Is Gamestop Evil? The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

[darsparx]

Heck if it was then I wish my dad would've bought more games for the system. Last I checked we only had about 12 games when I took the collection as my own originally(and he missed a good bit of mario and mega man when he bought what games he did...). Heck though I should've at least pestered my parents when they were getting near the end of gb/c and gba at the stores there were quite a few I was itching to try back then....

[SonicTheHedgehog]

I heard a GameStop manager talking about something recently, and it gave me some perspective that I didn't have before...

GameStop is notorious for giving laughable trade-in value on games. Make no mistake, their offers are sometimes insultingly low. It's easy to say, "this is a joke! They give me $15 for my game, and then turn around and sell it for $40!" Yes, that's true, but that's only the best-case scenario. In reality, many times they will buy a game from you, and by the time they actually sell it, the game will have dropped in price and their net will be a lot less than that.

The other thing is that they'll probably buy-back more copies of some games than they'll ever sell. Like, GTAV. I'm sure hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of copies of that game have been traded in. Eventually, some of those traded-in games will go unsold and probably wind up in a warehouse or something. They are assuming some risk. I don't think I've heard GameStop tell someone, "sorry, we have too many copies of that game in our warehouse. We don't buy it from you."

I'm pretty sure bulk of GameStop's revenue comes from used game sales, so it's definitely a lucrative avenue of income. However, after hearing this manager talk, I did sympathize with GameStop a little more... Logistically, there are some real challenges.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I hate GameStop and never shop there anymore. Every manager there I've ever talked to has said they are miserable with their position.

[Glitch42]

There's a rather depressing (yet great for me) trend where I am where people buy games for just-came-out prices, play it a couple times (or finish it) and then sell it at a pawnshop for a quarter of the value. Then it sits on a shelf for a year until it's snapped up by me for less than $10AUD (I've even picked up a couple for $2AUD)

[Tanooki]

I see that around here for movies often enough. You can pay $30 for a blu ray, or wait a week, go to the local ma n' pa shop and they sell them used for $15, and within a month it hits a rack where they're $13/ea or 2 for $20. It's not like you have to have a movie immediately, no gamer mentality of missing out on online FPS head shotting people.

[CRTGAMER]

I see that around here for movies often enough. You can pay $30 for a blu ray, or wait a week, go to the local ma n' pa shop and they sell them used for $15, and within a month it hits a rack where they're $13/ea or 2 for $20. It's not like you have to have a movie immediately, no gamer mentality of missing out on online FPS head shotting people.

Taken further, what about all the fools who plop money down on a preorder? Transferring personal bank account interest over to Gamestop or any game store to reap the interest multiplied by millions of preorders for a game not due for a month or three. This even occurs for digital download games that (if publisher allows) have an unlimited supply.

[Fragems]

They won't refuse trade ins on games however they do tank the trade in values when they get a solid inventory. They also badger the shit out of anyone who has games they are interested in with mass emails fishing for trade ins. Don't feel bad for them as a corporation their risks are actually pretty low.

Really a lot of their pricing and market is aimed towards people who eat up preorders, "protection plans" and DLC content plus they are expanding into the collectibles market thanks to acquiring ThinkGeek. Really not a huge fan of the collectibles given that a lot of the stores in the area have devoted 25-30% of the store to that crap and I cringe every time someone spends $11-20+ on a funko it's like people falling for the beanie baby pyramid all over again .

[Sarge]

Yeah, that's why I've always understood that GS is going to give less. There's no guarantee they can turn around and sell the game for its current price, if at all. But they will accept trade-in on it with no questions asked... until it gets to a point where they're giving less than a dollar for it. It's very much a pawn shop model, and they have to mitigate risk. If you want more for your games, you need to sell directly to the buyer, either through the forums here or on eBay.

I have no problems with preorders, though, at least on games that are going to get comparatively low print runs. Often, the number produced is tied to known preorders, and there are many times your only real shot at a game is to go ahead and preorder it. A lot of niche stuff at GameStop only gets a shipment for each store equal to the number of preorders at the store.

[SonicTheHedgehog]

They won't refuse trade ins on games however they do tank the trade in values when they get a solid inventory. They also badger the shit out of anyone who has games they are interested in with mass emails fishing for trade ins. Don't feel bad for them as a corporation their risks are actually pretty low.

All I'm saying is that people trivialize the trade-in lifecycle and overlook some of the real logistical challenges they have to deal with. By no stretch of the imagination am I trying to feel sorry for them or come off as a a GameStop apologist; I almost never shop there. I've made maybe 3 purchases there in the last 7 years, and they were all need-it-tonight-instead-of-waiting-two-days-for-it-to-ship-from-Amazon convenience purchases (e.g. controller broke and needed a new one right away).

[SonicTheHedgehog]

There's a rather depressing (yet great for me) trend where I am where people buy games for just-came-out prices, play it a couple times (or finish it) and then sell it at a pawnshop for a quarter of the value. Then it sits on a shelf for a year until it's snapped up by me for less than $10AUD (I've even picked up a couple for $2AUD)

I used to buy and collect a ton of games. I always had the intention of playing them all, but realistically that was hopelessly naive of me. I was never going to catch up to my backlog. It grew at a faster rate than I was playing through it. I'm sure most collectors can relate to this predicament.

I would still buy new games though. Not at $60, because that was too much. But then I'd see them go on sale 4-6 months later for $30-40. I'd think, "wow, great deal!" But the game would just slide into my backlog. Even though I saved $30-40, I didn't ever play it.

By the time I did get around to playing it -- let's say it was 1-2 years after the game's initial release -- there were so many used copies in circulation that I could pick one up for probably $10. So really, even though I "saved" money by buying it at $30-40, I still paid $20-30 more than I had to.

Anyway, what I've found is that it doesn't really make sense to buy a game unless I'm going to play it immediately, because chances are it will be even cheaper by the time I do get around to playing it. Just like you described, a little patience can lead to dramatic savings.

[Fragems]

Yeah that is pretty much the boat i'm in I don't pay over $20 for a new game unless I'm going to play it immediately. However there are exceptions for games that get low print runs and/or tend to get pricier with time.