Post by Rune Lai on May 20, 2022 16:06:25 GMT -5
Warning: Long story about shenanigans. And I feel like Anon would say something like "Yep, that's why I stopped working there."
I probably should have been done with Gamestop a long time ago considering how everyone complains about it online, but my local Gamestop has generally been all right. The employees are nice. And I've never had trouble with an online order. Even when some people said they had their pre-orders cancelled for no reason, my collector's edition of Shin Megami Tensei V came through. I didn't order from them much, but over the years it's been something like once every 1-3 years.
So when there was a 2-for-1 sale on their web site last month I didn't think anything of it. I have several titles I'd love to pick up at my usual $30 or less threshold, and with the 2-for-1 sale on top of other sales happening at the same time, I was able to pick up three titles I'd been wanting that would meet that price (once the total I paid was averaged between the three). This looked like a good thing.
Then the first of the three games arrived (they got shipped in two batches) and, well, it had no shrinkwrap and was sealed with a transparent circle sticker. I thought that was weird. Was it used? Or was the version Gamestop received from the factory was different for whatever reason? I opened it (I can be a bit dumb sometimes), and after I did, I found that the case had been damaged. It wasn't immediately apparent, but it was damage that was hard to see unless you opened the case. And if it had been damaged in a way that could only happen if you opened the case... obviously this was not factory sealed. It looked like someone had whacked the case with a knife or a box cutter or something. Not enough to severely damage it, but enough to leave a mark.
While waiting until the remaining games to arrive, I read up online about this weird sealed with a circle sticker thing and found out that this had been a thing with Gamestop for several years, though somehow it had never happened to me before. I had assumed that Gamestop shipped everything from a warehouse like most online retailers, but apparently they also farm out online sales to their brick and mortar stores, so the chances of actually getting a game from a warehouse decrease the longer it's been out. And the thing with Gamestop stores is that they always open one copy to put on display as an empty box. When they run out of other copies, the display copy is sold last, though still as a new game. I understand why they do this, and some people don't care, but when this happened to me in the store before I could just say, nah, I pass and I'd go buy the game somewhere else. (I'm picky, but since I don't play games right away, this insistence has worked out in my favor as I now have a lot of old games I've lost interest in that I will probably ebay for more than I paid for them.) Since the online Gamestop will pull stock from the brick and mortar store that means, you guessed it, that it's possible to end up with some store's very last copy that was previously opened, and there's no way to know until it arrives. When this happens, the game is sealed with a circle sticker (that apparently leaves a nasty residue that is complete ass to clean off, which makes it terrible from a collector's standpoint).
So my first game was some store's last copy. I tend to order niche games, so it's not surprisingly that they wouldn't keep a large stock on hand. But this also meant that my other purchases were likely in the same situation. And... they were.
All three games I ordered were circle sticker "editions." Aside from my personal penchant for being picky, this was a problem, because they all had pack-in goodies. Even if I assume a Gamestop employee had no personal interest in helping themselves to the goodies, if they opened the case, the goodies could have been removed (perhaps to avoid them shaking around the empty case) and then not put back before shipping. I wouldn't know until I removed the sticker and opened the box. (And for the record, the one I did open did not have any collectibles in it, but only the first print run would have had them. So did I get a first print run or did I not? I have no way of knowing, but this game is niche enough that I doubt Gamestop would order more than launch copies.)
Some people said they managed to get replacement sealed copies by exchanging their orders, though the process was a bit like spinning a roulette wheel regarding whether they'd succeed. I decided to give it a shot rather than ask for a refund outright (I got greedy) and used the online store's exchange option, saying that these copies were defective because they had been previously opened. I figured if I failed, then I'd just ask for a refund. Eventually, my replacements shipped, again in two batches.
The first replacement was sealed! Could I get lucky? But no, the second package arrived and both games were flat out open, without even a sticker. This ruined my preferred backup plan, which was to return these to my local Gamestop for a refund, but even if their online store had sent them to me, there was no way the brick and mortar shop was going to take blatantly open copies for a refund.
So I called their customer support, and the guy on the other end was very apologetic about it. He agreed to a refund and sent me a shipping label. Thankfully all the return shipping has been free so it hasn't been too much of a hassle. I ended up sending all my replacements back, even the one that was okay, because this was a 2-for-1 sale and if I only returned two of them I would be paying full price and the one that was okay was the most expensive of the three. At this point, I just wanted my money back and for this to be over with.
Since I'm writing this... you can probably guess that this didn't end.
I received an odd e-mail thanking me for my purchase and listing the contents of my old order, and then I got a shipping notification. I'm being sent new replacement copies, even though I asked for a return!
And all of this is really weird because last week I saw on Twitter that Gamestop had actually run out of stock on a couple games I wanted, one of which I'd bought in the 2-for-1 sale. So how are they even shipping me a replacement? Aside from that, I took the out of stock notice as a sign that physical stocks in general were running low and might start going up in price soon on Amazon (as third party resellers buy up the remaining stock), so I actually bought one of them on sale, though higher than the $30 I was hoping for. It's still shrinkwrapped and within the 30 day return window if this second set of replacements from Gamestop turns out to be good (because again, I don't open things right away), but I wasn't expecting a second set of replacements at all.
I hope they're either all good or at least have that dumb circle sticker on them so I can return them if they're not. But given how things have been so far, I'm not holding my breath.
I probably should have been done with Gamestop a long time ago considering how everyone complains about it online, but my local Gamestop has generally been all right. The employees are nice. And I've never had trouble with an online order. Even when some people said they had their pre-orders cancelled for no reason, my collector's edition of Shin Megami Tensei V came through. I didn't order from them much, but over the years it's been something like once every 1-3 years.
So when there was a 2-for-1 sale on their web site last month I didn't think anything of it. I have several titles I'd love to pick up at my usual $30 or less threshold, and with the 2-for-1 sale on top of other sales happening at the same time, I was able to pick up three titles I'd been wanting that would meet that price (once the total I paid was averaged between the three). This looked like a good thing.
Then the first of the three games arrived (they got shipped in two batches) and, well, it had no shrinkwrap and was sealed with a transparent circle sticker. I thought that was weird. Was it used? Or was the version Gamestop received from the factory was different for whatever reason? I opened it (I can be a bit dumb sometimes), and after I did, I found that the case had been damaged. It wasn't immediately apparent, but it was damage that was hard to see unless you opened the case. And if it had been damaged in a way that could only happen if you opened the case... obviously this was not factory sealed. It looked like someone had whacked the case with a knife or a box cutter or something. Not enough to severely damage it, but enough to leave a mark.
While waiting until the remaining games to arrive, I read up online about this weird sealed with a circle sticker thing and found out that this had been a thing with Gamestop for several years, though somehow it had never happened to me before. I had assumed that Gamestop shipped everything from a warehouse like most online retailers, but apparently they also farm out online sales to their brick and mortar stores, so the chances of actually getting a game from a warehouse decrease the longer it's been out. And the thing with Gamestop stores is that they always open one copy to put on display as an empty box. When they run out of other copies, the display copy is sold last, though still as a new game. I understand why they do this, and some people don't care, but when this happened to me in the store before I could just say, nah, I pass and I'd go buy the game somewhere else. (I'm picky, but since I don't play games right away, this insistence has worked out in my favor as I now have a lot of old games I've lost interest in that I will probably ebay for more than I paid for them.) Since the online Gamestop will pull stock from the brick and mortar store that means, you guessed it, that it's possible to end up with some store's very last copy that was previously opened, and there's no way to know until it arrives. When this happens, the game is sealed with a circle sticker (that apparently leaves a nasty residue that is complete ass to clean off, which makes it terrible from a collector's standpoint).
So my first game was some store's last copy. I tend to order niche games, so it's not surprisingly that they wouldn't keep a large stock on hand. But this also meant that my other purchases were likely in the same situation. And... they were.
All three games I ordered were circle sticker "editions." Aside from my personal penchant for being picky, this was a problem, because they all had pack-in goodies. Even if I assume a Gamestop employee had no personal interest in helping themselves to the goodies, if they opened the case, the goodies could have been removed (perhaps to avoid them shaking around the empty case) and then not put back before shipping. I wouldn't know until I removed the sticker and opened the box. (And for the record, the one I did open did not have any collectibles in it, but only the first print run would have had them. So did I get a first print run or did I not? I have no way of knowing, but this game is niche enough that I doubt Gamestop would order more than launch copies.)
Some people said they managed to get replacement sealed copies by exchanging their orders, though the process was a bit like spinning a roulette wheel regarding whether they'd succeed. I decided to give it a shot rather than ask for a refund outright (I got greedy) and used the online store's exchange option, saying that these copies were defective because they had been previously opened. I figured if I failed, then I'd just ask for a refund. Eventually, my replacements shipped, again in two batches.
The first replacement was sealed! Could I get lucky? But no, the second package arrived and both games were flat out open, without even a sticker. This ruined my preferred backup plan, which was to return these to my local Gamestop for a refund, but even if their online store had sent them to me, there was no way the brick and mortar shop was going to take blatantly open copies for a refund.
So I called their customer support, and the guy on the other end was very apologetic about it. He agreed to a refund and sent me a shipping label. Thankfully all the return shipping has been free so it hasn't been too much of a hassle. I ended up sending all my replacements back, even the one that was okay, because this was a 2-for-1 sale and if I only returned two of them I would be paying full price and the one that was okay was the most expensive of the three. At this point, I just wanted my money back and for this to be over with.
Since I'm writing this... you can probably guess that this didn't end.
I received an odd e-mail thanking me for my purchase and listing the contents of my old order, and then I got a shipping notification. I'm being sent new replacement copies, even though I asked for a return!
And all of this is really weird because last week I saw on Twitter that Gamestop had actually run out of stock on a couple games I wanted, one of which I'd bought in the 2-for-1 sale. So how are they even shipping me a replacement? Aside from that, I took the out of stock notice as a sign that physical stocks in general were running low and might start going up in price soon on Amazon (as third party resellers buy up the remaining stock), so I actually bought one of them on sale, though higher than the $30 I was hoping for. It's still shrinkwrapped and within the 30 day return window if this second set of replacements from Gamestop turns out to be good (because again, I don't open things right away), but I wasn't expecting a second set of replacements at all.
I hope they're either all good or at least have that dumb circle sticker on them so I can return them if they're not. But given how things have been so far, I'm not holding my breath.
