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What's the worst thing a game store employee told you?

Soul4ger

Member
Mega Man's Electric Sheep said:
In 2003, an eb employee told me that Mario was coming out for PS2 in 9 months. When I told her there was no chance in hell that was true, she said that a Sony representative had come by to tell them this and left a memo that said this.

Did you ask to see the memo?
 
I've got a Dreamcast related story too. At Microplay about 6 months after Dreamcast came out, they were selling off all of their Dreamcast stuff at a discount. I was looking at it and the manager talked to me in a conspirational voice about how it was a big mistake for the store to order in all that stuff for such a horrible system, and how they would never make that mistake again. He paused as if waiting for me to agree, at which point I asked if I could buy the Dreamcast controller that was marked down to $10. :D He stopped ragging on Dreamcast at that point.
 
Hell, I went to buy a Dreamcast at Gamestop and the clerk ARGUED with me for close to 15 minutes, trying to convince me to preorder a PS2 instead. Even brought out some promotional video to play. Oh yeah, he also claimed that he could play perfectly emulated Dreamcast games on his dual Voodoo 5 PC at home.

Unfortunately, I'd already checked EB and they were out of Dreamcasts, so I had to keep telling him no until he finally sold me a fucking DC. It pissed me off badly enough that I only got the console, then went to EB to buy the games and a VMU. Way to go pal, you cost your store over $100 by being a fanboy.
 

drohne

hyperbolically metafictive
while i was buying astro boy gba, i made the mistake of looking over at the xbox kiosk, which was playing some halo 2 trailer. the perfectly harmless-looking guy working the counter asked me if i had an xbox. i said i did. "you know fable's coming out soon. have you heard about fable?" i said i had. and he went in to this interminable screed about how you could "like do anything you want, like be really evil, like you know, kill everyone in town, and then kill their children, and then buy all their houses really cheap, and then grow horns, and then..." etc., and i swear he was transformed, from a vaguely nerdy 30-something to a drooling preteen with a learning disability. the look of infantile delight on his bearded face will not soon leave me. at some point i had to walk away. he just kept talking.

now if someone asks me whether i have an xbox i say "no."
 

madara

Member
Boy where to start, having been manager at Software Etc back in day my underlings have said alot outrageous stuff. Here few of top my head:



"CPU's are coming out made out of diamond dust" (1994)
"I can read japanese" (Brings famitsu to work and they avoid translating it every chance they get)
"My girlfriend breasts are so large she is restricted from entering Japan."

"Dont buy Dreamcast cuz Sega making a cpu cartridge to make the genesis strong again.
"M2 is going to own."

" I cut my finger, can I go home?"


And absolute best one but said by Nintendo Rep that visited us, "Virtual Boy is selling so well in Japan they have to restrict sales to sunday only"
 

BuddyC

Member
drohne said:
while i was buying astro boy gba, i made the mistake of looking over at the xbox kiosk, which was playing some halo 2 trailer. the perfectly harmless-looking guy working the counter asked me if i had an xbox. i said i did. "you know fable's coming out soon. have you heard about fable?" i said i had. and he went in to this interminable screed about how you could "like do anything you want, like be really evil, like you know, kill everyone in town, and then kill their children, and then buy all their houses really cheap, and then grow horns, and then..." etc., and i swear he was transformed, from a vaguely nerdy 30-something to a drooling preteen with a learning disability. the look of infantile delight on his bearded face will not soon leave me. at some point i had to walk away. he just kept talking.

now if someone asks me whether i have an xbox i say "no."
this, among other reasons, is why i keep to myself at stores and try to avoid conversation.
 
Wow. Some of these stories are appalling. It just kind of breaks my heart. You've got all these incompetent goons running these stores while guys like me who would LOVE to run a store like that (applied for store manager recently but got no response, will get to that later tho) go completely ignored. If I ran one of those stores, I'd have weekly meetings with all the employees where I'd educate everybody to ensure that no stupid remarks like "Xbox is the followup to the DC" ever come out of their mouths. Its just such a bummer sometimes. The Gamestop by me has some Nintendo fanboy working there who always gives me shit for buying Xbox games. I go out of my way now to act like I don't know he's a Nintendo fan and just start making bullshit comments about how the GC is not worth owning and all the good games are aimed at kids, etc. etc. I don't really believe it in my heart, but I do enjoy getting a rise out of him. He should keep his mouth shut and be happy I'm even shopping at their store. I could easily go to Best Buy right across the street and get my game from some "yes-man" who would chop off his arm if it meant closing a sale with me. But instead I go to Gamestop now and then to hear this douchbag talk about how Halo sucked. Come to think of it, maybe I will go to Best Buy or EB from now on....

But yeah, I applied a few weeks back for the store manager position at a new EB they are opening in my town. I didn't hear from them at all. I think I may have applied too late. They hired this guy who came over to train at the other EB in town and he clearly wasn't into games or anything. He looked like he might have managed a crew at a Hardee's or something because games seemed like a mis-match for him. Oh well. I know I qualified for that spot though. I already run a crew of 10 people at my current job. Placing orders, keeping tabs on inventory, writing schedules, training everybody, etc. I just wish they would have at least hired somebody who looked like they may have picked up a game controller at one time in the last 15 years. This dude probably played Centipede or Solitaire or something. Oh well.
 

Mason

Member
Well this doesn't directly involve me, but about a year ago someone told my friends that the PS3 was out in Japan and Shaq was the only person in the US who had one. I was like, "What the fuck, you guys aren't that dumb are you?" but they were really, honestly convinced it was true. I asked them where Shaq gets PS3 games to play on his PS3 and they said he imported them from Japan. So maybe they know something we don't.
 

Mr Nash

square pies = communism
I guess I've been lucky. The clerks at the EB shop I go to leave the customers alone unless they're asked a question. Unless it's a soccer mom with a horribly lost, confused look on her face wandering the store, customers only really talk to the employees when asking if game XYZ is in stock. It's great. :D
 

iapetus

Scary Euro Man
All of these come from the same store manager at Game. He's rabidly pro-Microsoft, and basically lies through his teeth to customers to persuade them to buy the thing. Whether he does this deliberately or just because he's the biggest XBox fanboy in the country I have no idea.

"American football is a turn-based game, that's why the PS2 can do it online."

"Look at the PS2 - everything that's coming out for it is a sequel. All the new and exciting games are coming out for XBox..."

followed by, in the same conversation:

"Just look at the games that are coming out for XBox - Halo 2, Doom 3, Half Life 2 - the PS2 isn't getting any of these."

"All the biggest games now are coming on XBox, not PS2."

Thinking about it, he'd be right at home in the darker corners of GA.
 
Just last night I went into gamecrazy to see if they had gotten Katamari Damacy in yet. They hadn't and didn't even know what the game was. "OH, it must have been cancelled if we didn't get it in today." wtf?

later in the conversation, as I was buying Gradius V (f-u gamestop and your DVD too!) I casually asked about the DS and PSP. The guy said, and I quote, "Nintendo is going to delay it into next year because the PSP isn't coming out until Christmas 2005. We're taking preorders, but it's going to cost $200 when it comes out." Luckily his flunky looked it up in the computer and told him Nov. 21, and it would be $149.99. For some reason, he still said it wasn't coming out this year, even faced with this information.

That's one less gamecrazy for me to worry about shopping in.
 

Fowler

Member
iapetus said:
All of these come from the same store manager at Game. He's rabidly pro-Microsoft, and basically lies through his teeth to customers to persuade them to buy the thing. Whether he does this deliberately or just because he's the biggest XBox fanboy in the country I have no idea.

"American football is a turn-based game, that's why the PS2 can do it online."

"Look at the PS2 - everything that's coming out for it is a sequel. All the new and exciting games are coming out for XBox..."

followed by, in the same conversation:

"Just look at the games that are coming out for XBox - Halo 2, Doom 3, Half Life 2 - the PS2 isn't getting any of these."

"All the biggest games now are coming on XBox, not PS2."

Thinking about it, he'd be right at home in the darker corners of GA.

Cockles works for Game?!
 
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