a gamestop employee stole my reserved copy a limited edition dmc 4. never went back there

I disagree. As long as a person understands what they are talking aboutm, unlike the moron in this story, its fine because they would be able to back up their opinions with facts like review scores, etc. Remember most game stores sell game magazines too. Gameinformer should be right there on the counter to point out at least the latest reviews and show you pay attention to that sort of thing.

I myself taught my fellow employees when I worked for walmart's electronics dept as much as I could about each video game console and computer so they could better help customers.

I used to work at EB games myself, working there isn't to bad, it's just that the company's a POS.  You know at one point they were going to start ranking us by the amount of used games we sold, or guarantees we sold with games, and if it wasn't high we were going to get write ups.  So you that's why employees harass customers with used game sales and guarantees they have to.

I don't understand it....isn't Gamestop getting enough money as it is?!?

Now, I don't know what gamestop makes off of new games and accessories, but I'd bet they have a close to 50% markup I mean I wouldn't have gotten 15% discount if they didn't make more than that off of everything, but let's say they have 20% mark up, the only thing they have that can get them 100% money is off of used games and game guarantees.  That's why they push them, though after raising the price of used games I wouldn't be surprised if they ultimately loose a shit load of money off of them considering they buy it from you for like 40 bucks, sell it for 54.99, it sits on the shelf for that price then when the price drop happens price goes down to 24.99 used and they lost 15 dollars.  Though they raised the price of new games up here in Canada and sell used games for 59.99 since they sell new for 64.99 (Note they're pretty much the only company that sells games for 64.99 up here, 59.99 is the norm).  I honestly don't know how EBGames/Gamestop didn't go out of business up here yet cause I don't see how they make any money, what they make from new games is lost on used.

From what i've seen Gamestop marks up incredibly high.

For example I could have sold my copy of Guitar Hero World Tour to gamestop for 1.50 (I didn't cause its a total rip-off) And they sell it for 9.99....From what i've seen the average mark up is about 60%

They make a ridiculous amount off of used games (In America at least)

I think it balances out though to no profit.  They have a high markup for old titles but for new titles the mark up isn't much; I mean they'd buy Red Dead from me (Don't actually have it just using it as an example) for 40 bucks, within weeks of it being released and sell it back for 54.99, now who in their right mind would buy a used game 5 dollars less than new?  Game eventually gets a price drop to 29.99 let's say for greatest hits, they now sell the used game for 24.99.  They're out 15 dollars.  They don't make nearly as much money on used games as you think they might.  Though things might be different in the U.S.

At first glance, that seems true. What you don't realize is that trade values are based on product quantities (just like any economic system). I'm a fairly new GS employee, and at first I was offended by how little we gave on some games. Then I took a second to try and figure out why.

Yes, you would only get $1.50 for GHWT, and yes, they sell it for $9.99, but did you see how many copies of GHWT were in the drawers? At my Gamestop, we have close to 20 copies for each system. We are never going to sell 85% of those. Same goes with Madden 10. We have close to 50 copies for 360 and PS3 (each). I can assure you we will never sell most of those. If we do, it will be after the game has dropped to $4.99 or less (current price for Madden 09, which we also have a bajillion copies of).

If any economic system is inundated with a certain item (think precious stones or metals), the value of that item drops significantly. That's basic supply and demand. When we get massive quantities of certain games, we can't give very much for the games because they are honestly worthless. All they are doing is taking up space in our drawers for the next year.

So, while it may seem that there is a huge profit margin there, when it comes to games like GHWT, Madden, or anything bundled with a system, the company is actually losing money on the trades. The fact is, we're buying an item from you that we know we will never sell.

Dude trust me if it was even for Gamestop they wouldn't be in business anymore.....really they make some serious cash.

http://www.1up.com/news/gamestop-sees-record-profits-holiday

I've been in the rare position of having never had a single problem with a gamestop employee. I understand these stories, but i've never seen it myself.