As many of you know I used to work for Funcoland back in high school and college. Funcoland was bought out by Babbages Inc. prior to my departure. The Babbages Inc./Funcoland hybrid became GameStop which then bought EB. GameStop Inc. is now the “Wal-Mart” of the Game Retailers. Sure there are other smaller outfits like GameCrazy, Play-N-Trade, and others but they’re so few and far between that they don’t stand as true viable options for most gamers. Sure you can get your games at BestBuy or Wal-Mart but I want to talk about the Game retailers specifically. You see what bothers me is the current GameStop store model. You walk in a GameStop these days and it looks like a God Damned flea market half the time with products strew about, not organized in any fashion, and a mess on all the shelves. God forbid you actually are able to search their shelves alphabetically for anything! After you find what you’re looking for and you go to the counter and pay you are then BOMBARDED by your sales clerk’s up-sale pitches. They’ll most likely push some reservation on you or a subscription to Game Informer. I actually overheard a new GameStop policy has just gone into effect that states that when an employee starts their shift they have to plan out their up-sale goals for the day with their shift supervisor. When I heard that, it made me sick…
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