Is Gamestop Evil? The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

[JoeAwesome]

CRT, the store is probably disassembling the WiiU version to sell that copy of the game and the Wii version separately.

[Michi]

CRT, the store is probably disassembling the WiiU version to sell that copy of the game and the Wii version separately.

Of course they are. That way they get to maximize profit and screw over collectors

[samsonlonghair]

I hadn't been into Gamestop since before Xmas. Y'all may recall my story about the overly aggressive sales tactics in December.

Well, I went back into Gamestop for the first time in a long time. I found Rodea Sky Soldier.

I struck up a conversation with the guy behind the counter. Dude wasn't pushy at all about signing me up for copies of game informer or pre-ordering anything. He said Rodea sold so poorly they couldn't sell a single new copy, so they marked all the new copies as used.

Sure enough, I got a brand new copy of Rodea including the WiiU version, the Wii version, reversible cover, and manuals for both (not that the manuals are anything to write home about) for $13. There was no cellophane, but the disks were brand spanking new - not a single hair, scratch, or fingerprint.

I would recommend you pick this game up now. The has collectability written all over it.

Just some months later a change of market strategy for this game. I had already picked up an extra CIB copy months ago and have been checking the Gamestop site for price drops. Upon searching Wii games, Rodea appeared to be a very good price at only $6.99!

THE UGLY
Checked the Gamestop site which now lists Rodea Sky Soldier under TWO console listings. WiiU and Wii, maybe a mistake depending on if the cover was reversed during a tradein? The blue case would have drawn up a flag though. Already suspicious of what had happened, but decided to take the short drive.

WiiU Rodea Sky Soldier $12.99 - http://www.gamestop.com/wii-u/games/rodea-the-sky-soldier/120700

Wii Rodea Sky Soldier $6.99 - http://www.gamestop.com/wii/games/rodea-the-sky-soldier/147730

In addition to tossing out cases and manuals for older consoles, Gamestop has a reputation of tossing out any extra soundtrack or bonus discs with trade ins. Upon inspecting the Wii listed Rodea at the store, confirmed just a generic case and no manual for just the Wii game. Looked inside the shiny WiiU Rodea case on the shelf above and sure enough, THE 2ND DISC HOLDER REMOVED AND DISPOSED! Of course the Wii game manual was tossed out as well, store too lazy to at least move that to the generic case.

Sam is right. WiiU/Wii Rodea Sky Soldier thanks to Gamestop trashing the case even more collectable!

Wow. I would say I'm surprised, but... it's gamestop.

I'm glad I bought Rodea while I had the chance.

[pook99]

For me Gamestop will always be evil. When I was in college I was as assistant manager at funcoland. Funcoland was the most fun job I ever had and even the corporate head office people were pretty chill and down to earth. My last 6 months there Funcoland got bought out by Gamestop and the store dramatically changed and became far more corporate and stuffy. Its hard to describe how magical a place funcoland was when I worked there but gamestop completely killed it.

I would also make a strong argument that Funcoland dying out has a lot to do with the current state of retro game prices.

[Ziggy]

We should have a FuncoLand thread, and talk about how awesome FuncoLand was.

FuncoLand being bought out by GameStop is one of the worst and saddest things to happen in US video game history.

[Tanooki]

Same could be said for Rhino Games which was a Funco clone. They took them down years after Funcoland. I was lucky to find one some years ago when I moved here after much of the chain was put to death and it was nice for a year or so before it got blown out as well. It was a nice reminder of how cool funcoland was.

[MrPopo]

My Funcoland memory is finding a store that sold me a used copy of FFVI with all the inserts in exchange for the various shitty SNES games I had picked up.

[pook99]

We should have a FuncoLand thread, and talk about how awesome FuncoLand was.

FuncoLand being bought out by GameStop is one of the worst and saddest things to happen in US video game history.

Completely agree, I could write a novel about all the fun times, crazy people, and crazy good deals I got at my time working at Funcoland. I noticed your from long island, thats where I used to work, I was the asst. manager at Massapequa Funcoland across from the sunrise mall.

[Segata]

Never had Funcoland. Did have a local place called Game Peddler. Loved going there. I really miss it. I also miss Software ETC.

[Ziggy]

We should have a dedicated thread for FuncoLand and other pre-GameStop stores.

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