9th June 2007, 12:14 AM
I was having a devil of a time finding copies of Odin Sphere anywhere. It seems that Atlus makes a habit of releasing about 4 copies of every new game they make and then no more ever (AAAAtluuuuuS! (repeat that in your head like an angry drill sergent upset about a bumbling soldier always screwing things up)). Actually, more on THAT later.
Well, I found a copy at Gamestop, they had a stack. Now I learned some time ago that if I want a truly "new" copy, I don't bother checking their shelves. I feign ignorance and ask if they have it and let them check the shelves behind them for it. That way, it's actually new and not "new". Anyway, after hearing GR and ABF go on about that game for about a week now, I figure I'll give that game a shot. I ask for a bit of the Etrian, and after telling them I don't know how to spell a made-up word either, they find it in their system and they have one copy left, and it's "brand new". Except, it's not.
What they do is get the case with a sticker adhered directly to it (the sort that if you remove it, you'll probably tear the plastic on the case itself) and get the game which is apparently being stored in one of those paper CD holder thingies. Fantastic. I point out that this isn't exactly "new" and this person tells me it hasn't been played. Well that's fine and dandy but I'm paying full price and I'd like that to mean something. After saying so (I'm obviously more polite about it than I am here) she tells me "well, what we can do is shrink wrap it for you".
Let that sink in for a second. That has to be one of the most profoundly patronizing things I've ever had someone offer me. Keep in mind I wasn't demanding they fetch me a new copy, I was actually trying to make it clear I'll just look for it somewhere else instead (as much as I know Atlus games get impossible to find FAST, I just can't support that sort of thing any more). So instead I get this line about getting it wrapped, which is, what's the point really? I'm just taking it right back off. I was offered to have MORE work to do to play my game?
As politely as I could, I said that's not really the point, and really no offense but that actually comes off sounding, well, a little insulting. She then gives me this line. "Yeah I can see that but what you get if you get it wrapped is if you bring it back unopened you can sell it to us for full price." I ask her "and I couldn't do that if you don't give it to me wrapped?". She confirms that.
Okay, it all clicks together in my head, and I make it very clear what she should have realized, what anyone should realize when all these facts are presented together.
"Okay, so, basically you are saying you can sell me an opened game as new at full price, but I can't turn around and sell you an opened game as new at full price?"
Well, at this point she finally doesn't have a good answer. She stops for a second and just says the ol' register biscuit standby, "It's just the company policy." Well, once I get that far, I really can't complain about her any more, she's just following orders, and really if she's working at a job like that, she literally can't afford to have scruples, it's either do or starve and I'd probably do the same thing. Now I know the issue is with the corporation itself. Fantastic. I tell her what I was trying to say before I was "offered" the wrapping and say "that's okay, I'll pass and just get Odin Sphere here".
Anyway, if Atlus ever gets their online store back up, I don't think I'll be bothering with Gamestop or EB Games or whatever they call themselves again.
Now for a story I heard WHILE searching around. This guy came in and apparently he had did the whole pre-pay in full for a preorder thing, right? I think it was for GTA4 from what I could tell. Well, he was there to cancel the preorder and get his money back. His reasons were simple, he sold his PS3 and had no use for the preorder. Too bad actually doing it couldn't be so simple. There was a free register but I decided to eavesdrop on this transaction while pretending to keep browsing just to get the whole story. I had actually walked in about a half hour into this so I picked up the previous details from overhearing the back and forth. It seems that this lady attempted to cancel the preorder, and found his data in their system, but wasn't able to actually cancel it. Now I don't know about you, but when there's a weird sort of internal code error in the machine and that's the ONLY reason you aren't getting what you want to get out of a store, you really don't want to hear them explain their internal terminology for this stuff. Like the term "SKU" you really just never want to learn this stuff (use the word BUNDLE like everyone else does). What I overhear is apparently someone set up the prepay preorder with some sort of "coming to pick up" status (not sure what term they use there but that's what it sounded like, and no it doesn't make any sense to me either). As a result, the system wouldn't allow a refund. Well big deal right? Computer errors happen, and if you realize what the actual situation is, it's just a matter of making a record of what you are doing and giving the customer their refund and moving on right? Nope, apparently there's a position higher than manager at these stores, and that's the frickin' COMPUTER. I listened as this little miss "don't fire me" ever so nicely explains that, yes, they do give refunds for prepaid preorders, and yes, there is NO way the guy could have already picked up GTA4 as the game is not even out yet, and yes, she fully acknowledged that he deserved this and totally "wanted to" help him, but the computer says such and such status and she just can't do anything. GET THE KEY! UNLOCK THE STUPID DRAWER! GIVE HIM HIS MONEY! YOU CAN TOO DO SOMETHING! Nope, computer says no go, even though you KNOW what the problem is, you can't defy THE MACHINE. We're not talking some dystopia where The Allocator decides who lives and who dies and has laser cannons to enforce it. What on EARTH is that computer going to actually do to you lady? It can't fire you! You explain that to ANY reasonable person above you they should understand fully, but apparently she has no reasonable people above her. I find this out listening to her phone calls (seriously, I should have brought pop corn for this "event"). Turns out the closest thing to a manager at the store is some sort of sub-manager, like a manager "in training" it seems who has "control" but is also mentally paralyzed from doing anything that doesn't follow the very strictest letter of The Machine, which if you ask me means all that power doesn't really exist if it's never used, and thus he was no more a manager than she was. They called the actual manager, and you know, you'd think the situation would get resolved. Nope. The actual manager hears her take on it, and to her credit, she actually explains the situation clearly fully and honestly, not even trying to paint the guy wanting the refund as a villian but as someone that actually does deserve a refund.
Too bad the ACTUAL manager is also paralyzed by this corporate culture of fear of "the consequences". Logic gave way to "but what if I get in trouble" once more and the guy apparently does NOT give her permission to just open the register and make a note of what happened. Keep in mind, the guy HAS his reciept. He (acting pretty calm through this I might add) has all the evidence he needs that yes he did preorder the game and yes there is no way that he actually already picked it up as it is a PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY. However, as this situation is unusual, is not specifically coded for in the manual, and no evidence outside store produced evidence is sufficient to The Corporation, the manager too seems to be afraid he'll get fired for allowing this guy to maybe rip them off of a free copy of GTA4.
So anyway the manager passes the buck along to the district manager. I'll spare the details because it's the same thing you heard above, the SAME THING. That guy is also a coward and passes the buck to the actual corporation itself. In what appears to be the first time this lowely surf has actually contacted The Decision Makers, she calls the number the district manager gives her and contacts the Citadel off in Far Off Lands. Again, she explains the situation (to who, at this point I'm not certain). Well, it seems it's not really going anywhere. As far as I can tell, she was basically told to disappear in polite corporate speak. It seems whoever she was talking to had Real Business to deal with and a puny ant contacting them for such a thing was taking time away from the business of doing business (never mind that it's these ants that MAKE UP your business, and the internet EXISTS where petty people like me can make a big stink over it). As she explained after her "she's obviously getting interrupted every single sentence" conversation ended, she was told to just do exactly what the policy says and that'll handle these situations just fine (these situations? Either this happens a lot more often or that person didn't care about the details and just wanted her gone). The guy was very calmy angry (you know the tone) and just did NOT want to leave without that refund. She played the sympathy card but when you have the solution and you just won't do anything to use it, well that sympathy is just empty. She resorts to what I have to say is a sorry attempt at a guilt trip. She may not have thought that's what she was doing, but what else did you think would happen when all you say is "look I totally agree with you and yes you do deserve a refund but I really can't do anything that might get me fired you know?".
At this point, I decide to leave because I just get this image of this sort of business nonsense taken to it's logical extension and it makes me... sad...
I just get this image of this same conversation taking place, but instead of it being a customer demanding a refund, it's an innocent prisoner begging for a guard to stop torturing them. "Look I totally agree with you here but if I don't torture you it's my neck here so *red hot poker*... yeah... I mean you understand right?
AAAAAAHHHHH!
Look there's no need to take that tone with me!
And then I understand that that's probably EXACTLY how those sorts of situations go down! I even recall a number of cases of employees of corporations eventually just shut down that did much worse things and I'm sure they made all sorts of deals with themselves about how that was "all right" too, like the call centers where employees are paid to rip off the elderly.
Then, as I leave the place, I flashback to yet another way this store has wronged me (yes, I consider what happened to that guy a wrong against me too, well not really, but it sure did make me angry). I recall buying my XBox many years back. As I picked up that and a copy of Halo (I picked up Silent Hill 2 for it about a week later if I remember) a guy behind the counter decided to offer me an amazing deal for buying that console, or whatever. Basically I'd get a year's subscription, free, for some magazine (forget which one, suffice it to say the internet was always ahead of the game in the news department so the magazine really wasn't worth "free" anyway). Now the one thing I'm glad is I paid for that XBox in cash, and I'll tell ya why. I should have been suspicious that they had me fill out some form with my datums, but for some reason I wasn't. Naive I guess... Things change over the years and I'll tell you one thing, no matter how cynical I get, it's NEVER ENOUGH (they're always inventing new and clever ways of selling idoitic nonsense AT me, even skeptic mailing lists I'm subscribed to aren't enough to keep up). Anyway, what they said they were doing was doing me the FAVOR of giving me those magazines with it. What they didn't say was I was apparently IN DEBT to that stupid magazine. I got the first one in the mail but along with the second and every one after that for a YEAR came increasingly more demanding letters for their money that I apparently owed them. That wasn't a free subscription deal! Apparently they lie to you to get you to get into a contract with these magazine idiots. I got screwed by TWO companies with ONE purchase! That takes a special kind of harmonizing of sun earth moon jackarsery! I call it the "Eclipse of Sanity" (incidentally a possible name for a future Castlevania game). So, since as I saw it I didn't owe that magazine company even the Jackest of Squat, I ignored it. The fact is, they had a fake name to begin with, and at the time that wasn't even my house, they can't track it to my real name anyway. I'm untouchable no matter what they do. I get my full year's subscription with nothing but a rather constant supply of these annoying letters. Fortunatly I use their own idiotic corporate managerials against them. One call to report a change of address later and those letters stop coming. I feel sorry for the resident at 123 Fake Street, Townsville CA 90210 though (when they HAVE TO do exactly as their script tells them, you can get away with a lot). Well, not really, actually I secretly smile at the knowledge that they are probably to this day STILL wasting money on letters getting returned to center for "obviously nonexistant recipient address". Still, for some reason I didn't take that sign of Gamestop ripoffitude as a portent of things to come.
I think I'll add the worst case of "old as new" I encountered. A while ago I picked up Bust A Move DS (this is actually before I found out about this odd practice of their's enough to start asking my probing questions). I buy the thing and notice it's shrink wrapped differently, like the GBA games are for some reason, but I don't think much of it. That is, until I get home and plug my "new" game in to find it had a SAVE FILE on it. I didn't press the issue at the time, because I was home and I could delete the data. Still, it shows that this used as new thing isn't always JUST an issue of a game that's been opened.
The only thing I've left to add here is they STILL go on and on about how you totally have to preorder with them if you want that game at launch, and they STILL ask in the most jerk way possible if you "remembered" to bring in your games for trade. No, I remembered NOT to bring my games in for trade, because I actually prefer to KEEP my old games. But wait, how much CAN I get for a used copy of Quest 64? No, I don't think I will "preorder" when you often don't even have enough to satisfy those preorders, and I'll find like 30 copies of that game AT LAUNCH EVERYWHERE. It's systems that you have to preorder to get, not games. The only reason I ever preorder a game is if there's some really neat thing you only get for preordering (IE, Ocarina of Time Master Quest, the game who's US name was inspired by the latest season of the Pokemon cartoon at the time and who's Japanese name was acually cool sounding). I may need to make an exception for Atlus... The one thing to end this with is if pushing preorders isn't enough, the unwarrented attitude they have if you show up release day and ask for a game you didn't preorder is just insane. Let's say I didn't know the game existed until today ya jerk, like a lot of casual customers. You going to basically alianate even more customers every single game launch day with that unhelpful attitude? Okay, you're out, just say that and don't add the demeaning "that's what you get for not preordering" line. The real problem with that attitude? Like I said, unwarrented. In pretty much all cases of this, VERY next store I go to, that game the guy was acting like was all totally rare and sold out? 30 copies, stacked all up and down all over the place, and they nicely sell it to you.
But, let's not harp on Gamestop ENTIRELY. This hate train has more than enough steam to make it all the way to fye and parts beyond 'fore the crowin' of the cock, dark heart of man and wiles of nature permitting. Let me tell you the tale of my preorder of the Wii before this old timey dialect overstays it's welcome.
fye sucks at preorders. Preordering doesn't do anything! Really, nothing! I arrive there and slap that reciept down and ask for my Wii. They look at it and I get led around in the biggest most convoluted arc since the impossible clover leaf highway in that episode of Looney Toons about cars, only not as funny. Basically, they don't have any. Don't have any? What about the preorder? The preorder didn't guarentee me the system they say, but when they get more in stock, I'll be called and can pick it up.
Thus begins hell week. The army got nothing on me. (Note: I sometimes use hyperbole in the interest of poetic liscense. Do not forcibly conscript me into the armed services in order to teach me what hell week is really like. I know better. I saw the documentaries on Discovery. No seriously, I'm joking, the army has EVERYTHING on me, twice, in fact I often injure myself in ways that stick around for a few weeks just from walking around the house. I think basically what I'm saying is if you were to get one message from this aside, I'm not graceful. I'd call that a good summery of this particular paragraph resembling text block.)
I call them the next day, no Wiis have arrived (for some reason the plural of that just doesn't look right... a little weird with that s after the two i's there...). I really had no idea when they shipped the things, so I asked them. They told me the horrible combination of statements that A:, they didn't get all the ones they were supposed to and they were supposed to get a second shipment "very soon" (which is the soon that is just VERY, immediate, pressing, keep it in your thoughts and let those thoughts consume you from the inside until they poke at the back of your eyeballs, asking you to roll up the shade to let some light in because they cleared out some space for some new furniture they picked up at Bed Bath and Beyond like this motorized waterfall, which is said to be "soothing" in the way only a humming motor pumping water in a splashy sink drippy kind of way can be). BUT, though soon, they didn't know, and COULD NOT know, when that shipment would arrive because they are "not told" this information. The idea to maybe make a few phone calls and ask is beyond the comprehension of these lowly beings. PITY THEM! For their's is an existance that lies somewhere between waking and death. Well, okay, but at least when that shipment comes in, I'll have it, right? Well, maybe. Maybe!? Well, they may still not have enough to cover all their preorders. Huh, what an odd thing to say. I read online that new shipments were supposed to happen the next weekend, and it's time for Saturday, so awake I become and out I wander to obtain this legendary item of my (fickle) desire. Back then in this wandering age, I angered many a lord of the local feifdoms with questions as to whether they had heard tale of these Wiis and if they had one I might do but a thing or pay such a cost to possess. I found it strange indeed that I would get such a strong response, but it seems many had come before me seeking such glory and they had grown weary and haggard of answering the same dull questions as the weight of that mantle became too much to bear and the strain of it showed upon their brow. Mind that was their JOB and common courtesy is sorta expected, but what are ya going to do? Showing back up at fye in person, I ask about the Wii again. I get something utterly insane that was never explained to me or my friends when they themselves first preordered this. My friends were, as they told me, told that they were some of the first people to preorder the system, like the 6th or so. That's not what the register entity said. Indeed this thing, no longer human but as time has gone on something that has grown to become one with the register, disparate parts growing together to become that which she is now, chained forever to this fate, this screaming of her life, explained what, from her tone, was just so OBVIOUS that I should have known it and clearly I shouldn't have bothered her with such a trivialty. Apparently, they recieved over a hundred preorders. They didn't stop taking them, they took as many as were asked for, and never once indicated this sheer mass. Further, they knew all along they would not recieve enough to fulfill these orders and took them anyway. They apparently were setting up a preorder queue. The idea was as new systems came in, depending on your place in line, you'd get your system here or there, and basically this "preorder" thing would stretch into January at that rate, and she acknowledged this fact, like it was just how business is DONE. I mean, "run out" of preorders? What madness is that? That just isn't DONE. You want the money, you just take their $50 for that reciept. You really don't know why they pay that much for that piece of paper, but hey, okay. Anyway, I found out one last shocker. Apparently they aren't so stingy as to ONLY give out those systems to people who preordered. If the people with their preorder slips aren't there, and here's a Wii and someone who wants to buy it, hey, sell it. They had been SELLING systems they had to people who HAD NOT preordered even though they knew full well that at their current rate of recieving deliveries, their BEST chance for filling them all out was BY JANUARY.
It gets better. You see that isn't them at their most powerful. FYE still had two more transformations before full power levels had been achieved. The next bit of information I obtained that day was a clear announcement that hey presto, guess what? They do their work for the people, meaning even if a system's already out, let's still take preorders! That's right, even though they were selling systems to people who didn't preorder and had over 100 unfulfilled preorders, they decided to just tack on MORE to that list by taking MORE preorders for future deliveries, and I'm sure they didn't bother explaining those details to those poor souls showing up to do a "late preorder". The final straw? Well the final straw hit a few revelations ago really, but the thing that basically sealed the deal that I would NEVER shop at that store again, EVER, and that actually upon retrospect I thing I was morally wrong for NOT burning the place down and my LACK of action to murder them in cold blood can possibly be considered a war crime, that little thing was this. I ask them, just to be sure, what's my place in this "line" of their's. They check the reciept, and tell me that I'm part of "wave 5" or something like that. Wave what? Well it's not so much a line as this. Every 20 people, they start a new "wave". In each wave, it's first come first serve. Anyway, beyond that, the point is since my "wave" wasn't even UP yet, I couldn't have bought it on day one anyway. I would have been denied. The guy who didn't preorder who's around when no one else with a preorder is nearby? THAT guy gets a Wii, but not people in Wave 5! Further, apparently whoever set up this preorder with my friend? Liar, 6th or so person my magikarp. That seals it. Every single thing you can possibly consider a preorder to be capable of doing? It didn't do any of it! So, I left, stunned. Next day, I manage to pick one up by staying in line for a couple hours at a Best Buy (with both a PSP and DS to keep me company). That in tow, I return the preorder slip to my friend and say good luck getting your money back from those creatures. After my story, they didn't seem interested in dealing with fye again either.
So there ya go. One VERY bad experience with fye and a lot of just normal bad experiences with Gamestop. If you ever wonder why I don't just go to either of these stores from now on to pick up some item, this little history lesson should point it out to you. I tell ya, whatever your opinion of Best Buy or Target or Wal-Mart, they have NEVER pulled this stuff on me! They don't pay attention to me at all, so I don't get bothered with requests to do stuff. They don't care what version of a thing I buy! They don't DO preorders, so I don't get the nonsense about that, and what's nice is I don't get all this stuff about with this I get that. The most annoying thing I'll get at a Wal-Mart, for example, is the greeter (I actually am annoyed by those people more than "welcomed", but it's no big deal, at this point I Just walk past them with just a nod of acknowledgement and I move on, and with those automated registers I barely have to interact with ANY humans at all, it's great!).
Note: During the course of typing this message I stared blankly at the field of animated smilies no less than 5 times for periods ranging from 30-120 seconds. I'm not sure why. Also, I RULE THE RUN-ON NON-SEQUITER!
Well, I found a copy at Gamestop, they had a stack. Now I learned some time ago that if I want a truly "new" copy, I don't bother checking their shelves. I feign ignorance and ask if they have it and let them check the shelves behind them for it. That way, it's actually new and not "new". Anyway, after hearing GR and ABF go on about that game for about a week now, I figure I'll give that game a shot. I ask for a bit of the Etrian, and after telling them I don't know how to spell a made-up word either, they find it in their system and they have one copy left, and it's "brand new". Except, it's not.
What they do is get the case with a sticker adhered directly to it (the sort that if you remove it, you'll probably tear the plastic on the case itself) and get the game which is apparently being stored in one of those paper CD holder thingies. Fantastic. I point out that this isn't exactly "new" and this person tells me it hasn't been played. Well that's fine and dandy but I'm paying full price and I'd like that to mean something. After saying so (I'm obviously more polite about it than I am here) she tells me "well, what we can do is shrink wrap it for you".
Let that sink in for a second. That has to be one of the most profoundly patronizing things I've ever had someone offer me. Keep in mind I wasn't demanding they fetch me a new copy, I was actually trying to make it clear I'll just look for it somewhere else instead (as much as I know Atlus games get impossible to find FAST, I just can't support that sort of thing any more). So instead I get this line about getting it wrapped, which is, what's the point really? I'm just taking it right back off. I was offered to have MORE work to do to play my game?
As politely as I could, I said that's not really the point, and really no offense but that actually comes off sounding, well, a little insulting. She then gives me this line. "Yeah I can see that but what you get if you get it wrapped is if you bring it back unopened you can sell it to us for full price." I ask her "and I couldn't do that if you don't give it to me wrapped?". She confirms that.
Okay, it all clicks together in my head, and I make it very clear what she should have realized, what anyone should realize when all these facts are presented together.
"Okay, so, basically you are saying you can sell me an opened game as new at full price, but I can't turn around and sell you an opened game as new at full price?"
Well, at this point she finally doesn't have a good answer. She stops for a second and just says the ol' register biscuit standby, "It's just the company policy." Well, once I get that far, I really can't complain about her any more, she's just following orders, and really if she's working at a job like that, she literally can't afford to have scruples, it's either do or starve and I'd probably do the same thing. Now I know the issue is with the corporation itself. Fantastic. I tell her what I was trying to say before I was "offered" the wrapping and say "that's okay, I'll pass and just get Odin Sphere here".
Anyway, if Atlus ever gets their online store back up, I don't think I'll be bothering with Gamestop or EB Games or whatever they call themselves again.
Now for a story I heard WHILE searching around. This guy came in and apparently he had did the whole pre-pay in full for a preorder thing, right? I think it was for GTA4 from what I could tell. Well, he was there to cancel the preorder and get his money back. His reasons were simple, he sold his PS3 and had no use for the preorder. Too bad actually doing it couldn't be so simple. There was a free register but I decided to eavesdrop on this transaction while pretending to keep browsing just to get the whole story. I had actually walked in about a half hour into this so I picked up the previous details from overhearing the back and forth. It seems that this lady attempted to cancel the preorder, and found his data in their system, but wasn't able to actually cancel it. Now I don't know about you, but when there's a weird sort of internal code error in the machine and that's the ONLY reason you aren't getting what you want to get out of a store, you really don't want to hear them explain their internal terminology for this stuff. Like the term "SKU" you really just never want to learn this stuff (use the word BUNDLE like everyone else does). What I overhear is apparently someone set up the prepay preorder with some sort of "coming to pick up" status (not sure what term they use there but that's what it sounded like, and no it doesn't make any sense to me either). As a result, the system wouldn't allow a refund. Well big deal right? Computer errors happen, and if you realize what the actual situation is, it's just a matter of making a record of what you are doing and giving the customer their refund and moving on right? Nope, apparently there's a position higher than manager at these stores, and that's the frickin' COMPUTER. I listened as this little miss "don't fire me" ever so nicely explains that, yes, they do give refunds for prepaid preorders, and yes, there is NO way the guy could have already picked up GTA4 as the game is not even out yet, and yes, she fully acknowledged that he deserved this and totally "wanted to" help him, but the computer says such and such status and she just can't do anything. GET THE KEY! UNLOCK THE STUPID DRAWER! GIVE HIM HIS MONEY! YOU CAN TOO DO SOMETHING! Nope, computer says no go, even though you KNOW what the problem is, you can't defy THE MACHINE. We're not talking some dystopia where The Allocator decides who lives and who dies and has laser cannons to enforce it. What on EARTH is that computer going to actually do to you lady? It can't fire you! You explain that to ANY reasonable person above you they should understand fully, but apparently she has no reasonable people above her. I find this out listening to her phone calls (seriously, I should have brought pop corn for this "event"). Turns out the closest thing to a manager at the store is some sort of sub-manager, like a manager "in training" it seems who has "control" but is also mentally paralyzed from doing anything that doesn't follow the very strictest letter of The Machine, which if you ask me means all that power doesn't really exist if it's never used, and thus he was no more a manager than she was. They called the actual manager, and you know, you'd think the situation would get resolved. Nope. The actual manager hears her take on it, and to her credit, she actually explains the situation clearly fully and honestly, not even trying to paint the guy wanting the refund as a villian but as someone that actually does deserve a refund.
Too bad the ACTUAL manager is also paralyzed by this corporate culture of fear of "the consequences". Logic gave way to "but what if I get in trouble" once more and the guy apparently does NOT give her permission to just open the register and make a note of what happened. Keep in mind, the guy HAS his reciept. He (acting pretty calm through this I might add) has all the evidence he needs that yes he did preorder the game and yes there is no way that he actually already picked it up as it is a PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY. However, as this situation is unusual, is not specifically coded for in the manual, and no evidence outside store produced evidence is sufficient to The Corporation, the manager too seems to be afraid he'll get fired for allowing this guy to maybe rip them off of a free copy of GTA4.
So anyway the manager passes the buck along to the district manager. I'll spare the details because it's the same thing you heard above, the SAME THING. That guy is also a coward and passes the buck to the actual corporation itself. In what appears to be the first time this lowely surf has actually contacted The Decision Makers, she calls the number the district manager gives her and contacts the Citadel off in Far Off Lands. Again, she explains the situation (to who, at this point I'm not certain). Well, it seems it's not really going anywhere. As far as I can tell, she was basically told to disappear in polite corporate speak. It seems whoever she was talking to had Real Business to deal with and a puny ant contacting them for such a thing was taking time away from the business of doing business (never mind that it's these ants that MAKE UP your business, and the internet EXISTS where petty people like me can make a big stink over it). As she explained after her "she's obviously getting interrupted every single sentence" conversation ended, she was told to just do exactly what the policy says and that'll handle these situations just fine (these situations? Either this happens a lot more often or that person didn't care about the details and just wanted her gone). The guy was very calmy angry (you know the tone) and just did NOT want to leave without that refund. She played the sympathy card but when you have the solution and you just won't do anything to use it, well that sympathy is just empty. She resorts to what I have to say is a sorry attempt at a guilt trip. She may not have thought that's what she was doing, but what else did you think would happen when all you say is "look I totally agree with you and yes you do deserve a refund but I really can't do anything that might get me fired you know?".
At this point, I decide to leave because I just get this image of this sort of business nonsense taken to it's logical extension and it makes me... sad...
I just get this image of this same conversation taking place, but instead of it being a customer demanding a refund, it's an innocent prisoner begging for a guard to stop torturing them. "Look I totally agree with you here but if I don't torture you it's my neck here so *red hot poker*... yeah... I mean you understand right?
AAAAAAHHHHH!
Look there's no need to take that tone with me!
And then I understand that that's probably EXACTLY how those sorts of situations go down! I even recall a number of cases of employees of corporations eventually just shut down that did much worse things and I'm sure they made all sorts of deals with themselves about how that was "all right" too, like the call centers where employees are paid to rip off the elderly.
Then, as I leave the place, I flashback to yet another way this store has wronged me (yes, I consider what happened to that guy a wrong against me too, well not really, but it sure did make me angry). I recall buying my XBox many years back. As I picked up that and a copy of Halo (I picked up Silent Hill 2 for it about a week later if I remember) a guy behind the counter decided to offer me an amazing deal for buying that console, or whatever. Basically I'd get a year's subscription, free, for some magazine (forget which one, suffice it to say the internet was always ahead of the game in the news department so the magazine really wasn't worth "free" anyway). Now the one thing I'm glad is I paid for that XBox in cash, and I'll tell ya why. I should have been suspicious that they had me fill out some form with my datums, but for some reason I wasn't. Naive I guess... Things change over the years and I'll tell you one thing, no matter how cynical I get, it's NEVER ENOUGH (they're always inventing new and clever ways of selling idoitic nonsense AT me, even skeptic mailing lists I'm subscribed to aren't enough to keep up). Anyway, what they said they were doing was doing me the FAVOR of giving me those magazines with it. What they didn't say was I was apparently IN DEBT to that stupid magazine. I got the first one in the mail but along with the second and every one after that for a YEAR came increasingly more demanding letters for their money that I apparently owed them. That wasn't a free subscription deal! Apparently they lie to you to get you to get into a contract with these magazine idiots. I got screwed by TWO companies with ONE purchase! That takes a special kind of harmonizing of sun earth moon jackarsery! I call it the "Eclipse of Sanity" (incidentally a possible name for a future Castlevania game). So, since as I saw it I didn't owe that magazine company even the Jackest of Squat, I ignored it. The fact is, they had a fake name to begin with, and at the time that wasn't even my house, they can't track it to my real name anyway. I'm untouchable no matter what they do. I get my full year's subscription with nothing but a rather constant supply of these annoying letters. Fortunatly I use their own idiotic corporate managerials against them. One call to report a change of address later and those letters stop coming. I feel sorry for the resident at 123 Fake Street, Townsville CA 90210 though (when they HAVE TO do exactly as their script tells them, you can get away with a lot). Well, not really, actually I secretly smile at the knowledge that they are probably to this day STILL wasting money on letters getting returned to center for "obviously nonexistant recipient address". Still, for some reason I didn't take that sign of Gamestop ripoffitude as a portent of things to come.
I think I'll add the worst case of "old as new" I encountered. A while ago I picked up Bust A Move DS (this is actually before I found out about this odd practice of their's enough to start asking my probing questions). I buy the thing and notice it's shrink wrapped differently, like the GBA games are for some reason, but I don't think much of it. That is, until I get home and plug my "new" game in to find it had a SAVE FILE on it. I didn't press the issue at the time, because I was home and I could delete the data. Still, it shows that this used as new thing isn't always JUST an issue of a game that's been opened.
The only thing I've left to add here is they STILL go on and on about how you totally have to preorder with them if you want that game at launch, and they STILL ask in the most jerk way possible if you "remembered" to bring in your games for trade. No, I remembered NOT to bring my games in for trade, because I actually prefer to KEEP my old games. But wait, how much CAN I get for a used copy of Quest 64? No, I don't think I will "preorder" when you often don't even have enough to satisfy those preorders, and I'll find like 30 copies of that game AT LAUNCH EVERYWHERE. It's systems that you have to preorder to get, not games. The only reason I ever preorder a game is if there's some really neat thing you only get for preordering (IE, Ocarina of Time Master Quest, the game who's US name was inspired by the latest season of the Pokemon cartoon at the time and who's Japanese name was acually cool sounding). I may need to make an exception for Atlus... The one thing to end this with is if pushing preorders isn't enough, the unwarrented attitude they have if you show up release day and ask for a game you didn't preorder is just insane. Let's say I didn't know the game existed until today ya jerk, like a lot of casual customers. You going to basically alianate even more customers every single game launch day with that unhelpful attitude? Okay, you're out, just say that and don't add the demeaning "that's what you get for not preordering" line. The real problem with that attitude? Like I said, unwarrented. In pretty much all cases of this, VERY next store I go to, that game the guy was acting like was all totally rare and sold out? 30 copies, stacked all up and down all over the place, and they nicely sell it to you.
But, let's not harp on Gamestop ENTIRELY. This hate train has more than enough steam to make it all the way to fye and parts beyond 'fore the crowin' of the cock, dark heart of man and wiles of nature permitting. Let me tell you the tale of my preorder of the Wii before this old timey dialect overstays it's welcome.
fye sucks at preorders. Preordering doesn't do anything! Really, nothing! I arrive there and slap that reciept down and ask for my Wii. They look at it and I get led around in the biggest most convoluted arc since the impossible clover leaf highway in that episode of Looney Toons about cars, only not as funny. Basically, they don't have any. Don't have any? What about the preorder? The preorder didn't guarentee me the system they say, but when they get more in stock, I'll be called and can pick it up.
Thus begins hell week. The army got nothing on me. (Note: I sometimes use hyperbole in the interest of poetic liscense. Do not forcibly conscript me into the armed services in order to teach me what hell week is really like. I know better. I saw the documentaries on Discovery. No seriously, I'm joking, the army has EVERYTHING on me, twice, in fact I often injure myself in ways that stick around for a few weeks just from walking around the house. I think basically what I'm saying is if you were to get one message from this aside, I'm not graceful. I'd call that a good summery of this particular paragraph resembling text block.)
I call them the next day, no Wiis have arrived (for some reason the plural of that just doesn't look right... a little weird with that s after the two i's there...). I really had no idea when they shipped the things, so I asked them. They told me the horrible combination of statements that A:, they didn't get all the ones they were supposed to and they were supposed to get a second shipment "very soon" (which is the soon that is just VERY, immediate, pressing, keep it in your thoughts and let those thoughts consume you from the inside until they poke at the back of your eyeballs, asking you to roll up the shade to let some light in because they cleared out some space for some new furniture they picked up at Bed Bath and Beyond like this motorized waterfall, which is said to be "soothing" in the way only a humming motor pumping water in a splashy sink drippy kind of way can be). BUT, though soon, they didn't know, and COULD NOT know, when that shipment would arrive because they are "not told" this information. The idea to maybe make a few phone calls and ask is beyond the comprehension of these lowly beings. PITY THEM! For their's is an existance that lies somewhere between waking and death. Well, okay, but at least when that shipment comes in, I'll have it, right? Well, maybe. Maybe!? Well, they may still not have enough to cover all their preorders. Huh, what an odd thing to say. I read online that new shipments were supposed to happen the next weekend, and it's time for Saturday, so awake I become and out I wander to obtain this legendary item of my (fickle) desire. Back then in this wandering age, I angered many a lord of the local feifdoms with questions as to whether they had heard tale of these Wiis and if they had one I might do but a thing or pay such a cost to possess. I found it strange indeed that I would get such a strong response, but it seems many had come before me seeking such glory and they had grown weary and haggard of answering the same dull questions as the weight of that mantle became too much to bear and the strain of it showed upon their brow. Mind that was their JOB and common courtesy is sorta expected, but what are ya going to do? Showing back up at fye in person, I ask about the Wii again. I get something utterly insane that was never explained to me or my friends when they themselves first preordered this. My friends were, as they told me, told that they were some of the first people to preorder the system, like the 6th or so. That's not what the register entity said. Indeed this thing, no longer human but as time has gone on something that has grown to become one with the register, disparate parts growing together to become that which she is now, chained forever to this fate, this screaming of her life, explained what, from her tone, was just so OBVIOUS that I should have known it and clearly I shouldn't have bothered her with such a trivialty. Apparently, they recieved over a hundred preorders. They didn't stop taking them, they took as many as were asked for, and never once indicated this sheer mass. Further, they knew all along they would not recieve enough to fulfill these orders and took them anyway. They apparently were setting up a preorder queue. The idea was as new systems came in, depending on your place in line, you'd get your system here or there, and basically this "preorder" thing would stretch into January at that rate, and she acknowledged this fact, like it was just how business is DONE. I mean, "run out" of preorders? What madness is that? That just isn't DONE. You want the money, you just take their $50 for that reciept. You really don't know why they pay that much for that piece of paper, but hey, okay. Anyway, I found out one last shocker. Apparently they aren't so stingy as to ONLY give out those systems to people who preordered. If the people with their preorder slips aren't there, and here's a Wii and someone who wants to buy it, hey, sell it. They had been SELLING systems they had to people who HAD NOT preordered even though they knew full well that at their current rate of recieving deliveries, their BEST chance for filling them all out was BY JANUARY.
It gets better. You see that isn't them at their most powerful. FYE still had two more transformations before full power levels had been achieved. The next bit of information I obtained that day was a clear announcement that hey presto, guess what? They do their work for the people, meaning even if a system's already out, let's still take preorders! That's right, even though they were selling systems to people who didn't preorder and had over 100 unfulfilled preorders, they decided to just tack on MORE to that list by taking MORE preorders for future deliveries, and I'm sure they didn't bother explaining those details to those poor souls showing up to do a "late preorder". The final straw? Well the final straw hit a few revelations ago really, but the thing that basically sealed the deal that I would NEVER shop at that store again, EVER, and that actually upon retrospect I thing I was morally wrong for NOT burning the place down and my LACK of action to murder them in cold blood can possibly be considered a war crime, that little thing was this. I ask them, just to be sure, what's my place in this "line" of their's. They check the reciept, and tell me that I'm part of "wave 5" or something like that. Wave what? Well it's not so much a line as this. Every 20 people, they start a new "wave". In each wave, it's first come first serve. Anyway, beyond that, the point is since my "wave" wasn't even UP yet, I couldn't have bought it on day one anyway. I would have been denied. The guy who didn't preorder who's around when no one else with a preorder is nearby? THAT guy gets a Wii, but not people in Wave 5! Further, apparently whoever set up this preorder with my friend? Liar, 6th or so person my magikarp. That seals it. Every single thing you can possibly consider a preorder to be capable of doing? It didn't do any of it! So, I left, stunned. Next day, I manage to pick one up by staying in line for a couple hours at a Best Buy (with both a PSP and DS to keep me company). That in tow, I return the preorder slip to my friend and say good luck getting your money back from those creatures. After my story, they didn't seem interested in dealing with fye again either.
So there ya go. One VERY bad experience with fye and a lot of just normal bad experiences with Gamestop. If you ever wonder why I don't just go to either of these stores from now on to pick up some item, this little history lesson should point it out to you. I tell ya, whatever your opinion of Best Buy or Target or Wal-Mart, they have NEVER pulled this stuff on me! They don't pay attention to me at all, so I don't get bothered with requests to do stuff. They don't care what version of a thing I buy! They don't DO preorders, so I don't get the nonsense about that, and what's nice is I don't get all this stuff about with this I get that. The most annoying thing I'll get at a Wal-Mart, for example, is the greeter (I actually am annoyed by those people more than "welcomed", but it's no big deal, at this point I Just walk past them with just a nod of acknowledgement and I move on, and with those automated registers I barely have to interact with ANY humans at all, it's great!).
Note: During the course of typing this message I stared blankly at the field of animated smilies no less than 5 times for periods ranging from 30-120 seconds. I'm not sure why. Also, I RULE THE RUN-ON NON-SEQUITER!