Video game retailers

[Halo]

That would have been before EB purchased GAME. The two stores were like chalk and cheese. GAME seemed to be really laid back and staffed by gamers. EB was always much stuffier (the staff had to wear a shirt and tie from what I recall).

It's a shame because GAME and Gamestation were both mostly excellent before EB effectively took them over and ran them into the ground.

[KriessG]

I worked for Gamestation in... 2005, for maybe 4 months.

I sold a load of PSP's as I was walking around with my Japanese unit in my jeans pocket, singing its praises. I like to think my knowledge and enthusiasm showed in my dealings with the public.

That was all before I walked out one day, after an argument with an up-himself manager. It was quite funny to see his face as I just calmly strolled to the back room, took my CD out, and walked out of the store at around 10am

I'm glad I experienced it, we still had some okay retro bits in the cabinet then, but it was being phased out.

[HarryBizzle]

From elsewhere:

Before getting it from Argos i asked in Game if they were selling Captain Toad only to be told that the release date was in january. I mentioned that some retailers including Argos were already selling the game. At this point the guy i was talking to seemed to take a little pleasure in informing me that Argos would most likely get a "massive fine" for selling it early.

I'm getting flashbacks of 2000 when my mate tried to get them to sell him Hidden & Dangerous on Dreamcast early. He basically just moaned at them until they did.

[denisb]

I remember game and gamestation before the merger and EB mostly used game an gamestation didn't like EB

After the merger they were basically the same store much like JD and JJB sports were

I miss the days of hanging around all afternoon in the indies playing games and having a laugh.

Feel sorry for the kids of today no indie game shops or record stores to spend hours in

iTunes and spotify may be the future but I miss the old days

[MrPogo]

I went into the new Game in Norwich, opened this month having closed 2 or 3 in the past few years - its a much nicer shop than the traditional game layout and it does seem pretty nice until you see the prices, not selling at the same price as online is madness.

Yeah. I tend to forget about that once or twice a year, so do online research that shows Game have a competitive price and go into store to buy it from them using some sort of "got to help the actual physical store, even if they are evil bastards", get to the shelf and exclaim "Fucking hell! Are they having a laugh?!", then go and buy from Tesco.

[ScouserInExile]

Do Game purely survive on impulse / impatient purchases and grandma not knowing any better?

[neoELITE]

Do Game purely survive on impulse / impatient purchases and grandma not knowing any better?

I'll usually buy hardware from a store. Bought the 2ds Mario Kart pack from GAME last weekend for child #2's Xmas present. It was part of a bundle - add a case for free, add a game for £15 (shovel-ware), add another for £30 (AAA titles that are cheaper online). I asked if the Mario/Pokemon case was still free without buying the additional games - the guy scans a standard 4 Gamers case and says "nah". I said to him, quite politely, that he'd have to scan one of the cases in the promotion but he refused as the queue was long behind me and he knew better than I did about the bundles - I'd already queued for 5 or 6 minutes myself so I was aware of the queue.

Then he debated if my home insurance would cover the ds as I'd declined insurance from GAME. "It's up to you but if it breaks, it might be difficult to exchange it".

I was with the Mrs so it probably looked to him like we were clueless Xmas shopping parents - he then offered me a pre-owned PS4 for some reason and offered up their Amiibo collection.

I wish I'd bought the same item in Smyths up the road - their staff are great, know what they sell and are polite - they only try and upsell batteries if you buy something that needs them. They've got a lot more shelf space for Nintendo stuff. The store is nice and their prices are better.

[sandman]

Reading about these shit stores makes me appreciate how nice my local one is. If I get the right members of staff then there is no upsell at all. All,the staff are friendly and helpful. They don't muck about with price matching CEX and have tablets at hand to check the prices.

The store layout is rather poor and makes bad use of the large amount of floor space available. But apart from that it's a good store. I just wish their prices were a bit lower and I would shop in there a heck of a lot more.

[fat flatulent git]

Mine is quite good. The staff are not too intrusive, and their pre-owned is reasonably priced. In the summer I got Gran Turismo 5, Unchartered 2 and Arkham Asylum for ten quid, which I was pleased with.

[Dudley]

The High Wycombe store I worked in was ex-Future Zone. It used to be the whole downstairs with upstairs for storage but game had taken the back for storage too. This meant the door at the top of the stairs still had the old "Future Zone staff" sign. I assume it still does.

[stefcha]

I'll usually buy hardware from a store. Bought the 2ds Mario Kart pack from GAME last weekend for child #2's Xmas present. It was part of a bundle - add a case for free, add a game for £15 (shovel-ware), add another for £30 (AAA titles that are cheaper online). I asked if the Mario/Pokemon case was still free without buying the additional games - the guy scans a standard 4 Gamers case and says "nah". I said to him, quite politely, that he'd have to scan one of the cases in the promotion but he refused as the queue was long behind me and he knew better than I did about the bundles - I'd already queued for 5 or 6 minutes myself so I was aware of the queue.

Then he debated if my home insurance would cover the ds as I'd declined insurance from GAME. "It's up to you but if it breaks, it might be difficult to exchange it".

I was with the Mrs so it probably looked to him like we were clueless Xmas shopping parents - he then offered me a pre-owned PS4 for some reason and offered up their Amiibo collection.

I wish I'd bought the same item in Smyths up the road - their staff are great, know what they sell and are polite - they only try and upsell batteries if you buy something that needs them. They've got a lot more shelf space for Nintendo stuff. The store is nice and their prices are better.

I don't get why you didn't just walk out and buy elsewhere, why put up with that attitude when you already know better?

[Lothar Hex]

I worked in a Gamestation from 2002 to 2007 part time going through college and Uni. I left maybe a month before it was bought by GAME. I went back their all the time as I got on with the staff really well (and they would always do me good deals such as swapping my Xbox 360 or a new one multiple times even after the warranty expired yeah remember the RROD's). Afterwards however it slowly changed to them having to promote everything all the time. They did it with me but they always did it sarcastically because I knew they had to so I played along. However I could see their souls slowly being sucked out. My store closed a while ago and it always make me a little sad to see the decline it went through as I could see the sort of store it was before and what it became when the staff left and got people in who did not give a thundering fuck and were actually ignorant. Was looking at a Pokemon game for the DS and this staff member was insistent on it coming it on PS3, trying to get me to buy one. I informed him I already had a PS3, and that Pokemon was a Nintendo property, and I hadn't heard this much gaming bullshit since I heard someone back in bloody secondary school claiming that Pokemon was going to come out on the ORIGINAL Playstation. Don't think I ever went back after that.

[neoELITE]

I don't get why you didn't just walk out and buy elsewhere, why put up with that attitude when you already know better?

Time. We'd already been around to quickly check other places - all the same price. This was the last possible place. I won't buy from GAME again.

[schmojo]

Gamestation in Newcastle - 2004-2005, Game in Leeds 2005-2006. Sales scummer in both.

In Gamestation you could while hours away shrink-wrapping console displays for the window. We had to empty the window every night, so half the shrink wraps tended to get ruined too.

[angel]

Can confirm shrink wrap nightmares, we had to empty our window too. That 30 minute n64 wrapped with controllers and cartridges ruined.

[schmojo]

On the up side, your problems disappear after a few hours in a small room with all those plastic fumes.

[angel]

Ha, yeah. We used to do these elaborate double bagged ones, sticking them together with the heated edge to wrap items that should be too big for the machine. Our shutter was actually inside the shop not infront of the window glass, hence the nightly empty. I'd have one till cashed up, the other one all written ready to bang through, with someone on standby to empty the window. We were like lightening getting out, Gamestation had absolutely zero respect for your personal time if you followed the processes by the letter.

Monday stock counts too, what a piss take. We would do the count during the day, making note of any items sold that would affect it so we could enter the figures bang on closing time. I had one manager though who preferred to be at work than at home, so he refused any of this, and would literally stay back until 9pm before getting the bus back home to Newcastle. It drove us all nuts, 4 totally unnessecary unpaid hours on a night that could be avoided.

[Dudley]

Wait, I can (just about) stand 10 minutes to get out being unpaid but you stood for 4 hours?

[Down by Law]

speaking of shrink wrap guns....

[angel]

Wait, I can (just about) stand 10 minutes to get out being unpaid but you stood for 4 hours?

Yeah it was standard GS policy, every 2 weeks, monday night stock count unpaid. PS2 was the killer one, or actually even worse...hardware and peripherals. Going through dump bins of GBA lights, nes carts, link cables, god knows what old shite, trying to work out what code it was taken under on.

Like I say the only way was to set 1 or 2 staff doing it all day and enter the figures at 5.35, they would check the time the figures were submitted and punish stores doing it before close. Just no respect for people or their time.

[Down by Law]

PC stock take was apocalyptic. 100 different versions of the Sims. Pure nightmare fuel.

[Dudley]

Yeah it was standard GS policy, every 2 weeks, monday night stock count unpaid. PS2 was the killer one, or actually even worse...hardware and peripherals. Going through dump bins of GBA lights, nes carts, link cables, god knows what old shite, trying to work out what code it was taken under on.

Like I say the only way was to set 1 or 2 staff doing it all day and enter the figures at 5.35, they would check the time the figures were submitted and punish stores doing it before close. Just no respect for people or their time.

Wow I'm glad they never pulled that stunt on me. I understand being told to get to fuck often offends.

And yeah, when I did stock takes at Blockbuster that's exactly how we did them. (The good way)

[angel]

My manager at the time was the biggest control freak ive ever met, the one who came in on every single of his days off, and not trivial either, a 1.5 hour bus journey to then be "just passing". Literally every other store would do it the good way except us, he would ring other stores at 6pm and obviously theyd all fucked off, but us we'd just be getting started. His wife absolutely hated it but he was determined to be the martyre, because allegedly he'd once seen someone sacked for a minor transgression, therefore he did everything by the absolute letter. And I mean absolute, he would even carry out a clear misprint or typo.

[Dudley]

You'd think "Trying to get staff to work unpaid for 4 hours" would count as a minor transgression wouldn't you?

[angel]

The company wanted that though, they thought it was acceptable.

[gossi the dog]

It's the price you pay for working in the games industry

[Rob Rymond]

Ha, yeah. We used to do these elaborate double bagged ones, sticking them together with the heated edge to wrap items that should be too big for the machine. Our shutter was actually inside the shop not infront of the window glass, hence the nightly empty. I'd have one till cashed up, the other one all written ready to bang through, with someone on standby to empty the window. We were like lightening getting out, Gamestation had absolutely zero respect for your personal time if you followed the processes by the letter.

Monday stock counts too, what a piss take. We would do the count during the day, making note of any items sold that would affect it so we could enter the figures bang on closing time. I had one manager though who preferred to be at work than at home, so he refused any of this, and would literally stay back until 9pm before getting the bus back home to Newcastle. It drove us all nuts, 4 totally unnessecary unpaid hours on a night that could be avoided.

Sounds like my Senior Sales stint. I worked in Game Hanley between 2008 and March this year, around 2 years as Senior Sales. If you were by the book, you couldn't cash up till close, but guess what, you finished being paid at 6pm when the shop shut! I'd blast through those tills and sometimes be out in 10 minutes. Christmas though was another story, especially the year we had till failures which resulted in three days worth of cashing up. Counting up £100K in cash takes a while...

[tnman]

Even as a lowly Christmas temp at Gamestation, the 'sit on the floor and do fuck all for half an hour while the managers cashed up' routine was pretty shit.

[Eighthours]

Yeah it was standard GS policy, every 2 weeks, monday night stock count unpaid. PS2 was the killer one, or actually even worse...hardware and peripherals. Going through dump bins of GBA lights, nes carts, link cables, god knows what old shite, trying to work out what code it was taken under on.

Like I say the only way was to set 1 or 2 staff doing it all day and enter the figures at 5.35, they would check the time the figures were submitted and punish stores doing it before close. Just no respect for people or their time.

I'm sure that's illegal.

[Benji]

That's one thing I'm glad of, I worked in retail for 5 years (Not at game or gs) and when I did the cashing up the latest I ever got my guys out was 5.35. The amount of times when I was sales staff and I was out at 5.50 or 6. May not seem like much time to many but work that out over the month, year and you're 'working' a lot of unpaid time for nothing. It's in the contract that you may have to stay a little after your shift ends, but in my eyes when I stop getting paid for my shift, that's me done and dusted, most people will just say "Yeah, that's retail" but I still think it's pretty shitty as you don't ever get anything back for the extra time.

Now I have an office job and leave at 5 when my shift ends, perfect.