He really does.

It still exists in my strange, distant country.

Gamestop went full corporate whore/villain so they've destroyed and absorbed any and all competition as far as you know.

Oh. Missed the url there. Your strange and distant country is where I want to be.

I've never even heard of EB Games.

I never understood this place. I would buy new PS2 games at Walmart for . The EBGames store, across the parking lot, sold them for . Used ones still cost like or more.

Good place for kids to dump stolen goods, maybe.

Electronics Boutique was absorbed into Gamestop around 2007.

I don't understand why anyone would shop there even back then. The staff aggressively tries to upsell on everything with the tact of aspies. There is always a giant line thanks to said upselling attempts, customers trying to haggle trade in values, and people just bullshitting with clerks like it's an Apple store genius bar. Oh, and that game you wanted release day? They have plenty of copies, but refuse to sell it unless you preordered, trying to dupe you into thinking there's a shortage like they're 1988 Nintendo. Why wouldn't you pre order? It's STUPID of you not to pre order. I think I tried to buy something at Gamestop 3 times over 3 years and 2 of those times I canceled the purchase, just left my shit on the counter and walked out because the clerk was a dick wasting my time.

Then the Target right across the street has plenty of copies on release day, no lines, and the teenager at the register is too apathetic to give a shit about signing me up for magazines or selling me warranties.

There was no reason to ever shop at Gamestop 10 years ago, let alone now.

haha, comments disabled

EBGames is still around in Canada. Just look next to payday loan places, you will find them.

I feel bad when I walk into Gamestop just to buy a steam card.

Yo, I'm old school...reppin' Babbage's, here.

I'm all like Software Etc. up in this motherfucker! I had to go to the mall to get a few things and forgot I had a white elephant Gamestop gift card from a year ago, so I picked up Red Dead Redemption for 6 bucks, along with Orange Box for my little brother. Now I wish I didn't have housemates or a job, Red Dead Redemption is that fun. The atmosphere was weird. It was the Friday before kids get off for Christmas break, so I thought I was being strategic, and apparently so did a lot of other people. The nice girl working the counter was slammed, but the other guy (ostensibly the manager) wasn't doing much of anything, sort of answering customers' questions ("my son wants the Call of Duty with the Zombies.. which one is that? There's like ten of them!") and he'd get on the phone and call his higher-ups to find out. In a quarter of that time I just decided to look it up on my phone for her, and even quicker she just asked some other customer in the store and she was already in line with the game while he was still on hold.

You don't have to know everything about video games to work at a video games store, but it helps, especially in a managerial position. When I worked for an Opera Association, I'd organize mandatory meetings because lots of people knew dick about Opera, and we just made it kind of fun like a school assembly and teach the staff a bit about Opera, or at least what was going on that season. This guy might have been a great store manager somewhere else, but if games are increasingly becoming more like an art medium, I think similar pedagogical tactics need to happen.

In Corporate America, being helpful or knowledgeable gets you laid off. Being a gawking idiot that can push people into purchases they don't want is what gets the promotions.

Last time I went to a game store was Funcoland about 15 years ago.

The evening shift clerk and the manager were alternating turns punching a life sized Duke Nukem standee in the face and making lewd comments to the Lara Croft standee. The manager rang up my Bible Adventures NES cart and his hands actually had a chocolate-colored crust of filth on the palms. That's pretty much the image of brick-and-mortar game shops that I still have.

Since this was '99 or 2000, that Duke Nukem standee must have been a prerelease ad for Duke Nuke Forever. I never really thought about that before.

SolRo you're right, unfortunately. The one job I ever got fired from was from a call center for environmental interests across the country. This was before you could just look something up on your phone and a lot of times I'd get blindsided by a question like "what's your favorite lake in Pennsylvania if you want to save it so bad?" Having never been there, I didn't have much to say. But they were understanding, probably knew I was calling from across the country, so at that point I broke the "Stick to the script" rule and even though I was often able to get a donation by the end I got fired for it. So I took that logic to smaller arts organizations, which also have patron services departments for fundraising purposes and help them know or give at least a little bit of a fuck or at least know what they were talking about even if it was all about the dollar and the meeting of the quota and the end of the day..

OZ I remember Funcoland but I don't think we had them out west. If it was 2000 the Duke standee might have been for that shitty N64 game. I only know this because I was doing videogame journalism back then and I had to review that and the Playstation one. Both were no fun, and Duke3D's like my favorite game of all time. GT Interactive was pretty pissed at me since they shipped me copies for free. I wish I could find the reviews but the website's long gone.

being a massive nerd I absolutely love to talk about videogames, but even I couldn't stand going into EB games to buy anything. The absolute godawful aspie clerks in there telling me what game system was best for me, drove me to Wallmart damn fast. Then Steam happened and I can safely buy my crack without even starting my car, life is grand.

Jesus, are GameStops really that bad where you guys are? I've always heard horror stories but never experienced it first hand.

Beyond "Anything you want to pre-order today? Generic Shooter 10 is coming out next month!" followed by my "No, thanks." I've never had to put up with upsales of any sort, and the only place I've found cheaper prices on used games is online.

Yeah that's the problem, or at least part of it. Steam's great for people who like games, like Kindle's great for people who like books, or Netflix is great for people who like movies.. I could go on. But in book and video brick and mortar stores you get more than a "you might like..." algorithm from someone who knows nothing about what they're talking about.

Instead of you get someone that doesn't know what they're talking about pretending that the latest mass market item they're supposed to upsell is what you actually want.

My father used to routinely buy and then return pc games back when it was still allowed at EB. Also he once slapped my superhard on the side of my head for stealing a comb out of his back pocket and then announcing my feat of skill, also in an EB store.

Fuck these places.

Generic Shooter 10 is fucking fantastic, you casual.

Can I just point out that even when talking about Call of Duty SolRo has terrible opinions?

NOW I GET IT