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progPenny Arcade nails most of why I have stopped visiting video game specialty stores.
The remaining reason is specific to the EB Games at the Cambridgeside Galleria, though I dunno, maybe they're all like this now. It used to be a nice place to go, with a laid-back staff. But ever since time time of the GameStop buyout (correlation-not-causation, but still), the clerks there have been all about the hard sale, taking every opportunity to encourage pre-orders for highly anticipated games, even upon customers who didn't ask about them.
The last time I was in there was to buy Clubhouse Games for my DS, and the clerk tried really hard to get me to pay on the spot for Final Fantasy III as well. (The first is a collection of casual card and board games. The second is an enormous single-player RPG.) Uh? And the time before that I bought Tetris DS and the guy worked up a sweat pushing New Super Mario Bros. on me. I think at the time I wrote it off an an over-eager attempt to pitch at an obvious Gen-X game-nostalgia victim, but now it's just ridiculous.
Whatev; I'm done with those guys.
The remaining reason is specific to the EB Games at the Cambridgeside Galleria, though I dunno, maybe they're all like this now. It used to be a nice place to go, with a laid-back staff. But ever since time time of the GameStop buyout (correlation-not-causation, but still), the clerks there have been all about the hard sale, taking every opportunity to encourage pre-orders for highly anticipated games, even upon customers who didn't ask about them.
The last time I was in there was to buy Clubhouse Games for my DS, and the clerk tried really hard to get me to pay on the spot for Final Fantasy III as well. (The first is a collection of casual card and board games. The second is an enormous single-player RPG.) Uh? And the time before that I bought Tetris DS and the guy worked up a sweat pushing New Super Mario Bros. on me. I think at the time I wrote it off an an over-eager attempt to pitch at an obvious Gen-X game-nostalgia victim, but now it's just ridiculous.
Whatev; I'm done with those guys.
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Date: 2006-12-19 06:05 pm (UTC)I'm guessing those poor retail drones have a set quota of pre-orders to fill, like Best Buy and CompUSA's "extended protection plans" and whatnot, right? That's really sad. It's just wrong to push a pre-order and get that instant cash flow on a game that the consumer A. may not have heard of, B. may not have wanted or C. may not want to buy until they've heard more about it.
Some of us feel snow-jobbed every time we buy a game that we end up not finishing for whatever reason (Blitzball killed all the interest I had in Final Fantasy X, for instance, even though after the first agonizingly crushing defeat, the rest of the mini-game was optional.) I'd hate to feel emnity towards any drone who was just following orders to get me to preorder Final Fantasy X-II 2: Now With More And More Blitzball.
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Date: 2006-12-19 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-19 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 05:10 pm (UTC)It annoys me enough that I prefer the Best Buy. However, it seems the Best Buy is closed for the foreseeable future. (And when I checked at Sears, yes I remember that trick, they didn't have anything new or interesting.) So I guess I'm stuck with EB for a while. (Given that I work in Cambridge, so those are my sources of games within walking distance of my life.)