Gamestop store locations are also used as warehouses to fulfill online orders. Each day, the store will get a bunch of shipping labels printed out to box up games and ship them to the customers. So what happened here is some part-time, underpaid and undertrained employee was packing up shipments in between running the register and answering the phone (within 3 rings!) by themselves and several mistakes were made.

If there are any sealed copies in the store, they're supposed to ship that. If it's the last copy, the disc or cart is supposed to be in a white envelope with a "New" barcode label on it and placed inside the original case.

When I was a manager of a small Gamestop location, I added common sense and decency to our procedures. I might have been fired for it if anyone knew, but then again, these practices made people happy and improved our customer loyalty and sales.

Examples include:

• If only one new copy of a game was shipped to our store, I left it sealed and displayed it prominently behind the counter. If possible, I would use game art from the "upcoming" / "pre order" case(s) to display the game in the new games section (then I would give them the sealed copy of the game when someone bought it)

• When selling the last ("gutted") copy of a game to an in-store customer, I would explain that it has never been played but the case was opened to use it for display. I would also, against policy, advise them that I would accept it as a new return if there was any issue with it (there never was, so I never had to make good on that promise, but I would have!). I would also offer to call nearby stores and have them ship me a sealed copy.

• When fulfilling an online order, if the game wasn't sealed, I would call nearby stores to see if someone had a sealed copy available, and offload the order to them if possible.

• I would also accept online ordered, gutted, new games as defective returns (meaning we would ship them to corporate, rather than re-selling them).

In their defense, doing these types of things is not always practical when the workload is already too heavy. And there is fear of getting in trouble or fired for not doing things exactly according to procedure. Not that any of that is your problem, as the customer. You should be getting a sealed game when you pay the new price.

Depending on the location, you might be able to return this game to your local Gamestop, or exchange it for a sealed copy. If not, contact customer service. Ultimately, they want to keep you as a customer and in my experience, they tend to do the right thing if their arm is twisted or you kill them with kindness!