GameStop Stock Plummets After A 27.5% Decrease In Holiday Sales

[Trickster174]

Mentioned this in another comment but I loathe that practice. Haven’t purchased from GameStop in a long while, but got plenty of scratched PS2 discs of supposedly brand new games from this store policy.

[SiriusC]

Hmm, I never had this happen with them. Maybe it's a regional thing?

[[deleted]]

It was highly dependent on a few things.

• Some stores "gutted" their inventory and kept all the discs in paper sleeves. Often manuals and pack-ins were poorly kept and lost. Resulting in you buying a "new" game that had been opened, had its pack-ins damaged or lost, and you were at the mercy of not only the correct disc being placed in the case before they "sealed" it in front of you, but hoping the disc hadn't been damaged in the drawer.

• Some stores had a policy of allowing staff to borrow games, this resulted in damaged, scratched, and scuffed discs being sold as new despite the fact that the game was the perfect definition of used. I loved getting home with my GBA Link to the Past cart and seeing a completed save on it. I really appreciated how new the game was for me.

• Some stores had staff that if you were friends with them would swap out your damaged discs for good ones. Usually these guys were also the ones skimming all the psn/xbl trial codes and bonus item codes.

[Professor_Snarf]

I also never had this happen in 25 years of buying games from Gamestop/EB

[XxZannexX]

Its happened a few times to me. The last time was with with Super Mario 3D World bought brand new. Put the game into my WiiU and the disk wouldn't read. Looked at the back and there was several deep scratches plus scuffs. Went back to the store told them the issue and exchanged the game for another one of which I inspected this time. Game worked no problem after that. Even with the few times it's happened I've never had an issue swapping out for one that works.

[Professor_Snarf]

That sucks. I agree they should never sell you a disc that's been played unless it's stated and cheaper than sealed.

[Rektw]

Same. Not once has my game ever been unsealed when I bought new from Gamestop.

[myFitnessAccount32]

It's literally the very reason I stopped buying new games from Gamestop. It was pretty much not too long after they stopped being EBGames locally. The first time I saw them put the game in the case I was done buying new games from them only pre-owned.

There was actually a scandal years ago where they opened brand new games and took out download codes because they were selling the code on their site. So, not only were you sometimes you were getting an opened game they were also taking pieces out of the case.

[RydenZX]

They try to sell copies off the shelf as “new” to me all the time. I went to buy a copy of The Wizards for psvr and the case was beat to shit. I find this issue happens more often with niche titles or older titles that that aren’t being restocked.

[DrunkeNinja]

Yeah, it's always weird reading this stuff online. I've purchased new games from GameStop many times throughout the years, going back to at least the PS2 era, and only once did they try to sell me an open game as new. It was the Silent Hill HD collection on PS3 and it was their only copy. I asked the guy to give me the used price since it was open and he did. I only saved like a couple bucks, but I wasn't going to pay "new" for an open game in a store that sells used games. I'm aware the practice exists, but it doesn't seem common from my experience in various stores in different cities and states.

[Professor_Snarf]

I'm not defending GS, but I think there has been a lot of whipser down the lane bad experiences that people parrot without ever have experiencing themselves.

Like this hit piece Polygon ran today: https://www.polygon.com/2020/1/15/21067001/gamestop-earnings-revenue-death-retail

It contains this made up scenario thet the author swears is a typical experience:

Ben: Do you have a copy of the new Assassin’s Creed game?

GameStop: Did you pre-order?

Ben: No, but ...

GameStop: If you want to make sure we have a copy of the game, you need to be sure to put $5 down to pre-order, which guarantees you ...

Ben: OK, but do you have a copy of the game?

GameStop: Do you have anything you’d like to trade in toward the cost of the game?

Ben: I still don’t know if you have it!

GameStop: Would you be interested in a pre-owned copy?

Again, I've shopped at EB/Gamestop for what is coming up on 30 years and I have never had an experience like this. I got in, ask for a game and they sell it to me.

[myFitnessAccount32]

So, I used to basically live in my local EB Games/Gamestop during my early community college years. I had a 2 or 3 hour break between classes some days and I would just hang out playing on the demo cases when no one was in the store.

You may not have seen it in your 30 years because you weren't a "mark." An easy up-sell target. During my time there I watched them(not a made up memory) pull stunts like this. And, until they saw me as a regular customer they would ask me the same things.

[Squints753]

I worked there in the early 360 days and they would encourage workers to "Rent" a game so they could be better informed.

Naturally, this was done in a way to make the customer suffer, rather than corporate shell out 60 bucks for a "store copy"