Magazine FTL (For The Lose)

Store: EB Games
Location: Houston, TX in West Oaks Mall
Employee Description: Bald Dork, Mr. Mag Pusher
Submitted By: MidnightScott

So just last year in June 2006, I called around the stores because I had garnered interest in a game called Trauma Center: Under the Knife for the DS. The guy on the phone at the store in the mall said he had it, so we went down there, and he sold me it used for $22 exactly if I signed up for Game Informer Magazine. You know honestly I didn’t want another magazine since I had Nintendo Power, and the guy seemed really pushy.

My mom asked me if I wanted it so I just rolled my eyes and said go ahead. So we wasted that extra $14.99 or whatever it cost on some crappy Game Informer magazine. I read the first issue and already knew it was worthless, they were a bunch of Sony fanboys. And I just NOW discovered that the magazine is owned by GameStop Corp…which just really ticked me off.

Evil EB

Store: EB Games
Location: Macedonia, OH + Solon, OH
Employee Description: Fat Nerd + Surfer Dude
Submitted By: Ghaleon

I’ve harbored hatred for EB since Gamestop bought them. Price fixing + no competition + no old games = totally awesome.

When Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence came out, I actually pre-ordered to get the exclusive bonus disc. I learned my friend from high school was the main dude at the Solon EB, so I patronized his location instead of the one five minutes from my house.

Lo and behold, on MGS3:S launch day, he wasn’t at the store, and the other clerk said my “friend” had given away all the bonus discs to completely random people coming in and out of the store weeks before the game released. “Oh hey, we got these Metal Gear things, who wants one,” I guess was his sentiment. Naturally they didn’t call the pre-order people to let them know the discs had come in. I had to call myself because the clerk would only try the one by my house, literally every GS/EB in Cleveland to find a store that miraculously had a few extra copies. Never went back to my friend’s.

Also, everyone knows they sell used copies as “new,” but this was a shock to me first time I saw it. Dude at my Macedonia branch takes Trauma Center DS off the shelf (disfigured by their stupid “NEW” sticker), puts in the game in, and won’t sell it as used though it clearly had been around. When I went home and it had a game save, yeeeah, boycott.

The only time I attempted to buy anything there since was trying to get Super Paper Mario on my lunch hour. Seeing SIX Marios new and in prominent display on shelf, I wait in line for A) A kid trying to build “Elder Scrolls FIVE,” B) Some brainiac’s trying to return opened games for full money back with no receipt, and C) Some random event in which the clerk had to extricate himself to the back of the store and help idiots shop for PSP titles.

Finally I get up there and request Mario, but I get the Question: “DID YOU PRE-ORDER?” “No.” “Sold out.” “WTF are those displayed on the shelf like they’re actually FOR SALE then?” and walked out, because I’d kind of expected that. I went to Circuit City after work, where they had about 25 copies.

I have no idea why people bother bitching about Wal-Mart when Gamestop is 10 times the customer-unfriendly monopoly of an organization.