Stop making me Crazy.
I shop at used game stores a lot. The GameStop near me has been having “buy 2 get 1 free” since December, so I’ve been buying tons of games. The thing is, I always feel like they’re judging me every time I buy something (usually many things). I’ll get comments like, “Oh, well at least you’re getting ______.” So every other game I got is total crap? Listen, I know you work at a game store, and you don’t know me, but that doesn’t mean I just randomly pick stuff off the shelves because of the pretty boxes. I know what games I’m buying. What exactly are the qualifications needed to work at a used game store, anyway?
To be fair most of the people seem cool, and seem to really like games, but do they have to be so damn condescending all the time?
GameCrazy has been having a “classic plastic” sale, $15 for three old games (NES, SNES, Genesis, GB, GBC, Dreamcast, PS1). Most of the employees grab everything good the first day, but I really wasn’t trying to find rare stuff to sell, just games I wanted to play.
I went the second day, then went back again a few days later to see if they had anything new and grab some stuff I saw the first time. There was only one employee there, and he started talking to me. After trying to get me to buy a copy of Mario All-Stars he bought from some kid and was keeping behind the counter (borderline illegal, anyone?), we had this conversation as I was looking through the SNES/Gen/DC case:
GameCrazy Employee (hereafter known as “GCE”): “What game are you looking for?”
Me: “Nothing specific, just looking. I was in here a few days ago, so I doubt there’s very much new stuff.”
GCE: “Yeah, because people trade in like ten copies of Skies of Arcadia all the time!”
Me: *smile-nod*
GCE: “Dreamcast game. Never mind.”
Me: “I knooww what it is. They also released it on GameCube.”
GCE: “Whatever. The Dreamcast version is better.”
Me: “Psh. They took out tons of the random battles in the Cube version.” (this is a good thing)
GCE: “Oh psh yourself!”
Okay, that wasn’t that bad. He seemed pretty bored with no one to talk to, but still. Then I had this gem of an experience…
Well, let me back up for a second. After my first visit I went online and checked out the highest Game Boy Color scores, and to my surprise, Alice in Wonderland was on there! It was given a whopping 9.0 by GameSpot, and an 8.0 by IGN! Quite shocking considering most movie games are horrible. I just happened to remember seeing it at GC, so I decided to pick it up next time. So anyway, I asked for a few games out of the case, and when I pointed to the one I wanted and said Alice, he just stared at me with his hand on the game.
“Yes, that one,” I said.
He kept staring.
“Yes.”
*stare*
Just give me the ****ing game I ask for, jackass! I had to say “yes” like five times. I don’t need to explain myself to some random employee. I bet people come in all the time and drop $50 for Shadow the Hedgehog and you don’t say a word, but you give me dirty looks when I want to buy an old game for FIVE dollars that you know nothing about? What the hell?
As he was ringing it up he said, “I can’t believe I’m typing in Alice in Wonderland.” It didn’t even seem like he was making a big deal about it because movie games usually suck, it seemed like he was thinking, “Alice is a cartoon about a young girl! It’s for girls!” the whole time. Please, Alice is a frickin’ awesome movie (and book, I’m sure, but I haven’t read it)!
“Have you ever played the game?” I asked him.
“No, have you?”
No, but I’m not the one bashing it! You’re the one judging it before you’ve even seen it. The multiple good reviews were enough to convince me that five dollars is worth it. If it sucks or is too easy, I’ll just give it to my little sister or something. (Just to spite GCE even more, here’s my short review.)
He also said some random comment when I wanted SNES Pilot Wings. What? It’s one of the greatest SNES games! What’s wrong with this guy? Then at checkout he kept jokingly rearranging my games so I would be paying full price for Alice ($12.99) instead of having it in the 3 for $15 pile. Hilarious.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, his scanner wouldn’t work, his computer froze, he wasn’t sure how to enter the 3 for $15 code, it took a phone call and literally ten or fifteen minutes of me standing there for him to get it to work, and the printer was out of paper so I didn’t get a receipt! Ahh!
I’ve read many posts about how much game stores suck. I’m finally starting to see what they’re talking about.
I hear ya. I worked at a Gamestop in my hometown. I was a late comer to the XBox and as such, had a whole library of games I’d not played. Of course I’d played Halo and Splinter Cell, but there were about 30 or so games under $10 that had caught my eye at one point or another. Anyhow anytime I would go to buy a game a fellow employee would scoff and say something along the lines of “that game sucks compared to this other game that’s not even in the same genre”. See, when a customer would come in and ask about a game I’d not played or disliked, I’d say “well I’ve not played it, but I’ve heard _______” or “I didn’t personally like it, because ________”. Whereas my fellow wage slaves would stare dumbly at the customer and say “this game sucks you should get marvel vs. capcom 2”. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in a retail situation isn’t your goal to be knowledgable and helpful and SELL the products, not make a customer leave empty-handed because they were stupid enough to think that Forza Motorsport would be a good purchase.
Now whenever I go into a video game store, I never pre-order, never buy their stupid subscriptions, never cave to their begging to please spend more of my money so they can make their quota. No thank you.
That’s cool. I remember way back when it was Funcoland, and I didn’t follow games as closely, I would actually have nice conversations with employees. If I was looking at some terrible game, they’d tell me, but they’d actually give me *reasons*, and tell me about better games I might be interested in.
Then again, maybe now I’m just more aware of when they’ll full of crap. *shrug*