Good riddance to Lamestop…hope they give their staff proper notice if the worst case scenario happens.
I don’t see why people want GS to actually fail, it’s the only place you can go to get collectors editions and pre-order bonuses and pick the game up in person. I don’t know of any mom and pop stores that aren’t retro junk, but even if there are, I bet in these hipster times, they’ve got no qualms asking more than retail, because ‘little guy’.
Yes, you can do these things online, but it’s online, and your game won’t be there until the next day in most cases or later. Of course there’s other stores, and sure when a game that’s not getting a 9pm night before release, comes out, I’ll hit a 24h Walmart, you can’t be sure they’ll even get it. And of course I don’t do digital; I literally loaded 50 bux on PSN to buy a game I thought I could only get digitally, and found out it’s available physically else where, and spent another 50 to get it that way, and waited a month.
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This isn’t even remotely true. Best Buy, Amazon, sometimes Target and the studio’s online store (if applicable) also get collectors editions and preorder bonuses. Retailers like GameStop pay those companies for exclusivity to those collectors editions and dlc bonuses. With GameStop gone those exclusivities would just be bought by another company. Or none at all and be available to everyone (preferably)
This is also simply not true. Amazon, Best Buy, Target and Walmart all have release day delivery (usually free as well). In fact I’ve had games and accessories delivered to me before release date from Amazon and Best Buy.
9pm/Midnight releases are honestly bad for business and a unneeded stress on the employees. While I always volunteered to do them at GameStop ($$$) I hated doing them. The only reason GameStop does them so frequently as compared to Best Buy who only does them for select AAA titles like Ass creed, smash, COD etc. is because Midnight releases are the best time to get attachments like warranties, dlc purchases, strategy guides, merch related to the game, etc. It’s honestly super predatory.
I always felt super scum baggy pitching 58596 different things to customers during midnights because I know they don’t care. They just want to get home and play the game. Also I’m pretty sure that they know that I don’t care. But due to GameStop’s circle of life getting as many attachments as possible was mandatory of an employee working a midnight.
As someone who actually works at Walmart currently i will agree with you on wal-marts spotty stock though.
Unless it is a AAA title they usually won’t have it on the floor until later in the actual release day. Also at most walmarts no one works electronics past 10pm so you’ll have to find a manager to get you the game out of the case or ask if they have the said Game you want in the back if it’s not a well known title. Either way it is a pain.
That said about Walmart; if you can’t wait like 12ish hours to get a game. You need to prioritize. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t get it right away at midnight. I know this is the generation of instant gratification but like…it’s not going anywhere. Chill.
Unfortunately digital is slowly taking over. Judging by how Microsoft has transformed the Xbox ones uses and internal economy to mostly digital and streaming via game pass, Xbox’s new console will likely be 100% digital/streaming content. PS4 will likely stay disc for 1 or 2 more generations but they will subtlety nudge people towards digital that entire time. As for Nintendo? They’ve always been in their own bubble and usually do fine. So they’ll just keep Nintendo’ing.
The whole midnight release thing is stupid in general. It’s because this new ADD generation needs instant gratification and they have grown up without having to learn to have patience. Like waiting a couple hours until normal store hours is going to be the end of the fucking world. As mentioned, it just puts more work on those employees who I’m sure would rather be sleeping home and/or sleeping at that time like they normally would be doing.
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Kotaku is reporting that the Star Wars game that EA was working on that shifted from Visceral to EA Vancouver got cancelled
https://gematsu.com/2019/01/ea-vancouvers-star-wars-game-cancelled
Nothing official from EA yet though
Disney…please give me Star Wars Musou.
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Hell give it to some publishers and developers that are willing to have the balls to make a game instead trying build a ‘platform’.
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looks like Xbox got the marketing
sheeeeit, I’m apparently one of the few that likes the way Gamestop is currently. There is a big selection of random things to check out in there now… last time when I picked up Smash Ultimate, I noticed they had packs of “M.U.S.C.L.E.” figures…of course that got bought SO fast, man… it was overpriced but whatever; I haven’t seen those little figures since my childhood when they were a new thing. There’s also some super-cheap games/comics-related shirts there too…of course for those who don’t mind wearing that sort of thing in public 
Funcopops can burn in hell though…those things are just ugly 99% of the time.
…and yeah, I’m also one of those old-fashioned folks that would rather buy stuff like games in a real store, in person. At least for me that’s wayyy more convenient to just stop by a place on lunch hour or on my way home.
All the gamestops in my area barely ever actually have anything video game related in stock. Like 90 percent of the store is basically an overpriced merchandise shop. Anything that is there I can just get cheaper some place else whether it’s either games or merchandise. I mean the place is called “gamestop” and you’ll walk in there and see a wall full of funko pops while ps4 games are regulated to one tiny shelf. I understand funkos are popular right now but come on. When other stores have a bigger and cheaper selection of games than gamestop does then you know something is wrong. I’m pretty sure the last thing I ever bought from gamestop was sf4 because I wanted that preorder Ryu head band. Any other time I’ve gone in there their prices and selection has me noping out the door.
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This forum software…meh.
Anyway, regarding waiting on a game, if I am off the day a game comes out, damn right I want it immediately. I have that night, and whatever part of the next day to play that game. Once my work week begins, I don’t even play games. I don’t have time to get immersed. Unless I play an instant gratification game. Waiting 12 hours in that case is a huge chunk of time to play the game.
A lot of people hate on GameStop because it’s popular and it’s just cool to hate on popular things in today’s world.
The only things I dislike about GameStop are when they try to sell opened games as “new” because they needed a display box, and how they try to sell you all these warranties and preorders when I just want to go in and buy a damn game. If i ever need anything from there though, I just ignore that stuff.
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And damn the MK11 reveal is at 10:30pm PST that sucks. That’s 1:30am EST. I will be checking out the footage Friday when I get to work.
Diablo 3 Season 16 should be live now… now I just have to decide which class since it appears you only get the seasonal set rewards once per season…
- Barbarian – Immortal King’s Call
- Crusader – Seeker of the Light
- Demon Hunter – Natalya’s Vengeance
- Monk – Uliana’s Stratagem
- Necromancer – Trag’Oul’s Avatar
- Witch Doctor – Spirit of Arachyr
- Wizard – Vyr’s Amazing Arcana
A shame with Witch Doc… I was thinking it would be the Jade set… Arachyr set has never even slightly interested me, so fuck that. I’m leaning towards Monk then since Uliana’s set is a cool one… but Wizard with Vyr’s set is always tempting since it’s one of my favorite classes anyway.
IGN’s schedule says it happens at 10:30 AM pst. So, that’s 1:30 PM.
The release says 10:30 too, which would be AM in 24 hour format (which is always in play when people are talking time zones).
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Thanks I just saw the “10:30pm PST” in that tweet, but looks like you are right, converting 18:30 GMT to EST
EDIT:
Actually, turns out I just can’t read and made up the pm part…
This is the reason why people hate GameStop. I never experienced bad customer service as many people have and that tends to be another one.
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But I think a lot of customers who shop there don’t care about this or it doesn’t bother them, at least the preorder thing. When I’ve shopped there the past 2 times, the people in front of me preordered stuff based on the employee asking them. The employee wasn’t pushy or being a jerk or anything, simply asking.
The “selling as new” thing though, yeah that is shady as hell. I simply don’t support it. I went to get a game once and that is the only copy they had so I just left without buying it.
The gutted “new” game thing is an issue (I guess?) but at the same time do you honestly expect GameStop to leave unprotected and unsupervised live product on the floor? Walmart doesn’t. Target doesn’t. Although Best Buy does (I think? I haven’t been to a Best Buy in over 2 years) they have more than enough employees that sweep the floors and tons of security. Most GameStop’s run on a crew of 2 people at a time (a key holder and a normal employee). They don’t have man power or time to constantly sweep the floor to check if product is still there.
Also, next to no GameStops has any sort of security and if they do it’s homestly just for show. They don’t have anyone to watch the security feed due to always running on a skeleton crew. So that’s another reason why they leave gutted “new” product on the floor. If someone gets sticky fingers and tries to swipe a game—congrat, it’s an empty case and you’re a shitty person.
When I worked at GameStop I would always give customers sealed copies when they bought new. If we only had the gutted copy left I would ask them if that’s OK or if they’d like me to call another store that has a sealed copy in stock and hold it for them. 7/10 the customer didn’t care about the fact it’s gutted. They just want the game. The rest of time people were super appreciative that I went the extra step to make sure they get a sealed copy.
It’s a mixed bag , I guess. I get the complaint but at the same time I find the complaint silly.
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They could EASILY just print out the cover art and put them in empty switch cases, and use those for display. There is absolutely no reason for them to gut an actual copy of the game, unless they want to sell it as used since it’s been opened.
If you buy a brand new sealed game, open it but don’t play it, can you return it as new? Nope. But you can trade it in as used. They should be doing the same thing if they want to do that. If they want to open a game to use the case, they should eat the cost of it being sold as used instead of new (which lets be real, is like $5 or $10 cheaper than brand new games) and that is just the cost of doing business.
I used to buy empty DVD cases and print my own cover art when I had over 1000 pirated dvds, but after about 400 cases I realized how much damn space it took up so I stopped doing it and put them back in binders.
The only positive about it (which I actually may try next time the chance comes up) is that you could buy it, beat it, and return it as “new”.
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