Here is some more information that I gathered on the place. This goes along with the first paragraph of the other post I wrote on GameStop, Letter to GameStop: A Disgruntled Ex Employee.

One thing that I noticed while I worked there is that they do not turn of their lights at night. I don’t know why businesses do this because it seems like a waste. Why does the store need to be lighted 24 hours a day? With all the energy crises arising, GameStop does nothing in the manner of helping. Maybe it is a deterrent for criminal behavior but still is unsavory practice.

Another thing is how they make their money. They make their money by selling used stuff at marked up prices. Let’s say you saved your money and bought a new gen game for 60 bucks. You have the option of buying a NEW one for 60 or you can buy a used one for 55-50 bucks. Normally, people will want to buy the used game because it saves them the extra cash. But there are many problems with this practice for the consumer and the lowly employee. First off, they probably brought that game from someone else for dirt cheap. For instance, I remember when I was working over at GameStop that the new releases were fetching much lower prices that I would imagine. Let say Metal Gear Solid 4 for the PS3 sold for 60 bucks NEW. GameStop would buy it back from you for 25-30 dollars and saw it was a great trade in offer. Were still imagining it came out like last week ok? So they go around and price it as a yellow sticker, this means it’s USED, and sell it back to someone for 50-55 dollars. I’ve freakin seen them do it! They just made double on what they offered the poor guy that traded it in. This is why this company has so many stores out there. If I remember correctly, it’s in the 2000 region! They generate so much money from this it is absurd. Millions if not Billions from this practice of buying low and selling high. You don’t really save that much money and you aren’t helping the gaming community. Id rather, Id urge you too do the same, buy it new from the game company than line the fat pockets of GameStop by buying their used.

The more absurd is that they pay their employees crap wages. If you’re new, you’re basically working as if you were below a part timer. This means that you’ll be lucky enough if you see ONE day where you can work. I’ve seen with my own eyes my old manager purposely not schedule someone because they weren’t doing as good or not enough hours were there. I’ve also noticed that they tended not to tell the employee until they called and found out for themselves. This happen at my store and I can’t say if other stores practice this but it is always possible.

Moving on the topic of what GameStop considers NEW! They purposely open the game package and remove the game from its case. This defeats the purpose of buying something new! They do this to help curve theft but it’s not really good. Besides, I found games still in their cases when they were up in public display. Than they wonder whey games get stolen. Than they do the most stupid thing, they begin to accuse people of stealing from the register. I’ve yet again seen this happen numerous times. Even though the fact that they having cameras pointing directly where the games are held. This is extremely smart on GameStop’s behalf. There was a little sarcasam in the last sentence. Most of the time employee’s don’t pay attention in handling the game. They will leave finger prints or even worse scratch marks. Insanity if you’re shelling out 60 for something that looks like a dog had in its mouth. Even dumber is that people don’t have a real choice if they shop at GameStop. They have to buy their definition of what a NEW game is! So please just shop somewhere else where people act sensible!

Another topic I want to brush on that annoys the hell out of me is their behavior. What I am talking about is their pushiness about guying USED, buying their subscriptions, or reserving a game. Even before I was an employee I was always turned off by their tactics. Today I cut them off when they offer all of these amazing savings and reservations on the hottest games coming out soon. There is a reason they do this. Already mentioned was how they sell used and make fistful of money. The reason they sell subscriptions is the same thing. They sell them; they are called SUBS in GameStop slang, because it’s basically a vehicle to peddle their wares. They make more money by the advertisments in the magazine sent to your house as well. But if you see games and read about them in the magazine, where else are you going to buy them, Best Buy? Of course not, you are human; you are going to buy them at GameStop because it has its name plastered everywhere in the magazine. The reservation is a little sneaky too. Let’s say that you want to reserve Star Craft 2 and its JULY, even though you might be reading this at a later time so let’s just imagine. It comes out all the way in December but you give in to the pushy CSR, Customer Service Representative in GameStop speak, and give him 5 bucks for it. 5 dollars doesn’t seem that much to me and you but it is to GameStop when you forget about that reservation. See they will call you about the game coming around the time its due out but that is it. They wont be hounding you like if they were too you about buying used or a RES, Reservation in GameStop tongue! So if you buy the game somewhere else and not at the GameStop where you reserve. Guess what! They keep the money! That is why they are so pushy! It is because they gain something in return, although it is miniscule. They higher the numbers they can get, i.e. USED sales, RES, SUBS, and IPT, they get more hours. IPT’s are Items Per Transaction and this means the more the CSR can get the customer to buy, the better it is for the company. So basically the CSR’s are fighting for the little hours vie talked about in my last paper. They are even told if they don’t have good numbers that it is basis to get them fired in the long run. It is bad for the CSR but still ever so annoying. Especially the one where they can’t take no for an answer and ask you multiple times. Not only does this make them seem ignorant but you feel insulted for them not taking your word as for truth. As if you were being talked to as if you were a special child. When I worked there, I understood this and asked only ONCE! If they wanted anything that was cool but I wasn’t going to beat them over the head with it.

Another practice they do that I extremely disapprove is how many people are working. Not only do you have to share a work schedule that is maybe 30 hours on a regular non holiday week with 4-5 people but there is another thing wrong with this. I’ve heard that there are some GameStop’s that only let 1 person work at night. This is extremely stupid and dangerous. They do it to cut down on man hours at a store that doesn’t make that much money on certain days. I know this because I’ve seen the books where GameStop has statistics on stuff. One of these statistics is how much money they made that week of LAST YEAR. By this, this is how they know how many hours they can a lot to that store. It doesn’t help because people come when they want. So you sometimes got 1 person working when a swarm of people are waiting for service. Than you got other days where 3-4 people are working at a time and the store is completely dead! They really don’t know what they are doing at times. I will take this thought to my grave because it was really bizarre the things I experienced when I worked there. But back to the subject, they do this to save money. Plain and simple. The thing I hate about this is that they create a situation of life and death by this. By this I mean that it is really easy to rob the place. When a robber knows a person is the only person working there. I’ve heard stories that I will talk about in the next paragraph. This is especially true at night when that lone person is closing up by themselves. There is no security to help protect the place or even a second person to make it safer. I think it doesn’t manner to GameStop because they constantly do this.

Here is some of the horror stories that vie heard and told by people that experienced it. I worked with someone named Chris and he told me this. He told me that one day a person pulled a gun out on him when there were children present at his GameStop. They guy robbed anything he could get his hands on. He even had the nerve to steal Chris’s car to haul off all the loot he just gotten. Another person by the name of Ken told me his store was robbed by shotgun in daylight. How horrible is that? Thieves have no quarrel about doing that type of thing when they think they are getting easy money. There were even 2 people working at that time also. It’s problematic when there are no security guards that can fight back with their own guns. The worst one story I heard was that someone was murdered. I forgot the state but a manager was murdered outside of the store after closing hours. The manager had just finished closing when someone killed her in cold blood. Also, some died when they suffocated on a gag that was used on them when they were tied up by robbers. I remember this because there was an email going around about his death and to pay their respects to his family. I don’t want to scare you any more by this but it happens. I’m glad it never happened to me but feel sorry for the ones that had to go through it.

This, for now, is all I can remember. If I can give more information ill write another paper. For now, her are some more reason to frown on GameStop. Do me a favor and just shop somewhere else. Use the internet or another store but don’t support GameStop. If you only experienced what I experienced, than you would understand.