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Games Entertainment

Spy Girl In Game Stores 111

Posted by Zonk from the like,-what's-a-pixel? dept.
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."
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Spy Girl In Game Stores

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  • I'm sorry (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Pinefresh ( 866806 ) <william...simpson@@@gmail...com> on Monday June 13, 2005 @09:16PM (#12808713)
    I'm not meaning to troll or anything, but this just isn't that funny.

    • Re:I'm sorry (Score:4, Insightful)

      by XXIstCenturyBoy ( 617054 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @09:45PM (#12808914)
      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.
      • I do because I figured out a way to put a rearview mirror on the frames of my glasses. People say I look like a big nerd, but that's okay. When the borg come at me from behind, I'll be ready.

      • Re:I'm sorry (Score:3, Insightful)

        by cloak42 ( 620230 )
        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 s
        • She seems to loves her job and her wonderfull, wonderfull knowledge of video games, and, like the poor saps she "exposed", must be willing to work weird hours, at minimum wage, without any advantage.

          Maybe she should work at a retailer?

          Oh wait... with all her knowledge, it would probably be below her. Why would anyone else with the same level of knowledge as her work at a retailer when they could be doing shock expose and educating the masses for a video game website?
        • 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.

          To somebody working at a toy store as a checkout clerk, those words sound like made-up jargon from Star Trek: Voyager. Only a complete dick would expect the high-school drop-out working the register to have any clue what she was asking about.
          • If the store cannot provide meaningful information on the products they sell via their staff, perhaps they should stop advertising that they're the place to go for such things. Call me crazy, but when I go to a place that they are experts or "your headquarters for" something and they turn out to be as useless as tits on a mule, I think it's legitimate to have a beef with that.
      • Remember that its a job for them, and unlike most buyers, who are there because they are interested in videogames, employees aren't.
        maybe the managers and owners aren't, but the employees at all of the local game stores near me are pretty hardcore guys. i've overheard the staff talking about mod-chips and importing japanese games and things like that, and typically they're pretty willing to talk (at length) to any interested customers. and to "prove" their honesty, i've seen them actually tell customers n
        • addendum... that should be 2 of the local game stores, not "all" of them. one of them is where a lot of CS majors work during college (a few have stayed on instead of moving into the indussty) the other is an EB where i've gotten into some good discussions with the staff
      • I've actually found similar results at my local stores. The gamestop will always have someone who is very knowledgeable about games. Often arguing about sports or rpgs when I walk in. Walmart, they don't know anything. Best buy, well I never buy there, but I imagine they are no better than walmart.

        On the whole gamestop has better prices and same selection so I always go there.
    • yeah.. what kind of an answer would they did expect when they asked the question like a normal person who wants to buy something this year at a reasonable price?

      "Microsoft has promised us the sky and the moon with their next generation device, but they don't have the hardware for it yet, even though they have somewhat general idea of when the launch is going to be"

      "Sony has also promised us everything but likewise they haven't still the actual machine and quite frankly they're also probably bluffing in sp
    • Yeah... I especially liked the part where they pretty much all said unanimously that if you're old enough to walk then you should throw away your gamecube. On their own shelves they can see games for the GCN like THPS4, THUG, Medal of Honor Frontline, NFSU, etc.... and not only are they common on the GCN, they're top sellers.

      I also like how the Slashdot posting tries to rag on the store clerk for not knowing when next-gen systems are coming out, but by all accounts this survey was done in either January

  • retail is minimum wage (Score:5, Insightful)

    by joe094287523459087 ( 564414 ) <joe@jo e . to> on Monday June 13, 2005 @09:23PM (#12808763) Homepage
    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 (Score:1, Insightful)

      by 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.
      • I have to start by saying I've seen this before, it is NOT new. It is at least a few months old. It may have just hit the web, but I remember reading the exact same thing in a magazine a while back.

        That said, I agree. While the guys at my local GameStop are knowledgeable and do like games, I have seen people at my local Best Buy that are the same way. This comparison is pretty meaningless except to see just how rude some people are. Now if they went to 10 GameStops, 10 Best Buys, etc... then they could dra

        • It was probably in EGM as the article says a "seasoned EGM reader" would never ask store personnel.
        • I've also had good experiences with the guys at my local gamestop. I bought a few used GBA, DS, and gamecube games there and the guy that worked that had an opinion on almost each game. I could tell he wasn't bs'ing me cause I already new what the games were like. The people at my best buy were pretty knowledgeable too. Best Buy seems to be terrible at carrying older games. And the employees there usually recommend gamestop if they don't carry a game.
    • I didn't see any gender bias implied in the story's lead-in. Maybe in the Slashdot header, yeah, but not in the 1up story itself...
    • I don't know about that. I've known people in the IT industry that made at least twice as much as I did who gave real "high quality" answers. Ignorance and bullshit exist on all levels.

  • Whatever (Score:5, Funny)

    by Karma Farmer ( 595141 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @09:25PM (#12808780)
    The only interesting thing about the article was that in four tries, they managed to find someone who worked in retail who wasn't a rude clueless prick.

  • Complete BS (Score:5, Informative)

    by Collision891 ( 814593 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @09:55PM (#12808975)
    I subscribe to EGM and this section with the exact same content came out months ago. In the corner of the section on the site it even says "*Interviews conducted before the PSP's release." So that just shows how outdated this is.
    You can hardly laugh at the Clerks when nobody really knew about the next-gen consoles at the time

  • clueless like a fox? :) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Xtifr ( 1323 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @10:02PM (#12809002) Homepage
    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.
    • Methinks the interviews are rather old. Consider when the new version of the PS2 was released and when the DS and PSP were released. How credible were the rumors of the new X-Box at the time?

      I don't know...I'm not really a gamer.
    • Dammit. They both failed to follow policy. In each case they should have asked the cust. if they wanted to pre-order a copy of the new Sonic MMORPG or possibly a copy of Duke Nukem Forever. Taking pre-orders on products only rumoured or barely announced is the lifeblood of the industry!

      While it had been announced for quite a while I still found it amusing when a clerk tried to get me to pre-order Twilight Princess. This was well before E3, I believe it was actually this past March. Sorry I'd rather wait un
    • Ehhh... not really. The stores more or less break even on console sales, and barely see a return on the games themselves. The big money-making sales for the stores are the accessories, which is why they keep on trying to force these damnedable "value packs" down our throats when a new console comes out.

      It's the skin-of-your-teeth profit margins that keep you from seeing many "mom-and-pop" video game stores any more.
      • I'm not sure about the other chains, but I know that EBGames makes just about all of its profits from the used games market. They'll purchase a game from somebody for about five bucks, then turn around and repackage it, and sell it for about ten less than the retail copy in the store. This can cause the price to fluctuate between ten and forty bucks. To be fair, I have seen some used games for eight, but most are around the thirty to thirty-five dollar range. Nevermind that the manuals are always gone.

  • Thank the gods (Score:2, Insightful)

    by SoulMaster ( 717007 ) *
    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!)

  • Comic Book Store Guy (Score:5, Funny)

    by screwballicus ( 313964 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @10:25PM (#12809188)
    It helps if you picture Comic Book Store Guy while you read the article:

    Spy: Can you surf the Web on any of these systems?

    Clerk: No [clearly disgusted].

    Spy: How about movies? Can I watch movies on any of them?

    Clerk: [Deep, horrified sigh] Yes, but you'll need to buy an extra remote for the Xbox.

  • Odd (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dk4 ( 522573 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMdavidkearns.com> on Monday June 13, 2005 @10:37PM (#12809269) Homepage
    I found this informative and humorous.

    While not scientific, it does bring to light the issue that those of us with clueless girlfriends or wives, or clueless boyfriends or husbands, or siblings, parents, etc. need to be concerned with.

    Your family knows you like games, but to surprise you they might not ask you but some knucklehead retail guy. Perhaps trolling around town for a good game shop, and letting your family know which one to go to, or even better using something like an Amazon wish list, is highly recommended.

    Unfortunately we all have friends and family who don't game, and this is what the first line of defense for information will likely be for them.

    Oh, and Iwata had best get some good info out to retail clerks if they'll ever change anyone's opinion on Nintendo...

    • Re:Odd (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Apreche ( 239272 )
      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.
      • i used to work in a gamestore (in london) and the cube got way more screen time on our huge plasma than the other two. mostly because a lot of the games are perfect for shopwork - you can easily drop monkey ball and serve a customer, and more importantly the customer can pretty much instantly pick up what is going on and how to do it, here have a go, oh look you bought a gamecube.

        and frankly, if some dopey girl/guy/mum (much MUCH more often its a mum) comes in looking to buy stuff for someone else, you ap

    • Re:Odd (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) * on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @07:34AM (#12811282)
      "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.
  • That article is extremely short and not really informative. Obviously a serious study would involve more than one random encounter at each store. People have bad days, or there are new hires, and that could be in effect here.

    I work at one of those stores, and we aren't obligated to recommend anything that we ourselves wouldn't buy. There's a fine line between getting sales and taking advantage of people. Biased opinions are always going to exist in game retail, you don't need to play dumb to figure that ou

  • "Xbox media center" (Score:3, Informative)

    by Suddenly_Dead ( 656421 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @10:48PM (#12809354)
    and it's the only console that can hook up to a PC (through the Xbox Media Center).

    The Xbox Media Center is a homebrew program requiring a softmod or modchip. They might have meant "Media Center Extender for the Xbox" (Microsoft product, works with Media Center PCs), but at least we know that 1UP.COM uses and endorses mod chips now :)
  • More and more game shops are hiring normal people. Back'in my day, only the nerdiest of the nerdy were fit to hock games. Just look at 'em now. Straight teeth, good complexion, boobs (and not man-boobs either, real honest to God female breasts). I tell ya it's a crying shame.

    Seriously though it is annoying. I had a friend get told that Wild Arms Altercode F was out and the store just didn't have any copies. He wasted a bunch of time trying to hunt down a copy before checking online and finding out it doe

  • Any biases? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by rohlfinator ( 888775 )
    Did anyone else find it odd that none of the clerks had anything good (or factual) to say about Nintendo? Most of them stated blatant mistruths in favor of the PS2 and Xbox. The Toys 'R' Us guy made up a bunch of stuff about the PSP, the Best Buy clerk claimed that the GameCube is "for toddlers" and that Nintendo makes games for other systems, and the EBGames salesperson recommends the PSP hands down, no questions asked.

    Is there a valid business reason for this, or is it just personal preference? I just

    • Re:Any biases? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GrimSean ( 545405 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @12:18AM (#12809883) Homepage
      I am a clerk in a game store in a small city in Canada. Our only competition in the city is an EB and several department stores, which means I occasionally have to phone them in order to check a price.

      That said, almost every EB employee I have ever spoken to (you know, after that huge spiel when they answer the phone) is a complete idiot who wouldn't last a week in the store I work at. They lie to their customers about anything and everything in order to make a profit, they've completely bought into the "Nintendo is dying" BS that is being spread around, and they rarely know anything about the game they're selling if the title is something other than "Madden" or "GTA". They are casual gamers for the most part, with a small minority being hardcore FPS-freaks (usually Halo) who make minimum wage, don't care about their customers, and have little control over what is on their shelves (meaning if it's rare, it's not there).

      Case in point, I had a mother come in the other day who had bought her 6 year old an Xbox at EB along with a Shrek game at the advice of the sales clerk. He neglected to mention that games aimed at 6 year olds make up a decimal-point percentage of the titles on the system, but he did tell her that since Nintendo was going out of business, the Xbox was the 'smarter' buy, and although the GC was cheaper, she believed him. She was rather shocked when I told her that Mario didn't come on anything other than Nintendo consoles, and that I usually recommend the GC for people with younger kids as there are a number of games that can be played together. I don't know why they do this, and although it's bad for the people who shop there, I don't want them to stop as most of those people tend to stop going there and come to my store instead.

      Now, that doesn't mean that I view the GC as a system for kids - I just feel it's the best buy for people with kids, as there are games that will appeal to more age groups on it (the GC was the first console of this generation that I bought, being a broke student and all). RE4 and Eternal Darkness are great for older players, and the first-party games tend to work for everyone (I've gotten drunk playing Mario Kart with a bunch of my buddies). The number of games limits the GC, but those that are good on it are very, very good.

      • drunken Smash Bro's Melee and wario ware is great, especially when everyone in the room is a hardcore Smash freak.

      • Holy bias, Batman! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Inoshiro ( 71693 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @01:26AM (#12810205) Homepage
        As I have been and continue to be an employee at EB, despite my better judgement, in a Canadian city, whose only competition are a single piss-ant local run video game store and the usual Wal-mart/Future Shop/Superstore trimunitive, I can say that we're the only place that does things like: Hey, I see you're buying a PS2/GC, I bet you'd like a memory card to save your progress. Or (and we had a 3 hour staff meeting about this one, so the new girl would learn this): if someone wants WoW, ensure they know it's on online only, pay-to-play game. Just because they hear it's shit hot, doesn't mean it's right for them.

        Part of making "quality sales that last" is making sure you get as close to 0% returns as possible. That means you don't sell Shrek and an Xbox to someone's 6-y-o when they'd be better off with a GameCube. Perhaps the stores are mismanaged in your part of the world, but in Saskatchewan they are not, and our district is very strongly focusing itself on this.

        Additionally, and unsatisfied customer is an unhappy, not returning customer. Anyone with sales experience knows this, and EB has a whole retail training program about it (not unlike Future Shop, or other places).

        I worked at EB and I own over 400 video games. Ironically, I own no N-Gage games despite owning 2 N-Gage systems.

        • Look in the mirror, Robin! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by GrimSean ( 545405 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @02:45AM (#12810447) Homepage
          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?

          • Perhaps it's my fault. You start off with, " Your local "piss-ant" video game store. Cute. " .. you seem think that piss-ant means something other than small. You've obviously a lot of meanings in your mind for that which are negative and are putting you on the defensive.

            On the other hand, you now have the benefit of knowning what it's like to be on the receiving end of a stereotype. Stop being an asshole, please. Not all EBs suck, just like not all Gamestops suck, or all Wal-marts suck. Generalizatio
            • And you didn't read my entire post - I'm not making generalizations, I'm talking about my local EB in relation to the article that started these postings. Your store, if properly run and transplanted to my town, would most likely make my bosses worry somewhat - the EB that is there, however, simply gives us something to point and laugh at.

              Now, although the spelling "piss-ant' is an acceptable form of "pissant", it has a much more negative and degrading connotation. When you use it to describe your compet

            • I personally stopped going to EB because they started to remove the discs from their cases, and put them in a drawer behind the cash.

              When I put down $70+tax for a new game, I don't expect it to be opened already.

      • Re:Any biases? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by ajd1474 ( 558490 )
        I've stopped buying at my local EB (in Australia). They have a 7 day guarantee on ALL games. You dont like it? bring it back in 7 days for a refund or exchange. This means that the sales staff are now even less useful!! They just push any crap they can out the door and use the "just bring it back if you dont like it" sales pitch.

        The last game i bought there was Colin McRae 2004 which had CLEARLY been bought and sold 2-3 times. It was effectively second hand. What did the sales guy tell me? If it doesnt wor
      • That said, almost every EB employee I have ever spoken to (you know, after that huge spiel when they answer the phone) is a complete idiot who wouldn't last a week in the store I work at. They lie to their customers about anything and everything in order to make a profit, they've completely bought into the "Nintendo is dying" BS that is being spread around, and they rarely know anything about the game they're selling if the title is something other than "Madden" or "GTA". They are casual gamers for the most
    • I don't know if you're aware of this, but Nintendo has a serious image issue going on right now.

      They're last two consoles, despite doing reasonably well, were not the popular successes Nintenfo fans hoped they would be.

      Video Game stores don't want to sell consoles that will end up being returned. If it turns out the console given doesn't play GTA, the potential sale (along with the salesperson's comission) could be lost. So they often go with the safest option.

      Most video game specialty stores I've been t

  • Bad questions, what did they expect? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thesandtiger ( 819476 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @11:31PM (#12809639)
    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!
    • I definitely agree that in reatil there is a huge swing in who gets help from the clek and who gets ignored. But I have not noticed this in tech retail as much as in places like Home Depot. But in Hom eDepot it is the reverse - the clueless customers get the most help. I usually know what I want in teh store, but if I need help, there is no one to even ask a question; if my wife goes there, almost every time a clerk will ask her if she needs help. Now, I can understand that the usually male clerk would pr
    • The quality of the answers was directly related to how dumb her questions were.

      That was the point of the article. They were playing out the senario of girlfriend wants to buy her boyfriend a video game system, but she doesn't know an X-Box from a transistor radio; how is she treated?
      • Two things I know for sure: 1) The author of the story is very cute. I know this because she is my girlfiend. 2) I also know she asked the exact same questions, the exact same way, in each store, because I listened to the tapes in the car.

        Obviously it's just a short, anecdotal piece; I recognized most of the people she talked to (she went to stores in the neighborhood), and personality definitely played a factor. But the main thing is: if you want a game for a present, make sure you give uninformed consume

    • 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 gam
    • if you act like a moron, you'll be treated like one

      You treat any customer like they're a moron and you lose a sale. If you deal directly with customers you need to have a helpful attitude. After the article's author's experience where do you think she'll buy the product? Gamestop first and EBGames last. Who gets the revenue? You were the EBGames employee and you lost. I would have fired you.

      Working in retail is about making sales. Working in any business is about treating your customers well. If that's n
      • Actually, you're wrong. Working in retail is, like in any business, about maximizing profit. That often means maximizing sales, but not always.

        Best Buy - who I daresay knows something about retail - has basically fired a whole bunch of "problem" customers. Certain customers simply were not profitable for them, and they decided to tell those customers to take their business elsewhere.

        Here's a simple example:

        Customer A comes in, picks up a $50 item, pays for it, and leaves.

        Customer B comes in, asks the sa
        • Just because someone's trying to make an informed decision doesn't mean the clerk should be an asshole about it. I'd consider never shopping at your store again if you treated me like crap as a customer, especially if it's something I don't know a lot about - flashback to my first digital camera... I spent 3x the camera's value in accessories since then, and I'm sure that's what XBox and PS2 gamers do, too, in getting their games for their systems.

          Worse than snubbing the person is the misinformation
    • you're an asshole. because of people like you I have to fix my less computer-saavy friends' computers after they buy the wrong product. a customer's ignorance is not an excuse to be rude to them, its an opportunity to educate them about the product that is right for them, so that they buy the right product, causing you to have a valuable, less-ignorant, and hopefully REPEAT customer. its people like you that make the rest of us (the helpful ones) look like elitist assholes.
      • You clearly didn't actually get the point of what I wrote. Of course, I didn't write out some kind of essay on retail and interactions, covering every possible situation.

        Let me clarify: I've no problem at all with people who are ignorant and can admit it - "Hi, I am not sure about what to get, perhaps you can help me" - is a fine thing, and I would work with someone like that. They don't have their ego invested in seeming like they know something they don't. They are genuinely looking for information and h
        • true, i was rude to you. sorry.

          Now that i've gotten that out of the way, you never said that you were that way to aggressive asshole customers, you said that you were that way to ignorant customers. if they claim to want more ram for their agp slot, you ask a series of questions to get the gist of what they really need, and point them to the product that can provide that. if they're insistent and beligerant, point them the memory corner of the store and let them go on their way, or simply tell them th
    • Well I my self am a retail manager. People come to my store because thier stupid and want help. I applaud any clerk (which all these retailer have, just clerks) to answer questions even half way right. I mean come on even stores which you would expect the person to know what they are talking about don't have people that do, or if they do; the one that does has a day off when you go there. Retail is tough and not cracking when all you see is morons all day can be tough. If you have any work ethic you put
    • I can sort of sympathize. I worked in book stores all through college, and there was one set of customers who wanted to seem "cultured" and talk about their reading, but whose idea of high culture was Ayn Rand or Stephen King. This company wasn't paying me minimum wage so I could pretend to wax enthusiastic over stuff I found pretty depressingly awful. There were also the Blockbuster shoppers: people who asked for a recommendation, but then expected you to read their minds or the minds of the people for who

  • Clueless Girlfriend asking for Linux Help. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Picass0 ( 147474 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @12:56AM (#12810047) Homepage Journal
    GF: All of the software is free?

    Slashdot Guy: Why are you even at the installfest? Yeah, the software is free, as in Freedom. Unlike your spyware windows free beer shit. You can download an ISO image, or RPMs, or yum install, or apt-get, or compile from source.

    GF: Um, could you explain what some of that means?

    Slashdot Guy: (Big sigh) Oh for fsck's sake! Download it and RTFM. (under breath "Dumb bitch")

    GF: RTFM? Isn't an installfest where I'm supposed to be able to ask questions?

    Slashdot Guy: Yeah. If you're not a windows 'tard.

  • And still people persist in thinking of gamecube as a kiddy system.

    Morons.
    • To be fair, they didn't say "kiddy." They fucking said "toddlers." Asshats.
      • Obviously toddler is wrong, but Nintendo has for a long time pitched it as a family friendly system (Mario/Monkey Ball etc) where as the Xbox and PS2 have target more hardcore games like GTA and Halo. Personally I didn't buy a cube because it seemed like it didn't have the kind of games I wanted. I know it has some cool Mature titles (RE4), but the marketing of the device was for playing Mario Golf & Tennis.
    • Yeah, no kiddy games on the GameCube - like Animal Crossing! I play it regularly and I'm 12! You adults should be busy playing Resident Evil or Metroid Prime.
      .
      .
      .
      .
      .
      .
      Ok, I'm actually 28. I really like Animal Crossing and literally used to fight my wife over who gets some play time at night after work.
      Me: "I just need to get on and plant those trees before I go to bed!"
      Wife: "NO! I have to get on before 10 cause Nook's closes then and I won't be able to buy my stuff!"
      • My wife and I had had separate towns (separate memory cards). every once in a while we'd visit each others towns and do some mischief. I'd steal all her buried treasure for the day or she'd write inflammatory messages like "Rich is a Fag!!" on the message board in the center of town.....it was great.
  • I have to say the the coverage of the Gamestop employee was right on: PS2 and XBox fanboys almost exclusively dominate. Rarely will an employee even consider that a Gamecube is worthy of anything other than contempt. It's clearly only designed for children. I find most tend to be in the XBox camp though. The number of Halo-junkie frat-boy gamers is pretty heavy. Now, finding PC gamers, people who respect the Gamecube for having a strong library, or someone who played anything before the PSX came out are inc

    • If you want knowlegable employees who actually give a damn try shopping at a smaller, local game shop... though honestly I'll admit that they're very, very rare.

      I just want to point out that "smaller, local game shop" doesn't necessarily mean "independent". I say that because there used to be a smaller, local, independent game shop a few blocks from my house. It was dirty, smelly, and had a piss poor game selection, and I was happy to see it close shop a few months ago. If you go a few miles further

    • If you want knowlegable employees who actually give a damn try shopping at a smaller, local game shop... though honestly I'll admit that they're very, very rare.

      My small local game shop was bought out by Blockbuster (you insensitive clod). Thankfully the staff (who are mostly old jaded gamers) haven't left, so the advice they give is generally fairly good (when you buy an expansion pack they ask you if you have the original game) and will give you realistic release dates and so on.

      I've never been mock
      • That's definitely true. The thing is most larger stores tend to take hiring as more of a rote exercise in getting warm bodies to jockey the register and tend not to care what you know. Most of them also are more likely to have policies in place designed specifically to infuriate customers (one time at EB Games while purchasing one new and one used title I was asked to: join their club, buy game insurance, buy a strategy guide and something I can't even remember anymore). I know when I worked in retail one o
  • First this is old news I got it in my EGM months ago. At that time it was kinda funny and points to a problem in customer service.

    My wife shops for games and tech items sometimes. She is not dumb and know some about games and tech. But many times when she asks questions she get treated like she is stupid.

    Some people are saying that its not clerks fault its just there job, but if I ran a store I would hire people that know about what they are selling or train them.

    I admit that I get fustrated with people
  • im sorry but thats no the way you do a objective critisism. also some of these places they work on commision so of course there going to hype the psp.
  • Most game stores are full of "industry experts" who are only too willing to tell me what they think is the best game or best system that I should buy. They're usually regurgitating the latest rumours they've heard from the internet as facts and they seem to think that by just working in a games shop they must be a much more hardcore gamer than myself. It's that air of superiority they have that makes them think they know more than anyone who comes through the door that frustrates me. They're usually the kin
  • I had a similar experience when I went to buy an N-Gage QD at Gamestop. The price had dropped (to $99) on this second revision of the much hated N-Gage. This new revision fixed allot of the issues with the old, and I wanted to get a phone with more than 2 built in games. A little internet research showed that the N-Gage QD could play mp3s and xvid movies off of standard MMC flash cards, and even better, it emulated various gaming systems such as NES, SNES, and Gameboy Color.

    So I figured that it was a go
    • Amen brother. I used to work at Best Buy and the guys in the games department were clueless. My supervisor had been working in games since the PSX came out, and the only game console he had ever owned was an X-Box. Believe it or not, Best Buys training program puts a strong emphasis on customer service (they're noncommission, now, too) and you can give fairly good service with minimal knowledge of the products you're selling - but there comes a point where fifteen minute videos (such as the one we were for
  • The clerk at best buy forgot to sell her the Monster cables, the wireless setup for the ps2, and the customer dis-service plan. he won't last long. Not like the extra expensive gold plated shieled cabling makes a difference to 99% of the gaming population 15 and under.
  • Actually PS2 is the only one that doesn't have progressive scan games. Gamecube does 480P on most games and of course XBOX will do that and higher scanrates.
    • The original PS2 didn't, but newer models do. Google for PS2 progressive scan for more details.

      I don't think all games support it out of the box though. At least with GT4, you have to turn the higher resolution modes on in the game setup.

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