New game releases - what do they do at game stores?

[gtmtnbiker]

I noticed that Zelda - Spirit Tracks is already out on the net. It's my understanding that Nintendo ships the game to stores in advance of the release date so that all stores have the opportunity to sell on the same day.

I'm curious what's the employee policy at stores like GameStop/Walmart for these games? Are employees allowed to take it home to play with or are they supposed to wait until the release date?

[Breetai]

I'm curious what's the employee policy at stores like GameStop/Walmart for these games? Are employees allowed to take it home to play with or are they supposed to wait until the release date?

They are not allowed to purchase them before release date, and are definitely not allowed to take them home and test them. I'm pretty sure that the computer system will not allow games to be sold before the official release date. I've never worked at a Wal-Mart, but one of my sisters did in high school as well as a few of my friends.

Wal-Mart does have a problem with employee theft, and I'm sure a lot of other stores do as well. That might explain why some games end up online before their release date.

[porygon]

well 90% of the time when I buy a 'new' game from GameStop, it's already open.

I was pissed when I bought Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door on the first day, and it was already opened, I asked them to sell it for used price, but they refused and I argued with them for a little


so i suppose they do play them!

[noiseredux]

well 90% of the time when I buy a 'new' game from GameStop, it's already open.

I was pissed when I bought Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door on the first day, and it was already opened, I asked them to sell it for used price, but they refused and I argued with them for a little


so i suppose they do play them!

according to ModMan, they do play them.

[t0yrobo]

I don't know how they handle release dates, but gamestop employees are allowed to "rent" games.
As for roms, I'm not sure how often they come from retail copies in stores, I've always been under the impression that a lot of them come from higher level sources like review copies like movies do.

[dlmvii]

Every store is different. They do not open 90% of new games like people claim. They open 1, unless it is a big ticket item, where it will be like 3 maybe. Most stores probably do not allow checking out pre street release titles...I was able to do it once, with Matrix - Path of Neo (ugh). Bottom line is, they will have tons of sealed copies for you, and there should not be any problem, especially for a big title like Zelda.

[Ninja]

I always buy factory sealed games but some of the above are correct in that they open games at Gamestop. As claimed they will open between 1 and 4 games depending on the size of the store and the title. If you get an "unsealed" game, it's because you're purchasing their last one.

The WORST thing I've seen so far is on the East Coast there are several districts that are now stickering the spine of games ON THE SLEEVE underneath the plastic. That way the stickers don't fray after months of sitting there. What a joke... I sometimes take the time to peel and clean, but other times it's not worth it at all.

They can rent games, but only the pre-owned games that have been traded in. The brand new copies are kept in whatever form of storage that store uses, never to be touched until that last copie(s) sold. Plastic sleeves, ziploc bag with the booklet, etc.

However...we all know that people are, well, people...and often times someone will play a new opened game or test it out or just treat it like crap because they're careless.

I have tons of experience with all kinds of crap over the years so feel free to drop any questions on me.

[winds]

I'm not sure how it is with stores like Gamestop and the like, but I remember my ex-girlfriends dad used to manage a Blockbuster and they were always encouraged to take home the latest movies (not sure about games, this was almost 10 years ago when games werent as mainstream) before their release date so that they could give their recommendations to the customer from day 1.

[Snickerd00dle]

This is a great question, I work for a smaller game store and depending on the title, sometimes people can get games early, but if we do a sale in the computer as Halo 3(just for example) before the game came out, our corporate peoples would get pissed, so I think it depends on where you work, and what the game is.

[Betamax001]

As far as new games at gamestop goes, a few years ago I was buying a copy of Street Fighter Alpha Anthology that was $20 dollars new. When I got back to the hotel room I found the disc had all these scratches on it. I would of been ok, but it was supposed to be new. I returned it and got my money back : (