Check on the side if there's a sticker. This is the very least you can. Only MS can stick one of those.

I have had this happen as well; I suspect that individual stores sometimes ship excess/unwanted stock back to a central warehouse from where the online orders are shipped. The practice of selling opened games at a "new" price is completely unacceptable, and should be legally disallowed.

I work in GameStation in the UK and we get a lot of those sent to us from the factory. Often if there is some kind of recall, something added to the manual, an advert slip added etc. they'll shrink wrap it in the factory to save on costs. Plus some factory's only shrink wrap as opposed to sealing.

Also take into account that the factory seal is incredibly easy to tear, break and snag. If that happened they'd shrink wrap it.

What I'd do is go into the store (phone ahead first) and open it in front of a clerk. If the disc is perfect and dust free, then it was new. If there's any finger prints or hazyness (caused by moisture) then it'll probably have been opened.

You might even have an ex-display box which is totally legal to sell, you must understand that in many stores it's impossible to use only display boxes for the front of store.

^Any reputable store would give a discount off a display box. Guess Gamestop isn't that store...but we already knew that.

 Anyone and everyone should care! If someone pays the new price for an item, that's what they should get, not a used item which would have been cheaper. Also, what kind of customer service is that? It lacks professionalism. Think about it like this too, if it is in fact a used game, they bought it from a consumer for peanuts like they always do. Now that wouldn't be so bad if they paid a gamer $10 or $15 and turn around and sell it with a used price of $25 or $30 which would be fair and understandable. If they instead turn around and sold it and $50 or $60, how could you not see the problem in that?

So not only is the person who bought the game thinking it would be new getting screwed, they also took advantage in some sort, the person who sold it in the first place. And we haven't even gotten to the developers and publishers of the game. If it's a used game being sold as "new", they're not seeing any profit from the game sale where they would've if the customer had gotten to buy an actual new copy of the game.

And Fishy Joe, the first problem is where you said "I expect this from a local store". If that's what you think of Gamestop, shouldn't you think twice of buying from there? I feel bad for you and hope you get your problem resolved.

I've had bad feelings about Gamestop and because of that, I rarely buy from there, only games that are on big sales. If I'm going to pay full price for a game, I'd rather go to a real store that I feel I can trust and isn't going to try and rip me off is some scheme. Now though, after this story and others like it which I hear far too often and it also makes me think back to an occurance where I may have been ripped off in a similar manner, I think I'm going to stop shopping there altogether.

i bought a game at gamestop i think i was ripped off too it was Zelda twilight for the wii no wrapper what so ever and paid full price on it because i had store credit i took it. i went yesterday to look at their used games dude they were selling the zelda twilight used copy for 44.99 u gots to be hella crazy to get that for that price. i rather go ebay and buy games there then gamestop

I buy from amazon never have an issue

Didn't you guys learned NEVER to buy at gamestop from this thread: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=35589

Read the entire thread... it's scary...

& maybe they send the copy from a local store near you to cut costs?

If they give you a display box in the store complain. They are supposed to give you 10% off "opened" merchandise. If they don't demand a sealed copy. I must be the only person who doesn't hate their local Gamestop lol.

gamestop can suck/my/balls

I don't know about gamestop sometimes. My brother just got home with a game from them, there's no disc inside the case.