To lighten things up a bit:

Darkcomet72 · Post by **Darkcomet72** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 1:52 am

I read this in a the Gamefaqs God of War Thread:

"Funny story, I actually went to buy DMC3. I rented the first two, but thought I'd give the 3rd installment a go. I was kinda intreaged by the complaints about difficulty.(that was also the only reason I bought Jak II) Anyway, I go up to the counter at EB, and the guy was like, "Have you played the first two?" And I told him yes, and I was dissapionted by 2. he said that 3 was 10x worse and refused to sell me it. He then said Gow was better. He was so pushy that I ended up with Gow before I knew what had happened. From what you people said it sounds like he was wrong. But I still loved GoW.

Man was that alot of typing."

kinda sad, but very funny!

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:07 am

Hate to rain on your parade, but... I didn't even come close to cracking a smile...

Maybe because I couldn't give a load of dingo's kidneys for any of those games....

roushimsx · Post by **roushimsx** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:15 am

I'm sure the employee was just trying to be helpful, but that does come across as a bit assholeish of him

The n00b · Post by **The n00b** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:25 am

now that's the kind of EB employee that I wish worked at my EB. GoW>>>>>>>DMC2,3

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 3:28 am

Heh, hardcore shmuppers ought to keep out of EB jobs, if their attitude carries over in similar fashion...

"PUT THAT SAN ANDREAS BACK RIGHT NOW! YOU ARE NOT LEAVING THIS STORE WITHOUT GRADIUS V!!"

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 5:12 am

The EB here in town is pretty good, but if you go much further than that there can be some pretty pushy people in the game stores. I suspect the fact that MS and Nintendo both have their headquarters in town helps.

trivial · Post by **trivial** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 6:08 am

In all my life I've never had a salesperson push a game at me. Not once. It may help that I enter the store and head directly to the sale rack, even if I already know what current game I intend to buy.

I have had a clerk at Wal-Mart recite unsolicited, memorable cheat codes to me for the game in my hand. Anger slowly rose in me like a fantasy of juicy gossip. I hope I wasn't too blindsided to not thank him; it's been years and I don't remember.

Capt. Takehiko · Post by **Capt. Takehiko** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 6:35 am

I almost always avoid staff in stores like that, but in Austrlia you can just push them along with a simple: "I'm right, thanks mate."

FatCobra · Post by **FatCobra** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 3:04 pm

For some reason, the game stores around my area are biased towards the Microsoft Xbox. I hate it when I ask for the PS2 verison of a multiplatform game and I get handed the Xbox verison.

I don't know if I could be a good Gamestop employee. Not just because I bitch about how 3-D games are not as good as the 2-D games of yesteryear, but I wouldn't be able to put up with all the stupid people that come in, even worse if they bring their kids. I know I used to be a kid myself, but ever since I used to work at a water park, I wanted to strangle the little bastards.

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 5:55 pm

trivial wrote:In all my life I've never had a salesperson push a game at me. Not once. It may help that I enter the store and head directly to the sale rack, even if I already know what current game I intend to buy.

I have had a clerk at Wal-Mart recite unsolicited, memorable cheat codes to me for the game in my hand. Anger slowly rose in me like a fantasy of juicy gossip. I hope I wasn't too blindsided to not thank him; it's been years and I don't remember.

When I worked at Funcoland after the PS2 launched, the douchebags I worked with would continually turn people away from buying Dreamcasts and make shit up about how they stopped manufacturing Dreamcasts and how it's already dead in japan etc etc...

judesalmon · Post by **judesalmon** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 6:08 pm

DMC3 US is apparently harder than DMC3 Japanese, and that's no walk in the park.

Dewclaw · Post by **Dewclaw** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 6:59 am

What a dick. DMC3 was awesome.

Now that the push for the new systems are out, it's really annoying to go into my game shop and hear the clerks sing the praises of the new XBOXs on hapless customers. I was almost hoping he would try it on me so I could explain just how much I cared about graphics.

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 7:15 am

Capt. Takehiko wrote:I almost always avoid staff in stores like that, but in Austrlia you can just push them along with a simple: "I'm right, thanks mate."

In that light, a simple "No habla ingles, senior" will also get a clerk outta your way due to the language barrier, and if they happen to have a spanish-speaker working there, by the time they'll get him/her, you'd be done browsing through their games and gotten what you wanted. Of course, this applies to the USA.

FatCobra · Post by **FatCobra** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 4:25 pm

Oh, yeah, whenever I walk into a Gamestop and purchase something, they always ask me, "Would you like to pre-order an Xbox 360?"

And do you know what I say? I say, "Do I look like I'm ready for the next-generation, considering that the Xbox didn't even reach the typical console life-span of five years? Hell no I'm not preordering." They shut up and give me a blank stare. It's hilarious.

judesalmon · Post by **judesalmon** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 5:22 pm

When I went to New York last year, I got slightly annoyed by the constant "can I help you"s from sales staff when I went i shops.

Over here in the UK most sales staff try and avoid you until you actually search them out. And they only try and sell you stuff when you make a purchase.

russ · Post by **russ** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 7:57 pm

FatCobra wrote:Oh, yeah, whenever I walk into a Gamestop and purchase something, they always ask me, "Would you like to pre-order an Xbox 360?"

And do you know what I say? I say, "Do I look like I'm ready for the next-generation, considering that the Xbox didn't even reach the typical console life-span of five years? Hell no I'm not preordering." They shut up and give me a blank stare. It's hilarious.

Yeah, they push us GameStop employees to do that kind of trash. You've probably been ragged on by some of the employees to reserve other games and buy a subscription to game informer - corporate makes us do that. The number of reserves/subs a store gets makes that store look "good" for the district. I have no idea what they mean by this, but apparently it does. Yes, I know that having people reserve stuff and buy into this magazine is not an actual representation of the store's success in sales. Oh, and we don't get commission to do this. So what's the incentive? Keeping our jobs - they have no problem finding replacements because "everyone wants to work at GameStop[sic]!"

Anyways, if it makes you feel any better, we've had a lot of filtering-out at my store. Everyone there appreciates the classics, and I've even gotten most of them to appreciate the shmup genre. Hell, I've gotten 2 of them to reserve Chaos Field already (since it's not in the computer yet, we used a generic sku). And at one point, we had switched out the games in all the demo consoles - Xbox had Metal Slug 3, PS2 had our only copy of Gradius V, and the Cube had Ikaruga. This was actually nice - not only did some people play them and enjoy them, some of our trashy regulars ended up leaving early, apparently disappointed that they didn't get to spend hours playing Tony Hawk's Underground 2 without buying anything or even looking around. </rant>

benstylus · Post by **benstylus** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 7:38 am

Every time I get asked if I want to preorder the new xbox, I always say, "Sure, if I can pay in full right now. How much is it going to cost?"

They "um" and they "er" a bit and finally admit they don't know.

Then I laugh at them and ask to see the CDs for the 7 or 8 cheap used games I'm buying. I usually end up finding one or two that are in good condition, and so my gamestop trips generally stay in the $20-$30 range.

I don't preorder unless I'm getting something in return. And "a guaranteed copy of the game on release" doesn't count. A t-shirt is almost like getting nothing for me, since the shirts are generally the cheapest quality they can make.

Acceptable preorder bonuses include:

Soundtrack CDs
Bonus DVDs (like with Gradius V)
Art Books (like with Soul Calibur 2)
Plush Toys (like Finny the Fish)
Extra games (like getting Star Wars with Rogue Squadron 3)

If I'm not getting one of those, the only other reason I would consider preordering is if there is a limited edition release with extra stuff that I want that will likely sell out.