Preorders/Reserves

[MechDeus]

I, along with the other employees, were instructed to tell people that if they didn't reserve it, we MIGHT have one or two copies left, and that they had lucked out this time, so they'd better reserve games in the future. Imagine my embarrassment when I had to say this after quite visibly going through a stack of 20 extra games.

This is primarily a manager thing and I notice it affects how employees work. At my local GS I know most of the workers, and they'll only act like that if the manager is standing next to them. For instance, when I went to but KOTOR day of release with no preorder the manager asked me to hang on and see if they got in enough copies to cover the preorders. One of employees was a guy I'm cool with and tried to get me a copy since they had an entire extra box of about 10+ copies beyond their preorders. I got a copy, but he had to check with the manager first and had me wait even thoug he knew the other two boxes would more then cover all the preorders.

Sometimes you get managers who care for nothing except strict corporate rule, happens in any sort of business chain. Those are the places I won't work for. I prefer jobs like my current one, where we have corporate that we have to answer to and so we need to know how to things their way if they ever ask, but we do things our own way. It works out a lot better for the customer and the employees, even if poor upper managment doesn't pull in enough to cover the salaries of two owners and six vice presidents (I kid you not).

I reserve only if I think the game won't get in many copies or if there's some preorder goodie I really want. Hence I never preorder big name titles.

[FirstBlood]

...Whenever you couldn’t get an extended service plan yourself you were often told to call a “closer”, usually a manager who would come over and make an ass of themselves. In this particular case the “closer” was the store manager and when the old man repeated that he would in fact not live long enough to use the extended warranty the manager said “Ahh, but that is the beauty of the circuit city extended service plan, it stays with the product. So after you pass away whoever you leave your TV with will still be able to benefit from it.” It’s hard to believe that one human being could say that to another human being but I swear it’s true. That’s why I don’t blame these guys that work in these stores. I know the kind of inhuman fucking monsters they work for.

The exact same thing happened to me with my grandpa. We had some vacuum cleaner guy come to see what was wrong with my grandpa's vacuum. So he checks it out, and says that fixing it would cost too much, and that he should buy a new one. He then proceeds to do this pitch for this insanely expensive 1400 dollar vacuum cleaner. And when talking about the warranty, he used the same "and when you pass away, your family can benefit from it as well" pitch...

... fucking disgusting.

[sggg]

I've only ever preordered one game, Ikaruga. Worth it too

Oooh yeh, I guess I have preordered once too... and Ikaruga was the game for me as well.

[icepop]

I've never actually preordered anything but often times I've called up places beforehand to find out if they have a certain game in. If so, I'll ask them to hold or reserve me a copy.

There is finally an EB downtown here but it's really tremendously crappy. They never ask for ID or anything (just a name) when you reserve something. And they have a tendency to jerk people around; at least in my experience. I remember looking for Maximo and there was only one copy left in all the EBs in the city so they agreed to have someone bring the copy downtown for me from another store. Was majorly pissed off when I went the next day at the guy had never showed up. Was a ginormous hassle. So, I generally do not like having to deal with the hassle of preordering or reserving.

[Brisco Bold]

That EB in Montreal sounds shittier and shittier every time I hear a story about it. I gotta see this place. Are there any redeeming factors?

[Mzo]

If they charged me a pre-order fee, then I'd mind. But they don't. Every so often I drop $5.00 on a game I'm looking forward to, then just keep putting in whatever spare $5.00 or $10.00 I might have on me until its release.

Makes it feel like I'm paying less on release. I only do that 'cuz I'm there so often. I don't see the big deal about not pre-ordering. Not like your money gets lost or stuck or anything.

[frostwolf ex]

i dont pre-order outside of big releases that might be out, but i get along well with the eb store manager, and know he really needs his job for his wife's medical expenses, so i wouldnt mind pre-ordeing if it helped him out, if i am focused on a game, i AM getting it, so its not that big of a deal. Like mz said, its not like they are jacking up the price for pre-ordering, and if i skip a lunch here or there and put it in on the game,i might get the game for 10 bucks on launch day, that dosent feel as bad.

[Zerodash]

Heh.

I have (just) decided to pre-purchase, in full, alost every title I want from now until the end of '03.

Its makes planning a budget much simpler...

[frostwolf ex]

Heh.

I have (just) decided to pre-purchase, in full, alost every title I want from now until the end of '03.

Its makes planning a budget much simpler...

ya know, that actually makes sense i might follow your lead.

[icepop]

That EB in Montreal sounds shittier and shittier every time I hear a story about it. I gotta see this place. Are there any redeeming factors?

Hmmmm. No.

Ok, well maybe the location. That's about it though.

They have virtually no selection ... especially for GBA. There are like 5 games hidden in the back of the store (behind a column and next to the DC used game ghetto). They don't get things in on time. Their prices suck compared to Futureshop. And their service sucks balls. I went one time and they decided they'd all take off early and were closing the store at 6pm instead of 7pm.

I wonder if it's all the game shops in Québec that suck. There are very few places to get anything here. When I was going to school in Ottawa, I would often stop in the EB in the Rideau Centre. They always had a good selction. They had a great selection of GBA games and a large selction of PS2 games as well.