Spy Girl In Game Stores

1up.com has a great feature up detailing the exploits of a young woman they sent in to various game stores under the cover of a clueless girlfriend. The results are both informative and hilarious. From the article: "Spy: When are the new systems coming out? Clerk: Sony just came out with a new version of the PlayStation. It's smaller, more compact, that's about it. Xbox--they haven't mentioned anything about something new coming out."

I'm sorry

[Pinefresh]

I'm not meaning to troll or anything, but this just isn't that funny.

retail is minimum wage

[joe094287523459087]

the quality of the answers probably is related to the labor available at minimum wage, rather than any kind of gender bias because the customer is female.

Re:retail is minimum wage

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly it. To make the whole thing more accurate they would need to talk to more employees.

I mean, they probably just got lucky with the GameStop person. If they went in tomorrow it could be the same as the other places. If they got the right person at the other places they might have gotten answers more like they got at GameStop.

I can't say this is good for anything other than a laugh. I think that's the intent though.

Re:I'm sorry

[XXIstCenturyBoy]

It wasn't. And a guy would have gotten the same answers. Me think the GameStop guy was probably the franchise owner or something.

Remember that its a job for them, and unlike most buyers, who are there because they are interested in videogames, employees aren't.

Same goes for most of the "specialized" store/entreprise staff, will it be cell phone co customers service or clerk in a Home Depot.

Posting that ground breaking exposee on the net is stupid and pretty much pointless. Those video game store employees might be better than miss shocking fact finding in other things, but they don't go around saying how inept she is doing it. High Tech/nerd/IT people are very good at making fun of people that don't spend their life reading Slashdot. But they don't see the sneers behind their back when they spend a whole evening talking about who will win the next console war.

clueless like a fox? :)

[Xtifr]

I'm not sure the clerk was actually clueless. Consider:

Clerk: the new PS3 and the new XBox/360 are both expected within the next few months.
Customer: ok, I'll keep my money in my pocket and come back some other time (maybe). Bye!

vs.

Clerk: well, there's this new, small Playstation that we have in stock, but I don't know of any plans for a new XBox.
Customer: cool, I'm going to pull out my wallet and buy one each of the machines you've got right now. Ring me up!

I mean, duh, these guys are trying to sell stuff, not keep you up-to-date with the latest industry gossip! If you go into a store and ask questions, you should expect to hear answers designed to separate you from your money. It's that simple.

Thank the gods

[SoulMaster]

That my girlfriend doesn't read /. I have a birthday coming up and would NEVER want her to get the idea to go to a store and talk to a clerk about games I might like (which is exactly what she would pull from this article!)

Re:Odd

[Apreche]

I've actually found that clerks in stores have a much greater opinion of Nintendo than most Halo fanboys. I attribute this to the fact that they are trained to sell things and will say all products on sale are good. But I also attribute it to the fact that clerks in game stores have a lot of time to sit around playing lots of games. People who actually play Nintendo games and give them a chance tend to like them. The only people who dislike them are the prejudiced punk kids.

Bad questions, what did they expect?

[thesandtiger]

The quality of the answers was directly related to how dumb her questions were.

I used to work in retail, selling PCs, and I have to say that I quickly used a triage system for customers. Being asked a relevant and technically accurate question (ex: Does this machine have an AGP slot? or What kind of memory does this one use?) would get friendly and helpful service. Being asked a bizarre question (ex: How many bauds can I fit in this hard-drive? [to which I responded "All of them, if you buy the extended warranty."]) would get less helpful responses from me. Why?

Because customers who ask random noise questions like that have no fucking idea what they're talking about, but it is clear that they either think they do, or at least want to portray the idea that they do so they don't get taken advantage of. People who approach a purchase with that kind of idea are not going to take well to being (gently) corrected by the person they're asking the questions of. They will, almost universally, go and bitch to the manager that the salesperson was throwing all kinds of complex jargon around like "mouse" and "keyboard" around, trying to confuse them.

If I worked at a game store, and someone asked me about progressive scan and online gaming, I'd give them answers. If they asked me which one had more polygons, I'd make fun of them - I'll get bitched at anyway, might as well get to enjoy myself first.

So, their article showed that, if you act like a moron, you'll be treated like one. What a shock!

Look in the mirror, Robin!

[GrimSean]

Your local "piss-ant" video game store. Cute. You exemplify a number of qualities I dislike about EB employees in that statement alone - you think you're better because you're EB, and instead of giving reasons (like I did) you simply denigrate your competition instead. I am partially to blame for this, though, as in reviewing my initial post I realize I was too general in my description of EB. My experiences have only been with the local EBs that I stopped shopping at 5 years ago and have since only interacted with over the phone (I stopped shopping there due to an employee asking me to leave my bag at the front of the store - my bag was at that point holding about $200 of books and a $1500 laptop - I had no problem with this, until I asked to set it behind the counter, a request to which he responded "No, it has to be out in front where I can see it", so I left and never returned). Perhaps they are better run in Saskatchewan, but here in Southern Ontario, they're staffed by idiots.

You hired a new girl - good on you - but then you had to have a 3 hour meeting to explain something that should be patiently obvious to anyone working in a game store. Could you do me a favour and send out a chain-wide memo with notes from that meeting? It took me half an hour and two websites the other day to convince a guy that you have to pay for Final Fantasy 11 on the PS2, as those fine fellows at my local EB told him it was free - "They don't charge on consoles, only on PCs!".

As to your "quality sales that last" and "0% returns", what I hear from my customers is that the local EB does that by refusing them any returns whatsoever - even on unopened merchandise that hasn't left the store.

How exactly are these people kept happy again?

Re:Bad questions, what did they expect?

[Vo0k]

Bad questions or inability to answer them?
There are plainly bad questions and plainly terrible customers who are clueless but act informed. But there are clueless customers who know they are clueless and seek your help. In this case they don't know what are the questions they should ask, but formula "What questions should I ask about this", or "Tell me all I should know about this" is not one commonly acceptable, so they start with just such questions like the girl presented.

Suggested route:

Spy: Which gaming system is the best to buy for my boyfriend?

Clerk: PS2 and Xbox, depending on what type of games he likes to play. [Launches into enthusiastic speech on the merits of each system.]
[wrong. Customer gets lost at once. The right, and expected answer is: "Depends on what your boyfriend wants to do with it." followed with a series of questions mapping capablities of the available models into real life applications. With a series of answers you know the answer and you can say "this" model has most of what you'd need.

Spy: Which is the most powerful?
No need for such a question after that. It wouldn't happen.

Spy: What about the GameCube?
You give answer, which of its capablities didn't match the list.

Spy: Does it play movies?
Yes, from DVD.

Spy: My boyfriend said something about progressive scan? Whazzat?
Just a marketing buzzword. If you want, I can go into all the messy technical details, but it really doesn't matter that much.

Spy: What about the handhelds? Would you recommend buying a DS or waiting for the PSP?*
Again, what do you want to use it for?

Spy: My boyfriend says more polygons are better. What are those?
Something like horsepower in a car. Ability to display lots and lots of things, fast. But there's much more to a good console than polygon count.

Spy: Do any of these hook to a PC?
Answer. Though this probably wouldn't happen after initial question - connectivity with PC should be one of them.

Spy: What about sports games? Which is the best for them?
Depends on your, or your boyfriend's taste. We have... I personally like...

Spy: Do I need anything besides the system and a couple of games?
Just a TV set. [yes, you don't know HOW clueless the customer is, but don't make it sound rude] - but if you intend to ..., then you will need ... (play together with your boyfriend - get a second controller)

Spy: When are the new systems coming out?
Give estimate dates. This way she may return and buy them later, at that date. Say rather later than early because it's better to sell the console a month after it arrived, than say "sorry, not yet, try in a month".

Spy: So are the prices of these systems ever going to come down?

Spy: Is the GameCube just for kids?
Shouldn't happen, but just answer.

Spy: Does Nintendo make games for the other systems?
AFAIK, no. (if it looks the customer DOES have some clue after all, you can mention emulation)

Spy: Can you surf the Web on any of these systems?
Guide towards "what do you need" series of questions.

Spy: Is that that football hockey game?
Explain.

Spy: [Picks up Manhunt.] Is this game good?
I don't know, I didn't play it.

Some don't seem to care

[Moraelin]

The fact is, I've seen with my own eyes people being ripped off by a clerk, once that clerk got wind that the customer is clueless.

E.g., there was this older guy in front of me a few years back, who just wanted a simple machine to send emails and surf the web. He explicitly said he never plays any games. It was pretty much an experience watching the clerk talk him into buying a rig that was more powerful than my gaming rig (and I'm a gamer and a compulsive upgrader!), had twice the RAM I had, and had the latest top-of-the-line Nvidia graphics card too. (Apparently you need a very powerful graphics card to see your grandson's photo, don't you know? Well, I certainly didn't.)

Would that guy buy from that shop again, after his son (who gave him the original pointers as to what to buy) finds out what the guys at the shop talked him into buying? Probably not. But then with computers being bought for 3-4 years or more (there still are people on Cyrix 300+ machines), does it even matter?

Or there've been stories like the older lady who got sold a sound card upgrade, and they just loaded some different drivers on her machine... which didn't actually work with the old card. Turns out after the "upgrade" not only she had the same model of sound card as before, it had the same serial number sticker too once someone opened the box. Now that's a funny coincidence ;)

I don't think it's necessarily sexist as such, though. Some people are basically sharks. If they smell new blood in the water, they'll be all over it, regardless of whose blood it is. If you look like you have no clue, you'll get royally scammed, regardless of gender, race, age or religion.

Women just run into the stereotype of being clueless about cars or computers, and I might add that some are _happy_ to perpetuate that stereotype. For some it's like it's a thing of pride to know nothing about that nerdy stuff. Makes them more socially acceptable or something.

So anyway, once you're stereotyped in that category, you get scammed. You get car mechanics charging you twice the price, you get sold a PS One as the newest game console, you get talked into buying a Quadro professional OpenGL card for your web surfing computer, or in really extreme cases you get your old sound card back as an upgrade.

Re:Clueless Girlfriend asking for Linux Help.

[rbarreira]

Yeah. Then:

Slashdot Guy (thinking): Why come I never attract any girls? :(

Re:Odd

[Guppy06]

"Your family knows you like games, but to surprise you they might not ask you but some knucklehead retail guy."

Consider what your stereotypical "clueless girlfriend" usually shops for and where she usually shops. I'm probably carousing for trouble in saying this, but most of these "clueless" types are ones that spend a good deal of time shopping for clothes and other status-symbol items. There, they ask store clerks for their opinions partly because they're looking for a feel of what the current trends are, what other people have bought recently and the like. Because that's the shopping experience they're used to, they use the same methods in the video game store, looking less for something they know their signifigant other would enjoy and more for something that would "look good in his collection."

I'd say you'd have better luck if the "clueless girlfriend" is more accustomed to shopping for books than clothes, or anything else that relies more on personal taste than the taste of others. While it still may not be as good as simply asking you (which isn't an option if we're talking about a surprise gift), they'll at least understand things like "genres" and know that you're looking more for certain categories of games.

Re:I'm sorry

[cloak42]

Yes, but isn't it a part of their job that they need to be able to deal with customers and answer their questions? You say that they're not saying how inept she is at doing other things, but you leave out the important fact that it's not her job to be doing those things. When your job is to help customers, you actually need to be able to help them. Not knowing the difference between a polygon and a megabyte is not going to help anybody, and it just shows that a) you don't care about your job and b) you shouldn't be in that line of work.