Waltzing into the Cleveland Hts. Gamestop, the one I’d frequented so much in my time at college and subsequently living in the area, I found a glaring error.
Not an error that really bothered me. After all I personally knew one of the managers of the store, they seem a responsible and knowledgeable bunch (despite the looks I got asking for Layton as a grown adult). Not that I really think that any PS3 owner will be crushed when they find out this large box is lie. Frankly, they would only pick it up to argue about polygon count compared to GT5. Not that I think anything of any significance would happen due to this common error. I worked at Best Buy I know how many errors get made in ads across the country.
But I started to think about what this told me about the corporation that is Gamestop. Despite the fact that the store is run buy passionate gamers (at least a couple a store know what’s what) the store is ultimately owned by people who don’t give two craps about games. They don’t care if Modern Warfare 2 is a big hit or if it breaks the record for sales of a game. At least not in the sense that a true gamer would.
Gamestop Global Game Sellers Incorporated (I made that up) is looking for its cut of a profitable market.
What a shame.
How could a large chain like Gamestop not catch this error? By not caring.
I know the kind of nerds that run those stores, I hung out with them in high school. I talked shop with them every time I was dragged to the mall. I guarantee one of those employees caught this box, laughed at it just like I did and told someone above them who laughed and told the person above them. And it went up and up until it got to the person that didn’t laugh, they didn’t get it, they didn’t care.
“Will it affect sales?” he would have asked.
“Well…no…but”
“Then good, no problem at all,” and he would go back to counting money and stroking a sinister looking cat in his leather clad office.
It makes me think about my other games-based passion, board games. A long time ago, normal people played board games too. But ultimately only the mass marketable ones were sold in mega-sized toy-stores and interesting ones flourished in tiny, smelly, nerd huts that cater to Magic players and comic readers.
If you go to find a board game store that specializes in tabletop war games or designer games (eurogames) you’ll likely find a small personally owned store with someone behind the desk that has an opinion about all the games on the shelf, just like the guys behind the counter at Gamestop. he’ll have played all the important ones, just like the guys at Gamestop. And when an ad of his doesn’t look right he’ll pull it down and change it and he won’t tell the guy above him because he’s the top of the line, the guys at the Gamestop won’t.
Where are the small independent game stores? They must exist somewhere. Right?
They don’t near me, as best as I can tell. If I find one I know I’ll shop there. Even if Amazon has better prices, I’ll still gladly pay extra for atmosphere. Someone give me that option.
Maybe the thing missing here is time. It’s taken a long time for competent, passionate people to make stores devoted to things like collectible card games and comics. Maybe I just have to wait.
I enjoyed the Dr. Claw reference.
I think the store owned and operated locally by an enthusiastic person died a long time ago in videogames. Before they were even selling home console cartridges, I suspect. No, it was probably the video game arcades of the 80s that were the last chance for genuinely enthusiastic gamers to be at the same level as someone interested exclusively in the big boxes’ quarter guzzling capabilities.
True, no one cares…unless there’s money involved.
It’s funny that you bring up the good Prof. Layton in this entry – take a look around and notice that Gamestop is the ONLY major game selling chain in the country to be charging 5 dollars more than the suggested retail price of $29.99 for this sure-fire hit. There’s no complicated question as to why either – it’s simply because they can get away with it.
Corporate greed is gross.
Sounds like some finance executives need to get their asses kicked here.