9th June 2007, 9:12 PM
No it's not dishonest. It IS new: it's unused. They had to put those things in the box in the factory, you know... it didn't come out of the press in a shrinkwrapped box. :)
If it hasn't been used, it is new. Just because it was opened and the contents were removed does not mean that it was used! Opened and used are different things... and if "the box is empty" is what it takes for me to be able to pick up the box off the shelf and look at it, then I'm fine with that. Those DS cards are so small, if they didn't do that and still had the boxes on the shelf it'd be way too easy to steal them...
It's not though. They have a great selection (no older consoles, but a great selection) that is usually better than anywhere else except on the internet, really good prices that often are and always have been frequently lower than anyone elses', discount cards for used games to save you a bit... the complaints, like the ridiculous amount of advertisement in the store for used stuff, the occasional "new" game that doesn't even include the real box (rare but I've seen it), and the required spiel they have to say about trading in used games or whether you want to preorder anything, are minor in comparison. The good far outweighs the bad...
Gamestop owns Game Informer magazine, and gives out free subscriptions of the thing all the time... I don't think that you have to pay. Maybe they were asking if you wanted to resubscribe and pay money this time or something?
If it hasn't been used, it is new. Just because it was opened and the contents were removed does not mean that it was used! Opened and used are different things... and if "the box is empty" is what it takes for me to be able to pick up the box off the shelf and look at it, then I'm fine with that. Those DS cards are so small, if they didn't do that and still had the boxes on the shelf it'd be way too easy to steal them...
Quote:Seriously though, aren't you going to comment on the REST of that complaint? Don't you think that all adds up to "Gamestop is a terrible store"?
It's not though. They have a great selection (no older consoles, but a great selection) that is usually better than anywhere else except on the internet, really good prices that often are and always have been frequently lower than anyone elses', discount cards for used games to save you a bit... the complaints, like the ridiculous amount of advertisement in the store for used stuff, the occasional "new" game that doesn't even include the real box (rare but I've seen it), and the required spiel they have to say about trading in used games or whether you want to preorder anything, are minor in comparison. The good far outweighs the bad...
Quote: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.
Gamestop owns Game Informer magazine, and gives out free subscriptions of the thing all the time... I don't think that you have to pay. Maybe they were asking if you wanted to resubscribe and pay money this time or something?