoted you could still only get a max of 40 cents as a raise.
Our store was across the street from a high school and had a high shrink problem, we begged and pleaded for more help in order to watch the floor (it was also a large store so really hard to keep an eye on everything while at the register) they said no and then tried to make myself and the other manager pay them out of pocket for stolen items. So even though we were doing an average of a customer a min and had literally no help it was somehow our fault the store wasn't being protected.
One girl in our region nearly was killed because we had time delayed safes and the the robber got impatient. The companies response to him actually firing his weapon during the hold up... To make the safes have an even longer time delay. The cops actually told the company that this would likely cause deaths, they didn't care. Oh yeah and the people part of the hold up were not written up as that would be illegal but they were all conveniently treated like crap until they quit.
I had to write up a girl for being late to her shift when she had to be rushed to the hospital on the way to her shift. But because she didn't call in an hour ahead of time (mind you she was in an ambulance) she was to be written up. It meant she got no raise that year.
And you are told that your fellow workers are your enemies. You are in constant competition with them and your job is held over your head as a threat. Being told "if you don't up your sales will just fire you and keep Matt" is not uncommon and you are encouraged to steal sales from one another
-They are sexist.
As a manager I trained over 8 male employees with less experience then me, going to a lesser job (so they were not equal to me), and they were all making AT LEAST 1.50 more then myself and hour. As an assistant my male 3rd key only made 5 cents less an hour then I did. Every single female employee made less then the males regardless of work experience or ethic. Men always got bigger raises. When I brought this up my job was threatened.
-You are told as an employee that you are supposed to screw over customers.
You are encouraged to take in good games as defective trades then move them back to being good so that the company can make more money
We know that reserves only last two years we were still encouraged to take reserves on games (I.G. Duke Nukem) that would not being coming out in two years. The company literally made millions off the 5 dollars put down on that game that magically "disappeared" when we upgraded our systems.
Gamestop refurb systems at most last 5 months and we know this but we were still encouraged to sale them and push them and they were the only systems we were told not to push warranties for
The customer is not to be treated well if it means the company might lose a bit of money... Ever
I will NEVER give gamestop a cent of my money now that I don't work there anymore
There's no Gamestop here. So I just order from Amazon or Steam. I used to order from them back when they had the best overnight shipping prices, but then I went Prime so that ended the relationship I had to deal with their customer service once and it went smoothly so personally I have no complaints.
Lol when I worked for them i got fired because i told the district manager that we only got reserves so that people would forget about them and gamestop would get free money!! Today I cant believe i said that but they pushed that crap so hard i guess i just couldnt take the bs anymore :/
My brother-in-law is a manager at gamestop and he is the only person that I'd trust. I've had nothing but bad experiences with the people that work there.
I have to say that I don't have any problems with 99% of the actual sales associates up to store managers, it's the higher up leadership that's the issue and a lot of the policies and procedures these guys are told to go by. Managing a GameStop was by far my favorite job as far as actual job duties. I mean seriously I got to talk about all day who's going to hate that? It was the companies policies and the higher leadership that just forced me to quit on moral and ethical grounds.
The only person I have an issue with at my store is my douche biscuit of a SM tomorrow is the first time in over 3 weeks that I have hours at my actual store! and he has this poop reason as to why I can't transfer to the store closer to me. (it apparently needs to be an even swap) so I told him. "If it snows I'm calling off." my life is worth more than the $20 some odd dollars I'd make in the 3 hours you give me a week. Was thinking of writing a letter to corporate about him...but that would be a waste of a good stamp. The store is going to be shut down by next year. He is running our numbers into the ground because he is a total creeper...just gives off that vibe. None of our customers even like him.
Gamestop = Electronics Boutique in Australia, and they're really terrible... JB HiFI is cheaper.. you'd think that if you wanted better service and product knowledge then you'd go to EB, but they're useless.
I asked some guy on the weekend if they had the box set of Neverwinter Nights, and his reply was "uh, what? What game is that? I've never heard of it before". :|
I personally think Gamestop is awesome. I've never had a problem really with them that wasn't rectified by their awesome customer service. One rep even gave me his own personal code for Dead Island because I wasnt informed of the deadline to get the preorder bonus. All the employees seem happy and are always very knowledgeable and friendly.
On average the actual workers are fine that doesn't change the fact that company is corrupt, sexist, and the ceos have said (to my face) that screwing over customers to get the company more money is not only ok but highly encouraged. And the nice workers are only being mistreated while they are there.
It's kind of like saying "well I know nice people that work for Walmart so I don't care"... sure the workers are fine but a corrupt business model is a corrupt business model. In general regardless of what sales associates are like I won't shop at places that I know that the ceos are bad people. Gamestop is run by VERY bad people. In my experience with CEOs they are the worst people I've ever met or spoken to.
That's the problem with America though, mom and pop places have all but been destroyed so everyone will continue to shop at Gamestop, Walmart, etc because they have no choice. People that I would actually consider evil because they are so bad will continue to get money and nothing will change.
Hastings in my town gives about twice as much in trades for cash and three times for credit so all my business goes to them or Bestbuy, at least they (even though they are large companies) have business models that don't exist to screw customers and workers over
I've only shopped there a handful of times. I never found the "deals" that great nor the staff (multiple locations) to be very knowledgeable. Up until I started working at Best Buy I bought my games from Amazon or Walmart.
Never had a problem with Gamestop myself, in the US or in Italy. I usually bought more games from there in Italy though, since here in the US I can just order stuff from Amazon or get it at Best Buy. My boyfriend works at a Gamestop though and he, too, always complains about their lack of hours and his a-hole manager.
Employees at Gamestop definitely deserve a lot more credit than the company cares to give them. On a personal level, I love the Gamestop I go to. All of the employees are nice and friendly some of them even remember me to keep me informed of new specials or what-have-you that's available. It's because of service like that which makes me go back to them.
I know that there are a lot of things that can on behind the scenes (thanks for filling us in Melano) but I love the service I get there too much to stop going. I will keep that in my mind when I do my video game shopping though.
I have a friend who works at Gamestop, and while her hours aren't great, I've never heard any horror stories from her when I ask her how work's going. As a customer, I don't shop there often just because I can get games cheaper off Amazon, but when I do occasionally go in there looking for an old or used game, the staff have been really helpful and nice. Once they were sold out of a game and proceeded to print out a list of Gamestops within my area where they had copies, which I thought was more helpful than saying, oh we don't have any, sorry.
I actually frequent a place called Replay'd that does a lot of selling used and trading and have beaten all the trade-in values at Gamestop, so I support them when I can. Basically I don't walk into Gamestop to buy things only because there are better, cheaper options nowadays. I've got nothing against the employees, even when they are pushing useless offers on me, I understand they are just doing their job... though it's a shame to hear some of the crap you have to deal with if you work there :/
I had to deal with their customer service once and it went smoothly so personally I have no complaints.
