| twesterm said: I've come to expect if I buy a "new" game from Gamestop it has actually been opened and man-handled by some employee but, damn, that's just a plain dick move. If I didn't already make it a point to not shop at Gamestop and advise everyone to not shop there, I would now. |
I also got a "new" 3DS game from them last week that was already opened (Tom Clancy Shadow Wars). The display copy was the only "new" copy they had available and I didn't want to buy the $35 used one (I laughed "ha!" at the measly $5 reduction) so they just took a 3DS game card of the game that they had stored in a CD sleeve, put it inside the display case and sold it to me as new. The 3DS section was rather pathetically small (that should tell you how well the 3DS is doing) so I'm not surprised that they had just the 1 "new" copy. I had returned this week and the second game I bought from there, also a 3DS game (Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked) was still sealed though (and it had that nasty brand new game smell as confirmation that it was really new). Before these two instances, I never bought stuff from GameStop before. And I only recently decided to start shopping there because there is a GameStop within walking distance from my workplace and shopping is a good way to kill time on lunch breaks.
The fact that Gamestop employees actually open the boxes makes me want to avoid GameStop and go back to ordering from Amazon and Best Buy. But it's in a convenient location. What can I say? lol. If I buy from Amazon, it takes a couple days for the shipment to arrive. And Best Buy, being a jack-of-all-trades big box retailer, doesn't have the selection of niche titles that GameStop has. And heading over to Best Buy would require me to ride the bus or burn gas. I like that I can walk to GameStop because I could use the exercise after sitting on my ass for most of the day in a cubicle. Amazon's selection however is usually pretty damn freakin good. But like I said, gotta wait a couple days. I would not buy a gutted game (game with coupons/online DLC/online passes/whatever removed) as "new" from GameStop though. That would be a total rip-off. It's bad enough that they unseal the games, put a sticker on the box (I'd imagine that's going to hurt the resale value of the game. If I take that sticker off, it's going to leave that sticky residue) and sell them as new.
